But Halla was delighted with it all and dug her bare heels into the scaly sides of the dragon, who went slithering and crackling off through the forest, every now and then accidentally setting fire to a bush or a drift of dry birch or oak leaves, or singeing the fur of one of the animals which was too proud or too stupid to get out of the way.
Chapter Two
The Dragons
On his way home that evening Uggi took a short flight to the top of Signal Hill, whose summit was all scorched and scarred so that not even the stillest stones grew moss on them. Here he gave a great blast and flames like enormous golden lilies shot out of his nostrils and vanished into sudden dusk. His cousins, Bauk, Gork, Hafr and Hroar, came flying over, creaking with their wings like a thousand flights of geese. They were told the whole story, while Halla Bearsbairn drummed her bare feet on her own dragon’s back. Very sensibly, they decided to fire-proof her at once, before anything awkward could happen.
The ceremony of fireproofing is a very old and beautiful one, which can only be performed by the Goddess Demeter or by not less than three members of the Ancient Order of Dragons, of whom one at least must be a Master Dragon. Halla, who was used to being licked by bears’ tongues, thought nothing of being licked by the forked-flame tongues of dragons. For a short while afterwards everything that she looked at appeared to have a fine fringe of flame, and indeed this would come back to her afterwards, when she was much older, if ever she got angry.
All that evening and far into the night and long after Halla was asleep, the dragons moved and danced round her in an earnest excitement, spiring up from Signal Hill towards the stars, shooting out bursts of flame which reflected from polished scales and claws and multiplied themselves into hundreds of flashes and twinkles. Sometimes they would spring into the air, clapping their wings together and undulating downwards. Sometimes they would shoot away till they were as tiny as rockets and then come thundering back. And they determined that they would bring up the maiden Halla to do credit to every kind of dragonhood and to be a bane to kings and heroes and all such enemies of true dragons. And carefully, before morning greyed the night sky, or dimmed the frosty stars, Uggi the Master Dragon carried back the sleeping child in his great claws, and her pale gold hair swished and feathered in the flame of his breathing, but was never singed.
And so Halla was brought up by the dragons, and year after year she learnt to think of things in the dragonish way. She had long lessons, specializing in geology, arithmetic, especially multiplication, which led in turn to economics, always an important part of dragon history, and also of course in such elements of magic as were thought suitable for her. When lessons were over she was allowed to play with Uggi’s treasure, go sliding down heaps of pearls and build towers of gold and ivory boxes. She could dress herself up in ropes of jewels and look at herself for as long as she liked in polished silver mirrors; these were held up for her by an admiring young dragon with a fiery smile but only recently hatched and still soft-scaled. She wore cloth of gold, or cloth of silver when she went blackberrying. For, try as the dragons would to get rid of such tastes, she was bearish about berries and honey. Still, she learnt to enjoy dinner parties of over-roasted joints, chops grilled hard, blazing plum pudding and ginger snaps. And of course she had as much snapdragon as she liked.[1]
Dragons like to live on blasted heaths and desolate, snow-capped, igneous mountains, but Bork or Hafr, who were young dragons, not many centuries old, would often take her for rides down to the deep woods or the rivers and, from a distance, they would point out to her the dwellings of men, the halls with the fields and barns and stockades round them at the head of the fjords, and the boats moored at the jetties or drawn up on land in times of storm. The biggest of these were called dragon ships, but the dragons themselves were never certain how to take this. It might, of course, and properly should be, a form of worship, but with the race of men one never knew.
In summer Dragon Mountain was hot and stuffy, and the Desolate Heath made prickly walking. But in winter all was snow-covered and the enormous northern lights drew curtains of shimmer between earth and upper air or stilt-danced round the Pole Star. The dragons rushed through them, crackling with static. In winter, too, they heard the Fenris Wolf howling, far, far away, yet too near for comfort. But Halla knew that nothing could hurt her so long as she was with the rest of the dragons and diligently guarding a treasure.
In her history lessons she learnt, first, about the beginnings of things, the tree Yggdrasil growing above the first dragon’s nest, before the first dragons had chipped their milky eggs: about the weaving of the Norns and the peculiar habits and preferences of All-Father, who had made men in order to amuse himself. And then she learnt about the rebellion of men against dragons: how men had been taught by the Great Dragon to keep sheep and cows for dragon dinners and not to complain if an occasional shepherd was eaten with his flocks, since that was all to the good when looked at the right way. When flocks and herds increased and over-production was threatened, dragons stepped (or more usually flew) into the breach and disposed of the surplus with no trouble at all. Occasionally, and for everyone’s good, mankind were instructed to offer a fresh and juicy princess to their own particular dragon. It was said that the princesses enjoyed the experience. Certainly the dragons did.
