The dreadful dragon of Hay Hill

by Sir Max Beerbohm

After the lapse of what we should call a week or so, he began to act also.

He knew that there could be no great thickness of barrier between the back of his cave and the back of the cave that had been the dragon’s; for in his childhood he had often heard through it quite clearly the sound of the voices of Gra and her children. To make in it now a breach big enough to crawl through on hands and knees was the first step in the plan that he had formed. With a great sharp stone, hour after hour, daily, he knelt at work. Fortunately—for else must the whole plan have come to naught—the barrier was but of earth, with quite small stones in it. Nevertheless, much of strength and patience had been exerted before the first little chink of daylight met Thol’s eyes.

It was a glad moment for him when, that same evening, at sunset, at last he was able to crawl through into the western cave; but as he rose and gazed around the soot-blackened lair he did not exult. His work had but begun. And his work would never end while he lived. He prayed earnestly to the sun that he might live long and always do his work rightly. Also he prayed that Thia might soon again love him.

That night, in his own cave, just as he was falling asleep, he had a doubt which greatly troubled him. He arose and went forth to a place where some ducks were. One of these he took and slew, and strode away with it to the marshes. There he heaved it into the ooze. It was quickly sucked down. This was well.

On the next night he became a woodman; and many were the nights he spent in going to and fro in the dark between his cave and the nearest margin of the forest, lopping off great branches and bearing them away for storage, and even uprooting saplings and bearing away these also, and, with a flint axe, felling young trees, and chopping them into lengths that were portable. He continued this night-work until both caves were neatly stacked with wood enough to serve his purpose for a longish while.

And then—for he had thought out everything, with that thoroughness which is the virtue of slow minds—he wove two thick screens of osiers and withes, each screen rather bigger than either end of the tunnel. On the evening when the second of these was finished, he made in the dragon’s cave, not far from the left-hand side of the cave’s mouth, a thick knee-high heap of branches and logs, some of them dry, others green. He placed at the other side of the mouth two thick flat stones, one upon the other.

Back in his own cave, he smeared with sheep’s fat a certain great stick of very dry pine-wood.

And on the following morning history began to repeat itself. With some variations, however. For example, it was not a puny little boy but a great strong man who, as the sun rose, came rushing with every symptom of terror down the western side of the hill. And the man was not really frightened. He only seemed so.

He careered around the valley, howling now like one distraught. Responsive sheep, goats, geese, what not, made great noises of their own. From the mouths of caves and huts people darted and stood agape. Thol waved his arms wildly towards the cave upon the hill. People saw a great column of smoke climbing up from it into the sky.