How to Train Your Dragon (Deluxe Edition)
Author: Cressida Cowell
Date: 2025-05-05T14:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Juvenile Fiction; Action & Adventure; General; Animals; Dragons; Unicorns & Mythical; Humorous Stories
Description: 7 MILLION COPIES SOLD OF THE SERIES THAT INSPIRED THE HIT MOVIES! Action-packed, hilarious, and perfectly illustrated, How to Train Your Dragon is a beloved modern classic with millions of fans across the globe. Journey into the adventure that started it all for Hiccup and Toothless! In the book that started it all, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, the quiet and thoughtful son of the Chief of the Hairy Hooligans, tries to pass the important initiation test of his Viking clan by catching and training a dragon. Can Hiccup do it without being torn limb from limb? Join his adventures and misadventur
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Rights: 2013

ABOUT HICCUP

Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third was
an awesome swordfighter, a dragon-whisperer,
and the greatest Viking Hero that ever lived.
But Hiccup’s memoirs look back to when
he was a very ordinary boy, and finding
it hard to be a Hero.

You don’t have to read the Hiccup books in order.
But if you want to, this is the right order:

~Novices of the Hairy Hooligan tribe~

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or
dead, is coincidental.

Text and illustrations copyright © 2003 by Cressida Cowell
Cover design by Kristina Iulo
Cover © 2010 Hachette Book Group, Inc.

All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and
electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy
and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other
than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at
permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

Little, Brown and Company
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017
lb-kids.com

Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

First ebook edition: December 2013

eISBN 978-0-316-24824-2

E3

~ CONTENTS ~

A note from Hiccup………………………………13
1. First catch your dragon…………………………14
2. Inside the dragon nursery………………………26
3. Heroes or exiles…………………………………43
4. How to train your dragon………………………58
5. A chat with Old Wrinkly…………………………73
6. Meanwhile, deep in the ocean…… ……………79
7. Toothless wakes up………………………………81
8. Training your dragon the hard way……………93
9. Fear, vanity, revenge and silly jokes…………101
10. Thor’sday Thursday……………………………115
11. Thor is angry……………………………………139
12. The Green Death………………………………157
13. When yelling doesn’t work……………………168
14. The fiendishly-clever plan………………………178
15. The battle at Death’s Head Headland………189
16. The fiendishly-clever plan goes wrong………194
17. In the mouth of the dragon……………………198
18. The extraordinary bravery of Toothless……202
19. Hiccup the Useful………………………………212
Epilogue……………….………………………………223

A Note from Hiccup

There were dragons when I was a boy.
There were great, grim, sky dragons that nested
on the cliff tops like gigantic scary birds. Little, brown,
scuttly dragons that hunted down the mice and rats
in well-organised packs. Preposterously huge Sea
Dragons that were twenty times as big as the Big Blue
Whale and who killed for the fun of it.
You will have to take my word for it, for the
dragons are disappearing so fast they may soon
become extinct.
Nobody knows what is happening. They are
crawling back into the sea from whence they came,
leaving not a bone, not a fang, in the earth for the
men of the future to remember them by.
So, in order that these amazing creatures should
not be forgotten, I will tell this true story from my
childhood.
I was not the sort of boy who could train a
dragon with the mere lifting of an eyebrow. I was not
a natural at the Heroism business. I had to work at it.
This is the story of becoming a Hero the Hard Way.

13

1. FIRST CATCH
YOUR DRAGON

Long ago, on the wild and windy isle of Berk, a
smallish Viking with a longish name stood up to his
ankles in snow.
Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, the
Hope and Heir to the Tribe of the Hairy Hooligans,
had been feeling slightly sick ever since he woke up
that morning.
Ten boys, including Hiccup, were hoping to
become full members of the Tribe by passing the
Dragon Initiation Programme. They were standing on
a bleak little beach at the bleakest spot on the whole
bleak island. A heavy snow was falling.
‘PAY ATTENTION!’ screamed Gobber the
Belch, the soldier in charge of teaching Initiation.
‘This will be your first military operation, and Hiccup
will be commanding the team.’
‘Oh, not Hic-cup,’ groaned Dogsbreath the
Duhbrain and most of the other boys. ‘You can’t put
Hiccup in charge, sir, he’s USELESS.’
Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, the

14

Hope and Heir to the Tribe of the
Hairy Hooligans, wiped his nose
miserably on his sleeve. He sank a little
deeper into the snow.
‘ANYBODY would be better than
Hiccup,’ sneered Snotface Snotlout. ‘Even
Fishlegs would be better than Hiccup.’
Fishlegs had a squint that made him as
blind as a jellyfish, and an allergy to reptiles.
‘SILENCE!’ roared Gobber the Belch. ‘The next
boy to speak has limpets for lunch for the next
THREE WEEKS!’
There was absolute silence immediately. Limpets
are a bit like worms and a bit like snot and a lot less
tasty than either.
‘Hiccup will be in charge and that is an order!’
screamed Gobber, who didn’t do noises quieter than
screaming. He was a seven-foot giant with a mad glint
in his one working eye and a beard like exploding
fireworks. Despite the freezing cold he was wear-
ing hairy shorts and a teeny weeny deerskin
vest that showed off his lobster-red skin
and bulging muscles. He was holding a
flaming torch in one gigantic fist.

16

‘Hiccup will be leading you, although he is,
admittedly, completely useless, because Hiccup is the
son of the CHIEF, and that’s the way things go
with us Vikings. Where do you think you are, the
REPUBLIC OF ROME? Anyway, that is the least of
your problems today. You are here to prove yourself as
a Viking Hero. And it is an ancient tradition
of the Hooligan Tribe that you should’ –
Gobber paused dramatically –
‘FIRST CATCH YOUR DRAGON!’
Ohhhhhh suffering scallops,
thought Hiccup.
‘Our dragons are what set us
apart!’ bellowed Gobber. ‘Lesser
humans train hawks to hunt for
them, horses to carry them. It is only
the VIKING HEROES who dare to tame the wildest,
most dangerous creatures on earth.’
Gobber spat solemnly into the snow. ‘There are
three parts to the Dragon Initiation Test. The first and
most dangerous part is a test of your courage and skill
at burglary. If you wish to enter the Hairy Hooligan
Tribe, you must first catch your dragon. And that is
WHY,’ continued Gobber, at full volume, ‘I have

17

brought you to this scenic spot. Take a look at Wild
Dragon Cliff itself.’
The ten boys tipped their heads backwards.
The cliff loomed dizzyingly high above them,
black and sinister. In summer you could barely even
see the cliff as dragons of all shapes and sizes
swarmed over it, snapping and biting and sending up
a cacophony of noise that could be heard all over
Berk.
But in winter the dragons were hibernating and
the cliff fell silent, except for the ominous, low rumble
of their snores. Hiccup could feel the vibrations
through his sandals.
‘Now,’ said Gobber, ‘do you notice those
four caves about halfway up the cliff, grouped
roughly in the shape of a skull?’
The boys nodded.
‘Inside the cave that would be
the right eye of the skull is the
Dragon Nursery, where there are,
AT THIS VERY MOMENT, three
thousand young dragons having their
last few weeks of winter sleep.’
‘OOOOOOOH,’ muttered the boys excitedly.

18

Hiccup swallowed hard. He happened to know
considerably more about dragons than anybody else
there. Ever since he was a small boy, he’d been
fascinated by the creatures. He’d spent hour after long
hour dragon-watching in secret. (Dragon-spotters were
thought to be geeks and nerds, hence the need for
secrecy.) And what Hiccup had learnt about dragons
told him that walking into a cave with three thousand
dragons in it was an act of madness.
No one else seemed too concerned, however.
‘In a few minutes I want you to take one of
these baskets and start climbing the cliff,’ commanded
Gobber the Belch. ‘Once you are at the cave entrance,
you are on your own. I am too large to squeeze my
way into the tunnels that lead to the Dragon Nursery.
You will enter the cave QUIETLY– and that means
you too, Wartihog, unless you want to become the first
spring meal for three thousand hungry dragons, HA
HA HA HA!’
Gobber laughed heartily at his little joke,
then continued. ‘Dragons this size are normally fairly
harmless to man, but in these numbers they will set
upon you like piranhas. There’d be nothing left of
even a fatso like you, Wartihog – just a pile of bones

19

and your helmet. HA HA HA HA! So… you will walk
QUIETLY through the cave and each boy will steal
ONE sleeping dragon. Lift the dragon GENTLY from
the rock and place it in your basket. Any questions
so far?’
Nobody had any questions.
‘In the unlikely event that you DO wake the
dragons – and you would have to be IDIOTICALLY
STUPID to do so – run like thunder for the entrance
to the cave. Dragons do not like cold weather and the
snow will probably stop them in their tracks.’

20

Probably? thought Hiccup. Oh, well, that’s
reassuring.
‘I suggest that you spend a little time choosing
your dragon. It is important to get one the correct
size. This will be the dragon that hunts fish for you,
and pulls down deer for you. You will catch the
dragon that will carry you into battle later on, when
you are much older and a Warrior of the Tribe. But,
nonetheless, you want an impressive animal, so a
rough guide would be, choose the biggest creature
that will fit into your basket. Don’t linger for TOO
long in there—’
Linger??? thought Hiccup. In a cave full of three
thousand sleeping DRAGONS?
‘I need not tell you,’ Gobber continued
cheerfully, ‘that if you return to this spot without a
dragon, it is hardly worth coming back at all. Anybody
who FAILS this task will be put into immediate exile.
The Hairy Hooligan Tribe has no use for FAILURES.
Only the strong can belong.’
Unhappily, Hiccup looked round at the distant
horizon. Nothing but snow and sea as far as the eye
could see. Exile didn’t look too promising, either.
‘RIGHT,’ said Gobber briskly. ‘Each boy take a

21

basket to put their dragon in and we’ll get going.’
The boys rushed to get their baskets, chattering
happily and excitedly.
‘I’m going to get one of those Monstrous
Nightmare ones with the extra-extendable claws,
they’re really scary,’ boasted Snotlout.
‘Oh shut up, Snotlout, you can’t,’ said Speedifist.
‘Only Hiccup can have a Monstrous Nightmare, you
have to be the son of a chief.’ Hiccup’s father was
Stoick the Vast, the fearsome chief of the Hairy
Hooligan tribe.
‘HIC-CUP?!’ sneered Snotlout. ‘If he’s as useless
at this as he is at Bashyball, we’ll be lucky if he even
gets one of the Basic Browns.’
The Basic Brown was the most common type of
dragon, a serviceable beast but without much glamour.
‘SHUDDUP AND GET INTO LINE YOU
MISERABLE TADPOLES!’ yelled Gobber the Belch.
The boys scrambled into their places, baskets on
their backs, and stood to attention. Gobber walked
along the line, lighting the torch that each boy held in
front of him from the great flare in his hand.
‘IN HALF AN HOUR’S TIME YOU WILL BE
A VIKING WARRIOR, WITH YOUR FAITHFUL

22

THE COMMON OR
GARDEN and THE
BASIC BROWN

The Common or Garden
and the Basic Brown are so
similar that they can be dealt
with together. These are the
most familiar breeds – the ones we
instantly think of when we say ‘dragons’.
They are poor hunters, but they are easy
to train. These dragons are the best kind
for family pets, although, as with a lion or
a tiger, they should never be left
unsupervised with very young children.

~ STATISTICS ~

COLOURS: Green and yellow, all shades of brown.
ARMED WITH: Basic teeth and claws.
FEAR FACTOR:................... 3
ATTACK:.................... 3
SPEED:................. 4
SIZE:....................... 4
DISOBEDIENCE: ................ 1

SERPENT AT YOUR SIDE… OR
BREAKFASTING WITH WODEN IN VALHALLA
WITH DRAGON’S TEETH IN YOUR BOTTOM!’
screamed Gobber with horrible enthusiasm.
‘DEATH OR GLORY!’ yelled Gobber.
‘DEATH OR GLORY!’ yelled eight boys back at
him fanatically.
Death, thought Hiccup and Fishlegs, sadly.
Gobber paused
dramatically, with the horn
to his lips.
I think this could
possibly be the worst
moment of my life SO
FAR, thought Hiccup
to himself, as he waited
for the blast of the horn.
And if they shout much
louder we’re going to wake
up those dragons before we
even START.
‘PARRRRRRRRRP!’
Gobber blew the horn.

2. INSIDE THE DRAGON
NURSERY

You have probably guessed by now
that Hiccup was not your natural
Viking Hero.
For a start, he didn’t LOOK
like a Hero. Somebody like
Snotlout, for instance, was tall,
muscley, covered in skeleton
tattoos, and already had
the beginnings of a small
moustache. This consisted
of a few straggly yellow hairs
clinging to his upper lip and was
deeply unpleasant to look at, but
still impressively manly for a boy
not yet thirteen.
Hiccup was on the small
side and had the kind of face
that was almost entirely
unmemorable. He DID have
Heroic Hair, which was a very bright

26

red and stood up vertically however
much you tried to wet it down with
sea-water. But nobody ever saw that
because it was hidden under his
helmet most of the time.
You would NEVER have
picked Hiccup out of those ten
boys to be the Hero of this story.
Snotlout was good at everything
and a natural leader. Dogsbreath
was as tall as his father and could
do amusing things like farting
to the tune of the Berk National
Anthem.
Hiccup was just absolutely
average, the kind of unremarkable,
skinny, freckled boy who was easy to overlook
in a crowd.
So, when Gobber blew the horn and moved out
of sight to find a comfortable rock to sit on and eat his
mussel-and-tomato sandwich, Snotlout pushed Hiccup
out of the way and took charge.
‘OK, listen up, boys,’ he whispered in a
menacing fashion. ‘I’M in charge, not the Useless. And

27

anybody who objects gets a knuckle sandwich from
Dogsbreath the Duhbrain.’
‘Ugh,’ grunted Dogsbreath, pounding his fists
together in happy excitement. Dogsbreath was
Snotlout’s chief sidekick and a great, big gorilla of
a boy.
‘Bash him, Dogsbreath, to show what I mean…’
Dogsbreath was delighted to oblige. He gave
Hiccup a shove that sent him sprawling head first into
the snow, then ground his face in it.
‘Pay attention!’ hissed Snotlout. The boys
dragged their eyes away from Dogsbreath and Hiccup
and paid attention. ‘Rope yourselves together. The
best climber should go first…’
‘Well, that’s YOU of course, Snotlout,’ said
Fishlegs. ‘You’re the best at everything, aren’t you?’
Snotlout looked at Fishlegs suspiciously. It was
difficult to tell whether Fishlegs was laughing at him
or not, because of his squint.
‘That’s right, Fishlegs,’ said Snotlout. ‘I AM.’
And, just in case he had been laughing at him: ‘Bash
him, Dogsbreath!’
While Dogsbreath pushed Fishlegs down to
join Hiccup in the snow, Snotlout bossily ordered

28

everybody to rope themselves together.
Hiccup and Fishlegs were the last to be tied on,
just behind a flushed and triumphant Dogsbreath.
‘Oh brilliant,’ muttered Fishlegs. ‘I’m about to
enter a cave full of man-eating reptiles tied up to eight
complete maniacs.’
‘If we get to the cave…’ said Hiccup nervously,
looking up at the sheer black cliff.
Hiccup put the lighted torch between his teeth
to leave his hands free, and started climbing after
the others.

It was a perilous climb. The rocks were slippery with
snow and the other boys were thoroughly over-excited,
making the ascent far too quickly. At one point
Clueless missed his footing and fell – luckily on to
Dogsbreath, who caught him by the back of the
trousers and heaved him back on to the rock again,
before he brought the whole lot of them down.
When they finally made it to the mouth of the
cave, Hiccup looked down briefly at the sea pounding
the rocks way below, and swallowed very hard…
‘Untie the ropes!’ ordered Snotlout, his eyes
popping with excitement at the thought of the dangers

29

to come. ‘Hiccup goes into the cave first because
HE is the son of the Chief…’ He sneered. ‘And, if any
of the dragons ARE awake, he’ll be the first to know
about it! Once we’re in the cave, it’s every man for
himself. Only the strong can belong…’
Although he wasn’t your usual mindless thug of
a Hooligan, Hiccup wasn’t a wimp, either. Being
frightened is not the same as being a coward. Maybe
he was as brave as anyone else there, because he went
to catch a dragon despite knowing what dragons are
like. And, when he had climbed perilously to the
mouth of the cave and had found that inside there
was a long, twisty tunnel, he still went down it,
despite not being too keen on long, twisty tunnels
with dragons at the end of them.
The tunnel was dripping and clammy. At times
it was high enough for the boys to walk upright. Then
it would close down into narrow, claustrophobic holes
that the boys could only just squeeze through,
squirming on their stomachs, with the flares held in
their mouths.
After ten long minutes of walking and
crawling into the heart of the cliff, the stench of
dragon – a salty stink of seaweed and old mackerel

30

heads – got stronger and stronger, until finally it
became unbearable and the tunnel opened out into a
ginormous cavern.
The cavern was full of more dragons than
Hiccup could ever have imagined existed.
They were every possible colour and size, and
they included all the species that Hiccup had heard of,
and quite a few more that he hadn’t.
Hiccup started sweating as he looked around
him at pile after pile of the animals, draped over every
available surface; even hanging upside-down from the
roof like giant bats. They were all fast asleep, and
most of them were snoring in unison. This was a
sound so loud and so deep that it seemed to penetrate
right into Hiccup’s body and vibrate around his soft
insides, churning his stomach and bowels, and forcing
his heart to beat at the same slow dragon pulse.
If one, just one, of these countless creatures were
to wake up, it would raise the alarm to the others and
the boys would meet a horrible death. Hiccup had
once seen a deer that had wandered too close to Wild
Dragon Cliff torn to pieces in a matter of minutes…
Hiccup closed his eyes. ‘I will NOT think about
it,’ he said to himself. ‘I WILL NOT.’

31

None of the other boys were thinking about it.
Ignorance is very useful in such circumstances.
Their eyes were popping with excitement as they
walked through the cave, hands over their noses to
keep out the revolting smell, looking for the biggest
dragon they could find that would fit in their basket.
They left the torches in a pile at the entrance.
The cavern was already well-lit by the Glowworms,
huge, sluggish animals dotted here and there that
shone with a steady yet dim fluorescence, like a low-
watt lightbulb. And the Flamehuffers gave off extra
little bursts of light that flickered on and off as they
breathed in and out.
Predictably, most of the boys headed towards
the plug-uglies of the dragon world.
Snotlout made a big fuss about grabbing a
vicious-looking Monstrous Nightmare, smiling nastily
at Hiccup as he did so. Snotlout was the son of
Baggybum the Beerbelly, Stoick the Vast’s younger
brother. He was intending to get rid of Hiccup some
time in the future so that he, Snotlout, would become
Chief of the Hairy Hooligan Tribe. And a gruesome
and terrifying Chief, as Snotlout meant to be, would
need a properly awesome dragon.

32

Wartihog and Dogsbreath got into a loudly
whispered fight over a Gronckle, a heavily-armoured
brute with fangs like kitchen knives sticking out in
such numbers that it couldn’t keep its mouth shut.
Dogsbreath won, then managed to drop it as he was
trying to bundle it into his basket. The weaponry of
the beast made a horribly loud clatter as it landed on
the floor of the cavern.
The Gronckle opened its evil, crocodile eyes.
Everybody held their breath.
The Gronckle stared ahead. It was difficult to
tell from its blank expression whether it was awake
or fast asleep. Hiccup realised, in an agony of
suspense, that the gossamer-thin third eyelid was still
down.
And there it stayed for a few heart-stopping
moments, until…
It slowly closed its upper eyelids again.
Amazingly, not one of the other dragons
woke up. A few grumbled groggily before making
themselves comfy again. But most were in such a
stupor that they barely even stirred.
Hiccup let out his breath slowly. Maybe
these dragons were so dead to the world that nothing

33

THE
GRONCKLE

The Gronckle is
the plug-ugly of
the dragon world.
But what it lacks in
looks, it makes up
for on the battle-
field. They can be slow and, dare I say it,
stupid ~ and sometimes they get so fat that
they are unable to take off. They are
also prone to dragon acne.

~ STATISTICS ~

COLOURS: Snot green, bogey beige,
pooey brown.
ARMED WITH: All the best in dragon
weaponry. Fangs like daggers, extra spike on
neck, ball with spikes on end of tail.
FEAR FACTOR: ..................7
ATTACK: ..........................8
SPEED: ............................8
SIZE: ...............................7
DISOBEDIENCE: ................5

would wake them.
He swallowed hard, muttered a prayer to Loki,
the patron saint of sneaky exploits, and edged forward
cautiously to grab the most unconscious-looking
dragon, so he could get out of this nightmare as fast
as possible.

It is a little-known fact that dragons grow colder the
deeper they sleep.
It is even possible for a dragon to go into
a Sleep Coma in which they are icy-cold, with no
obvious pulse, or breath, or heartbeat. They can stay
in this state for centuries, and only a highly-skilled
expert can tell from looking at them if they are alive or
dead.
But a dragon who is awake or lightly sleeping is
very warm indeed, like bread that has just come out
of the oven.
Hiccup found one that was about the right size
and fairly cool to the touch and manoeuvred it into
his basket as quickly and carefully as he could. It was
a very basic Basic Brown, but at that moment Hiccup
could not have cared less. Even though it was barely
half-grown, it was surprisingly heavy.

