I'm not so much a dragon slayer, more a dragon annoyer -- I'm a dragon irritater.
A world without dragons is a world not worth living in.
We were talking of DRAGONS, Tolkien and I In a Berkshire bar. The big workman Who had sat silent and sucked his pipe All the evening, from his empty mug With gleaming eye glanced towards us: "I seen 'em myself!" he said fiercely.
One of my earliest inspirations was the 'Allan-a-Dale' character played by Elton Hayes in the 1954 movie 'The Story Of Robin Hood And His Merrie Men.' He was a wandering minstrel with his guitar.
You end up with this succession of periods when everything was marvellous - from King Arthur to the medieval times, Ivanhoe, chivalry, Henry VIII, Merry England, the Blitz
Saint George and the Dragon!-Bonny Saint George for Merry England!-The castle is won!
There are Arthurian legends in 14 or 15 medieval European languages. They are the product of no one time or place. On the contrary, in sum they represent a tremendous mine of human understanding, rather as the Bible does.
You haven't been bit till a dragon does it.
The question is always the same with a dragon: will he talk with you or will he eat you?
Yet some men say in many parts of England that King Arthur is not dead, but had by the will of our Lord Jesu into another place; and men say that he shall come again, and he shall win the holy cross.
I thought I'd write a massive postmodern novel about Richard the Lionheart and Robin Hood, but it turns out they couldn't have met because the first mention of Robin Hood appears 60 years after Richard died.
Fighting dragons is my holy joy.
