OUTWITTING THE DRAGON LONGZE (STORY BY BOST, 2026- PART 1)

John had lost both his parents, due to a freak accident, a runaway carriage, at the tender age of six. His innate nature was willful and stubborn; and so, after his daring escape from the oppressive, state-orphanage, he’d pretty much grown up in the streets, relying solely on his own wits.  Barely nine years old, John had then attached himself to an old, excentric blacksmith that lived at the edge of town, and as his apprentice, he’d hence acquired a useful skill. After his mentor the blacksmith had passed away, John wanting to see the world, had travelled on foot, from place to place, eventually settling in a small border town, earning a meagre living, doing whatever jobs needed doing.

01- JOHN THE BLACKSMITH (7)JP

John celebrated his seventeenth birthday, by treating himself to a cold draft, for the first time ever, at the local tavern.  The proprietor had cast him a cautionary look but took his coin and provided him with the local draft without saying another word. He had sat in the dark corner and quietly sipped, savoring the brew, as this was his right of passage, while his eyes stealthily scanned the room for any potential danger. He always kept his vigil, never trusting anyone; however now that he was in his late teens, his strong athletic physique and stalwart (fearless, valiant) bearing and unfriendly demeanor, deterred most ruffians (thugs, hoodlums) from approaching or targeting him. He had long straight white-blond hair, brilliant blue eyes and was most fair to look at; some might even consider him quite handsome. He’d been smitten with a local farm girl, at the outskirts of town, and that was the reason he’d extended his stay within this region.

There happened to be an old, old castle at the edge of town perched on a hilltop by the fast-flowing river. The castle had been abandoned long ago by the original owner Lord Densel Keroy, whose family had once lived there, for untold generations. After the Lord’s wife’s sudden death, he’d married a mysterious woman, some thought she was a witch, and from thence, things had taken a turn for the worse. One after the other, Lord’s three offsprings, close relations and then the extended members (kinfolk) had all, through succumbing to accidents, bad luck, illness or pestilence, perished. No one knew what’d became of the Lord or the reminder of his family; they had simply, one stormy night, under cover of darkness boarded the moored vassal (river boat) and sailed down the river. They were never seen or heard from ever again; moreover, for unknown reasons, Lord’s name or any reference of him, thereafter, had all been erased (wiped out) from the historical records (this included the town’s genealogy’ books). Deemed a cursed place, the once magnificent castle (along with its manicured grounds sporting fountains and statues and exotic trees and flowers) meanwhile, was simply abandoned and left to rot (decay, deteriorate).

02- ABANDONED CASTLE IN RUINS (3)jp

No one went near this old castle, save for John. The castle was by then so decrepit that most of its walls and towers and turrets and gateways and arches, some overgrown by ivy, lay crumbled or in ruins; a comparatively small segment (of the east wing) had remained intact, as a reminder of its once old splendor. John, unfazed by the supposed, curse and the ghostly hauntings (roaming), however, had noted the advantage to be had here; he saw, for instance, that there were two perfectly habitable, almost cozy rooms, within this sector, that was perfectly adequate for his immediate needs. And so, it was here, that John the blacksmith had set up his forge.

John the blacksmith, soon as he’d turned nineteen, had of course married his sweetheart Betty and his deep love and devotion for his beloved had never once wavered (faltered), despite some marital difficulties. She’d been spoiled by her father and had little understanding of the economics of life. Nevertheless, eight months prior, she’d born to him, a lively little baby boy, which he absolutely adored.

Recently, because of some unavoidable setbacks- first was the fire that had gutted their old home, then afterwards, his wife had succumbed to robbery, loosing all their savings- this unfortunately, had left John at present in dire straits; therefore, lacking the adequate funds for  a proper dwelling, he’d of course considered the dilapidated castle, especially since the two perfectly good rooms were rent-free.  So here John blew his bellows and hammered his iron and did all the work which came his way. This was not much, because most of the trade went to the mayor of the town, who was also a blacksmith in quite a large way of business, and had his huge forge facing the square of the town.

