The characters of The Court of King Collywobble are introduced. King Collywobble notices that most of the Court people are losing the curl in their hair. The King thinks this must be because they are not eating their porridge in the morning. Sure enough when he goes down to breakfast the next morning, the plates of porridge are pushed aside untouched, and the cook is selling them toffee apples instead. He is angry with the Cook, as she is even charging more than the price decreed, and tells her to leave the castle. But afterwards he thinks he has been too hasty. He decides to try his hand at cooking, and makes a plum pudding. However, the pudding is too hard, and can’t even be cut with a knife, so the King calls the Court Carpenter, but even he can’t cut it with a saw. The Royal Blacksmith tries with a hammer and is also unsuccessful. The King realises he is a failure as a cook. The pudding becomes a round weight to lift the castle drawbridge.