Everyone in the village of Little Tallow knew three things about the dragon on Bramble Crag.
First, he was enormous.
Second, he was merciless.
And third, under no circumstances whatsoever should anyone climb the path to his cave.
This last fact was written on a board at the foot of the mountain in letters so black and crooked that even the goats avoided looking at it.
BEWARE.
DRAGON.
CERTAIN DEATH.
NO VISITORS.
Whenever anyone suggested that perhaps the dragon was not quite as terrible as people said, somebody would point towards the mountain.
“Did you not hear him last Thursday?”
Everyone had.
At precisely seven o’clock, a dreadful roar had rolled through the valley.
RRRRAAAAAAAGH!
Windows rattled.
Chickens fled beneath carts.
Mrs Pindle dropped a tray of buns into a horse trough.
Then smoke rose from the dragon’s cave in great black clouds.
“There,” the villagers said. “You see?”
And if anyone remained unconvinced, there were the claw marks: great trenches gouged into the earth around the cave mouth.
There were bones, too.
The dragon arranged them every Wednesday night.
His name was Mortimer.
He was not merciless.
He was not particularly enormous for a dragon.
And the bones came from Mr Crimp’s butcher shop.
Mortimer paid sixpence a sack for them.
“You’re keeping up the terrifying business, then?” Mr Crimp asked each Wednesday, sliding a parcel of ox bones across the cave entrance.
“One must,” said Mortimer.
“Anybody actually seen you eat one?”
“Good heavens, no. Do you know what marrow does to my digestion?”
Mr Crimp did not, and Mortimer did not explain.
The truth was that Mortimer had spent considerable time and effort becoming the Dread Dragon of Bramble Crag.
Every Thursday evening he practised roaring into an old copper trumpet.
Every Friday he dragged a garden rake around the cave mouth to make claw marks.
The smoke came from his bread oven.
If the wind was blowing towards the village, Mortimer added a handful of damp leaves to the fire for effect.
Then, once he had terrified everyone sufficiently, he returned to what he actually liked doing.
Mortimer embroidered.
He grew roses.
He painted birds in watercolour.
He bound little books in blue leather and stamped gold stars on their covers.
He made quince jelly every autumn.
He possessed thirty-seven porcelain teacups, each with its own saucer, and became deeply irritated at the thought of anyone putting the wrong cup on the wrong saucer.
He also knitted.
This was difficult for a dragon.
His claws were excellent for frightening shepherds but quite useless for turning heels on socks.
Still, he persevered.
Mortimer had not always pretended to be fierce.
Many years earlier, when he had first arrived at Bramble Crag, he had tried being friendly.
This had been a terrible mistake.
At first one shepherd came to visit.
Then the shepherd brought his wife.
The wife brought her sister.
The sister brought eleven children.
The children wanted rides.
The baker asked Mortimer to light his oven.
The mayor asked him to open the summer fête.
Three knights came to have their portraits painted standing heroically beside him.
A minstrel arrived with a forty-two-verse song about a goose.
Princesses began appearing.
One wanted rescuing.
One wanted kidnapping.
One wanted Mortimer to pretend to kidnap her so that somebody else could rescue her.
“I’m sorry,” Mortimer told them, “but I’m very busy.”
Doing what? they asked.
Mortimer had looked down at the tiny painted goldfinch drying on his desk.
“Dragon things,” he said.
Nobody believed him.
So Mortimer became terrifying.
Within a fortnight, he had his evenings back.
It was, he thought, the best decision he had ever made.
Then Sir Percival the Bold rode into Little Tallow.
He arrived on a white horse with a silver shield, a golden helmet and a feather so enormous that it repeatedly struck low branches.
The villagers gathered around him.
“I have heard,” announced Sir Percival, “that a monstrous beast terrorises these lands.”
The villagers cheered.
“No need to thank me,” Sir Percival continued. “By sunset tomorrow, the Dragon of Bramble Crag shall be slain.”
The villagers cheered again.
Mortimer heard about this from Mr Crimp.
“A knight?” he said.
“Very knightly-looking one.”
“What sort of helmet?”
“Gold.”
Mortimer swallowed.
“Shield?”
“Silver.”
“Feather?”
Mr Crimp stretched his arms as wide as he could.
Mortimer went pale.
Dragons knew about feathers.
The larger the feather, the more determined the knight.
The following morning Mortimer prepared carefully.
He scattered three sacks of bones outside the cave.
He made several enormous claw marks.
