Douglas the Dragon: Book 1 - Douglas the Unloved Dragon

by William Forde

life below.

  That first night in the barn, the baby dragon was put to bed by Douglas beneath a blanket of straw. However, each time the boy started to leave the barn to return to the house; ‘The Angry Hill’ began to rumble its discontent. It had started to wake up from its angry sleep and although it wouldn’t erupt for a number of years yet, its expressed snores of anger sounded like thunder to the boy and baby dragon in the barn.

  The sounds alarmed the baby dragon and it ran towards its ‘mother figure’, Douglas, and hugged his legs in a grip of comfort. Douglas tried to reassure the baby dragon that it was only thunder and would soon pass, before returning the creature to its blanket of hay. But before Douglas had reached the barn door again, ‘The Angry Hill’ roared had once more. Again, the baby dragon ran grappling for the comfort of Douglas’s touch.

  “Okay, fella. I give up. It doesn’t look like I’m going to get a wink of sleep tonight unless we sleep together. And if you can’t share my bed, then I guess I’ll just have to sleep alongside you beneath the straw. Now budge up, Buster, and give me some of that cover. Night, night!” Douglas announced in a tone of resignation.

  When Douglas’s mother came into the barn the following morning looking for her son and saw him sleeping alongside the baby dragon, she knew there and then that she was fighting a losing battle if she tried to separate her son from his newfound companion. Both were beneath the straw bed, cuddling each other and each wearing a smile of contentment; a smile the like of which she hadn’t seen on her son’s face since before the death of his beloved father.

  At that precise moment, Douglas’s mother decided that it would be wrong to come between such happiness of human and creature; both of whom had experienced bereavement and loss. Looking at the couple beneath the hay, it was clear to see how much love and comfort they derived from each other’s presence. As she woke her son up gently, Douglas looked into his mother’s eyes and said, “Good morning, Mum. I love you, Mum.”

  “I know you do, my boy. I know you do; and I love you too. I’ve been thinking, Douglas, as I watched you and that small creature there sleeping. I was just thinking how natural you look together. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you as happy, my boy; a long time. Not since before your dear dad died, have I seen you with such a look of contentment across your face, “Douglas’s mum said with a tear in her eye.

  Douglas saw his mother start to cry. Giving her a cuddle, he said, “I know, Mum.... I know. It hurts sometimes. I miss dad also. But at least we have each other to love, whereas some poor creatures have nobody to love.” At this point, Douglas looked down at the baby dragon in the straw and the boy also started to cry.

  The baby dragon opened its eyes and saw the boy and his mother cuddling and crying together; so it broke out into tears also! The baby dragon then decided to throw his arms around Douglas’s legs and comfort him. What a sight to behold. There was Douglas cuddling his mother, with the baby dragon cuddling Douglas. All three were cuddling each other and all three creatures were crying!

  Looking lovingly into the eyes of her son, Douglas’s mother softly said, “Okay, you win, my boy. The creature can stay. But, it doesn’t come in the house. It lives here in the barn!”

  “Oh Mum! Thank you, thank you, and thank you! You’re the best mum in the whole wide world. You’re the best; simply the best!”

  “I know... I know” smiled Douglas’s mother. “Now get some breakfast down you and let’s be having you off to school my boy.”

  So, the baby dragon was adopted by the boy Douglas and his mother, and became part of their family household. Before very long both boy and baby dragon became inseparable. Everywhere the boy Douglas went, the dragon followed, like a shadow that wouldn’t be shaken off. Each time the boy’s mother called for her son, ‘Douglas’, the boy came running, but so did the dragon after him. Call for ‘Douglas,’ and both boy and dragon always arrived together. So, in the end, when the time came to name the dragon, there was no choice in the matter; there being only one name that the creature would answer to, the same as the boy. So it was decided to name the dragon ‘Douglas’ also.

  So, we now have a boy called ‘Douglas’ and a dragon called ‘Douglas’ who thinks that the boy is its mother and follows him everywhere! When the dragon was given the same human name as the boy Douglas, villagers gradually began referring to the dragon as ‘he, his or him’ instead of ‘it’, whenever they didn’t use his name. This welcome change made Douglas the Dragon feel more human and truly accepted as one of the Marfield villagers.

