Sir Horace gulped. It hadn’t been cowardice that kept Grothnir in the cave. She had been sitting on eggs. He took a deep breath. Even so, a dragon was a dragon, and a knight’s duty was clear. He would slay them all.
“Pay attention,” said Grothnir to her hatchlings.
Sir Horace raised his shield and advanced. He felt the heat of a fiery blast, but the shield saved him. More confident, he rushed forward.
Giant claws plucked shield and sword from his hands, then knocked him to the ground. Dazed, he heard the scurry of tiny claws, and suddenly the hatchlings ringed him, staring down curiously.
“The most important thing,” said Grothnir cheerfully, looming above, “is not to overcook your food.”
Sir Horace began to scream even before the flames struck.
THE FOUR CLEVER BROTHERS, by The Brothers Grimm
“Dear children,” said a poor man to his four sons, “I have nothing to give you; you must go out into the wide world and try your luck. Begin by learning some craft or another, and see how you can get on.”
So the four brothers took their walking-sticks in their hands, and their little bundles on their shoulders, and after bidding their father goodbye, went all out at the gate together. When they had got on some way they came to four crossways, each leading to a different country.
Then the eldest said, “Here we must part; but this day four years we will come back to this spot, and in the meantime each must try what he can do for himself.”
So each brother went his way; and as the eldest was hastening on a man met him, and asked him where he was going, and what he wanted. “I am going to try my luck in the world, and should like to begin by learning some art or trade,” answered he.
“Then,” said the man, “go with me, and I will teach you to become the cunningest thief that ever was.”
“No,” said the other, “that is not an honest calling, and what can one look to earn by it in the end but the gallows?”
“Oh!” said the man, “you need not fear the gallows; for I will only teach you to steal what will be fair game: I meddle with nothing but what no one else can get or care anything about, and where no one can find you out.”
So the young man agreed to follow his trade, and he soon showed himself so clever, that nothing could escape him that he had once set his mind upon.
The second brother also met a man, who, when he found out what he was setting out upon, asked him what craft he meant to follow. “I do not know yet,” said he.
“Then come with me, and be a star-gazer. It is a noble art, for nothing can be hidden from you, when once you understand the stars.”
The plan pleased him much, and he soon became such a skilful star-gazer, that when he had served out his time, and wanted to leave his master, he gave him a glass, and said, “With this you can see all that is passing in the sky and on earth, and nothing can be hidden from you.”
The third brother met a huntsman, who took him with him, and taught him so well all that belonged to hunting, that he became very clever in the craft of the woods; and when he left his master he gave him a bow, and said, “Whatever you shoot at with this bow you will be sure to hit.”
The youngest brother likewise met a man who asked him what he wished to do. “Would not you like,” said he, “to be a tailor?”
“Oh, no!” said the young man; “sitting cross-legged from morning to night, working backwards and forwards with a needle and goose, will never suit me.”
“Oh!” answered the man, “that is not my sort of tailoring; come with me, and you will learn quite another kind of craft from that.”
Not knowing what better to do, he came into the plan, and learnt tailoring from the beginning; and when he left his master, he gave him a needle, and said, “You can sew anything with this, be it as soft as an egg or as hard as steel; and the joint will be so fine that no seam will be seen.”
* * * *
After the space of four years, at the time agreed upon, the four brothers met at the four cross-roads; and having welcomed each other, set off towards their father’s home, where they told him all that had happened to them, and how each had learned some craft.
Then, one day, as they were sitting before the house under a very high tree, the father said, “I should like to try what each of you can do in this way.” So he looked up, and said to the second son, “At the top of this tree there is a chaffinch’s nest; tell me how many eggs there are in it.”
The star-gazer took his glass, looked up, and said, “Five.”
“Now,” said the father to the eldest son, “take away the eggs without letting the bird that is sitting upon them and hatching them know anything of what you are doing.”
