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The Little Foundling: A Fairy Tale of Ambridge
by mommahog
 About a dozen familiar stories are re-mixed in this fantastical tale, from the Fantasy Archers topic of .
Once upon a time there was a beautiful Princess named Hazel who fell in love with a poor but handsome woodcutter and antique dealer named Nelson. Their love grew, blossomed, and in the fullness of time, fruited.
"Nelson, dearest" quoth Princess Hazel hesitantly, "I fear that I am up the duff. Hasten to my step-father, King Jack's, palace, and ask him for my hand in marriage so that he can first set you a nigh-impossible task before you make an honest woman of me."
The simple antique dealer's brow furrowed, and he turned aside, a cloud darkening his proletarian but striking countenance.
"Sweet maiden", he replied, "my joy is of course without bounds, and I will do your bidding just as soon as I have returned from Rio de Janeiro, to where I have just remembered I was suddenly urgently summoned, to inspect a job lot of Louis XIV vases de nuit."
"Well, don't hang about." replied Princess Hazel tartly.
The Princess retired to her tower. The weeks turned into months, and she let her hair down every night, but despite the partying no young prince came to rescue her from her plight.
"Alack-a-day," wept the princess. "Woe is me, for I am a ruined maid whose only sin was to love not wisely, but too well. Well, maybe not my only sin…" she mused. "But this won't get the baby bathed. An unfortunate metaphor in the circumstances, for I am shamed and my life is in ruins. I shall summon my carriage and journey to Southend, and put an end to my woes and those of my shameful child by casting myself from its pier."
***
Once in Southend and upon the pier, the unhappy maiden mustered all her courage. Stepping over the rail, she plunged into the dark and briny waters beneath. As luck would have it, rowing nearby in search of inspiration was Thomas Hood. The kindly Victorian poet hauled her aboard, musing: "Take her up tenderly, lift her with care… Hmmm, that will make a damned fine poem…"
Once on shore the literary philanthropist pressed into her hand a leather purse.
"You are too kind." sobbed Princess Hazel. Inside was a magic bean.
"Are you having a laugh? What am I supposed to do with this?" she asked angrily.
But she pressed the bean into the earth all the same and immediately, thanks to genetic engineering, a giant beanstalk sprang up.
With difficulty, in her enlarged condition, the Princess ascended it, to find atop of the beanstalk a fully equipped modern obstetric unit, where she was soon brought to bed of a fine boy. But the Princess gazed at her infant son with dismay. Wrinkled, red, and whimpering peevishly, she could see he would obstruct her chosen career path of croupier-lapdancer to the aristocracy, which she had decided to persuade King Jack to finance. She must abandon the infant prince to the care of another.
The Southend woodcutter's humble cottage was tiny, but spotlessly clean and neat as a new pin, and the motherly woman stooping over the fire brushed aside a tear as she stirred her husband's frugal breakfast of gruel. It was a daily sadness to her that the Lord had not blessed them with a child to cherish and to be a comfort to them in their old age. Then the good matron paused in her housewifely tasks.
"Hearken, husband! What stirs without?"
"What stirs without what? Is it a riddle?" the good man replied, ceasing his wistful whittling of a simple rustic Playstation for the child they did not have.
But Goody Crawford had already hastened to her threshold. and she cried aloud with joy: "O husband! The Lord has seen fit to bless us in our dotage with a fine son!" (for she had had a swift look beneath the swaddling bands of the baby she had found mewling on their doorstep.)
"Well, strike me pink!" cried her astonished husband. "We will name him Matt, for that is where we found him."
"Yes!" exclaimed the delighted wife. "Matt Crawford, a little Cracker!"
***
A splendid Christening was arranged and Matt's new mother and father invited as Godparents three great-aunts, all Scottish wise-women. The first bequeathed to her Godson the gift of Business Acumen, the second, Utter Ruthlessness. Then the doors burst open and an angry old hag, uninvited on account of those qualities, strode forward.
"I'm muckle angry ye didnae think tae include me!" she spat. "Aye, an' ah curse the bairn! At the heet of his powers he will… he will... be shunned by all, over a packaging hoose foor organic vegetables! An outcast he will be, welcome by naebody's hearth!"
A terrible silence fell upon the company and Goody Crawford began to weep. Then a small voice was heard: "I am but the third and least of the godparents, and I cannot undo this terrible curse, but my gift to Matt is a place on the Board of Directors of Borchester Land!"
***
The years passed, and the Lord took Goody Crawford unto His bosom. Her husband took a second wife, who naturally was a Wicked Stepmother. "Husband" she snapped, on the eve of Matt's seventeenth birthday "I can no longer bear this son of yours. He eats us out of hearth and home and is driving me barmy with his talk of the Dowe-Jones Index and Bulls and Bears from morning till night. Tomorrow you must lead him into the forest and leave him there."
It grieved Gordon's heart to do so but the next day he led Matt into the forest with Matt's only friend, his Pusskins Lilian. Matt, who had guessed his father's intentions, scattered a trail of breadcrumbs to follow back home, but they were eaten by the forest llamas.
Matt and Pusskins slept beneath fallen leaves and wandered ever northwards, until they came upon a sleepy village besides the sparkling River Am. The bells of St Stephen's church rang out as the pair left the village, and Matt paused, for he seemed to hear them say: "Turn again, Crawford, Director of Borchester Land."
***
More years passed, and Matt, unrecognisable as his former self in fine silks and velvets, lay back on his gilded throne and caressed his dear Pusskins. The gifts of his godmothers had been realised, and Goody Crawford's foundling had grown very rich.
With Duke Brian, he ruled the land for miles around, and none could match him for his business acumen, ruthlessness, and odious reptilian personality.
But Pusskins was still his only true friend in the world, and despite his peasant-shooting, cloaks of ermine, Barbour wellies and cellars of fine wines, Matt was not happy. The villagers turned aside from him, and when he entered the village inn, its spittoons were soon brimming over.
And that very night, the peasants' grievances turned into revolt. Their leader, Goody Grundy, marched at their head up the drive to the Dower House, and all were armed with pitchforks and flaming torches supplied at a very reasonable cost by her husband. A simple friar, Father Alan, entreated the mob to be calm and sang them the soothing Indian Love Lyrics. But they would not be deterred, and hammered on the studded oak doors of the house, crying for justice.
For Matt's evil godmother's gift had come to pass: blind to all but his love of money, he had turned some of these simple folks from their fathers' lands to convert their rude hovels and packing houses into luxury holiday apartments with patio, hot tub, barbeque and private swimming pool.
Matt did not heed the beating at his door. In the flickering light of the torches of the mob, he stooped and kissed his Pusskins' soft, furry brow. Before his astonished gaze she transformed herself into a beautiful, mature woman.
"About time, Tiger!" she cried exultantly. "Pour me a large G and T, then fetch the elephant guns and we'll soon put paid to that lot!"
***
The villagers were soon shown that Might is Right and that Money Doesn't Talk, It Swears. A few homesteads were burned to teach them a lesson and Goody Grundy's head was stuck on a pike outside the village hall until she learned the error of her ways.
Matt built an enormous bio-digester on the village green to celebrate, and he and Lilian lived happily ever after.
The End.
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