Heywood Broun The Fifty-first Dragon

Heywood Broun (1888-1939) was a newsman and columnist (and, later in life, a sincere but strident political activist for whatever left-wing cause was notorious at the moment).  On April 13th 1919, at the bright beginning of Broun's career, his story "The Fifty-first Dragon" was published in the New York Tribune.  The story has been repeatedly included in school anthologies ever after because of its excellence and, I suppose, its brevity.  I read it in an English class when I was a lad in the 1960s. 

When I went looking for the story today, I couldn't remember that Broun had written it.  All that I knew to enter into the Google search engine was "dragon" and — owing to some freak of persistent adolescent memory — the words "reactionary Republican."  Mr. Broun and his story popped up immediately.

A young writer's initial literary attempts typically imitate the subjects and styles of earlier writers.  British humorists appeared to have been numbered among Broun's favorites.  

The Fifty-first Dragon

Of all the pupils at the knight school Gawaine le Coeur-Hardy was among the least promising.  He was tall and sturdy, but his instructors soon discovered that he lacked spirit.  He would hide in the woods when the jousting class was called, although his companions and members of the faculty sought to appeal to his better nature by shouting to him to come out and break his neck like a man.  Even when they told him that the lances were padded, the horses no more than ponies and the field unusually soft for late autumn, Gawaine refused to grow enthusiastic.  The Headmaster and the Assistant Professor of Pleasaunce were discussing the case one spring afternoon and the Assistant Professor could see no remedy but expulsion.

"No," said the Headmaster, as he looked out at the purple hills which ringed the school, "I think I'll train him to slay dragons."

"He might be killed," objected the Assistant Professor.

"So he might," replied the Headmaster brightly, but he added, more soberly, "We must consider the greater good.  We are responsible for the formation of this lad's character."

"Are the dragons particularly bad this year?" interrupted the Assistant Professor.  This was characteristic.  He always seemed restive when the head of the school began to talk ethics and the ideals of the institution.

"I've never known them worse," replied the Headmaster.  "Up in the hills to the south last week they killed a number of peasants, two cows and a prize pig.  And if this dry spell holds there's no telling when they may start a forest fire simply by breathing around indiscriminately."

"Would any refund on the tuition fee be necessary in case of an accident to young Coeur-Hardy?"

"No," the principal answered, judicially, "that's all covered in the contract.  But as a matter of fact he won't be killed.  Before I send him up in the hills I'm going to give him a magic word."

"That's a good idea," said the Professor.  "Sometimes they work wonders."

From that day on Gawaine specialized in dragons.  His course included both theory and practice.  In the morning there were long lectures on the history, anatomy, manners and customs of dragons.  Gawaine did not distinguish himself in these studies.  He had a marvelously versatile gift for forgetting things.  In the afternoon he showed to better advantage, for then he would go down to the South Meadow and practise with a battle-ax.  In this exercise he was truly impressive, for he had enormous strength as well as speed and grace.  He even developed a deceptive display of ferocity. Old alumni say that it was a thrilling sight to see Gawaine charging across the field toward the dummy paper dragon which had been set up for his practice.  As he ran he would brandish his ax and shout "A murrain on thee!" or some other vivid bit of campus slang.  It never took him more than one stroke to behead the dummy dragon.

Gradually his task was made more difficult.  Paper gave way to papier-mache and finally to wood, but even the toughest of these dummy dragons had no terrors for Gawaine.  One sweep of the ax always did the business.  There were those who said that when the practice was protracted until dusk and the dragons threw long, fantastic shadows across the meadow Gawaine did not charge so impetuously nor shout so loudly.  It is possible there was malice in this charge.  At any rate, the Headmaster decided by the end of June that it was time for the test.  Only the night before a dragon had come close to the school grounds and had eaten some of the lettuce from the garden.  The faculty decided that Gawaine was ready.  They gave him a diploma and a new battle-ax and the Headmaster summoned him to a private conference.

