Story: The Young Knight
An ANGER story – learning to use your anger occasionally but well.
Read the story below
There was once a knight who was also a very fine architect. He loved to build beautiful castles, and filled with beautiful things. As is often the way, sometimes some detail of his work would not be quite what he wanted or he would make a mistake. The Knight’s problem was, that whenever this happens a large dragon would suddenly appear and would blast the lovely building with a fiery breath, leaving it in ruins.
Then he would disappear again. He was a very large and fiery dragon and the knight found it difficult to catch his attention. And he began to despair of ever completing even one beautiful castle.
One-day however he managed to catch the Dragons attention. He said “ why are you destroying all of my work?
How can I ever finish anything if you keep burning it down?” The dragon was very surprised and said ”but I am your guard dragon. It is my job to protect you and look after you and make sure nothing harms you. But these buildings let you down. I can see that they are not as perfect as you want them to be and so it is my job to destroy them so they cannot upset you.”
So the young Knight said “it is very good of you to take care of me but I didn’t need you to do this. I can sort out the problems on my own. I do not need you to burn down the whole building for every little mistake – I can put it right myself.“
“Sometime it may be that I really am in danger and then I will need you to help me to deal with it. In the meantime I would like you to curl up quietly in the corner and you can have a good sleep – I know that I can rely on you to wake up if there is a real threat”
So the dragon curled up in the corner, and put his head down and began to sleep. He was a very vigilant dragon, and whenever he sensed that the knight was having any problem, he would stir and raise his head. But the knight noticed that it didn’t look at him or speak to the dragon for about 12 seconds the dragon would settle down and go back to sleep again. So the knight could get on with his life, and make beautiful castles, secure in the knowledge that the dragon was under control and would only come to his help if he ever really needed him.
Angela Shaw
