Digory The Dragon Slayer

anyway, kill ’em all, that’s the best thing. Now, anyone for a glass of... . you know... gives-you-the-giggles?’
    And that really was that.

THE USUAL KNIGHTLY THING

    Poor Digory the Dragon Slayer walked round the battlements wondering what to do. He had never felt more troubled in his life. He wished with all his heart he could just be plain Digory again — poking sticks in the stream in Batty-by-Noodle woods, not having to be brave or shiverous or fight jaw-dripping, flesh-ripping, bone-crunching, snout-snarling, bloodthirsty dragons.
    But then he thought of Enid. If he went back home now he would always be lonely without her. And when he thought about Enid something strange happened — Digory began to feel a tiny bit brave. So, he thought about her some more. He thought about her very hard, all afternoon, and by teatime he felt nearly stout-hearted, by suppertime he was almost daring and by bedtime he was fearless enough to decide that there was nothing else to do but slay the dragon.
    However, the next morning at breakfast, when Digory announced that he was going off to slay the dragon, nobody took much notice at all. Enid gave Digory her portrait picture and a handkerchief, and the King gave him a map of the Kingdom. Then they went back to their porridge. They assumed Digory the Dragon Slayer had done this sort of thing so many times before that he’d be back in time for lunch.
    So Digory, who’d been hoping for a bit of a fuss and a hero’s goodbye, didn’t even get a bacon sandwich.
    ‘It seems to me,’ Digory said to Barley as he fetched her saddle, ‘that sometimes people make a terrible fuss when you don’t want them to, and sometimes they don’t make a fuss when you wish they would.’
    But this sort of thought was far too difficult for Barley, who didn’t hear it anyway.
    So, with a heavy heart and an empty stomach, Digory set off to slay the Horrible Gnasher Toast’em Firebreath.



A LITTLE DETOUR

    D IGORY and Barley plodded out of the valley and up the hill, then down the hill and through the cornfields. Then up another hill, through a dark forest and down the other side again.
    Digory grew cold and hungry. The clouds swelled dark and grey. They seemed to soak up all his bravery like a sponge. Digory thought of the King and Queen and Enid playing marbles in front of the fire.
    Then he thought of his mother in the smithy, laughing as the sparks flew off her anvil, while Arthur, Tom and Ethelburg roasted chestnuts in the furnace.
    Poor Digory felt forgotten and sbiverous from the top of his cold helmet down to his chilly tin boots.
    Eventually he came to a hazel wood where nuts and blackberries grew. He stopped to eat and gave Barley a humbug. Then he remembered the King’s map in his pocket.
    Digory unrolled the map and studied the kingdom of King Widget. It looked rather hurriedly drawn, with the castle sketched in the middle and Gnasher’s cave marked by a red cross. Ten leagues to the south of the dragon’s cave, Digory noticed a blue squiggle. Looking closer he discovered it was a dolphin’s head rising out of a curly wave. It was the sea.
    Now, Digory had never seen the sea. He’d heard songs and stories about it. He had seen cockles and crabs at the market. But he’d always wondered what the sea was really like.
    A small, tempting thought started to murmur in Digory’s head. You never said exactly when you were going to slay the dragon, the thought whispered. No one would notice if you took a long route and went to the sea on your way , it went on enticingly. And then you never know, the dragon might even have gone away by the time you come back ...
    Suddenly, a commotion of rooks croaked loudly overhead. They seemed to screech, ‘Jaw-dripping, flesh-ripping, bone-crunching, snout-snarling, bloodthirsty dragon!’
    That decided it.
    ‘We’re going to the sea,’ Digory told Barley. ‘We might slay the dragon when we get back!’

To THE SEA

    Digory studied the King’s map and calculated that they should reach the sea by teatime. So they rode through the wood and over the hill. Through the valley and across the humpback bridge. Then along the river and into another wood.
    As they plodded on their way Digory, now in much better spirits, composed a song which went like this:

‘Down to the briny sea we go,
Where dolphins swim and blue whales blow,
And shipwrecks creak on the rocks below.
Ho heigh, fishy tails, heigh ho!’

    But what about Enid, you ask? Well, this