The Runaway Dragon (27 page)

Most of you have probably seen
Enchanted, Shrek, Ella Enchanted
, and a bunch of Disney movies based on fairy tales. You’ve probably read a dozen or so well-known stories such as “Little Red Riding Hood” and “Sleeping Beauty,” too—but what about “Iron Hans,” “The Golden Bird,” or “Mother Hulda”? I discovered the seemingly secret world of fairy tales when I was about eight: I could go to the library and check out collections of stories from all over the world! Sometimes my family even gave me fairy tale collections for my birthday. I still own the book of tales from the Arabian Nights my grandma gave me years ago. That’s where I met Aladdin, Sinbad, and clever Morgiana, although my favorite story was actually about a magic bird and some cucumbers stuffed with pearls.

Those German story collectors, the Brothers Grimm, introduced me to wonderful European tales. I particularly
liked a comical horror story about a youth who could not shudder, so he set out to learn the meaning of fear. In a book of stories from Japan, I learned that Japanese fairy tales don’t always have happy endings and that Tom Thumb has a counterpart called Issun-boshi (Little One-Inch), a tiny yet fierce boy who wants to be a samurai warrior. I also read books of myths and legends, especially stories about colorful tricksters such as the Native American Coyote and the West African spider, Anansi. When I read a collection of Russian tales, I discovered that the scariest witch ever is Baba Yaga, who lives in a house that has chicken feet, surrounded by a fence made of human bones.

I guess it shouldn’t be too surprising that I grew up to write books like
The Runaway Dragon
, in which I have fun playing with typical European fairy tales. Let me give you a quick look at some of the stories I had in mind as I wrote it. For example, maybe you’re wondering why the girl in the tower is named Spinach. Of course, Spinach’s story is based on “Rapunzel,” and that fairy tale begins with a pregnant woman who is craving a leaf vegetable from a witch’s garden. The common name for the vegetable is corn salad, but one of its other names is
rapunzel.
The witch catches the woman’s husband stealing from her and demands his baby as payment. Naturally, the baby is named after the fate-altering vegetable! The witch then puts the child in a doorless tower in the middle of the woods, where she visits her by climbing up her
long hair. Rapunzel finally escapes from the tower after a handsome prince hears her singing, though she has further troubles with the angry witch before she gets a happy ending.

Like
The Runaway Dragon
, a lot of fairy tales involve quests. In European stories, the hero is usually a youngest son whose two older brothers are selfish and proud. First each of the older brothers sets out to seek his fortune. When the brothers meet an old beggar on the road, they refuse to give him (or her) any food—and end up lost or enchanted. In contrast, the kindhearted youngest son willingly shares his bread with the beggar, who turns out to have magical powers or useful information for our hero. In the Grimms’ story “The Golden Goose,” a little gray man accepts bread from youngest son Simpleton, then advises him to cut down a certain tree in the forest. There Simpleton finds a golden goose that will make a princess laugh. The little gray man and others like him inspired my character Quorlock, who takes his role as a magical adviser far too seriously.

Quorlock coaches Meg on being kind to animals because in many tales a hero who treats animals with compassion later benefits from their help. “The White Snake,” another story from the Brothers Grimm, tells of a young man who learns the language of animals and sets off to see the world. Along the way, he finds three fishes out of the water and puts them back in the pond, turns aside on the path so as not to destroy an ants’ nest, and
kills his horse to feed three young ravens who are starving. (Poor horse!) Later, when the youth tries to win the hand of a princess, he is given three impossible tasks: fetch a gold ring from the bottom of the sea, sort out ten sacks of millet seed that have been thrown in the grass, and bring back a golden apple from the tree of life. The fishes, the ants, and the ravens come and help the youth complete his tasks.

Animal helpers also show up in a Norwegian story called “The Giant Who Had No Heart in His Body,” as does another intriguing plot point that comes up briefly in my book (when Meg and the servant women are storming the fortress). Boots, the youngest of seven princes, helps a raven, a salmon, and a wolf during his journey. Then he rides the wolf to a giant’s house where a princess is held captive. The giant is invincible for the simple reason that he does not keep his heart inside his body. Boots hides while the princess pesters the giant to find out his secret. Finally she learns that the heart is kept in an egg inside a duck that swims in a well inside a church on a distant island in the middle of a lake. With the help of his three animal friends, Boots is able to retrieve the heart. Then he squeezes it, killing the giant. He not only rescues the princess, but also his six older brothers and their six princess fiancées, who have been turned to stone by the giant. Notice that this giant, like Lorgley Comprost, knows some magic!

The people in another fairy tale turn into animals
when they drink from a stream, though much grander animals than squirrels. In the Grimms’ version, “Brother and Sister,” two children run away from their wicked stepmother into the forest, but she is a witch and has cast spells on all of the streams. The first stream warns them that it will turn whoever drinks it into a tiger. The brother wants to drink, but his sister begs him not to, afraid he will turn into a tiger and devour her. The next stream they find says it will turn anyone who drinks it into a wolf, and again the boy resists his thirst. By the third stream, though, the boy is so thirsty that he drinks the water, turning into a deer. His sister finds a little hut in the wood and lives there, caring for her brother the deer. But when a king comes hunting, the deer longs for the thrill of being chased. The king and his men hunt the young stag for three days, eventually tracking the enchanted creature to the hut where the girl lives. The king falls in love with the girl and, after further complications, the deer’s enchantment is ended.

Speaking of deer, there’s a reason Harry Potter’s patronus (and his father’s animagus form) is a white stag. And if you’ve read C. S. Lewis’s
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
, you may recall that the hunt for the white stag is what leads the four Pevensie children back from Narnia to our world in the final pages of the book. Ms. Rowling and Mr. Lewis were no doubt inspired by the British legend in which King Arthur’s knights pursue a magical white stag. The hunt for an otherworldly deer
turns up in legends from other countries, too. For example, in Celtic legends, the white stag was supposed to be able to lead hunters into Fairyland. The pursuit of a magical deer is part of the legend of the founding of Hungary, and the white stag is also associated with tales of the elusive unicorn. In most of these stories and legends, men are the only ones who pursue the stag, though that’s probably because in the time the tales are set, the rulers and hunters were usually men. Rarely does anyone actually
catch
the white stag, but the hunt for it represents the search for wisdom. The appearance of the magical stag is also thought to signal the beginning of a quest or adventure—like Meg’s!

A special thanks to my writing friends Marsha Skrypuch, Karen Dyer, and Linda Gerber for their feedback and encouragement on this book and many other projects. I’d also like to thank my editor, Janine O’Malley, and her compatriot Lisa Graff for their very helpful input.