And I've mounted on the saddle and I told the story like so

It was so terribly cold. Snow was falling and it was almost dark. It was dark-ish, like dark but a navy dark. Not so dark that you’d go: jeeez it's dark out there! No, more like Twilight dark, not Terrifier 2. And it wasn't THAT cold…Clearly the kid was exaggerating as kids tend to do. Or did the author say that? Not the author, the narrator. I don't know, I haven't read the thing. Something about a goose and pyromancy.

We don't have those fairytales in the Balkans. It's a shame really. You can't have too many kids pissing their pants at night. What the hell is up with Hansel and Gretel, Jesus fucking Christ? Did you read that?! A manipulative woman who convinces a biological father to abandon his kids in the woods, a cannibalistic grandma, and a preteen girl that burns her alive…Now that's dark.

Hey, listen, have you heard the one about that guy with golden apples? Technically it was his father's apples. The king had an apple tree and it grew apples of solid gold. You don't know it? It's great, really. He has to go on a quest to find the thief and there's a dragon-ogre thing to fight, and two, no three princesses to rescue, treasure, portals, a fairy godmother named Friday for some reason. Yeah, Holy Friday, that's her name. It's weird but in the end the guy gets to marry the prettiest princess, slays all sorts of demons, gets to live in a castle, and has a party that lasts three days and three nights.

How about the one where this guy feeds embers to a talking horse and then the thing turns into a pegasus? And then he takes it for a ride and does all sorts of brave things, helping people and shit. Holy Friday is back again ready to lend a hand to our hero. There's this mighty ogre with a flying mace. Like Thor's hammer it comes back in his hands. And the way he kills that thing is by outsmarting it: somehow he convinces the ogre to bury himself in a hole and they go deeper and deeper until its neck sticks out. So our guy having the ogre buried up to its neck in sand chops it off. I don't know, it's better in the original, trust me.

But there's a few stories about a guy that make absolute zero sense. This guy is like nothing I've read about in any fairytale. I haven't figured out if he's the devil or what but this guy is something else.

Picture this: the country, a rural settlement, a village full of poor people right? You've got your miller, the local priest, farmers, the whole shebang. Shitty roofing, the works. Everyone is trying to get by, making a living by working for food and stuff. Everyone except our guy, the joker, comedian. How would that work let's see… It's someone who pranks people, a prankster. A scalawag, a scamp, a joker, you get it. He's trouble, that's the main thing to remember.

This guy hadn't worked a day in his life. He got in people's faces, keeping them from their jobs, stealing their food and wine, basically he lived like a beggar.

One day he gets hungry for apples. He doesn't want forest apples. He wants to eat the king's apples, the one in castle gardens. Being the idiot that he is the guard doesn't strike him down at the gate. He's like: go on, get out of here, you dumb motherfucker. The fool keeps dancing around in white leggings, poking the guard's helmet, rubbing his ass cheeks on the halberd, that sort of stuff.

Finally the guard gets mad and slaps him, right? He goes down, laughing like an idiot. But the prince sees the guard striking that moron and throws the poor man in jail. Get this: the prince is a christian and a big fan of the old testament. He throws the poor guard in the dungeon for a few days as punishment. The prince is like “oh you poor man, come eat, my servants will give you a bath”, whatever…

The prankster is sitting at the prince's table, eating roasted chicken, drinking Hennessey, and living it up. The prince, he's only sixteen, of course he likes the idiot, what the hell does he know about life at that age. He and the bum become best friends. Can you believe that?

The kid forgets he's a prince and starts behaving like those skaters on mtv. They do stupid stuff to everyone in the castle: ghost peppers is the king's stew, stealing pommels of every sword in the armory, nailing planks on the royal shitter plugging the hole, etc.

The king had enough and wants to hang that idiot but the prince won't have it. “No dad, he's my friend, I'll run away and you'll never see me again, I'm so gay for him.” The king gives him one chance to redeem himself or it's off to boarding school with both of them. Once a year a tree in the royal gardens spawned a golden apple. There were thousands of apple trees and just one apple popped up once every something full moons, whatever.

Never has the king with all his subjects been able to get the apple. Before they could get to it, the garden being huge, someone stole the golden apple. It's up to the prince and idiot to get the thing.

Hearing this the young prince starts wailing. He's certain he'll be sent to boarding school. The idiot out of nowhere blurs out this fantastic idea. They force the blacksmith to forget an apple out of solid gold, throw a party with lusty milkmaids in the barracks, and hide the treasure up in the tallest apple tree. The hunt for the apple never takes place, the townspeople were up partying.

As the sun rises over the apple trees a shimmering light catches the king's gaze.