Here There Be Dragons

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ONCE UPON A TIME there was a king who was king of a very small country. Indeed, his kingdom was so small that most people were not even aware it existed.

The king thought that it was a fairly large kingdom, though, as kingdoms went. This was because there were many mountains around the place, mountains which were difficult to climb. Because of these mountains, travelers would just go on around the kingdom, rather than go through it. And very few people ever left the kingdom, to come back and tell of other lands. People were pretty much afraid to do that.

They were afraid of the dragons.

They never saw any dragons, mind you, but they were afraid of them. This is because all the maps in the kingdom showed that they were surrounded by dragons dragons here, dragons there, dragons all over the place, all because of Mister Gibberling.

Mister Gibberling was the Royal Cartographer. (That means he was the official mapmaker.) Mister Gibberling was the Royal Cartographer because his father and his grandfather had been Royal Cartographers. Mister Gibberling had learned his profession from his father, who had learned it from his father.

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