Tales of Two Dragons

By Rod Giblett

The stories of Saint George and Beowulf killing an evil Dragon are well known. But what if these stories were untrue and the Dragon was good? What if Saint George and Beowulf were misguided by stories of heroes killing dragons? What if, instead of Saint George killing the Dragon and saving the Princess, and Beowulf and the Dragon killing each other, something else happens that you have to read this book to find out about? What if the place where the Dragon lived was not a plague-ridden swamp but a wetland wonderland, or was not a desert waste but a mineral wonderland? Tales of Two Dragon tells these ‘what if?’ stories and more besides. If these stories are true, and the stories of Saint George and Beowulf and the Dragon are untrue, how did the untrue stories come to be told? How come the true stories are being told now?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley
• Release date: Apr 24, 2018

Rod Giblett

Rod Giblett is the author of Black Swan Lake: Life of a Wetland (Intellect Books, 2011) and many other books about wetlands. He lived by Forestdale Lake on the outskirts of Perth in Western Australia for 28 years. He taught and researched at Australian universities for 25 years and is now a writer. He is married to a retired junior primary school teacher who helped a lot with the writing of the first tale in this book.

Book preview

Rod Giblett is the author of Black Swan Lake: Life of a Wetland (Intellect Books, 2011) and many other books about wetlands. He lived by Forestdale Lake on the outskirts of Perth in Western Australia for 28 years. He taught and researched at Australian universities for 25 years and is now a writer. He is married to a retired junior primary school teacher who helped a lot with the writing of the first tale in this book.

Dedicated to Dragons

Past and present, living and dead, real and imagined

Rod Giblett

Tales of Two Dragons

Copyright © Rod Giblett (2018)

The right of Rod Giblett to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781788783897 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781788783903 (E-Book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published (2018)

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd™

25 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5LQ

Acknowledgements

Geoffrey Serle planted the seed for the first story by suggesting that the statue of Saint George and the Dragon outside the State Library of Victoria in Melbourne signifies ‘the triumph of good over evil’. I am grateful to him for his gift of a seed and to Sandra Giblett for her general and detailed critical and helpful comments and suggestions on earlier versions of the first story. She is not to blame for what I have done with them.

I am also grateful to Beowulf Thorhammer, a PhD candidate at the Australian National University, for training me in the correct pronunciation of ‘Beowulf’ at the ASLEC-ANZ Conference held at ANU in July 2014; various conversationalists at the ASLEC-ANZ Conference at Sydney University in November 2016 who were ear-bashed with a variety of shorter versions of the first story and made helpful suggestions, especially Hanne Nielsen for reminding me about St Georges Bank; and Danielle Brady who later pointed out the similarities between St George as portrayed in the statue in Melbourne and Mercury/Hermes.

Regarding the family heirloom mentioned in the first story: two gold half-sovereigns of 1911 with Benedetto Pistrucci’s famous 1817 design of Saint George and the Dragon on the reverse were given as a wedding present to my paternal grandparents, Jim Giblett and Henrietta (‘Ettie’) Stanyer, in 1922. In the early 1960s (as I recall), they gave one each to their two eldest grandchildren. In 1979, I had mine mounted and wear it on a chain around my neck as a memento of them. I take this opportunity to put