THERE WAS ONCE A WICKED DRAGON that had become a real menace for the peasants of the village nearby: every first of the month, he demanded that a cart loaded with golden coins to be sent to him, which he stored in his cavern. If he did not receive it, he set the village on fire with his dragonflame and terrorized the villagers. So much pain had he caused to the villagers that he had become quite a target for all sorts of ambitious knights and bounty hunters.

One day that the evil dragon was treading through the forest, however, the presence of a very beautiful she-dragon taking a casual stroll caught his attention. He approached her, exchanged looks, and he then cut a beautiful rose with his claws and offered it to her. They both smelled it and realized it was very nice-smelling.

In the weeks that followed, the Dragon kept smelling the same rose. He could think of nothing other than his beloved she-dragon. No longer was he interested in the riches he had gathered in his cavern, or even whether the peasants obeyed his orders or not. At night, he went out of the cavern for lonely walks, then sat on the mountain tops and sang romantic melodies by himself. In the end, the villagers started wondering about paying the tax, as every time they visited his cavern, he was nowhere to be found. One of them then gave an answer to the question: the wicked dragon that had been plaguing their lands had fallen in love!

Every night, the evil, spiteful dragon went out of his cavern and met his fiancée in secret, dancing with her in the moonlight until early morning. He even bought her flowers and beautiful gifts, taking her on romantic rides to the nearby mountains. So much had he gotten “soft”, that he forgot everything about his past life, his dragonflame and claws growing weaker by the day. Yet the peasants of the village reluctantly kept paying the tax for quite some time, wondering whether he was really the same person.

When one day the decided not to pay the tax, the dragon failed to took notice. After a month or so, and after realizing it had been weeks since a human had shown up in his cavern, he realized the peasants had left the tax unpaid and went over to the village to punish them.

The villagers initially went to hide behind big rocks and trees. As soon as the dragon appeared, however, they burst into laughter with him: he had forgotten how to fly, no flame was coming out of his mouth, and his claws had gotten so weak that he couldn’t even cut a flower. They hunt him with arrows and nets, then threw him on the ground and demanded that he return all that he had taken through terror all these years.

Humiliated he returned to his cavern, where he gave them all he had taken from them. And so, the villagers lived well from that day on and got rid of a big evil. As for the dragon… so in love was he, that little did he care in the end when the villagers came to take back their gold!