The Dragon Who Forgot His Name

About this story

High in the green mountains of China, a young dragon wakes in a cave he does not know, with scales the color of old jade and soft gray fog where his name should be. He does not know if he is brave or gentle, foolish or wise. A scruffy brown dog waits at the cave mouth, tail thumping, as though it has already decided about him. Together they go looking for the name somebody must be keeping for him. They call down to the farmers in the terraced fields, they read the names cut deep in temple stone, they wake the old dragons in their misty caves. Then night falls, and a shape made of shadow offers him a name to wear, glittering and easy and free.

Read the beginning

High in the green mountains of China, where the clouds lie on the rivers like silk, a young dragon woke in a cave he did not know. His scales were the colour of old jade. His whiskers were long and fine. But when he reached for his name, there was only soft grey fog.

Far above the peak, a glossy black raven turned a slow circle, and watched him the way you watch someone you have been waiting for.

A dragon without his name is a strange and lonely thing. He did not know if he was brave or gentle, foolish or wise. "Who am I?" he asked the empty cave. The cave gave nothing back but his own small echo.

At the mouth of the cave sat a scruffy brown dog, ears up, tail thumping, as though he had waited a long time for the dragon to wake. The dog did not need a name to know the dragon. The dog had already decided.

"I will go and find my name," said the dragon. "Surely someone keeps it for me." So he spread his wings, and the dog leapt up, and together they went out into the wide bright morning of the world.

They crossed mountains where the pines wore caps of snow. They followed rivers that sang over the stones. They flew through clouds shaped like horses and old men. The dragon laughed, and the dog ran below him, leaping the streams to keep up.

He flew down to a village in the terraced fields and called from the sky. "I come from dragons of fire and thunder. Surely you know my name." The farmers looked up from the brown water. They did not. They only bent again to their rice.

So he searched. He read the dragon names carved deep in the temple stone. He flew to the misty caves where the old dragons slept. "Tell me my name," he begged. "That is not ours to give," they said, and closed their ancient eyes.

Night fell, and the air went cold. Not the cold of the high snow, but a colder cold, the cold of something that does not love. Among the black pines stood a shape made of shadow, with two eyes like wet coals and a voice like cracking ice.

"Poor empty dragon," the shadow said, smiling without a mouth. "You have no name at all. But I have one to spare. Wear my name, and you need never feel so small again." It held the name out, glittering, easy, free.

The dragon wanted it, oh he wanted it. A name, right there, costing nothing. But the dog stepped between them, low and growling, fur risen along his back. The dragon looked at the shadow's gift, and felt how cold it was, and said one small word. "No."

The shadow thinned, and frayed, and was gone. But its words stayed behind like frost. *You have no name at all. You are nothing without one.* And the dragon, alone in the dark, began to believe it.

He landed on a black ridge and folded his great wings. He felt small and hollow and grey, smaller than a sparrow, lighter than the fog. "I am no one," he whispered to the night. "I am a dragon with nothing inside." And his eyes filled, and a hot tear fell, and hissed on the cold stone.

The story goes on in the video.