35

‘I DID it, I DID it, I DID it!’ he chanted happily
to himself. At least he wasn’t going to be the only boy
in the class who didn’t have a dragon. Everybody
seemed to have got themselves one by now and they
were all making their way quietly towards the exit.
Everybody, that was, except for…
… Fishlegs, who was already covered in a
bright red, itchy rash, and was at that very moment
approaching a pile of knottily entangled Nadders on
very loud tiptoes.
Fishlegs was even worse at burglary than
Dogsbreath.
Hiccup stopped dead in his tracks. ‘Don’t do it,
Fishlegs – PLEASE don’t do it!’ he whispered.
But Fishlegs was fed up of Snotlout’s taunting
and of being sneered at and jeered at. He was going
to get himself a really cool dragon that all the other
boys would respect.
Squinting so hard he could barely see the pile
of dragons, his eyes streaming, and scratching himself
violently, Fishlegs reached slowly towards the bottom-
most dragon, took one leg in his hand, and gently …
yanked.
The entire pile came crashing down in a furious

36

tangle of limbs and wings and ears. Every boy in the
cavern gave a horrified gasp.
Most of the Nadders snapped crossly at each
other before settling back down to sleep.
One brute bigger than the others opened his
eyes and blinked a few times.
Hiccup noted, with great relief, that the third
eyelid was still down.
The boys waited for the eyes to close.
And then Fishlegs sneezed.
Four GIGANTIC sneezes that went echoing and
bouncing off the cavern walls.
The big Nadder stared sightlessly ahead, frozen
like a dragon statue.
But ve-ry faintly, an ominous purring noise began
in his throat.
And ve-ry slowly…
… the third eyelid slid upward.
‘Uh-oh,’ whispered Hiccup.
The Nadder’s head suddenly whipped round to
face Fishlegs, its yellow cat’s eyes snapping into focus
on the boy. It unfolded its wings to their greatest
extent and stealthily advanced, like a panther about to
spring. It opened its mouth wide enough to show the

37

forked dragon tongue and…
‘R-R-R-U-U-U-U-U-N-N-N!’ shouted Hiccup,
grabbing Fishlegs’s arm and dragging him away.
The boys ran for the exit tunnel. Fishlegs and
Hiccup were the last to get there.
There was no time to pick up the torches, so
they were running in the pitch dark. The basket with
the Basic Brown dragon in it was bumping on
Hiccup’s back.
They had two minutes start on the dragons
because it took a while for the first dragon to wake
everybody else up. But Hiccup could hear a furious
roaring and flapping as the dragons started to pour
into the tunnel after the boys.
He ran a little faster.
The dragons could move more quickly than the
boys because they could see better in the dark, but
they were held up when the tunnel got smaller,
because they had to fold their wings up to squirm
through.
‘I… haven’t… got… a… dragon,’ panted
Fishlegs, a couple of paces behind Hiccup.
‘That,’ said Hiccup, as he scrambled frantically
on his elbows through a narrow bit, ‘is the LEAST…

38

ow… of our problems. They’re gaining on us!’
‘No… dragon,’ repeated Fishlegs stubbornly.
‘Oh, for THOR’S SAKE,’ snapped Hiccup.
He thrust his basket into Fishlegs’s arms and
grabbed the empty one from Fishlegs’s back. ‘Have
MINE, then. Wait here.’
And Hiccup turned and went back through the
narrow bit even though the roaring was getting louder
and closer by the second.
‘WHAT… ARE… YOU… DOING???’
screamed Fishlegs, frantically dancing up and down
on the spot.
Hiccup came back through the hole again
precious moments later. Fishlegs grabbed hold of an
arm to help haul him through.

They could hear a horrible snuffling as what
sounded like the nose of a dragon entered the other
end of the hole. Hiccup bunged a rock at it and it
squealed indignantly.
They turned a corner and suddenly they could
see light from outside at the end of the final tunnel.
Fishlegs went first, but, just as Hiccup was
kneeling down to follow, a dragon pounced on him
with a flap and a shriek. Hiccup hit it and it fell back
enough for him to crawl towards the light. Another
dragon – or maybe the same one – sank its fangs into
Hiccup’s calf. He was so desperate to get out he
dragged the animal through with him.
As soon as Hiccup’s head and shoulders were
through into the light, there was Gobber. He grabbed
Hiccup under the armpits and hauled him out,
dragons pouring after him.
‘JUMP!’ yelled Gobber, as he stunned a dragon
with one blow of his mighty fist.
‘What do you mean, JUMP??’ Hiccup hesitated
as he looked down at the dizzying drop into the sea.
‘No time to climb down,’ panted Gobber,
banging a couple of dragons’ heads together, and
bouncing three more off his gigantic belly. ‘JUMP!!!’

40

Hiccup closed his eyes and leapt off the cliff.
As he plunged through the air, the dragon that
was attached to his leg released its jaws with a squawk
of alarm and flew off.
Hiccup was travelling at such speed by the time
he hit the water that it didn’t feel like water at all,
more like something hard and painful, and so cold
that he nearly passed out.
He spluttered to the surface, amazed to find that
he didn’t appear to be dead, and was immediately
drenched by the gigantic splash of Gobber the Belch
landing a couple of feet away from him.
Shrieking furiously, the dragons swarmed out of
the cave and dive-bombed the floating Vikings.
Hiccup pulled his helmet as far down as it would
go. There were horrible scraping sounds as dragons’
talons raked across the metal. Another one landed,
hissing, on the water right in front of Hiccup’s face.
It took off again with a screech when it felt how cold
the sea was. The dragons didn’t like flying through the
snow and, with relief, Hiccup watched as they flew
back to scream terrible dragon insults in Dragonese
from the warmth of the cave entrance.
Gobber started to pull the boys out of the sea

41

and on to the rocks. Viking boys are strong swimmers
but it is difficult to keep afloat when you have a
basket full of trapped, terrified dragon on your back.
Hiccup was the last to be saved – just in time, as the
cold was beginning to put him to sleep.
Well, at least that wasn’t DEATH, thought
Hiccup, as Gobber grabbed him by the neck to rescue
him, nearly drowning him again in the process – but it
certainly wasn’t GLORY, either.

42

3. HEROES OR EXILES

The boys scrambled over the slimy pebbles at
the edge of the beach and back up Madman’s Gully,
the gorge they had climbed through a couple of hours
before. This was a narrow crack in the cliffs filled
with large rocks. They tried to move as quickly as they
could, but this is difficult when you are slipping and
sliding over huge stones covered in ice, and they made
painfully slow progress.
A dragon that hadn’t been put off by the snow
came shrieking down into the gorge. He landed on
Wartihog’s back and started savaging him, sinking his
fangs into Wartihog’s shoulder and ripping red lines
into his arms. Gobber bashed the dragon on the nose
with the handle of his axe, and the dragon let go and
flapped away.
But a whole wave of dragons replaced him,
pouring into the canyon with awful, rasping cries,
fire shooting from their nostrils and melting the snow
before them, talons spread wickedly as they swooped
downward.
Gobber stood, legs wide apart, and whirled
his big, double-headed axe. He threw back his great,

43

hairy head and yelled a terrible primeval Yell, that
echoed down the sides of the gorge and made the
hairs on the back of Hiccup’s neck stick straight up
like the spines on a sea urchin.
Individually, dragons tend to have a healthy
sense of self-preservation, but they are braver when
they hunt in packs. They knew now that they had the
advantage of massive numbers, so they didn’t check
their flying for an instant. They just kept on coming.
Gobber let go of the axe.
Spinning end to end, the axe soared up through
the softly falling snow. It hit the biggest dragon of
the lot, killing him instantly, and then carried on going,
landing in a snow-drift hundreds of feet away and
disappearing.
This made the rest of the dragons think a bit.
Some of them scrambled over each other in their
haste to fly away, yelping like dogs. The others came to
a halt, hovering uncertainly, screaming defiance but

44

keeping their distance.
‘Waste of a good axe,’ grunted Gobber. ‘Keep
going, boys, they could come back!’
Hiccup needed no encouragement to keep
going. As soon as he got out of the gorge and on to
the marshy land behind it, he broke into a stumbling
run, every now and then falling flat on his face in the
snow.
Some time later, when Gobber reckoned they
were a safe distance from Wild Dragon Cliff, he yelled
at the boys to stop.
Very carefully he counted heads again, to
check he hadn’t lost anybody. Gobber had spent an
unpleasant ten minutes standing at the mouth of
the dragons’ cave wondering why there was such a
terrible racket and what he was going to say to Stoick
the Vast if he lost his precious son and heir for good.
Something Tactful and Sensitive, he supposed,
but Tact and Sensitivity were not Gobber’s strong
points and he took the first five minutes to come up
with ‘Hiccup copped it. SORRY.’ and then spent the
second five minutes tearing his beard out.
Consequently, although secretly mightily
relieved, he was not in a Good Mood and, as soon as

45

he could get his breath back, he exploded all over
the place, as the boys stood, shivering violently, in a
bedraggled line.
‘NEVER… in FOURTEEN YEARS…
have I come across such a load of HOPELESS
BARNACLES as you lot. WHICH OF YOU
USELESS MOLLUSCS WAS RESPONSIBLE
FOR WAKING UP THE DRAGONS????’
‘I was,’ said Hiccup. Which wasn’t strictly true.
‘Oh, that’s BRILLIANT,’ bellowed Gobber,
‘just BRILLIANT. Our Future Leader shows off his
magnificent Leadership Skills. At the tender age of
ten and a half he does his best to annihilate himself
and the rest of you in A SIMPLE MILITARY
EXERCISE!’
Snotlout sniggered.
‘You find something amusing about that,
Snotlout?’ asked Gobber, with dangerous softness.
‘EVERYBODY IS ON LIMPET RATIONS FOR
THE NEXT THREE WEEKS.’
The boys groaned.
‘Smart work, Hiccup,’ sneered Snotlout. ‘I can’t
wait to see you in action on the battlefield.’
‘SILENCE!’ yelled Gobber. ‘THIS IS YOUR

46

INITIATION, NOT A DAY OUT IN THE
COUNTRY! SILENCE, OR YOU’LL BE LUNCH-
ING ON LUGWORMS FOR THE REST OF YOUR
LIVES!’
‘Now,’ continued Gobber, more calmly,
‘although that was an absolute mess, it wasn’t a total
disaster. I PRESUME that you do all HAVE a dragon
after that fiasco…?’
‘Yes,’ chorused the boys.
Fishlegs took a sideways glance at Hiccup, who
was staring straight ahead.
‘Lucky for you,’ said Gobber, ominously. ‘So you
have all passed the first part of the Dragon Test. There
are, however, still two parts that you have to complete
before you can become full members of the Tribe.
Your next task will be to train this dragon yourself.
This will be a test of the force of your personality. You
will assert your will over this wild creature and show it
who is Master. Your dragon will be expected to obey
simple commands such as “go” and “stay”, and hunt
fish for you in the way that dragons have hunted for
the Sons of Thor since anybody can remember. If
you are worried about the training process, you should
study a book called How To Train Your Dragon by

47

Professor Yobbish, which you will find in the fireplace
of the Great Hall.’
Suddenly Gobber looked very pleased with
himself. ‘I stole that book from the Meathead Public
Library myself,’ he said modestly, regarding his very
black fingernails. ‘From right under the nose of the
Hairy Scary Librarian… He never noticed a thing…
Now THAT’S burglary for you…’
Wartihog put up his hand. ‘What happens if we
can’t read, sir?’
‘No boasting, Wartihog!’ boomed Gobber.
‘Get some idiot to read it for you. Your dragons will
begin to go back to sleep, because this is still their
hibernation time’ – some of the dragons had, indeed,
gone very quiet inside the baskets – ‘so take them
home and put them in a warm place. They should
wake up in the next couple of weeks. You will then
have only FOUR MONTHS to prepare for Initiation
Day at the Thor’sday Thursday Celebrations, and the
final part of your Test. If, on that day, you can prove
that you have trained your dragon to the satisfaction
of myself and other elders of the Tribe, you can finally
call yourself a Hooligan of Berk.’
The boys stood very tall and tried to look like

48

proper Hooligans.
‘HEROES OR EXILE!’ yelled Gobber the Belch.
‘HEROES OR EXILE!’ yelled eight boys
fanatically back at him.
Exile, thought Hiccup and Fishlegs sadly.

‘I… hate… being… a… Viking,’ panted Fishlegs to
Hiccup as they stumbled back through the bracken
to the Hooligan village.
You didn’t really walk on the island of Berk, you
waded – through heather or bracken or mud or snow,
that clung on to your legs and made them difficult to
lift. It was the sort of country where the sea and the
land were always falling into one another and getting
mixed up. The island was shot through with holes
burrowed by the water, a maze of criss-crossing
underground streams. You could put your foot on a
solid-looking piece of grass and find yourself
disappearing up to your thigh in black, sticky mud.
You could be making your way through the ferns and
suddenly find yourself fording a river, waist-high
and icy-cold.
The boys were already soaked to the skin with
sea-water, and now the snow had turned to horizontal

49

driving rain, blowing in their faces with the strength of
one of the gale force winds that were always shrieking
across the salty wastelands of Berk.
‘A narrow escape from horrible death first thing
on Thursday morning,’ complained Fishlegs, ‘followed
by complete rejection by the junior half of the Tribe…
Nobody’s going to talk to me for YEARS after this –
except for you, of course, Hiccup, but then you’re just
a weirdo like me— ’
‘Thank you,’ said Hiccup.
‘And on top of everything,’ continued Fishlegs
bitterly, ‘a two-mile run carrying a deranged dragon on
my back’ – the basket on Fishlegs’s back was plunging
wildly from side to side as the dragon inside tried
manically to get out – ‘and only a dinner of horrible

limpets to look forward to at the end of it.’
Hiccup agreed that it wasn’t a delicious prospect.
‘You can have this dragon back if you like,
Hiccup. I warn you, they’re filthy heavy when they’re
wet and cross,’ said Fishlegs, miserably. ‘Gobber is
going to go off like a typhoon when he finds out you
haven’t got a dragon.’
‘But I HAVE got one,’ said Hiccup.
Fishlegs stopped and began to take the basket
off his back. ‘I know it IS yours REALLY,’ he sighed
wearily. ‘I think I’ll just go straight past the village
and keep on running till I reach somewhere civilised.
Rome perhaps. I’ve always wanted to go to Rome. And
I haven’t got a hope in Valhalla of passing Initiation
anyway, so—’
‘No, I’ve got another one, in my basket,’ Hiccup
insisted.
Fishlegs’s jaw dropped open in disbelief.
‘I got it when I went back into the tunnel,’
explained Hiccup.
‘Well, blister my barnacles,’ said Fishlegs. ‘How
in Thor’s name did you know it was there? It was so
dark you couldn’t see the horns in front of you.’
‘It was weird,’ said Hiccup. ‘I sort of sensed it

51

when we were running down the tunnel. I couldn’t see
anything, but as we were passing, I just knew there
was a dragon there, and that it was meant to be MY
dragon. I was going to ignore it, actually, because we
were in a bit of a hurry but then you said about not
having a dragon and I went back, and… there it was,
lying on this shelf in the tunnel, just as I’d imagined it
would be.’
‘Well, jigger my jellyfish,’ said Fishlegs, and the
boys started running again.
Hiccup was bruised all over, shaking from shock,
and he had a nasty dragon-wound in his calf, which
was stinging like crazy from the saltwater. He was
freezing cold and there was an irritating bit of seaweed
in one of his sandals.
He was also a bit worried because he knew he
should not have risked his life trying to get a dragon
for Fishlegs. This was not the act of a Viking Hero.
A Viking Hero would know not to intervene between
Fishlegs and his Fate.
On the other hand, Hiccup had been worrying
about Dragon-catching Day for longer than he could
remember. He had been sure he would be the only
one to come back without a dragon, and shame,

52

embarrassment and awful exile would follow.
And now, here he was: a Viking warrior WITH a
dragon.
So, on the whole, he was feeling fairly pleased
with himself.
Things were looking up.

‘You know, Hiccup,’ said Fishlegs a little later, as the
wooden fortifications of the village appeared on the
horizon, ‘that sounds like Fate, you sensing the dragon
was there like that. This could be Meant-To-Be. You
could have some sort of wonder-dragon in there.
Something that makes a Monstrous Nightmare look
like a flying frog! You are the son and heir of Chief
Stoick after all, and it’s about time Fate came in with a
sign about your destiny.’
The boys stopped, puffing with exhaustion.
‘Oh, I’m sure it’s just a Common or Garden that
wandered away from the rest,’ said Hiccup, trying to
sound careless but unable to keep the excitement out
of his voice. He could have something marvellous in
there!
Maybe Old Wrinkly was right. Old Wrinkly was
Hiccup’s grandfather on his mother’s side. He had

53

taken up soothsaying in his old age and he kept on
telling Hiccup how he had looked into the future and
that Hiccup was destined for great things.
This amazing dragon could be the beginning of his
transformation from ordinary old Hiccup, who wasn’t
particularly good at anything, into a Hero of the Future!
Hiccup took the basket off his back and paused
before opening it.
‘It’s very still, isn’t it?’ said Fishlegs, suddenly
less certain of the Fate theory. ‘I mean, it isn’t moving
at all in there. Are you sure it’s alive?’
‘It’s just very deeply asleep,’ said Hiccup. ‘It was
stone-cold when I picked it up.’
Suddenly he had a strong feeling that the gods
were on his side. He KNEW that this dragon was
alive.
With trembling fingers, Hiccup undid the latch,
took off the lid of the basket, and peered in. Fishlegs
joined him.
Things weren’t looking so good any more.
There, curled up fast asleep in the bottom of
the basket in an tangled dragon knot, lay perhaps the
most common or garden Common or Garden Dragon
Hiccup had ever seen.

54

55

Absolutely the only extraordinary thing about
this dragon was how extraordinarily SMALL it was.
In this it was truly extraordinary.
Most dragons that the Vikings used for hunting
purposes were about the size of a Labrador dog.
The adolescent dragons the boys were collecting
weren’t quite that big, but they were nearly fully-
grown. This dragon was more comparable to a West
Highland Terrier.
Hiccup couldn’t think how he had overlooked
this when he picked the dragon up in the tunnel.
He supposed, miserably, that it was rather a pressured
moment, what with three thousand dragons trying
to kill him at the time. And dragons in a deep Sleep
Coma do tend to weigh more than they do when
they’re awake.
‘Well,’ said Hiccup at last, ‘that’s a sign, if you
like. You reach for a Deadly Nadder and what do you
get? A Basic Brown. I grab a dragon in the dark and
what do I get? A Common or Garden. The thing is,
the gods are telling us we’re Common or Garden
folk, Fishlegs. You and I, we’re not meant to be
Heroes.’
‘It doesn’t matter about ME…’ said Fishlegs,

56

‘but you are meant to be a Hero. Remember? Son of
the Chief and all that? And you will be one, I know
you will…’
Fishlegs put the basket back on Hiccup’s back
and they trudged towards the village gates together.
‘… At least, I sincerely HOPE you will. I don’t
want to be following Snotlout into battle. You’ve got
more ideas about military tactics in your little finger
than Snotlout has in his whole fat head…’
While that may have been true, not only was
Hiccup not about to be the future star of Dragon-
training – but with this particular dragon it was even
going to be difficult for him to take his familiar place
fading into the background.
It was so small it was going to make him look
ridiculous.
It was so small that Snotlout was going to have
some very unpleasant things to say about it.

57

4. HOW TO TRAIN YOUR
DRAGON

‘HA HA HA HA!’
Snotlout was laughing so hard that he hadn’t
managed to say anything at all.
The boys were hanging about the village gates,
taking the opportunity to show off the dragons that
they had caught. Hiccup had tried to walk through
without being noticed, but Snotlout had stopped him.
‘Let’s see what pathetic creature Hiccup has
got,’ said Snotlout, and took off the lid.
‘Oh, this is BRILLIANT – look at it!’ said
Snotlout, when he finally got his breath back from
laughing. ‘What IS it, Hiccup? An ickle brown bunny
rabbit with wings? A flower fairy? A fluffy flying
frog? Gather round everybody and see the
magnificent animal that Our Future
Leader has caught himself!’
‘Oh, Hiccup, you are useless,’
crowed Speedifist. ‘You’re the son
of a CHIEF, for Thor’s sake.
Why didn’t you get one of those

58

new Monstrous Nightmares with
the six-foot wing-span and the extra-
extendable claws? They’re really mean
killers, they are.’
‘I have one,’ grinned Snotlout,
gesturing to the terrifying-looking, flame-red
animal fast asleep in his basket. ‘I think I shall
call her FIREWORM. What are you going to
call yours, Hiccup? Sweetums? Sugarlips? Babyface?’
Hiccup’s dragon took this particular moment to
give a huge yawn, opening his tiny mouth wide to
reveal a flickering, forked tongue, very pink gums and
ABSOLUTELY NO TEETH AT ALL.
Snotlout laughed so hard, Dogsbreath had to
hold him upright.

‘TOOTHLESS!’ cried Snotlout.
‘Hiccup has found himself the only
TOOTHLESS dragon in the uncivilised
world! This is too good. Hiccup the
USELESS and his dragon, TOOTHLESS!’
Fishlegs leapt to Hiccup’s defence.
‘Well, you are not allowed that Monstrous
Nightmare that you’ve got there, Snotface Snotlout.
Only the son of a Chief is allowed a Monstrous
Nightmare. That Fireworm dragon is Hiccup’s, by
right.’
Snotlout’s eyes narrowed. He grabbed Fishlegs’s
arm and twisted it viciously behind his back.
‘Nobody’s listening to you, you plankton-
hearted, fish-legged, disaster area,’ sneered Snotlout.
‘Thanks to you and your snivelling, sneezing disability,
that whole military operation was nearly a total
disaster. When I’m Chief of this Tribe the first thing
I’m going to do is boot anybody with a pathetic allergy
like yours straight out into exile. You’re not fit to be a
Hooligan!’
Fishlegs went very white in the face, but he
still managed to gasp out, ‘But you are NOT going
to be Chief of this Tribe. HICCUP is going to be

60

Chief of this Tribe.’
Snotlout dropped Fishlegs’s arm and advanced
menacingly on Hiccup.
‘Oh, he is, is he?’ jeered Snotlout. ‘So, I’m not
allowed that Monstrous Nightmare, am I? Our Future
Leader is keeping very quiet about it, isn’t he? Come
on, Hiccup, I’m stealing your inheritance. What are
you going to do about it, then, eh?’
The boys all looked solemn. Snotlout really had
broken an ancient Viking rule.
‘Hiccup should challenge you for the dragon,’
said Fishlegs slowly, and everybody swivelled round to
look expectantly at Hiccup.
‘Oh, brilliant,’ muttered Hiccup under his
breath. ‘Thank you, Fishlegs. My day just gets better
and better.’
Snotlout was a great brute of a boy who didn’t
really need Dogsbreath’s help when it came to bashing
people up. He wore specially-constructed, bronze-
tipped sandals in order to cause maximum damage
when kicking people. Hiccup tried to stay out of his
way as much as he possibly could.
But he couldn’t ignore this insult to his status,
now Fishlegs had helpfully pointed it out, without

61

looking like a coward in front of the other boys. And
if you became known as a coward in the Hooligan
Tribe, you might as well go the whole hog and wear a
pale pink jerkin, take up playing the harp, and change
your name to Ermintrude.

‘I challenge you, Snotface Snotlout, for the
dragon, Fireworm, who is mine by right,’ said Hiccup,
trying to hide his reluctance by speaking as loudly and
formally as he could.
‘I accept your challenge,’ said Snotlout super-
fast, grinning all over his horrid, smug face. ‘Axes or
fists?’
‘Fists,’ said Hiccup. Because axes were a
REALLY bad idea.
‘I shall look forward to showing you how a real
Future Hero fights,’ said Snotlout, and then he

62

remembered something. ‘AFTER the Initiation thing
on Thor’sday Thursday, though. I don’t want to stub
my toe or anything while I’m kicking you all around
the village.’
‘Hiccup might win,’ Fishlegs pointed out.
‘OF COURSE he won’t win,’ boasted Snotlout.
‘Look at my sporting ability, my Viking courage, my
capacity for mindless violence. I shall win just as surely
as I shall be Chief of this Tribe one day. I mean, look
at my dragon and then look at HIS dragon.’ He
pointed mockingly at Toothless. ‘The gods have
spoken. It’s only a matter of time.’
‘In the meantime,’ Snotlout carried on, ‘I shall
live in fear of being gummed to death by Hiccup’s
terrifying, toothless terrapin.’
And Snotlout sauntered off in a lordly fashion,
giving Hiccup a nasty kick on the shins as he did so.

