The Dragon Of Winter Hill

A poem by R. C. Lehmann

I

This is the tale the old men tell, the tale that was told to me,
Of the blue-green dragon,
The dreadful dragon,
The dragon who flew so free,
The last of his horrible scaly race
Who settled and made his nesting place
Some hundreds of thousands of years ago.
One day, as the light was falling low
And the turbulent wind was still,
In a stony hollow,
Where none dared follow,
Beyond the ridge on the gorse-clad summit, the summit of Winter Hill!

The news went round in the camp that night; it was Dickon who brought it first
How the wonderful dragon,
The fiery dragon,
On his terrified eyes had burst.

"I was out," he said, "for a fat young buck,
But never a touch I had of luck;
And still I wandered and wandered on
Till all the best of the day was gone;
When, suddenly, lo, in a flash of flame
Full over the ridge a green head came,
A green head flapped with a snarling lip,
And a long tongue set with an arrow's tip.
I own I didn't stand long at bay,
But I cast my arrows and bow away,
And I cast my coat, and I changed my plan,
And forgot the buck, and away I ran -
And, oh, but my heart was chill:
For still as I ran I heard the bellow
Of the terrible slaughtering fierce-eyed fellow
Who has made his lair on the gorse-clad summit, the summit of Winter Hill."

Then the women talked, as the women will, and the men-folk they talked too
Of the raging dragon,
The hungry dragon,
The dragon of green and blue.
And the Bards with their long beards flowing down,
They sat apart and were seen to frown.

But at last the Chief Bard up and spoke,
"Now I swear by beech and I swear by oak,
By the grass and the streams I swear," said he,
"This dragon of Dickon's puzzles me.
For the record stands, as well ye know,
How a hundred years and a year ago
We dealt the dragons a smashing blow
By issuing from our magic tree
A carefully-framed complete decree,
Which ordered dragons to cease to be.
Still, since our Dickon is passing sure
That he saw a regular Simon pure.
Some dragon's egg, as it seems, contrived
To elude our curses, and so survived
On an inaccessible rocky shelf,
Where at last it managed to hatch itself.
Whatever the cause, the result is plain:
We're in for a dragon-fuss again.
We haven't the time, and, what is worse,
We haven't the means to frame a curse.
So what is there left for us to say
Save this, that our men at break of day
Must gather and go to kill
The monstrous savage
Whose fire-blasts ravage
The flocks and herds on the gorse-clad summit, the summit of Winter Hill?"

II

So the men, when they heard the Chief Bard utter the order that bade them try
For the awful dragon,
The dauntless dragon,
They all of them shouted "Aye!"
For everyone felt assured that he,
Whatever the fate of the rest might be,
However few of them might survive,
Was certainly safe to stay alive,
And was probably bound to deal the blow
That would shatter the beast and lay him low,
And end the days of their dragon-foe.
And all the women-folk egged them on:
It was "Up with your heart, and at him, John!"
Or "Gurth, you'll bring me his ugly head,"
Or "Lance, my man, when you've struck him dead,
When he hasn't a wag in his fearful tail,
Carve off and bring me a blue-green scale."

Then they set to work at their swords and spears -
Such a polishing hadn't been seen for years.
They made the tips of their arrows sharp,
Re-strung and burnished the Chief Bard's harp,
Dragged out the traditional dragon-bag,
Sewed up the rents in the tribal flag;
And all in the midst of the talk and racket
Each wife was making her man a packet -
A hunch of bread and a wedge of cheese
And a nubble of beef, and, to moisten these,
A flask of her home-brewed, not too thin,
As a driving force for his javelin
When the moment arrived to spill
The blood of the terror
Hatched out in error
Who had perched his length on the gorse-clad summit, the summit of Winter Hill.

The night had taken her feast of stars, and the sun shot up in flame,
When "Now for the dragon!
Who hunts the dragon?"
The call from the watchers came;
And, shaking the mists of sleep away,
The men stepped into the light of day,
Twice two hundred in loose array;
With a good round dozen of bards to lead them
And their wives all waving their hands to speed them,
While the Chief Bard, fixed in his chair of state,
With his harp and his wreath looked most sedate.
It wasn't his place to fight or tramp;
When the warriors went he stayed in camp;
But still from his chair he harped them on
Till the very last of the host had gone,
Then he yawned and solemnly shook his head
And, leaving his seat, returned to bed,
To sleep, as a good man will
Who, braving malice and tittle-tattle,
Has checked his natural lust for battle,
And sent the rest to the gorse-clad summit, the summit of Winter Hill.

III

Marching at ease in the cheerful air, on duty and daring bent,
In quest of the dragon,
The fateful dragon,
The fierce four hundred went:
Over the hills and through the plain,
And up the slopes of the hills again.
The sleek rooks, washed in the morning's dew,
Rose at their coming and flapped and flew
In a black procession athwart the blue;
And the plovers circled about on high
With many a querulous piping cry.
And the cropping ewes and the old bell-wether
Looked up in terror and pushed together;
And still with a grim unbroken pace
The men moved on to their battle-place.
Softly, silently, all tip-toeing,
With their lips drawn tight and their eyes all glowing,
With gleaming teeth and straining ears
And the sunshine laughing on swords and spears,
Softly, silently on they go
To the hidden lair of the fearful foe.
They have neared the stream, they have crossed the bridge,
And they stop in sight of the rugged ridge,
And it's "Flankers back!" and "Skirmishers in!"
And the summit is theirs to lose or win -
To win with honour or lose with shame;
And so to the place itself they came,
And gazed with an awful thrill
At the ridge of omen,
Beset by foemen,
At the arduous summit, the gorse-clad summit, the summit of Winter Hill.

But where was the dragon, the scale-clad dragon, the dragon that Dickon saw,
The genuine dragon,
The pitiless dragon,
The dragon that knew no law?
Lo, just as the word to charge rang out,
And before they could give their battle shout,
On a stony ledge
Of the ridge's edge,
With its lips curled back and its teeth laid bare,
And a hiss that ripped the morning air,
With its backbone arched
And its tail well starched,
With bristling hair and flattened ears,
What shape of courage and wrath appears?
A cat, a tortoiseshell mother-cat!
And a very diminutive cat at that!
And below her, nesting upon the ground,
A litter of tiny kits they found:
Tortoiseshell kittens, one, two, three,
Lying as snug as snug could be.
And they took the kittens with shouts of laughter
And turned for home, and the cat came after.
And when in the camp they told their tale,
The women - but stop! I draw a veil.
The cat had tent-life forced upon her
And was kept in comfort and fed with honour;
But Dickon has heard his fill
Of the furious dragon
They tried to bag on
The dragonless summit, the gorse-clad summit, the summit of Winter Hill!