The Ogre’s Boots #1
A young man was walking along the road when he came across an ogre slumbering in the grass. “That ogre’s most likely up to no good,” said the lad, and so he crept up to the ogre, eased the sword from his belt, and stabbed him through the eye with such ferocity the blade came out of the back of the ogre’s skull and pinned his thrashing body to the ground.
When the ogre was finally dead, the young man prised open the ogre’s hand and removed the sack he was holding from his gargantuan grasp. Inside the sack were six children, which all ran off hither and thither through the grass and into the woods. None of them said a word to the young man who had rescued them.
Then out of the sack crawled a snake, and it looked at the lad and said, “Let me tell you a secret for saving my life. This ogre’s boots are magical, and they let you travel seven leagues in a single stride.” And with that the snake slithered off into the long grass and off towards the woods.
The young man prised the boots from the ogre’s feet and put them on his own, and they fit him perfectly, despite having previously fitted the ogre’s monstrous feet. Unfortunately, as the lad’s home was exactly six leagues away, his first step took him past his town, and no matter what he tried he could never get home again (the boots were unremovable).
The Ogre’s Boots #2
An ogre had been terrorising a town, and there seemed to be nothing anyone could do about it.
The youngest of seven sons sneaked off one night to the ogre’s castle. He climbed over the wall, sneaked under the bushes, slipped beneath the portcullis, crept silently along the corridors, and then squeezed through the keyhole on the ogre’s door and into its bedroom.
Instead of trying to kill the ogre as his dear dead brothers had, he decided rather to steal the the ogre’s boots. They were seven league boots, which meant that whoever wore them could traverse great distances in a single bound. He put them on, and ran as far away from the castle and the town as quickly as he could.
He lived on in happiness and splendour for many years. The town was destroyed by the ogre the very next day.
___________
Notes:
1. Written in September 2016
2. For the undex
3. If anyone remembers the undex