03- THE MAYOR  MARCELL

The mayor Marcell employed twelve apprentices, all hammering like a nest of woodpeckers, and four supervisors (controllers, overseers) to order the apprentices about; he had a patent forge and a self-acting hammer, the mechanical (automated) bellows, and many more spiffy things, all handsome about him. So of course, the townspeople, whenever they wanted a horse shod or a shaft mended, went to the mayor.

John the blacksmith, meanwhile, struggled on as best he could, with a few odd jobs from travelers and strangers who did not know what a superior forge the mayor's was. The two rooms John and Betty had occupied, were warm and weather-tight, but not very large; so, the blacksmith John got into the way of keeping his old iron, his odds and ends, his fagots, and his two pence worth of coal in the great dungeon down under the castle. It was a very fine dungeon indeed, with a handsome vaulted roof and big iron rings whose staples were built into the wall, very strong and convenient for tying captives to, and at one end was a broken flight of wide steps leading down no one knew where. Even the lords of the castle in the good old times had never known where those steps led to, but every now and then they would kick a prisoner down the steps in their lighthearted, hopeful way, and sure enough, the prisoners never came back. The blacksmith John, brave as he was, had not the occasion to go beyond the seventh step, so he did not know or cared to know, what was at the bottom of those stairs.

04- BETTY  (28)JP

Beknows to John, when his wife was not doing the housework or nursing the baby, she would pensively sit on the steps or quietly shed some tears, for she was secretly very unhappy. She often ruminated on the happy, carefree days of old when she lived with her father in a stately (splendid) two-story farmhouse, in relative comfort and luxury, in the pristine setting of the countryside. She had two personal servants then tending to all the household chores and her, fulfilling her every whim. Additionally, they had seasonal workers that harvested the fields, they had three dozen sheep and, seventeen cows.

Then one day, while gathering wildflowers in the field, she’d chanced on John; he was so handsome, so dashing a young man, she had immediately been quite taken with him.  Young and reckless, they had married soon after. She with a wry smile on her lips recollected now, sitting quietly by the window, the time John used to come courting her in the summer evenings, as smart as could be, with a posy fastened in his jacket’s buttonhole. And now, her father had passed away, and John’s hair had lost its lustre (sheen); and though they’d survived many hardships, recently fairing worse, there’d been hardly ever enough to eat.

As for the baby, it cried a good deal at odd times but particularly at night; often, when Betty had settled down to sleep, it would always begin to cry, quite as a matter of course, so that she hardly got any rest at all. This made her very tired. The baby could make up for its bad nights during the day if it liked, but poor Betty couldn't. So, whenever she had nothing to do, she used to idly sit and cry, because she was tired out with work and worry.

05-JOHN THE BLACKSMITH (11)jp

One evening the blacksmith John was busy with his forge. He was making a goat-shoe for the goat of a very rich lady, who wished to see how the goat liked being shod, and also whether the shoe would come to fivepence or sevenpence before she ordered the whole set. This was the only order John had had that week. And as he worked his wife Betty sat and nursed the baby, who, for a wonder, was not crying.

Presently, over the noise of the bellows and over the clank of the iron, there came another sound. The blacksmith and his wife looked at each other.

"I heard nothing," said he.

"Neither did I," said she.

But the noise grew louder—and the two were so anxious not to hear it that he hammered away at the goat-shoe harder than he had ever hammered in his life, and she began to sing to the baby—a thing she had not had the heart to do for weeks.

But through the blowing and hammering and singing the noise came louder and louder, and the more they tried not to hear it, the more they had to. It was like the noise of some great creature purring, purring, purring—and the reason they did not want to believe they really heard it was that it came from the great dungeon down below, where the old iron was, and the firewood and the two pence worth of coal, and the broken steps that went down into the dark and ended no one knew where.

"It can't be anything in the dungeon," said the blacksmith John and smiled reassuringly, then using the small strip of cloth he wiped the sweat off his face. "Besides, I shall investigate it proper, when I have to go down there anyway, to fetch more coals in a minute."

