Dragon in Danger: a pageant in children’s literature (part 2)
In my last post I introduced Rosemary Manning’s popular story Dragon in Danger (1959), and left readers on a cliffhanger, with the baddies Mr Bogg and Mr Snarkins resolving to kidnap R. Dragon the dragon, who was living temporarily on an island in the lake at St Aubyns, soon to play the part of the dragon slain by St Aubyn in episode 1 of the forthcoming pageant. I should issue a spoiler alert now, as I will be telling you what happens in the rest of the story, although I will leave out some of the twists and turns of the plot.
It’s clear that Messrs Bogg and Snarkins are going to be the villains of the story. Not only are they from nearby Potterfield, rather than St Aubyns itself, but they also don’t like pageants! ‘Pay good money to see a corny old pageant, and all about this dump of a town – not me’, exclaims Snarkins, with his red nose glowing.
Above: Rosemary Manning, pictured on the front cover of her autobiography, A Corridor of Mirrors (1987). She was a school teacher as well as a popular author.
To cut a long story short, Bogg and Snarkins manage to kidnap R. Dragon, luring him away on the pretext of organising a special scene at the end of the pageant, in which the dragon will play a visitor from Mars. (There are real concerns that, as the dragon will appear in episode 1, the rest of the pageant will be something of an anti-climax.) But their real intention is to show the dragon off in a cage in a field in nearby Potterfield, on the very day of the pageant itself.
R. Dragon is locked in a barn, and Mr Bogg turns into even more of a baddie, locking Snarkins in with him. This backfires on Bogg, as Snarkins and the dragon make friends and eventually turn against Bogg. Eventually the dragon is rescued, having converted Snarkins to the ways of righteousness. He manages to fly back to St Aubyns just in time to play his appointed role in the pageant.
Above: St Aubyn and R. Dragon, from the back cover of Dragon in Danger.
So all’s well that ends well in St Aubyns, although R. Dragon decides to return home to Cornwall, having delighted the townspeople with his acting. After all their adventures, both he and his friend Sue are very tired, and as the dragon explains, ‘I am specially tired because I have been acting in a pageant’.
Finally – readers of part 1 of this blog post will want to know what the R. in R. Dragon’s name stands for. I had hoped to be able to reveal it. But, tantalisingly, Rosemary Manning doesn’t tell us in the end. Perhaps it emerges in the later books in the series....in which, as far as I know, pageants don’t feature.
Above: R. Dragon’s first appearance was in Green Smoke (1957).
Mark Freeman