Old God’s Fairy Tale: ‘The Forgetful King’
Fringe Magic
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Fringe Magic 〰️
It’s time for Edinburgh Fringe 2025, and with it, our annual feature series! This year, we’re celebrating the special, unique Fringe moments — the ones that feel like pure MAGIC…
By Old God
There once was a forgetful king. He would wake, greet the birds at his window, put on his robes and greet the birds again forgetting he had already said “Good morning, birds”. He was so forgetful, in fact, that his daughter knew she could wait for him to arrive to supper, kiss his forehead and say “nice to have a meal with you, father” and walk away without actually having to stay and have another boring meal with dad.
Quite liked in all the realm, his forgetfulness was generally regarded as a funny quirk.
One day, however, the king awoke and couldn’t find his crown. He couldn’t remember where he had placed it. He checked everywhere in his chamber but found no sign of it. He walked through all the rooms of the castle and found nothing.
As much as he hated to, he decided to go ask the witch in the scary tower behind the castle if she could help find the crown. This was why you keep such a scary witch in your employ, after all: to help with lost crowns, poor crops and impending wars. The witch was there, waiting for him, at the doorway of her disgusting tower.
“Seek ye your crown, King?”
“Yes…Well, where is it?”
“You shall find it below the palace grounds. And there you will be united with it evermore.” With that she turned into a puff of smoke, as was her elaborate custom, and disappeared back into her abode.
“Below the palace grounds?” thought the king, “Surely that must mean the town below.” And off he went to search in the town outside the castle walls.
The king wandered the streets and inns and markets. He was surprised that, without his crown on his head, no one seemed to know who he was. After searching and searching and finding nothing, he noticed the sun had nearly set so he raced back to the castle. But it was too late—the castle gates were locked fast for the night and the guards didn’t recognize him and wouldn’t let him in. No matter how much he assured them that he was indeed the king, they neither believed him (for he wasn’t wearing his crown) nor were convinced by his fumbled attempts to remember their names, the names of his retinue, or give any pertinent, kingly information whatsoever.
Not knowing what else to do and not having money to stay at the inn, the king found a rock to curl up against and passed the night on the ground. When the castle gates opened at sunrise the king walked through looking less kingly than ever. He was thirsty and went to the well to drink some water from the bucket hanging there. While drinking he saw, down below in the deep well, his crown! It was shimmering slightly in the depths. The king crawled over the stone edge of the well and dropped himself into it. It was quite a drop but he landed safely and at the bottom of the well he found his crown! It felt good to have it back on his head.
Three soldiers had seen what happened and thought some crazy old man had fallen into the well. With an eye roll they went to fish him out. “Hold onto the bucket, you fool, and we’ll haul you up!” they shouted. As the three soldiers huffed and puffed pulling the king out of the well, they imagined all the beatings they would give this idiot for making them work so hard.
Finally they had nearly lifted the king out of the well when they saw his crown shining brightly atop his head. Startled, the soldiers let go of the rope, saluted their king and yelled “Good day, sire!” Immediately, the king fell back into the well, hitting his head badly on the way down.
As he lay at the bottom of the well, dying, he realized that now he and his crown were united evermore—below the palace grounds, just as that foul witch had said.
Old God is at Assembly Roxy (RoxyBoxy) from July 30th-August 24th at 9:55pm. Tickets here
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