The Story of Owen: Dragon Slayer of Trondheim by E. K. Johnston

Author:E. K. Johnston [Johnston, E. K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9781467710664
Amazon: 1467710660
Publisher: Carolrhoda Books
Published: 2014-03-01T16:00:00+00:00

THE STORY OF ST. GEORGE

Come, gather round, the poets say, and hear the words I sing. There are tales of kings and emperors, tales of queens and knights. But above them all is the story of St. George and the Dragon, and for my bread tonight, I will tell it to you.

The Romans were a cruel breed of men, who conquered all the world they could reach. If any dared rise against them, they would bring to bear the fire of the Empire, which they boasted was greater than any dragon could unleash. They burned across the world, from Britain and Gaul, to Egypt and Canaan, and everywhere they went, they stole dragon slayers for their legions.

The Romans were as clever as they were cruel, and they did not set their captive dragon slayers to slaying in the lands they had once called home. A dragon slayer stolen from Gaul could expect to be sent to Palmyra. A dragon slayer from Jerusalem might find herself in Hispania. There they would be set to their craft, unschooled in the subtleties of the native dragon population, and many of them died needlessly as a result. The Romans sent their scholars to learn all the ways of dragonkind, the better to train the transplanted dragon slayers, and by this price in blood we have our modern knowledge of Europe’s dragons.

Some of these scholars were not Roman-born, but chosen on account of their intelligence and abilities. One of these was Georgios of Lod, who marched with the legions to see the world and had won honor on the battlefield, both for himself and for Rome. He was sent to Silene, in Libya, to study the dragons there, and when he drew close to the city, he beheld a terrible sight.

Silene’s proud walls stood within a stone’s throw of a great lake. The city founders had done this a-purpose, and used the water from the lake to provide for the people. Their plans had gone badly awry when a large dragon had also chosen to make its home in the water, and the people of Silene had sent their dragon slayer out to do battle.

The dragon slayer, it is widely said, was of Gaulish descent, used to fighting dragons amidst tree cover, with a sword. He was unfamiliar with the terrain, with the type of dragon he faced, and with his own lance. The result was the death of the dragon slayer, but not before he managed to wound the dragon, fouling the lake by means of the botched blow. The dragon retreated to the spring that fed the lake, leaving the people of Silene to sacrifice a sheep to distract it every day, in order to access the spring themselves and not perish from thirst.

The city soon expended its sheep, and then its goats. They went without fresh water for many days, but it was not the rainy season, and they knew they would have to attempt the spring again. A decision was made

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.