The Golden Lion

The world of men lay between the warm kingdom of light and the cold queendom of darkness and the queen of darkness wanted to slay the Golden lion who ruled the realm of light so that her shadows could rule the land of men but neither she nor any of her shadows could enter the lion kings domain and so she turned herself into a beautiful human woman called Obsidian and, claiming that she was a visiting princess from a distant land went to the palace of Prince Terras who was a great hero and, upon seeing her, Prince Terras was immediately entranced by her.
But Obsidian refused to marry Prince Terras until he had brought her the head of the Golden Lion.
And so Terras vowed he would travel to the land of light and slay its king and bring her back its head.
And as he was riding towards the land of light he passed through many lands that were verdant and beautiful and thought to himself, "How wonderful this world is".
As he was looking around, however, he noticed two swallows who were struggling to pick up an egg that had fallen out of their nest.
They had no hands to lift the egg with, you see and couldn't lift it with their wings, their feet or their beaks.
And so Terras picked up the egg and, climbing their tree, put the egg safely back within its nest.
And the swallows were so grateful to Terras that they led him to a sword made of stars that was within the cave of a two headed monster.
But the two headed monster never slept because, whenever one of its heads was asleep, the other was awake.
And so, when Terras went to pick up the star sword, the head that was awake saw him and, waking up its other head, the monster, roaring fire from one of its mouths and icy wind from the other, attacked the Prince.
But then the two swallows flew down upon the creature and one swallow pecked one of its heads while the other swallow pecked the other head and, each head chasing a swallow, the creature tore itself in two.
And when the fire in the eyes of each head had gone, then Terras picked up the sword made of stars and, thanking the two swallows for their help, continued upon his journey.
But then entering the realm of light he fought with the golden lion and, using the sword of stars cut off its flaming head which he put inside a sack.
As he rode back home however, he noticed that the world he had passed through was growing darker and colder; all its plants were dying and its animals hiding underground to escape the cold.
Even the two little swallows were sobbing because they were so cold.
But then, finally he returned to his palace and saw Obsidian who had been waiting for him and happy to see her, he handed her the sack containing the head of the golden lion.
But no sooner had he placed the sack within her hands when she revealed her true identity, that of the evil and ugly queen of darkness.
"You fool", she said to him, placing chains of ice upon him, "You have slain my enemy, the king of light and now ice and shadows shall rule the world".
 But then the dark queen opened up the sack to look inside  and, when she did, out of the sack leapt not just the head of the golden lion but the whole lion, devouring the queen of darkness and when that happened the world became bright, verdant and beautiful again.