Once there lived a happy king ruling over his peaceful kingdom.  There were little in the ways of hardships in his lands, crops were plentiful, his army kept the peace quite well, and the shops under his reign paid their taxes well.

  One day, a guard came running before the king, trembling with fear.  His armor was charred and in disarray.  He told the king that there was a monstrous problem in his lands... A dragon most fierce had taken up residence in a cave in the royal lands and was wreaking terror!

  The king was most unhappy to hear this.  He personally led a batallion of knights to the dragon's cave.  He beamed with pride as he watched the fully clad warriors march into the cave, looking more than a match for any dragon.

  After the knights disappeared into the darkness of the cave, it was only moments before a huge wave of fire belched from the depths of the cave, carrying swords and helmets in its wake.  The kings' expression quickly changed from pride and joy to fear and dread.

  The charred remains of the king's finest knights filled the remaining warriors under the king's banner to develop various illnesses when called upon to do battle with the beast.  With no warriors brave enough to face the challenge, the king hired powerful mages to rid his lands of this scourge.

  Once more seeking to see the demise of this beast first hand, the king traveled with the arcane and powerful wizards to the dragon's cave.  The wizards chanted outside the cave for a few hours, then ventured, staves raised, into the darkness of the cavern.

  After the wizards dissappered into the darkness, the king bore witness to a varied display of glows from the deeps of the cave, followed once again by an enormous belch of fire erupting from the mouth of the cave, carrying flaming staves and pointy hats out of the darkness.

  The king was losing heart.  He tried to hire a priest to seal the beast within its lair, but as the cantrips for the seal were nearing completion, that horrible fire once more erupted from the cave, engulfing the priest.

  The king could no longer stand to send people to their fiery deaths on his coin.  So he decreed to his court that any who could smite this fearsome beast would have wealth beyond their dreams and his lovely daughter's hand in marriage.

  Hearing this, the king's fool tumbled before the king, and told him not to worry, that he would personally smite the beast with his mighty sword! The fool produced a tin sword and swung it about most amusingly.  The king cracked a smile, and even began to laugh, as the fool continued his dance and even grabbed a helmet and marched out of the throne room.

  The royal court thought little of the fool, and so nobody followed him as he approached the dragon's cave... from the rear.  Climbing through a tunnel in the back of the mountain, the fool emerged behind the enormous beast.  It was a giant dragon, with fire for eyes, humming and growling in the dark.

  The fool smiled a giant grin as he merely walked up behind the monster, and switched it off.  Removing the giant dragon's skull from the fire-making machine that he had placed in the cave some moons ago, the fool began to dismantle and remove all traces the clockwork apparatus.

  The fool marched gleefully back to the king's court, carrying the dragon skull as proof of the demise of the beast, to claim his reward.  The king would learn a valuable lesson at some cost that day:

  A fool is defined by his actions, not his clothes.