locality of castle, best route to it, and so on. But
nobody ever thought of so simple and common-sense
a thing at that. No, everybody swallowed these peo-
ple's lies whole, and never asked a question of any
sort or about anything. Well, one day when I was
not around, one of these people came along -- it was a
she one, this time -- and told a tale of the usual pat-
tern. Her mistress was a captive in a vast and gloomy
castle, along with forty-four other young and beautiful
girls, pretty much all of them princesses; they had
been languishing in that cruel captivity for twenty-six
years; the masters of the castle were three stupendous
brothers, each with four arms and one eye -- the eye in
the center of the forehead, and as big as a fruit. Sort of
fruit not mentioned; their usual slovenliness in statistics.