Where do shoe horns grow?

Answer 1

Baloney History

(History on the lighter side)

Unlike the famed mythical unicorn, the unihorn shoe has quietly remained a legend amongst "shoe makers" for thousands of years. This closely guarded secret has been kept so because "shoe makers" are loathe to give away vital trade secrets. Even so, due to the rise of the internet and avid fans of cult mythology, the unihorn shoe has begun to rise in popularity rivaling the unicorn, in the past decade. Today, unihorn shoes are often portrayed as a regular shoe with a single horn protruding from its heel, while ancient lore depicts a single horned shoe with tassels on the tongue.

For centuries "shoe makers", also known as cobblers, which in archaic times meant "clumsy" shoe maker, have managed to portray themselves as artisans and merchants who quietly stay in the back room of their shops, "making" shoes. This is perhaps one of the most remarkably kept conspiracy of dunces known to humanity. The awful truth of "making" shoes is that shoes have been relentlessly hunted down since the neolithic age. In the South of France there were cave paintings discovered in 1832 that featured a series of shoe hunts by shoe hunters of antiquity depicting highly ritualized hunts of what appears to be a prototype shoe looking far more fearsome than the standard shoes of today. In this series of cave paintings there is a subset of paintings depicting what appears to be a sacred and spiritual hunt of the mysterious unihorn shoe, tassels and all. Archeologist's were stunned to find these paintings and were clearly shaken by this profound discovery. As renowned archeologist Kurt Voknersheim stated in his account of the cave paintings:

"At first we were ecstatic with these finds as they gave us remarkable insight into the ancient cultures of prehistory. Yet, the celebratory nature of our finds was soon tempered with the realization that in ancient times shoes were not made but rather hunted down and worn immediately. This new data conflicted directly with previous held beliefs that shoes were made by artisans and cobblers. The perplexing question became when did wearing shoes go from a hunter warrior trade to the more modern artisan trade of making shoes, and even more curious was, if shoes were once hunted, what is it then that we are wearing today?"

Volkersheim then became the first known chronicler of ancient and modern shoe hunting methods. The serendipitous find of Volkersheim's was coupled with having an in-law who was himself a "shoe maker". When the archeologist shared the news of these cave paintings to his brother in law the cobbler, he noted in his journal, his in-law became terse and even strangely hostile. It was only a few weeks after this that Volkersheim pieced the conspiracy together as his sister had begun to confide in him that she suspected her husband was having an affair because of his continual disappearances for long periods of time. Volkersheim hypothesized that Stanley the cobbler was really Stanley the hunter and followed him one day into the forest near the Rhine in Lower Germany.

It was in these forests that Vokersheim not only discovered that shoes were still hunted in modern times, he discovered the apparent mythical nature of the uni-antlered shoe was indeed a reality. At first, when following Stanley Into the Woods, Vokersheim feared that his hypothesis was wrong and his sister was right as Stanley brought with him a young virgin from the neighboring town. Yet for several days, Stanley never laid a hand upon the young girl and quietly spent his days hunting and killing his prey. Volkershiem was in fact shocked to discover that the very same forest he used to play in as a child had all this time been heavily populated by several different species of shoes. Stanley had hunted and slay seven pairs of boots and four pairs of loafers in those first few days. Yet, it was on the third day, while the young virgin sat quietly under a tree croqueting a shawl and humming an old German lullaby that Volkersheim made a most startling discovery. It was the mysterious and fanciful creature in the cave paintings the mythical unihorn shoe complete with tassels on the tongue.

While Stanley, the "cobbler" hunter, was no where in sight, Volkersheim sat near a pond far enough away from the young virgin that he was able to witness what he would later call "the most astonishing event he had ever witnessed'. While the girl sat next to a tree croqueting, a pair of leather unihorns quietly slinked up to the virgin and lay themselves upon the lap of the girl. She kept croqueting and humming here lullabies when all of a sudden down from the tree above, the fearsome and agile Stanley jumped from that tree and in one pounce slew the pair of unicorns by slicing off their horns. "Mein Gott!" Was the stunned declaration of the hidden Volkersheim who might have lost his life that day if it weren't for the fact that Stanley just before pouncing to strike at his brother in law realized it was he and cried; "Kurt! Vat arche you doink hchherre?"

Volkersheim confessed his testing of theory to Stanley and himself found the courage to challenge his brother in law on this deeply kept secret. Stanley implored Volkersheim to keep this secret but as he wrote later, Volkersheim decalred; "Butt, I am an archeolchogist! Ze Vorld needs know!" Stanley managed to convince Vokersheim to stay quiet by negotiating a lifetime supply of shoe horns and the leather shoes from which they came. Kurt Volersheim would write in his journal later that day that the young virgin began singing the well known melody loved the worldwide today, "Where the Shoe Horn Grows"