A Story about a Knight and a Princess (and apples).
Once upon a time, there lived a knight and a princess.
The princess was really beautiful.
The knight really liked the princess.
The princess really liked apples.
The princess was under the apple tree trying to reach for an apple, but the branches were to high so she could only get an unripe apple from the lowest branch.
But the knight was passing by, and it would be a shame for a knight not to help out a beautiful princess.
He reached high up and picked a nice red apple for her.
"Take this one instead," he said, "and I will take the one you picked."
The princess gladly took the apple from the knight.
But the knight couldn't miss this chance to escort the beautiful princess to her castle, so he got an idea.
"Princess, let me pick another apple for you so you can eat it tomorrow."
So he went ahead and picked another apple and gave it to the princess. The princess thanked him holding one apple in each hand.
But the knight was still thinking of how to impress her. Here is what he came up with:
"You are carrying one apple in each hand, but I can carry even more apples in my hands!"
"How would you do that? You only have two hands!" the princess exclaimed.
The knight threw his apple into the air, quickly picked one into each hand and started juggling the apples.
"Lets go back to your castle!" he said.
"No, No, this is a really bad idea, you are going to trip and there is no way I will be able to carry you. Let's just put all the apples into my hat and I will take them back home."
She quickly caught the apples out of the air and put all the apples into her hat.
But the knight was really determined so he picked some more apples, and started juggling yet again, but this time he started to jump and dance.
"There is no need to worry my dear princess. Look how skilled I am! I can jump and dance with the apples. There is no way I would trip over some stone on the road."
Unfortunately for the knight, he didn't get to finish his convincing argument as he crashed into the apple tree so hard that apples started raining down, and one hit him right on the head.
"Oh my! are you alright?"
The knight was terribly embarrassed, and it hurt quite a bit, but he quickly came back to himself and downplayed it.
"Oh princess, I just got an idea" he put the apples he was juggling into his hat. "Lets put all of the apples out of your hat into my hat, it is bigger you see."
The princess agreed and put all the apples from her hat into the knights hat. But then she thought: since she had her empty hat, she might as well fill it up again. So she quickly picked the apples, that fell off the apple tree, into her hat.
The knight was getting ready to proudly walk with the princess to the castle, but when they left the shadow of the apple tree, the princess had to suddenly turn her head away from the bright sun.
"This won't do." the knight thought.
"Princess, since I was on my way to hunt, I have a bag with me. Lets put all the apples into my bag so you can put your hat on. I fear your beautiful eyes will be blinded by the sun."
They filled the bag with the apples from the hats.
The princess put on her hat, but the knight didn't rush to put his back on.
"Princess, take my hat collect and some more apples into it, so you can show everyone all the red apples you collected, you can't really see the apples in my black bag, can you?"
"But won't you get blind if you don't have your hat?" asked the princess concerned.
"Don't worry," the knight assured. "you are so beautiful - I will be able to see you even if I go blind, and perhaps thats for the better."
So the knight with his heavy bag full of apples and the princess in her hat on and the knight's hat full of apples started making their way back to the castle.
But half way they ran into a servant with a cart.
"How could our fragile princess be carrying all of those heavy apples? It is my job to move apples around in my cart, put the apples into my cart, and you too sir knight, you might hurt your shoulder if you carry your bag like that."
The knight wanted to turn the servant down not to look weak, but the princess forced him to.
"What will people think if they see a honorable knight carrying bags of apples like that? Besides it's getting late, you should get going." The princess said.
So the knight could do nothing but empty his bag into the cart and watch the princess walk with her servant away towards the castle. The knight put his head down and started walking back. He had lost his chance to introduce himself in the princess' castle.
As he was passing by the apple tree, it suddenly hit him.
He rushed to the apple tree and collected a bag full of the best apples to have ever grown in the kingdom, and ran back to the castle. He caught up with the princess right at the gate.
"For the beautiful princess, I have collected a bag of the finest apples that match the princess' looks!"
The princess was of course very surprised to see the knight again. She thanked him and invited him into the castle.
"How many apples do we have now?" The princess wondered looking at her loot.
"Oh, I can tell that with my eyes closed." the knight answered.
He closed his eyes, thought for a bit and gave his guess.
The princess of course didn't believe him, so she counted the apples one by one.
But at the end the knight was spot on, so the princess had no choice but to marry him.
They ate apples happily ever after.
Question for the readers:
What name would you give the knight?