Over the Hills and Far Away Read online

  ~’The Bridge,’ Shel Silverstein~

  Here There Be Dragons

  ‘Here There Be Dragons,’ read the sign, but no one who was not standing right in front of it and looking directly at it would notice, for it was small, faded with age, and mostly obscured by an exuberant growth of wisteria which was far more attractive and would almost certainly draw one’s attention away from the forgotten wooden sign. The girl glanced quickly from side to side, but no one seemed to be paying any particular attention to her, as usual, and then darted into the curious little shop adjacent to the sign. A little bell tinkled overhead as she disturbed the dusty gloom within, her eyes slowly adjusting to the dim light, wondering what she would find in such an enigmatical place, the proprietor would be a gnome no doubt or perhaps they’d sell her a veritable key to fairyland.

  It could have been a bookshop or perhaps an antique store, for the innumerable shelves were lined with old and curious objects and leather-bound tomes beyond count. A grey tabby cat blinked at her like an owl from a shelf far overhead, as if he were the master of the place and all others merely his servants or patrons. She smiled impishly, bobbed a proper curtsy to the true master of the shop, and giggled like an overly amused pixie, only to gasp in surprise as she turned and found the gnome, or rather a man so bent and wrinkled that he could well pass for one. A smile both warm and curious graced his aged face as he said, “well met, lass. How may I be of service to you?”

  Immediately at ease with this genial old man, said she, “I saw your sign and had to come in.”

  “Ah!” said he with a chuckle, “few are they that ever have eyes to see my humble signage. Pray tell, how is it you are not too busy or preoccupied or important to notice?”

  She laughed like mirth itself, “why sir, I am Nobody in Particular and therefore always have time and eyes to see just such curious sights. The world is so full of wonders that a lifetime is not enough to glimpse a fraction of them, yet most people find themselves bored silly if not busy with some task or other or diverted by some electronic device.”

  “You are a strange lass for this day and age,” said the man with a secret smile.

  “Quite,” said the girl with a sigh, “I have often wondered if I wasn’t born in the wrong century.”

  “Where and when you are born are no mistake lass, whatever your preferences to the contrary,” said he with a mysterious smile.

  Her eyes narrowed, “how is it you can so boldly proclaim that I am not a mistake, sir? You neither know me nor aught of my life. It isn’t as if life is some grand story and each of us are characters, vital to the plot.”

  “But in that you are happily wrong, lass,” said he, his enigmatic smile deepening, “life is a story and you have your own part in it.”

  “But how can that be?” said she with a sigh, “my life thus far has been so drab and dull and pointless, what kind of a story is that?”

  He chuckled, “a proper beginning, me thinks.” He motioned towards the books surrounding them, “I take it you are a connoisseur of stories? Perhaps fairytales in particular?”

  She cocked her head at him, a curious smile on her face, “perhaps you know me after all, sir. Do not the best of tales begin in an ordinary place and time, nay a setting so dull and familiar the reader might well drop the book in dismay did he not know a surprise waited a few pages over. What then is the plot twist, sir? Show me your dragons, if you will!”

  “Dragons indeed,” said the man with a laugh, “legend holds that ancient maps were adorned with just such a proscription, though there is little enough evidence of that. It is a catchy phrase regardless, however and one does wonder if the world were not a better place ere it was round.”

  “I’ve always wanted to sail a ship right off the edge of the map,” said she with dancing eyes.

  “Off the map?!” said he with a laugh, “ah, no lass, this adventure will take you right off the page, out of the very book in which we currently find ourselves and into a library so vast, eternity itself would not be long enough to peruse its contents. Your vision is far too small.”

  “Well,” said she, intrigued, “I am always happy to expand my horizons. Tell me this tale too large to fit properly in a book.”

  “Aye lass,” said he with a smile, “that I will, but you are correct, for that tale is so grand that ‘were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.’ Now let me see...” he trailed off, mumbling to himself as he fetched a ladder from the shadowy recesses of the little shop and climbed upon it, looking for a certain volume. She and the cat watched him curiously as he rummaged, a strange eagerness growing in her breast. At last he descended, a dusty, dog-eared volume bound in leather with flaking gold leaf, in hand. He flipped it open, pointed to a passage and said, “what do you think of that, lass?”

  She squinted at the words for a moment as she tried to read in the dim light but began, aloud, “and the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth,” she paused, looking up in perplexity at her companion, who only smiled like an imp and urged her to continue reading further on in the passage, whispered she, “therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!”

  She looked up from her reading, an unspoken question in her eyes, the old man’s smile deepened and his eyes seemed to sparkle in the ambient gloom, “what is it lass? I thought you believed in fairy tales, for that is the grandest one ever told, at least to the knowledge of mortal men.”