So the cunning thief climbed up the tree, and brought away to his father the five eggs from under the bird; and it never saw or felt what he was doing, but kept sitting on at its ease. Then the father took the eggs, and put one on each corner of the table, and the fifth in the middle, and said to the huntsman, “Cut all the eggs in two pieces at one shot.”
The huntsman took up his bow, and at one shot struck all the five eggs as his father wished.
“Now comes your turn,” said he to the young tailor; “sew the eggs and the young birds in them together again, so neatly that the shot shall have done them no harm.”
Then the tailor took his needle, and sewed the eggs as he was told; and when he had done, the thief was sent to take them back to the nest, and put them under the bird without its knowing it. Then she went on sitting, and hatched them: and in a few days they crawled out, and had only a little red streak across their necks, where the tailor had sewn them together.
“Well done, sons!” said the old man; “you have made good use of your time, and learnt something worth the knowing; but I am sure I do not know which ought to have the prize. Oh, that a time might soon come for you to turn your skill to some account!”
Not long after this there was a great bustle in the country; for the king’s daughter had been carried off by a mighty dragon, and the king mourned over his loss day and night, and made it known that whoever brought her back to him should have her for a wife.
Then the four brothers said to each other, “Here is a chance for us; let us try what we can do.” And they agreed to see whether they could not set the princess free.
“I will soon find out where she is, however,” said the star-gazer, as he looked through his glass; and he soon cried out, “I see her afar off, sitting upon a rock in the sea, and I can spy the dragon close by, guarding her.”
Then he went to the king, and asked for a ship for himself and his brothers; and they sailed together over the sea, till they came to the right place. There they found the princess sitting, as the star-gazer had said, on the rock; and the dragon was lying asleep, with his head upon her lap.
“I dare not shoot at him,” said the huntsman, “for I should kill the beautiful young lady also.”
“Then I will try my skill,” said the thief, and went and stole her away from under the dragon, so quietly and gently that the beast did not know it, but went on snoring.
Then away they hastened with her full of joy in their boat towards the ship; but soon came the dragon roaring behind them through the air; for he awoke and missed the princess. But when he got over the boat, and wanted to pounce upon them and carry off the princess, the huntsman took up his bow and shot him straight through the heart so that he fell down dead. They were still not safe; for he was such a great beast that in his fall he overset the boat, and they had to swim in the open sea upon a few planks. So the tailor took his needle, and with a few large stitches put some of the planks together; and he sat down upon these, and sailed about and gathered up all pieces of the boat; and then tacked them together so quickly that the boat was soon ready, and they then reached the ship and got home safe.
When they had brought home the princess to her father, there was great rejoicing; and he said to the four brothers, “One of you shall marry her, but you must set
tle amongst yourselves which it is to be.”
Then there arose a quarrel between them; and the star-gazer said, “If I had not found the princess out, all your skill would have been of no use; therefore she ought to be mine.”
“Your seeing her would have been of no use,” said the thief, “if I had not taken her away from the dragon; therefore she ought to be mine.”
“No, she is mine,” said the huntsman; “for if I had not killed the dragon, he would, after all, have torn you and the princess into pieces.”
“And if I had not sewn the boat together again,” said the tailor, “you would all have been drowned, therefore she is mine.”
Then the king put in a word, and said, “Each of you is right; and as all cannot have the young lady, the best way is for none of you to have her: for the truth is, there is somebody she likes a great deal better. But to make up for your loss, I will give each of you, as a reward for his skill, a quarter of a kingdom.”
So the brothers agreed that this plan would be much better than either quarrelling or marrying a lady who had no mind to have them. And the king then gave to each a quarter of a kingdom, as he had said; and they lived very happily the rest of their days, and took good care of their father; and somebody took better care of the young lady, than to let either the dragon or one of the craftsmen have her again.
