Once upon a time, in the depth of the Dismal Forest, there lived a charcoal-burner and his family. Also, a dragon.

The dragon was friendly with the charcoal-burner's family, as he had been with his parents and grandparents, mostly because he found them amusing. And whenever a new child was born to the charcoal-burner and his wife, he would carry the babe to the rockshelter where the dragon lived, and solemnly introduce them two each other. After all, it is very impolite to kill or eat anyone that you have been introduced to by name, and dragons are never impolite.

Perhaps at this point I should mention that the charcoal-burner was named Hannibal, and his wife was Roxane. Their children were named Letitia, Scipio, Nia, Jasmine, and Tyrone. Now we have been introduced, you can rest assured that they are going to survive the story, for I wouldn't be so impolite as to kill somebody I know by name, either.

The charcoal-burner's wife had brought their milk cow and the nanny goats and introduced them to the dragon, too; their names were Daisy, Dandelion, and Saxifrage. If the pigs and chickens had names, the charcoal-burner's wife had never asked about them; and the cats handled their own arrangements.

Every spring, the charcoal-burner's wife and her eldest daughter took Daisy, Dandelion, and Saxifrage, and loaded up with charcoal, and with pig-iron (because the dragon had learned that if he breathed fire just right onto mud from the Dismal Swamp, metal would come out, but since it wasn't very shiny he always got bored with it fast,) and went in to town.

They put the cow and the nanny-goats to the charcoal burner's sister's bull and billy, and they traded the charcoal and iron for woollen cloth and finely-wrought pots and tools, and they spoke to people who were not the charcoal-burner or his sons.

The charcoal-burner's wife was looking at a fine, gold-plated mirror as a gift for the dragon (he didn't really care about value, as long as it was shiny), when her daughter found her in the market.