‘Sorry about the challenge,’ Fishlegs apologised, after
they had left the baskets with the dragons in them
under their beds at their homes.
‘Oh, don’t worry about it,’ said Hiccup.
‘Somebody would have got me to do it anyway. You
know how they all love a fight.’

63

Fishlegs and Hiccup were going to the Great
Hall to look for the book Gobber had recommended:
How to Train Your Dragon, by Professor Yobbish.
‘As it happens,’ confided Hiccup, ‘I know a bit
about dragons already, but I haven’t the foggiest clue
how to start training one. I would have said they were
virtually untrainable. I’m really looking forward to
getting some tips.’
The Great Hall was a hullabaloo of young
barbarians fighting, yelling, and playing the popular
Viking game of Bashyball, which was a very violent
contact sport with lots of contact and very few rules.
Hiccup and Fishlegs found the book tucked
away in the fireplace, practically in the fire.
Hiccup had never noticed it before.
He opened the book.
(I have included a basic replica of How to Train
Your Dragon, by Professor Yobbish, here – in order
that you can share the experience with Hiccup of
opening that book for the first time, full of hope, and
interest, and expectation. You will have to imagine that
the cover is unusually thick, with huge golden clasps,
and that some scribe has covered it in elaborately
fancy gilt lettering. It looks very inviting indeed.)

64

‘THAT’S IT??!’ said Hiccup furiously, turning the
book upside down and shaking it, trying to see
whether there was anything other than that single page
of paper inside it.
Hiccup put the book down. His face was
unusually grim.
‘OK, Fishlegs,’ he said, ‘unless you’re any
better at yelling than I am, we’re on our own. We’re
going to have to work out our own method of
dragon-training.’

71

5. A CHAT WITH OLD
WRINKLY

The next morning, Hiccup checked the dragon under
his bed. It was still asleep.
When his mother, Valhallarama, asked him at
breakfast, ‘How did Inititation go yesterday, dear?’,
Hiccup said, ‘Oh, it was fine. I caught my dragon.’
‘That’s nice, dear,’ Valhallarama replied vaguely.
Stoick the Vast looked up briefly from his bowl
and boomed, ‘EXCELLENT, EXCELLENT,’ before
getting back to the important task of shovelling food
into his mouth.
After breakfast, Hiccup went to sit on the front
step beside his grandfather, who was
smoking a pipe. It was a beautiful, cold, clear
winter’s morning, with not a breath of wind and the
sea all around as flat as glass.
Old Wrinkly blew out smoke rings contentedly as
he watched the sun coming up. Hiccup shivered and
chucked stones into the bracken. Neither of them
spoke for a long time.
At last Hiccup said, ‘I got that dragon.’
‘I said you would, didn’t I?’ replied Old Wrinkly,

73

very pleased with himself. Old Wrinkly had taken up
soothsaying in his old age, mostly unsuccessfully.
Looking into the future is a complicated business. So
he was particularly pleased that he’d got this right.
‘Something extraordinary, you said,’ complained
Hiccup. ‘A truly unusual dragon, you said. An animal
that would really make me stand out in the crowd.’
‘Absolutely,’ agreed Old Wrinkly. ‘The entrails
were undeniable.’
‘The only extraordinary thing about this dragon,’
continued Hiccup, ‘is how extraordinarily SMALL it
is. In that it is super-unusual. I’m even more of a
laughing-stock than ever.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Old Wrinkly, chuckling in a
wheezy way over his pipe.
Hiccup looked at him reproachfully. Old Wrinkly
hurriedly turned the laugh into a cough.
‘Size is all relative, Hiccup,’ said Old Wrinkly.
‘ALL of these dragons are super-small compared to
a real Sea Dragon. A REAL Sea Dragon
is fifty times as big as that little creature.
A real Sea Dragon from the bottom of
the ocean can swallow ten large Viking
ships in one gulp and not even notice.

74

A real Sea Dragon is a cruel, careless mystery like
the mighty ocean itself, one moment calm as a scallop,
the next raging like an octopus.’
‘Well, here on Berk,’ said Hiccup, ‘where we
haven’t any Sea Dragons to compare anything with,
my dragon is just considerably smaller than everybody
else’s. You are getting off the point.’
‘Am I?’ asked Old Wrinkly.
‘The point is, I just don’t see how I am ever
going to become a Hero,’ said Hiccup gloomily. ‘I am
the least Heroic boy in the whole Hooligan Tribe.’
‘Oh pshaw, this ridiculous Tribe,’ fumed Old
Wrinkly. ‘OK so you are not what we call a born Hero.
You’re not big and tough and charismatic like
Snotlout. But you’re just going to have to work at it.
You’re going to have to learn how to be a Hero the
Hard Way.’
‘Anyway,’ said Old Wrinkly, ‘it might be just what
this Tribe needs, a change in leadership style. Because
the thing is, times are changing. We can’t get away
with being bigger and more violent than everybody
else any more. IMAGINATION. That’s what they
need and what you’ve got. A Hero of the Future is
going to have to be clever and cunning, not just a big

75

lump with overdeveloped muscles. He’s going to have
to stop everyone quarrelling among themselves and
get them to face the enemy together.’
‘How am I going to persuade anybody to do
anything?’ asked Hiccup. ‘They’ve started calling me
HICCUP THE USELESS. That is not a great name
for a Military Leader.’
‘You have to see the bigger picture, Hiccup,’
continued Old Wrinkly, ignoring him. ‘You’re called
a few names. You’re not a natural at Bashyball. Who
cares? These are very little problems in the grand
scheme of things.’
‘It’s all very well for you to say they are little
problems,’ said Hiccup crossly, ‘but I have a LOT of
little problems. I have to train this super-small dragon
in time for Thor’sday Thursday or be thrown out of
the Hairy Hooligan Tribe for ever.’
‘Ah yes,’ said Old Wrinkly, thoughtfully. ‘There’s
a book on this subject, isn’t there? Remind me, how
does the great Professor of Meathead University think
you should train a dragon?’
‘He thinks you should yell at it,’ said Hiccup,
gloomily chucking stones again. ‘Show the beast
who is Master by the sheer charismatic force of your

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personality, that sort of thing. I have about as much
charisma as a stranded jellyfish and yelling is just
another thing I am useless at.’
‘Ye-e-es,’ said Old Wrinkly, ‘but maybe you’ll
have to Train Your Dragon the Hard Way. You know a
very great deal about dragons, don’t you, Hiccup? All
that Dragon-watching you’ve been doing over the
years?’
‘That’s a secret,’ said Hiccup, uncomfortably.
‘I’ve seen you talking to them,’ said Old Wrinkly.
‘That’s NOT TRUE,’ protested Hiccup, going
bright-red in the face.
‘OK, then,’ soothed Old Wrinkly,
calmly smoking his pipe, ‘it’s not
true.’
There was silence
for a bit.

‘It is true,’ admitted Hiccup, ‘but for Thor’s sake
don’t tell anybody, they wouldn’t understand.’
‘Talking to dragons is a highly unusual skill,’ said
Old Wrinkly.
‘Maybe,’ said Old Wrinkly, ‘you can train a
dragon better by talking to it, than by yelling at it.’
‘That’s sweet,’ said Hiccup ‘and a very touching
thought. However, a dragon is not a fluffy creature
like a dog or a cat or a pony. A dragon is not going to
do what you say just because you ask it pretty please.
From what I know about dragons,’ said Hiccup,
‘I should say that yelling was a pretty good method.’
‘But it has its limitations, doesn’t it?’ Old
Wrinkly pointed out. ‘I would say that yelling was
highly effective on any dragon smaller than a sea-lion.
And positively suicidal if you try it on anything larger.
Why don’t you come up with some alternative training
schemes yourself? You might be able to add something
to Professor Yobbish’s book. I’ve often thought that
that book needs a little something extra… I can’t
quite put my finger on it…’
‘WORDS,’ said Hiccup. ‘That book needs a lot
more words.’

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6. MEANWHILE, DEEP IN THE
OCEAN…

Meanwhile, deep in the ocean, but not so very far
from the Isle of Berk, a real Sea Dragon such as
Old Wrinkly had been describing lay sleeping on the
sea-bed. He was indescribably large. He had been
there so long that he almost seemed to be part of the
ocean-floor itself, a great underwater mountain,
covered in shells and barnacles, some of his limbs
half-buried in the sand.
Generation after generation of little hermit
crabs had born and died in this Dragon’s ears.
Hundreds and hundreds of years he’d slept, because
he’d had rather a large meal. He’d had the luck to
catch a Roman Legion camping on a cliff-top – they
were completely cut off and he had spent an
enjoyable afternoon wolfing down the whole lot of
them, from commanding officer to lowliest private.
Horses, chariots, shield and spears, the entire lot
went down the ravenous, reptilian gullet. And,
while things such as golden chariot wheels are an
additional source of fibre to a Dragon’s diet, they do

79

take some time to digest.
The Dragon had crawled down
into the depths of the ocean and gone
into a Sleep Coma. Dragons can stay in this
suspended state for eternity, half-dead, half-alive,
buried under fathom after fathom of icy-cold sea-
water. Not a muscle of this particular Dragon had
moved for six or seven centuries.
But the previous week, a Killer Whale who had
chased some seals unexpectedly deep was surprised
to notice a slight movement in the upper eyelid of the
dragon’s right eye. An ancestral memory stirred in the
whale’s brain and he swam away from there as fast as
his fins could carry him. And, a week later, the sea
around the Dragon Mountain – which had previously
been teeming with crabs and lobsters and shoals and
shoals of fish – was a great, underwater desert. Not a
mollusc stirred, not a scallop shimmied.
The only sign of life for miles and miles was the
rapid jerking of both the Dragon’s eyelids, fluttering
up and down as if the Dragon had suddenly gone into
a lighter sleep and was dreaming, who knows what
dark dreams.

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7. TOOTHLESS WAKES UP

Toothless woke up about three weeks later. Fishlegs
and Hiccup were at Hiccup’s house. Everybody else
was out, so Hiccup decided to take the opportunity
to check on Toothless’s basket. He pulled it out from
under the bed. A thin plume of bluey-grey smoke was
drifting out from under the lid.
Fishlegs whistled. ‘He’s awake all right,’ said
Fishlegs. ‘Here we go.’
Hiccup opened the basket.
The smoke billowed out and made Hiccup and
Fishlegs cough. Hiccup fanned it away. Once his eyes
had stopped watering he could make out a very small,
ordinary dragon looking up at him with enormous,
innocent, grass-green eyes.
‘Hello, Toothless1,’ said Hiccup, in what he
hoped was a good accent in Dragonese.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Fishlegs curiously.
Dragonese is punctuated by shrill shrieks and popping
noises and sounds MOST extraordinary when spoken
by a human.

1This should, of course, read ‘Howdeedoodeethere, Toothless,’ but I have
translated it into English for the benefit of those readers whose Dragonese
is a bit rusty. Please read Hiccup’s book, Learning to Speak Dragonese,
for a crash course in this fascinating language.

~LEARNING TO SPEAK DRAGONESE~

Introduction

In order to train your dragon without using the
traditional methods of yelling at it, you must first learn
to speak Dragonese. Dragons are the only other
creatures who speak a language as complicated
and sophisticated as humans.

Here are some common dragon
phrases to get you started:

Nee-ah crappa inna di hoosus, pishyou.
No poo-ing inside the house, please.

Mi Mama no likeit yum-yum on di bum.
My mother does not like to be bitten on the bottom.

Pishyou keendlee gobba oot mi freeundlee?
Please would you be so kind as to spit my friend out?

Doit wummortime.
Let’s try that again.

‘Just talking to it,’ mumbled Hiccup, very
embarrassed.
‘Just talking to it???’ gasped Fishlegs, in
astonishment. ‘What do you mean, you’re talking to it?
You can’t talk to it, it’s an ANIMAL, for Thor’s sake!’
‘Oh shut up, Fishlegs,’ said Hiccup, impatiently,
‘you’re frightening it.’
Toothless huffed and puffed and blew out some
smoke rings. He inflated his neck to make himself
look bigger, which is something dragons do when they
are scared or angry.
Eventually he got up the courage to unfurl his
wings and flap up on to Hiccup’s arm. He walked his
way up on to Hiccup’s shoulder and Hiccup turned
his face towards him.
Toothless pressed his forehead on to Hiccup’s
forehead and gazed deeply and solemnly into Hiccup’s
eyes. They stayed there, snout to nose, without
moving, for about sixty seconds. Hiccup had to blink a
lot because the gaze of a dragon is hypnotic and gives
the unnerving feeling that it is sucking your soul away.
Hiccup was just thinking, ‘Wow, this is amazing –
I’m really making contact here!’ when Toothless bent
down and bit him on the arm.

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Hiccup let out a yelp and threw Toothless off
him.
‘F-f-fish,’ hissed Toothless, hovering in the air in
front of Hiccup. ‘W-w-w-want fish NOW!’
‘I haven’t got any fish,’ said
Hiccup in Dragonese, rubbing
his arm. Luckily Toothless
didn’t have any teeth but
dragons have powerful jaws
so it was still painful.
Toothless bit him on
the other arm. ‘F-F-F-FISH!’
said Toothless again.
‘Are you OK?’ asked Fishlegs. ‘I
can’t believe I’m asking this, but what’s he saying?’
‘He wants to eat,’ replied Hiccup, grimly rubbing
both arms. He tried to make his voice sound firm but
pleasant; to dominate the creature by the sheer force
of his personality, as Gobber had said. ‘But WE
HAVE NO FISH.’
‘OK then,’ said Toothless. ‘Eat c-c-cat.’
He made a lunge for Fiddlesticks, who streaked
up the nearest wall with a yowl of terror.
Hiccup just managed to grab Toothless by the

84

tail as he flew off in pursuit. The dragon struggled
wildly, shouting ‘WANT F-F-FISH NOW! WANT
F-F-FOOD NOW! CATS ARE YUMMY WANT
FOOD NOW!’
‘We don’t HAVE any fish,’ repeated Hiccup,
from between gritted teeth, feeling all his calmness
deserting him, ‘and you can’t eat the cat – I like
him.’
Fiddlesticks mewed indignantly from a beam
high up in the roof.
They put Toothless in Stoick’s bedroom,
where there was a mouse problem.
For a while he was happy swooping
after the desperately squeaking mice, but
then he got bored and started attacking
the mattress.
‘STOP!’ yelled Hiccup, as feathers
flew in all directions.
Toothless replied by sicking up the
remains of a recently deceased mouse right in the
middle of Stoick’s pillow.
‘Aaaargh!’ said Hiccup.
‘AAAAAAARGH!’ said Stoick the Vast, who
entered the room at that very moment.

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Toothless launched himself at Stoick the Vast’s
beard, which he mistook for a chicken.
‘Get him off!’ said Stoick.
‘He doesn’t do what I say,’ said Hiccup.
‘Yell VERY LOUDLY at him,’ Stoick shouted,
VERY LOUDLY.
Hiccup yelled as loudly as he could. ‘Please will
you stop eating my father’s beard?’
As Hiccup had suspected, Toothless took
absolutely no notice whatsoever.
I KNEW I’d be useless at yelling, thought Hiccup
gloomily.
‘DROPTOTHEFLOORYOUORRRIBLELIT-
TLEREPTILE!’ yelled Stoick.
Toothless dropped to the floor.
‘You see?’ said Stoick. ‘That’s how to deal with
dragons.’
Newtsbreath and Hookfang, Stoick’s hunting
dragons, came padding into the room. Toothless
stiffened as they paced around him, their yellow eyes
glinting evily. Each was about the size of a leopard,
and they were as delighted by his arrival as a couple
of giant cats might be by that of a cute little kitten.
‘Greetings, fellow firebreather,’ hissed

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Newtsbreath, as he gave the wriggling newcomer a
sniff.
‘We must wait,’ purred Hookfang menacingly,
‘until we are alone and then we can give you a
proper welcome.’ He gave a vicious swipe at Toothless
with one paw. A claw like a kitchen knife just nicked
Toothless on the rump and the little dragon howled
and jumped into Hiccup’s tunic, until only his tail was
poking out of the neck.
‘HOOKFANG!’ bellowed Stoick.
‘My claw slipped,’ whined Hookfang.
‘GEDDOUTOFHEREBEFOREIMAKEYOUIN-
TOHANDBAGS!’ yelled Stoick, and Newtsbreath and
Hookfang slunk out, muttering obscene dragon curses
under their breaths.
‘As I was saying,’ said Stoick the Vast. ‘THAT’S
how to deal with dragons.’
Stoick was looking at Toothless with un-
characteristic anxiety.
‘Son,’ said Stoick, hoping there might be some
sort of mistake, ‘is this dragon your dragon?’
‘Yes, father,’ Hiccup admitted.
‘It’s very… well… it’s very… SMALL, isn’t it?’
said Stoick slowly.

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Stoick was not an observant person but even
he could not fail to notice that this dragon really was
remarkably small.
‘… and it hasn’t got any teeth.’
There was an awkward silence.
Fishlegs came to Hiccup’s rescue.
‘That’s because it’s an unusual breed,’ said
Fishlegs. ‘A unique and… er… violent species called
the Toothless Daydream, distant relations of the
Monstrous Nightmare, but far more ruthless and so
rare they are practically extinct.’

88

‘Really?’ Stoick surveyed the Toothless
Daydream doubtfully. ‘It looks just like a Common or
Garden to me.’
‘Ahhh, but with respect, Chief,’ said Fishlegs,
‘that’s where you’re WRONG. To the amateur eye
and, indeed, to its prey, it looks exactly like a Common
or Garden. But if you look a little closer the
characteristic Daydream marking’ – Fishlegs pointed
to a wart on the end of Toothless’s nose – ‘marks it
out from the more ordinary breed.’
‘By Thor, you’re right!’ said Stoick.
‘And it’s not just your average Toothless
Daydream either.’ Fishlegs was getting carried away
now. ‘This particular dragon is of ROYAL BLOOD.’
‘No!’ said Stoick, very impressed. Stoick was a
terrific snob.
‘Yes,’ said Fishlegs solemnly. ‘Your son has only
gone and burgled the offspring of King Daggerfangs
himself, the reptilian ruler of Wild Dragon Cliff.
The Royal Daydreams tend to start out small but
they grow into creatures of IMPRESSIVE – even
GARGANTUAN – size.’
‘Just like you, eh, Hiccup,’ said Stoick, giving a
great laugh and ruffling his son’s hair.

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Stoick’s tummy gave out a plaintive rumble like
a distant underground explosion. ‘Time for a little
supper, I think. Clear up this mess, will you, boys?’
Stoick strode off, relieved to have had his faith
in his son restored.
‘Thanks, Fishlegs,’ said Hiccup. ‘You were
inspired.’
‘Not at all,’ said Fishlegs. ‘I owed you one after
setting you up for that fight with Snotlout.’
‘Father’s going to find out at some point anyway
though,’ said Hiccup gloomily.
‘Not necessarily,’ said Fishlegs. ‘Look at all that
talking you were doing with the Toothless Daydream
here. That was INCREDIBLE. UNBELIEVABLE.
I’ve never seen anything like it. You’ll be training him
in next to no time.’
‘I was talking to him, all right,’ said Hiccup, ‘but
he didn’t listen to a word I said.’

When he was going to bed that night, Hiccup didn’t
want to leave Toothless in front of the fire with
Newtsbreath and Hookfang.
‘Can I take him to bed with me?’ he
asked Stoick.

90

‘A dragon is a working animal,’ said Stoick the
Vast. ‘Too much hugging and kissing will make him
lose his vicious streak.’
‘But Newtsbreath will kill him if I leave him
alone with them.’
Newtsbreath gave an appreciative growl. ‘It
would be my pleasure,’ he hissed.
‘Nonsense,’ boomed Stoick, unaware of
Newtsbreath’s last remark, as he didn’t speak
Dragonese. He gave Newtsbreath a friendly cuff
round the horns. ‘Newtsbreath just wants to play. That
sort of rough and tumble is good for a young dragon.
Makes him learn to stick up for himself.’
Hookfang extended his
claws like flick-knives and
drummed them on the
hearth.
Hiccup pretended to
say goodnight to Toothless
by the fire, but smuggled him
into the bedroom under his tunic.
‘You must be absolutely quiet,’ he told Toothless
sternly as they climbed into bed, and the dragon
nodded eagerly. In fact, he snored loudly the entire

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night, but Hiccup didn’t care. Hiccup spent the whole
of the winter on Berk in various states of ‘very cold’,
ranging from ‘fairly chilly’ to ‘absolutely freezing’.
At night, too many layers were considered sissy, so
Hiccup generally lay awake for a couple of hours until
he had shivered himself into a light sleep.
Now though, as Hiccup stretched his feet out
against Toothless’s back, he felt waves of heat coming
off the little dragon, gradually creeping up his legs and
warming his freezing cold stomach and heart, even
travelling right up to his head, which hadn’t been truly
warm for almost six months. Even his ears burned
contentedly. It would have taken the snoring of six
strong dragons to have woken Hiccup, so deeply did
he sleep that night.

8. TRAINING YOUR DRAGON
THE HARD WAY

Hiccup was still pretty certain, knowing dragons as
he did, that yelling was the easiest method of training
them. So, over the next couple of weeks, he tried
yelling at Toothless to see if he could make it work.
He tried yelling loudly, firmly, strictly. He looked as
cross as he could. But Toothless wouldn’t take him
seriously.
Hiccup finally gave up on the yelling when
Toothless stole a kipper off his plate one morning at
breakfast. Hiccup let out his most fierce and
frightening yell and Toothless just gave him a wicked
look and knocked everything else on to the floor with
one swipe of his tail.
That was it with the yelling, as far as Hiccup was
concerned.
‘OK, then,’ said Hiccup, ‘I’ll try going to the
other extreme.’
So he was as nice to Toothless as he possibly
could be. He gave Toothless the comfiest bit of the
bed and then lay dangerously balanced on the

93

edge of it himself.
He fed him as much kipper and lobster as he
wanted. He only did this once, though, as the little
dragon just went on eating until he had made himself
thoroughly sick.
He played games with him for hours and hours.
He told him jokes, he brought him mice to eat, he
scratched the bit that Toothless couldn’t quite reach in
between the spokes on his back.
He made that dragon’s life as close to Dragon
Heaven as he possibly could.

