I do not know what all the fuss is about, really. It was only a Dragon. In the good old days they used to be ten to a penny; let's face it there were hundreds of them about in those days, lurking in their dens, coming out to snatch the occasional maiden as she wandered innocently past.
They were a bit of a pest in olden times; the dragons, I mean, not the maidens. They would come down from their caves in the mountains when the snows came and sated their rumbling tummies on anything they could find; chickens mainly but they were partial to geese and duck and were even known to take the occasional goat. They dealt with all things by breathing on them first to singe off the feathers and fur, then one more breath for rare, two for medium rare and three for well done. A quick flick in the air, a couple of chews and they were gone.
Of course, no self-respecting French dragon ever breathed more than once on anything or anyone. Sacred Blue! Never, unless it was after a few sacks of garlic, then the more the merrier!
The Germanic varietal dragon always liked a little sauerkraut on the side, but that was not a problem as there were even more bitter Germans around then than in today's hinterland.
The Hungarian dragon was very noble, majestic, dashing but a little too reckless for his own sake, often snatching glorious defeat from the jaws of impending victory. Of course he was a complete carnivore, never allowing anything resembling a fresh vegetable near his meat. If he really had to, he would soak it in vinegar for a month or two first before consuming it and only if he could wash it down with a few gallons of good old home distilled palinka, which had the fortunate side-effect of adding considerable octane to his fire breathing.
The Italian dragon was, of course, the one the English maidens most preferred to be carried off by; their dark, sultry features, the macho image bizzarely complemented by a disarmingly attractive soft feminine side, but it was the fiery temper that really did it for most.
Dragon slaying was quite a skill back then; it always helped to have a good horse though, preferably one with an asbestos skin. No namby pamby health and safety executive saying it was too dangerous. I mean, come on! Too dangerous to ride an asbestos clad horse? What did they think dragon slaying was? A picnic in the park? No, back in those days, men were men, and knights were bold .......and Tottenham Hotspur won things. COYS!
Well, I mean, it was never easy actually killing the dragon, it was not like in the Harry Potter film. No. In those days, the dragons were usually at the entrance of their cave, razor sharp flesh-ripping claws and flamethrowing nostrils at the ready, jealously guarding their maiden, who was probably tied to a post not far away.
Strange relationship that, the dragon and maiden thing. Why snatch a maiden and then tether her to a stake? Why not do the breathing thing and get it over with?
Any dragon with half a brain would have realized that it was probably not good practice to snatch a maiden and then keep her wrapped for a rainy day. Likely scenario was that a dashing knight called George, Gregor, Gyorg or Alan, would turn up on his charger, (or in Alan's case his top of the range stallion with personalized breastplates) and slay said dragon who would be torn between protecting (?) his newly acquired maiden and tackling the pesky bloke on a horse.
Anyway, once the dragon was slain, the maiden would swoon (was that with relief or grief?) and noggin would take us back to the castle for a little knight music.
Well, that was then and this is now. I'm afraid my fellow knights, good men all, developed too well. Evolution happened and the dragons developed neither their tactics nor their tastes; allied to that, was an even more critical phenomenum: the sharp drop in the number of maidens! These factors crucially combined within a few years of each other with the consequence that the dragons died out.
As for me? I diversified; I took some government retraining program. I moved to Poland and became a plumber. I'll be back one day.
For England and St George!
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