1 A Proper Viking Swimming Race

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1. A PROPER VIKING SWIMMING RACE One chilly spring day in the Barbaric Archipelago, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, the Hope and Heir to the Tribe of the Hairy Hooligans, was standing miserably on the West Beach of the Murderous Mountains with absolutely nothing on but his helmet, his sword, his waistcoat, and a teeny weeny pair of hairy swimming trunks. The Murderous Mountains were not the kind of place you wanted to visit at the best of times. They gave Hiccup the shivers. Tall, cruel-looking, dizzyingly high peaks that were home to some unspeakably dangerous dragons and mutant wolves, not to mention the Murderous Tribe, the fiercest and most ruthless Vikings in the uncivilised world. The Murderous Tribe did not often receive visitors. Perhaps it was their uncomfortable habit of sacrificing unwelcome intruders to the Sky Dragons at the point of Mount Murderous that kept people at bay. But on this occasion, Madguts the Murderous had taken it into his head to be hospitable, and to invite two of the other Tribes, the Hooligans and the Bog-Burglars, over to his island for a jolly little

Inter-Tribal Friendly Swimming Race. It was a traditional Viking Swimming Race, and the Vikings were a little bit crazy, so they were going swimming with their weapons on: swords, axes, daggers, that sort of thing. It did not seem to have occurred to them that this would make them less floaty. So there they were, the entire Warrior populations of the Murderous, Hooligan and Bog-Burglar Tribes, hopping up and down on the uncomfortable shingle beach, trying to pretend they

weren't freezing their horns off, with the mutant wolves howling cheeringly up in the mountains above. There was a strong easterly wind that brought goose-bumps to Hiccup's skinny, freckled arms, and whisked off helmets, cloaks and swords, and sent them bowling briskly down the beach. Hiccup's tiny hunting-dragon, Toothless, was having difficulty flying without being blown away.

Toothless was a particularly small Common-or-Garden dragon with large, innocent greengage eyes. 'Toothless w-w-wouldn't go swimming today if Toothless was you,' he advised Hiccup. 'Is very ch-ch-chilly in there, Toothless has been in already and it nearly froze Toothless's wings off.' 'Yes, thank you, Toothless,' said Hiccup. (Hiccup was one of the very few Vikings, before or since, who could speak Dragonese, the language in which the dragons speak to each other.) 'Very helpful, I'll bear that in mind.' Gobber the Belch, the teacher in charge of the Pirate Training Programme on Berk, had stripped down to his smalls, and was breathing in the gale as if it were the loveliest of summer breezes. 'Lovely swimming weather!' he roared delightedly, beating his chest with his fist like a great red-headed gorilla. 'Gather

round and stand to attention, boys, and I'll explain the Rules of the Race…' The twelve boys stood before their teacher in a shivering line. 'Now boys!' boomed Gobber. 'A Proper Viking Swimming Race is not like those pathetic little competitions they carry out on the mainland. It is a test of your ENDURANCE, your STRENGTH and your SUICIDAL BRAVERY…' 'Oh brother,' moaned Hiccup's best friend Fishlegs, who was the only boy on the Programme who was even worse than Hiccup at all the Viking activities. He had legs as limp as two strings of spaghetti, and he couldn't swim. 'I don't like the sound of this…' 'In a proper Viking Swimming Race,' continued Gobber, 'the winner is the person who is LAST.' There were gasps of surprise, and 'oh sir, please sir, that can't be right, sir,' from the line of boys. 'In which case,' sneered Snotface Snotlout, a great bullying brute of a boy whose muscly arms were covered entirely in skeleton tattoos, 'Hiccup the Useless will win, no problem. He's always the last at everything…'