Here There Be Dragons

Chapter 1

ONCE UPON A TIME there was a king who was king of a very small country. Indeed, his kingdom was so small that most people were not even aware it existed.

The king thought that it was a fairly large kingdom, though, as kingdoms went. This was because there were many mountains around the place, mountains which were difficult to climb. Because of these mountains, travelers would just go on around the kingdom, rather than go through it. And very few people ever left the kingdom, to come back and tell of other lands. People were pretty much afraid to do that.

They were afraid of the dragons.

They never saw any dragons, mind you, but they were afraid of them. This is because all the maps in the kingdom showed that they were surrounded by dragons dragons here, dragons there, dragons all over the place, all because of Mister Gibberling.

Mister Gibberling was the Royal Cartographer. (That means he was the official mapmaker.) Mister Gibberling was the Royal Cartographer because his father and his grandfather had been Royal Cartographers. Mister Gibberling had learned his profession from his father, who had learned it from his father.

Since people did not visit the kingdom very often, and the king's subjects seldom crossed over the mountains themselves, it was difficult for the Royal Cartographers to know exactly what to put down on their maps to show what was outside. So, as he had learned from his father (who had learned it from his father), whenever he did not know what to show as being in any certain place, Mister Gibberling picked up his quill, and with a great flourish of the feather wrote (in fancy letters):

-HERE THERE BE DRAGONS-

Then he would smile, because he had explained a new territory. Of course, since he did not really know what lay beyond the mountains in any direction, it soon came to appear that the entire world was infested with dragons. (And he would draw little pictures of fire-breathing dragons, roaring and flapping their wings, beneath what he wrote which certainly didn't help to promote tourism.)

This is why everyone was afraid of the dragons they had never seen. If your father were to drive into a gas station and ask for a road map, and it said, "HERE THERE BE DRAGONS" and it showed a little picture such as the ones Mister Gibberling drew, your father would take a dif- ferent route. So, since all the maps in the kingdom showed dragons everywhere, breathing flames and being mean, all the people in the kingdom stayed at home, because there were no other routes.