The Jester, the Sword, 

and the Dragon

Inspired by a verbal story 

created and told by Oliver Jamieson 

(with a few minor embellishments)

Illustrations by his cousin,

Roman Christian, age 10

Volodymyr was a court jester. He came from a long line of jesters. His father was a jester, as was his father before him, and his father before him. It was a proud family tradition going back many generations. Jesters and minstrels were the main sources of entertainment for people in the Middle Ages. 

Volodymyr was the royal jester, the entertainer of the king and the queen, and he lived within the castle walls so that he would always be available. 

The family crest, carved in wood and mounted above the fireplace in Volodymyr's quarters, contained the motto "A HAPPY KING IS A BENEVOLENT KING." It was Volodymyr's purpose in life to keep the king happy. To do that, all he had to do was to spend each and every day of his life making a complete fool of himself, and he was very, very good at that. 

The kingdom was ruled by King Krystiyan and Queen Kateryna. They had ruled for many years and were ready to retire, but tradition required that there first be a new king and a new queen to replace them. They had had only one child, a daughter named Olena, but Princess Olena was a very picky girl and had not yet chosen someone to be her prince. "Someday," she was fond of saying, "my prince will come."

"Yes," the king would often reply, "but when?"

"When I find someone worthy," she would answer.

Worthiness, of course, is important in a prince who is destined to be a king, but Princess Olena's standards of worthiness would be hard for any man to meet. He would have to demonstrate purity of heart, the kindness and patience of a saint, the courage of a lion, and a darn good sense of humor. 

And how, you might ask, would such a man prove that he had these qualities? Well, this is where it gets interesting. He would have to be able to draw the Sword of Banishment from the Stone of Courage, something that only one man had ever done before. 

Seven generations earlier, an evil dragon had attacked the kingdom, breathing fire and laying waste to villages, burning crops and forests, and causing the people to run for their lives into the hills and mountains at the center of the kingdom. Many a knight had gone forth to slay the dragon, and many a knight had failed. The situation seemed hopeless.

Then one day, as he was riding through one of the few remaining forests in the kingdom, a young knight named Aleksander came upon a sword stuck in a stone. He pulled it out with ease and decided to keep it.

To make a long story short, he soon realized that this was no ordinary sword. Every time he raised it above his head, a bolt of lightning would streak down from the sky and fill the sword with some sort of energy. He could feel it surging through the sword, causing it to hum. It felt powerful in his hands and he knew that it had some special purpose.

The strange thing, though, was that this only happened when it was Aleksander who raised the sword to the sky. For everyone else, it was just an ordinary sword. Aleksander began to wonder why.

Then one day a messenger on horseback raced up to the castle gates. The drawbridge was lowered over the moat and the gate was opened so that he could enter. The king came out and the messenger told him that the dragon had attacked again, burning the village of Potemkin to the ground. It had once been a model village, but in a flash it was gone.

Aleksander's new sword began to hum in its scabbard and soon was twitching at his side. Aleksander suddenly realized that this sword had a singular purpose and that it had chosen him to fulfill that purpose.     

Just then, the dragon appeared in the sky above the castle and everyone ran from it, scattering into the hills. Everyone, that is, except Aleksander. He stood his ground, pointing the sword directly at the dragon. A powerful bolt of energy shot from the tip of the sword up to the heart of the dragon. The dragon screamed pitifully and then dove into the sea where, according to legend, it would be imprisoned for seven generations.

Aleksander was hailed as a hero and a new castle was built around the stone where Aleksander had found the sword. Aleksander drove the sword back into the stone 

so that everyone would know where to find it in case it should ever be needed again. In the seven generations since that day, it had never been needed and no one had been able to draw the sword from the stone, though many had tried.

Seven generations later, the lovely Princess Olena wanted her future prince to come forward and pull the sword from the stone in order to prove his worthiness. Every unmarried man in the kingdom had tried and every unmarried man in the kingdom had failed, except for the jester Volodymyr and a few other undesirables.

The king was in a very bad mood as a result of all of this trying and failing, wondering if the princess might have gotten just a little bit too picky for her own good. Fortunately, the queen always knew what to do when the king was in a bad mood, and that was to send for Volodymyr. It was time once again for him to tickle the king's funny bone.

Volodymyr, as always, was ready with the tomfoolery. He presented the king with his best material, real funny stuff, at least an eight or a nine on a ten point scale.

His Majesty, nevertheless, was not amused. Given the king's foul mood, Volodymyr's antics simply irritated him. He was unhappy, and an unhappy king is not a benevolent king. 

"Jester," he commanded, "go out into the courtyard and draw the sword from the stone." Then, motioning to the palace guard, he added, "If he fails, off with his head!"