  She smiled ruefully, “I did say that, didn’t I? I had just hoped, well, I guess I thought your dragons were maybe, well, not evil, that’s all.”

  “Ah,” said he with a laugh, “not quite what I thought you’d take amiss about that particular passage, but what should I expect from a generation weaned on animated tales of varicolored dragons whose main personality trait can be summed up with the word ‘fun.’ Yet what do the old tales say, those written before zombies and vampires and werewolves became creatures to be emulated and admired? Back in the ancient days when a girl yet dreamed of falling for a Prince rather than the undead.”

  She smiled at her own shortsightedness, “Sir George rides out to slay the dragon, as does Beowulf. The ancient wyrms were evil embodied: greed, cruelty, and viciousness in corporeal form.” She laughed merrily at her own deception, “but it was so romantic to think of dragons as wise, benevolent creatures, impatient to carry a human upon their back for some unfathomable reason.”

  The man joined her mirth, “for there are so many counted wise among men who are equally zealous to do just that! Professors line up just for the honor of giving piggyback rides to their pupils.” They were both lost to the incongruity for some minutes thereafter and unable to maintain either a straight face or a conversation. At last he continued, “now don’t get me wrong lass, there is nothing wrong with those sorts of stories, dragons being mythical creatures, can be reimagined in any number of ways and the result can be quite splendid, but it is this modern trend of taking what once was considered evil or bad or wicked and making it over into something else altogether. Since when are the villains now the heroes and vice versa? ‘Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!’ Such is sadly the nature of the age, lass.”

  Said she thoughtfully, “now that you mention it, anything of modern origin seems to get it rather backwards: Dracula was never the hero, but a monstrosity to be destroyed, yet the popular novels now envision vampires as the boyfriend of choice. It is rather strange at that!” She glanced again at the old book and said with a frown, “in this the dragon is called the deceiver of the whole world!” She shook her head adamantly, “but the fairy tales can’t be true,
not really?”

  He smiled slightly and said, “some of them lass, for at their heart, many of the best tales are simply retelling a part of that which has already been told.”

  She raised an eyebrow, “so there is a dragon in this tale of ours, have we not a hero to slay such a beast? If this is a proper tale, as you insist.”

  “Oh, there’s a hero alright,” said he with a grin, “a right and proper hero, with an ancient lineage and prophets foretelling his coming from the very foundations of the world, but first let us look at another old legend. We’ve met the dragon, enter the unicorn.” He picked up another book, a relatively new production with colorful pages of various famous art pieces meant to be displayed prominently and consumed at leisure, warm beverage in hand.

  She eyed him speculatively as he presented her with a certain page, said she in delight, “the Unicorn Tapestries!”

  “Aye lass,” chuckled he, “there is no young girl on the planet that those old weavings do not fail to delight or intrigue. Know you aught of them?”

  “Not much,” said she thoughtfully, “only that they were discovered some years ago in an old barn wherein they had been used to cover crates or some such and were woven by person or persons unknown many hundreds of years ago. I know the meaning behind them is much debated, especially in academic circles.”

  “Exactly,” chuckled the old man, “a perfect example of ‘your great learning has driven you mad,’ as it were. Only in modern universities can you find folk so learned they can look at the obvious and come up with a theory so outlandish it makes the strangest fairytale look sane by comparison.”

  “I love the depiction of the unicorn in the garden, but the betrayal and murder of the poor creature are so sad,” said she quietly.

  “Can you think of any tale equally tragic?” asked he. She looked a question at him, knowing he would not leave her guessing long, and he did not disappoint, continued he, “the tale that inspired these tapestries, at least as one now quite unpopular theory goes, is the very answer to our dragon and it truly happened, right here, in our very own tale.”

  She looked again at the majestic creature resting quietly in the garden, triumphant over death itself, sighed she, “if only it could be true!” Suddenly her mouth quirked in an ironic smile as she quoted,

  ‘the lion and the unicorn were fighting for the crown,

  the lion beat the unicorn all around the town.

  Some gave them white bread, some gave them brown,

  some gave them plum cake and drummed them out of town.’ Is it not so, sir?”

  The ancient gnome chuckled appreciatively at her playful wit, but said quite seriously, “nay lass, it is nothing of the sort. This is no fight for the crown of a mortal Kingdom but rather a war that spans all of space and time and the realms beyond, involving every soul in and beyond creation with eternal repercussions to all. The good news is that the Unicorn has already won, hence the Dragon’s wrath. The bad news is, we are living in the very midst of that war and that old serpent, full of wrath and fury, is prowling about even as we speak.”

  “What is to be done?” asked she in trepidation.

  He smiled grimly, “take up your sword and join the fight.”