Myths and Legends from Around the World

by Robin Brockman

  With a sigh the dragon knew he would have to show up that afternoon, and have a go at seeing off this champion. It might discourage the humans for a while if he won, though all they cared about was their prosperity. However, he had really no alternative but to starve to death. What else was a fellow to do? Lately there was nothing else but their livestock, though he was careful never to eat so many that he would bankrupt them. That would be as stupid as it would have been to have eaten all the wild animals in his own territory.

  Evil, the dragon snorted again. Evil because he killed and ate what people were going to eat? Why, he even dispatched the poor creatures more swiftly and kindly than the humans did. No, to them, he and the lions were wicked and symbols of all that was bad in the world. Once dragons were considered the givers of life, of precious water, then the water became treasure they were said to hoard, and they had to be killed for people to get it off them. Humans never seemed to make up their minds about dragons. Until lately, the dragon thought sadly. Now we've become a certain evil that has to be overcome at every turn. And that, he knew, was what this was all about. It was a mere gesture, a show of righteousness.

  The dragon knew the hero was going to try to prove himself to the others, mark himself out as different and more favoured by whatever strange forces or idols his brand of humans worshipped. The silly man had even succeeded in persuading, or coercing, a horse into carrying him not only to, but indeed in, the contest. This was a new innovation they had introduced in their wars in recent centuries. Formerly men had been drawn in wheeled chariots, the dragon recalled, but with the stronger backed horses they had produced (by interfering with the animal's natural breeding patterns), humans now rode right on the poor beasts’ backs.

  Again the dragon sighed. He had seen a lot in his life and had watched humans with a weary and curious eye ever since he could remember. As the only other sentient and intelligent creatures around, they interested him. He had seen early on that one day they might pose a threat, and knew, of course, that dragons had been killed by them, though it had always seemed one of those things that might happen to somebody else. He had assumed, too, that the dragons involved were troublemakers, or particularly feeble in mind or body.

  It had been something of a shock for him to discover himself in this predicament. Yet there was little to be gained from running off to China or anywhere else. He had these people trained well enough, did not tax them too badly, no matter what they told the hero, and he was not about to let them get away with such a ridiculous attempt to deprive him of his life and livelihood. He had lived in this valley since long before their arrival. Let them pack up and move to China.

  The George in this story was not a martyr of any monotheistic faith or even of the Roman Empire in which he was later said to have served as a soldier. This George was not thinking of glory or spiritual salvation, not his own or that of the town. No, all that was on his mind, apart from the will to survive, was a desperate longing to win the beautiful princess.

  It would be a very fine thing if everyone else thought he was a hero, he told himself that morning, but it was the princess that he really needed to impress. He had no thought of becoming sacred to some future religion or the patron saint of countries not yet dreamt of. He was a young man in the throes of love, and no end of perfectly straightforward lust. The princess was, after all, a knockout. One way or the other, George freely admitted to himself, he was absolutely gone on her.

  If he could not have this girl, then let the dragon have him, for he would not care to live a day, an hour, a minute, longer. It hurt to think of her, and all his considerable athletic ability, his co-ordination, quick wits and keen balance left him when she was around. As a consequence none of the attributes that had first singled him out as the man to tangle with the dragon had been much on display since his arrival.

  Still, everyone had faith in him, it seemed, especially the princess. She was so kind and gentle, he thought dreamily, and so needed to be saved from that terrible creature. For a moment George dwelt on the rightness of parents sending their children out to be eaten instead of putting up a fight and mobilizing everyone to swamp the dragon with numbers. Many might die that way, but if, as the townsfolk declared, he was eating his way through the whole population anyhow, such a loss would be worth it in the long run.

  How could parents, he mused, particularly the parents of so wonderful a girl as the princess, send her out to be roasted alive and devoured, just to save their own hides and property? Then he pulled himself up. It isn't right to second-guess royalty, he thought. The king and queen must know what they're doing. But did he?