"There isn't anything there, of course. How could there be? But you will still be careful, won’t you dear?" said his wife concealing her trepidation (anxiety, unease). And they, being so considerate (and loving) of each other, tried so very hard to reassure the other, that both very nearly did believe it.

Then John took his shovel in one hand and his riveting hammer in the other and hung the old stable lantern on his little finger and went down to get the coals.

"I am not taking the hammer because I think there is something there," said he, "but it is handy for breaking the large lumps of coal."

"I quite understand," said his wife Betty, who had brought the coal home in her apron that very afternoon, and knew that it was all coal dust.

So, John went down the winding stairs to the dungeon and stood at the bottom of the steps, holding the lantern above his head just to see that the dungeon really was empty, as usual. Half of it was indeed empty, except for the old iron and odds and ends, and the firewood and the coals. But the other side was not empty. It was quite full, and what it was full of was Dragon.

06 - DRAGON LONGZE - JP

"It must have come up those nasty broken steps from goodness knows where," said John to himself, with a frown on his lip, as he tried to creep back up the winding stairs. Facing this unexpected danger, his anxious thoughts had been more about the safety and welfare of his wife and child.

But the dragon Longze was too quick for him—it put out a mighty big claw and caught him by the leg, and as it moved it rattled like a great bunch of keys, or like the sheet iron they make thunder out of in pantomimes.

"No, you don't," said the dragon in a grumbling voice that revibrated in the air.

"I beg your pardon," said John, stockily, “I meant you, no disrespect.”  His fearless eyes looked straight at the Dragon, though he was helplessly trapped under the claw of the dragon. Truth be known, he was inwardly awed, staring at this magnificent creature; he’d never seen a dragon before, he’d always been told that they had long been extinct. Subsequently, John shrugged his shoulders, resigned to his fate, and mumbled:  "Alas, here's a nice end for a respectable blacksmith!"

07-DRAGON LONGZE (3)JP

The dragon Longze seemed very much struck by this remark.

"Do you mind saying that again?" said he, quite politely.

So, John said again, very distinctly: "Here—is—a—nice—end—for—a—respectable—blacksmith."

"I didn't know," said the dragon. "Fancy now! You're the very man I wanted."

"I’m at your disposal." John refused to beg for mercy and so had boldly ejected: “Go ahead, incinerate me.” He’d secretly hoped, that after his demise, the dragon would then go back satisfied, to whence he came from, and that his wife and child be safe.

"Oh, I didn't mean that.”  said the dragon Longze, "Though, I should like you to do a job for me. One of my wings has got some of the rivets out of it just above the joint. Could you put that to rights?"

John exhaled in relief and said, “I might, sir," rather politely, for he always was polite to any potential customer, even if he be a dragon.

"A master craftsman—you are a master, of course? —can see in a minute what's wrong," the dragon went on. "Just come around here and feel my plates, will you?"

John tentatively (timidly, cautiously) went around when the dragon took his claw away; and sure enough, there was a part where the dragon's wing was hanging loose, and several of the plates near the joint certainly wanted riveting.

The dragon Longze seemed to be made almost entirely of iron armor—a sort of thin strip of rust color beneath the blue-silver plates, it was from damp, no doubt—and under it he seemed to be covered with something furry.

All the blacksmith welled up in John's heart, and he felt more at ease.

08-JOHN THE BLACKSMITH (14)jp

"You could certainly do with a rivet or two, sir," said he. "In fact, you want a good many."

"Well, get to work, then," said the dragon. Longze could not detect any usual nuance (tone) of prejudice in John’s vernacular, nor could he sense the typical, intense fear in latter’s heart; therefore, rather intrigued by this unique individual and wanting to experience more of his mettle (valour, bravery), plus, unable to resist intimidating him, Dragon Longze said: "You mend my wing, and then I'll go out and eat up all the townsfolk, and if you make a really smart job of it, I'll eat you last. There!"

"I don't want to be eaten last, sir," said John.

"Well then, I'll eat you first," said dragon Longze.

"I don't want that, sir, either," said John.

"Go on with you, you silly man," scoffed the dragon, "you don't know your own silly mind. Come, set to work."

