The dreadful dragon of Hay Hill

by Sir Max Beerbohm

Very still the air was; and very still stood those men and women and children, on the other side of the dividing stream. The sun, setting red behind them, sent their shadows across the stream, on and on slowly, to the very foot of the hill up to which they were so intently looking. The column of smoke, little by little, lost its flush. But anon it showed fitful glimpses of a brighter red at the base of it, making known that the dragon’s head was not inside the cave. And now it seemed to the homelanders, in these long moments, that their hearts ceased beating, and all hope died in them. Suddenly—clash! the dragon’s jaws echoed all over the valley; and then what silence!

Through the veil of smoke, dimly, it was seen that the red glow rose, paused, fell—clash! again.

Twelve was a number that the homelanders could count up to quite correctly. Yet even after the twelfth clash they stood silent and still. Not till the red glow faded away into the cave did they feel sure that to-night all was well with them.

Then indeed a great deep sigh went up from the throng. There were people who laughed for joy; others who wept for the same reason. None was happier than Thia. She was on the very point of singing and dancing, but remembered her promise, and the exact wording of it, just in time. In all the valley there was but one person whose heart did not rejoice. This was Veo. He had come out late in the afternoon, to await, impatiently, the dragon’s reappearance. He had particularly wanted to study the action of the hind-legs, which he felt he had not caught rightly. Besides, he had wanted to see the whole magnificent creature again, just for the sight of it. Veo was very angry. Nobody, however, heeded him. Everybody heeded the more practical brother. It was a great evening for Oc and Loga. They were sorry there was a dragon in the homeland, but even more (for parents will be parents) were they proud of their boy’s success. The feelings of Thol, too, were not unmixed. Though none of the homelanders, except Thia, had ever shown him any kindness, he regretted the dragon, and was very glad that the dragon was not coming out to-night; but he was even gladder that the dragon had not been slain by the spearmen nor called back across the water by the sun. It was true that if either of these things had happened he could have gone to sleep comfortably in his own cave, and that he dared not sleep there now, and saw no prospect of sleeping there at all until he had slain the dragon. But he bethought him of the many empty caves on the way down to the marshes. And he moved into that less fashionable quarter—sulkily indeed, but without tears, and sustained by a great faith in the future.

On the morning of next day the homelanders prayed again to the sun that he would call the dragon away from them. He did not so. Therefore they besought him that he would forbid the dragon to come further than the cave’s mouth, and would cause him to be well-pleased with a feast like yesterday’s.

Such a feast, in the afternoon, was duly laid at the cave’s mouth; and again, when the sun was setting, the dragon did not come down the hill, but ate aloft there, and at the twelfth clash drew back his glowing jaws into the cave.

Day followed day, each with the same ritual and result.

Shib did not join in the prayers. He regarded them as inefficacious, and also as rather a slight to himself. The homelanders, be it said, intended no slight. They thought Shib wonderfully clever, and were most grateful to him; but it never occurred to them to rank him among gods.

Veo always prayed heartily that the dragon should be called away forthwith. He wanted to see the dragon by daylight. But he did not pray that the dragon should not come forth in the evening. Better a twilit dragon than none at all.