As a youngster, I did enjoy a book called the Dragon Hoard by Tanith Lee; now, I think, sadly out of print, so I’m illustrating this posting with a scanned picture from my copy. It was a bit of a mickey-take on traditional fairy stories and ancient myths, and it made me chortle with laughter.
At one point our hero, Prince Jasleth is asked to fight a sea-monster which has driven a town to the brink of starvation. They have been piling all their food onto the beach each time the monster appears from the sea, in the hope that it would eat the food rather than eat the people.
But when Jasleth stumbles out to confront the monster he hears it sobbing and plucks up courage to listen to its story. The poor monster onlylikes eating seaweed, but can’t reach the seaweed further up the beach for all the treacle and trifles the townspeople pile in its way. Each night it tries to eat its way through the food, but by the time it reaches the seaweed it feels too sick to do anything but go home and lie down on the sea bed.
Jasleth manages to persuade the townspeople of the monster’s vegetarian ways and this little bit of the book ends happily with the monster become the pet of the whole town.
I suppose there is a lesson here about not assuming the worst about things, but what this adventure has given my family is the concept of ’seaweed-monstering’ - when you have something you would like to get on with doing, but are prevented from doing so by all the nasty stuff in the way. And by the time you get to your goal, you’re too worn out, stressed or hassled to actually do it.
I’m having a seaweed-monster sort of day.
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