Oceana

The wizard of Cwm Jones was not the only wizard who helped raise and care for baby dragons. There was another not too far away. He lived in a tower on the coast of the sea. There was no village nearby. It was just the wizard, the dragons, and the wild and lonely cry of the gulls and crashing of the surf.

Not all the dragons who lived on this rocky, wild coast were babies, either. Some had been there longer than the current wizard had been. Dragons live a tremendously long time, and they grow very slowly. Some of these adult dragons were only the size of cats. Others were the size of a cart horse. And one or two were the size of...dragons. These were enormous, old, and very wise. They lived farther away, some of them on islands, but they often came back to the coast for a visit.

Because of this variety, the young dragons at this coast were a bit different from the dragons of Cwm Jones. The dragons of the valley were well educated by the wizard and learned much about the earth and its plants and small woods and streams. And they benefited from knowing several humans and other animals. The dragons of the coast were sometimes a bit more somber and had more of the wildness of wind and wave in them. And they had the benefit of learning years of wisdom from the other dragons and the human wizard.

The two wizards visited one another fairly regularly, and the wizard of the valley had just made his way up the coast for the first time in a little over a year. The two wizards were standing together, looking out one of the tower windows at the surf crashing on the beach. Soon, the valley wizard noticed that there was a little dragon flitting around by the surf. She was hard to see because of her grey and blue coloring, but there were occasional flashes of a jewel-bright blue-green as she tossed and twisted, riding the wind, splashing down in and out of the wave crests.

“Who’s that down there?” he asked. “I don’t think I’ve met that one before.”

“Ah, that’s little Oceana. She’s hatched since last time you were here. She had a beautiful egg, it was a shimmery greeny-blue with just a little gold – you know how they can be. Hatched near some of those colorful rocks down there, where the tidal pools are. She loves being out in the surf.”

As they watched the little dragon playing in the waves and wind, another dragon landed on the beach. This one was about the size of a sheepdog and a green-grey streaked color.

“Say, is that Charlie? I haven’t seen him in a few years.”

“Oh yeah, that’s him. He’s generally around here somewhere, but he likes being up on the cliffs and in the moors behind. Still knows an awful lot about the beach, though, you probably remember. He’s been teaching Oceana and some of the other little dragons about the tidal pools. We have a pretty unique array of things that live in the pools here.”

“Think we could go down and join them?”

“Sure, don’t see why not.”

And so the two wizards went down and joined the two dragons and spent the afternoon discussing all of the amazing features of that special stretch of beach.

In the Forest

One sunny morning, by the creek in the forest, nestled amongst the roots of a shady oak tree, there was a small egg. It had turned a deep green, matching the moss it was snuggled into. The surface of it was shiny, reflecting some of the dappled light filtering through the leaves. Then, it began to move. It started rocking, then a small hole was poked through the top from the inside. A small claw came through, scratching and poking at the hole, then a paw. Another hole was made, and another paw came out, and both paws continued scratching and pushing and breaking off chunks of eggshell until there was a large hole in the topside of the egg. After more scratching, pushing, and thrashing around, the egg broke in half, revealing a crumpled, slightly slimy, dark green little animal.

The little dragon stretched, stood up, shook itself, and looked around. It spread out its wings for the first time, shook them, and turned its head to look at itself. He was still a bit slimy from the inside of the egg, so he tried rubbing some more of it off on the moss, but the moss just stuck to him. Looking around, he saw the creek and, intrigued, walked down to it. He put his nose in to sniff it and sneezed. He stuck a paw in, and saw that it came out cleaner. Getting an idea, he stepped into the clear water and stood on the sandy, pebbly bottom scooping water up with his wings and throwing it over himself until he was nice and clean.

Leaving the water, he climbed back up onto the bank beneath the tree, looked up at the tree, and decided to test out his wings. He spread them, flapped, flew, tumbled through the air, caught himself, flew up, fell down, and finally made it up to perch on a low branch, where he had to sit and pant and shake himself again. He flew from branch to branch, getting less clumsy each time, until he made it to the top of the tree.

The tree he was in was one of the taller trees in the forest, and he could see a little bit of the lie of the land around him. Up behind him, the hills sloped up to distant mountains. Below, the creek ran sparkling in and out of the shade of the trees on its banks. On the other side of the creek, beyond many more trees, there was a curl of smoke rising. Curious as he was about everything, the dragon decided to explore the smoke first. He took off, flew higher, and looked around from this new height. He could see now that the woods sloped down to a meadow valley, and there were many more colors there. As he flew closer, he could see a bright flower garden that surrounded a snug wooded cabin. The smoke was rising from the chimney.

