Legend has it that there was once a kingdom under attack by a powerful witch. Beasts under her control roamed the edges of the kingdom and attacked villages. An army from another kingdom was invading. Everything was going wrong.
But the witch’s greatest threat was saved for last. She’d heard that the young prince of the kingdom, only 16 years old, was marrying a beautiful young woman of 15, and she saw opportunity.
On the day of the wedding, she blew open the doors of the castle and walked inside. Before the prince and his bride could exchange vows, she froze everybody present. She forced the lovers to watch as she murdered the king and queen, and then she sent the young lady somewhere far away, where she guaranteed she’d never be found. The only way to find her was to defeat the witch, and she declared the prince incapable of doing so.
Distraught, the prince called together his knights, his best friends through the years, and searched everywhere. But the bride was nowhere to be found.
The prince decided to attack the witch in her den, but after a brief battle she mortally wounded him. He managed to escape into the woods, where he was found by a good witch.
She couldn’t heal him, but she cast a spell on his sword. It would be placed in a stone, but one day it would be removed by a boy of pure heart. He and his friends would be transformed (including being aged to 16 if younger) into a new prince and knights, and together would return to this time and restore the kingdom.
Many years passed. The kingdom fell, and times changed. As technology improved, people forgot the tales of magic.