Dragons

By G. W. Thomas

The first, a young knight, had a penchant for slaying one of the fiery beasts. "I am bound for Ysbaddaden to slay a dragon!" he declared happily.

The two conversed for a while and the story came out shortly: the knight had been accused of cowardice and had set out to prove his mettle.

"I believe you will find a particularly nasty green-colored drake residing in the hills north-east of Merikh," the Rainbow Man advised.

"Thank you, sirrah," the knight replied before setting off in that direction.

The second person the Rainbow Man met was a young man dressed only in a dusty tunic.

"Good day, father," he called to the wizard. "I hunt dragons this day." After only a brief exchange the bride-groom-to-be, for fianced he was, had told his story. The lad wanting to marry a girl above his station had bragged that he would return in a month's time with the claw of a dragon. The incredulous girl had agreed to the deal.

"Do you actually have to kill a dragon?" wondered the other.

"I suppose not, but how else can I contrive to win such a prize?"

"To the north-east rides a knight who has no squire. If you were to offer your service for the prize of a single talon, he might take you on. But you will have to hurry."

The young man waved as he ran down the road in search of the knight.

The last man was a fat, jolly fellow who dressed in wine-stained jute cloth. A proffered wine-skin was all that was needed to hear his story. A tale-spinner, he lived off the fruits of his nightly visits to the local inns. The man had begun a tale about a dragon and how he had slain it. But a lack of material kept him from returning to the inn--where his audience thought him about the business of emptying his bladder--and finishing the story.

"As I'm sure you can tell me, dragons are born of a snake's egg and electricity?" smiled the Rainbow Man. "And as such their deaths can be assured by a mixture of weasel's dung--a natural enemy of the serpent--and the blood of the lightning eel--a natural source of current, as everyone knows. But, of course, this is all surely within your vast experience?"

"Yes, yes. Thank you," grinned the story-teller, waddling off in the direction of the inn.

The Rainbow Man concluded by congratulating all three men.

"But surely only the first," said the friend. "But the others?"

The wizard laughed. "Certainly, we must all slay our dragons in our own way."

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