Dragonslayer

In the land of Pyrûn, an exporter of lead

Ruled by a king (who’s extremely inbred)

Homeland of giants, but the giants are dead

So the towns are beset by a dragon instead

You can only burn down and eat all a man’s stuff

So many times before he’ll say, “Enough!

It’s time for the dragon to see that we’re tough,

Our knight will extinguish that piteous Puff!”

So out rode their champion, in gleaming steel armour

Bearing his shield with its heraldic llama

To be the right hand of the force they call Karma

(At this point it’s safe to assume there’ll be drama)

Up the Mountain of Dread, it’s Obsidian Stair

He choked on the poison of fresh alpine air

As he approached the black Cave of Despair:

The prime real estate of the great dragon’s lair

“Hark, scaly one! Beast of fire, come forth!”

Challenged the knight from the back of his horse

“You raze all our homes and you show no remorse

So our judgement upon you I’m here to enforce!”

The dragon was roused from his contented slumber

And out of the mouth of the cave did he lumber

“Well met, little knight, though this I must wonder,

What is your problem with me and my plunder?

I'm sure I don’t know what it is I did wrong

I only do now what I’ve done my life long

The cows and the sheep of this land do belong

To the dragon who proves to the others he’s strong.

I fought for my province, I fought for it hard

And ever since then I have been on my guard

By rights it’s my duty to keep this land charred

Now you tell me it’s wrong? What a stupid canard!”

Such feedback was not what the knight had expected

He lowered his shield feeling slightly dejected

Before he remembered why he’d been selected

And strode to the dragon, to whom he objected:

“Now you listen here, you grandiloquent wyrm!

Your bellicose ways evoke harm, I confirm

You injure us all when our homes you do burn

So this hideous truth I implore that you learn!”

The dragon blinked twice as these facts were digested

And realised at last that he’d long been detested

By the wriggling bipeds who often protested

When their pigs and their goats and their limbs were ingested

“It seems that you learn something new every day

I had no idea that I cause such affray

But I find I care not for the troubles of prey

Your towns and your farms provide quite the buffet.”

“So be it!” the knight cried, and sword raised he lunged

Straight for the dragon, the battle begun

A jet of hot flame then burned bright as the sun

And with that lucent moment the battle was done

“Harrumph,” said the dragon, and went back to sleep

Fulfilled by the land that forever he’ll keep

To dream of high mountains and conflagrant sheep

And ashes and armour in smouldering heaps

So never forget that should ever you dare

To climb that old mountain’s Obsidian Stair

And face that which dwells in the Cave of Despair

There’s a bloody great dragon, you haven’t a prayer.