Spanos and the forty dragons

Traditional tale of Cyprus

animated with comics

made by the students of the 6th

Grade

Once upon a time there was a man who could grow neither a moustache nor a beard, and his name was Spanos, meaning the Beardless One. Spanos however used to boast that there was no one braver than him in the whole wide world.

One day, as he was bragging as usual, his fellow villagers said to him:

- If you go and defeat the forty dragons, who’ ve cut off the water coming to our village, we’ll finally believe that you ‘re as brave as you say you are.

- Of course I ‘ll go! Spanos replied. Me? Afraid of dragons?

So he grabbed hold of some ashes and a half-dry piece of soft white cheese, and headed off in the direction of the dragons’ lair.

On the way there, he came across the leader of the dragons and greeted him as one does a king. The dragon however returned the greeting with:

- Wherever you try and hide, I ‘ll eat you!

To which Spanos replied:

- Let’s make a deal. I ‘ll challenge you with two bets and, if you manage them, then go ahead and eat me. Otherwise, you don’t lay even a finger on me. You in?

- Okay, said the dragon. Tell me the bets.

- Can you sit on the ground, Spanos said, and as you ‘re sitting give out a puff of smoke?

- Let me try, the dragon responded, and he sat down with all his strength, so hard that his rump sank down deep into the earth, but no smoke came out.

- Okay, he said to Spanos. Let’s see you try.

So Spanos sat down and he was all but engulfed in a thick cloud of smoke. Of course, he ‘d put the ashes in his breeches, and as he went to sit down, he shook them a bit and then sat down forcefully, resulting in the ashes filling the air around him. The dragon however believed that Spanos had actually managed to produce smoke by sitting down, and said:

- Ah, you ‘re a strong one! Give me the other bet and we ‘ll see.

- So, Spanos retorted, can you pick a stone from the ground, squeeze it, and wring out its juices?

- Let’s see, replied the dragon.

So he picks up a stone, squeezes and squeezes and squeezes until it crumbles to dust in his fist, but no water was anywhere to be seen.

- You try, the dragon says to Spanos.

And Spanos grabs the half-dry piece of soft white cheese he brought with him, and with only one squeeze its juices began flowing through his fingers.

- See the water? He asks the dragon. Take a good look!

- I admit, conceded the dragon, that you ‘re stronger than me. You have to come with me and live with me and my brothers, the other dragons, because you are even stronger than their leader.

With that, both headed off towards the tower in which the forty dragons lived. Upon entering, the dragon-leader called the other thirty-nine and told them that Spanos was stronger than either himself or any other dragon, and that he ‘d brought him to live with them.

On hearing this, the other dragons were taken over by fear, and not even a single day went by without them wondering what would happen if Spanos were ever to get angry and kill them all with one fell swoop. They were afraid, and they dared not speak to him.

One day however, they thought of making him do some work, to test his strength and bravery as it were, and they asked him, if he so wished, to go into the woods and kill a boar and bring it back so that they all could feast on its meat. Their thinking, of course, was that if Spanos wasn’t truly strong and brave, the boar would kill him on the spot.

On hearing their wish, Spanos got the shivers, but what could he do? He headed off towards the forest.

Walking in the woods, he sees a pack of wild boars coming straight at him. Shaking with fear, he clambered up the closest tree (which wasn’t that tall), looking down at the wild animals eyeing him from below, heads tilted up and sniffing out his scent.

One of the boars, the largest one, tried to jump onto the bough on which Spanos was sitting and sink his teeth into this piece of human meat, but didn’t make it. Instead, it slipped, impaling itself on a protruding branch, hanging there, not yet dead. On seeing what happened to their leader, the other boars shied away, worried that the same would happen to them. As for the leader, he twisted and writhed and tried to escape his fate, but to no avail. He was soon dead.

Spanos tried taking the boar down from the tree, but the animal was too heavy.

The dragons meanwhile were waiting for Spanos to return, but on seeing that he was taking too long, they upped and went to the forest to look for him. Finding him standing beneath the tree, seemingly deep in his thoughts, they said to him:

- What on the earth are you doing here, and we ‘re waiting for you back home?

- Well, he replied, I killed the largest boar of them all; that’s why I am late.

On seeing the dead boar, the dragons were awestruck.

