by John Hale

There was a man named Mordu, who was young and ambitious.  And clever, or at any rate cunning.  But he had no money or power.

 

 Which should he seek first?

 

 He was still deciding when Fate took a hand.  Mordu met a professor, who said: "I have had a terrible dream.  I forgot my name; my own name!  And now that I am awake, I still forget it.  What am I to do?"
 "Get out of my way", said Mordu, stamping on the professorial toe.
 "Thank you, young man, oh thank you!  My name is Smith!  Please accept this book of Anglo-Saxon riddles".

 

Mordu went on his way till nightfall.  By the fire, he read the riddles.

 

Out of the fire jumped a frog.  "I am the Frog Prince.  Ask me a riddle.  If I answer it, you shall be my slave.  If I fail, I will be yours".  So this was agreed.

 "What's black and white and changes direction all the time?"
 "A half-painted weathercock?  Heh heh".
 "No.  A politician.  You are my slave now, and don't you forget it".
 The Prince protested: "Show me that answer.  In your book".
 "It's not in the book.  Tough!"

 

 So the prince had to go along with Mordu.  He rode in his pocket.  On they moved towards the great city, where Fame and Fortune beckoned.

 They met a toad, who called out, "I am Mervo.  Take me with you to the great city, where fame and fortune beckon.  I can make the better reason appear the worse.  And, moreover, vice versa".

 

"Sounds useful", said Mordu, and put Mervo in his other pocket.  On they journeyed.
 

 

 

 The first person they met there was the King.  Now the King was testing everyone, to find the best person to sort out the royal accounts.  (These were in a muddle.)  The test had 100 questions.  The questions became harder as they went on.  The final question was, "How do you spend money and still have it?"  Few people had reached that question: none had solved it.  The King was in despair.

 Then Mordu stepped up. 

 "Give me a tent, and a table, and nobody watching, and I will do the questions".
 "Including the last one?" asked the King.
 "Even that one".
 So the tent and the table were brought.  The King and his council hovered outside while Mordu went inside, alone.

 Not quite alone.  He took out his frog and his toad and stood them one on each side of the table.  He wrote and wrote, sometimes checking answers with his fellow-travellers.  And came to the last question.  And stopped.

 "You two!  Help me out of this!"

 Mervo spoke first.  "To spend money and keep it, you pretend that the money is not real money, and keep it, and give people something else which is not  real money but you pretend that it is.  People are fools".

 The Frog Prince advised differently.  "Take away the King's power.  Thus, you have his money for yourself, and by his power you make more money.  For yourself, by taxes".

 Mordu put it all together and told the King outside, "I have written the 99 answers, but if you want the last one you must do as I say or I refuse to tell". 

 Some councillors objected.  The King was in two minds (as usual).
  "So", replied Mordu, "Let the royal accounts stay muddled".
 All then agreed to his conditions.  The King was to enter the tent with Mordu alone, and be secretly told the answer to the riddle. 

 

 In the two went, while the council gathered round the flap of the tent.

 

 Inside, in the peculiar half-light, the King fumbled.  The frog and the toad spat in his eyes.  He could see nothing now.  While he groped, Mordu came out.

 He told the council, "The answer is so  plain that the King must be old and foolish not to see it.  You pretend you have spent the money when you have really only promised to pay it later.  Later never comes, because circumstances change.  As ruler, you make sure they change.  Shall I, therefore, become your King?"

 It was done.  Now Mordu had power, and soon he had money.

 He set about increasing both.  By the methods of the team of three.  And when someone queried them or challenged him he would use his book of riddles.  Each opponent was dragged into the tent, and made to answer a riddle.  Because Mordu held the book, and let nobody else see inside it, and because he made the rules and kept changing them, he defeated all comers.
 
 

 

 

 At last the people, and even some councillors, murmured against Mordu.  But he had this clever answer, devised by the toad: "This is not cheating.  Nor lying.  No, no.  It"s to make the game more fun.  Or can't you take a joke?

