The dreadful dragon of Hay Hill

by Sir Max Beerbohm

For three whole days he tried hard—tried with all that fixity of purpose which had enabled him at last to slay the dragon. It was Afa’s visit that unmanned him.

Not she nor any other of those maidens had ever come to him at the pond in Thia’s time. If they happened to pass that way, they would gaze straight before them, or up at the sky, greeting neither the husband nor the wife, and simpering elaborately, as much as to say, ‘We are unworthy.’ But now it was straight at Thol that the approaching Afa simpered. And she said, ‘I am come to be the goat-herd’s help!’

He marvelled that there was a time when he had thought he might have loved one of these maidens. He was not even sure that he knew which of them this one was. He was sure only that he despised them all. And this sentiment so contorted his mild face that there was nothing for Afa to do but toss her head and laugh and leave him.

Presently the look of great scorn in his face was succeeded by a look of even greater love. He arose and went in search of Thia. But he did not in his quest of her throw dignity to the winds. He did not ask anybody where he should find her. He walked slowly, as though bent on no errand. It was near sunset when at length he espied his lost one near to a lonely pool at the edge of the forest.

She did not see him. She sat busily plaiting wattles. There was a great pile of these beside her. And in and around the pool were her geese.

It was they that saw him first, and at sight of him they began to quack, as though in warning. Thia looked up quickly and saw Thol. He held out his arms to her, he strode towards her, calling her name; but she was up, she was gone into the darkness of the forest.

Long he peered into that darkness, and called into it, and even groped through it, but vainly.

For people who are not accustomed to think, thought is a fatiguing affair. Thol, despite his robust body, was tired when he awoke next morning, for he had spent a great part of the night in wondering how to win back his wife. In the days before he slew the dragon he had been a constant thinker. Little by little he was now to regain the habit.

Step by step he reached the premiss that in order to find a means of winning Thia back he must first make clear to himself why she had ceased to love him. He put together what he could recall of the many things that in the course of time she had said in anger against him. And he came to the conclusion that he had displeased her most by dwelling so much upon his great deed. He would dwell less upon it, try even to forget it. But this would not suffice. How was she to know that he was no longer dwelling as of yore? Perhaps he could do a second great deed? There seemed to be none to do. He must nevertheless try to think of one—some second great deed that would much please her. It was for the homelanders’ sake that the first one had found favour in her sight. And then somehow the homelanders had become less good because of it. Thia had often said so. Of course she had never blamed him for that. Still, perhaps she would not have ceased to love him if his deed had not done harm. Was there no deed by which the harm could be undone? Day by day, night by night, Thol went on thinking.