John drew closer- gave the dragon a bit of a nip or a dig under his rivets—took note of the damage…assess what it would take to fix it … fire and smoke. Then he hesitated; he seemed to be rather ambivalent (indecisive) about his next move.

"I prefer not to tackle (handle) this job, sir," finally John ejected, "and that's the truth. I know how easily accidents could happen… Then you’ll blame me, suspecting me of being deliberately malicious.”

"You may carry on without fear; I will not harm you even if you cause me hurt. “Dragon Longze, noting the blacksmith’s lingering qualms, assured John. “I’ll take all that you said under advisement; now, if you please delay no more, rivet me, and I'll eat you last”. Longze was inwardly laughing up a storm, noting the flicker of terror and calculation simultaneously registering in those human eyeballs (cornea, orbs); subsequently, all of it immediately being replaced with the stubborn, defiant fervour (commitment, zeal).

"I know you wouldn't do it on purpose, sir," said John pensively, "but any gentleman will give a jump and a sniff if he's nipped, and one of your sniffs would be enough for me. Now, if you'd just let me fasten you up?"

09-DRAGON LONGZE (20)jp

“You are way too brazen; I give you that! " The Dragon Longze silently derided; then looking straight at John, outwardly objected: “But that would be so undignified."

"We always fasten a horse up," said John, "and he's the 'noble animal.”

"It's all very well," said the dragon, "but how do I know you'd untie me again when you'd riveted me? Give me something in pledge. What do you value most?"

"My hammer," said John. "A blacksmith is nothing without a hammer."

"But you'd want that for riveting me. You must think of something else, and at once, or I'll eat you first."

At this moment the baby in the room above began to cry. Its mother had been so quiet that it thought she had settled down for the night, and that it was time to begin.

"Whatever's that?" said the dragon, starting so that every plate on his body rattled.

"It's only the baby," said John.

"What's that?" asked dragon Lonze. "Something you value?"

"Well, yes, sir, rather," said the blacksmith John, trying his best to conceal his rising inner dread. He’d so hoped the baby would for once sleep peacefully through it all, and the Dragon would not be aware of their (his wife and son’s) existence.

"Then bring it here," said the dragon, "he’ll be an apt collateral (guarantee); you shall tie me up, I’ll keep an eye on it, till you've done riveting me."

"All right, sir," John reluctantly acceded, "but I ought to warn you… Babies are poison to dragons, so I don't deceive you. It's all right to touch—but don't you go putting it into your mouth. I shouldn't like to see any harm come to you."

The dragon was beginning to lose patience; he inwardly scoffed: “Likely story; you think me so ignorant? But to reassure you, hmm, very well, I’ll simply play along.”

The dragon Longze condescendingly purred and said: "All right, I'll be careful. Now go and fetch the thing, whatever it is."

So, John ran up the steps as quickly as he could, for he knew that if the dragon got impatient before it was fastened, it could heave up the roof of the dungeon with one lurch (motion, toss, heave) of its back and kill them all in the ruins.

Upstairs he found his wife with eyelids closed and in deep slumber, curled up in a ball, lying in bed besides the baby; for despite the baby's cries, she’d been so utterly spent with all that worry that sleep had abruptly claimed her. His sad eyes for a short spell lingering on Betty, John then leaned forward and gently picked up his son. The baby affectionately cradled in his arms, John hastened back to the dungeon and, showing great faith in the creature, he then gingerly placed his precious boy in front of the dragon's front paws.

11- JOHN'S BABY BOY PLACED IN FRONT OF lONGZE.

"You just purr to it, sir," he said, "and it'll be as good as gold."

So, the dragon Longze did just that, and his purring pleased the baby so much that he actually ceased (discontinued, stopped) his crying.

 

(END OF PART ONE- THE STORY CONCLUDES IN PART TWO)

 

                                                                                        ~

 THE ORIGIN OF THE MIDGARD SERPENT (REVISED 2025)

In the Norse and Teutonic legends, as recounted in the Prose Edda of Snorri Sturlson, the most powerful and feared Dragon-like creature was the Midgard Serpent, known as Jörmungandr. Jörmungandr was so huge he was able to circle the entire Earth (or Midgard as it was called by the Vikings) and put its own tail into its mouth. 

