Ye Dragon in Ye Hole

c.1970

Something I wrote when I was eleven years old.

Long, long ago in the days of old, 
There was a knight so strong and bold,
He had many adventures that were so often told,
To children quite young and to children quite old.
One day as it so happened he was just walking by,
A hole in the cleft he suddenly did spy.
Being inquisitive he climbed inside,
And then out of the darkness a flame he spied.
He wasn't so scared as to run away and hide,
No, not that brave knight with his sword at his side,
He just ventured on and then what he saw,
Made all the walls shake and it trembled the floor.
A man-eating Dragon twelve feet high at the least,
And this bold knight would certainly make a feast.
The knight not hesitating just flashed out his sword,
The Dragon came closer breathed flames and roared.
The battle continued for an hour or more,
Then suddenly the knight made a rush to the door.
He just made it outside with a leap and a roll,
He then picked up a rock and closed up the hole.
Whether that dragon is still inside,
Don't try and find out unless you've a sword at your side.

by Steven Cook
Sept, 1970

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There was one spot in the house that I grew up in that felt safe. It was housed between the window to the garden and the kitchen door. I often had nightmares that I was sitting on my mothers lap, clinging to her in this very spot, as something slow, dark and horrifying was thumping its way down the stairs. We didn’t run because it was the safe spot. Anyway, that’s where I wrote this.

This was the first piece of homework that I handed in at my new high school, and this one piece of writing was responsible for shifting me from the B stream, up to the A stream. It’s an odd thing to admit to, but when the teacher read it out to the class I felt incredibly guilty, as if I hadn’t written it at all. I felt like I’d somehow downloaded it from somewhere.

I still have the original notebook back in London that I’d scrawled it in, with scritchy, scratchy writing, before I utilized my new fountain pen’s calligraphy nib for the final outcome.

Anyway, 51 years later, I’m glad I still have it.