Dragons in twentieth-century fiction

Like Pratchett, Price uses the elements of the traditional story to attack false chivalry. The boy king who ends so disastrously is named Henry V and his speech to the knights before the battle against the dragon is very reminiscent of his namesake's speech at Agincourt in Shakespeare's play. Nobody behaves heroically, but the dragon is more honest and also more appealing to read about than the king and his court. Its main characteristics are very much those of tradition, effectively portrayed. As far as I am aware, its fascination with poetry is not to be found in any obvious source but it fits in very well. The dragon's speech pattern is idiosyncratic, with verbs left to the end of sentences, as though its true home is Germanic legend. Nobody lives in a good society in this novel, but those under the dragon's protection are better off than the rest.

Ballad and Folktale

At the start of Fires' Astonishment (1990) by Geraldine McCaughrean, a dragon has been seen by the local people at a place called Worm's Head. It quickly becomes apparent that the monster is the son of the local lord of the manor, placed under enchantment by his stepmother. The plot of the novel is from the ballad of The Laidly Worm and the Machrel of the Sea (Simpson 1980, 52), with a twelfth-century setting. However, the focus is much more on the fear of the local people, the effect on their lives, their relationship with the Church and with one another, rather than on any simplistic battle between good and evil. The dragon itself is less frightening to the reader than to those who encounter it, because in the episodes told from the dragon's point of view, we experience its unhappiness. It struggles with its clumsiness and inability to communicate, in despair until it learns to spell out words by touch, with the help of an outcast monk. But when the dragon has been disenchanted, the boy has just as much trouble coming to terms with his old life and leaves in the end, to become a monk himself. Altogether, this is a highly unusual dragon, very different from the traditional image, even though his story is so close to the one in the ballad.

There is another dragon in Geraldine McCaughrean's The Stones are Hatching (1999). This time it is the Stoor Worm, whose sleep has been disturbed by the guns of the First World War. Her hatchlings turn into creatures well known to students of English folktales--black dogs, barguests, cobbolds and the like. Phelim, the reluctant hero of this novel, is driven to go on a quest to fight the Worm, before she can wake up and cause utter destruction. Along the way, he is helped by other recognisable figures, some drawn from different traditions. There is the Obby Oss but also Mad Sweeny and Alexia, whose bones make a Witch's ladder for Phelim to climb to the Worm's head. The Worm is part of the landscape, so huge that her mouth is a cave as big as a cathedral. Eventually, Phelim finds a way of destroying her soul, although he takes no pleasure in it. The dragon herself is almost too big for the reader to focus on, although she makes a convincing presence in the background. The dislikable character is Phelim's sister, whom he proves able to defeat when he comes back from his quest. As with Fires' Astonishment, in this book McCaughrean uses traditional material to create a highly unusual story and a dragon different from most.