Gliding down, the little dragon cautiously approached one of the buildings and landed on the roof. And then...the author thought for three days and couldn’t decide what should come next.

“WHAT?! You’re not ending it there!?” Squawked the little dragon on my keyboard, nose pressed to the screen. “You haven’t even told them my name yet!”

“Um, no, it’s not ending, but...you have any ideas? And you’re getting my screen dirty.”

“I don’t know. NEVILLE! Come here, look at this, she’s not finishing my story!”

A small black dragon flies over, lands on my desk, reads my screen, and looks up at me, shocked and slightly concerned.

“Really? Are you feeling okay? You’re really ending it like this?”

“Well, no, or maybe. You guys have any ideas? I really don’t know what to write next. What do you want to do?”

“I want to get off the roof at least. And isn’t the wizard supposed to show up and meet me sometime? And I thought I was going to get to set something on fire.”

Sitting on the roof, the little dragon heard the sound of a door closing, then the sound of whistling, then saw the top of a straw hat. Under the hat was a middle-aged man with a bushy beard and cheery, crinkled eyes, wearing overalls and brown work boots. He walked off toward the vegetable garden. Curious, the little dragon flew after him, keeping his distance. He landed behind a large . . . “pumpkin bush.” “Pumpkins don’t grow on bushes.” “Pumpkin plant?” “You’re looking for a pumpkin vine. I guess one would be big enough to hide you... You can hide behind some leaves.” pumpkin leaf. Peering around his leaf, he watched as the wizard examined, pruned, and checked over the various vegetables. Then the wizard looked up and said, “I wonder where they are...they said they’d help out today.” He lifted his head and gave a clear whistle. Soon, there was a small commotion in the distance, growing louder as a few little spots appeared in the sky not far away. Quickly approaching, the spots showed themselves to be more little dragons, all bouncing off each other and squabbling and trying to get there first.

“Ah, there you are. You remember you said you’d help me with the weeding today?”

“Yes!” “No, you forgot, I remembered!” “We got distracted!” “We were about to come!” Chorused all their little voices.

The wizard chuckled. “Well, now you’re here, you know what to do.”

The little dragons all nodded and set about hunting down all the weeds in the garden and carefully setting them on fire. The wizard supervised to make sure nothing got out of hand. “When do I get to set something on fire?” “Be patient...”

Still behind his pumpkin leaf, the new little dragon watched. “Wow,” he thought, “I wonder if I can do that...now, how...?” Looking around, he spied a plant that looked similar to what the others were burning, turned to face it, and tried to figure out how to breathe fire. The first attempt didn’t go so well, and he wound up coughing with his nose in the soil. Picking his head up, he faced the plant again, opened his mouth to try, aaaaannnnd...sneezed. He sneezed so hard he shot backwards into the vine, but he also shot a good amount of fire out! Unfortunately, he set a small pile of dead leaves on fire, which caused a mini blaze.

“Whoa!” the wizard exclaimed, running over to put it out. The little dragon tried to hide behind his leaf again, but wasn’t quick enough.

“Well, look at that. Hi there!” the wizard greeted the newcomer.

“Mm, hi,” the new dragon squeaked.

All the other dragons had now crowded around, excited to see what was happening.

“Where did you come from?” the wizard asked.

“Over there, in the trees. There was water, then I flew up into the trees and came here.”

“Oh, you’ve just hatched then?”

“I guess so.”

“Well, welcome to the valley of Cwm Jones! I’m the wizard around here, and I usually help you little guys out and look after you a little bit. You’re welcome to join the household here for as long as you want, if you want!”

Pleased at being welcomed so warmly and expecting that things would be fun in this group, the little dragon thought he would stay. He spent the rest of the afternoon with the other dragons, working on weeding the vegetable and flower gardens and having lots of fun doing it. It wasn’t long before he fit in with the rest. It also wasn’t long before he acquired a name. As he had come from the forest, still loved the forest, and blended in very well in the forest, he came to be called . . . Gump. "Just kidding, Forrest."

Bonsai

Spring sometimes comes early to Cwm Jones, and it did this year. Everybody has been enjoying the warmer weather, sunshine, fresh spring air, and all the new green.

The wizard was in the forest one day, looking for some herbs and examining some saplings for his Bonsai collection, when he noticed some eggshell pieces. They were a shiny, light green color and obviously from a dragon egg. But there was no dragon. “Well now, I wonder where he is...” the wizard said to himself, while scanning the forest for any clues. “Looks like he hatched a couple of days ago, hope the little feller’s alright.” There were very few clues anywhere as to where the little dragon may have gone, and the wizard, finishing up gathering his wood sorrel, went back to the house to enlist some help in the dragon search.