But mankind became rebellious. Kings and champions and heroes, unfairly armed with flame-resisting armour and unpleasant lances, were encouraged by certain underground elements and against the wishes and interests of the bulk of the population, to interfere between princess and dragon. Occasionally this resulted in tragedies, as in the case of the good dragon who was killed by the man George, or of the dragon so cruelly done to death by Perseus when about to make the acquaintance of Andromeda. It could be verified that no princess was ever asked whether she wanted to be rescued and carried off by a dragon-slayer to a fate (no doubt) worse than death. Sometimes, too, a dragon was murdered in cold blood, as happened quite recently to the dragon Fafnir, an uncle of Gauk’s and a Master Dragon, who was rudely awakened and brutally stabbed by a young man called Siegfried, who, however, came to no good end himself.
But more often in the stories the dragon made good and all ended for the best. Sometimes Halla played at Princesses and Dragons, pretending to be tied to a tree and then waiting for one of the young dragons to rush at her with his mouth open, drenching her in delightful, tickly flames. And there would be no horrible hero to interfere. Sometimes Halla found herself wishing she was a real princess, so that it could all genuinely happen.
But the economics were more serious. Briefly, they came to this. The dragons gathered gold. The kings and heroes squandered it. Among kings, the shocking name of praise was bracelet-giver. And from where did the golden bracelets come? Why, from the treasure that some dragon had painstakingly amassed, with what care and thought and industry! Then, in some low way, a dragon would be attacked and murdered and the gold dispersed into the hands of those who had done nothing to earn it. Heroes prided themselves on a thing called generosity. And what was generosity? It was the giving away of something to those that had not earned it, and it was usually done by those that had not earned it. What sentiment or practice could be more revolting to dragons of right feeling? It would then be necessary for the robbed dragon to go over the whole process of collecting, storing away and cataloguing and finally guarding—even with his life, remember!—a new treasure. Every dragon had his cave and, in the order of nature, every cave had its treasure; for was not the sparkle of treasure implicit in the velvet darkness of a cave? This was part of the order and pattern of life, as laid down since the beginning of time.
“Where does the gold come from first?” asked Halla, frowning over it, sitting there on a rock with her hands round her knees and her golden, dragon-combed hair pouring down over her cloth of gold school frock with the great rubies round the neck and weighting the hem.
“It is melted out of the rocks by the dwarfs,” said Uggi, “and in the old
days it was only the dwarfs who could work it. But now unfortunately they have taught the art to men. Yet it was always the men who won it from the dwarfs by force and trickery, which is the kind of thing mankind is clever at. And it is always through men that it comes to its home and safe-keeping in some dragon’s cave.”
“Why don’t the dragons get it straight from the dwarfs?” asked Halla, “then there needn’t be men.”
“Because,” said Uggi patiently, “dwarfs live in cracks and holes into which dragons, being of a proper size, cannot get. But men, being halfway to dwarfs, wriggle in after them.”
Halla stretched her arms and the bracelets clinked and the rings flashed in the sunshine. “I’m glad I’m a dragon,” she said.
“Never forget, child,” said old Uggi, “not only to think dragon thoughts, but also that you are part of a dragon’s treasure. My treasure. And remember, if a man were to see you, he would immediately try to steal everything you are wearing and carry it away and probably murder you as well.”
“I’d breathe fire on him,” said Halla, “when will you teach me to breathe fire? I’m tired of history.”
“It is very sad,” said Uggi, “but I cannot teach you to breathe fire.”
“Why not?” asked Halla. “Is it because I was a bear once? If only you would show me how to breathe fire, I would try to stop eating berries and getting my paws full of earth!” For the dragons were always speaking to her about these habits.
Uggi sighed, a hot, hot sigh that burnt a small patch of lichen that had survived so far on the side of the rock. He felt that, in spite of the way he had brought Halla up as a dragon, the moment was come when she must learn the facts of life, hard though it would be for him to tell them to her. He went on: “It is time, my child, that I told you something. Have you noticed, when you look at yourself in the shining mirror, that you are not like me nor indeed like any of the dragons?”
“Not very like,” said Halla, admiring her long toes, which were decorated with gold and emerald toe-rings, but which were not quite long enough, nor nearly sharp enough for claws. “Perhaps I shall be more like you when I am older. I think I can feel my wings growing,” she added, looking backwards over her shoulder and scratching her back.
Uggi the dragon wept a sizzling tear. “My child, I am afraid you will never grow to look like a dragon, for the truth is, you are not a dragon.”
“But—” said Halla, and her lip trembled, “I feel like a dragon. You always tell me I’m a dragon. Oh, I know I’m a dragon!”
“Alas!” said Uggi. “That is not enough. Though it is something. I am afraid that what I have to say will upset you very much, my dear. You must be brave, brave as a good dragon. The truth is that you are a child of man and only by adoption one of us. But never mind,” he said eagerly, “you are quite safe. You shall never go back to them. Unless, that is, you want to do so.”
Halla burst into tears and threw her arms round Uggi’s neck. “I could never possibly want to go back, never!” she said. “Why did you have to tell me? Why can’t you turn me into a dragon?”
“Even the Norns, or All-Father himself, could not do that,” said Uggi gravely.
“But why not?” asked Halla. “You taught me magic. I can make magic frogs out of stones, after all! Can’t I?” It was one of her best learned lessons in magic.
