Forgotten Ground Regained

Dragon-Fighter

This poem won the 1988 Cædmon Prize for poetry in the Old English style (awarded by Ða Engliscan Gesithas, a British historical society). It was originally published in the society's journal, Witðowinde 83, pp. 8-9.
Cursed is the country! Kingless, nigh hopelessOf any chance of change · in their cheerless doomOf oppression and pain, the people have sufferedlong and with loathing, for they lie in thrallto a dread demon · Dragon and warriorboth he is, and baneful. A blaze in the darknessand in sudden slaughter · sleep is ended,farmland and forest-land · with a flame-crop replantedthat rises, ripens, reddens, and withers at lastto a drear desert · At the dawn’s breakinghe shifts his shape, shows now the semblanceof mocked humanity. Men he has recruitedby force or fee · follow and serve himand call him King. With the coming of darkand the fading of light, as the falling sun’sundermost edge · meets the earth’s far brink,the linden-shield · lifted to protect himand bloody broadsword · brandished in angerto deal death-blows · drop in a momentclattering in his clutches. -- claws cannot grip them –then his byrnie bursts · as his body grows vast,and like scabs on his skin · scales are seen forming.First of all his flesh · the fierce-eyed countenanceAnd haughty head ‧ are wholly changed,And while manlike on mould · the monster standsA fell fountain of fire · forced from his grinning jaws,Weapon of his worm-shape, worse to contend withThan sword-blade or spear-point, seeks out its victimWhose shape shrivels down · into sheer cindersto be wafted away · on the winds of night.
A stranger came striding by. Destruction and harmon all sides he saw, and the sufferings of the peoplegrieved him greatly. Grim in warfarethough young in years, and used to battlehe would fight to set free · folk so tormented.Others had ere this · uttered bold speechesto the merciless monster; maiming and slaughterrewarded each of them. They weakened in the fightwhile the dragon-man endured. Doughtier is this hero,strong enough and steadfast · to withstand all harmand by courage and cunning · conquer the enemy.On a ruined riverbank, to raven-blacknessCharred by dragon-breath, he challenged the tyrant,facing him fearlessly, defying his menace;waits now in that wasteland · his word to make goodeither to fall in the field · or free them from their thraldom.
Illustration by Pat Masson
Comments of the Caedmon Prize Commitee
Pat Masson’s “Draqon-fiqhter” is a worthy winner. We leave her Beowulf-like hero in expectation only of his great battle, but before that we have been confronted with her well conceived and powerfully described adversary, soundly in the Germanic tradition but not slavishly following any exact model, and we have responded to the poetically presented ripening and withering of the fires of his wrath.
Copyright © Pat Masson, 1988. Reprinted with the permission of her family.
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