He put damp leaves in the bread oven.
Then he stood before a mirror.
“RAAAAGH!”
He frowned.
“Too nasal.”
He tried again.
“RRRRAAAAAAAGH!”
Better.
Then he noticed something dreadful.
His embroidery basket was still beside the fire.
He hurriedly shoved it behind a rock.
The watercolours went behind a curtain.
The knitting went into a flour barrel.
He was attempting to hide a vase containing twelve particularly fine roses when a voice boomed from outside.
“DRAGON!”
Mortimer froze.
Sir Percival stood at the cave mouth.
Sword raised.
Shield gleaming.
Feather waving magnificently in the breeze.
“Prepare yourself, vile serpent!”
Mortimer knocked over the vase.
“TREMBLE, MORTAL!”
Sir Percival stepped forward.
Mortimer spread his wings.
“YOU HAVE ENTERED THE LAIR OF—”
He stepped backwards onto several balls of wool.
His feet shot from beneath him.
He fell over with an undignified crash.
There was a long silence.
Sir Percival lowered his sword.
“Are you all right?”
“Perfectly.”
Mortimer stood up.
A half-knitted sock was hanging from one horn.
Sir Percival stared at it.
“It belongs to a victim,” said the dragon.
“A victim knitted you a sock?”
“No.”
“You knitted the sock.”
“I did not.”
The embroidery basket chose that moment to tip over.
Needles, ribbons and coloured threads rolled across the floor.
Sir Percival looked around properly.
He saw the shelves of teacups.
The jars of marmalade.
The blue leather books.
The little paintings of wrens, robins and finches.
On the wall hung an embroidery sampler.
It read:
HOME SWEET HOME
Around the words Mortimer had sewn a border of daisies.
Sir Percival slowly sheathed his sword.
“You embroider.”
“No.”
Sir Percival pointed at the wall.
“That appears to be embroidery.”
Sir Percival sat down on a rock.
“You’re the most feared creature in three counties.”
“I know.”
“There are songs about you.”
“Yes.”
“One of them says you swallowed forty knights in a single afternoon.”
“Ridiculous. I have a very small appetite.”
Sir Percival laughed.
“Would you like tea?”
Sir Percival looked up.
“What?”
“I have the kettle on.”
So five minutes later, the knight who had come to slay the Dread Dragon of Bramble Crag was sitting in the dragon’s cave drinking Darjeeling from a cup painted with violets.
Sir Percival sipped his tea.
“This is very good.”
“Thank you.”
“So you aren’t terrifying at all.”
Mortimer bristled.
“I am exceptionally terrifying.”
“You knit socks.”
“One can do both.”
“Then why the bones?”
“To discourage visitors.”
“The roaring?”
“Visitors.”
“The claw marks?”
“Visitors.”
“The smoke?”
“Bread.”
Sir Percival glanced towards the oven.
“You bake?”
“Sourdough.”
“This is a disaster,” said the knight.
“For you?”
“The entire village is waiting for me to come down that mountain as a dragon slayer.”
Mortimer clutched his neck.
“You certainly shall not.”
“I don’t want to.”
Mortimer looked suspicious.
“You don’t?”
Sir Percival sighed.
“I hate killing things.”
“But you’re a knight.”
“I know.”
“You arrived shouting.”
“I’m expected to shout.”
“You have an enormous feather.”
“My mother bought it.”
Sir Percival removed his helmet.
Without it, he looked considerably less heroic.
His hair was flattened on one side.
“My father was a knight,” he said. “My grandfather was a knight. My great-grandfather was eaten by a dragon, which everyone says was tremendously glorious.”
“And you?”
Sir Percival looked embarrassed.
“I prefer flowers.”
“Flowers?”
“I arrange them.”
“What sort?”
“Delphiniums, mostly.”
Mortimer’s eyes widened.
“I grow delphiniums.”
Sir Percival sat forward.
“Do you stake them?”
“Of course I stake them.”
“With hazel?”
“Bamboo.”
“Bamboo?”
“Come outside.”
Behind the cave, hidden from the village, was the finest garden Sir Percival had ever seen.
Roses climbed ruined walls.
Foxgloves rose in purple spires.
Lupins crowded around the stones.
And beside the path stood a magnificent row of blue delphiniums.
Sir Percival removed one gauntlet and gently touched a flower.
“Remarkable.”
“Thank you.”
“What do you feed them?”
Mortimer told him.
By lunchtime, the sword had been forgotten entirely.
