Back in the days when giants still roamed the earth, there was a castle, and in that castle, there was school. That school was the International School of Princes.

Only the best princes went to this school, like Prince Charming and Prince John. The International School of Princes taught classes like sword fighting, dragon slaying, becoming a king, and, what prince school would be complete without it, princess and maiden rescuing. That's right. Every prince needed maiden and princess rescuing skills in order to get a bride to be his queen for when he inherited his father's kingdom.

So, on one particular day, a young prince named Godfrey just so happened to be taking Rescuing Maidens and Princesses Made Easy 101.

Prince Godfrey was what we would today call a "wuss." He spent more time sitting around doing needlepoint and cross-stitch instead of doing princely things like dueling and going to seek his fortune. Not only did he do needlepoint, but he had absolutely no upper body strength. To all of his classmates, he was "Stickboy."

Anyway, his instructor for this class began to write on the board this particular day when Godfrey was dreaming of his latest needlepoint project, the Mona Lisa. He estimated that it would take him at least a week to finish it as he aimed his paper airplane at his teacher's rear end like all the other princes in the classroom. Throwing paper airplanes was the only thing he liked do that was princely, that is, except for ruling his father's kingdom. Suddenly, a whole fusillade of paper airplanes and spit balls flew at the teacher, but none hit their mark. Unfortunately, the instructor noticed. He quickly whirled around and glared at every single prince. Unfortunately for the instructor, every single last prince had an innocent look on his and every prince had his hands neatly folded on his desk. The instructor, with all of his dignity, gave them a confused look, and a couple of the princes tried their best to stifle their snickers. He turned around to finish what he was writing. Godfrey's neighbor turned to him.

"Hey, Godfrey. Hast thou any gum?" this neighbor asked him.

"Yeah, justeth a second. Here thou goest," Godfrey said as he dug in his pocket for the stick and gave it to him.

"Thanks," his neighbor said as the instructor turned around again.

"Ahem. Thy attention pleaseth. Welcome to Rescuing Maidens and Princesses Made Easy 101. Duringeth this class, we shalt learneth how to rescueth princesses. At the end of our time, we shalt rescueth a real princess from the International School of Princesses."

"Oooooooooh," all the princes said in unison.

"But first, we must learneth all the techniques to doeth this.

"The first rule thou should remembereth is that all maidens and princesses must be beautiful to be rescuedeth. It hast been this way since the beginning of time. Now openeth thy scrolls to page ten and five." Now the class continued like this for a long time, and Prince Godfrey soon got bored. He got so bored, in fact, that he began to bring in his needlepoint projects. The instructor never even noticed this.

After a few horribly dull weeks of listening to the instructor ramble on and on, physical training began. The princes climbed towers and hauled down heavy, wooden dummies of princesses with long hair. When it finally came to be Godfrey's turn, it became an awful experience for both Godfrey and his instructor.

"Nowest, thou must remembereth to be careful with thyself and thy dummy," the instructor told Godfrey just before Godfrey started up the tower. Godfrey looked nervously at the blonde braided hair rope.

"Mr. Instructor, why must I climbeth this braided hair rope?" Godfrey brilliantly asked. "Not all princesses haveth long blonde hair."

"Hast thou not readeth thy textscroll, student? The one abouteth Rapunzel? She hadeth long blonde hair." Godfrey glanced at the broken dummies on the ground, all the result of some weak prince or another who did not possess the strength to carry the dummy without dropping it. He imagined that these dummies were real princesses and felt like throwing up.

"Goeth!" Godfrey started up hand over hand. Halfway up, he felt like his arms would fall off. He looked down to see how high he was as he rested.

'Whoaeth,' he thought. `And to thinketh that I art afraideth of heights.' He gripped the rope like his life depended on it because it did. He felt even sicker.

"Young Godfrey, what is thy problem?" the instructor shouted safely from the ground.

"Sir, I am afraideth of heights!" Godfrey shouted down.

"Dost thou wanteth to flunketh? Nowest, getteth up there or elseth!!" Poor Prince Godfrey began to feel even worse.

Despite his dizziness, he continued upward. Finally, after much grunting and groaning, our hero made it to the top.

"Thanketh God," he said as he climbed into the window. He began to look for a dummy. There wasn't one to be found. He searched every crook and nanny (or is that nook and cranny?), but there wasn't one.

"What is takingeth thee so long?" the instructor asked from below.

"Sir, there is no dummy up here!" Godfrey shouted from the window.

"Oopseth!" the instructor shouted. "I forgoteth to putteth one up there. Cometh down and don't worrieth about it." So Godfrey jumped out the window, which wasn't a very wise choice at an elevation of fifty feet and two and half inches, and landed right on top of the instructor. Luckily, the instructor was dressed in full armor at that time, and nobody was hurt except for a minor sprained ankle on Godfrey's part.

"Why didst thou jumpeth?" the instructor asked very angrily.

"Because the prince in Rapunzel did it," Godfrey answered innocently.

Finally, a week later when Godfrey had pretty much recovered from his injuries, the biggest day of the coursed rolled around. It was the day when all the princes in Rescuing Maidens and Princesses Made Easy 101 went on a field trip to the International School of Princesses to take the final exam, rescuing a real princess from a real tower. When they got there, they were given these instructions:

"First, thou shalt goest to thy assigned towers to meet thy princess. Theo, wilt thou passeth out these tower assignments?" Theo passed out the assignments. "When thou gettest up to the top, watcheth for the witch. She'll maketh thee jumpeth into the thorns and thee wilt be blinded for a short time. Good lucketh, godspeed, and I shalt be watching!" Thus, all the princes ran to their assigned towers.

When Godfrey got to his, he shouted:

From the top, a pretty princess shouted, "My name ain'teth Rapunzel. It's Marien. Nowest, getteth it right or I won't letteth down mine hair!"

So Godfrey shouted:

"Okayeth," she said, and beautiful brown hair tumbled out the window at the top of the tower. Godfrey began climbing up the tower hand over hand. Suddenly, the princess screamed.

"OW!"

"What is wrong?" Godfrey asked.

"Thou art pullingeth too hard on my hair!"

"Sorryeth."

"I just hopeth that he doesn't rippeth the hair out of my scalp," she mumbled under her breath.

His head swam, and he clutched her hair even tighter than before. "I hateth heights," he said to himself.

"What is taking thee so long?" the princess asked. "Art thou afraideth of heights?"

"Yes, I art."

"Letteth me pulleth thee up," the princess said. "But thou must acteth like thou art climbing or else we'll flunketh." The princess began dragging up poor Godfrey while he tried to act like he was climbing. After two grueling minutes of hanging on to a lock of hair, he made it to the window at the top. He climbed in.

"Why art thou afraideth of heights?" the princess asked him.

"I haveth no clue," said Godfrey. He looked into her eyes. She looked into his. It was love at first sight. They stared at each other for a while, but soon became very uncomfortable. The princess broke the uncomfortable silence.

"Art thou going to carryeth me down?" Then she noticed Godfrey's skinny arms. "I guesseth not. I'll just carryeth thee down instead. there's nothing against that in the rules, is there?"

"No," Godfrey said. He remembered all those shattered dummies on the ground at the International School of Princes. "I guesseth that would be best."

"Shalt we goeth then?"

"Yes, we shalt." The princess, who would rather slay dragons than do other princessly things like needlepoint and cross stitch, carried Godfrey down before the witch had a chance to wake up and react.

Godfrey did pass the test because there was nothing against the rules about the princess carrying down the prince, but that rule was soon changed a year later, and later princes did have to carry down their princesses.