Donald, The Dowser

Long ago there lived a poor boy called Donald who, hearing that people could find buried treasure with a dowsing rod made of witch hazel, decided to try it for himself.
And one day he went into the nearby forest and he followed the twitches of a hazel branch.
But instead of leading him to a piece of earth where treasure might be buried; the branch only led him to the door of a little rickety old cottage.
And so he knocked upon the door of the cottage and an old woman answered.
"Excuse me, madame", he said, "Would you happen to know if there is  gold or jewels buried beneath your house?".
"Gold and jewels?", replied the woman very gruffly, "No there is not. Now go away, will you and don't come back".
And so, shrugging, Donald tried using the dowsing rod again but, unfortunately, no matter how many times he tried, it always led him back to the door of the old womans cottage.
"That old woman must be hiding something", he thought.
And so, just out of curiosity, Donald hid behind a broad oak tree, waited and watched the cottage and when, one day, he saw the old woman leave it to go somewhere, he crept up to the cottage to peer through one of its round windows.
He had expected to see treasure but then to his astonishment Donald saw a young woman in  the house with hair like gold and eyes like sapphires and lips like rubies; the most beautiful woman he had ever seen but she was chained up like a prisoner and weeping.
And so, swinging the pick he used for digging, Donald broke down the wooden door of the cottage and when he introduced himself to the young woman inside, she told him that she was called Princess Princhessa and that the woman who owned the cottage was a witch called Vordia who had abducted her and was holding her for ransom.
"Well then I will rescue you", said Donald and, swinging his pick again he tried to break through the chain that bound her to the floor.
Unfortunately the pick couldn't break through the iron chain but then, looking around Donald noticed lots of strange magical looking objects on the witch's shelves.
"One of them might help", he thought but he didn't know anything about magic and so he decided to trust his dowsing rod again and, picking up the rod, he pointed its end at each of the objects.
First he pointed it at what looked like a human skull but nothing happened; then he pointed it at a bottle of strange luminous, green liquid but again nothing happened but then he pointed it at what looked like an ordinary, old butter knife and, immediately, the end of his dowsing rod started to glow like a red hot poker.
"This butter knife must do more than cut through butter", he said, taking the knife by the handle and trying to cut through the princess's iron chains with it.
And, amazingly, when he did, the butterknife did cut through the chains just as if they were made of butter.
"Magical", he said with a gasp, seeing what the knife could do.
But though she was free of her chain, the princess was still scared.
"You don't know how powerful the witch is", she said, "If she finds I've escaped then she'll just hunt me down and theres no telling what she'll do to me or you".
But, seeing an old black sack in a corner of the room, Donald opened it and started throwing everything he could find upon the witch's shelves into it.
"One of these things is bound to help", he said, throwing the skull, the bottle of green liquid and a crystal ball into it.
But then Donald took the Princess by the hand and they left the witch's house, heading through the forest towards his house.
Unfortunately, no sooner had they done this when the witch came home and, seeing the door to her cottage broken down and the princess gone, she seized hold of an old broom that was leaning in a corner of her room and, jumping up in the air, she leapt upon it as a rider leaps onto a horse.
Then she said to the broom, "Vroom Broom and take me to whoever has done this".
Then flying upon the broom, as fast as a thunderbolt, through the forest the witch soon caught up with the fleeing Donald and the Princess.
And hearing the sound of her evil cackling grow louder as she flew closer, Donald stopped and, in desperation, he reached into the witch's black sack and pulled out one of the objects he had put inside it earlier.
It was the human skull.
Unfortunately, the moment he grabbed hold of it, all it did was bite him on the fingers and so, cursing it for being a useless thing, he threw it away angrilly.
But then he dipped his hand into the bag again and took out the bottle of glowing green liquid.
But when he pulled out the bottles cork all that happened was that the green liquid inside turned into a green snake that, popping its head up from the bottle bit him on his other hand.
Angrilly, he rammed the cork back into the bottle, trapping the snake back inside and threw it away just like the skull.