By mid February, the winter was coming to an end on
Berk, and the snowy season had turned into the rainy
season. It was the kind of weather where your clothes
never got dry, no matter what. Hiccup would hang up
his sodden tunic on a chair in front of the fire before
going to bed at night, and in the morning it would
still be wet – warm and wet rather than cold and wet,
but WET nonetheless.
The ground all around the Village had turned
into knee-deep mud.
‘What, in Woden’s name, are you doing?’ asked
Fishlegs, when he came across Hiccup digging a large

94

hole just outside the house.
‘Building a mud-wallow for Toothless,’ panted
Hiccup.
‘You spoil that dragon, you really do,’ said
Fishlegs, shaking his head.
‘It’s psychology, you see,’ said Hiccup, ‘It’s clever
and it’s subtle, not like that caveman yelling you’re
doing with Horrorcow.’
Fishlegs had named his dragon Horrorcow.
The ‘horror’ bit was to make the poor creature at least
sound a bit frightening. The ‘cow’ bit was because
for a dragon she really was remarkably like a cow. She
was a large, peaceful, brown creature, with an easy-
going nature. Fishlegs suspected she might even be
vegetarian.
‘I’m always catching her nibbling at the
woodwork,’ he complained. ‘BLOOD, Horrorcow,
BLOOD – that’s what you should want!’
Nonetheless, maybe Fishlegs was a better yeller
than Hiccup, or maybe Horrorcow was a lazier and
more obliging character than Toothless, but
Horrorcow was proving very easy to train by the
yelling method.
‘OK, Toothless, it’s ready,’ said Hiccup. ‘Get

95

yourself a good wallow.’
Toothless stopped trying to catch voles and leapt
into the mud. He rolled over and over in the oozy
gunge, spreading out his wings and squirming happily.
‘I’m bonding with him,’ said Hiccup, ‘so he’ll
want to do what I say.’
‘Hiccup,’ said Fishlegs, as Toothless sucked up a
good mouthful of the mud and spat it out straight into
Hiccup’s face, ‘I may not know much about dragons,
but I do know that they are the most selfish creatures
on earth. No dragon is ever going to do what you want
out of gratitude. Dragons do not know what gratitude
is. Give up. This will NEVER WORK.’
‘The thing about us d-d-dragons,’ said Toothless,
helpfully, ‘is we’re s-s-survivors. We’re not like
s-s-soppy cats or d-d-dumb dogs, falling in l-l-love
with their Masters and yucky things like that.

96

Only reason we ever do what a m-m-man wants is
because he’s b-b-bigger than us and gives us food.’
‘What’s he saying?’ asked Fishlegs.
‘Pretty much what you’re saying,’ said Hiccup.
‘N-n-never trust a dragon,’ said Toothless,
cheerfully hopping out of the wallow and helping
himself to one of the winkles that Hiccup had found
for him. (Toothless was particularly fond of winkles –
‘J-j-just like picking your n-n-nose,’ he said). ‘That’s
what my m-m-mother taught me in the nest, and she
should know.’
Hiccup sighed. It was true. Toothless was
cute to look at, and very good company – if a little
demanding. However, you only had to look into his
big, innocent, heavily-lashed eyes to realise that he was
totally without morals. The eyes were ancient, the eyes
of a killer. You might as well ask a crocodile or a shark
to be your friend.
Hiccup wiped the mud off his face.
‘I’ll think of something else,’ said Hiccup.

February turned into March and Hiccup was still
thinking. A few flowers made the mistake of appearing
and were immediately blasted out of existence by a

97

couple of hard frosts that had kept themselves back
for this very purpose.
Fishlegs could now get Horrorcow to ‘go’ and
‘stay’ on command. Hiccup was still struggling to
teach Toothless the basics of toilet-training.
‘NO POOING IN THE KITCHEN,’ said
Hiccup for the hundredth time, carrying Toothless
outside after yet another accident.
‘Is w-w-warmer in the kitchen,’ whined
Toothless.
‘But poos go OUTSIDE, you KNOW that,’ said
Hiccup, at the end of his tether.
Toothless promptly pooed all over Hiccup’s
hands and down his tunic.
‘Is OUTSIDE, is OUTSIDE, is OUTSIDE,’
crowed Toothless.
At this inopportune moment, Snotlout and
Dogsbreath came sauntering past Stoick’s house on
the way back from the beach, their dragons on their
shoulders.
‘Well, well, well,’ sneered Snotlout, ‘if it isn’t the
USELESS, covered in dragon poo. It actually quite
suits you.’
‘Hur, Hur, Hur,’ snorted Dogsbreath.

98

‘That’s not a dragon,’ jeered Seaslug,
Dogsbreath’s dragon, who was an ugly
great Gronckle with a pug nose and a
mean temper, ‘that’s a newt with wings.’
‘That’s not a dragon,’ scoffed Fireworm,
Snotlout’s dragon, who was as big a bully as her
master, ‘that’s an ickle newborn bunny wabbit with
a pathetic poo problem.’
Toothless gave a gasp of fury.
Snotlout showed Hiccup the immense heap of
fish that he had wrapped up in his cloak.
‘Look what Fireworm and Seaslug caught down
at the beach. And it only took a couple of hours…’
Fireworm coughed, flexed a shining muscle or
two and looked at her claws in fake modesty.
‘Oh, please,’ she drawled. ‘I wasn’t even
CONCENTRATING. If I was TRYING, I could
do it in ten minutes, with one wing tied behind
my back.’
‘Excuse me while I throw up,’
muttered Toothless to Horrorcow,
who was regarding Fireworm
with disapproval in her
big brown eyes.

‘We reckon Fireworm could be a bit of a
HUNTING LEGEND,’ grinned Snotlout. ‘I hear that
Horrorcow is partial to carrots… Has the Toothless
Wonder got up the nerve to attack a vegetable?
Carrots are a bit crunchy but perhaps he could
manage the odd squished cucumber… You could give
it to him through a straw perhaps…’
‘HUR, HUR, HUR.’ Dogsbreath laughed so
hard that snot came snorting out of his nose.
‘Careful, Dogsbreath,’ said Fishlegs politely,
‘your brains are coming out.’
Dogsbreath bashed him hard and the two boys
swaggered off, Fireworm making a lunge at Toothless
that nearly took his eye out as he went past.
As soon as they were safely out of earshot,
Toothless jumped out of Hiccup’s arms and coughed
out sheets of flame in a menacing manner.
‘Bullies! Yellowbellies! Come closer and
Toothless’ll fry you to a frazzle! Toothless’ll drag out
yer guts and play ‘em on a harp! Toothless’ll…
Toothless’ll… Toothless’ll… well, you just better not
come any closer that’s all…!’
‘Oh, very brave,’ said Hiccup sarcastically. ‘If
you shout louder they might even hear you.’

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9. FEAR, VANITY, REVENGE
AND SILLY JOKES

March turned into April and April turned into May.
After Fireworm’s remark about the pathetic bunny
rabbit, Toothless never pooed in the kitchen again.
But Hiccup hadn’t made any further progress in
training him.
It was still raining, but it was a warm rain.
The wind was blowing, but it was a less furious wind.
It was just about possible to stand upright.
The gulls’ eggs were hatching on the rocks
and the parent gulls dive-bombed Hiccup and
Fishlegs when they came to the Long Beach to
practice.
‘KILL, Horrorcow, KILL,’ said
Fishlegs to Horrorcow, who was calmly
perched on his shoulder. ‘You could have
that Black-backed Gull for breakfast, he’s
barely half your size. Honestly, Hiccup,
I give up, I don’t know how I’m going to
pass the hunting section of the test,
Horrorcow just doesn’t have the killer

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instinct. She’d never survive in the wild.’
Hiccup laughed hollowly. ‘You think YOU’VE
got problems? Toothless and I are failing right from
the beginning: the basic obedience commands,
the retrieval, the compulsory exercises, the hunting –
the lot.’
‘It can’t be that bad,’ said Fishlegs.
‘Watch,’ said Hiccup.
The boys moved along the beach a bit, out of
range of the gulls.
They started practising the most basic command
of all: ‘go’. The dragon was supposed to stand, bolt
upright, on the handler’s outstretched arm. The
handler would then bark the command as loudly as
possible, while simultaneously lifting his arm to fling
the dragon into the air. The dragon was supposed to
soar gracefully into flight when the handler’s arm
reached its highest point.
Horrorcow yawned, scratched and slowly flapped
off, grumbling to herself.
Toothless was even less obedient.
‘GO!’ yelled Hiccup.
Hiccup flung his arm up. Toothless hung on.
‘I said GO!’ Hiccup repeated in frustration.

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‘W-w-why g-g-go?’ shuddered Toothless,
gripping even tighter.
‘Just go GO GO GO GO!!!!’ screamed Hiccup,
flapping his arm up and down frantically, with
Toothless hanging on to it for dear life.
Toothless stayed.
‘Toothless,’ said Hiccup, as reasonably as he
could, ‘please go. If you don’t start going when I tell
you to, we are both going to be thrown into exile.’
‘But I don’t w-w-want to go,’ Toothless pointed

103

out, equally reasonably.
Fishlegs watched the whole process in appalled
amazement. ‘You really do have problems,’ he said in an
awed voice.
‘Yup,’ said Hiccup. He finally managed to uncurl
Toothless’s claws, which had relaxed their grip for a
second, and pushed him off. Toothless landed on the
sand with a squeal of outrage, and immediately
attached himself to Hiccup’s leg, getting a good grip
on the sandals with his talons, and wrapping his wings
around Hiccup’s calf.
‘N-n-not going,’ said Toothless stubbornly.
‘It can’t get much worse than this,’ said Hiccup,
‘so I’m going to try a new tack.’ He took out the
notebook in which he had been jotting down all he
knew about dragons in the hope that it might be useful.
‘DRAGON MOTIVATION…’ Hiccup read aloud,
‘1. GRATITUDE.’ Hiccup sighed. ‘2. FEAR. That
works, but I can’t do it. 3, 4, 5, GREED, VANITY
and REVENGE. Those are all worth a try. 6. JOKES
AND RIDDLING TALK. Only if I’m desperate.’
‘This has got to be a first,’ drawled Fishlegs, ‘but
I’m with Gobber the Belch on this one. Why don’t you
just yell a bit louder?’

104

THE
MONSTROUS
NIGHTMARE

The Monstrous
Nightmare is a terrifying
domestic dragon. Dazzling flyers,
magnificent hunters and fearsome fighters, they
can be wild and difficult to train. By unofficial
Viking Law, only a Chief or the son of a Chief
can own one.

~ STATISTICS ~

COLOURS: Emerald green,
brilliant scarlet, deepest purple.
ARMED WITH: Scary fangs,
extra extendable claws.
FEAR FACTOR:........ 6
ATTACK:................. 7
SPEED:................... 9
SIZE:..................... 5
DISOBEDIENCE:....... 3

Hiccup ignored him.
‘OK, Toothless,’ said Hiccup to the little
dragon, who was pretending to be asleep as he held on
to Hiccup’s leg. ‘For every fish you catch me I will
give you two more lobsters when you get home.’
Toothless opened his eyes. ‘A-a-alive?’ he said
eagerly. ‘C-c-can Toothless kill them? P-p-please?
Just this once?’
‘No, Toothless,’ said Hiccup, firmly, ‘I keep on
telling you, it isn’t kind to torture creatures smaller
than yourself.’
Toothless closed his eyes again. ‘You’re so b-b-
boring,’ he said sulkily.
‘You’re such a clever, quick dragon, Toothless,’
Hiccup flattered, ‘I bet you could catch more fish
than any of the others on Thor’sday Thursday if you
wanted to.’
Toothless opened his eyes to consider the matter.
‘T-t-twice as many,’ he said modestly. ‘But I don’t
w-w-want to.’
This was unanswerable. Hiccup crossed
VANITY off his list.
‘You know that big red Fireworm dragon who
was so rude to you?’ said Hiccup.

107

Toothless spat on the ground in indignation.
‘S-s-said I was a newt with wings. S-s-said I was
an incontinent bunny r-r-rabbit. T-t-toothless going
to k-k-kill her. Toothless going to s-s-scratch her to
death. T-t-toothless going to—’
‘Yes, yes, yes,’ said Hiccup hastily. ‘That
Fireworm dragon and her master who looks like a pig
think that Fireworm is going to catch more fish than
anybody else at the Thor’sday Thursday celebrations.
Think how stupid they are going to look if YOU win
the prize for Most Promising Dragon instead of her.’
Toothless got off Hiccup’s leg. ‘I W-W-WILL
think about that,’ said Toothless. He waddled off a
couple of feet and thought about it.
Five minutes later he was still thinking. He let
out the odd chuckle every now and then, but every
time Hiccup said, ‘So, how about it, then?’ he just
replied, ‘S-s-still thinking. Go away.’
With a sigh, Hiccup put a line through
REVENGE.
‘OK,’ said Fishlegs, looking over Hiccup’s
shoulder. ‘You’ve tried everything else. How about
JOKES AND RIDDLING TALK? I assume you
are desperate.’

108

‘Toothless,’ said Hiccup. ‘If you catch me a nice
big mackerel you will be the cleverest, fastest dragon
on Berk AND you will make that Fireworm dragon
look like an idiot AND you will have all the lobsters
you can eat when we get home AND I will tell you a
really good joke.’
Toothless turned round. ‘T-t-toothless loves
jokes.’ He flapped on to Hiccup’s arm again. ‘All
right. Toothless help you. B-b-but NOT because me
being n-n-nice or anything yucky…’
‘No, no,’ said Hiccup. ‘Of course not.’
‘Us d-d-dragons cruel and mean. But we
do love a j-j-joke. Tell me NOW.’
Hiccup laughed. ‘No way.
AFTER you bring me a mackerel.’
‘OK, then,’ said Toothless.
He jumped off Hiccup’s arm into the air.
A dragon hunting is a very impressive sight, even
a scrawny infant one like Toothless. He flew across the
beach in his usual, untidy, lopsided fashion, shrieking
a few insults along the way at any cormorants that
looked smaller than him. But as soon as he reached
the sea, Toothless seemed to grow up a bit. The sea-
salt awoke in him some ancestral memory of the great

109

pedigree hunting monsters that were his forefathers.
He spread out his wings like a kite and flew fairly
swiftly over the surface of the choppy waves, keeping
his body and wings steady as he searched for the
movement of fish. He spotted something, and soared
upwards in circles until he was so high that Hiccup,
craning his neck backwards on the beach, could only
just see him as a tiny speck. The speck was motionless
for a second, and then Toothless dived, his wings
folded by his sides, dropping like a stone out of the
sky.
He disappeared into the water and was gone for
quite a while. Dragons can stay underwater for at least
five minutes, if they want to, and Toothless got quite
distracted under there, chasing one fish and then
another, unable to decide which was the biggest.
Hiccup had got bored, and was looking for
oysters, when Toothless came bursting triumphantly
out of the sea carrying a small mackerel.
He dropped the mackerel at Hiccup’s feet,
did three somersaults in a row and landed on Hiccup’s
head. He let out the dragon’s cry of triumph, which is
a bit like a rooster crowing but a lot louder and more
self-satisfied.

110

Then he leant over and stared
into Hiccup’s eyes, upside down.
‘Now t-t-tell me a joke,’ said Toothless.
‘Whimpering Wodens,’ said Hiccup. ‘He did it.
He really did it.’
‘T-t-tell me a JOKE,’ said Toothless again.
‘What’s black and white and red all over?’
asked Hiccup.
Toothless didn’t know.
‘A sunburnt penguin,’ replied Hiccup.
It was a very, very old joke, but apparently it
hadn’t made it to Wild Dragon Cliff. Toothless
thought it was hysterically funny.
He flew off to catch more fish so he could hear
more jokes.
It was an enjoyable afternoon. The rain stopped,
the sun shone, and Toothless didn’t do too badly at all
with the hunting. He dropped a few fish and, at one
point, wandered off entirely to chase rabbits on the
clifftops. But he came back when Hiccup called,
eventually, and by the end of a couple of hours he had
caught six medium-sized mackerel and a dogfish.
All in all, Hiccup was pretty satisfied.
‘After all,’ he said to Fishlegs, ‘it’s not like I’m

111

expecting to win the prize for Most Promising Dragon
or anything. All I need is to show that Toothless is
basically under my control and for him to catch a few
fish. We’ll make fools of ourselves compared to
Snotlout and his beastly Hunting Legend, but at least
we’ll have passed Initiation.’
What was more, as Toothless dropped the last
mackerel on the heap in front of Hiccup, Fishlegs
noticed something sharp and gleaming in the dragon’s
lower jaw.
‘Toothless has got his first tooth!’ said Fishlegs.
It seemed a very good omen.

As they staggered home they passed Old Wrinkly, who
had been sitting on a rock watching them for the past
couple of hours.

112

‘Ve-ry impressive,’ wheezed Old Wrinkly, as
the boys showed him the fish wrapped up in Hiccup’s
cloak.
‘We reckon Hiccup really might pass the Final
Initiation Test on Thor’sday Thursday,’ said Fishlegs
excitedly.
‘So you’re still worrying about that piddly little
Test, are you, Hiccup?’ asked Old Wrinkly. ‘There are
larger concerns you know. There’s a gi-normous storm
brewing up for instance. It should hit us in about
three days.’
‘Piddly little Test?’ said Fishlegs indignantly.
‘What do you mean, piddly little Test??? The
Thor’sday Thursday Festival is the biggest event of the
year. EVERYBODY who is ANYBODY will be there,
all the Hairy Hooligans AND the Meatheads. Plus,
this may not seem important to YOU, but anybody
who fails this piddly little Test gets put into exile to get
eaten up by cannibals or something equally gruesome.’
‘I’m going to call myself HICCUP THE
USEFUL and his dragon TOOTHFULL,’ said Hiccup,
beaming. ‘I thought of it just now and I’m really
pleased with it. It’s solid, dependable, not too flash
and not too much to live up to.’

113

‘This reptile finally got his act together and
caught some fish,’ said Fishlegs, pointing at Toothless
who was picking his nose with one claw. ‘Incredible
though it may seem, Hiccup may pass this Test after
all.’
‘Oh, I think it’s almost a certainty,’ said Old
Wrinkly, looking at Toothless, who was now attempting
to cross his eyes and falling down in the process.
‘Al-most,’ repeated Old Wrinkly thoughtfully.
And the boys went home, with Toothless
following behind them whining, ‘Oh C-C-CARRY
ME, CARRY ME… it’s not f-f-fair… my
wings ache…’

114

10. THOR’SDAY THURSDAY

The Thor’sday Thursday Celebrations were a truly
spectacular occasion. The Hairy Hooligans’ fierce
rivals, the Meatheads, from the nearby Meathead
Islands, sailed across the Inner Ocean to the Isle of
Berk for this great gathering.
The visitors set up camp in Black Heart Bay,
which turned overnight from an empty desert of
echoing seagulls into a bustling village of tents made
out of sails too patched to be used at sea anymore.
By the next morning The Long Beach was
packed with stalls and jugglers and fortune tellers.
There was a happy confusion of Vikings spotting old
friends, and practising their sword play, and yelling at
the children to stop hitting each other RIGHT NOW
for Thor’s sake no I REALLY MEAN IT this time…
or… or… or… ELSE.
Vast Viking men sat on uncomfortable rocks

115

guffawing loudly like gigantic sea-lions in a holiday
mood. Impressively large Viking women huddled in
groups cackling like seagulls and downing whole mugs
of tea in one swallow.
Despite Old Wrinkly’s gloomy forecasts of
terrible storms and typhoons, it was a gloriously hot
June day with not even a hint of a cloud in the offing.
The Young Heroes Final Inititiation Test would
not start until 2 p.m. that afternoon, so Hiccup spent
the morning listening round-eyed to storytellers telling
tall tales of Dirty Danes and pirate princesses.
He was sick with nerves, so found it
difficult to enjoy the occasion as much
as he had done in previous years.
Even Gobber throwing up
during the How Many Gulls Eggs
Can You Eat in One Minute?
competition failed to raise more than
a faint smile on his pale, tense face.
Hiccup’s family had a picnic lunch overlooking
the Axe-fighting Display. Hiccup could not eat a thing,
and nor, unusually, could Toothless, who was in a
difficult mood and turned his nose up at the tuna
sandwich Valhallarama offered.

117

‘Good to keep your dragon’s appetite sharp for
the game,’ boomed Stoick the Vast, who was in an
excellent mood. He had won a bet on Goggletoad in
the Ugliest Baby Contest and was looking forward to
seeing his son’s brilliant display during the Initiation
Test.
As the day wore on, a hot wind suddenly started
blowing out of nowhere. It was still sweltering, but
ominous grey clouds were gathering on the horizon.
There was the odd rumble of thunder in the air.
Maybe Old Wrinkly had been right, thought
Hiccup as he gazed upwards, and Thor was going to
put in his traditional appearance at the Thor’sday
Thursday celebrations.
‘P-P-P-P-A-R-P! Will all youths hoping to be
initiated into the Tribes this year please make their
way to the ground at the left of the beach.’
Hiccup gulped, nudged Toothless, and stood up.
This was it.

Hiccup was one of the last to get to the ground, which
was a large area of wet sand just at the edge of the
sea. The boys from his own Tribe were already
assembled, their dragons hovering a couple of couple

118

of feet above them. Everybody was chattering
excitedly and even Snotlout was looking nervous.
The Meathead boys and their dragons seemed to
be gigantic, rough-looking customers, far tougher than
the Hooligans. One in particular was a great hulking
brute of a boy, who looked fifteen at least.

Hiccup presumed he was Thuggory, Chief
Mogadon the Meathead’s son, because a silver-grey
Monstrous Nightmare about three feet tall was
perched on one of his shoulders. It was looking at
Fireworm like a Rottweiler thinking evil thoughts.
Fireworm acted unconcerned.
‘An aristocrat never growls,’ purred Fireworm
sweetly. ‘You must be one of those mongrel
Nightmares. We pure greenbloods descended from
the great Ripperclaw himself would never dream of
doing anything so common.’
The silver Nightmare’s growling increased
in volume.
The crowd was assembling at the touchline.
Hiccup tried not to notice Stoick the Vast blasting his
way to the front with great cries of, ‘Out of my way,
I’m a CHIEF.
‘TEN TO ONE MY SON CATCHES MORE
FISH THAN YOUR SON IN THIS TEST,’
boomed Stoick, giving his old enemy Mogadon the
Meathead a good prod in the stomach.
Mogadon the Meathead narrowed his eyes and
wondered whether to hit him. Maybe AFTER
the Test.

120

‘And which,’ asked Mogadon
the Meathead, ‘is your son? Is he the
tall one who looks like a pig with the
skeleton tattoos and the red
Monstrous Nightmare?’
‘Nope,’ said Stoick
happily. ‘That’s my brother
Baggybum’s son. MY SON is
that skinny one over there with the
Toothless Daydream.’
Mogadon the Meathead broke into a big smile.
He slapped Stoick on the back and yelled,
‘I TAKE YOUR BET AND DOUBLE IT!’
‘DONE!’ shouted Stoick and the two great
chieftains shook hands and bumped bellies on the bet.

