A castle maid found him in the forest while on a secret dalliance with a Spades hechman. There the egg was, nestled in the roots of an oak tree, completely uncared for. After a time spent watching it indecisively, the maid brought the egg back to the castle. While the egg found a home, the maid lost his head. Questions of ‘where did you get the egg?’ turned into ‘Why were in the forest?’ and onwards to ‘Who were you with?’.

Never having been particularly bright, the maid stuttered and stammered his way through a ridiculous story; making the situation even worse until eventually the only course was immediate decapitation.

The other maids spent this time fussing over the lovely little egg, and discussing where he could fit in. The chef wanted an extra hand in the kitchen; the maid’s argued that one of theirs had found it, and the gardeners were always looking for more workers. On it continued until one of the guards, having had enough of their bickering, plucked it out of a maid’s arms and handed it over to the executioner.

The executioner handed it right back with a gruff ‘return it when it can hold an axe’.

And so the guard wrapped the egg in blankets and left it in the guardroom with a piece of paper stuck to it reading future executioner. The guards took to chatting to the egg when they passed by and became quite fond of it. Eventually they gave it a name, because ‘egg’ was not suitable and they felt rather silly saying ‘they loved Egg’ all the time.

Such a shame they would have to give it up when it hatched. But its duty in Wonderland had already been decided.