A WONDER-BOOK
spoken, ‘that a terrible dragon, with a hundred heads, keeps watch under the golden apple-tree?’
‘I know it well,’ answered the stranger calmly. ‘But, from my cradle upwards, it has been my business, and almost my pastime, to deal with serpents and dragons.’
The young women looked to his massive club, and at the shaggy lion’s skin which he wore, and likewise at his heroic limbs and figure; and they whispered to each other that the stranger appeared to be one who might reasonably expect to perform deeds far beyond the might of other men. But, then, the dragon with a hundred heads! What mortal, even if he possessed a hundred lives, could hope to escape the fangs of such a monster? So kind-hearted were the maidens, that they could not bear to see this brave and handsome traveller attempt what was so very dangerous, and devote himself, most probably, to become a meal for the dragon’s hundred ravenous mouths.
‘Go back,’ cried they all,–‘go back to your own home! Your mother, beholding you safe and sound, will shed tears of joy; and what can she do more, should you win ever so great a victory? No matter for the golden apples! No matter for the king, your cruel cousin! We do not wish the dragon with the hundred heads to eat you up!’
The stranger seemed to grow impatient at these remonstrances. He carelessly lifted his mighty club, and let it fall upon a rock that lay half buried in the earth, near by. With the force of that idle blow, the great rock was shattered all to pieces. It cost the stranger no more effort to achieve this feat of a giant’s strength than for one of the young maidens to touch her sister’s rosy cheek with a flower.
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