"Sit down," said the Headmaster. "Have a cigarette."

Gawaine hesitated.

"Oh, I know it's against the rules," said the Headmaster. "But after all, you have received your preliminary degree.  You are no longer a boy.  You are a man.  To-morrow you will go out into the world, the great world of achievement."

Gawaine took a cigarette.  The Headmaster offered him a match, but he produced one of his own and began to puff away with a dexterity which quite amazed the principal.

"Here you have learned the theories of life," continued the Headmaster, resuming the thread of his discourse, "but after all, life is not a matter of theories.  Life is a matter of facts.  It calls on the young and the old alike to face these facts, even though they are hard and sometimes unpleasant.  Your problem, for example, is to slay dragons."

"They say that those dragons down in the south wood are five hundred feet long," ventured Gawaine, timorously.

"Stuff and nonsense!" said the Headmaster.  "The curate saw one last week from the top of Arthur's Hill.  The dragon was sunning himself down in the valley.  The curate didn't have an opportunity to look at him very long because he felt it was his duty to hurry back to make a report to me.  He said the monster, or shall I say, the big lizard? — wasn't an inch over two hundred feet.  But the size has nothing at all to do with it.  You'll find the big ones even easier than the little ones. They're far slower on their feet and less aggressive, I'm told.  Besides, before you go I'm going to equip you in such fashion that you need have no fear of all the dragons in the world."

"I'd like an enchanted cap," said Gawaine.

"What's that?" answered the Headmaster, testily.

"A cap to make me disappear," explained Gawaine.

The Headmaster laughed indulgently. "You mustn't believe all those old wives' stories," he said.  "There isn't any such thing. A cap to make you disappear, indeed!  What would you do with it?  You haven't even appeared yet.  Why, my boy, you could walk from here to London, and nobody would so much as look at you.  You're nobody.  You couldn't be more invisible than that."

Gawaine seemed dangerously close to a relapse into his old habit of whimpering.  The Headmaster reassured him: "Don't worry; I'll give you something much better than an enchanted cap.  I'm going to give you a magic word.  All you have to do is to repeat this magic charm once and no dragon can possibly harm a hair of your head.  You can cut off his head at your leisure."

He took a heavy book from the shelf behind his desk and began to run through it.  "Sometimes," he said, "the charm is a whole phrase or even a sentence.  I might, for instance, give you 'To make the' — No, that might not do.  I think a single word would be best for dragons."

"A short word," suggested Gawaine.

"It can't be too short or it wouldn't be potent.  There isn't so much hurry as all that.  Here's a splendid magic word: 'Rumplesnitz.'  Do you think you can learn that?"

Gawaine tried and in an hour or so he seemed to have the word well in hand.  Again and again he interrupted the lesson to inquire, "And if I say 'Rumplesnitz' the dragon can't possibly hurt me?"  And always the Headmaster replied, "If you only say 'Rumplesnitz,' you are perfectly safe."

Toward morning Gawaine seemed resigned to his career.  At daybreak the Headmaster saw him to the edge of the forest and pointed him to the direction in which he should proceed.  About a mile away to the southwest a cloud of steam hovered over an open meadow in the woods and the Headmaster assured Gawaine that under the steam he would find a dragon.  Gawaine went forward slowly.  He wondered whether it would be best to approach the dragon on the run as he did in his practice in the South Meadow or to walk slowly toward him, shouting "Rumplesnitz" all the way.

The problem was decided for him.  No sooner had he come to the fringe of the meadow than the dragon spied him and began to charge.  It was a large dragon and yet it seemed decidedly aggressive in spite of the Headmaster's statement to the contrary.  As the dragon charged it released huge clouds of hissing steam through its nostrils.  It was almost as if a gigantic teapot had gone mad.  The dragon came forward so fast and Gawaine was so frightened that he had time to say "Rumplesnitz" only once.  As he said it, he swung his battle-ax and off popped the head of the dragon.  Gawaine had to admit that it was even easier to kill a real dragon than a wooden one if only you said "Rumplesnitz."