"There must be something in this stupid bag that works", he thought, reaching back inside the bag and taking out the last of the three objects, the crystal ball, hopefully.
But it was only seconds before his hopes were dashed again because then the crystal ball heated up just like a red hot cannon ball and burned his hand so much that he had to drop the heavy crystal ball with a thud upon his foot.
Hopping about in pain and giving up all hope, he threw the only thing he had left which was the black bag itself, at the witch speeding towards him.
But then, suddenly, much to Donald and the Princess's amazement the black bag flew towards the witch and, opening itself up wide, threw itself over her before tying itself up again.
"Help! Let me out", cried the witch from inside the bag.
But they dared not let the witch out of the bag, knowing how dangerous she was and so, instead, they threw the sack with her still inside it down a deep hole and covered it with a rock and then Donald took the Princess home to her palace.
And when they returned to the palace, the Princess said to her mother the Queen that she had met the man she wanted to marry and it was Donald.
But the queen was horrified by the thought of her daughter marrying a peasant and so she sentenced Donald to be taken into the labyrithe beneath their castle and fed to the golden horned dragon that lived there.
And looking round about at the corridoors of the labyrinthe Donald saw, to his dismay, that they were strewn with the bodies of warriors whom the dragon had slain; all their swords broken upon its impenetrable scales.
Then he heard the roaring of the dragon echoing through the labyrinthe as, sniffing him out with its fiery nostrils, it got closer.
Fortunately, Donald still had the butterknife that could cut through anything like butter and so, tying it to the end of a long stick he had found on the labyrinthe floor like a spear head he waited until he saw the dragon approaching and, just as it was about to reach out and crush him in one of its six enormous claws, he hurled his makeshift spear towards the creatures heart and, because it had a head that could cut through even the dragons armored scales, it pierced the dragon deep within its heart.
With a fiery sigh the dragon closed its eyes and then its entire body turned to stone; every part of it except for the golden horn at the centre of its forehead.
Then, using the magic butterknife to cut out the golden horn, Donald used his dowsing rod to find his way back out of the labyrinthe.
As he emmerged fom the underground maze, however, Donald saw that the entire palace was in uproar.
Apparently, the witch, Vordia, had escaped from the black bag he had sealed her in and, turning herself into a giant had come seeking revenge and had even seized hold of the queen in her gigantic right hand.
"Please, you must help my mother", Princess Princhessa pleaded with Donald.
And so Donald went out to face the witch although he really hadn't a clue how he would defeat her, especially now that she was a giant over 50 feet high.
And then, before Donald even had time to think the witch, seeing him far below, raised up her gigantic foot to step upon him
"Well, well", she said in an evil voice like thunder, "Its the little dowser who stole my princess. Well, I'll stamp on you and squash you like a bug".
And saying that, she stamped her foot down hard upon the ground with all the force of a falling boulder.
Fortunately, Donald, seeing the shadow that her gigantic foot cast upon him, managed to run fast enough to avoid being flattened by it.
But then, suddenly, he heard the witch cry out in pain.
"Oh what is stuck in my foot?", he heard her say.
And, looking up, Donald realized that, while he had been running, he must have dropped the golden dragon horn he had been carrying because the witch had stepped upon it and it was now lodged like a glistening thorn in the sole of her foot.
But not only that, he also noticed that, thanks to whatever magic was in the horn, the giant witch was starting to shrink.
Infact she shrank so fast that she couldn't keep hold of the queen that had been clutched in her giant right hand.
Luckilly, Donald managed to catch the plummeting queen and, when the witch had shrunk back to her normal size, the queens guards were able to surround and arrest her.
But then, realizing that it had been Donald who had saved her life, the Queen was very embarassed about how she had treated him earlier.
"I realize now that you are worthy of marrying my daughter", she said, "And so I give your marriage my blessing".
After that the witch, robbed of all her evil powers by the now thorn sized dragons horn that was still lodged deep in her foot, was locked in the royal dungeon and Donald and the Princess were married and lived happily ever after.