By two o’clock they had moved on to roses.
By three they were discussing compost.
At four, church bells rang in the valley.
Sir Percival stopped.
“Oh no.”
“What?”
“The battle.”
Mortimer looked towards the village.
Tiny figures were gathering in the fields below.
“The whole village has come to watch.”
They stood silently for a moment.
Then Sir Percival said, “You could tell them the truth.”
“What truth?”
“That you’re harmless.”
Mortimer recoiled.
“And have them all come up here?”
“Well—”
“They’ll want me at the summer fête.”
“Probably.”
“They’ll ask me to light bonfires.”
“Possibly.”
“Children will climb on me.”
“Almost certainly.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Then I suppose you could remain terrifying.”
Sir Percival thought.
Below them, the villagers began chanting.
“PER-CI-VAL! PER-CI-VAL!”
Mortimer groaned.
Sir Percival looked down at the village.
Then at the dragon.
Then at the large pile of theatrical bones.
And slowly, he smiled.
“I have an idea.”
At five o’clock, the Battle of Bramble Crag began.
It was the greatest battle Little Tallow had ever seen.
Smoke exploded from the mountain.
Mortimer roared so loudly that three cows ran into a pond.
Sir Percival struck his sword against his shield.
CLANG!
“VILE BEAST!”
“INSOLENT KNIGHT!”
CLASH!
“PREPARE TO MEET YOUR DOOM!”
“YOU FIRST!”
Mortimer breathed a tremendous stream of fire into the air.
Sir Percival threw an old iron saucepan down the mountainside.
BOOM!
The villagers gasped.
Another cloud of smoke billowed from the cave.
“TAKE THAT!” cried Sir Percival.
“NOT THE DELPHINIUMS!” roared Mortimer.
There was a pause.
“Sorry!”
Then came another explosion.
For nearly an hour they shouted, roared, banged pots, threw stones and set fire to several carefully positioned bundles of damp straw.
It was exhausting.
At last Sir Percival appeared upon the ridge.
His armour was blackened.
His feather was singed.
He raised his sword.
“THE BEAST IS DEFEATED!”
The villagers erupted in cheers.
Behind a rock, Mortimer quietly drank a barrel of water.
Sir Percival raised his hand.
“I HAVE SPARED THE DRAGON’S LIFE!”
The cheering stopped.
A few villagers looked disappointed.
“WHY?” shouted the mayor.
Sir Percival drew himself up magnificently.
“BECAUSE HE HAS SWORN A DRAGON OATH!”
Mortimer peered round the rock.
This was new.
“HE SHALL NEVER AGAIN DESCEND UPON LITTLE TALLOW!”
The villagers murmured approvingly.
“HE SHALL NEVER TROUBLE YOUR FLOCKS!”
More approval.
“HE SHALL NEVER DARKEN YOUR DOORS!”
A cheer.
“BUT IN RETURN—”
Sir Percival paused dramatically.
“NO MAN, WOMAN, CHILD, KNIGHT, MINSTREL, PRINCESS, MAYOR, BAKER OR MEMBER OF A SUMMER FÊTE COMMITTEE SHALL EVER DISTURB HIM!”
The mayor frowned.
“Never?”
“Never!”
“Not even for the summer fête?”
“Especially not for the summer fête.”
The mayor considered this.
“A harsh bargain.”
“But a fair one.”
The villagers agreed.
Sir Percival rode down the mountain as a hero.
Mortimer stayed where he was.
The following Tuesday afternoon, Mortimer was sitting outside his cave painting a robin when he heard hoofbeats on the path.
Sir Percival appeared carrying a parcel beneath one arm.
Inside were twelve delphinium cuttings.
Mortimer looked at them.
Then at Sir Percival.
“What variety?”
“King Arthur.”
Mortimer hesitated.
“You may stay for tea.”
That became something of a habit.
Sir Percival eventually opened a flower shop in Little Tallow.
It became extremely successful.
Mortimer remained feared throughout the valley.
Every Thursday he roared.
Every Friday smoke rose from the mountain.
Occasionally he scattered a few bones about, purely for appearances.
Nobody bothered him.
Almost nobody.
Years later, travellers passing Little Tallow sometimes noticed that somebody had added another line beneath the old warning sign.
The sign still read:
BEWARE.
DRAGON.
CERTAIN DEATH.
NO VISITORS.
But underneath, in much smaller letters, someone had written:
Except on Tuesdays.
