“Grandfather. It’s almost time for supper.”
“Ah, that must be why I’m so tired. I need a nap.“
“Story first, naps later old man!”
“Yes little miss! Now, what sort of story do you want? A spooky one like yesterday?”
“I’d like a spooky one, but unlike yesterday, in the sense that I’d like it really to be spooky.”
“Ah, righto. Do you remember how I got my shoes?”
“You wear boots.”
“Yes, here I am wearing boots. That is true. Sometimes, however, on official business I wear shoes. I have lost them for now, but will find them again. You see – that is the nature of my shoes. I always find them again.”
“That’s got to be the silliest magical item ever invented.”
“No, it’s great magic! It predicts my actions, you see. You have no idea how much House Bonisagus would pay for my shoes!”
“Why?”
“They are the researchers of the Order. They would love predictive magic.”
“So, you lost you shoes? That’s my spooky story?”
“Why couldn’t I have lost my shoes in a spooky way?”
“Now you are going to ask me to suggest a spooky way you could have lost your shoes!”
“No I wasn’t! I lost them during a werewolf attack.”
“A werewolf ate your shoes.”
“No, she stole my shoes.”
“Why does a werewolf need shoes?”
“Well she was fleeing a pious mob and the moon had gone down…”
“Oh, good grief. Is it possible to get through just one of your stories without me reminding you that I’m a child?”
“How do you mean?”
“She needed your shoes because she was naked. She’d changed back and she was running naked through the snow.”
“Yes! Are you sure I haven’t told you this before? The snow part, I mean. I had not mentioned that yet.”
“This is still not a spooky story! I demand spookiness!”
“Well, miss clever clogs, this isn’t the story I offered to tell. I was going to tell you how I got my shoes, not how I lost them. How I lost them doesn’t matter. They always come back. Or, at least, they are always waiting for me where I go. That’s their second-best magic!”
“What’s their best magic?”
“They let me escape anything! Walls. Regiones. You name it. I can escape if I only have my shoes. Your grandmother too.”
“She has magic shoes?”
“No, we take one each and hop along. That’s not the story, though.”
“How did you get your shoes?”
“I’m glad you asked. It’s a good story. It even has a moral.”
“Is the moral that it’s really important to have comfortable shoes?”
“Exactly! Well, if you know the moral already there’s no need to tell you the story, as you have its essence! Time for supper!”
“No! You haven’t given me a story! You keep cheating me out of stories!”
“I told you about a naked werewolf.”
“That wasn’t a story. That was just a setup. How did that end?”
“Oh, I married her.”
“What? My grandmother’s not a werewolf!”
“Ask her at supper. Time for my nap!”
…
“Grandmother?”
“Yes, dear?”
“Are you a werewolf?”
“Not anymore. I was. I became better. I escaped my curse.”
“How? Wait a minute. I know: you went running from it in grandfather’s shoes which can escape anything.”
“Exactly.”
“Grandmother?”
“Yes, dear?”
“Have your eyes always been hazel?”
“No, it was an effect of the curse which stayed with me.”
“No…I mean…were they hazel yesterday?”
“Of course, dear.”
“Are you very sure?”
“Of course. They have been hazel as long as you can remember. Now, eat your supper.”
Games From Folktales 
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