When Toothless flies to me next, it shall be for
the last time.
I am waiting for him now, just to see him one last
time, just to remind myself, that, yes, he really does
exist. The window is a black empty square, but the
Dragon Jewel is a warm golden promise, heavy in my
hand, that he will fly through that open window, he
will shake out his wings and demand some food, some
choice snack (I, of course, know all his favourites), and
settle down in his old familiar place lying on my chest,
blowing perfect violet-coloured smoke rings right above
my heart.
Here it is, the Dragon Jewel, and there they
are, the two little dragons suspended in the amber:
one dark, one light, each with a tail in the other one’s
mouth, like the Alpha and the Omega.
Here I am, watching, waiting.
(When I die, I shall be buried at sea, in a proper
Viking Funeral, just like the one we tried to give
Toothless long ago when I was a child, when he wasn’t
487
really dead. The sword and the Jewel, I have asked to
be buried with me, for the sea is a safe place for things
to be buried. Things can be lost there, only to be found
again when the time is right.)
Once when I was a child, I dreamt that
Grimbeard the Ghastly, on the deck of his ship The
Endless Journey, threw the sword Endeavour up into the
air.
Up and up it spun, through the inky blackness,
across the cavernous span of a hundred years, until,
entirely of its own accord, my own left hand sprang out
of space and stars and neverending time and caught it.
Now that I am so very old, I am dreaming once
again.
And in my dream I am the one throwing the
sword.
It is spinning now, in the black starlit waters of my
dream, right above your head, dear reader.
A sword that may look Second-Best, and
Second-hand, but carries the memories of a thousand
lost fights, a history lesson in itself.
Reach out, and catch it by the hilt.
Swear, by its name, Endeavour, to do your utmost
to make this world a better place than when you arrived
in it.
488
For look! There will be dragons all around you,
as camouflaged as a Stealth Dragon. Maybe they are
hovering over your head, just out of your line of sight,
looking after you without you realising, just as the
nanodragons were for me. Put your head down in the
heather, and lie very still, just as I did long ago. If you
lie there long enough can you too see the faint outline
of a nanodragon moving?
Toothless will be out there, lying hidden and
asleep in some water-fed cave by the cliffs, just as small
and disobedient as ever, waiting to be found by a brave
and kind human child of the Future.
And maybe there are fiercer dragons too, sleeping
down there in the unreachable depths of the ocean, in
those trenches so deep that even humans of the future
will not be able to explore them – and they may awake
again.
If those fierce dragons do awake, if they do
open their bright cat eyes, and shake out their terrible
wings, the Dragon Jewel will still be lost in the infinite
vastnesses of the ocean.
So you will just have to make sure that the
dragons will awake in a better world than the one that I
have lived in. I have made it a little better, but it needs
to be much better still.
489
Or else there will be fangs and fire and everything
that is awe-ful.
And then we will need a Hero, and that Hero
might as well be…
… YOU.
In my beginning is my end…
There were dragons when I was a boy.
490
Books are like dragons… if we do not believe in them,
and read them, they will cease to exist.
How then will we learn the language and understand
the stories of the dear dead ghosts of the past?
SAVE THE DRAGONS.
SPEAK DRAGONESE.
READ A BOOK.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS,
THANKS AND GOODBYES
A wise person once said that a writing Hero needs three things:
innocence, arrogance and patience, so maybe Fishlegs has found
the right dragon. But no Hero can write alone. These are the
peoples of my own Archipelago, who have loved and supported
me – some for fifteen years, and even further back.
The early Hachette Tribe:
Marlene Johnson, Kate Burns, Les Phipps,
Alison Still, Venetia Gosling, Claudia Symons,
Harry Barker, Margaret Conroy, Mary Byrne,
David Mackintosh and Erin Stein
And the Warriors of today –
many of them with numerous years’ service:
Fritha Lindqvist, Rebecca Logan, Andrew Sharp, Nirmal Sandhu,
Susan Barry, Helen Marriage, Sally Felton,
Daniel Fricker, Hilary Murray Hill, Emily Smith,
Jason McKenzie, Charmian Allwright, Camilla Leask,
Jo Hardacre, Megan Tingley and Andrew Smith
Special big thanks to Jenny Stephenson
and Naomi Greenwood
And most important of all, my long-time editor
Big Chief Anne McNeil, Mighty Sword and
Defender of all things Dragon
The DreamWorks Tribe:
High Chief Jeffrey Katzenberg, Chris Kuser, Bill Damaschke,
Chris Sanders (who co-directed the first movie), Pierre-Olivier
Vincent, Nico Marlet, Simon Otto, Will Davies,
John Powell, Jay Baruchel, America Ferrara, Gerard Butler
and the whole animation and acting team
And most especially, Bonnie Arnold, Producer-Hero,
and His Most Bardic Brilliance, Dean DeBlois
Swords-for-Hire and Bardiguard Protection:
Staunch Defenders and Protectors, my agents Caroline Walsh
and Nicky Lund, and my lawyer David Colden
With special thanks to Travelling
Troubadour and Acting Genius:
David Tennant, a one man Archipelago all on his own
The Cheerers-on:
Amanda Craig, Nicolette Jones, Julia Eccleshare,
Nick Tucker, Peter Florence, Martin Chilton, Emily Drabble,
Michelle Pauli and the team at Guardian Children’s Online,
Lorna Bradbury, James Lovegrove and the teams at
BBC Breakfast, Newsround and Blue Peter
The Fiery Tribes of Knowledge, Wisdom and FUN:
Booksellers, librarians and teachers everywhere
The Friends-and-Family Tribe:
My parents the Great Chieftains Michael Blakenham and Marcia
Blakenham O Hear Their Names and Tremble Ugh Ugh without
whom the whole adventure would never have started,
Judit Kumar, Lauren Child, and the dear dead Heroes Alan Hare,
Jill Hare and Nancy Blakenham
The Hares who live in the Land-that-Does-Not-Exist:
Caspar, Melissa, Thomasina and Inigo
The Five Fearless Faccinis: Emily, Ben,
Francesco, Delfina and Bay
And last but not least
The Cowell Companions of the Dragonmark:
My True Viking Heroes,
MAISIE, CLEMMIE and XANNY
And most of all to Simon, who (of course)
wrote all the best bits…
BECAUSE:
Love Never Dies,
What is Within is More Important
than What is Without,
The Best is Not Always the Most Obvious
and Once You’ve Loved Truly,
Thor, then You Know the Way
This is Cressida, age 9, writing on the island.
www.cressidacowell.co.uk
SEE WHERE IT ALL BEGAN!
Find more adventures and play interactive games at
HowToTrainYourDragonSeries.com
How to Train Your Dragon: How to Fight a Dragon's Fury Page 27
