DRAGONS 29 



being deprived of the marks and dress of the Order ; and, 

 secondly, his very life was to be forfeited. Nevertheless 

 there was a young Gascon Knight, of noble birth and 

 great courage, who was not to be deterred from his project 

 by this edict ; on the contrary, he thought an opportunity 

 presented itself of winning much honour and renown. 

 His name was Deodatus de Gozon. He kept his own 

 counsel, telling nobody in the city of his plan, but he 

 went to the Grand Master and begged leave of absence 

 on the pretext of business at home. Having got leave 

 he went into the country to carry out his design ; but he 

 was careful, before starting, to observe the dragon as 

 closely as possible, so as to remember every point in 

 its horrid carcass. What he saw is thus described : It 

 had a body as thick as that of a carthorse ; its long and 

 prickly neck ended in a serpent's head, which was pro- 

 vided with long ears like those of a mule ; its mouth 

 gaped widely open, and was furnished with the sharpest 

 of teeth ; its enormous eyes shone so brightly that they 

 seemed to emit flames of fire ; and its feet (of which it 

 had four) were armed, like bears' feet, with sharp claws. 

 In its tail and other parts of its body it resembled a 

 crocodile, wearing an armour of the hardest scales 

 cunningly disposed ; from its sides issued two gristly 

 wings, in colour not unlike a dolphin's gills — the upper 

 surface blue, the lower a sort of reddish yellow, this last 

 being the general hue of its entire body. Swifter than 

 a horse, when it moved abroad in search of food, it did 

 so partly by flying, partly by running; its scales, too, 

 made such a clattering, as of crockery, and its hissing 

 was so terrifying that people at a great distance were 

 almost frightened to death. 



De Gozon, accordingly, having looked carefully at the 

 monster, as we said, withdrew into the country, where 

 he set to work and contrived a creature exactly like the 

 dragon in every respect ; he made it of paper and stuffed 

 it with tow ; then he bought a well-trained charger, and 



