Don’t ask me how that works, but he was a man; he came riding up on a great black horse as a girl was collecting berries and roots and such in a basket to bring back to her ailing mother and four younger siblings. This was back when the woods were everywhere, and one of this girl’s little sisters was just old enough to be playing about outdoors, and the girl had noticed how the fairies and the spirits swooped around more when her sister was nearby. Well, and the girl was worried about the child’s getting snatched away by the forest folk. When the dragon rode up, fire in his eyes, she dropped her basket and held the point of her little gathering knife against her chest, so that he pulled up his mare and stared at her, sitting still, so as not to startle her none. “You’ll be wanting to take me away,” the girl said. “I reckon I will,” said the dragon. “Now, don’t you go and do nothing foolish.” “I won’t if you won’t,” she said. And the dragon he shook his head because now there wasn’t nothing he wanted more in the world than this girl.