 No one could bear to seem a spoilsport.  Mordu went on winning.

 He grew richer, fatter, ever more powerful.  He made overseas visits to meet other riddle-champions.  Nor did he lose the contests, though he did not always win.  At home, in the tent, he always won; for if he did look like losing, his trusty toad and frog spat in the challenger"s eyes.  And that was that.
 
 

 Until one day, years later, Mordu issued his boldest challenge.  He would give up power to somebody cleverer than himself, if such there might be -- somebody who answered three riddles in a row.  His own riddles, naturally, and his own rules.  The penalty of losing was to become permanent backscratcher of the royal back (a disgusting task, which only Mervo enjoyed).

 For long, nobody challenged. 

 But finally there came a lawyer named Lingo.  He in turn was young and ambitious.  But he did not look clever, as he was fat and wore ugly glasses.

 Mordu had him into the tent, and posed the first riddle.
 "Why's a mouse like hay?"
 "Because the cattle eat it.  One!"

 Mordu was furious with himself.  He had meant to ask a harder riddle, not this childish thing.  On his mettle now, he consulted his book, for something more obscure.
 "What's a carriwitchet?"
 "Is that a trick question?"
 "DAMN!  Yes, that's what the word means".
 "I didn't know that.  Two!"

 In the half-light of the tent the toad smelt danger.  He spat at Lingo's eyes.
 No use.  Lingo"s big pebbly glasses kept out the poison.

 Mordu feared for his money and power.  Even if it was only luck favouring this upstart, anyone on their lucky day could be lucky three times running.  What to do, against a winning streak?  Think think think think think.

 Yes!  Change the rules.  Make it a contest of brains, not riddles.  No brain could be better than his.  And he would use his frog"s and his toad's brains.  While Lingo went out for some fresher air, Mordu consulted them.
 "What'll I do?"

 Mervo said, "Keep it to riddles.  Confuse him.  Eat the book of riddles (I'll help) and say you remember it all anyway".

 Mordu found this unsafe, being not new or clever enough.  He asked the Frog Prince.  But the prince had vanished.  What on earth -- ?

 Time was short.  Mordu must decide.  "I'll catch him with a question that has two answers.  No, several.  Whichever he picks, I'll switch".

 He called Lingo inside again, rapping out the question impatiently:
 "What is the meaning of money?  In only one word".
 Lingo paused at the door of the tent.  "Wait.  I want the correct answer written down.  I want it given to an umpire.  I don't trust your 'memory'.  I don't trust you".
 "Right" said a voice from Lingo"s pocket.  It was the Frog Prince. 
 "What's going on?" thought Mordu.  Out loud he said, "Shan't write it down!"

 However, the audience were tired of waiting; tired of Mordu's tricks.  They had also been hearing a speech on these matters from Lingo.  They shouted at Mordu, "Write it down!  Dirty cheat!  Can't take a joke!"  They shouted and chanted these messages till he had to agree.

 And now, all will see what the challenger, Lingo, is made of.  He stands outside the tent, thinking hard.  Then,
 "Money -- "
 All leaned forward.
 "Money is -- "
 "Yes?"
 "Money is -- power!"
 Well now.  The books and the sages do not say this is what money is.  But Lingo knew it was what Mordu thought money was.  He knew it was what Mordu thought no one else would say it was.  He knew, because he had watched him over the years; growing richer, but enjoying most of all the power which gave him the money.  He knew more surely because the Frog Prince had told him, "Every riddle solved is power gained.  I know.  I lost my power to Mordu over a riddle".

 

 And Lingo demanded to know what the umpire's paper said.  And the paper said, "Power". 

 

 So down Mordu fell.  Mervo fell with him. Lingo became the new King. He liberated the Frog Prince.  The Prince remained at Lingo's court, by his own choice, to advise on monetary and other riddles.

 And Lingo reigned long in the land, and the land had peace, and the people lived happily, 
until --

 -- until the Frog Prince became restless, and greedy, and as for Lingo . . .