for it is fiery and poisonous; beware of his tail, for he may wind it
around you and crush you.'

"'I do not care for his teeth or his breath or his tail,' says the
young man; 'I only want to find his heart. Leave me here, and never let
me see you again.'

"The dwarf goes away and the young man sits down on the grass to wait
for the dragon. You see, since he knows nothing at all about fear it
does not seem to him such a great thing to kill a dragon. He does not
care much whether he kills it or not, and he is in no hurry about it.
So he sits on the grass and looks at the gray old rocks and the bright
young flowers about him, sees the golden sunlight falling in little
spots and flecks through the branches, feels the cool, fresh morning
air, and hears the soft rustle of the trees and the singing of the
birds. Most of all, he listens to the birds that flutter about in the
branches above him, as the sparks hover over the fire there, before
they fly away up the chimney, and in particular to one bird, right over
his head in the tree. It sings so loudly and so clearly that it seems
to be talking to him, only, of course, he cannot understand what it
says. He has wished for a long time that he might have some better
company than the ugly dwarf, and he thinks now that he should like to
talk with the bird.

"If he cannot understand the bird, perhaps the next best thing would be
to make the bird understand him, so he makes a pipe out of a reed and
tries to play upon it something like the bird's song. I don't know what
he thinks he is saying to the bird with his reed, and he seems not much
pleased with it himself, for he throws it away and blows a ringing,
echoing blast on his horn instead. And now he gets an answer, for this