01- MIDGARD SERPENT  

The Midgard Serpent’s sworn enemy was the Thunder God Thor, one of the few Gods of Asgard who possessed the strength to stand up to the beast. The relationship between the Thunder God and the Serpent started when the Gods were young and ended in Ragnarok; the Twilight of the Gods.

The Midgard Serpent is the middle son of Loki, a jötunn (nature spirits with superhuman strength) himself the son of Laufey (an embodiment of vegetation) and Fárbauti (the spirit of lightning) whose mingling bequeathed Loki the spirit and unpredictability of wildfire. Loki’s mother was the giantess Angrboða, “the one who bring grief”, and his siblings were the Dire Wolf Fenrir and Hel, the Goddess of the Dead whose realm was the mist world of Niflheim. Niflheim was one of the two primordial realms along with Muspelheim where the Fire jötunn dwelt. All three of Loki’s children along with the jötunn of Muspelheim play a pivotal role in bringing about Ragnarok.
Odin, father of the Thunder God Thor’s and leader of the Æsir, saw the danger in Jörmungandr when it would not stop growing after its birth. He threw the serpent into the sea of Midgard, where it continued to grow until it surrounded the whole world. The seas of earth became the realm of the Midgard Serpent.

O2- ODIN

THOR LIFTS A CAT

The first encounter Thor had with the Midgard Serpent was in the Castle of Útgarda-Loki during a ritual test of strength. Útgarda-Loki had challenged Thor to drink from a horn whose end was dipped in the sea. Thor failed to drain it, but drank so much it created the tides. Thor then had to wrestle an old crone, a servant of Útgarda-Loki, but was overcome with weakness after being unable to so much as move her. The crone was old age, who neither man nor God could overcome. The third test that Útgarda-Loki posed was to lift a grey cat up off of the floor. Thor tried with all his strength, but was only able to get the cat to lift one paw off of the ground. The cat was actually the Midgard Serpent, whose size was so great that even lifting a small part off of the sea bed was enough to cause earthquakes and tidal waves. Thor left the Castle with Útgarda-Loki’s promise that Thor would never be allowed back in.

 THOR GOES FISHING 

The next time Thor and Jörmungandr encountered the other Thor, disguised as a young boy, visited Midgard with the God Tyr and stayed with the giant Hymir while Tyr visited his mother and grandmother in the land of the Ice Giants. Hymir was renowned for his fishing skill, and regularly returned with huge fish, even whales, but Hymir looked at the young Thor and doubted if he would be any use rowing his boat. “You are so small, if I take you out for as long and as far as I am wont to go you would undoubtedly freeze.”
This enraged Thor but he held his temper and did not strike the giant. “I will row as far and as fast as you need me to. Nor am I certain which of us would give up and want to return first. Now, where is the bait?”
“If you want to fish with me get your own bait.”

03- THOR

Once more Thor’s temper flared, and he strode up the hill to where Hymir kept his herd of prize cattle. Picking the largest ox, named Himinbrjotr, or Sky-Cleaver, and struck off his head with one blow. When he returned Hymir had already launched the boat and had taken up rowing position in the bow. Thor tossed the Ox-head into the vessel and climbed in to man the stern set of oars. Hymir, facing forward, was surprised how fast the boat moved; at first not knowing Thor was powering it from behind. When Hymir reached the fishing grounds where he usually caught flat fish he shipped the oars and called for a stop. Thor refused, wanting to keep going further into the ocean and rowed them out to the spot Hymir caught whales. When the giant wanted to stop and catch whales, Thor again refused, “We must go further out.”

