Well, aren’t you a talented bunch. Lots of good ideas, with a high standard of use of rhyme and metre. In fact, you’re so good that I’ve decided to give two more copies of There Once Was a Man with Six Wives as bonus prizes.

So here are the FIVE winners, presented not in ranked order, but in five categories arranged, of course, in AABBA formation:

• The Euphemistic, from @HerodotusPenguin:

A king who was bored on his throne

Played verse-writing games on his phone

His manner hubristic

Found “throne” euphemistic

And utterly lowered the tone. 

• The Onanistic, from Nile (posting here on the WordPress blog):

A king who was bored on the throne
Would wring for his pleasure alone
A nosy young courtier
Proposed something naughtier
…A thing that is best left unknown.

(Nile clearly thinks our king was a little on the pale side –  he was a wan king).

• The Mythological, from @itsandygraves:

A king who was bored on the throne

Gave out a dispirited groan

It were a good trick

But I’m heartily sick

Can I put sword back in’t stone.   

(I’m not sure whether it was space pressure or humour value that led Andy to make King Arthur a Yorkshireman, but pretty much everywhere claims him, so what the hell!)

• The Scatological,  from @htfb:

A king who was bored on the throne

Was heard by his courtiers to moan

“It is dull just to sit

Here, pretending to shit.

Where else might they leave me alone?

• And the Linguistic, from @johnmoynes:

A king who was bored on the throne

Said “Her Majesty’s left me alone

I think she has gone

To chew on a scone

Or does one pronounce it a scone?”

Congratulations to those five winners -message me your name and address details and I’ll sort out the prizes – and thanks to all of you who entered.

A special mention must also go to Ken Gosse, who despite not being eligible for the prize (on account of living on the wrong side of the Atlantic), submitted no fewer than 14 limericks via comments on the Facebook page – you can read them all below the competition post here.