  George had done prodigious deeds in battle. He had slain some pretty impressive beasts of the more ordinary sort, such as lions, tigers and bears. A dragon was quite another thing, though. If it really had been eating two sheep a day, then two or more people, it must be pretty big. Much bigger than him at any rate, and able to fly and breath fire. This adversary would be a very tough customer indeed.

  With a shaky hand George drank a little wine and looked out the window at the slowly rising sun. It was ages yet and he had not slept a wink. Young men in love and about to fight dragons seldom do. With a sigh, he remembered all that had passed between him and the princess and knew there was no way in the world that he could have her if he did not fight the dragon. He also knew there was little chance of him having her, or even of living, if he did not win. Setting his jaw, he went to see to his horse and his weapons, not for the first time that night.

  To give the princess her due, she was unaware that the dragon was indifferent to her as fodder. He liked his food well done and to leave so slender a morsel as she was over the flame for so much as a breath would have reduced her to a flavourless cinder. She did not know either that the other things she and her fellows put such store by were also of no interest to him. He was unimpressed with either physical beauty or royal titles.

  When they staked her out that day at high-noon, she honestly thought her life would be forfeited if the hero did not win through. It was an act of sacrifice and faith on her part and she was ready to face any eventuality. If her father's kingdom could be rid of the dragon and grow rich, then the risk would have been worth it.

  A hero was not going to fight for the mere fun of it, after all, and a dragon was not going to venture out into the open to face one for just any sort of bait. They both demanded a prize and she was willing to play that role. Besides, she thought, that George is a beau-sabre, dream-boat and stud-muffin of the first rank. Wedding bells with that hunk or a luncheon date with a giant reptile, she thought with a toss of her head, oh how is a girl to decide?

  With a brave smile she let them tie her hands to the stake she stood against and watched them run off to a safe distance. Over the next hill, she knew, George would be waiting, mounted and well armed and from somewhere else nearby, the dragon was bound to spot her, for his cave was known to overlook this gully. He would come for his offering and receive, she supposed, the surprise of his life.

  Reluctantly, begrudgedly the dragon sauntered down the hillside, eyeing the princess with what would have been recognized by another dragon as a bemused expression. To her he only looked hungry and illtempered. That he did not even deem to fly hardly registered with her. If anything, she thought he was coming slowly in order to prolong her torment.

  His progress was so slow that the prearranged signal was not difficult to make before her life was directly in peril. The shrill scream emitted by the princess would have broken glass had any been around. As it was it made the dragon jump and left him with an uncomfortable sensation in his ears. George and his horse, or rather George on his horse, came racing around the hill that had been concealing them to find the dragon stopped in his tracks, recovering from the pain in his head.

  Now, the dragon was not large but the hero was not either, and the pole-thing he carried may have been sharp, but it looked rather flimsy. It was the horse that really attracted the dragon's attention. His
fear of the hero was diminished now he actually confronted him. Yes, the fellow was armed and braver than the general run of humans, but human he was never the less. The horse on the other hand was good red meat and plenty of it. It was bigger than other horses he had seen or eaten before, bred up as a warhorse, he supposed, without thinking of what that might mean. As it was lunchtime, the one thing he did not want to happen was for the horse to escape while he was dispatching the silly humans and teaching their brethren a much-needed lesson.

  As George charged at the dragon all he could think of, for his own part, was that it was disappointingly small, and then he remembered that it still outweighed him and his horse together. Dust boiled behind them as the din of clattering hooves blended with George's shouted war-cry, the girl's screams, which were now ones of encouragement, and the horse snorting and whinnying.

