"J.R.R. Tolkien - Farmer Giles of Ham" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tolkien J.R.R)

fair - until the dragon came.

In those days dragons were already getting scarce in the
island. None had been seen in the midland realm of
Augustus Bonifacius for many a year. There were, of
course, the dubious marches and the uninhabited
mountains, westward and northward, but they were a long
way off. In those parts once upon a time there had dwelt a
number of dragons of one kind and another, and they had
made raids far and wide. But the Middle Kingdom was in
those days famous for the daring of the King's knights, and
so many stray dragons had been killed, or had returned
with grave damage, that the others gave up going that way.

It was still the custom for Dragon's Tail to be served up at
the King's Christmas Feast; and each year a knight was
chosen for the duty of hunting. He was supposed to set out
upon. St Nicholas' Day and come home with a dragon's
tail not later than the eve of the feast. But for many years now
the Royal Cook had made a marvellous confection, a Mock
Dragon's Tail of cake and almond-paste, with cunning scales of
hard icing-sugar. The chosen knight then carried this into the
hall on Christmas Eve, while the fiddles played and the trumpets
rang. The Mock Dragon's Tail was eaten after dinner on
Christmas Day, and everybody said (to please the cook) that it
tasted much better than Real Tail.

That was the situation when a real dragon turned up again. The
giant was largely to blame. After his adventure he used to go
about in the mountains visiting his scattered relations more than
had been his custom, and much more than they liked. For he was
always trying to borrow a large copper pot. But whether he got
the loan of one or not, he would sit and talk in his long-winded
lumbering fashion about the excellent country down away East,
and all the wonders of the Wide World. He had got it into his
head that he was a great and daring traveller.

`A nice land,' he would say, `pretty flat, soft to the feet, and
plenty to eat for the taking: cows, you know,, and sheep all over
the place, easy to spot, if you look careflly.'

`But what about the people F said they.

`I never saw any,' said he. `There was not a knight to be seen or
heard, my dear fellows. Nothing worse than a few stinging flies
by the river.'

`Why don't you go back and stay there?' said they.

`Oh well, there's no place like home, they say,' said he. `But