- He really is a strong lad, they muttered among themselves. When we want to kill even a small boar, we come out in threes, but he single-handedly killed one this big!

Turning to them, Spanos said:- What are you standing around staring at him for? I killed him; you might as well put your nose to the grindstone and carry him home.

So four dragons shouldered the boar and started taking him back to the tower, while Spanos puffed up with pride that he ‘d done a brave thing.

Few days later, the dragons got hold of an ox-skin, stretched it across a rounded frame, and made a huge pannier. They gave it to Spanos, telling him to go to the spring and fill it up with water and bring it back. What could Spanos do? He slung it over his shoulder and away he went.

- Damn pannier! He cursed. I can barely lift it empty, and they want me to fill it up with water and take it back to them? How am I going to do that?On reaching the spring, instead of filling up the pannier and

heading back to the tower, he threw it on the ground and, grabbing a sturdy piece of wood lying there, began digging a ditch.

Back at their tower, the dragons were waiting to see how Spanos would cope with the difficult task they gave him. Wait as they would though, there was no sign of the young lad, so they decided to go see for themselves what was happening. On seeing him digging away with the sturdy piece of wood, they asked him what he was doing, to which Spanos explained that he was opening a ditch to transport the water to the tower so that he wouldn’t have to carry it in the pannier.

- For God’s sake! they shouted, filled with fear. Stop what you are doing at once, because what you ‘re doing will reduce the river water down to a trickle, and the king and his army will come and cut us to pieces!

- Okay, Spanos responded. Since you don’t want me to, I ‘ll stop, but I refuse to carry your water for you.

- We ‘ll take it! They retorted, and grabbing the pannier, filled it up and headed back to their abode.

Home by now, they sat and thought of how they could get rid of Spanos during the night, killing him in his sleep, but the young lad overheard them plotting. He waited until the dragons fell asleep, and then got up himself.

Taking a large gourd off a shelf, he filled it with dark red wine, corked it, and placed it in his bed, covering it with a blanket. He then climbed up onto the roof and waited.

After some time, he heard the sound of strong thwacks. The dragons had woken up and were pounding and pummeling what they thought was Spanos under the covers, trying to kill him. The gourd cracked open with the very first blow however, and seeing the dark red liquid seeping through the covers and onto the floor, the dragons figured they ‘d finally killed Spanos, and went back to bed.

After they fell asleep once again, Spanos came down from the roof on tiptoe, careful not to wake up the dragons, and curled up under the covers of his own bed.

On hearing the dragons rise with the morning sun, he threw off his covers in a single rapid move. The dragons didn’t know what to think! Finally, their leader plucked up the courage and approached Spanos.

- I want you to tell me how you managed to survive last night, he said. We all gathered around your bed with our clubs and bludgeoned you till the blood started gushing out. Now I see you here, standing in front of me, alive. How on earth did you survive?

- Let me tell you something, Spanos replied. I have been anointed with a magic salve. No matter who tries to kill me, I cannot die!

- Maybe you could anoint us as well? the dragon-king asked, so that we become like you?

- I will, Spanos said with a knowing smile. But each one of you has to go into the forest and gather two okes of resin, melt it down in his room and lock himself up until I come to anoint him.

The dragon-leader called his brothers and told them what they all had to do so that Spanos could anoint them and make them, like himself, invulnerable.

Without a second thought, all forty spilled out into the forest, each one gathering his two okes of resin, and soon returned to the tower.

Once they melted down the resin, Spanos began anointing them, one by one. He ‘d entered the room, draw the bolt on the door, and tell the dragon to sit on a chair.

Spanos once again explained to them what they had to do, and each retired to his room.

Filling a gourd with boiling-hot resin, he ‘d poured it over the dragon, killing him instantly, and then would move on to the next room and his next victim. In this way, one by one, he killed all forty.

After killing the feared dragons, Spanos made his way to the river and broke open the weir which the dragons had built to divert the water to their fields and orchards, and the water began flowing towards the village. By the time Spanos made it there, the water had already reached the village, and on seeing it, the villagers realized that the young, beardless lad had killed the dragons.

On seeing Spanos himself, they all gathered around him and sang his praises, shouting out with glee:

- Well done, Spanos! Now we can see that you are truly a brave young man!

And Spanos and his fellow villagers lived happily ever after, and we live happier still.

ΤέλοςThe end