Gobber the Belch was in charge of this final stage
of the Initiation Test. He was still looking a bit green
from his unpleasant experience in the How Many
Gulls’ Eggs Can You Eat in One Minute? competition.
This had not improved his temper.
‘ALL RIGHT, YOU ’ORRIBLE LOT!’ yelled
Gobber. ‘This is where we find out if you are the stuff
that Heroes are made of. You will either walk out of

121

this arena full members of the noble Tribes of Hairy
Hooligans and Merciless Meatheads OR go into
miserable exile for ever from the Inner Isles. Let’s see
which it’s going to be, shall we?’
He grinned nastily at the twenty boys standing
before him.
‘I shall begin by inspecting you and your animals,
as if you were warriors about to go into battle. I shall
introduce you to the watching members of the Tribes
you hope to enter. Then the Test will begin. You will
demonstrate how you have asserted yourselves over
these wild creatures and tamed them by the sheer
force of your Heroic Personalities.
‘You will start by performing the basic commands
of “go”, “stay” and “fetch”. You will end by ordering
your reptile to hunt fish for you, as your forefathers
have done before you.’
Hiccup swallowed nervously.
‘The boy and dragon who most impress the
judge, and that is ME,’ – Gobber bared his teeth
grimly – ‘will receive the extra glory of being called the
Hero of Heroes and Most Promising Dragon. The
boys and dragons who FAIL this Test will say farewell
to their families for ever and leave the Tribe to go,

122

where we do not care.’ Gobber paused.
‘Poetry,’ muttered Fishlegs, just loud enough for
Gobber to hear. Gobber glared at him.
‘HEROES OR EXILES!’ yelled Gobber the
Belch.
‘HEROES OR EXILES!’ yelled eighteen boys
fanatically back at him.
‘HEROES OR EXILES!’ yelled the watching
Hooligan and Meathead Tribes.
Please let me be a bit of a Hero, just this once,
Hiccup and Fishlegs each thought to themselves.
Nothing too spectacular or anything, just to get
through this Test.
‘STAND TO ATTENTION, WITH YOUR
DRAGONS ON YOUR RIGHT ARMS!’ yelled
Gobber the Belch.
Gobber walked down the row of boys for the
inspection.
‘Beautiful turnout.’ Gobber congratulated
Thuggory the Meathead on his Nightmare dragon,
Killer, who spread out his shining wings to show off a
wingspan of about four foot.
Gobber stopped abruptly when he got
to Hiccup.

123

‘And WHAT in the name of Woden,’ demanded
Gobber, blanching a little, ‘is THIS?’
‘It’s a Toothless Daydream, sir,’ muttered
Hiccup.
‘Small but vicious,’ added Fishlegs, helpfully.
‘Toothless Daydream???’ blustered Gobber.
‘That’s the smallest Common or Garden I have ever
seen. What do you think I am, an idiot?’
‘No, no, sir,’ murmured Fishlegs reassuringly,
‘just a little on the slow side.’
Gobber glowered dangerously.
‘A Toothless Daydream,’ explained Hiccup,
‘looks exactly like a Common or Garden except for
the characteristic wart on the end of its nose.’
‘SILENCE!’ said Gobber, in a very loud
whisper. ‘Or I shall throw you all the way to the
Mainland. I HOPE,’ he continued, ‘that this dragon
hunts better than it looks. You and your fishy friend
here are the worst candidates for Initiation I have ever
had the displeasure of teaching. But you are the future
of this Tribe, Hiccup, and if you shame us in front of
the Meatheads, I, personally, will never forgive you.
Do you understand?’
Hiccup nodded.

124

Each boy then stepped forward to bow and hold
up his dragon for the spectators to applaud.
There was huge clapping for Snotface Snotlout
and his dragon, Fireworm, only rivalled by the mighty
cheering for Thuggory the Meathead and his dragon,
Killer.
‘I give you, last but not least,’ Gobber the Belch
was trying to put a bit of enthusiasm into his yelling,
‘the fearsome… the terrible… the only son of Stoick
the Vast… HICCUP THE USEFUL AND HIS
DRAGON TOOTHFULL!’
Hiccup stepped forward and held up Toothless
as high as he could to make him look a bit bigger.
There was a slightly appalled silence.
People had seen dragons this small before, of
course, normally scampering about after field mice
in the wild, but NOT as noble hunting dragons
competing in Initiation.
‘SIZE ISN’T EVERYTHING!’ boomed Stoick,
so loudly that you could have heard him several
beaches away, and he banged his great hands together
to start the applause.
Everyone was terrified of Stoick’s famous
temper, so they joined in with polite wild cheering.

125

Toothless was still in a mood, but he was
delighted to be the centre of attention, and he puffed
out his chest and bowed solemnly to left and right.
A few of the Meatheads sniggered.
I’ve changed my mind, thought Hiccup, closing
his eyes, THIS is the worst moment of my life so far.
‘OK, Toothless,’ he whispered into the little
dragon’s ear, ‘this is our Big Chance. Catch lots of
fish here and I will tell you more jokes than you have
ever heard in your life. Which will make that big red
Fireworm dragon really cross.’
Toothless took a sideways glance at Fireworm.
She was sharpening her nails on Snotlout’s helmet
with the smug certainty of a dragon who knows she’s
about to win the prize for Most Promising Dragon.
‘P-P-PARP!’
The Test began.

Toothless didn’t do too badly in the early obedience
exercises, though he clearly thought it was extremely
dull. It was now raining quite hard and Toothless
hated the rain. He wanted to go home and relax in
front of a nice warm fire.
Fireworm and Killer were ‘going’ and ‘fetching’

126

as soon as Snotlout and Thuggory commanded, and
they were diving and breathing out fire as they did so,
just to show off. Fireworm did some fancy acrobatic
somersaults that had the crowd screaming and
stamping their feet.
‘START YOUR HUNTING!’ yelled Gobber the
Belch.
Every dragon except Toothless flew out to sea.
Toothless flapped back to Hiccup’s shoulder.
‘T-T-Toothless got a t-t-tummy-ache,’ he
complained. Hiccup tried not
to see his father looking
surprised on the sidelines.
He tried not to notice the
crowd whispering to each
other: ‘That’s Stoick’s son over
there – no, not the tall one
with the skeleton tattoos who
looks like a pig, the small
skinny one who can’t even control his minuscule
dragon.’
‘Don’t forget, Toothless,’ said Hiccup through
gritted teeth, ‘the FISH. I’m going to tell you all the
jokes I’ve ever heard, remember?’

127

‘T-t-tell me NOW,’ said Toothless.
Help came from an unexpected quarter.
Snotlout broke off from yelling ‘KILL,
FIREWORM, KILL,’ to lean over and sneer at
Hiccup. ‘What ARE you doing, Hiccup? You’re not
TALKING to that newt with wings, are you? Talking
to dragons is against the rules and forbidden by order
of Stoick the Vast, your soppy father…’
‘N-n-newt with wings?’ repeated Toothless.
‘N-N-NEWT WITH WINGS???’
‘You’re not a newt with wings, are you,
Toothless?’ said Hiccup. ‘You’re the best hunter in
the world, aren’t you?’
‘Too RIGHT I am,’ said Toothless, grumpily.
‘You SHOW that Snotface Snotlout and his
snobby dragon what a REAL hunting dragon can do,’
said Hiccup urgently.
‘OK, then,’ said Toothless.
Hiccup heaved a huge sigh of relief as Toothless
took off in shambolic fashion in the general direction
of the sea.
‘This is too good to be true,’ Hiccup said to
himself ten minutes later as Toothless returned from a
second trip, clearly too bored for words but dropping

128

a couple of herring at Hiccup’s feet. ‘In about half an
hour, I, Hiccup, will become a fully paid-up member
of the Hairy Hooligan tribe.’
It was too good to be true. Fireworm was just
flying back to Snotlout with her twentieth fish, her
green cat’s eyes snapping with triumph, when
Toothless called out:
‘S-s-sloppy snob.’
Fireworm stopped in mid-air. Her head whipped
round, her eyes narrowing.
‘WHAT did you say?’ hissed Fireworm.
‘Oh no,’ said Hiccup. ‘No, Toothless, no, don’t
do it…’
‘S-s-sloppy snob,’ jeered Toothless. ‘Is that the
best you can do? It’s p-p-pathetic. Hopeless.
U-u-useless. You N-N-Nightmares think you’re so
cruel but you’re s-s-sloppy as scallops.’
‘YOU,’ hissed Fireworm, her ears dangerously
back as she crept forward through the air like a
leopard about to spring, ‘are a little LIAR.’
‘And Y-Y-YOU,’ said Toothless calmly, ‘are a
r-r-rabbit-hearted, s-s-seaweed-brained, w-w-winkle-
eating SNOB.’
Fireworm went for him.

129

Toothless streaked off, as quick as lightning, and
Fireworm’s massive jaws snapped together with a
sickening crunch on nothing but thin air.
Chaos ensued.
Fireworm completely lost control. She plunged
wildly through the air, claws out, biting anything that
moved, and letting out great bursts of flame.
Unfortunately, in the process she accidentally
scratched Killer, a dragon with a very short temper.
Killer then attacked any Hooligan dragon within biting
distance.
Soon the dragons were involved in a full-scale,
rip-roaring dragonfight, with the boys running around
shouting at them to stop and trying to pull them apart
without getting killed themselves. The dragons took
absolutely no notice whatsoever, however hard the
boys yelled – and Thuggory and Snotlout were very
red in the face after some pretty impressive yelling.
Gobber the Belch went ballistic on the sidelines.
‘CANSOMEBODYTELLMEWHATINTHORAND-
WODEN’SNAMEISHAPPENING?’
Toothless was in his element in this kind of
chaos, dodging Fireworm’s angry lunges with ease,
nipping in with a lively bite at Alligatiger here and a

130

scratch at Brightclaw there, obviously enjoying the
fight enormously.
Even Horrorcow showed a great deal of spirit
for a dragon who was supposedly vegetarian. She
managed to give Fireworm a truly impressive bite on
the bottom as Fireworm and Killer rolled through the
air biting chunks out of one another.

131

Gobber the Belch entered the fray, grabbing
hold of Fireworm’s tail. Fireworm gave a howl of
outrage, squirmed round, and set Gobber’s beard on
fire. With one massive hand Gobber swatted out the
fire and with the other he clamped Fireworm’s jaws
together so she could neither bite nor burn. He
tucked the furiously enraged animal under one arm,
still holding her mouth closed.
‘SSSTOPPP!!!!!’ screamed Gobber the Belch
with a hair-raising, skin-crawling, fang-dropping yell
that reverberated off the cliffs, bounced off the sea,
and whose faint echoes could be heard on the
Mainland.
The boys stopped their useless screaming. The
dragons stopped in mid-air.
There was an awful silence.
Even the watching crowd went quiet.
This had never happened before. All twenty boys
had shown themselves to be completely out of control
of their dragons during the Initiation Test.
Technically, this meant that all of them should
be thrown out of their Tribes into exile. And exile in
this horrid climate could mean death. Food was
scarce, the sea was dangerous, and there were certain

132

wild Tribes in the Isles who were rumoured to be
cannibals…
Gobber the Belch stood, lost for words, his
beard still smoking.
When he eventually spoke, his voice was deep
with the horror of the situation.
‘I will have to speak with the Elders of the
Tribes,’ was all he said. He dropped Fireworm on the
ground. She had come to her senses and now slunk
towards Snotlout, her tail between her legs.
The Elders of the Tribes were Mogadon and
Stoick, Gobber himself, and a few more of the more
fearsome warriors, such as Terrible Tuffnut, the
Vicious Twins and the Hairy Scary Librarian from the
Meathead Public Library. The crowd and the boys
stood absolutely still as the Elders consulted in the
traditional Elder Huddle, which looked a bit like a
rugby scrum.
Meanwhile, the storm was getting worse. Huge
claps of thunder burst over their heads, the rain
poured down and they couldn’t have been much
wetter if they had all jumped into the sea.
The Elders consulted for a long time. Mogadon
got angry at one point and swung a fist at Tuffnut. A

133

Twin held on to each of his arms until he calmed down
again. Eventually Stoick came out of the Huddle and
stood before the boys, who were hanging their heads
in shame, their dragons at their feet.
If Hiccup had been able to look at his father, he
would have seen that Stoick was not his normal,
merry, violent self. He looked very solemn indeed.
‘Novices of the Tribes,’ he bellowed grimly, ‘this
is a very bad day for all of you. You have FAILED the
Final Test of the Initiation Programme. By the fierce
Law of the Inner Isles this means that you should be
cast out from the Tribes into exile FOR EVER. I do
not want to do this, not only because my own son is
among you, but also because it will mean that a whole
generation of warriors is lost to the Tribes. But we
cannot ignore our Law. Only the strong can belong,

in case the blood of the Tribes should be weakened.
Only Heroes can be Hooligans and Meatheads.’
Stoick jabbed a fat finger at the heavens.
‘Furthermore,’ he carried on, ‘the god Thor is really
very angry. This is not the moment to weaken our
Laws.’
Thor let out a great crash of thunder as if to
underline this point.
‘Under normal circumstances,’ said Stoick, ‘the
ceremony of exile would start now. But going to sea
in weather like this would mean certain death for all
concerned. As an act of mercy, I will allow you one
more night of shelter under my roof, and first thing
tomorrow morning you will be set ashore on the
Mainland to fend for yourselves. From this moment
forth, you are all banished and may not talk to any
other member of your Tribe.’
The thunder crashed all around the boys as they
stood, heads bowed, in the rain.
‘Pity me, for this is the saddest thing I have ever
had to do, to banish my own son,’ said Stoick sadly.
The crowd murmured sympathetically,
applauding the nobility of their Leader.
‘A Chief cannot live like other people,’ said

135

Stoick, looking almost pleadingly at Hiccup. ‘He has
to decide what is for the good of the Tribe.’
Suddenly Hiccup was very angry.
‘Well, don’t expect ME to pity you!’ said Hiccup.
‘What kind of father thinks his stupid Laws are more
important than his own son? And what kind of stupid
Tribe is this anyway, that it can’t just have ordinary
people in it?’
Stoick stood looking down at his son in surprise
and shock for a moment. Then he turned round and
trudged off. The Tribes were already running off
the beach and scrambling up the hillsides towards the
shelter of the Village, lightning coming down all
around them.
‘I’m going to kill you,’ hissed Snotlout at
Hiccup, Fireworm snarling menacingly from his
shoulder. ‘First thing after we’re banished, I’m going
to kill you,’ and he ran off after the others.
‘I’ve lost my t-t-tooth,’ Toothless
complained whinily. ‘C-c-came out when I bit that
F-f-fireworm dragon.’
Hiccup took no notice. He looked up at the
heavens, beside himself with fury as the wind
scooped up sea-water in handfuls and flung it straight

136

into his face.
‘JUST ONCE,’
yelled Hiccup. ‘Why
couldn’t you let me be a
Hero JUST ONCE? I
didn’t want anything
amazing, just to pass this
STUPID TEST so I could
become a proper Viking like
everybody else.’
Thor’s thunder
boomed and crackled above
him blackly.
‘OK, THEN,’ screamed Hiccup, ‘HIT ME with
your stupid lightning. Just do something to show
you’re thinking about me AT ALL.’
But there were to be no bolts of lightning for
Hiccup. Thor clearly didn’t think he was important
enough for an answer. The storm moved on out to sea.

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11. THOR IS ANGRY

The storm raged through the whole of that night.
Hiccup lay unable to sleep as the wind hurled about
the walls like fifty dragons trying to get in.
‘Let us in, let us in,’ shrieked the wind. ‘We’re
very, very hungry.’
Out in the blackness and way out to sea the
storm was so wild and the waves so gigantic that
they disturbed the sleep of a couple of very ancient
Sea Dragons indeed.
The first Dragon was averagely enormous, about
the size of a largeish cliff.
The second Dragon was gobsmackingly vast.
He was that Monster mentioned earlier in this
story, the great Beast who had been sleeping off his
Roman picnic for the past six centuries or so, the one

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who had recently been drifting into a lighter sleep.
The great storm lifted both Dragons gently
from the seabed like a couple of sleeping babies,
and washed them on the swell of one indescribably
enormous wave on to The Long Beach, outside
Hiccup’s village.
And there they stayed, sleeping peacefully, while
the wind shrieked horribly all around them like wild
Viking ghosts having a loud party in Valhalla, until the
storm blew itself out and the sun came up on a
beach full of Dragon and very little else.

The first Dragon was enough to give you
nightmares.
The second Dragon was enough
to give your nightmares nightmares.
Imagine an animal about twenty
times as large as a Tyrannosaurus Rex. More
like a mountain than a living creature – a great,
glistening, evil mountain. He was so encrusted with
barnacles he looked like he was wearing a kind of
jewelled armour but, where the little crustaceans and
the coral couldn’t get a grip, in the joints and crannies
of him, you could see his true colour. A glorious, dark

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green, it was the colour of the ocean itself.
He was awake now, and he had coughed up the
last thing he had eaten, the Standard of the Eighth
Legion, with its pathetic ribbons still flying bravely.
He was using it as a tooth-pick and the eagle was
proving very useful for teasing out those irritating little
pieces of flesh that get stuck between your twenty-foot
back teeth.

The first person to discover the Dragons was
Badbreath the Gruff, who set out very early to check
how his nets had fared in the storm.
He took one look at the beach, rushed to the
Chief’s house, and woke him up.
‘We have a problem,’ said Badbreath.
‘What do you mean, A PROBLEM?’ snapped
Stoick the Vast.
Stoick had not slept at all. He had lain awake
worrying. What kind of father did put his precious
Laws before the life of his son? But then what kind of
son would fail the precious Laws that his father had
looked up to and believed in all his life?
By morning Stoick had made the awesome
decision that he was going to reverse the solemn

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pronouncement he had made on the beach, and un-
banish Hiccup and the other boys. ‘It is WEAK of
me, WEAK,’ said Stoick to himself, gloomily.
‘Squidface the Terrible would have banished his son in
the twinkling of an eye. Loudmouth the Gouty would
have positively enjoyed it. What is the matter with me?
I should be banished myself, and no doubt that is
what Mogadon the Meathead is going to suggest.’
All in all, Stoick was not in a state to deal with
any more problems.
‘There are a couple of humungous Dragons on
the Long Beach,’ said Badbreath.
‘Tell them to go away,’ said Stoick.
‘You tell them,’ said Badbreath.
Stoick stomped off to the beach. He returned
again looking very thoughtful.
‘Did you tell them?’ asked Badbreath.
‘Tell IT,’ said Stoick. ‘The larger Dragon has
eaten the smaller one. I didn’t like to interrupt. I think
I shall call a Council of War.’

The Hooligans and the Meatheads woke that
morning to the terrible sound of the Big Drums
summoning them to a Council of War, only used in

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times of dreadful crisis.
Hiccup awoke with a start. He had hardly slept
at all. Toothless, who had crept into bed with Hiccup
the night before, was nowhere to be seen and the bed
was stone cold, so he had obviously been gone for
some time.
Hiccup dragged his clothes on hurriedly. They
had dried overnight, and were so stiff with salt that it
was like putting on a shirt and leggings made out of
wood. He wasn’t sure what he was meant to do, as
this was the morning he was supposed to go into exile.
He followed everybody else to the Great Hall. The
Meatheads had spent the night there anyway, because
it had not been the weather for camping.
On the way he bumped into Fishlegs. He looked
as if he had slept as badly as Hiccup. His glasses were
on crooked.
‘What’s happening?’ asked Hiccup. Fishlegs
shrugged his shoulders.
‘Where’s Horrorcow?’ asked Hiccup. Fishlegs
shrugged his shoulders again.
Hiccup looked around at the crowd pushing its
way towards the Great Hall and noticed that there was
not a domestic dragon to be seen. Normally they were

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never far from their Masters’ heels and shoulders,
yapping and snarling and sneering at each other.
There was something faintly sinister about their
disappearance…
Nobody else had noticed. There was a
tremendous babble of excitement, and such a crush of
enormous Vikings that not everybody could get in to
the Great Hall, and there was a big jumble of
barbarians shouting and shoving outside.
Stoick called for silence.
‘I have called you here today,’ boomed Stoick,
‘because we have a problem on our hands. A rather
large Dragon is sitting on the Long Beach.’
The crowd was deeply unimpressed. They were
hoping for a more important crisis.
Mogadon voiced the general disapproval.
‘The Big Drums are only used in times of ghastly
deadly peril,’ said Mogadon in amazement. ‘You have
summoned us here at a horribly early hour,’ (Mogadon
had not slept well, on the stone floor of the Great Hall
with only his helmet for a pillow) ‘just because of a
DRAGON? I do hope you are not losing your grip,
Stoick,’ he sneered, hoping that he was.
‘This is no ordinary Dragon,’ said Stoick. ‘This

144

Dragon is HUGE. Enormous. Gobsmackingly vast.
I’ve never seen anything like it. This is more of a
mountain than a Dragon.’
Not having seen the Dragon-mountain, the
Vikings remained unimpressed. They were used to
bossing dragons about.
‘The Dragon,’ said Stoick, ‘must of course, be
moved. But it is a very big Dragon. What should we
do, Old Wrinkly? You’re the thinker in the tribe.’
‘You flatter me, Stoick,’ said Old Wrinkly, who
seemed rather amused by the whole thing. ‘It’s a
Seadragonus Giganticus Maximus, and a particularly
big one, I’d say. Very cruel, very intelligent, ravenous
appetite. But my field is Early Icelandic Poetry, not
large reptiles. Professor Yobbish is the Viking expert
on the subject of dragons. Perhaps you should consult
his book on the subject.’
‘Of course!’ said Stoick. ‘How to Train Your
Dragon, wasn’t it? I do believe that Gobber burgled
that very book from the Meathead Public Library…’
He gave a naughty look at Mogadon the Meathead.
‘This is an outrage!’ boomed Mogadon ‘that
book is Meathead property… I demand its instant
return or I shall declare war on the spot.’

145

‘Oh, put a sock in it, Mogadon,’ said Stoick.
‘With soppy librarians like yours, what can you
expect?’
The Hairy Scary Librarian blushed a delicate
pink and shook in his size eighteen shoes.
‘Baggybum, hand me the book from the
fireplace,’ yelled Stoick.
Baggybum stretched out one of his great octopus
arms and picked the book off the shelf. He lobbed it
across the heads of the crowd and Stoick caught it, to
much cheering. Morale was high. Stoick bowed to the
hordes and handed the book to Gobber.
‘GOB-BER, GOB-BER, GOB-BER,’ yelled the
crowd. It was Gobber’s moment of triumph. A crisis
demands a Hero and he knew he was the man for the
job. His chest swelled with self-importance.
‘Oh, it was nothing really…’ he bellowed
modestly, ‘a bit of Basic Burglary you know… Keeps
me in practice…’
‘Ssssssh,’ hissed the crowd like sea-snakes, as
Gobber cleared his throat.
‘How to Train Your Dragon,’ announced Gobber
solemnly. He paused.
‘YELL AT IT.’

