I looked up and saw the very last thing I expected: a huge lion coming slowly towards me. And one queer thing was that there was no moon last night, but there was moonlight where the lion was. So it came nearer and nearer. I was terribly afraid of it. You may think that being a dragon I could have knocked any lion out easily enough. But it wasn’t that kind of fear. I wasn’t afraid of him eating me, I was just afraid of ‘it’ – if you can understand. Well it came closer up to me and looked straight into my eyes. And I shut my eyes tight. But that wasn’t any good because it told me to follow it…
It led me a long way into the mountains. And there was always this moonlight over and round the lion wherever we went. So at last we came to the top of a mountain I’d never seen before and on top of this mountain there was a garden- trees and fruit and everything. In the middle of it there was a well.
I knew it was well because you could see the water bubbling up from the bottom of it: but it was a lot bigger than most wells- like a very big, round bath with marble steps going down into it. The water was as clear as anything and I thought if I could get in there and bathe it would ease the pain in my leg. But the lion told me I must undress first….
I was just going to say that I couldn’t undress because i hadn’t any clothes on when I suddenly thought that dragons are snaky sort of things and snakes can cast their skins. Oh of course, thought I, that’s what the lion means. So I started scratching myself and my scales began coming off all over the place. And then I scratched a little deeper and, instead of just scales coming off here and there, my whole skin started peeling off beautifully, like it does after an illness, or as if I was a banana. In a minute or two I just stepped out of it. I could see it lying beside me, looking rather nasty. it was a most lovelyfeeling. So I started down into the well for my bathe.
But just as I was going to put my foot into the water I looked down and saw that it was all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly just as it had been before. Oh, that’s’ all right, said I, it only means I had another smaller suit on underneath the first one, and I’ll have to get out of it too. So I scratched and tore again and this under skin peeled off beautifully and I stepped and left it lying beside the other and went down for my bathe.
Well exactly the same thing happened again. And I thought to myself, oh dear, how many skins have I got to take off? For I was longing to bathe my leg. So I scratched away for the third time and got off a third skin, just like the others, and stepped out of it. But as soon as I looked at myself in the water I knew it had been no good.
The the lion said – You will have to let me undress you. I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now so I just lay flat down to let him do it.
The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone straightinto my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’d ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was justthe pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know- if you’ve ever peeled a scab of a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away.
Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off- just as I thought I’d done it myself the other three times, only they hadn’t hurt- and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly looking than the others had been. And there was I smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me- I didn’t like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I had no skin on- and he threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I’d turned into a boy again.
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