“But think,” said Uggi. “Those frogs only do what you want. Unless you say the Word to them, they cannot jump. If I were to turn you into a dragon—and I very much doubt if I could—you would only be able to fly or breathe fire or gather treasure or do any other dragonish thing if I said the Word to you. You would not be a dragon in your own mind and heart—in the way, my dear, that I believe you are now!” And he planted a fiery kiss on her forehead, and then bethought himself of an ancient carved emerald at the very back of his treasure cave which Halla had never seen. They would go and find it together. So she cheered up, for she was dragon-minded enough to find the thought of treasure above all elevating.
[1] In case you have never eaten snapdragon, this is how it is made. You get a shallow metal tray (real dragons always have gold) and you scatter blanched almonds and raisin clusters on it, then you pour brandy all over and set it alight. Then you pull out and eat as many almonds and raisins as you can. As I remember it, there used to be a lot of nasty juice left at the end, but it is more than forty years since I ate it last, for people have forgotten to honour the dragons.
Chapter Three
Visitors on Dragon Mountain
As she grew older the fact of being a human weighed on her less. Often she forgot it for days at a time. Once they were visited by the Grendel family, curious-shaped and rather watery folk who looked askance at Halla because she reminded them of the awful fate that had befallen their grandmother and their elder uncle, at the hands of the man Beowolf, who had actually followed the poor old lady right into her house at the bottom of the Terrible Mere and cut off her arm. And all because they had punctually taken their tribute—and no more—from the hall of the King of Denmark. It made you wonder what the world was coming to. It made you suspect anyone of humanity. But soon they realized that Halla was not that kind of human, and when they said good-bye, leaving wet marks on the stones of Dragon Mountain, where they had been sitting, they had been so delighted with Halla’s sympathy and anger that they suggested she should be called Halla Heroesbane. They were sure that she would be the means of avenging dragons and Grendels and such on the race of heroes, and a proud girl was Halla that night, curling up to sleep in her nest of moss and pearls, half-bearish and half-dragonish. Bearsbairn had been a good name to start with, since it distinguished her from all other humans, but Heroesbane was better.
News would come to Dragon Mountain of events in the significant world, which was not of course the world of men, nor yet of Gods. Dragon events took place on various levels. There was, for instance, the lighting of the centennial pyre which the phoenix constructed for herself; a young, untreasured dragon would be chosen to perform the ceremony with a single, well-directed puff. This always meant a gathering of noble and ancient dragons in the Arabian waste. Uggi had been there once in his early days. But now he was apt to think of such things as superfluities; his heart was where his treasure was. But Halla enjoyed hearing about these things and would have liked to take part in the rejoicings; she pictured herself sometimes as the superb, white-hot phoenix, but more often as the modest young dragon whose one deed had been perfectly done, presage of a solid and splendid future.
From time to time Uggi would go off on business. He would see that his claws were sharp and his wing-joints supple, and Halla would look over his scales to make sure that none of them were cracked or in need of repair. If they were she would take out her file and polish and her little box of practical magic and soon set everything to rights. It was a great help to Uggi. But she always worried about the soft patch behind his foreleg, and once she tried to get him to wear a neat little piece of chain armour there. She had found it among the treasure and thought it was just the thing. Uggi, however, condemned it out of hand as undragonish and told her firmly that there was no danger. And indeed, sooner or later, back he would come with an addition to the family plate. Delightedly Halla would date and catalogue it, and between them they would find just the right niche in the rocks of the treasure cave, in which it would rest.
While Uggi was away, Halla would do her homework, and the younger dragons would look in for tea, which, of course, they took as nearly as possible on the boil, with red-pepper sandwiches. Sometimes other creatures from the country beyond the deep forest would come, including various unicorns which would keep on following Halla about and soppily laying their heads down in her lap whenever she sat down, and eyeing her with their great golden eyes. As their heads were very heavy, this was a nuisance, especially when two of them did it together. Nor were they anything like so much fun to ride as the dragons.
Sometimes the spongy-nosed trolls came, but instead of talking prop
erly they made hollow noises like caves, and they dropped bones about. Then there were the giants, many of whom had peculiarities, such as a third eye, of which they were so proud that they could never stop talking about them, while others bragged about seven-league boots and cloaks of invisibility, which always looked very ordinary. There was the great Boygg who carried a pine-tree for an umbrella and with one motion of his thumb opened it out into an oak if it looked like rain. But he always talked in riddles, which made Halla feel very shy. And none of them took a really serious sensible view about treasure; in fact, the trolls often made stupid jokes about it, in the worst taste.
Once Bork took her to visit the old sea serpent who wore a crown on each head and talked slobberingly with all of them at once so that Halla became quite confused. She met some attractive young mermaids that day though, and found that several of them had already achieved her ambition and put down one or two heroes. But when she asked them how it had been done there was very nearly a nasty accident: they said they would show her, and before she knew where she was they had pulled her into the bottom of a pool and were holding her under, laughing streams of bubbles. Indeed, they only let her go when Bork, who suddenly realized what was happening, began too bite their tails. Perhaps the mermaids had not meant any harm, but Halla was quite upset and refused to go near the sea again.
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