146

There was another pause.
‘And…?’ said Stoick. ‘Yell at it, and…?’
‘That’s it,’ said Gobber. ‘YELL AT IT.’
‘There’s nothing in there about the Seadragonus
Giganticus Maximus in particular?’ asked Stoick.
Gobber looked through the book again. ‘Not as
such,’ said Gobber. ‘Just the bit about yelling at it,
really.’
‘Hmmm,’ said Stoick. ‘It’s brief, isn’t it? I’ve
never noticed before, but it is brief… Brief but to the
point,’ he added hastily, ‘like us Vikings. Thank Thor
for our experts. Now,’ said Stoick, in his most Chief-
like manner, ‘since it is such a large Dragon—’
‘Vast,’ interrupted Old Wrinkly happily.
‘Gigantic. Stupendously enormous. Five times as big
as the Big Blue Whale.’
‘Yes, thank you, Old Wrinkly,’ said Stoick. ‘Since
it is, indeed, on the rather large side, we’re going to
need a rather large yell. I want everybody on the
clifftops yelling at the same time.’
‘What shall we yell?’ asked Baggybum.
‘Something brief and to the point. GO AWAY,’
said Stoick.

147

The Tribes of Meathead and Hooligan gathered at the
top of the cliffs of The Long Beach and looked down
at the impossibly vast Serpent stretched out on the
sand, smacking its lips as it devoured the last morsels
of its late unfortunate companion. It was so big that it
seemed unlikely that it could be alive, until you saw it
move like an earthquake or a trick of the eyes.
There are times when size really is important,
thought Hiccup to himself. And this is one of them.
Dragons are vain, cruel and amoral creatures,
as I’ve said. This is all very well when they are a lot
smaller than you are. But when a dragon’s bad nature
is multiplied into something the size of a hillside, how
do you deal with it?
Gobber the Belch stepped forward to lead the
yelling, as the most respected Yeller among them all.
His chest swelled with pride.
‘One… two… three…’
Four hundred Viking voices screamed as one:
‘GO AWAY!’ and added for good measure the Viking
War Cry.
The Viking War Cry was designed to chill the
blood of Viking enemies at the commencement of
battle. It is a horrifying, electrifying shriek that begins

149

by mimicking the furious yell of a swooping predator,
which then turns into the victim’s scream of pure
terror, and ends with a horribly realistic imitation of
the death-gurgles as he chokes on his own blood.
It is a scary noise at the best of times, but shouted
altogether by four hundred barbarians at eight o’clock
in the morning it was enough to make the mighty
Thor himself drop his hammer and blub like a little
baby.
There was an impressive silence.
The mighty Dragon then turned his mighty head
in their direction.
There were four hundred gasps as a pair of evil,
yellow eyes, as big as six tall men, narrowed down to
slits.
The Dragon opened its mouth and let out a
sound so loud and so terrifying that four or five
passing seagulls dropped down dead with fear on the
spot. It was a noise that made the Viking War Cry
seem like the faint cry of a newborn baby in
comparison. It was a terrible alien other-worldly noise
that promised DEATH and NO MERCY and
EVERYTHING AWFUL.
There was another impressive silence.

150

With one delicate movement of his talon, the
Dragon ripped through Gobber’s tunic and trousers
from head to toe as if he were peeling fruit. Gobber
gave a most un-Heroic shriek of outraged modesty.
The Dragon placed the same talon upright in front of
Gobber the Belch and flicked him like a spitball,
way, way away, over the Vikings’ heads and over the
walled fortifications of the village.
The Dragon put his vast, cracked old paw to his

151

reptilian lips and blew the Vikings a kiss. The kiss
streaked through the sky and scored a direct hit on
both Stoick and Mogadon’s ships, which had survived
the storm and were rocking in the safety of Hooligan
Harbour. All fifty of them burst simultaneously into
flames.
The Vikings ran away from that cliff as fast as
their eight hundred legs could carry them.

Gobber the Belch had the luck to land on the roof of
his own house. The deep layers of soggy grass broke
his fall as he went through them, and he ended up
sitting stark-naked in his own chair in front of the fire,
dazed but unharmed.
‘OK, then,’ said Stoick to four hundred Vikings
suddenly looking scared but wildly over-excited, ‘so
the Yelling doesn’t work.’
They had reassembled in the centre of the
village.
‘And, as our fleet is out of action, we have no
means of escape from the island,’ Stoick continued.
‘What we need now,’ he said, trying to sound as if
he was on top of the situation, ‘is for somebody to
go and ask the monster whether he comes in

152

PEACE or in WAR.’
‘I shall go…’ volunteered Gobber who rejoined
them at that moment, still determined to be the Hero
of the hour. He was trying to sound noble and
dignified but it is very difficult to be truly dignified
with grass in your hair and wearing your cousin
Agatha’s dress – which was the only thing Gobber
could find to wear in the house.

‘Do you speak Dragonese, Gobber?’ asked
Stoick in surprise.
‘Well, no,’ Gobber admitted. ‘Nobody here
speaks Dragonese. It’s forbidden by order of Stoick
the Vast, O Hear His Name and Tremble, Ugh, Ugh.
Dragons are inferior creatures who we yell at. Dragons
might get above themselves if we talk to them.
Dragons are tricksy and must be kept in their place.’
‘Hiccup can speak to dragons,’ said Fishlegs very
quietly, from the middle of the crowd.
‘Sssh, Fishlegs,’ whispered Hiccup, desperately
digging his friend in the ribs.
‘Well, you can,’ said Fishlegs stoutly. ‘Don’t you
see? This is your chance to be a Hero. And we’re all
going to die anyway, so you might as well take it…’
‘Hiccup can speak to dragons!’ shouted Fishlegs,
very loudly indeed.
‘Hiccup?’ said Gobber the Belch.
‘HICCUP?’ said Stoick the Vast.
‘Yes, Hiccup,’ said Old Wrinkly. ‘Small boy, red
hair, freckles, you were going to put him into exile this
morning.’ Old Wrinkly looked stern. ‘In order that
the blood of the Tribes should not be weakened,
remember? Your son, Hiccup.’

154

‘I know who Hiccup is, thank you, Old Wrinkly,’
said Stoick the Vast, uncomfortably. ‘Does anyone
know where he is? HICCUP! Come forward.’
‘It looks like you could come in useful after
all…’ Old Wrinkly murmured to himself.
‘Here he is!’ yelled Fishlegs, patting Hiccup on
the back. Hiccup started to wriggle through the crowd
until somebody noticed him and dragged him up, and
he was passed over everybody’s heads and put down
in front of Stoick.
‘Hiccup,’ said Stoick. ‘Is it true that you can talk
to dragons?’
Hiccup nodded.
Stoick gave an awkward cough. ‘This is an
embarrassing situation. I know that we were about to
banish you from the Tribe. However, if you do what I
ask, I am sure I speak for everybody when I say that
you can consider yourself un-banished. We stand in
awful peril and nobody else in this room can speak
Dragonese. Will you go to this monster and ask him
whether he comes in PEACE or in WAR?’
Hiccup said nothing.
Stoick coughed again. ‘You can talk to me,’ said
Stoick. ‘I’ve un-banished you.’

155

‘So the exile is off, then, is it, Father?’ asked
Hiccup. ‘If I go and kill myself talking to this Beast
from Hell, I will be considered Heroic enough to join
the Tribe of Hooligans?’
Stoick looked more embarrassed than ever.
‘Absolutely,’ he said.
‘OK, then,’ said Hiccup. ‘I’ll do it.’

12. THE GREEN DEATH

It is one thing to approach a primeval nightmare when
you are part of a crowd of four hundred people. It is
quite another to do so on your own. Hiccup had to
force himself to put one foot in front of the other.
Stoick offered to send a guard of his finest
soldiers, but Hiccup preferred to go alone. ‘Less
chance of anybody doing anything Heroic and stupid,’
he said.
Although this is the part of the story that the
bards tend to focus on as the bit where Hiccup was
particularly Heroic, I do not agree. It is a lot easier to
be brave when you know you have no alternative.
Hiccup knew in his heart of hearts that the Monster
intended to kill them all anyway. So he didn’t have a
lot to lose.
Nonetheless, he was sweating as he peered
over the edge of the cliff. There, below him, was the
impossibly large Dragon, filling up the beach. It
appeared to be asleep.
But an eerie singing was coming from the
direction of its belly. The song went something
like this:

157

‘Watch me, Great Destroyer,
as I settle down to lunch,
Killer whales are tasty ’cos they’ve
got a lot of crunch.
Great white sharks are scrumptious,
but here’s a little tip:
Those teeny weeny pointy teeth can
give a nasty nip…’

How odd, thought Hiccup, he can sing with his
mouth shut.
Hiccup nearly jumped clear out of his leggings
when the Dragon opened both his crocodile eyes and
spoke directly to him
‘Why so odd?’ said the Dragon, who appeared
to be amused. ‘A dragon with his eyes shut is not
necessarily asleep, so it follows that a dragon with
his mouth shut is not necessarily singing. All is
not what it seems. That noise that you hear is not
me at all. THAT, my Hero, is the sound of a singing
supper.’
‘A singing supper?’ echoed Hiccup, quickly
remembering that you should never, ever, look into
the eyes of a large, malevolent Dragon like this one.

158

He fixed his gaze firmly on
one of the Dragon’s talons instead.
This was a mistake, as Hiccup suddenly realised
that the Dragon was holding a herd of pathetically
bleating sheep captive under one massive claw. He
pretended to allow one of them to escape, let the
poor animal practically reach the safety of the rocks,
then picked it up by its wool with a delicate pincer
movement and tossed it way, way up into the air.
This was a trick Hiccup had often done himself,
but with blackberries. Now the Dragon threw back
his great head and the woolly speck fell down into the
terrible jaws, which closed behind it with a mighty
crash. There was a horrible sound of crunching as he
chewed and swallowed the unfortunate sheep.
The Dragon saw Hiccup watching him in
fascinated horror and he brought his ridiculously
enormous head down closer to the boy. Hiccup nearly

159

passed out as his offensive Dragon-breath poured out
in a disgusting, yellow-green vapour. It was the stench
of DEATH itself – a deep, head-spinning stench of
decaying matter; of rotting haddock heads and
sweating whale; of long-dead shark and despairing
souls. The revolting steam curled its way around the
boy in repellent coils and wormed its way up into his
nose until he coughed and spluttered.
‘Some people say you should de-bone a sheep
before you eat it,’ sneered the Dragon confidentially,
‘but I think it adds just a nice crunch to what would
otherwise be a bit of a soggy meal…’
The Dragon burped. The belch came out as a
perfect loop of fire that soared through the air like
a smoke ring and landed on the heather surrounding
Hiccup, setting it alight, so that for a moment he was
standing right in the middle of a circle of bright green
flames. The heather was damp, however, and the blaze
flared for only a few moments, then extinguished
itself.
‘Ooops,’ giggled the Dragon evilly. ‘Pardon me…
A little party trick…’
He then placed one gigantic claw against the
edge of the cliff that Hiccup was standing on.

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‘Humans, however,’ continued the Dragon
thoughtfully, ‘humans really should be filleted. The
spine in particular can be very tickly as it goes down
the throat…’
As the Dragon spoke, he extended his claws,
the talons slowly emerging from the thick stumps of
his fingers and rising up until they resembled nothing
more than gigantic razors, six feet wide and twenty
feet long, with points on the end like a surgeon’s
scalpel.
‘Removing the human backbone is a delicate
job,’ hissed the Dragon nastily, ‘but one that I am
particularly good at… a small incision at the back of
the neck’ – he gestured at Hiccup’s neck – ‘a swift
stroke downwards, then flick it out… it’s
practically painless. For ME…’
The Dragon’s eyes lit up
with the purest pleasure.

Hiccup was thinking very fast indeed. There is
nothing like staring Death in the face for speeding up
your thoughts. What did he know about dragons that
could work against an Invincible Monster like this
one?
He could see the Dragon Motivation page he
had written in his mind’s eye. GRATITUDE: dragons
are never grateful. FEAR: clearly hopeless. GREED:
not a good idea to appeal to at this particular point in
time. VANITY and REVENGE: could be useful but
he couldn’t quite think how. That left JOKES AND
RIDDLING TALK. This Dragon looked a bit exalted
for jokes. But from his manner of talking he clearly
fancied himself as a bit of a philosopher. Maybe
Hiccup could buy himself some time if he engaged
him in a riddling conversation…
‘I’ve heard of singing for your supper,’ said
Hiccup, ‘but what is a singing supper?’
‘A good question,’ said the Dragon, in surprise.
‘An EXCELLENT question, in fact.’ He drew back
his claws and Hiccup sighed with relief. ‘It’s a long
time since the supper has shown such intelligence.
They’re generally too bound up with their titchy
little lives to bother with the Really Big Questions.

162

‘Now let me think,’ said the Dragon and, as he
thought, he forked a protesting sheep on the end of a
talon, then chewed on it reflectively. Hiccup was sorry
for the sheep but deeply grateful that it wasn’t him
disappearing down the ravenous reptilian gullet.
‘How shall I put it, to a brain so much smaller
and less clever than mine… The thing is, we are all,
in a sense, supper. Walking, talking, breathing
suppers, that’s what we are. Take you, for instance.
YOU are about to be eaten by ME, so that makes
you supper. That’s obvious. But even a murderous
carnivore like myself will be a supper for worms one
day. We’re all snatching precious moments from the
peaceful jaws of time,’ said the Dragon cheerfully.
‘That’s why it’s so important,’ he continued,
‘for the supper to sing as beautifully as it can.’
He gestured to his stomach, from where the
voice could still be heard singing, though more and
more faintly.

‘Humans can be bland,
but if you have some salt to hand,
A little bit of brine,
will make them taste divi-I-I-I-ne…’

163

‘That PARTICULAR supper,’ said the Dragon,
‘that you hear singing now, was a dragon rather
smaller than me, but very full of himself. I ate him
about half an hour ago.’
‘Isn’t that cannibalism?’ asked Hiccup.
‘It’s delicious,’ said the Dragon. ‘Besides, you
can’t call an ARTIST like myself a CANNIBAL.’
He sounded a bit exasperated now. ‘You are very rude
for such a small person. What do you want, Little
Supper?’
‘I have come,’ said Hiccup, ‘to find out whether
you come in PEACE or in WAR.’
‘Oh, peace, I think,’ said the Dragon. ‘I am
going to kill you though,’ he added.
‘All of us?’ asked Hiccup.
‘You first,’ said the Dragon kindly. ‘And then
everybody else when I’ve had a little nap and got
my appetite back. It takes a little while to wake up
completely from a Sleep Coma.’
‘But it’s all so unfair!’ said Hiccup. ‘Why do
YOU get to eat everybody, just because you’re bigger
than everybody else?’
‘It’s the way of the world,’ said the Dragon.
‘Besides, you’ll find that you come round to my

164

point-of-view once you’re inside me. That’s the
marvellous thing about digestion… But where are my
manners? Let me introduce myself. I am the Green
Death. What is your name, Little Supper?’
‘Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third,’ said
Hiccup.
And the most extraordinary thing happened.
As Hiccup said his name the Green Death
trembled, as if a sudden wind had made him shiver.
Neither the Green Death nor Hiccup noticed.
‘Hmmm…’ said the Green Death. ‘I’m sure
I’ve heard that name somewhere before. But it’s
rather a mouthful so I shall just call you Little
Supper. Now, Little Supper, before I eat you, tell
me your problem.’
‘My problem?’ asked Hiccup.
‘That’s right,’ said the Dragon. ‘Your
Why-Can’t-I-Be-More-Like-My-Father? problem.
Your It’s-Hard-to-Be-a-Hero problem. Your Snotlout-
Would-Make-a-Better-Chief-Than-Me problem.
I have helped the problems of many a Supper.
Somehow meeting a Really Big Problem like myself
seems to put everything else in proportion.’
‘Let me get this straight,’ said Hiccup. ‘You

165

know all about my father, and me not being a Hero
and everything –’
‘I can see things like that,’ said the Green
Death modestly.
‘– and you want me to tell you my problems and
then you’re going to eat me?’
‘We’re back at the beginning again,’ sighed
the Green Death. ‘We’re all going to be eaten
SOMETIME. You can win yourself some extra time,
though, if you’re a smart little crabstick. A few
scraps from the burning…’
The Green Death yawned.
‘I’m suddenly rather tired,’ he said. ‘You ARE
a clever little crabstick, you’ve kept me talking for
AGES…’ and the Dragon yawned again. ‘I’m too tired
to eat you right now, you’ll have to come back in a
couple of hours… and I’ll tell you how to deal with
your problem then. I have a feeling I can help you…’
And the terrible monster really did fall asleep this
time, and snored most heavily. His great claws relaxed
and fell open and the remaining sheep, their woolly
sides trembling with terror, scrambled over the tops of
the terrible talons and bolted up the cliff path.
Hiccup stood watching the Dragon thoughtfully

166

for a second, then he trudged slowly back through the
heather towards the village.
Everybody cheered when he walked through the
gates. He was carried shoulder high and set down in
front of his father.
‘Well, son,’ said Stoick. ‘Does the beast come in
PEACE or in WAR?’
‘He says he comes in peace,’ said Hiccup. There
were huge hurrahs and heavy stampings of feet.
Hiccup held up his hand for silence.
‘He’s still going to kill us, though.’

13. WHEN YELLING DOESN’T
WORK

The Dragon slept on as the Council of War argued
about what to do next.
‘I am going to write a strongly-worded letter to
Professor Yobbish,’ said Stoick the Vast. ‘This book
needs a lot more WORDS to tell you what to do if
yelling doesn’t work.’
Which shows how cross Stoick was – he never
wrote a letter if he could help it.
Stoick, in fact, was really rattled, for the first
time in his life.
This is what comes of not following the Law,
he thought to himself. If I had banished the boys last
night like I should have done, they would not be here to
die with the rest of us. I should have put my trust
in Thor.
Mogadon the Meathead had not yet realised the
gravity of the situation. He thought it was a question
of constructing some sort of megaphone machine to
make the Yell sound bigger.
‘A gigantic dragon just needs a gigantic Yell,’

168

he said.
‘We already TRIED that, O Plankton Brain,’ said
Stoick.
‘WHO ARE YOU CALLING PLANKTON
BRAIN?’ demanded Mogadon and they went whisker
to whisker like a couple of furious walruses.
Hiccup sighed and walked out of the village.
He had a feeling the grown-ups weren’t going to
come up with anything fiendishly clever.
To Hiccup’s surprise he was followed, not only
by Fishlegs but by all the Novices from both the
Hooligan AND the Meathead tribes.
They stood around Hiccup in a semi-circle.
‘So, Hiccup,’ said Thuggory the Meathead.
‘What are we going to do now, then?’
‘Whaddyamean by asking HICCUP?’ demanded
Snotlout crossly. ‘You’re not going to ask THE
USELESS to get us out of this mess, are you? He
just single-handedly got us all to fail the Final
Initiation Test. We were about to be banished and
eaten by cannibals all because of HIM. He can’t even
control a dragon the size of an earwig!’
‘Can YOU talk to dragons then, Snotface?’
asked Fishlegs.

169

‘I am pleased to say I cannot,’ said Snotlout,
with dignity.
‘Well, shut up, then,’ said Fishlegs.
Snotlout got hold of Fishlegs by the arm and
started twisting.
‘Nobody, but NOBODY, tells SNOTFACE
SNOTLOUT to shut up,’ hissed Snotlout.
‘I do,’ said Thuggory the Meathead. He grabbed
Snotlout by the shirt and lifted him clear off the
ground. ‘YOUR dragon got us failed just as much as
HIS. I didn’t notice anybody’s dragon sitting up and
begging like a good boy in the middle of that dragon-
fight. YOU shut up or I will tear you limb from
limb and feed you to the gulls, you winkle-hearted,
seaweed-brained, limpet-eating PIG.’
Snotlout looked into Thuggory’s stern little eyes.
Snotlout shut up.
Thuggory dropped him and wiped his hands
disdainfully on his tunic. ‘Anyway,’ said Thuggory, ‘MY
father was on that stupid Council of Elders too. I’m
with Hiccup. What kind of father puts his stupid Laws
before the life of his son? And what kind of stupid
Test was that, anyway? If we save all those stupid
people from a REAL dragon like this one, maybe

170

they’ll let us into their stupid Tribe after all.’
WELL, WELL, WELL, thought Hiccup. This
is a turn up for the books. Maybe that Dragon was right
and he is going to help me with my It’s-Hard-to-Be-a-
Hero problem. Before he eats me, of course.
One solo meeting with the Green Death and
here were nineteen young barbarians, most of them
much bigger and tougher and rougher than Hiccup,
looking at Hiccup expectantly to tell them what
to do.
Hiccup stood on tiptoe and tried to look like a
Hero.
‘OK,’ said Hiccup. ‘I need some time to think.’
‘GIVE THE BOY SOME ROOM HERE!’ yelled
Thuggory, pushing all the others back.
He swept off a rock for Hiccup to sit on.
‘You just do all the thinking you need, boyo,’
said Thuggory. ‘This is a situation that needs a lot of
thought and I have a feeling you’re the only one here
who can do it. Anybody who can have a twenty minute
conversation with a winged shark the size of a planet
and come out of it alive is a better thinker than I am.’
Hiccup found himself warming to Thuggory
the Meathead.

172

‘QUIET!’ yelled Thuggory. ‘HICCUP IS
THINKING.’
Hiccup thought.
And thought.

After about half an hour, Thuggory said: ‘Whatever
you’re thinking about to get rid of that monster
better work for both of them.’
‘There’s ANOTHER Dragon?’ asked Hiccup.
Thuggory nodded.
‘I went up to the Highest Point and spotted him
while you were having your chat with the Big Green
One.’
‘OK,’ said Hiccup. ‘That’s good news, actually.
Let’s check out the new Horror.’
The trail up to the Highest Point was littered
with scallop shells and dolphin’s bones thrown up by
the gigantic storm. Along the way they even passed the
wreck of one of Stoick’s favourite ships, The Pure
Adventure, lost at sea seven years before, and now
perched crazily on a rock three quarters of the way up
the biggest hill on Berk.
Once you were right at the top it was possible to
see most of Berk’s coastline and the sea encircling you

173

on all sides. Right at the other end of the island, a
Dragon entirely filled up Unlandable Cove and spilled
over the sides.
He was resting his vast, wicked chin on the cliff
as a pillow. Great plumes of violet smoke were
belching out of his snoring nostrils.
He was another Seadragonus Giganticus
Maximus, this time a glorious deep purple in colour
and, if anything, slightly larger than the one at Long
Beach.
‘The Purple Death, I presume,’ whispered
Hiccup, shakily. ‘This is just what we need. Are you
sure there aren’t any more?’
Thuggory laughed, slightly hysterically. ‘I think
it’s just the two nightmare killing-machines. Two not
enough for you?’

