The Legend of the Land of Hats

There once was a land where the people were given beautiful knitted hats. The King gave them these hats and they wore them wherever they went. They wore them to the market, to the palace, to their beds. They were identified by their hats. If ever they left the kingdom strangers recognized them by their hats.

The King of the Land of Hats sent a message throughout the entire world inviting all the people to come and celebrate his son’s wedding. He wanted them to come and to fill his palace. He wanted them to come and fill his inns. He wanted his land to be filled with the joy of the bride and the bridegroom. And everyone invited to the wedding had to wear a special hat the King would send them if they accepted his invitation. But they had to reply and ask for a hat to receive one. 

Many people accepted the invitation and wrote to the King requesting their special wedding hat. The King received thousands of acceptance letters and sent out mountains of hats to be delivered throughout the world. The royal messengers left the gates of the Land of Hats on their horses and pulled sleighs piled high with hats to the farthest corners of the earth. They delivered the hats and returned to the palace.

There were other people though, who did not want to ask the King for a hat.

“We can knit,” they said, “Why should we have to get a hat from the Land of Hats? We can make our own. We can make better hats.”

So these people made their own hats. They knitted their hats and covered them with decorations. They adorned their hats with ribbons and beads and strings that fluttered in the breeze.

The people with the King's hats saw these new hats . They noticed how fancy they were and decided to add decorations to their own hats. They took the hats the King had given them and modified them. They covered them with beads and streamers just as the other people had until no one knew who had received their hat as a gift and who had made it out of pride.

When the day of the wedding came, every person with a hat set out to the Land of Hats to partake in the festivities. They flooded in from the farthest corners of the earth and filled the Land of Hats until it was so full not another person could have come through the gates.

Every person made their way to the palace and entered the gates, but no one knew the purpose of the hats.

As each person entered the gates of the palace, a dragon poured fire down on their heads. The fire rained out of the sky with ash and rocks and filled the moat around the palace. The people walked under the fire, and those who had requested a hat found that the hat they had received was fireproof. The unnecessary adornments were burned away, but the hat remained. They entered into the King’s joy and celebrated the wedding. But those who had refused to accept the King’s gift found their hats burned away completely. They walked under the fire of the dragon and were swept away, left to remember that they had the chance to accept a fireproof hat, but had been proud enough to say, “No, I can make my own hat. And it will be better.”