"Home."

"There were dragons, when I was a boy."

Quoted my father.

I was only just small to remember these beasts my father told me about. How he road and trained them.

There were great grim, sky dragons that nested on the cliff tops like gigantic scary birds.

Little, brown, scuttly dragons that hunted down mice and rats in well organized packs.

Preposterously huge Sea Dragons that were twenty times as big as the Big Blue Whale and who killed for the fun of it.

You will have to take my word for it,

for dragons are disappearing so fast they may soon become extinct.

Only few know what is happening.

They are crawling back into the sea whence they came from,

leaving not a bone, not a fang, in the earth for the men of the future to remember them by.

So, in order that these amazing creatures should not be forgotten.

I will tell this true story from my fathers childhood.

He was not the sort of boy who could train a dragon with a mere lifting of an eyebrow.

He was not a natural at the Heroism business.

He had to work at it.

This is not just a story about Vikings, and islands, and dragons.

This is a story about growing up, letting go. This is a story of becoming a hero.

The hard way.

-