  Only the dragon was silent, his mind occupied with the problem of how to sort the equine wheat from the human chaff. How could he deal with the hero, who was no doubt dangerous, and yet not lose the tasty looking horse? The answer, he realized, was simple. Do not frighten the thing off or let it throw the man from its back and become separated from him too soon. Let them get close, yes, but above all cut off their retreat. Then he spied the dry scrub around the entrance to the gully which they were just passing, and with a quick whoosh of fiery breath, he shot flames behind the charging horseman. The flames roared in the dry desert air. Horse and man felt their heat and then, from fear and instinct, training and breeding, far from pausing, far from thinking the next breath of fire had their names on it, they fled the flames but charged all the harder. The horse put on a sudden burst of speed, the man shut his eyes and gritted his teeth, while the dragon debated whether or not to spin and strike them with his tail, or singe them with his next breath. Then before he knew it, they were on him, far sooner than he had imagined they possibly could be.

  The collision was tremendous and the noise of the combined thud and grunt echoed throughout the gully and all over the surrounding countryside. Tumbling and sprawling, horse, man and dragon rolled in the dust, the wind knocked out of all of them. The first to rise was the horse, which trotted out of the dust cloud and turned to look for its master. George was up next. Drawing his sword, he groped about blindly until the breeze took the dusty confusion away. And there, staring at the lance that fixed him to the ground, the dragon sat, wondering what on earth had happened to him.

  George released the princess from her bonds and took the prize of a kiss, the first of many. Then he turned to the dragon, but he did not strike off its head as logically he should have done. Cruel and unthinking, supposing it a dumb beast and evil anyway, they harnessed it with the princess's girdle. Far from dispatching the dragon swiftly, shocked and subdued and suffering though it was, they led it stumbling, unable to fight them off or fly away, back to the town.

  When they arrived, the whole populace turned out. Then, there before the town gate the creature was assailed and overwhelmed by the knife-wielding frenzied yet fearful mob. Seeing the dragon was helpless, the stay-at-homes darted in and attacked it, while George and the princess contented themselves with gazing into each other's eyes.

  The dragon's thoughts as the blades went into his flesh were not fearful, and he endured the pain well enough, while deeming the whole sorry business as typical of the human race, his usual ill-luck and the correctness of his own predictions. Humans, especially ones raised west of the Ganges, wanted it all and would not let rare beasts or even the nature of life itself get in their way. Dragons and all they had symbolized, in the past, anywhere in the world, good bad and just plain magical, would be destroyed. Anything that challenged man, anything that ate what he ate, anything he feared and did not understand, anything he respected but could not control, would be defeated and eradicated.

  If that's the world these people want, the dragon thought, then I'm glad I won't be here to see it.

  As for George, through the ages countless stories would be told about him. Different cultures and religions would adopt him as their own and everything would be adapted to purposes he could hardly have imagined or ever cared about. All that mattered to him, quite rightly, was that he had won the day, survived intact and got the girl. They married, had children, lived into old age and died as people do, in pretty short order.

  Dragons are another story. They can, for instance, suffer multiple stab wounds and being thrown onto a town rubbish heap to be consumed by flames and smoke – much of them their own – and manage to burrow under the ashes and sneak away in the dead of night to hide in a cave. Recovering their strength, they might even be minded to fly to China, there to be truly appreciated and live on for centuries.

  The Adventure of Goroba-Dike

  Like the legend of Mamadi Sefe Dekote, this tale is also from the Sudan, although of a more recognizably heroic and romantic type.

  A swirl of dust, loud muttering and the pounding of hooves enveloped the village as the pair of horsemen raced about it, one overturning baskets and kicking out at people, ripping off shades and awnings, snarling and cursing. Behind him, the smaller, older man shouted flattering words, trying to calm the other, while smiling and whispering apologies to the scurrying villagers, rolling his eyes in wonder and embarrassment at each new outrage.

  “You sheep,” cried the infamous young warrior, Goroba-Dike, leaning down from his saddle to grab a melon from the frozen hands of a child and flinging it with precision at the grey head of the terrified chief of the hamlet. His less expensively dressed companion shut his eyes and shook his head, then removed his own scarf to wipe the globules of fruit from the old man's dazed face.

