The true and wonderful story of the dragon Samuel

Beyond the mountains where the day ends, behind the night and the dark, in a dark and very dangerous place, lies the terrible land of dragons. That’s when little Samuel was born, who soon turned out to be a very special dragon, though whoever saw him for the first time found him just like all other dragons.

Overall, Samuel was a beautiful, flawless baby. Very green, she had beautiful scales covering her body, huge eyes, red and flaming, and seven huge heads as usual among dragons. When it began to grow, things became very complicated for our poor Samuel.

As we know, since childhood, dragons learn to frighten people and other animals. And it is not enough for them to be green and horrendous. They have to eat huge amounts of coal every day, and then they put in their mouths great flames that burn everything around and keep men and all other animals at bay.

All dragons were like this. All but Samuel. Our little dragon was just like the other dragons in anything but one thing. I couldn’t eat coal. Not even smelling it. As soon as she got to her mouth she had vomiting and dizziness. Samuel the little dragon just liked to eat clouds. At first no one gave much importance to the subject. But when it came to learning to put flames in the mouth, it was with great astonishment that the parents and all the other dragons realized that Samuel, instead of fire, poured rivers and rivers of water into his mouth.

Poor Samuel became the target of the laughter of all the other little dragons his age. Everyone laughed at him and pushed him and said he would never be a dragon as it should be. Samuel the little dragon lived very unhappy. He wanted to be just like the others and set fire to and burn everything around as his school buddies did. But it was not capable. He only knew how to pour his mouth water. A thin, delicate trickle of water that instead of scaring the trees and bushes only gave them joy and happiness.

Definitely, Samuel was not a dragon like everyone else.

One day the Old Dragon Council decided to send for him. Samuel stood fearfully before that solemn frieze of old dragons punctuating the wisest, bravest, and strongest of all dragons. The older one looked at him and in his booming thunder voice asked him sternly:

“Is it true that instead of fire you pour your mouth water?”

“Yes,” replied Samuel, who couldn’t lie but felt his legs shaking and the ground shaking and the sky really seemed to fall on his head.

The old dragons looked at each other, began to speak softly and quickly, and made a terrible decision: they decided to expel him forever from the dragon country. Sad and very lonely, poor little dragon Samuel had to leave his land and went around the world with no home to return to, no bed to sleep in, no hot soup to wait for at night.

Running the world, many years have passed. Samuel roamed the hills and forests without fear to anyone, eating a cloud here, another there, pouring water from his mouth and becoming the favorite friend of gazelles, ducks, fish and all animals that live by the water. .

However, in the land from which Samuel had come, the dragons continued to eat charcoal and to flare their mouths. And so much coal ate, and so much fire spread around them that little by little they burned everything around them. The flowers withered, the trees died, the rivers dried up, and the dragon country became a desert.

With no flowers, no trees, no rivers, the dragons realized they were going to die.

His end was coming fast and the despair was already great when one of the oldest and wisest dragons remembered Samuel, the mouth-watering dragon that had been driven out of the land forever. Only he could save the dragons. Several emissaries departed, who ran hills and mountains and valleys and forests until they encountered the dragon Samuel.

It didn’t take many requests to get the dragon Samuel back. True, he felt a pain in his chest when he met those who had driven him from his land again. But since he could not keep his heart in anger, he was willing to help his brothers.

The dragon Samuel began to eat clouds and pour water into his mouth. And at a glance it flooded the land of dragons. The lakes refilled, the rivers ran fast again, the trees grew large and leafy again, the flowers smiled again in the morning dew.

The dragons had not looked much different. They kept burning fire in their mouths. If they didn’t, they weren’t dragons. But they learned not to burn more trees than they needed, and thus not to let the water come to an end.

Found the balance, the dragons lived happily again and, in the middle of a round lake, erected a statue in honor of the dragon Samuel. From the mouth of the statue comes a stream of water that is always running, and on Sundays all dragons will throw balls of bread to the red fish that swim around, very satisfied. José Fanha The night when the night did not come Porto, Campo das Letras, 2001