“If we do not stop here, we will be in the realm of the Midgard Serpent, who circles the world at its edge.” Hymir remonstrated with Thor two more times but Thor continued to row. Then Thor finally stopped the boat and they both started fishing. Hymir baited his own hook twice, threw it out, and each time he pulled in a huge whale. “I challenge you to do as well as this, stripling.”
Thor then took a strong line and hook and fastened the Ox head onto it. He then let it out farther and farther until it rested on the bottom of the sea where it dragged along behind the boat. The Midgard Serpent was intrigued by the bait and snapped at it, burying the hook into its jaw. Thrashing with pain, Jörmungandr thrashed and swam away so rapidly that it pulled Thor’s knuckles into the gunwale. Angered now, Thor pulled with all his strength just as Jörmungandr pulled in the other direction with such force that Thor’s feet broke through the deck to catch on the hull of the ship. Calling on all his force, Thor reeled in the line hand-over-hand, twisting the free end around the oar-pins as he brought it up, finally working the mighty serpent all the way up to the surface. 

04- THOR FISHING

When the Midgard Serpent’s monstrous head came into view, dripping with blood and venom, Hymir grew yellow of face, and feared for his life. Great waves washed over the gunwale, threatening to swamp the vessel and drown them both but Thor held on to the line with one mighty hand and with the other reached to his belt for his hammer.

05- THOR FIGHTS MIDGARD SERPENT

From shoulder height Thor struck the Serpent with the hammer Mjöllnir. The mountains shook and the ocean trembled but Jörmungandr was only wounded. As Thor raised Mjöllnir above his head to deliver a killing blow strong enough to split a mountain, Hymir grabbed his knife and cut the line. Jörmungandr quickly slipped back into the depths of the sea to hide as far away from Thor as he could get. Once more enraged by Hymir, Thor did not hold back and brought Mjöllnir down upon the giant’s head, knocking him over the side and down to the bottom of the sea. Filled with a great fear the giant managed to climb back into the boat and huddle in the stern while Thor rowed to land. The God may not have been able to kill the Midgard Serpent and end its threat to Asgard, but he had landed a wounding blow and avenged the trick the beast had played upon him in the Hall of Útgarda-Loki.

RAGNAROK: THE END OF THE WORLD

The prophecy of Raganrok speaks of the doom that befalls Heaven, Earth and Hell because of Thor’s failure to kill the Jörmungandr when he had the chance. When Loki is freed from his chains, the Midgard Serpent rises from the depths to poison the sky of Midgard. Naglefar, the Ship of Death, made in Hel’s realm from the fingernails of the dead, carries Fenrir, Hel, her dragon Nidhogg, swallower of souls, and the demon hoards of Muspelheim under the command of Surtur the Fire Demon to join with the Serpent, Loki and the Ice Giants of Jotunheim in the attack on Asgard. In the final battle of Ragnarok on the fields of Vigrid all Creation is undone and Time itself is shattered.

The battle between Thor and Jörmungandr lasts long and the outcome is uncertain. Thor strikes with Mjöllnir but the Serpent writhes away from the blows, spewing venom over the Thunder God. Thor grows angrier and finally is able to land the deathblow on the Midgard Serpent, stretching him out over the Plain of Vigrid, unmoving. Yet, even in its death throes the Serpent manages to spray its deadly venomous vapor into Thor’s face, who breathes it in and manages to walk but nine paces away before dying on the battlefield beside his mortal foe.

Thor would not be the only Æsir to die at Ragnarok. Even though Loki is killed by Heimdal, Keeper of Bifrost, the Rainbow Bridge, Heimdal is gored by Loki’s horns and succumbs. Tyr is slain by the wolf-dog Garm and Surtur dispatches Frey with his flaming sword. Fenrir attacks and slays Odin the All-Father and is speared in turn by Odin’s son Vidar, who manages to survive the battle.

06- THE BLACK DRAGON

 Nidhogg, Hel’s Black Dragon, soars over the plain swallowing the souls of the dead. The Dire Wolf Skoll swallows the sun and the stars blink out of the sky. Surtur the Fire Demon moves through the worlds burning everything with his sword. Midgard is covered in volcanic flame and its sky filled with poisonous smoke, Asgard is scorched and even Nidhogg succumbs to the inferno. Fire curls around the burning trunk of Ygdrasil, the World Tree. Smoldering and blackened, the Earth sinks beneath the sea. What follows is nothing but deep blackness and silence unbroken.

 FIN