Back at the Highest Point, Hiccup outlined his Plan of
Action.
It was Fiendishly Clever – if a bit desperate.
‘We aren’t big enough to fight these dragons,’
said Hiccup, ‘but they can fight EACH OTHER.
We have to get them really angry at one another. We
Hooligans will concentrate on the Green Death and

174

you Meatheads will deal with the Purple Death.
‘The one thing we will need is our own dragons,
who seem to have disappeared,’ said Hiccup, ‘so we’d
better start calling for them.’
They started calling for their dragons, as loudly
as they dared, and then louder still as there was no
response.
The twenty dragons that belonged to the
Novices were not, in fact, very far away at all. They
had made up after the dragon-fight and were now
hiding in a piece of boggy bracken about a hundred
yards or so away from where the boys were standing
on the Highest Point. They were crouching like giant
cats in the ferns, wicked eyes
gleaming. They were now
so exactly the shade of
a clump of bracken
that they seemed
to have melted
entirely into the
bog. If you had
been a rabbit or a
deer you would not
have noticed them

175

until you felt the talons on your back and the hot fire
on your neck.
They had been following the boys for a while.
‘So,’ whispered Fireworm, her tongue flickering
menacingly. ‘What do we do now then? The power is
shifting on this island. The Masters will not be
Masters for much longer. They are trapped, like
lobsters in a pot. We are not. We can fly whenever
we want. Do we obey or do we desert?’
Dragons are not the sort of creatures to back a
loser.
‘Whatever we do,’ grumbled Brightclaw, ‘let’s do
it QUICKLY, my wings are freezing up.’

‘We could kill the boys now and take them as
an offering to the New Master,’ suggested Seaslug,

176

with a grunt of greedy pleasure.
‘What, that great green Devil on the beach?’
said Horrorcow placidly. ‘I don’t like the look of him,
myself. He has too big an appetite. We might find
ourselves as the next offering.’
‘We fly, then,’ said Brightclaw, and the others
murmured their agreement.
‘S-s-silence,’ hissed Fireworm. ‘These islands
are perilous,’ she sneered. ‘We might fly from one
danger straight into the mouth of another. I say we
obey, until we are sure that they have lost. When
that time comes I will give the signal for us to
desert.’
And so, as if from nowhere, Fireworm and
Seaslug, Horrorcow and Killer, Brightclaw and
Alligatiger and all the other dragons flew out of their
hiding-place and came circling slowly up to the
Highest Point, landing on each boy’s outstretched
arm.
Last of all came Toothless, complaining horribly.
‘Dragons…’ said Hiccup.
And he explained the Fiendishly Clever Plan.

177

14. THE FIENDISHLY CLEVER
PLAN

The dragons protested a bit, but
the boys yelled them into line.
All except for Toothless, who
absolutely refused to join in.
‘Y-y-you must be j-j-joking,’
sneered the little dragon. ‘I refuse
to go anywhere N-N-NEAR a S-S-Seadragonus
Giganticus M-M-Maximus. Those things are
d-d-dangerous. I shall stay here and watch you all.’
Hiccup coaxed and bribed and threatened in
vain.
‘You see?’ said Snotlout. ‘The Useless can’t even
get his own dragon to carry out his pathetic plan. And
THIS is the person you are banking on to get you out
of this mess?’
‘Ugh,’ said Dogsbreath the Duhbrain.
‘Oh, SHUDDUP, Snotlout,’ chorused the rest
of the boys.
Hiccup sighed and gave up. ‘OK then,

178

Toothless, you just stay here and miss all the fun.
Now, I want everybody to go down to the Gull’s
Nesting Place and collect as many birds’ feathers as
you can for the feather bombs—’
‘Birds’ feathers!’ scoffed Snotlout. ‘This wimp
thinks you can fight an animal like THAT with birds’
feathers! Cold steel is the only language a creature like
that will understand.’
‘Dragons have a tendency to asthma,’ explained
Hiccup. ‘It’s all that fire-breathing they do. The smoke
gets in their lungs.’
‘So you think this monster is going to die from
asthma right then and there because of a few
FEATHER BOMBS? Why not just feed him fried
herring and see whether he drops dead of a heart
attack in twenty years or so?’ jeered Snotlout.
‘No,’ said Hiccup patiently, ‘the feather bombs
are just to make him very confused so he won’t kill
anybody on the way. Snotlout, Thuggory, I’m going to
need to coach Fireworm and Killer in what they have
to say,’ continued Hiccup.
‘I’m not putting my dragon at risk in this crazy
plan,’ said Snotlout.
‘OH YES, YOU ARE,’ hissed Thuggory,

179

through gritted teeth, brandishing a massive fist at
Snotlout.
‘This guy is such a PAIN, Hiccup, I don’t know
how you put up with him. Listen, Snotfeatures, by
some miracle you have got yourself a reasonable
dragon. You GET that dragon to do what Hiccup
wants or it will give me much pleasure to
PERSONALLY boot you all the way to Porpoise
Point and back again.’
‘OK, then,’ said Snotlout crossly. ‘But don’t
blame me when we all get barbecued because of the
Useless’s mad idea.’

Hiccup supervised the making of the feather bombs.
The boys gathered great armfuls of feathers
from the Gull’s Nesting Place.
They then burgled every item of material they
could find: Goggletoad’s nappies, Gobber’s pyjamas,
Mogadon the Meathead’s tent, Vallhallarama’s bra –
anything they could get their hands on. The grown-ups
were too busy consulting amongst themselves to take
any notice.
Snotlout cheered up a bit because he could show
off his superior skill at Burglary. He managed to steal

180

Baggybum’s knickers right off him as he was standing
in a Huddle discussing a Plan of Action. Baggybum
didn’t notice, not even when he reached a hairy hand
down to absentmindedly scratch his great bottom – he
was too busy talking about Bigger and Better Methods
of Yelling.
The boys then wrapped the feathers up in the
material, so that they would fly out when the bomb
was dropped.
Each team of ten boys was armed with about a
hundred of these feather bombs, wrapped in a great
parcel made out of an old sail.
Hiccup led the Hooligans towards The Long
Beach, while Thuggory took the Meatheads to
Unlandable Cove.
The thin column of boys were excitedly
chattering as they set off behind Hiccup; Wartihog and
Clueless dragging the sail at the rear, the dragons
circling and diving a couple of feet above their heads.
Vikings are practically fearless, having been bred to be
soldiers, so even Hiccup and Fishlegs had a surge of
excitement at the thought of the battle to come.
But as soon as the monster came into sight
again, the boys and the dragons instantly dropped

182

to their tummies and squirmed forward, hearts
beating hard.
It was impossible that ANYTHING could be
THAT big.
Hiccup led them as near as he dared to the edge
of the cliffs surrounding The Long Beach.
They looked down on the terrible creature
snoring in front of them. His nostrils alone were as big
as six front doors, and the stench reeking out of them
made it difficult for the boys to breathe.
Wartihog, who had always had a delicate
stomach, threw up disgustingly in the heather.
Hiccup, Fishlegs and Clueless unwrapped the
feather bombs and gave one to each boy. The boys
called the dragons, as softly as they could, and each
put a feather bomb in their dragon’s mouth.
They then stood up on the edge of the cliff with
their dragons on their outstretched arms.

This took about the same amount of bravery
it might take for you to leap off a mountain at a
thousand feet. Even with the monster fast asleep, the
natural reaction was to keep hidden in the bracken.
Hiccup tried not to breathe in.
He lifted his arm to give the command to begin.
‘Go,’ whispered Hiccup.
‘GO!’ yelled back the boys, and ten dragons flew
up and circled around the vast sleeping head.
Just as the Green Death inhaled, Hiccup
shouted ‘NOW!’ and the dragons let go of the feather
bombs.
The Green Death took in a breath that was half
air and half feathers. He woke with a gigantic sneeze
and, as he shuddered and coughed, Fireworm, who
was treading air near his right ear, gave a speech which
went something like this, but a lot more irritating:
‘Greetings, O Seadragonus Pusillanimus
Minimus, from my Father, the Terror of the Seas.
He is feeling like feasting on the barbarians and if
you get in his way he will feast on YOU. Swim away,
little seaslug, and you will be safe – but stay on this
island and you will feel the sharpness of his claws
and the fierceness of his fire.’

184

The Giant Monster tried to laugh sarcastically
and cough at the same time, but this is virtually
impossible, and a feather went down the wrong way,
making him cough even more.
Then Fireworm bit him on the nose.
It must have felt like a flea bite but the Monster
was outraged.
Through streaming eyes, the Green Death made
a swipe at this irritating dragon-flea and missed. One
giant claw tore down part of the cliff-face instead.
The nine other dragons had by this time
returned to collect more feather bombs from the boys
on the cliffs.
‘NOW!’ yelled Hiccup and, with split-second
timing, they let their bombs fly. They hit their target
of the Green Death’s nostrils and he collapsed with
coughing again.
‘You cannot win, puny worm,’ crowed
Fireworm. ‘Wriggle back to the sea where you belong
and let my Master have his supper.’
Now the Green Death was really cross.
He bounded lopsidedly after Fireworm, trying
to bat away this irritating little speck of a dragon
with his claws.

186

But the Green Death had the same sort of
difficulty in catching Fireworm as you might have if
you tried to catch a bluebottle with your bare hands.
Dragons are better than humans at that sort of game
but the Green Death kept on missing because his eyes
were streaming so much.
‘Missed again!’ sneered Fireworm, enjoying
herself hugely – and she flapped just out of reach of
the Green Death’s claws. The Green Death made
another wild leap towards her, as Fireworm flew on
around the corner of the cliffs, steering the monster in
the direction of Unlandable Cove.
Hiccup and the boys ran after them as fast as
they could, but they hadn’t a hope of keeping up.
Running through heather is not unlike running
through knee-deep treacle, and they kept disappearing
up to their knees in the bog.
As Fireworm and the Monster got further and
further ahead in their race along the shore line, it took
longer and longer for the other dragons to fly back to
the boys and return with more feather bombs.
The military commanders among you will
recognize the kind of problems that ensue when the
supply line can no longer reach the forces at the front.

187

Eventually it was taking so long to reload that there
came a moment when there were no more feathers
tickling the Green Death’s nostrils and his eyes
stopped streaming and suddenly he could see the
maddening Fireworm pinpoint clear…
The Green Death made a lightning reflex swipe
at the red dragon and caught her in one gigantic claw.
It was lucky for Fireworm that at that very
moment the Purple Death came crashing round the
corner and struck the Green Death heavily in the
stomach. His grip loosened on Fireworm for a second
and she flew off, panting with relief.
The Green Death sat down heavily in the sea
and fought for breath.
The Purple Death did much the same.

188

15. THE BATTLE AT DEATH’S
HEAD HEADLAND

While Hiccup and his team had been enraging the
Green Death, Thuggory and his team had been
infuriating the Purple Death.
The two monsters ran smack into one another as
they met at the corner of Death’s Head Headland.
One of Fireworm’s wings was broken in two
places from her experience in the Green Death’s grip
but she bravely flew back and made her final speech
into his ear, as he sat gasping for air in the shallows.
‘Here he is,’ shouted Fireworm. ‘My Master,
the Purple Horror, who will tear you limb from limb
and spit out your toenails!’
And Fireworm flew away lopsidedly as fast as she
could, with one wing trailing behind her.

The Green Death was having a bad day.
Ordinarily, a Seadragonus Giganticus Maximus
would not dream of attacking another animal of the
same breed. They avoid fighting each other because

189

they know they are so heavily armed that the battle
risks ending in death for both of them.
However, the Green Death had been attacked
and jeered at by minuscule creatures who had
inflamed and outraged his vanity. This Creature, who
seemed to think he was tougher than the Green Death
himself, had struck him heavily in the chest.
The Green Death wasn’t thinking too hard.
He leapt at the Purple Death with his talons
outstretched, breathing great bursts of fire, which lit
up the landscape all around like lightning.
The ground and the sea shook in great
earthquakes as the two gigantic monsters lunged
crazily at each other, swearing the most unrepeatable
oaths in Dragonese.
The Green Death’s foot completely destroyed
Wrecker’s Reef with one blow.
The Purple Death’s wings caused great
landslides to come tumbling down from the
Headland’s cliffs.
Now their job was done, the Viking boys were
running away as fast as they could, their eyes popping
with terror, in case one of the dragons survived the
fight. Every now and then they looked back to see

190

how the battle was going.
With ghastly, eerie cries, the Dragons slashed and
bit and tore pieces off one another.
The Sea Dragon is the most well-defended
creature that has ever lived on this planet. Its skin is
over three feet thick in places, and so encrusted with
shells and barnacles that it almost has the effect of
armour.
It is also the most well-armed creature that has
ever lived on this planet and its razor sharp claws and
teeth can rip open its own iron crust as if it were made
out of paper…
Now both Dragons had terrible wounds, and
their green lifeblood was pouring out of them.
The Green Death gripped the Purple Death
around the neck with a deadly Throatchoker Grip.
The Purple Death hugged the Green Death
around the chest with a deadly Breathquencher Hug.
Neither would let go – and the grip of a Dragon
is a terrible thing. They reminded Hiccup of a picture
on one of his father’s shields: of two dragons forming
a perfect circle as they ate one another, each with a tail
in their mouth.
The Dragons thrashed around wildly in the surf,

191

gagging and choking, with their eyes popping, their
tails causing such tidal waves that the boys were
soaked, even though they were scrambling away from
the Headland as fast as they could.
Finally, with some last heaving shudders and
grim gurgles, both mighty beasts lay still in the water.
There was silence.
The boys stopped running. They stood gasping
for breath, watching the motionless beasts with dread.
The boys’ dragons, which were flying some way ahead
of the boys, also turned, and hung still in the air.
The Terrible Creatures didn’t move.
The boys waited two long minutes, as waves
lapped gently over the great, motionless bodies.
‘They’re dead,’ said Thuggory at last.
The boys started laughing, rather hysterically,
now that the terror was over.
‘Well done, Hiccup!’ Thuggory slapped Hiccup
on the back.
But Hiccup was looking worried. He was
squinting his eyes and straining to hear something.
‘I can’t hear anything,’ said Hiccup anxiously.
‘You can’t hear anything because they’re DEAD,’
said Thuggory joyfully. ‘Three cheers for Hiccup!’

192

Halfway through the boys’ cheering, Fireworm
let out a terrible noise. ‘DESERT!’ she shrieked.
‘Desert, desert, desert, desert!’
The head of the corpse of the Green Death was
slowly lifting up and turning in their direction.
‘Uh-oh,’ said Hiccup.

16. THE FIENDISHLY CLEVER
PLAN GOES WRONG

Hiccup had been listening for the Green Death’s
Death Song, but he wasn’t singing it yet.
The Green Death was dying, but he wasn’t
dead yet.
What he was was very, very angry indeed.
Out of his bleeding mouth he hissed weakly,
‘Where is he?’
And then he heaved himself on to his feet, and
hissed a little more strongly, ‘WHERE is he? Where
IS the Little Supper? I knew I recognised him, he
was my doom, no wonder. The Little Supper has
made a Supper of ME, the Green Death himself!’
As the Dragon spoke, he was inching forwards
very slowly and painfully, his eyes fixed on the cliff
top, where he could see little human beings beginning
to run inland again.
The Dragon threw back his head and
SCREAMED a blood-chilling scream of pure horrid
REVENGE, dark and torturous.
‘I’LL supper HIM before I go, I will,’ said the

194

Dragon, and he leapt forward.
‘R-U-U-U-N!’ shouted Hiccup, but everybody
was already running, as fast as they could.
In the distance, Hiccup could see four hundred
warriors from the tribes of Hooligan and Meathead
coming towards them from the Highest Point. They
must have wondered at the boys’ absence and come
out to find them.
But they won’t get here in time, thought Hiccup,
and even if they do, what can they do?
Just then, the Dragon landed with a crash on the
cliff top and suddenly the sun was blotted out.
Twenty boys ran towards the shelter of the ferns.
The Dragon picked up the nearest with one claw
and turned him over.
It was Dogsbreath. By the time the Dragon had
tossed him aside, muttering ‘Not you’, the other boys
had disappeared into the bracken.
The Dragon was sick, but he laughed weakly.
‘You’re not safe there, oh no, for though I can’t see
you to kill you, I can use my... FIRE!’
The bracken caught fire with the Dragon’s first
breath and the boys ran out of it as fast as they could.
Hiccup stayed in a little longer because he knew

195

the Dragon was waiting for him.
Finally the heat became unbearable
and he took a deep breath, closed his
eyes and ran out into the open.
He had run hardly a hundred metres
before two of the Dragon’s talons closed
around his middle and he was lifted up. Way,
way up, so the other boys looked like little
specks beneath him.
The Dragon held Hiccup up in front of him.
‘We are BOTH Supper now, little Supper,’
he said, and he tossed Hiccup high, high into the air.
As Hiccup somersaulted for the second time he
thought to himself, Now THIS, this really IS the worst
moment of my life.
Then he was falling.
He looked down. There was the Dragon’s
mouth, wide open like a great, black, cavernous
tunnel.
He was going to fall into it.

196

17. IN THE MOUTH OF THE
DRAGON

Hiccup fell into the Dragon’s mouth and its teeth
snapped shut behind him like prison doors.
He was falling through complete darkness,
surrounded by a smell so awful it was suffocating.
He jerked to a sudden halt as the back of his
shirt caught on something and held.
Hiccup hung there in the darkness, swaying
gently. By a thousand to one chance his shirt had
caught on a spear still stuck in the Dragon’s throat
since his Roman banquet. Hiccup’s foot brushed
against the wall of what he presumed was the
Dragon’s throat. The Dragon’s digestive juices stung
like acid, and he snatched his foot away.
Above him, Hiccup could hear the Dragon’s
great tongue sloshing and lunging about his mouth,
trying to find Hiccup so he could crunch him to
death… He hadn’t intended to swallow him whole.
A disgusting river of green goo dripped down the
puffy red insides of the Dragon’s throat. Just across

198

from where Hiccup was hanging, green-yellow steam
was puffing out of two small holes in the slimy wall.
Every now and then a small explosion sent little
flickers of flame shooting out of the holes.
How interesting, thought Hiccup, who was
strangely calm, because he couldn’t quite believe that
this was really happening. Those must be where the fire
comes from.

199

Viking biologists had wondered for years where
the fire that dragons breathed came from. Some said
the lungs, others the stomach. Hiccup was the first to
discover the fire-holes, which are too small to see with
the naked eye in a normal-sized dragon.
Way down below him, Hiccup could hear
the distant rumbling of singing from the Dragon’s
previous meal. A Seadragonus Giganticus obviously takes
a long time to digest, thought Hiccup.
It was indeed still going strong:

‘Humans can be bland,
but if you have some salt to hand,
A little bit of brine,
will make them taste div-I-I-I-ne…’

The spear was gradually bending over with
Hiccup’s weight. It was only a matter of time before it
broke and he fell to join the breezy optimist in the
stomach below…
What was worse, the fumes and the heat and
the smell were starting to confuse Hiccup so that he
no longer really CARED. The terrible noise of the
Dragon’s heart beating had entered into Hiccup’s

200

chest and forced his own heart to follow the same
rhythm.
A Dragon has to live, after all, he found himself
thinking. And then he remembered the Dragon’s
words to him as he stood on the cliff top: ‘You’ll find
that you come round to my point-of-view once you’re
inside me…’
Oh no! thought Hiccup. The Dragon’s digestion!
It’s already working!
‘I need to live, I need to live,’ he repeated to
himself, over and over again, trying desperately to
block out the Dragon’s thoughts.
There was a horrible creaking noise as the stout
Roman spear began to split in two…

18. THE EXTRAORDINARY
BRAVERY OF TOOTHLESS

And that would have been the end of Hiccup, if it had
not been for the extraordinary bravery of a certain
Toothless Daydream.
Toothless, if you remember, had refused to
join in the battle at Death’s Head Headland. He
was intending to fly off somewhere down the coast
a bit and lie low till all was safe again, but he stayed
at the Highest Point for a while, terrorising birds and
rabbits.
He must have been having a lovely time doing
this, for he did not hear the approach of Stoick and
the entire Tribes of Hooligan and Meathead until
Stoick grabbed him around the neck.
‘"WHERE IS MY SON?’ asked Stoick.
Toothless shrugged his shoulders rudely.
‘WHERE IS MY SON???’ bawled Stoick with
an awe-inspiring yell so loud that Toothless’s ears
trembled.
Toothless pointed to Death’s Head Headland.
‘SHOW ME,’ said Stoick grimly.

202

Under Stoick’s fierce eye, Toothless reluctantly
flapped off towards Death’s Head Headland, followed
by the two Tribes.
They arrived just in time to see the Terrible
Monster throw Hiccup high in the air and catch him
in his mouth like a whelk.
So much for the Fiendishly Clever Plan, thought
Toothless.
He was about to use the opportunity of Stoick’s
obvious distraction to sneak off to a place of safety
when something stopped him.
Nobody knows what that something was.
It was a moment which changed the whole
worldview of the Hooligan Tribe. For centuries we
had believed it was impossible for dragons to consider
a selfless thought or a generous action. But what
Toothless did next is impossible to explain as being in
his own best interests at the time.
All his fellow domestic dragons were now flying
somewhere over the Inner Ocean. As soon as they
heard Fireworm’s cry of ‘Desert!’, those who were
hiding in caves or between crevices or crouched in the
ferns rose up in a great swarm and abandoned their
former Masters as fast as their wings could carry them.

203

The wild dragons from Wild Dragon Cliff had
left hours before.
But something kept Toothless from flying after
them – maybe it was Stoick’s heartrendingly powerless
cry of ‘N-N-NOOOOO!!!’ that caused him to pause.
Or maybe somewhere in that self-centred green
dragon heart of his, he really was fond of Hiccup and
grateful for the hours that he had spent looking after
him, not shouting at him, telling him jokes and giving
him the biggest and juiciest lobsters.
‘Dragons are S-S-SELFISH,’ argued Toothless
to himself. ‘Dragons are heartless and have no m-m-
mercy. That’s what m-m-makes us s-s-survivors.’
Nonetheless SOMETHING made him turn right

204

around and SOMETHING made him fold his wings
back and fly like a dragon blur to the Great Monster
on the cliff tops. Which really was not in Toothless’s
best interests, as I said before.
Toothless flew right up the Monster’s left nostril
and started flying up and down the inside of his nose,
tickling it with his wings.
The Sea Dragon lunged up and down, wrinkling
his nose like crazy and bellowing.
‘A-A-A-AAAAAAAH…’
The Creature stuck his great talon up his nose
in a disgusting fashion and tried to winkle out the
tickling flea that was irritating him.
Toothless didn’t quite get out of the way of the
talon in time and it scratched him on the chest. He
hardly felt it though, he was so excited, and carried on
tickling regardless, dodging the probing dragon claw.
‘A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-AAAAAAAAH…’
bellowed the Sea Dragon.
Meanwhile Hiccup was being thrown this way
and that inside the Dragon’s throat as it shook its
head from side to side. He was trying desperately to
hang on to the spear which was in danger of becoming
dislodged any second.

