The Fifty - First Dragon

“The Fifty - First Dragon”

By Heywood Broun

Settings: The first setting is in a knight school where Gawaine is taught how to be a knight. It also takes place in the forest where he beheads all the dragons and is almost fooled into being eaten.

Plot: This story is about a student becoming a knight with no spirit at all named Gawaine le Coeur-Hardy. He was considered the least promising of all the pupils. The headmaster of the school thought he make better of Gawaine. He discussed about Gawaine with the Professor of Pleasaunce about how to make him more enthusiastic about training as a knight. Then they thought about training him as a dragon slayer. They knew that slaying dragons was dangerous but they knew they could find someway to trick him. The headmaster said that after Gawaine’ s training he would give him a magic word. He trained for a few months using papier-mвchй and wooden dragons using a battle-ax as a weapon. Gawaine felt that it was going to be a lot harder to behead a dragon later on. When a dragon ate the lettuce patch, they skipped his test and gave him his diploma, his battle-ax, and his magic. The magic word was Rumplesnitz. The headmaster said that if he says this word before slaying a dragon, he would be perfectly safe. When he goes to slaughter his first dragon, the dragon rushes towards him quickly, but he has enough time to say the magic word and he beheads the dragon. He goes out slaughtering many dragons and bringing back their ears. One day he finds an old dragon in front of him and forgets what the magic words are. He asked the dragon, and the dragon tries to trick him so he can eat him. At the last minute, he remembers the magic word, but it is too late to say the word. He swings the ax anyway and beheads the dragon. He comes back and tells the headmaster what had just happened. The headmaster tells him that there is no such thing as a magic word and tells him that he has been doing everything all on his own. The professor says that he was able to slaughter fifty dragons in less then a year.

Characters: Gawaine le Coeur-Hardy: He seems pretty cowardice from the beginning of the book and still cowardice close to the end. He had no spirit as a knight early in the book and I don’t know why he even tried to become one. At the end he achieves a record of fifty dragons, but is devoured. The only thing they could find of him were the metallic parts of his medals. They couldn’t even find the ribbons. He made a record for that school that has never been equaled.

The Headmaster: The only reason that Gawaine ever got that far was because of the headmaster. The headmaster gave him spirit, but after the headmaster told him the truth, I think Gawaine lost his spirit again. I think that is probably how Gawaine dies.

Conflicts: The first conflict