  For the first year of his life, Douglas the Dragon lived happily with the boy and his mother. He was accepted into their home and was treated as one of the family. Everything Douglas the Boy did, Douglas the Dragon did too. Everywhere the boy went, Douglas the Dragon followed. The dragon followed the boy to bed; a development that the boy’s mother didn’t entirely embrace with enthusiasm! The dragon followed the boy to breakfast and to school. It sat at the next desk to the boy at school and in time, the dragon even learned to read, write and speak the human language. The dragon joined in the games in the Village Square with the boy Douglas and the other village children. It learned to skip, jump and sing their songs. It followed the boy Douglas everywhere; even to the loo! Sharing in the full life of Douglas the Boy and all the other village children, and being part of their adventures, soon made Douglas the Dragon a great friend to every child in Marfield. All the village adults came to accept the dragon as a harmless and loving creature in their midst. Douglas the Dragon truly felt loved.

  “Are you sure he’s a dragon?” the Mayor of Marfield asked Granny McNally; the oldest and wisest person in the village. “He seems to be too gentle and loving to be a dragon, Granny McNally.”

  “Ah, yes, Mr Mayor. I’m sure” Granny McNally replied. “I once saw one as a child, when they were more common. It’s a dragon; you mark my words.”

  The Mayor accepted this pronouncement of Granny McNally as though it was Gospel. He knew that there was very little that she didn’t know that was worth knowing. The McNally family were the oldest and largest family in Marfield, and there had never been a time since Harold the Second had ruled England in the eleventh century when Marfield did not have a McNally family on their church register or a McNally gravestone in the village cemetery. There was always an old village resident called ‘Granny McNally’ and a married woman called ‘Mother McNally,’ and a young girl called ‘Frances McNally!’ Indeed; Marfield considered the McNally family as representing ‘continuity’ between past and present. As one Granny McNally died, her place would be taken by a Mother McNally, waiting in the wings to take her place in the line of family succession; while being born would be a girl called Frances McNally, the newest apprentice in the McNally ‘assembly line.’

  As Douglas the Dragon grew older, he grew taller and stronger. Often, he would allow the village children to ride on his back. Everyone in Marfield grew to love Douglas the Dragon, and Douglas in turn grew to love everyone and everything. He had become a much-loved dragon.

  As far as the dragon was concerned, Douglas the Boy was his real mother. It had been Douglas the Boy upon whom his eyes had first looked. He had been the one to love him and care for him over the past years. Douglas the Dragon never learned the truth about his real birth mother or the tragedy that had led to her death on the day of his birth.

  During the second year of Douglas the Dragon’s life, and at the height of the adopted dragon’s happiness, tragedy struck Marfield Village. The angry volcano that had been sleeping for hundreds of years deep inside ‘The Angry Hill’ suddenly woke up and blew its head off!

  The volcano erupted and flooded nearby Marfield in a sea of red-hot lava. As the lava made its way down the hillside and through the village, it destroyed everything in its path. It burnt the crops in the fields, destroyed all the houses and shops and killed every person and creature whose path it crossed. When the volcanic outburst had ended, the heart of Marfield Village was left ruptured. M
any villagers had died and almost every family was left to mourn a loved one. Among those killed were the boy Douglas and his mother.

  Following the disaster, the villagers were left in a state of shock as they mourned the loss of their friends and family, their homes and their belongings. Douglas also felt sorrowful and lonely, and he couldn't stop himself from crying. The only mother he had ever known in his life had died in the volcanic eruption, and no words of reassurance from sympathetic villagers seemed to ease the hurt and pain of his loss. The pit of his stomach was filled with an aching emptiness. His eyes were red from crying and heavy with lack of sleep. For a time, Douglas dwelt in the depths of despair and depression. He didn't seem to care if he lived or died.

  A short while after the volcanic eruption, the villagers were assembled in the Village Square where their Mayor addressed them. Having witnessed the destruction of their village, and being their First Citizen, the Mayor felt it to be his responsibility to encourage the villagers to put their mourning behind them and to rebuild their lives the best way they could. To assist him in this matter, he called upon the wisdom of their most respected neighbour to address the sad