Once upon a time there lived a young prince named Courage who lived in a palace and dreamed of adventure.

The King of Barrington was a good king, so there was peace in the land.  When Courage was very small, he would play with his friend Skeeter who had very large ears and lived at the far end of the palace grounds.  The boys would play at war, creating epic battles against imaginary enemies and coming home as heroes.

As the boys began to grow up, the King hired Thomas the Good Wizard to tutor Courage.  Thomas the Good Wizard taught Courage many valuable things, and when he had learned all he could be taught, Thomas decided to go back to his family at the far end of Barrington.

Before Thomas left, he gave Courage a special gift: the Book of TRUTH.

Now Courage was a young man who was not interested in old books that smelled like mold and had no pictures in them of great battles.  So Courage put the Book under his bed and forgot it.

One day an Evil Magician came into Barrington on a huge dragon that breathed fire on the villages and burned up the crops.  The King rode out to meet him on a strong white stallion, and the two collided in a wild struggle.

It looked like the King would win until with a mighty blow to the temple, the King fell to the ground. Courage, who had been watching from a tree, scrambled down to save his father, but Skeeter held him back, and the two disappeared into the forest to hide.

The Evil Magician locked up the king and all his family in the highest tower, but he couldn’t find Courage.  So the Evil Magician put a spell over all the land made of LIES.

The tower became a dungeon, the Evil Magician became the king, and Courage became Fear.

Fear decided to go to Thomas the Good Wizard for help, but now he was afraid to go by himself.  So Skeeter went with Fear to the farthest end of the kingdom to find Thomas.

While they were traveling, the Evil Magician put another spell over the kingdom so that everyone who dared to teach TRUTH against his LIES would mysteriously die.  When Fear and Skeeter arrived at the house, Thomas was dead.

But there was hope!

Skeeter, who had supersonic hearing because of his very large ears, overheard Thomas’ wife whispering about a Book of TRUTH that Thomas used to have that could reverse the spells and bring him back to life…if only she could find it.  Then Fear remembered the gift Thomas had given him long ago, so the two borrowed horses from Thomas’ wife and rode for two days to get back to the palace.

Fear climbed up the wall of the castle, snuck into his bedroom window, and found the old Book under his bed.  He opened the Book, blew off the dust, learned the secrets about the TRUTH and set the land free from the Evil Magician’s LIES.

The newly freed King sent the Evil Magician out of his kingdom, never to return, Thomas came back to life again, and Fear was once again restored to his true identity as Courage, a true hero—with help from Skeeter’s very large ears.

The end.