Digory The Dragon Slayer

IN DAYS OF OLD

    I n days of old, when knights were bold, there lived a boy called Digory. He came from a village where nothing much happened and he was just a bit older than you.
    Digory had lanky legs, ginger hair and a nose like a chipolata. This made him very popular with the village boys.
    ‘Skittle legs!’ they called him.
    ‘Stick boy!’
    ‘Oi, pumpkin head!’
    ‘Hey, marigold bonce!’
    ‘Digory droopy-dangle!’
    ‘Nose jouster!’
    ‘Sausage snout!’
    Digory wore a felt cap to hide his ginger hair but he couldn’t disguise that nose, so he kept away from the village and spent his days playing alone in the forest.
    Digory loved the forest. Some days he’d build dams and tree houses. Some days he’d poke about with sticks and think thoughts. You might think he was lonely but he had one friend who followed him everywhere - a battered old lute from his father that he carried across his back. When Digory thought some interesting thoughts he’d turn them into a song, climb a tree and sing to the sparrows.
    Now, none of his family understood Digory at all. His older brothers, Arthur and Tom, were big and tough and bold. Arthur won
    prizes for hog leaping and Tom was the local turnip tossing champion. The thoughts they had were mostly to do with chasing bulls and arm wrestling, and the songs they knew were drinking songs, which had to be shouted wildly as you poured a flagon of beer over your head.
    The only time Arthur called for Digory was to keep watch when he was stealing apples, and the only time Tom needed Digory was to pick up the arrows after archery practice.

    Even his sister Ethelburg, captain of the Mucky Maidens’ Mudflinging team, had no time for Digory.
    ‘Ear shriveller!’ she would cry whenever he played the lute, and put a basket over her head.
    When he wasn’t in the forest, Digory would hang around the forge where his mother Betsy the blacksmith worked, hoping she might notice him. But nobody heard Digory strumming and singing except his father.
    ‘You know your mother, son,’ he said gently as he pegged out the washing. ‘She likes iron and fire and sweat and muscles. She doesn’t have much time for thinking and songs.’ ‘Unless they’re songs about iron and fire and sweat and muscles!’ shouted his mother from the smithy, as she pounded her hammer on the anvil.
    But Digory’s songs weren’t like that. They had lines that went:

‘See the happy swans that float,
Round the castle’s rippling moat.
Hear the water lilies sigh,
A s the dragonflies dart by.’

    Well, nobody wanted to listen to that. So Digory’s family left him to wander with the forest animals, playing songs to himself, poking about in streams and thinking thoughts.

THE LITTLE MISUNDERSTANDING

    Digory never got into much trouble in the forest. Sometimes an acorn fell on his head. Sometimes he stepped into a pile of wild pig poo. But one day he found something that caused a little misunderstanding. Something that changed his life for ever. Something that made him wish with all his heart that he’d stepped in a pile of pig poo instead.
    Digory had spent all morning making a stick bridge over a stream. Pleased with himself, he sat down and started to unpack his picnic. But, just as he bit into a dandelion pasty, he noticed a white thing glinting on the mossy bank. Digory peered closer. It was a large, sharp, jagged tooth.
    Who does this belong to? he wondered, picking it up. Maybe it’s a rabbit’s tooth? But it was far too big for a rabbit. Then perhaps it’s a witch’s tooth , he thought, and maybe she’ll come looking to use it in a spell! But he remembered that witches always have rotten teeth and this one was white and sharp.
    Suddenly a creepy feeling made his hair stand on end. Suppose its a giant’s tooth , he trembled. And suppose the giant isn’t very far away... SUPPOSE I’M SITTING ON THE TOE OF HIS GREEN LEATHER BOOT AT THIS VERY MINUTE!
    Digory didn’t dare look behind him. But he trembled so much that he pricked himself on the tooth. Wrapping a handkerchief round his finger he began to laugh. Daft dunderhead! he chuckled. This is much too pointy for a giant’s tooth. It must have belonged to an animal ... a large animal. .. a large, fierce animal... something as large and fierce as a DRAGON!!
    Digory decided that was his best thought. Yes, it’s definitely a dragon’s tooth, and he stuck it into his hat. Then, after all that difficult thinking, he scoffed a large piece of