Gawaine brought the ears home and a small section of the tail.  His school mates and the faculty made much of him, but the Headmaster wisely kept him from being spoiled by insisting that he go on with his work.  Every clear day Gawaine rose at dawn and went out to kill dragons.  The Headmaster kept him at home when it rained, because he said the woods were damp and unhealthy at such times and that he didn't want the boy to run needless risks.  Few good days passed in which Gawaine failed to get a dragon.  On one particularly fortunate day he killed three, a husband and wife and a visiting relative.  Gradually he developed a technique.  Pupils who sometimes watched him from the hill-tops a long way off said that he often allowed the dragon to come within a few feet before he said "Rumplesnitz."  He came to say it with a mocking sneer.  Occasionally he did stunts.  Once when an excursion party from London was watching him he went into action with his right hand tied behind his back.  The dragon's head came off just as easily.

As Gawaine's record of killings mounted higher the Headmaster found it impossible to keep him completely in hand.  He fell into the habit of stealing out at night and engaging in long drinking bouts at the village tavern.  It was after such a debauch that he rose a little before dawn one fine August morning and started out after his fiftieth dragon.  His head was heavy and his mind sluggish.  He was heavy in other respects as well, for he had adopted the somewhat vulgar practice of wearing his medals, ribbons and all, when he went out dragon hunting.  The decorations began on his chest and ran all the way down to his abdomen.  They must have weighed at least eight pounds.

Gawaine found a dragon in the same meadow where he had killed the first one.  It was a fair-sized dragon, but evidently an old one.  Its face was wrinkled and Gawaine thought he had never seen so hideous a countenance.  Much to the lad's disgust, the monster refused to charge and Gawaine was obliged to walk toward him.  He whistled as he went.  The dragon regarded him hopelessly, but craftily.  Of course it had heard of Gawaine.  Even when the lad raised his battle-ax the dragon made no move.  It knew that there was no salvation in the quickest thrust of the head, for it had been informed that this hunter was protected by an enchantment.  It merely waited, hoping something would turn up.  Gawaine raised the battle-ax and suddenly lowered it again.  He had grown very pale and he trembled violently.  The dragon suspected a trick.  "What's the matter?" it asked, with false solicitude.

"I've forgotten the magic word," stammered Gawaine.

"What a pity," said the dragon.  "So that was the secret.  It doesn't seem quite sporting to me, all this magic stuff, you know.  Not cricket, as we used to say when I was a little dragon; but after all, that's a matter of opinion."

Gawaine was so helpless with terror that the dragon's confidence rose immeasurably and it could not resist the temptation to show off a bit.

"Could I possibly be of any assistance?" it asked. "What's the first letter of the magic word?"

"It begins with an 'r,'" said Gawaine weakly.

"Let's see," mused the dragon, "that doesn't tell us much, does it?  What sort of a word is this?  Is it an epithet, do you think?"

Gawaine could do no more than nod.

"Why, of course," exclaimed the dragon, "reactionary Republican."

Gawaine shook his head.

"Well, then," said the dragon, "we'd better get down to business.  Will you surrender?"

With the suggestion of a compromise Gawaine mustered up enough courage to speak.

"What will you do if I surrender?" he asked.

"Why, I'll eat you," said the dragon.

"And if I don't surrender?"

"I'll eat you just the same."

"Then it doesn't make any difference, does it?" moaned Gawaine.

"It does to me," said the dragon with a smile.  "I'd rather you didn't surrender.  You'd taste much better if you didn't."

The dragon waited for a long time for Gawaine to ask "Why?" but the boy was too frightened to speak.  At last the dragon had to give the explanation without his cue line.  "You see," he said, "if you don't surrender you'll taste better because you'll die game."

