"Kushner,.Donn.-.A.Book.DragonUC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dragon Stories)

his grandmother's most gloomy forebodings
came true.

The first to go was his grandfather, a
shambling, good-natured creature known
locally as the Warm of Grimsby Bog. He
had a flexible twenty-foot-long neck, ending
in a great broad head and a gaping mouth
that looked humorous, unless it was coming
right at you. He would eat anything: cattle;

horses, and sometimes, by accident, their
riders as well; droves of swine; flocks of
geese, feathers and all; even wagon-loads
of grain if nothing better offered. Nonesuch
had exchanged few words with his grand-
father, who mainly used the family cavern
for sleeping off his huge meals.

At last, his appetite was his undoing.
The exasperated villagers, tired of seeing
all their goods disappear down that gigantic
maw, decided to cure the dragon's hunger
for good. A great rock in the south meadow
roughly resembled a cow, though twice the
size of any living one. After keeping all
their livestock indoors for a week to starve

the dragon, the villagers painted the rock reddish-brown and
white, tied wooden horns to one end, and slapped on clay here
and there to complete the disguise. When the Worm of Grimsby
Bog arrived, snorting, the real cows scattered, all but one
whose hoof was caught in a mole-tunnel; but she was no more
than an appetizer. Then the Warm, whose hunger, when roused,
was much greater than his prudence or common sense, licked
his lips with a tongue as large as the staysafl of a small coasting
vessel, and swallowed the rock whole.

The unbelieving villagers were too busy watching the
enormous bulge pass down the dragon's throat to notice the
shocked and disgusted expression on his face. When the rock
reached his stomach, the look of horror deepened. With an
indignant squawk, the Warm of Grimsby Bog flapped his mighty
wings and rose in the air, slanting this way and that as the
rock rolled around in his belly. The dragon flew valiantly, some-
times descending to brush the tree-tops, rising again with
incredible force till he looked no larger than a sparrow, then
sinking low as the great rock reasserted itself. He flew over the
village, scraping thatch from the roofs, and past the castle
walls, whose archers were too busy placing bets on the flight's