THE FIFTY-FIRST DRAGON, by Heywood Broun
Of all the pupils at the knight school Gawaine le Cœur-Hardy was among the least promising. He was tall and sturdy, but his instructors soon discovered that he lacked spirit. He would hide in the woods when the jousting class was called, although his companions and members of the faculty sought to appeal to his better nature by shouting to him to come out and break his neck like a man. Even when they told him that the lances were padded, the horses no more than ponies and the field unusually soft for late autumn, Gawaine refused to grow enthusiastic. The Headmaster and the Assistant Professor of Pleasaunce were discussing the case one spring afternoon and the Assistant Professor could see no remedy but expulsion.
“No,” said the Headmaster, as he looked out at the purple hills which ringed the school, “I think I’ll train him to slay dragons.”
“He might be killed,” objected the Assistant Professor.
“So he might,” replied the Headmaster brightly, but he added, more soberly, “we must consider the greater good. We are responsible for the formation of this lad’s character.”
“Are the dragons particularly bad this year?” interrupted the Assistant Professor. This was characteristic. He always seemed restive when the head of the school began to talk ethics and the ideals of the institution.
“I’ve never known them worse,” replied the Headmaster. “Up in the hills to the south last week they killed a number of peasants, two cows and a prize pig. And if this dry spell holds there’s no telling when they may start a forest fire simply by breathing around indiscriminately.”
“Would any refund on the tuition fee be necessary in case of an accident to young Cœur Hardy?”
“No,” the principal answered, judicially, “that’s all covered in the contract. But as a matter of fact he won’t be killed. Before I send him up in the hills I’m going to give him a magic word.”
“That’s a good idea,” said the Professor. “Sometimes they work wonders.”
From that day on Gawaine specialized in dragons. His course included both theory and practice. In the morning there were long lectures on the history, anatomy, manners and customs of dragons. Gawaine did not distinguish himself in these studies. He had a marvelously versatile gift for forgetting things. In the afternoon he showed to better advantage, for then he would go down to the South Meadow and practise with a battle-ax. In this exercise he was truly impressive, for he had enormous strength as well as speed and grace. He even developed a deceptive display of ferocity. Old alumni say that it was a thrilling sight to see Gawaine charging across the field toward the dummy paper dragon which had been set up for his practice. As he ran he would brandish his ax and shout “A murrain on thee!” or some other vivid bit of campus slang. It never took him more than one stroke to behead the dummy dragon.
Gradually his task was made more difficult. Paper gave way to papier-mâché and finally to wood, but even the toughest of these dummy dragons had no terrors for Gawaine. One sweep of the ax always did the business. There were those who said that when the practice was protracted until dusk and the dragons threw long, fantastic shadows across the meadow Gawaine did not charge so impetuously nor shout so loudly. It is possible there was malice in this charge. At any rate, the Headmaster decided by the end of June that it was time for the test. Only the night before a dragon had come close to the school grounds and had eaten some of the lettuce from the garden. The faculty decided that Gawaine was ready. They gave him a diploma and a new battle-ax and the Headmaster summoned him to a private conference.
“Sit down,” said the Headmaster. “Have a cigarette.”
Gawaine hesitated.
“Oh, I know it’s against the rules,” said the Headmaster. “But after all, you have received your preliminary degree. You are no longer a boy. You are a man. To-morrow you will go out into the world, the great world of achievement.”
Gawaine took a cigarette. The Headmaster offered him a match, but he produced one of his own and began to puff away with a dexterity which quite amazed the principal.
“Here you have learned the theories of life,” continued the Headmaster, resuming the thread of his discourse, “but after all, life is not a matter of theories. Life is a matter of facts. It calls on the young and the old alike to face these facts, even though they are hard and sometimes unpleasant. Your problem, for example, is to slay dragons.”
“They say that those dragons down in the south wood are five hundred feet long,” ventured Gawaine, timorously.