This was an old and ancient trick of the dragon's.  By means of some such quip he was accustomed to paralyze his victims with laughter and then to destroy them.  Gawaine was sufficiently paralyzed as it was, but laughter had no part in his helplessness.  With the last word of the joke the dragon drew back his head and struck.  In that second there flashed into the mind of Gawaine the magic word "Rumplesnitz," but there was no time to say it.  There was time only to strike and, without a word, Gawaine met the onrush of the dragon with a full swing.  He put all his back and shoulders into it.  The impact was terrific and the head of the dragon flew away almost a hundred yards and landed in a thicket.

Gawaine did not remain frightened very long after the death of the dragon.  His mood was one of wonder.  He was enormously puzzled.  He cut off the ears of the monster almost in a trance.  Again and again he thought to himself, "I didn't say 'Rumplesnitz'!"  He was sure of that and yet there was no question that he had killed the dragon.  In fact, he had never killed one so utterly.  Never before had he driven a head for anything like the same distance.  Twenty-five yards was perhaps his best previous record.  All the way back to the knight school he kept rumbling about in his mind seeking an explanation for what had occurred.  He went to the Headmaster immediately and after closing the door told him what had happened.  "I didn't say 'Rumplesnitz,'" he explained with great earnestness.

The Headmaster laughed.  "I'm glad you've found out," he said.  "It makes you ever so much more of a hero.  Don't you see that?  Now you know that it was you who killed all these dragons and not that foolish little word 'Rumplesnitz.'"

Gawaine frowned.  "Then it wasn't a magic word after all?" he asked.

"Of course not," said the Headmaster, "you ought to be too old for such foolishness.  There isn't any such thing as a magic word."

"But you told me it was magic," protested Gawaine.  "You said it was magic and now you say it isn't."

"It wasn't magic in a literal sense," answered the Headmaster, "but it was much more wonderful than that.  The word gave you confidence.  It took away your fears.  If I hadn't told you that you might have been killed the very first time.  It was your battle-ax did the trick."

Gawaine surprised the Headmaster by his attitude.  He was obviously distressed by the explanation.  He interrupted a long philosophic and ethical discourse by the Headmaster with, "If I hadn't of hit 'em all mighty hard and fast any one of 'em might have crushed me like a, like a —" He fumbled for a word.

"Egg shell," suggested the Headmaster.

"Like a egg shell," assented Gawaine, and he said it many times.  All through the evening meal people who sat near him heard him muttering, "Like a egg shell, like a egg shell."

The next day was clear, but Gawaine did not get up at dawn.  Indeed, it was almost noon when the Headmaster found him cowering in bed, with the clothes pulled over his head.  The principal called the Assistant Professor of Pleasaunce, and together they dragged the boy toward the forest.

"He'll be all right as soon as he gets a couple more dragons under his belt," explained the Headmaster.

The Assistant Professor of Pleasaunce agreed.  "It would be a shame to stop such a fine run," he said.  "Why, counting that one yesterday, he's killed fifty dragons."

They pushed the boy into a thicket above which hung a meager cloud of steam.  It was obviously quite a small dragon.  But Gawaine did not come back that night or the next. In fact, he never came back.  Some weeks afterward brave spirits from the school explored the thicket, but they could find nothing to remind them of Gawaine except the metal parts of his medals.  Even the ribbons had been devoured.

The Headmaster and the Assistant Professor of Pleasaunce agreed that it would be just as well not to tell the school how Gawaine had achieved his record and still less how he came to die.  They held that it might have a bad effect on school spirit.  Accordingly, Gawaine has lived in the memory of the school as its greatest hero.  No visitor succeeds in leaving the building to-day without seeing a great shield which hangs on the wall of the dining hall.  Fifty pairs of dragons' ears are mounted upon the shield and underneath in gilt letters is "Gawaine le Coeur-Hardy," followed by the simple inscription, "He killed fifty dragons."  The record has never been equaled.