Marigo


 It being April 23rd, my mind turns to dragons and the numerous folktales about them. This story from Albania features a singularly charmless family as its central characters and a reminder about why we should be careful who we let have influence over our children's minds (cranky, manipulative teachers included). 

There are forty dragons featured in this tale, though it has to be said that they really don't do anything very draconian and, as is so often the case with a lot of folktales, there are many loose ends left untied - like what happens to the governess, why are forty dragons squeezed into a castle, and ought the romantic "hero" be on a police watch list? Possibly when this story was first doing the rounds, audiences would have been familiar with other stories that would have put the dragons, the governess etc. into context. I did consider doing a story about the bolla, a type of dragon that only opens its eyes on April 23rd, but aside from a few scraps of myth I could not find a fully fledged tale involving one (leastways not one translated into English).



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