Tomathan, the Clumsy

Once, a long time ago; so long ago that your great, great grandfather would not even have been born; there was a young man named Tomathan who was very, very clumsy. He was always tripping over things and breaking things and it made his mother and father very annoyed; so annoyed in fact that they usually sent him on long errands just to keep him out of the house for as long as possible.

And one summer day, Tomathan was going on one of these errands, going into town to buy something from the market for his mother and walking along staring at the clouds and day dreaming when, suddenly, he tripped over something that was lying in the middle of the road.

“Ouch!”, he said, stumbling and somersaulting head over heels before landing with a bump upon his head.

When, he picked himself up however and dusted himself off, looking down, he saw that what he had accidentally tripped over was a sword in a sheath.

“What fool put that there?”, he asked, angrily, picking the sword up and moving it to one side, “I could have broken my neck tripping over that”.

But then, sighing and accepting it as just one of the little mishaps of life, he thought nothing more of it, and went on his way further along the road.

It wasn’t long however before Tomathan tripped up again; this time over a large circular object.

Fortunately, he didn’t go tumbling head over heels this time but simply fell flat on his nose however , getting up off of the ground; wiping the dust off of him for a second time and rubbing his sore nose, Tomathan saw that the object he had tripped over was a round shield.

“Whoever is leaving all these weapons lying about all over the place”, he said, “Ought to be more careful. That’s the second time I’ve tripped over and now I have a nose with a very sore bump on it. I’m just lucky that it isn’t broken”.

He picked up the shield and he moved it to one side, tutting as he did so, but then, laughing it off as just another of the little mishaps of life, he forgot about it and he carried on further along the road.

And he was  starting to feel almost cheery; listening to all the birds whistling in the trees and thinking that he might whistle a little tune to himself too when, suddenly

“Ouch!”, he said, tripping for a third time and landing on his nose for a second.

This time however, he got very angry.

“This is just too much!”, he yelled, clutching his nose that was now quite bruised so that it was almost purple like a beetroot and throbbing with pain, “First I tripped over a sword and then a shield and now.. what?”.

He turned round and saw what he thought looked like a log lying across the road.

“A log! A log!”, he shouted angrily, giving the log a firm kick with the toe of his boot and then another just for good measure, “What kind of an idiot leaves a log lying in the middle of the road?”.

Just then, however, Tomathan saw the log start to move and then he heard a roar; an angry, deafening roar, from behind him that almost made him leap out of his socks and shoes.

And looking round, he realised that what he had just kicked was not a log at all but the very long tail of a very enormous and very ferocious, not to mention hungry Dragon.

“Garrrr!”, it roared again, this time opening its mouth and showing off row after row of long sharp, crooked teeth.

Now Tomathan forgot all about the pain in his nose and, though his knees were shaking so badly that he could hear them knocking together like two halves of a cocoanut, he turned round and he ran; he ran as fast any man being chased by a large ferocious dragon can; he ran so fast that his heart started to pound like a big hammer in his chest and he could barely breath but still he kept on running, so terrified was he of the ginormous, scaly, beast behind him.

But then he saw, lying by the side of the road, the big round shield that he had tripped over earlier and, rushing over to it and fumbling clumsily with its handle, he picked it up.

And it was a fortunate thing for Tomathan that he did because, just at that moment, the dragon opened its mouth wide and belched out a long, blazing stream of fire that would have burned Tomathan as black as a match head had he not raised the round shield just in time to protect himself from it.

However, though he was not burned he was a long way from being safe and, the next thing that happened was that the dragon snapped a large chunk out of his shield with its sharp jaws just like taking a bite out of a biscuit.

Seeing this Tomathans eyes stuck out almost as far as his swollen nose and he started to panic and then just  like a frightened rabbit with a fox at its heels, hearing the dragons laughter thundering in his ears; Tomathan started to run again even though, now, he felt so tired that he thought he might flop down on the road and never get up but still he kept running until, suddenly, up ahead of him, he saw the sword that he had tripped over and put by the side of the road.

Now, rushing over to the sword and struggling to grab hold of its hilt because his hands were sweating and shaking so much he picked it up and held it aloft but, a moment later, he noticed that he had forgotten to take the sheathe off and then, seeing the dragon coming towards him he shivered and cowered in fear.

“Oh no!”, he said crying and hiding behind his hands, “I’m not a dragon fighter. I couldn’t even fight off a dragonfly. What was I thinking of. I’m doomed for certain”.

Just at that moment, however, he thought he heard what sounded like a very loud cry of “Aaagh!” and then a heavy thud, like a huge sack full of potatoes being dropped and, looking up, he saw that the enormous dragon had tripped over its own long, spiky tail.

“Why that dragons just as clumsy as me”, he said, surprised.

Just then, however, he realized that this was his one and only chance to slay the dragon and so, snatching up the sword, he drew it from its sheathe and raised it high over the dragons head.

But, looking down at the dragon lying at his feet, Tomathan just couldn’t bring himself to kill it; he was too gentle and the dragon looked so helpless.

And so, instead of stabbing it in the head or heart; Tomathan stabbed the dragon through its nose, right between its smoke puffing nostrils and he stabbed the sword so deeply that its blade went into the ground pinning the dragon to the earth so that it couldn’t get up or open its gigantic jaws.

That was good enough for Tomathan though and now he ran again, though a little slower, and this time he did not stop running until he got all the way home.

But Tomathan’s mother was not happy when she saw him come home without the things she had asked him to get from the market and she didn’t believe a word when he tried to tell her about the dragon.

That night however, as Tomathan was sitting down to dinner with his parents, they heard, from outside the door of their cottage, the sound of a coach and horses approaching and then, going outside, they saw, to their amazement, a coach baring the royal insignia and then, once the coach had stopped, stepping out of it, they saw none other than the King and Queen and , behind them, the Kings lovely daughter.

“Step forward”, said the king, “The brave man who, earlier today, defeated and captured a giant dragon, pinning its nose to the ground with his sword”.

Proudly, Tomathan stepped forward and started to kneel before the king unfortunately, he tripped up and stumbled forward, bumping into him and knocking off his crown instead.

Nevertheless, when the king had picked up his crown and put it back upon his head, he made Tomathan a knight; Sir Tomathan the Brave (if somewhat clumsy) and he moved from his parents little cottage to a great manor house where he lived with them both quite happily for a long, long time.