Bill and Bruce - dragon tales to sleep by

Tonight theNoo woke up crying. He got a bottle and some medicine but he was still very sore and sad. So I sat down next to his bed and tried to calm him. I offered to tell him a story. We settled on dragons.

First up was Bruce. Bruce was very fierce, and very lazy. He terrorized the surrounding villages to give him sheep every Friday. He would fly to each village in turn, gobble a sheep, then off to the next. Finally, full of mutton and wool, he would fly back to his cave, curl up and sleep the rest of the week. The villagers got sick of this so they decided to trick the dragon. A young boy, whose name matched theNoo's, glued a sheep skin to a rock. The next time Bruce came to the village he was directed to eat that sheep. He did and it broke all his teeth! Bruce was most angered, but his mouth was sore. Spitting out shards of tooth he flew off to his cave in a rage to sleep the week, he was full of mutton and wool after-all, then get his revenge.

Well the villagers decided to pretend to make amends and they left out a big cauldron full of mutton stew, with a hollow log as a straw. The Dragon woke and saw this peace offering so he hoovered up the stew ... which was laced with sleep inducing herbs. It put him in a deeper sleep. A sleep so deep the villagers were able to seal up his cave.

Now dragons are magical beasts, and they don't suffocate, but the reduced air meant that Bruce stayed asleep. And he slept and slept and slept so long that the young boy grew into a man had a family of his own and they had a family and so on. And all that time Bruce stayed asleep, counting sheep in his head.

One ... two ... three ... four.

At that point I thought theNoo was asleep. Nup ... "More dragon".

So Bill the pirate dragon made an appearance. He grew up on an island and one day saw a pirate ship. He flew down to the ship and gobbled up the captain and made the crew make him captain. In exchange he would help them capture other ships and the pirates would spend the loot on wine and women - for pirates loved drunk women.

Bill sat in the hold. As they closed in on the victim he'd pop his head up and send a blast of fire at their sails and rigging - ashing them. The ship would not be able to flee and the pirates would easily capture it.

Well, this went on for years and years. The pirates spent all their money on loose women who liked the fermented grape, and Bill kept his share in the hold - only spending it on supplies like food. Since he got half the loot as captain he amassed quite a hoard. The pirates grew jealous and they wanted the money - but Bill was now too big to leave the hold and could only stick his head out and ash sails and rigging ... and of course pirates should they mess with him. They needed a plan.

Enter TheNoo, a cabin boy. He had a plan. He told the other pirates to loosen the deck boards around the hold grill.

He snuck down to the bilges and waited for Bill to go to sleep. Then TheNoo moaned and groaned. Bill woke up. 'What was that? ... the wind....' He went back to sleep. Ooooooooooh! went theNoo. 'What was that?!' said Bill. 'The wind....'

This went on for some time ... then ... TheNoo started to moan and groan names of ships that Bill had taken and plundered. Oh no! Bill was being haunted. Just as he was most afraid TheNoo, having left the bilges, threw incense into a brazier fire and a gout of smelly smoke seeped into the hold. 'Oh no - a ghost!' yelled Bill. He was so frightened he burst through the deck roof - the boards having been loosened by the pirates - then tried to flee. It had been some time since he used his wings and he skipped his fat belly on the surface of the sea a number of times before he got airborne. And the pirates never saw him again. And you know what? TheNoo went from cabin boy to captain in a single day, the fastest piratical promotion in the history of piracy.

Bill returned to his island and spent the rest of his days eating fish and avoiding ships lest they be filled with ghosts.

At that point theNoo was asleep and I was able to escape. I left the room and went to tell my story of dragon laced triumph to theWife... who it turns out had been listening on the monitor ... and fallen asleep.

Yes for the soporific dragon stories. Boring people to sleep since 2010.