1 The Boarding-an-Enemy-Ship Lesson

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Once there were dragons. Imagine a time of DRAGONS – some larger than mountainsides, slumbering in the depths of the ocean; some smaller than your fingernail, hopping through the heather. Imagine a time of VIKING HEROES, in which men were men and women were sort of men too and even some little babies had chest hair. And now imagine that you are a boy called Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, not yet twelve years old and not yet turning out to be the koindf Hero his father would have liked him to be. That boy of course, was really ME, but the boy I was then seems so far away to me now that I shall tell this story almost as if he were a stranger. So, imagine that instead of being me, this stranger, this Hero-in-Waiting, is YOU. You are small. You have red hair. You don't realise it yet, but you are about to set out on the most alarming episode of your life so far… When you are an old, old man like I am you will call it 'My First Encounter with the Roman Empire' – and even at this distance in time it will still cause your old wrinkled arms to prickle with goose bumps as you remember the perils and dangers of that terrifying adventure…

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1. THE BOARDING-ANENEMY-SHIP LESSON Once upon a foggy day in a cold, cold country long, long ago, seven small Viking boats floated through the Sea-Known-as-Woden's-Bathtub. The fog had swallowed up the Peaceable Country to the north, and the Isle of Berk to the west, and, indeed, had swallowed up so much of everything, that it was as if the boats were sky-boats, and had left the earth entirely, and were sailing through cloud banks way, way up in the air. In the first boat, The Fat Boar, sat Gobber the Belch, a six and a half foot giant in teeny-weeny hairy shorts, who had leg muscles so enormous they had muscles of their own, and a beard like a hedgehog struck by lightning. Gobber was the teacher in charge of the Pirate Training Programme on the Isle of Berk, and this sail through the fog was part of a Boarding-an-Enemy-Ship lesson.

The six boy-sized boats that were following The Fat Boar each had two boys in them, and these boys were Gobber's pupils, young members of the Tribe of the Hairy Hooligans. 'OK, YOU DISGUSTING GLOBS OF GIRLY SNOT!' yelled Gobber, in a bellow so loud it could be heard several miles away. 'WE ARE NOW GOING TO PRACTISE BOARDING AN ENEMY SHIP ON THE EASY TARGET OF A PEACEABLE FISHING BOAT… CAN ANYONE REMEMBER THE FIRST RULE OF AMBUSH?' 'TAKE THE ENEMY BY SURPRISE, SIR!' shouted out Snotface Snotlout, a tall, unpleasantly smug-looking boy with gigantic nostrils and the beginnings of a small moustache. 'Very good, Snotlout,' purred Gobber the Belch, and he continued at full volume: 'IN A FOG THIS THICK YOUR VICTIM SHIP WILL NOT HAVE A CHANCE OF SEEING YOU COMING!' They can hear us, though, thought Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, gloomily trying to peer through the fog, unless, of course, we have the luck to stumble across some completely deaf Peaceable fishermen…

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