Digory The Dragon Slayer

shoulders.
    ‘Arise, Sir Digory the Dragon Slayer,’ he said solemnly in his royal cap, and everyone cheered and agreed he made a jolly useful King.
    The delighted Batty villagers had never had so much to celebrate at once. Minstrels played, maidens danced and everyone tucked into a great feast.
    But with the ceremony done, and all the gobbling and gambolling going on, no one noticed Sir Digory, with his lute slung across his back, plod silently away on Barley.
    Only one person chased down the lane after Digory, waving a beer flagon in one hand and a bellows in the other.
    ‘Good luck, son!’ shouted Betsy happily. ‘Go out and have adventures! Fight dragons and marry a princess! And don’t forget to oil your joints once a week!’



KEEPING OUT OF TROUBLE

    D IGORY travelled far and wide across the countryside. Although he was used to spending days alone, Digory soon missed his family. Before long he even missed the village boys.
    ‘Nobody told me that being a knight would be so lonely,’ he sighed.
    Barley whinnied and shook her ragged mane as if she understood.
    ‘We can’t go home, Barley, until I’ve done some good deeds,’ explained Digory sadly. ‘Maybe we’ll find a friend on our adventures...’
    Meanwhile, there was nothing else to do but search for good deeds and try to avoid dragons, damsels in distress and princesses looking for a husband.
    This last task, however, was particularly difficult. Before Digory had travelled far, princesses began to appear all over the place. They jumped out from behind trees and combed their hair at him, or sighed in towers pretending to be damsels in distress. Eventually, Digory realised that princesses hung about waiting for knights to come along!
    Whenever he met a princess, Digory didn’t know what to say. What do girls talk about? he asked himself as he climbed off Barley and bowed with a creak.
    He thought of his sister Ethelburg. She could spend hours lovingly describing twenty types of mud and how to fling them, so he would try that. But he never met one princess who was the slightest bit interested in mud, or squirrels, or tree houses or dams. Each princess only wished to be admired and told how she was the most wonderful, beautiful, ravishing, gorgeous creature in all the land.
    When the princesses just heard mud talk and realised they were not going to be admired at all they would stamp their tiny feet and go off in a huff.
    Now, Digory had seen Ethelburg in a mud-flinging fury after losing a match with the Mucky Maidens but nothing is as terrifying as a huffy princess.
    Before long poor Digory was much more afraid of meeting a princess than of meeting a dragon!
    Luckily, Digory the Dragon Slayer had never met a dragon. Whenever he saw a wisp of smoke curling above the treetops he would turn

    about and ride in the opposite direction, just in case it was the sign of a dragon’s fiery breath. No point in taking any chances, he’d say to himself. I don’t want to give Barley a fright!

THEN ONE MORNING...

    One morning, as Digory plodded along a leafy lane, squeaking gently and humming to himself, he heard a sudden rumble of thunder. Digory looked at the sky but there wasn’t a rain cloud in sight. Then the ground shook and flames shot high above the trees ahead.
    ‘A dragon!’ cried Digory in alarm. He jumped off Barley and led her about turn. Then, clambering on again he gave the old horse a giddy-up kick.
    ‘I think I’ll ride north this morning,’ he said out loud in case anyone was watching. (After all, knights are supposed to ride towards dragons, not in the opposite direction.)
    And with a snort Barley trotted off.

THE KINGDOM OF KING WIDGET

    To the north was a castle on a hill with white turret towers and an orchard below. There was no sign of a dragon and no princesses to be seen anywhere. That looks pretty safe, thought Digory who, by now, was feeling hungry.
    So he trotted up the hill to the castle, with his dragon’s tooth glinting in the sun, trying to look bold and brave and knightly.
    As Digory rode across the moat and through the castle gate, he noticed everything had a sign with its name written on: ‘Drawbridge’, ‘Wall’, ‘Courtyard’. Even the people had tickets pinned to their backs: ‘Jester’, ‘Watchman’ and ‘Dungeon Keeper’.
    Digory was greeted by an old man with a quill pen behind his ear, wearing a label saying ‘Labeller’.
    ‘Please, tell me, why does everything have a sign?’ asked