“Stuff and nonsense!” said the Headmaster. “The curate saw one last week from the top of Arthur’s Hill. The dragon was sunning himself down in the valley. The curate didn’t have an opportunity to look at him very long because he felt it was his duty to hurry back to make a report to me. He said the monster, or shall I say, the big lizard?—wasn’t an inch over two hundred feet. But the size has nothing at all to do with it. You’ll find the big ones even easier than the little ones. They’re far slower on their feet and less aggressive, I’m told. Besides, before you go I’m going to equip you in such fashion that you need have no fear of all the dragons in the world.”
“I’d like an enchanted cap,” said Gawaine.
“What’s that?” answered the Headmaster, testily.
“A cap to make me disappear,” explained Gawaine.
The Headmaster laughed indulgently. “You mustn’t believe all those old wives’ stories,” he said. “There isn’t any such thing. A cap to make you disappear, indeed! What would you do with it? You haven’t even appeared yet. Why, my boy, you could walk from here to London, and nobody would so much as look at you. You’re nobody. You couldn’t be more invisible than that.”
Gawaine seemed dangerously close to a relapse into his old habit of whimpering. The Headmaster reassured him: “Don’t worry; I’ll give you something much better than an enchanted cap. I’m going to give you a magic word. All you have to do is to repeat this magic charm once and no dragon can possibly harm a hair of your head. You can cut off his head at your leisure.”
He took a heavy book from the shelf behind his desk and began to run through it. “Sometimes,” he said, “the charm is a whole phrase or even a sentence. I might, for instance, give you ‘To make the’—No, that might not do. I think a single word would be best for dragons.”
“A short word,” suggested Gawaine.
“It can’t be too short or it wouldn’t be potent. There isn’t so much hurry as all that. Here’s a splendid magic word: ‘Rumplesnitz.’ Do you think you can learn that?”
Gawaine tried and in an hour or so he seemed to have the word well in hand. Again and again
he interrupted the lesson to inquire, “And if I say ‘Rumplesnitz’ the dragon can’t possibly hurt me?” And always the Headmaster replied, “If you only say ‘Rumplesnitz,’ you are perfectly safe.”
Toward morning Gawaine seemed resigned to his career. At daybreak the Headmaster saw him to the edge of the forest and pointed him to the direction in which he should proceed. About a mile away to the southwest a cloud of steam hovered over an open meadow in the woods and the Headmaster assured Gawaine that under the steam he would find a dragon. Gawaine went forward slowly. He wondered whether it would be best to approach the dragon on the run as he did in his practice in the South Meadow or to walk slowly toward him, shouting “Rumplesnitz” all the way.
The problem was decided for him. No sooner had he come to the fringe of the meadow than the dragon spied him and began to charge. It was a large dragon and yet it seemed decidedly aggressive in spite of the Headmaster’s statement to the contrary. As the dragon charged it released huge clouds of hissing steam through its nostrils. It was almost as if a gigantic teapot had gone mad. The dragon came forward so fast and Gawaine was so frightened that he had time to say “Rumplesnitz” only once. As he said it, he swung his battle-ax and off popped the head of the dragon. Gawaine had to admit that it was even easier to kill a real dragon than a wooden one if only you said “Rumplesnitz.”
Gawaine brought the ears home and a small section of the tail. His school mates and the faculty made much of him, but the Headmaster wisely kept him from being spoiled by insisting that he go on with his work. Every clear day Gawaine rose at dawn and went out to kill dragons. The Headmaster kept him at home when it rained, because he said the woods were damp and unhealthy at such times and that he didn’t want the boy to run needless risks. Few good days passed in which Gawaine failed to get a dragon. On one particularly fortunate day he killed three, a husband and wife and a visiting relative. Gradually he developed a technique. Pupils who sometimes watched him from the hill-tops a long way off said that he often allowed the dragon to come within a few feet before he said “Rumplesnitz.” He came to say it with a mocking sneer. Occasionally he did stunts. Once when an excursion party from London was watching him he went into action with his right hand tied behind his back. The dragon’s head came off just as easily.
The Dragon Megapack Page 2