  The horsemen were of the Fulbe tribe, black and tall and hardened by the rugged life of the African desert, one a highly spirited, hot tempered fighting man lost in a time of peace, the other his ‘mabo’, a poet and personal praise singer. This latter, Ulal, grimaced and spurred his horse to catch up with the furious Goroba-Dike.

  “Once we Fulbe were herdsmen,” the warrior shouted at the cowering, running, hiding villagers. “Then the cruel Fasa tribe conquered our traditional grazing lands and oppressed us. We became wanderers to escape them. We were strengthened by our suffering and we learnt to raid and fight and acquire new lands and to fear no one.”

  Goroba-Dike's warhorse danced in the tiny square surrounded by shabby huts of mud and sticks. Dirty children wailed and dogs barked from a distance but nothing moved.

  “Come out and attack me. Drive me away from your daughters and your farms. Come on; send out ten good men. Twenty! Care you nothing for your women's honour, for the safety of your property?”

  The hiding of a particularly comely maiden by her worried father had sparked off the incident, but there was far more than this to the whipped up passions of Goroba–Dike. Although a hero among his own people, he was, even at home, considered troublesome and prickly. A row with his wealthy family had brought him here, to the Bammama country.

  A weaker tribe than his own, the poor Bammama suffered under his careless and violent temperament, and they longed for him to move on. He bullied them and made too free with their women and it was said among them that he liked to grind up Bammama babies to feed in mash to his warhorse. This slander was more than half-believed and it had the desired effect of making him less popular with the local girls. Somehow this tale had come to Goroba-Dike's attention and the restless hero was now more angry and fearsome than ever.

  Suddenly, from nowhere, a small stone clanged against the warrior's helmet. Goroba-Dike whirled about, drawing his sword. He saw nothing until, looking down, he espied a few feet away the frightened but defiant figure of a boy of eight or so, his arm poised to throw again. Letting out a deep sigh, Goroba-Dike slowly turned his horse and rode out of the village. After a slight delay, Ulal followed at a trot.

  Side by side they rode in silence for several miles, until the mabo suggested they might go back home and make peace with Goroba-Dike's father and brother.


  “Never,” the young hero grunted. “Just look at their tiresome existence. We are one of the very best of families, indisputably of the oldest, noblest blood, by heaven, and yet they have no idea how to live.”

  “Perhaps conditions are better now.”

  “Would they listen to me before, the only one with the sense to conduct himself according to our rank?”

  “No, lord,” the mabo nodded wearily.

  “Indeed. We rule nearly all the Massina district and have great wealth but it is wasted on my father and elder brother. Wasted. No, nothing will have changed.”

  As the younger son it was also true that Goroba-Dike could expect to inherit nothing. Living under the thumb of his relations had galled him ever since he had come to manhood. A year or so before, in high dudgeon over some minor upset, Goroba-Dike had left, for good he swore, and with Ulal had come to live in these parts, on a small allowance, much to the discomfiture of the Bammama.

  “But this life too is unworthy of me,” Goroba-Dike conceded, catching a glimpse of the single arched eyebrow of his mabo. “Though of so noble a line, I live no better than a roving bandit.”

  “I had not liked to say, but it is hardly epic stuff, lord.”

  “Everything around me is petty and shabby and tiresome,” complained the hero.

  It was plain enough to one who knew him so well that Goroba-Dike was in pain, bored and unfulfilled, and was lately only lashing out in frustration.

  Stirring the fire that evening and glancing at the listless Goroba-Dike lounging against his saddle, legs stretched out, Ulal fell to musing on a proposition the Bammama had made him that afternoon. The long and short of it was that they would make it well worth his while to lure his master as far from their country as possible.

  With a little Fulbe hauteur of his own, the mabo had chuckled at their predicament and airily said he would consider the idea, hinting nevertheless that a far higher sum would have to be forthcoming than the figure named.