This is the story of a dragon, a young girl, and a camel...

Coming soon, the film !

At the hour when the sun rises, the two of them begin their journey: A young prince and his childhood friend, the son of the Vizir. What a joy it is to escape together for an adventure!

As they go along their way, they encounter a strange caravan, composed of a young girl, a camel driver, and his heavily loaded camel.

“Where are you going?” asks the Prince.
“I'm going to give the dragon his daily tribute”, sighs the camel driver,  “a  camel,  a  young  girl, and a hundred kilos of bread. Tomorrow, the dragon will have devoured it all.”

“Even the camel?”
“Even the camel.”

The  young  boys  continue  along  the road,  walking  in  silence. After eating, they stretch out under a tree and sleep. Two birds appear in the Prince’s dreams.

“How can it be that that monster still lives?” the first asks in outrage.

“It  would  be  so  easy  to  kill him!” follows the second.
“One could do it simply by poking out his eyes with the forked branch on which we sit,” the first continues.
“Chlak, chlak!” screeches the second.  And bam! Die, monster! Die scum!

At these words, the young prince opens one eye, then the other, and stretches. The magic branch is just within reach. He has barely grasped it when it shatters from the tree like glass, and breaks off in his hand with the sound of dry wood snapping.

The birds have sung through the end of the night, and now it is morning.  A violent wind rises, and a roar tears through the silence, followed by a yowl, and then a sinister rumbling.   The dragon is as hungry as a wolf. If he follows his hunger, he will eat the whole village.

“Yum, yum,” he coos as he discovers the two young boys, “I will feast like a king today!”

He stamps and drools and licks his lips. The  terrified  camel  shakes  to  the  left and  right,  making  the  bell  around  its neck ring.  The young girl hides inside a basket.

The   birds   singing   intensifies  as  the prince advances on the dragon, with his stick held along his spine. The dragon laughs at this small prince with his old branch. He lowers his head to sniff him and then! Chlak chlak!   Without a second thought, the prince pokes out both eyes.
The dragon loses his balance, and his stumbling shakes the earth.
The freed camel bolts in the direction of the  village  with the princess bouncing on his shoulders.

The prince counts to ten, and the agonized cries cease. The dragon lies on the ground on his back, his four feet sticking up in the air.  With one cut of a knife, his tongue is severed. The prince picks it up, a little stunned at himself.

The adventure continues…
Three weeks later, on the way home, the young prince and the son of the Vizir stop in a village at the foot of the mountain.    They  are  received  by  the chief of the village, who is none other than  the  father  of  the  rescued young girl!
While they tell the story of their adventure, the prince takes out the split dragon tongue from his knapsack.
The king realizes that this young man is none other than the intrepid hero who had killed the dragon.   He didn’t know how to thank him. He orders a celebration to be held at once, and offers the prince his most precious gift...his daughter.
Without a second thought, they are wed. Hurrah! Long live the newlyweds!

The party is extravagant, the shouts of celebration   reach   the   sky  itself  and dance among the clouds.  Compared to the fires of joy, the stars themselves lose their shine.
But who had asked the young girl her opinion?  No one.
Her face, once full of cheer, suddenly darkens.
Luckily, the story doesn’t stop here.

The next day, the son of the Vizir, the young prince, and the young princess once again take up their adventurous journey.   They take a break under the birds’ tree.  During his nap, the prince hears them say:

"Alas! The moon will poison the prince with a falcon's feather. “And when he is dead...”

“She will marry the love of her life, the falconer.”

Moon, of course, is the title for newlywed brides.
The prince wakes with a start.  He tells his  traveling  companion  about  his dream.

“Let  me  sleep”,  complains  the son of the Vizir, who had eaten too much and was sleeping it off, “It’s only a dream...”

“Still!” insists the Prince, “I need you! This isn’t the time to snore!”

The sound of something falling wakes the princess up: it is the falcon who, struck by an arrow, has just fallen at her feet.  The falconer is bound to the trunk with ropes.

“Don’t worry”, murmurs the young woman to the falconer, “I’ll do everything I can to save you.”
On saying this, she pulls out one of the falcon's feathers and slides it inside her dress.
The young prince is perplexed and his thoughts turn round and round.
He knows two things for certain:
One: He didn’t save the young girl because he was in love with her.
Two: She didn’t have to love him just because he saved her.
Love  and  gratitude  are  two  very different sentiments.
What should he do? How should he decide?
If he kills the falconer, the young girl would surely seek vengeance.  Or she would send herself into death to join her beloved,   and   that   wouldn’t   be   any better.
And if he doesn’t kill the falconer, the princess would find means to flee with him.   She would never let him trample on her happiness.

One way or the other, he, the intrepid hero who killed the dragon, would lose.

At that moment, a bell tolls.  A cloud of dust rolls in the direction of the prince. It is the camel that he had saved, the camel whose feet are now pounding along the road.

“I'm truly happy to have found you again!” says the huge camel, its voice thick with tears, “I would   like   to   thank   you  for saving my life! Forget your worries and strife, put on your traveling boots, and come with me! We’ll leave together, and I’ll show you the eight wonders of Afghanistan!”

The   young   prince,   touched   by   the camel's tears (which are quite different to a crocodile's tears), accepts his new friend's  proposition, and leaves the young girl, overwhelmed with gratitude, behind him.  She unties the falconer and the two lovebirds leave to start their life together.

The prince is about to travel once more, dream   once   more   and   discover   the world far beyond kings and chiefs.  Life is long for one who understands the language of birds.
The sun sets, and all's well that ends well.     Or  at  least,  no  worse  than  it began. They say that at the foot of the mountain, if one takes the time to look for it, one can see a dragon, transformed into rock.  A few steps from the dragon, the falcon's blood has also metamorphosed, blooming into a desert rose.  As  for  the  Vizir’s  son,  they say that he still sleeps under the magic tree.

He had eaten too much praline. Or was it too many raisins?

Marie Nimier
(d’après les contes et légendes d’Afghanistan de Ria Hackin et Ahmad Ali Kohzad)

Translated by Margaret Trettin
Edited   by   Dr.   Henry   Jones   &  Dr. Jeanne‑Sarah de Larquie