"Oh, my goodness," thought Volodymyr, "surely he is kidding. I'll just do my best to make a fool of myself out there, he will laugh, and then everything will be fine. At least I hope so." He crossed his fingers for luck.

Volodymyr went outside and stood before the stone, quietly planning the hilarious pratfall to come. When he had it firmly planned in his mind, he confidently approached the sword. The idea was to pull on the sword and then let it slip from his hand and go tumbling backwards to land comically on his keister. Surely that would make the king laugh. And, as the family motto had it, a happy king is a benevolent king.

A crowd gathered. Volodymyr grasped the sword and went tumbling backwards, just as he had planned, but something didn't feel right. The crowd did not laugh, nor did the king. First they gasped and then fell silent.

Volodymyr looked at the king, who was silently staring at him with a look of astonishment on his face, and then Volodymyr realized why. He was holding the Sword of Banishment in his right hand! Somehow, he had pulled the sword from the stone and he had done so with almost no effort at all!

"The fool will be the next prince!" yelled someone in the crowd and everyone began laughing. The king looked embarrassed, the palace guard relieved, and the queen wept openly. "Oh, no," she cried, "the only man worthy of my daughter's hand is the royal fool!"

Even Volodymyr felt uneasy at this turn of events. Sure, he would get to keep his head, and that was a good thing. On the other hand, how would it look for the court jester to marry the princess and then become the new king?

"There must be a mistake," he said to the king. "Perhaps the other men loosened the stone's grip on the sword, causing it to come out when I pulled on it."

"There is no mistake," came a deep voice from the back

of the crowd. "Prophesy says that the evil dragon will return after seven generations and that the sword will once again select a man worthy of the fight. You, Sir Volodymyr, are that man." The crowd parted and a man came forward. It was the court wizard Bodashka.

"Why do you call me 'Sir'?" asked Volodymyr. "I am not a knight, just a humble court jester."

"Oh, but you will be a knight," said Bodashka, "and you will use that sword to banish the evil dragon to the bottom of the sea for another seven generations."

"But I have no horse, no armor, no training," protested Volodymyr. "And no one has seen a dragon in years."

"None of that matters, young man," insisted Bodashka. "The prophesy says that the dragon will appear, and so it shall. You won't need a horse, you won't need armor, and I will provide you with all of the instruction that you will need. All that you will have to provide is the courage."

"But I'm not brave," said Volodymyr. "I am afraid of my own shadow. There must be a mistake. I am not the man for this job." 

"I am sure that when you face the dragon, you will indeed be afraid," responded the wizard, "more afraid than you have ever been in your life. Brave men are always afraid. The truth is, Volodymyr, that you simply cannot be brave if you are not afraid."

"I don't understand," said Volodymyr.

"Do you see that ant crawling across the floor?" asked the wizard. "Would you be afraid to step on that ant?"

"No," said Volodymyr, "of course not."

"Why not?" asked the wizard.

"Because it is not dangerous," said Volodymyr. "I know that it cannot hurt me."

"So," continued the wizard, "how brave would you have to be to step on that ant?" 

"I wouldn't have to be brave at all," said Volodymyr, "but an ant is not a dragon."

"True enough," agreed the wizard, "but being brave   

is not about being unafraid. It is about being afraid and doing what you must do anyway. So, in order to be brave, you must first be afraid."

"Oh, I see," said Volodymyr. "But what makes you think that I will be brave enough to face the dragon or skilled enough to banish it to the bottom of the sea?"

"I believe in you because the sword believes in you, and it has never been wrong," said the wizard. "As you know, it has already been proven right one time out of one." And, to his credit, he said it with a straight face.

As Volodymyr mulled that one over, the wizard added this: "This will be no ordinary dragon. Most dragons are dealt with rather easily. No, this one is a truly evil dragon, a dragon that destroys for the sheer joy of it. This dragon even has a name. He is called Putinsky the Terrible. And he is indeed terrible."  

In the following days, Bodashka schooled Volodymyr in the use of the Sword of Banishment. He also gave him a new motto in Latin to be engraved on his family crest, a motto suitable for a knight or a prince or even for a king. 

Volodymyr had the new motto carved into the family crest, replacing the old one. It read "SI VIS PACEM PARA BELLUM" (if you want peace, prepare for war).

And that is just what Volodymyr did. When he was ready, the wizard brought Volodymyr before the king where he received his knighthood and, even though the wizard had told him that he would not need them, the newly knighted Sir Volodymyr was given the finest horse in the kingdom and outfitted with a gleaming new suit of armor. All that was missing now was his adversary, Putinsky the Terrible.