(CW: fantasy violence, death)

House ads 

Rigorous study has shown that brick is the best, as well as the most robust, housing material, and is proving to be very popular in today’s housing market. 

However, experts forecast that now is not the time to invest in buildings as there is a huge blow of wind coming that could puff the houses down.

Risk calculated to be a certainty.

Scam warning

Authorities have received a tip-off that the reward advertised for the lamp is a scam with treasure hunters going missing. They haven’t been heard from their families since. Treasure hunters who have returned have arrived shaken, claiming that either the lamp they retrieved was a fake or that they were swindled with a fake reward. Anybody with information regarding the scam and those responsible is advised to go to the authorities.

The Fairytale Gazette is conducting its own investigation into how the advertisement made its way into our edition’s last paper. We apologise to any readers who believed it to be a genuine treasure hunt.

Crime Announcement

Thief last spotted in Princess Row. Lock your doors and put dragons on guard.

Thief wanted after stealing a golden harp and for the alleged manslaughter of a giant man. The giant’s grieving wife is willing to grant a generous reward for turning in the boy. Described as a young scoundrel, smelling like an Englishman and muddy farm fields. Last seen wearing tattered clothing and shimmying down a beanstalk, the site of the husband’s death.

Top story

Riding Hood Bites Back 

After damning allegations that Red Riding Hood left her missing grandmother to fend for herself in the woods, she has now pronounced that her grandmother has been found dead at the edge of the woods.

Red Riding Hood states that she saw the grandmother being abducted and then pounced on by a wolf. She was unable to stop it before a huntsman nearby stepped in to chase it away. The grandmother was deceased by the time help arrived.

“Her body had been mauled by a wolf,” she said tearfully  at her grandmother’s funeral yesterday. “Just claw marks everywhere. Something must be done about that horrible creature.”

Many have wondered over how Red could have found her grandmother in the vast wilderness of the woods and her motive, given her past comments disrespecting the area. 

Red Riding Hood claims that the night before she found the body, she was out searching for her grandmother to allay suspicion that she had been involved in the grandmother’s disappearance.

Others are not convinced.

When looking at the grandmother’s body, investigators have concluded that it is unlikely it was claw marks, but knife marks, that cut the grandmother’s life short. 

“Red Riding Hood might not have held the knife, but she might have had a hand in it,” a police investigator has speculated. 

“If it was a wolf, it might have been bewitched to do Red Riding Hood’s bidding,” another investigator said. “It’s unlikely that this is the case, but we must pursue all avenues of inquiry.”

Red Riding Hood insists that it was a wolf and strongly denies these witchcraft allegations against her. 

Instead, she now claims that a wolf spoke to her and bewitched her. It allegedly tried to persuade her to kill her grandmother. 

“With its big eyes, big ears and big teeth, opening and closing its mouth as if speaking,” Red Riding Hood says. “It was chilling, and I was almost prompted to do it but I couldn’t cause it was my gran. It’s lucky the huntsman came when he did.”

Her comments have sparked a search for the wolf in this superstitious village today and a wolf has been brought into custody.

In the interrogation, the wolf wouldn’t speak but growled. This prompted calls for him to be put to death and the execution is expected to go ahead. However, an animal specialist is crying wolf on the allegations.

“Wolves can’t speak human. They speak wolf,” they argue. “If Red Riding Hood had heard the wolf then, why can’t she decipher it now?”

Some are sceptical and believe that it was not the wolf, but Red Riding Hood employed the Huntsman to kill her grandmother due to bad blood between the two of them over the years.

“Bitterness, not love, is what drives that family,” a village source said.

Red Riding Hood says she can’t believe that people are using her grandmother’s death as rumour meat. 

The investigation into the grandmother’s disappearance and subsequent death is ongoing.