Once there was a beautiful village with people so humble and peaceful, who lived happily under the rule of the brave and loving king Sultan. The village was famous for its beauty, as on one side were the mountains and the other side was a water stream so people from far-off regions would travel just to enjoy the scenery.

However, there lived a cruel and ugly witch in a dark cave in the mountains. The witch was so jealous of the king that she wanted to kill him and rule the happy villagers. The villagers and the king were all aware of the wickedness of the witch so they never allowed her to come to their village. Days went on well, but one day the people saw the witch coming to their village… they felt alarmed but not afraid.

One villager asked, “Stay out from the village, why have you come here?” she replied while crying, “Oh dear, kind people, my hut is attacked by a monster called Vivavoke, he had destroyed everything. Now I need a place to live for some time.”

The monster Vivavoke was just made up by the witch to fool the people, but they didn’t know it, of course. Thus, the villagers took her to their king.

King Sultan listened to her wailing and said, “I will allow you to live here only if you live a peaceful life and don’t create problems for anyone.”

The witch promised that she will live a peaceful life. For many days, she remained inside her hut and hardly came out as she was busy making the most powerful spell to kill the king and rule the village.

The king was suspicious for why the witch never showed up for several days, so without telling anyone he decided to go and check on her. One night, the king, disguised as an old man, went closer to the witch’s hut and peeped inside from the window. The witch was preparing a viscous, smelly liquid in a cauldron and humming, “King Sultan must die, King Sultan must die, and I rule the village, he must die……”

‘So this was the reason she came to the village!’ thought the king and went back to his palace and thought for a better plan; he remembered his father telling him about a cave deep inside the jungle, which had a magic claw so powerful that it could destroy the faint-hearted and those with evil hearts. The king didn’t care about his life but decided to go and find that magic claw to save his people from the witch’s wrath.

Thus, King Sultan started his quest and after travelling for a week in the deep forest, he found the dark cave. He walked slowly while touching the rough walls with his hands. Suddenly, his hand touched something sharp— it was a white lion’s claw that stuck to his hand. He tried to get it off but it didn’t go. And then it started to speak, “O, brave King Sultan! Do not get me off your hand as I am a magic claw and I have such powers that can destroy the evil witch who’s living in your village and whom you want to destroy.”

The king was surprised and happy that without any struggle he got the magic claw so he returned to his village immediately. When he reached the village he saw dark clouds hovering and there was loud thunder, people were shouting and running here and there; he saw the witch standing in the middle and saying magic words.

When the witch saw the king she said loudly, “Come Sultan, it’s time for you to die as I have made the most powerful spell,” and waved her wand and casted spells by shooting green sparks out towards the king. The sparks hit the king and he fell down, he got up and ran towards the witch but she waved her wand again, and stroke hard on his chest and he fell to the ground, this time, Sultan was hurt very badly.

The witch thought that the king had died so she stood victoriously laughing and said, “Finally, I have killed the king now the village is mine!”

But the king was alive and was gathering up his energy to fight back. He got up and waved his clawed hand in front of the witch, making a fist and threw a punch with it towards the witch. Red sparks came out and hit the witch directly between her eyes. She got no chance to escape. In fact, she didn’t know that the king also had something that could destroy her evil powers.

She gave out a painful evil shriek and turned into ash and disappeared. The evil had vanished -- destroyed and defeated by the brave king Sultan, by his courage and with the help of the powerful white lion’s magic claw. From then on, the people of the village lived happily ever after in.

Published in Dawn, Young World, July 2nd, 2016