In a kingdom far far away, and a long long time ago, a party was
being given.  To this party the king had invited everyone in the
kingdom to his castle.  And everyone was having a grand time.  The
wine was flowing, the tables were overflowing with food, and the
dancing was beautiful.

Suddenly, out of thin air a gnarled old man appeared out of thin
air.  His hands clutched in tight fists by his body, smoke
streaming from his shoulders, he walked up to the king and said,
"How dare you have a party and not invite your own court wizard!
For this insult I curse this castle with the dreaded Curse of the
Fingers.   Anyone who attempts to leave here will be rendered
limb from limb by huge disembodied fingers!"

The wizard waved his bony arms about and shouted in a guttural
foreign language.  "There!", he said and vanished.

All at once, the people of the kingdom looked to their king.
What would he do?  How could he save them.  The king pursed his
lips and looked about him.  Finally, he turned to his knights and
asked for a volunteer to ride to the next kingdom and plead with
their wizard to remove the curse.  Of course all of the knights
wished to go.  The king selected the knight with the greatest
seniority and sent him on his way.

The knight gathered up all his weapons, put on his best suit of
armour and headed out.  As soon as his foot stepped off of the
drawbridge,  gigantic yellow fingers appeared from nowhere and
ripped him limb from limb.

One after another, each knight attempted to ride out of the
castle, each one in turn was ripped to shreds.  Finally, no
knights were left.

The king looked about him.  "Is there anyone else who would brave
this curse and rescue us from this horrible curse?", he said.

"I will, sir!", said a small boy who had been serving one of the
knights before he died.

The small boy packed up his belongings and provisions for the
journey.  Since he was a poor serving boy, and had no horse, he
knew he would have to walk.  But he was determined to succeed.
As soon as he crossed the drawbridge, the yellow fingers appeared
and tried to rip him apart.  They couldn't!  Each time the tried
to grab him, the boy wriggled free and continued on his journey!

Several days later, the boy was back at the castle with the
neighbouring kingdom's wizard.  The king was overjoyed to have the
curse lifted and he called the boy to him.  

"How did you escape from those monstrous fingers?  All my knights
couldn't get past them and they were killed.  How could you do
it?"

The boy looked up at the king and replied, "Your majesty, it
occurred to me as the last knight was being killed that the only
way to escape this curse was to LET YOUR PAIGES DO THE WALKING
THROUGH THE YELLOW FINGERS."