On coming back out of the pantry, he was met by Eustace and Neville, who were busy chasing each other around the house. In fact, he didn’t exactly meet them; they more collided with him. After laughing at the two dragons, he asked if they’d like to help him look for a new dragon.

The three of them went back to the woods where the wizard had found the eggshell, and the two dragons picked up the scent of the new dragon. Unfortunately, it’s a bit hard to follow the scent of a dragon, as they typically get around by flying. But new dragons have to take frequent rests, so they were able to track him from patch to patch, or tree branch to tree branch. Finally, they arrived in a small clearing with a few young saplings in it. And there, hiding in the leaves of one of the young trees, there was a small dragon. Not wanting to alarm him, the wizard stopped and held still while the other dragons flew forward to introduce themselves. Once the new dragon was assured that they were friendly, he came out and began talking to them, and the wizard came up and joined in the conversation. He had hatched a couple days ago and had begun flying around and exploring the forest. He’d stopped when he reached this clearing because of all the small trees, which he liked because they were more his size than the rest of the trees in the forest. On asking the wizard about them, he found out that, naturally, only very young trees were this size, but that it was possible to grow miniature trees if you applied the right art to them. The young dragon was fascinated by this and spent the next several years learning the art of miniature tree growing, so that he eventually took on the same name as the art form: Bonsai.

of the Breaking of Peace and of its Restoration

It has been some time since we last heard a tale from our friends in the valley of Cwm Jones. I assure you that they are all well, though most of the baby dragons we knew last time have now grown up and moved to new homes. However, some of our old friends are still around, and the wizard and his family are all still there and well, though a little older, more worn, and wiser.

We have not heard from them in some time because things have been a little rough in the valley lately. Things were so unsafe that the wizard warned the dragons against laying any new eggs in the valley, as he could not guarantee the safety of any eggs or hatchlings. You may wonder why the fully grown dragons could not themselves come in force and set things to rights when there were evil people causing such trouble, but there are times when such force is not wise and may only cause more harm. The wizard would only call on the power of the dragons in a case of full war.

The circumstances of this time were thus: a group of ruffians decided to set up camp near to our wizard’s neighborhood, and they caused much trouble in the forest and in the town. It began simply with noisy revelry in the ruffians’ camp shortly after they arrived. And this was not revelry of the joyous kind, where there is laughter and merriment and drink is responsible and adds to the joy. This was the sort where there is roughness and coarse laughter and drink turns seething anger into violence. After being sternly reprimanded for such behavior, for it was enough to disturb all those in the countryside nearby and even in the village, the ruffians still did not amend their ways. They merely shouted the louder and threatened all those who objected to their behavior.

Seeing that things were tense, and not knowing whether real harm would be done, the wizard watched the newcomers closely and used some simple spells to protect others from them. But that was not enough, and one night a barn was broken into and three horses stolen. The thieves could not be found, and even the horses could not be tracked, though the best of the dogs and dragons followed the trail as far as they could.

The wizard then took steps to protect all the inhabitants of the valley, and even did his best to remove the ruffians. However, even a wizard has his limits, and he may sometimes exercise restraint in the hope that people may be changed for the better and no longer need such strict governance. This made for a tense summer, but nothing of too terrible a nature occurred, other than many good things being destroyed, for these people seemed to delight in the breaking of things and in creating piles of rubbish. But then, one of the inhabitants of the forest was killed. It was one of the rabbits (there are talking rabbits in the vale of Cwm Jones), and that was a sorrowful day indeed. The perpetrator was caught, and he was soundly punished and banished, the valley was sealed from him by magic, and a spell was placed on him to prevent him from ever injuring any creature again. But even this did not fix things. One night not long after, the wizard’s barn was set on fire. Fortunately, if something has to be set on fire it is best if it belongs to a wizard, for he can put it out before too much damage is done. It was also fortunate that it was done on a fine, warm night when all of the animals had decided to stay out for the night. Be that as it may, it was not a pleasant event in any way, and it was clear that things had gone too far.

All of the ruffians were brought before the village council, of which the wizard was the head. Those with many severe charges against them were banished, those who had committed minor offences were given the option of leaving or else remaining and working to repair things in the community, and those who had not been charged with anything were given leave to remain, but were told they would still be watched. After this, most of the ruffians left together and moved on, but some were glad of the second chance and stayed and became part of the neighborhood and peace was restored.

After this period of unrest and trial, the wizard and his wife were tired and sorrowful that evil should exist, but they had been through trying times before, and they were glad that peace could be again, though it may be a watchful peace at times. Shortly afterwards, the wizard sent word to the dragon community that the valley was again a safe place for eggs to be laid and hatchlings to be raised. Soon, there should be many baby dragons flying about the valley and its woods and meadows again.