- Source
- The Reluctant Dragon by Kenneth Graham
- From Allison Lurie's The Oxford Book of Modern Fairy Tales
- Oxford University Press, Oxford: 1993.
- The Story
- The shepard's son loves to read and when the shepard finds the dragon
on the top of the mountain, the Boy "deals" with the
dragon and befriends him since they're both literary minded and
civilized. However, the village people would make up any story
for a spectacular of a fight. St George is requested to fight the dragon.
Finding out the dragon's reluctance to fight and his mild
temperament, St George stages a fake fight in which he appears to defeat
and tame the dragon and thus the dragon can be
"accepted into the society" and be left alone to do what he likes best --
making up poetry and telling stories of his young days.
- Comments
- The Reluctant Dragon is as big as four cart-horses, and all
covered with shiny scales. Its scales are deep-blue at the top of
him, shading off to a tender sort o' green below.
The dragon is poetic, reluctant to fight, and would love to be accepted into
society.
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Introduction/Index