205

‘… CHOOOOOOOOOOOO!’

The Dragon finally sneezed and Hiccup, the
spear, Toothless, and a great deal of perfectly revolting
Snot were scattered over the surrounding countryside.
Toothless remembered, as he was shooting
through the air, that boys can’t fly.
He folded his wings and dived after Hiccup,
who was rapidly heading towards the ground.
Toothless grabbed hold of Hiccup by the arm
and tried to take his weight. Dragons’ talons are
extraordinarily strong and he was able to break
Hiccup’s fall, not entirely, but enough so that when
Hiccup crashed into the heather he was travelling
reasonably slowly.
Stoick came plunging frantically through the
grass.
He picked up his son and faced the Monster,
holding his shield over Hiccup’s unconscious body.
Toothless hid behind Stoick.
The Green Death had recovered from his
sneezing fit. He shuffled forwards, bleeding horribly
from fatal wounds to his chest and throat. He lowered
his terrible head till it was on a level with the cliff top,

207

and his evil, yellow eyes looked straight at Stoick.
‘Time to die for all of us,’ purred the Green
Death. ‘You can’t save his life now, you know. You
are quite, quite helpless. My FIRE will melt that
shield like butter…’
The Green Death opened his mouth. He slowly
sucked in a breath. Stoick tried to grab on to chunks
of heather to hold them fast, but Stoick, Hiccup
and Toothless were being dragged slowly but surely
towards the gigantic black tunnel that was the
Monster’s open jaws.
The Green Death paused for a moment before
he blew out again, enjoying their terror.
‘This is what h-h-happens if you don’t listen to
the Dragon Law…’ shrieked Toothless to himself in
horror, as he peered round the side of Stoick’s cloak.
The Monster puffed out his cheeks and Stoick
and Toothless waited for flames to consume them.
But no fire came out.
The Green Death looked very surprised. He
puffed out his cheeks and blew a little harder.
And again, no fire.
He tried once more, and now his head seemed
to be turning a strange purplish colour with the effort

208

of blowing, and it seemed to be swelling, bigger and
bigger, as if he was being pumped up with air from
the inside.
The Monster had no idea what was happening.
He thrashed around wildly and his eyes bulged larger
and larger until with a bang that could be heard for
hundreds of miles in every direction…
… the Green Death blew up, right in front of
their eyes.
This may seem like some sort of miracle, or an
intervention on the part of the gods. But in fact there
is a logical explanation. When Hiccup was hanging in
the Sea Dragon’s throat, desperately repeating ‘I need
to live, I need to live’ to himself, he had taken off his
helmet and had plugged the horns as hard as he could
into the fireholes.
It was a perfect fit.
So, when the Dragon tried to use his fire,
the blockage caused a build-up of pressure that
eventually grew so great that the Green Death simply
exploded.
Now there were pieces of Dragon flying in all
directions. Stoick and Toothless were incredibly lucky
not to get hit by anything, standing as close to the

209

explosion as they were.
But a single, burning Dragon Tooth, eight foot
long (one of the Monster’s smaller ones), exploded
straight towards Hiccup. The boy had been dragged
out from under the shelter of Stoick’s shield by the
intake of the Monster’s breath, and was now lying on
the ground a couple of feet in front of Stoick and
Toothless, completely exposed.
Stoick caught the movement of the Tooth out of
the corner of his eye and flung himself and his shield
forward. Only a Viking could have got there in time.
Shooting woodcock with a bow and arrow develops
very quick reflexes.
So Stoick’s shield did save Hiccup’s life after all.
If it had not been there, the Tooth would have
impaled Hiccup like a prawn on a stick. As it was, it
buried itself deep, deep, deep into the bronze centre
of the shield, and quivered there, blazing with green-
edged Dragon flames.
Stoick lifted the shield, terrified that the Tooth
might have pierced through to his son. But Hiccup
was unharmed. His eyes were open and he was
listening for something. He was listening for a strange
sound that seemed to be coming from the flaming

210

tooth itself. It was the sound of wheezy, echoing
singing, like the wind blowing through coral caves, and
it went something like this:

‘I tell the mighty Big Blue Whale,
his life is over soon,
With one swish of this armoured tail
I put out the sun and moon…
The winds and gales are quivering,
when I begin to roar,
The waves themselves are shivering
and trembling back to shore…’

‘Listen,’ said Hiccup, happily, just before he
passed out. ‘The supper is singing.’

19. HICCUP THE USEFUL

The four hundred Vikings that were now gathered on
the cliff tops broke into wild cheering for Hiccup and
Toothless.
They were a strange, barbaric sight, all covered
in disgusting green Dragon Snot and Slime, but
beaming and shouting with the wild delight of those
that have just been saved from Certain Death.
All around them, the terrible fight that had just
taken place devastated the landscape. A choking
green-grey smoke was hanging around making it
difficult to see, but great chunks of Death’s Head
Headland appeared to have been torn out by the fight.
Avalanches of rock were piled up on the beach. The
terrible mountainous corpse of the Purple Death lay
in the deeper water. Bits of the Green Death’s insides
and bones were scattered all over the place, while
large sections of the heather and ferns were still in
flames.
However, by some extraordinary miracle, nearly
all the Vikings and their dragons had survived the
dreadful battle.
I say ‘nearly all’ because, when Toothless crept

212

forward to lick the face of his Master with a flickering,
forked tongue, Stoick noticed a ghastly wound on the
little dragon’s chest, which was pouring with bright
green blood. The talon of the Green Death had
pierced the very heart of the supposedly heartless little
dragon.
Toothless followed Stoick’s gaze and looked
down for the first time. He let out a squeal of terror
and fainted dead away.

Two days later, Hiccup woke up, aching all over, and
very, very hungry. It was late at night. He was lying in
Stoick’s own great bed. The room seemed to be
crowded with a great deal of people. Stoick was there,
and Valhallarama, and Old Wrinkly, and Fishlegs and
most of the Elders of the Tribe.
There were dragons there too: Newtsbreath and
Hookfang snapping and biting around Stoick’s legs,
and Horrorcow perched on the end of Hiccup’s bed.
(The dragons had flown back as soon as they heard
the explosion and realised the Masters of Berk were
Masters once more. Being dragons, they had given no
explanation for their disappearance, but they did have
the grace to look a little sheepish.)
‘He’s alive!’ shouted out Stoick in triumph, and
everybody began to cheer. Valhallarama gave Hiccup a
rousing punch on the shoulder, which is the Viking
mother’s equivalent of a really big hug.
‘We’re all here,’ said Valhallarama, ‘willing you to
wake up.’
Hiccup sat straight up in bed, suddenly very
awake indeed. ‘But you’re not all here,’ he said.
‘Where’s Toothless?’
Everybody looked shifty, and nobody would look

214

at Hiccup. Stoick cleared his throat awkwardly.
‘I’m sorry, son,’ said Stoick. ‘But he didn’t make
it. He died just a few hours ago. The rest of the Tribe
are giving him a Hero’s Funeral at this very moment.
It’s a great honour,’ Stoick continued hurriedly. ‘He’ll
be the first dragon ever to be given a proper Viking
burial—’
‘How did you know he was dead?’ Hiccup
demanded.
Stoick looked surprised. ‘Well, you know, the
usual: no pulse, no breath, stone cold to the touch.
He was quite clearly dead, I’m afraid.’
‘Oh, HONESTLY, Father,’ said Hiccup, in a
frenzy of exasperation, ‘don’t you know ANYTHING
about dragons? That could have been a SLEEP
COMA, it’s a GOOD SIGN, probably means he’s
healing himself.’
‘Oh, Thor’s whiskers,’ said Fishlegs. ‘They
started that funeral half an hour ago…’
‘We’ve got to stop them!’ yelled Hiccup.
‘Dragons are only fairly fireproof. They’ll burn him
alive!’
Hiccup leapt out of bed with amazing energy,
under the circumstances. He ran out of the room and

215

out of the house, followed closely by Fishlegs
and Horrorcow.

Down at Hooligan Harbour, the awesome ceremony
of the Viking Military Funeral was nearly coming to an
end.
It was an incredible sight, if Hiccup had been in
the mood for it.
The sky was crammed with stars. The sea was
glass-flat. The entire tribes of Hooligan and Meathead
were gathered motionless on the rocks, and every
single person was carrying a lighted torch in one hand.
Even Snotlout was there, trying to look solemn,
with his helmet off his head out of respect, and his
hair neatly brushed.
‘Good riddance to the newt with wings,’ he was
whispering slyly to Dogsbreath the Duhbrain, and
Dogsbreath sniggered.
‘Serve him right for breaking the Law,’ sneered
Fireworm to Seaslug, who was picking his nose on
Dogsbreath’s shoulder.
A replica of a Viking ship had been put out to
sea, and was drifting swiftly away from the island of
Berk along the path of the moon’s reflection, past the

216

weird shapes of Stoick and Mogadon’s burnt-out fleet.
Hiccup could just see the small body of
Toothless laid out in the boat. Beside him lay Stoick’s
shield, the Dragon’s Tooth still stuck in it like a
gigantic alien sword.
Gobber the Belch sounded a mournful signal on
his horn. He was now completely recovered after his
unexpected flight.
‘P-P-PARP!!!’
Twenty-six of Stoick’s finest archers, standing to
attention at the right of the Harbour, lifted their bows
into the air. Every bow was loaded with an arrow in
flame.
‘N-N-NOOOO!!!’ yelled Hiccup, with the best yell
he had ever yelled.
But it was too late.
The flaming arrows soared
gracefully through the air. They landed
on the ship and set it alight.
Some of the crowd on the shore had
turned to look upwards, wondering who
dared to disturb this most solemn ritual.
‘HICCUP!’ shouted Thuggory the Meathead,
joyfully recognising the figure on the horizon. There

217

was a murmur of wonder
from the crowd, as they whispered
‘Hiccup?’ to each other, then shouting and
cheering and calling out his name louder and louder.
Snotlout’s jaw dropped open. He looked
thoroughly disappointed to see Hiccup very
much alive and well. Snotlout could just about
take Hiccup as a dead Hero, but a living Hiccup
the Hero was going to be very much in the way…
Hiccup was watching the burning ship, tears
pouring down his face.
The boat tipped and Stoick’s shield and the Tooth
fell into the water. Just as the last piece of the boat was
about to slip beneath the waves, to be
consumed by fire and water, the flames reared up
about twenty foot into the sky. And, shooting out of
those flames, wings spread wide like a Phoenix,
trailing fire from his tail like a comet, came…
Toothless.
He soared high, high, high into the stars, leaving
a path of flame as he flew. He dived down, down,
down towards the sea, and swooped up at the last
minute, to cries of wonder from the spectators. Hiccup
was anxious that he might be in pain, until Toothless

218

zoomed low enough over his head for Hiccup to hear
the little dragon’s rooster cry of triumph.
Whatever Toothless’s faults may have been,
you have to admire his sense of occasion. Common
or Garden dragons are not normally known for their
spectacular flying skills, but even a Common or
Garden dragon on fire is a spectacle in itself.
Toothless burned through the night sky like a
live firework, performing screaming fiery somersaults,
and flaming loop-the-loops. The crowd, who only a
moment before were expecting to mourn the deaths
of both Toothless and possibly Hiccup, were now
beside themselves, hysterically cheering as Toothless
showered them with sparks.

220

At last the fire got too hot for him and Toothless
plunged into the sea to extinguish himself, only to
burst out again and fly straight to Hiccup’s shoulder.
There he acknowledged the wild applause with solemn
bows to right and left, slightly spoiling his dignity
with the odd ‘Cock-a-doodle-doo!’ of smug self-
congratulation.
Stoick signalled to the crowd for silence, but
only so he could boom out the following speech at
full blast:
‘Hooligans and Meatheads! Terrors of the Seas,
Sons of Thor and most feared Masters of the Dragon!
I feel humbled to present you with the most recent
member of the Hooligan Tribe. I give you my son –
HICCUP THE USEFUL!’
And the words ‘Hiccup the Useful’ came
echoing down from the hills behind and were shouted
back again by the cheering crowd, and were picked up
and carried on the night breeze, until the whole world
seemed to be telling Hiccup that maybe he was going
to be Useful after all.
And that, my friends, that, is the Hard Way to
Become a Hero.

221

Epilogue by Hiccup
Horrendous Haddock the
Third, the last of the Great
Viking Heroes

The story doesn’t end there, of course.
The nineteen boys who entered Initiation with
me those many years ago were all allowed into the
Hooligan and Meathead Tribes as a result of their
Heroic Actions in defeating two Seadragonus
Giganticus Maximus in one day. The Battle at Death’s
Head Headland has passed into Viking legend and
will be sung about by the bards while there are still
bards to sing.
Of course, there are very few bards left
nowadays. What is more, few have seen a Seadragonus
Giganticus Maximus since, and people are already
starting to disbelieve that such a creature could have
lived. Learned articles have been written, suggesting
that something that large simply could not have sus-
tained its own weight. The dragons that would be my
evidence have crawled back into the sea where men

223

cannot follow and, what with Heroism being so
unfashionable nowadays, nobody is going to believe
the mere word of a Hero like myself.
But the thing about dragons – and I am a person
who knows about dragons – is that it could very well
be that they are merely sleeping down there in the
black, black depths. There could be numberless
numbers of them, all frozen in a Sleep Coma, with
the unknowing fishes swimming in and out of their
tentacles and hiding in their talons and laying eggs in
their ears.
There may yet come a time when Heroes are
needed once more.
There may yet come a time when the dragons
will come back.
When that time comes, men will need to know
something about how to train them and how to fight
them, and I hope that this book will be more helpful
to the Heroes of the Future than a certain book of the
same name was to ME all those many years ago.
It is easy to forget that there were such things as
these Monsters.
I forget myself sometimes, but then I look up,
as I am looking up now, and I see in my mind’s eye a

224

shield, strangely changed by a rich encrusting of jewel-
like barnacles and cold-water coral, with an eight-foot
tooth sticking right out of the middle of it. I reach out
and the edge of that tooth is still so bitingly sharp after
all these years that just a gentle brush with the fingers
might send a rain of blood down on these pages. And
I bend my head, not too close, and I am sure I can
just hear very, very faintly:

‘Once I set the sea alight
with a single fiery breath…
Once I was so mighty that I thought
my name was Death…
Sing out loud until you’re eaten,
song of melancholy bliss,
For the mighty and the middling
all shall come to THIS…’

The Supper is still singing.

225

Don’t miss Hiccup’s next adventure!

1. SWORDFIGHTING AT SEA
(BEGINNERS ONLY)

Thor was SERIOUSLY annoyed.
He had sent a mighty summer storm to claw
up the seas around the bleak little Isle of Berk.
A black wind was shrieking across the wild and angry
ocean. Furious thunder boomed overhead. Lightning
speared into the water.
Only a madman would think it was the kind of
weather for a pleasant sail.
But, amazingly, there was one ship being
hurled violently from wave to wave, the hungry ocean
chewing at her sides, hoping to tip her over
and swallow the souls aboard and
grind their bones into sand.

The madman in charge of this ship was Gobber
the Belch. Gobber ran the Pirate Training Programme
on the Isle of Berk and this crazy voyage was, in fact,
one of Gobber’s lessons, Swordfighting at Sea –
(Beginners Only).
‘OK, YOU DRIPPY LOT!’ yelled Gobber,
a six-and-a-half-foot hairy muscle-bound lunatic, with
a beard like a ferret having a fit and biceps the size of
your head. ‘PUT YOUR BACKS INTO IT, FOR
THOR’S SAKE. YOU ARE NOT AN ICKLE
PRETTY JELLYFISH… HICCUP, YOU ARE
ROWING LIKE AN EIGHT-YEAR-OLD… THE
FAT BIT OF THE OAR GOES IN THE WATER…
WE HAVEN’T GOT ALL YEAR TO GET
THERE…’ etc. etc.
Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third gritted
his teeth as a big wave came screaming over the side
and hit him full in the face.
Hiccup is, in fact, the Hero of this story,
although you would never have guessed this to look
at him. He was on the small side and had the sort of
face that was almost entirely unmemorable.
There were twelve other boys struggling with the
oars of that ship, and practically all of them looked

more like Viking Heroes than Hiccup did.
Wartihog, for instance, was only eleven, but he
already had a fine crop of bubbling adolescent pimples
and a personal odour problem. Dogsbreath could row
as hard as anybody else with one hand, while picking
his nose with the other. Snotlout was a natural leader.
Clueless had ear hair.
Hiccup was just absolutely average, the kind of
unremarkable, skinny, freckled boy who was easy to
overlook in a crowd.

Beneath the rowing benches, thirteen dragons
were huddled, one for each boy.
The dragon belonging to Hiccup was much,
much smaller than the others. His name was
Toothless, an emerald green Common or Garden
dragon with enormous eyes and a sulky expression.
He was whining to Hiccup in Dragonese.*
‘These Vikings c-c-crazy. Toothless g-g-got salt
in his wings. Toothless sitting in a big cold puddle.
Toothless h-h-hungry… F-F-FEED ME.’ He tugged
at Hiccup’s trousers. ‘Toothless need f-f-food NOW.’

* Dragonese was the native tongue of the dragons. I have translated it
into English for the benefit of those readers whose Dragonese is a bit rusty.
Only Hiccup could understand this fascinating language.

‘I’m sorry, Toothless,’ Hiccup winced as
the boat plunged maniacally downwards on the
back of another monstrous wave, ‘but this is not
a good moment…’
‘THOR ONLY KNOWS,’ yelled Gobber,
‘how you USELESS LOT got initiated into the tribe
of the Hairy Hooligans… but you now face four tough
years on the Pirate Training Programme before you
can truly call yourselves VIKINGS.’
‘Oh great,’ thought Hiccup gloomily.
‘We will begin with the most important
Viking Skill of all… SWORDFIGHTING AT SEA.’
Gobber grinned.
‘The rules of Pirate Swordfighting are…
THERE ARE NO RULES. In this lesson, biting,
gouging, scratching and anything else particularly
nasty all get you extra points. The first boy to call out
“I submit” shall be the loser.’
‘Or we all drown,’ muttered Hiccup, ‘whichever
is the sooner.’
‘NOW,’ shouted Gobber. ‘I NOMINATE
THE FIRST BOY AS DOGSBREATH THE
DUHBRAIN. WHO’S GOING TO FIGHT HIM?’
Dogsbreath the Duhbrain grunted happily at the

thought of spilling blood. Dogsbreath was a mindless
thug of a boy with hairy knuckles that practically
grazed the ground as he walked, and mean little eyes
and a big ring in his flared nostrils made him look like
a bristly boar with a bad character.
‘Who shall fight Dogsbreath?’ repeated Gobber
the Belch.
Ten of the boys stuck their hands up with cries
of ‘Oooosirmesirpleasechoosemesir,’ wildly excited at the
thought of being smooshed into a pulp by Dogsbreath
the Duhbrain. This was predictable. That’s what most
Hooligans were like.
But what was more surprising was that HICCUP
also leapt to his feet shouting, ‘I nominate myself,
Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third!’

This was unusual because while Hiccup was
the only son of Chief Stoick the Vast, he was not what
you might call ‘naturally sporty’. He was nearly as bad
at Bashyball, Thugger, and all the other violent Viking
games as his best friend Fishlegs.
And Fishlegs had a squint, a limp, numerous
allergies and no co-ordination whatsoever.
‘What has got into you?’ whispered Fishlegs.
‘Sit down, you lunatic… He’ll murder you…’
‘Don’t worry, Fishlegs,’ said Hiccup, ‘I know
what I’m doing here.’
‘OK, HICCUP,’ boomed Gobber in surprise.
‘Get up here, boy, and show us what you’re made of.’
‘If I’m EVER going to be Chief of this Tribe,’
whispered Hiccup to Fishlegs, as he started taking off
his jacket and buckling on his sword, ‘I’m going to
have to be a Hero at something…’
‘Trust me,’ said Fishlegs, ‘THIS IS NOT YOUR
THING… Clever ideas, yes. Talking to dragons, yes.
But one-to-one combat with a brute like Dogsbreath?
Absolutely NO, NO, NO.’
Hiccup ignored him. ‘The Horrendous
Haddocks have always had a gift for swordfighting.
I reckon it’s in the blood… Look at my great-great-

grandfather, Grimbeard the Ghastly. Best
swordfighter EVER…’
‘Yes, but have YOU ever done any
swordfighting before?’ asked Fishlegs.
‘Well, no,’ admitted Hiccup, ‘but I’ve read
books on it. I know all the moves… The Piercing
Lunge… The Destroyer’s Defence… Grimbeard’s
Grapple… And I’ve got this great new sword…’
The sword was, indeed, an excellent one,
a Swiftpoint Scaremaker with go-faster stripes and
a handle shaped like a hammerhead shark.
‘Besides,’ said Hiccup, ‘I’m never going to be
in actual danger…’
The Pirates-in-Training practised with wooden
cases on their swords. ‘Molly-coddling, we never did
that in MY DAY,’ was Gobber’s opinion. However,
it DID mean the Hooligan Tribe ended up with more
live Pirates at the end of the Programme.
Fishlegs sighed. ‘OK, you madman.
If you have to do this… keep looking in his eyes…
keep your sword up at all times… and say a big prayer
to Thor the Thunderer because you’re going to need
all the help you can get...’

www.cressidacowell.co.uk

This is Cressida, age 9, writing on the island.

Table of Contents

- Copyright
- Title
- Contents
- A note from Hiccup
- 1. First catch your dragon
- 2. Inside the dragon nursery
- 3. Heroes or exiles
- 4. How to train your dragon
- 5. A chat with Old Wrinkly
- 6. Meanwhile, deep in the ocean…
- 7. Toothless wakes up
- 8. Training your dragon the hard way
- 9. Fear, vanity, revenge and silly jokes
- 10. Thor’sday Thursday
- 11. Thor is angry
- 12. The Green Death
- 13. When yelling doesn’t work
- 14. The fiendishly-clever plan
- 15. The battle at Death’s Head Headland
- 16. The fiendishly-clever plan goes wrong
- 17. In the mouth of the dragon
- 18. The extraordinary bravery of Toothless
- 19. Hiccup the Useful
- Epilogue