I marched to the head Elf. “Where’s the frog?

Your American fairytales end that way.  Real fairytales end in blood or tears.

Fairy tales are such evil stories for young children. Every time I'm in a mess I expect a long-haired posh-speaking man to come trotting into my life (on a horse of course, literally trotting himself...) Then you realize you don't want a long-haired posh-speaking man trotting into your life because he's the one who put you in the bloody mess in the first place.

Once upon a time, when men and women hurtled through the air on metal wings, when they wore webbed feet and walked on the bottom of the sea, learning the speech of whales and the songs of the dolphins, when pearly-fleshed and jewelled apparitions of Texan herdsmen and houris shimmered in the dusk on Nicaraguan hillsides, when folk in Norway and Tasmania in dead of winter could dream of fresh strawberries, dates, guavas and passion fruits and find them spread next morning on their tables, there was a woman who was largely irrelevant, and therefore happy.

These days when you kiss a prince you often run the risk of turning him into a frog. But don't let the ogres in shining armor get you down. There is no need for distress - you don't want to be anyone's damsel anyway. Simply remind yourself that you are busy racking up those 'frequent failure points' that will eventually pay for an all expenses paid trip to Mr Right.

This is how every fairy tale starts. With the storyteller explaining to the reader just how it is. There once was a girl named Milly who was the wolf’s coveted meal. Whose father left her in the clutches of an evil stepmother. Whose stepmother imprisoned her with monsters.