This post is primarily intended as an educational resource for young people but clearly the information contained here is useful for adults as well.

I think it’s time to unveil my greatest secret. The thing that no-one but me knows. The thing that no-one knows about me. If you read my stuff regularly you will know I never write fiction. This is because I haven’t the imagination to make things up and write them down. I can only write my views on things I know, or think. So what follows may come as a surprise to you as you will think I’m making it up. I’m not and my challenge to you if you don’t believe me is to prove me wrong!

So, here goes. Nobody knows it but I’m actually the world’s foremost expert on the life of Dragons. When I say the world’s foremost expert, I’m the only person in the world who knows anything at all about the life of Dragons as everybody else believes they are fictitious creatures from myth and legend. Not a bit of it! There are Dragons alright and I’m going to let you into a few of the formally unknown facts about how Dragons affect all of us but the English and New Zealanders in particular.

Fact one. Dragons are invisible. All those pictures you see of Dragons are artist’s impressions; accepted thinking of what a Dragon might look like. Of course no-one has ever actually seen a Dragon. Well when I say no-one, that’s not strictly true. Pirates can see Dragons, but they never tell anyone outside the Pirate community as who would believe them? Everyone knows Pirates are thieves and liars, no point making things worse for themselves by telling how they can see dragons as well. Imagine?

No, so no-one except myself, and Pirates has ever seen a Dragon.  Not because they aren’t real, which they are, but because they are invisible. The Dragon is such a thing of visual horror that if you were able to see one you would go instantly insane from the shock of the sight of it. They have physical form of course but they are invisible by necessity. The reality though is that while Dragons are usually portrayed as being monstrous they are actually more given to being mischievous.

Fact Two. Dragons don’t breathe their own fire. That would be ridiculous. Like some wild thing has its own furnace inside? Utter nonsense. No Dragons have to go and get fire to carry around in a special pouch in their stomach. They get the fire from Volcanoes and when you see a Volcano erupting that’s just a Dragon stocking up on some new fire. They have a rummage about under the earth but because Dragons are so big they can make a bit of a mess with all the lava and smoke.

Fact Three. Dragons are responsible for climate change in general and most recently the terrible winter in England and the great drought in New Zealand in particular.  All that messing about under volcanoes by Dragons causes regular eruptions all over the world which is the real reason for climate change. Think about it. But while the climate change thing is a bit of a nuisance, the Dragons perform a vital service to the whole world by managing the Volcanoes. There hasn’t been a properly catastrophic eruption since Dragons figured out the best place to stock up on fire was inside a volcano. They relieve the build up of volcanic explosive pressure by taking Dragon sized helpings of the fire away every so often. So they do us a service you see. Remember that next time you hear of a Volcano erupting.

As helpful as that is, luckily there are only very few Dragons in existence. No-one is really sure how many, what with them being invisible. Well that and the fact that no-one believes in them except me. I can confirm that a Dragon caused the weird weather in New Zealand and England this year although the Kiwis are to blame indirectly. Here’s how.

Like every creature, Dragons continually evolve and a while ago the youngest Dragon evolved the ability to read. Like every young thing, he liked a good imaginative story so he read the Hobbit. He was horrified to learn his Uncle Smaug was portrayed as visible rather than invisible and monstrous instead of mischievous. He was very cross indeed.  Everybody knows New Zealand is really Middle Earth and the Hobbit is a true story. The young Dragon made his way to New Zealand. He had a bit of a stock up on some fire from the Volcanoes in the middle of the North Island. You’ll most likely remember the activity there recently? He was already cross enough with the vilification of his uncle Smaug in the Hobbit story but imagine how he felt when he learned the New Zealanders had made a documentary film featuring his poor uncle in an unflattering light, in New Zealand! He was enraged. It’s never clever to enrage a Dragon.

Like all Dragons he was mischievous though rather than monstrous but he felt some retribution, Dragon style, might be in order. He decided to breathe some of his fire on the place. Just to heat things up a little, make the Kiwis think a bit about the consequences of their actions. But being a young dragon his aim was very poor and he hit Australia instead. I did mention how very large Dragons are didn’t I? No harm done though as Australia is often on fire somewhere.

He was out of fire now but couldn’t be bothered having another rummage under the Volcanoes which is very tiring and messy. So he just flew about above New Zealand breathing out dry parched air all over the country for a while. Sometimes the clouds would arrive full of rain. He caught the rain in his cavernous mouth and took it away. He took it to England and spat it over the place from time to time. This was his punishment of the English for hatching the man who told the false story about his Uncle Smaug. He used water rather than fire as fire would look out of place in England and people would become suspicious of where it came from. Dragons aren’t stupid you know. Well of course you don’t know. Only I know.

So the poor Kiwis are suffering a terrible dry patch because they embraced the lies about the old Dragon Smaug. Quite simple when you know the true story.

I don’t want to give too much else away about Dragons as I don’t like them to know that I study them. They don’t like being studied and now the young one knows how to read it’s only a matter of time before he stumbles across my blog on the internet. I don’t want to be the harbinger of any sort of drought conditions in England. I would hate it if some mischievous young Dragon decided to take our very welcome rain and spit it out over New Zealand instead. Another final point you should know about Dragons is they can be a wee bit gullible if you catch them at the right time on a Sunday afternoon after they’ve had a nap.

So there you go.

Think I made all that up? Prove me wrong!

As foot note, but a very good one.

I actually have a piece of a Dragon from my Pirate ancestors. I and only I, apart from Pirates, know that if you cut something from a Dragon it becomes visible as it’s the Dragon that’s invisible not bits that fall off it. So cut some bit of a Dragon off and you can see it, naturally! My Great- Great grandfather (Sea Shack Sandy) was in the crows nest of his Pirate ship when a Dragon flew by and Sea Shack Sandy managed to cut off one of it’s claws with his sword. The claw fell to the deck of the Pirate ship. Sea Shack took the claw and put some carvings on it to mark it as his own. That claw is the only known piece of Dragon in existence. I still have it. That is the picture at the top of this story, a Dragon claw with Pirate carvings.

If you like your stories read to you, I’ve done that and there is an audio file of this as well. Just click the link below

The truth about Dragons (audio)