The Tale of Yolluagh and Ysabella

Written and as told by Wyrdwolf Legion

Yolluagh yawned as he flicked his tail casually at the flies bickering over the remains of his snack. “It’s a strange world” he thought, as he picked at a troublesome knee joint stuck between his teeth with his snack’s lance.

Dislodged, he spat the worrisome gristle into a far corner and swatted the tangle of scorched and battered metal and bone into the growing pile at the foot of his mountain with a claw.

“You are getting lazy, Yolluagh” he mused to himself contentedly, but vowed that he would leave his growing hoard to fetch the human’s horse that had bolted at the sight of him. A little exercise before dinner, there was no better way to work up an appetite.

Yes, life was easy since these humans arrived with their noise and strange smells. First they cleared great swathes of the forest so that he could see his prey easier, and didn’t have to go crashing into the damned trees to catch it.

Then, as if they hadn’t made things easy enough for him already, they built little wooden palisades and drove all his favourite food into them. No more stalking or waiting, he could just fly down to the nearest pen and choose his morsel at leisure, at any time of the day or night. So considerate! His own convenient store. “It might catch on one day.” He thought.

He was not an ill mannered dragon by any means and not at all ungrateful. And so he had decided to thank the thoughtful humans one day. Oh fateful day that turned out to be! He buried his head in his gold and covered it with his clawed front feet as he remembered.

Yolluagh had flown down to the human’s nest and had tried to perch on the tallest part of it to address them all. It seemed a strange structure that he chose, with colourful windows you couldn’t quite see through and pointy bits reminiscent of the mountain peaks.

Humans though, it seems, are not good builders. He set down on the roof of this building and settled down, folding his wings. Looking around, all the humans had stopped what they were doing, many had actually dropped things they were carrying so apples and loafs of bread rolled and bounced around on the ground.

Women picked up small children from the ground and held them to their breasts to quiet them. “They must hear better with their mouths open” he had thought, for all mouths were agape. “Such a polite race” he remembered thinking then.

In order to convey his gratitude, he bellowed so that all might hear. “There is something that I feel I must show you all!”

Just then there was a loud creaking noise, then another, and then a startling crash. In his shock, as he fell in a cloud of dust and debris, he belched. Well how was he to know the silly humans built their nests using wood? Of course it caught fire! It wasn’t his fault!

As their nest burned, the humans ran away into the forest, squealing like the boar he used to prey on. Abashed, he flew home to his hoard, and tried to sleep off his embarrassment.

Their nest had burned for days after, but the humans just watched it burn from the forest, afraid, Yolluagh assumed, in case he should return and his fire consume them. Oh fateful day indeed, for that day had resulted in his meeting of Ysabella.