The boy and the dragon

The boy and the dragon

Once upon a time, there lived a boy by the great sea who loved to listen to distant sounds above all else.

During the day, he could hear the waves rolling over the pebbles on the shore. In the evening, he could hear the wind blowing through the treetops. And at night, when everything around him was quiet, it sometimes seemed to the boy that there was a whole world beyond the forest, full of roads, lakes, and secrets.

“Where are you looking all the time?” his mother asked.

“Where I haven’t been yet,” he answered.

His father laughed:

“The roads won’t disappear. You’ll have time.”

But the boy grew up, and his curiosity grew with him.

People then told of a dangerous sorcerer called Dragon. He could change his shape, appearing as a friendly traveller, a great creature with gleaming scales, or a snake that slipped quietly into places where he was not expected.

People were afraid of him not only because of his strength.

The worst thing was that Dragon loved to deceive.

He spoke gently, and then forced others to do what they did not want.

One morning the boy said to his parents:

“I want to go further beyond the familiar forest and see what is there.”

His mother looked at him for a long time.

“If you go, listen to more than lovely words,” she said. “Watch whether people’s actions match them.”

His father gave him a small bag of food.

“Remember, courage does not always mean fighting. Sometimes the braver choice is to walk away in time.”

The boy set off.

At first, the path was familiar. Then taller trees and unfamiliar flowers appeared. By evening, he reached a broad clearing where a finely dressed man stood.

The stranger smiled.

“Where are you going alone?”

“I’m seeing the world.”

“Then you're lucky. I know many roads. Come with me, I'll show you a place where you can spend the night.”

The man's voice was friendly.

But the boy remembered his mother's words.

He looked at the stranger's footprints.

How strange: in the soft earth, some prints looked human, while others bore the marks of great claws.

The boy said nothing, but became wary.

They came to a lonely house among the rocks. An elderly woman lived there. Seeing the stranger, she turned pale, but quickly lowered her eyes.

“Prepare a place for the guest,” the man ordered.

At night, when he went outside, the woman quietly approached the boy.

“Did you notice who he was?”

“I think so. It’s Dragon.”

“He keeps this house under a spell,” she said. “I have been unable to leave for a long time. A cord with seven knots hangs over the door. While those knots remain tight, I cannot cross the threshold without his leave.”

The boy looked up.

There was indeed a dark cord hanging under the beam.

“And if you untie the knots?”

“The spell will weaken. But Dragon will hear if you do it roughly.”

The boy thought.

Instead of a knife, he took a thin wooden pin and began to carefully loosen knot after knot.

First.

Second.

Third.

A step was heard outside.

The boy froze.

The footsteps receded.

The fourth.

The fifth.

The sixth.

The seventh knot was the tightest.

The woman held her breath.

Finally the cord fell to the floor.

The woman took one step towards the door.

Then another.

And she went outside.

An invisible shell seemed to burst around her. The air lit up for a moment, and then it became normal again.

“Free,” she whispered.

But in the distance Dragon’s angry voice could already be heard.

“He has realised what happened,” the woman said. “We must go.”

She gave the boy a pair of light moccasins and several thin pieces of birch bark with signs drawn on them.

“These signs will lead you to people who can help. Keep this little piece of bark safe as well. Some old magic remains in it. It cannot give you strength, but it can help you escape notice if you understand the place you are in.”

They parted ways so that Dragon could not pursue them both.

The boy ran.

The magic moccasins were light as dry leaves. The path seemed to unfold beneath his feet.

Soon he heard a roar behind him.

Dragon was approaching.

The boy ran to the lake.

“The place will suggest the shape,” he recalled the woman’s words.

He touched the birch bark and thought of the little fish hiding among the stones.

The world around him suddenly became huge.

Cool water enfolded him, and his arms became fins.

He became a small red-finned fish and hid near the bottom.

Dragon ran to the shore.

He looked into the water, made noise, circled, but among the hundreds of shiny fish he did not recognize the boy.

When the danger passed, he became himself again and moved on.

The next time Dragon caught up, the boy was on marshy ground.

The boy touched the bark and became a small frog the color of moss.

He froze among the leaves.

Dragon walked right by.

Farther on, beside a river, he became a muskrat and swam swiftly across an inlet.

Each escape relied on something other than strength.

He looked about him and asked, “What creature lives best in this place?”

Finally, the road led him to a wide river.

On the opposite bank was the path home.

And behind him Dragon was approaching again.

“This time you will not escape!” he roared.

The boy touched the birch bark.

It had grown thin, almost transparent.

There was very little magic left.

“Then I need a current, rather than another shape,” the boy said.

He remembered how the water swirled around the rocks at the mouth of the river.

He touched the bark one last time and threw it into the water.

The river did not become a storm.

It simply began to swirl in a wide, strong circle.

Dragon, who had already transformed into a long, snake-like creature, threw himself into the water.

The current caught him.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

He spun, raged, and tried to change shape. But the water washed his magic away as rain washes dust from leaves.

When the current carried him back to the shore, Dragon could no longer become either a handsome traveler, or a giant creature, or a snake.

Before the boy stood simply a tired man.

Without his magic, he seemed far smaller.

“Give me back my power!” he shouted.

“No,” the boy replied. “You used it to scare and coerce. Now get out of here. Find another life for yourself, where no one will have to fear you.”

Dragon began to speak, then looked at the river, the boy, and his vanished power. In silence, he walked away.

The boy crossed the river where it was shallow and returned home.

His mother hugged him tightly, as if she wanted to make sure that he was really standing before her.

His father listened to everything from beginning to end.

“So you defeated Dragon?” he asked.

The boy thought.

“I don’t know if it was a victory. I just didn’t let him decide for me or for others.”

His father nodded.

“Sometimes that’s the most important victory.”

Later, people would retell the story for a long time.

But the boy always corrected one thing when someone started saying that all snakes were dangerous because Dragon had once taken their form.

“No,” he said. “A snake is simply a snake. It cannot answer for someone else’s deeds. Dragon chose his own shapes and actions.”

And that was part of his adventure, too.

He came home with more than courage.

He had learned to look closely, listen to people forced into silence, and remember that a clever escape, a good plan, and a well-timed ‘no’ can be stronger than any battle.

May this story leave a little light in your heart ✨