Saint George and the Dragon a personalised book with your child as the hero

Long ago there was a knight called George, who travelled from land to land helping those who needed help. One day he rode into a strange country. All day long he rode through fields that nobody was working and through villages where every shutter was closed. Nobody was out on the road. Nobody was singing. Even the birds seemed quiet.

At last he came to a walled town beside a great grey lake. There he found an old shepherd sitting by the road, and asked him what was wrong.

"It's the dragon," said the old man, and he shivered. "It lives in the lake. A year ago it came out of the water, and it has been terrible ever since. Every day it roars at the town gates, and every day we have to send somebody out to it. We draw lots in the market square to choose who goes. And today..." His voice dropped to a whisper. "Today the lot fell to the princess."

George rode into the town. The whole market square was silent. In the middle of it stood the king, with his arm round his daughter, and in the princess's hand was the marked stone that had been drawn from the bag.

"Open the gate," said George, "and let me try something different."

The king shook his head sadly. "We have tried everything already," he said. "Knights have gone out with swords and spears, and the dragon has sent every one of them running. What could one more knight do?"

"I won't go out to fight it," said George. "I'm going out to talk to it."

Everyone stared at him. Nobody had ever thought of talking to a dragon.

They let George out through the little side gate, and he rode down to the edge of the lake. The water was dark and still. Then it began to bubble. Up out of the lake rose the dragon, huge and green and scaly, with wings like ragged sails and smoke curling from its nostrils. It roared so loudly that George's horse reared up.

George patted his horse and waited until the roaring stopped. Then he said, "Good morning."

The dragon blinked. It opened its mouth to roar again, then closed it. Nobody had said a word to it in a hundred years, and it took a long while to remember how to answer.

"Good... morning," it said at last, in a voice like gravel.

"Why do you roar at the town every day?" asked George. "Why do you want them to send people out to you?"

The dragon looked surprised. "People?" it said. "I don't want people. I've never eaten anybody in my life. Every time they send somebody out, they run away as soon as they see me, and I don't blame them." It hung its great head. "I'm just hungry. There used to be plenty of fish in this lake, but the fish have gone, and I'm so hungry, and I don't know what else to do except roar. Nobody ever thought to ask me."

George thought about this. "Then we can make a bargain," he said. "If the town promises to share its food with you, bread and fish, every single week, will you stop roaring and leave them in peace?"

The dragon's eyes grew round. "Every week?"

"Every week," said George. "I'll ask them myself."

"Then yes," said the dragon. "I'd like that very much."

But a dragon that has been hungry and angry for a whole year does not learn to trust in a single morning. As George turned his horse towards the town, the dragon suddenly reared up behind him, roaring and flapping its great wings and puffing out smoke, to see whether the knight would run like all the others.

George did not run. He turned round, lowered his lance, and held his ground, steady as a rock, with his shield on his arm and his eyes on the dragon's eyes.

"I made you a promise," he said calmly. "I keep my promises. Will you keep yours?"

The dragon looked at the lance, and at the knight who had not run away. Then slowly, slowly, it folded its wings and lay down on the shore, like a great dog.

"I will," it said.

George rode back to the town and told the king and the people everything. At first they could not believe it. But the princess believed him, and she went with him to the gate.

"Open it," she said.

So the great bolt was drawn back, and the town gate swung open for the first time in a year.

That afternoon the first carts of bread and fish rolled down to the lake, and half the town came along to watch. The dragon ate every bite, very politely, and said thank you, and then it curled up on the shore and went to sleep in the sun, snoring gently, for the first time in a year.

After that, everything changed. The shutters opened. The fields were worked again, and the children played by the water. Every week the bakers and the fishermen took food down to the lake, and the dragon turned out to make a perfectly good neighbour. It kept the crows off the corn, it warmed the fishermen's hands with its breath on cold mornings, and on summer evenings it let the children slide down its tail into the water.

The king wanted to give George half his kingdom, but George only asked that the king build a church and look after the poor. Then he said goodbye to the princess and the people and the dragon, and rode away to see who else might need his help.

And to this day, in that country, the lake is just a lake, and the kingdom rests easy.