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Our Shropshire Stories

aeddan the little dragon, by aidan llewellyn

st thomas and st anne's primary school, hanwood

runner-up!

1400 AD. Once in the deep water of Africa a little sea dragon was swimming around a desert island to make himself dizzy. Aeddan was having so much fun that he didn’t see a large sea dragon creeping up on him. The large sea dragon opened his mouth wide and started to move towards Aeddan. Aeddan came round the corner and only just avoided the long, sharp teeth crunching him to death. Aeddan swam away but the large sea dragon followed. Aeddan swam as fast as he could past green kelp forests, colourful coral reefs, broken ship wrecks and dark, gloomy caves until he reached the River Severn. Aeddan carried on up the river even though the sea dragon couldn’t go after him. Aeddan swam past towns, farms and boats. After a while he discovered it was very cold so he stopped at a human village. He poked his head out of the water and saw people running around doing jobs. “Hello,” (It came out as glug glug) said Aeddan. Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked. There was a pause and then one lady screamed “it’s a monster!” Everyone screamed and ran away. One boy called Ben slipped on some mud running away and saw Aeddan sadly sinking back into the water. Ben went over to the edge of the water and looked in. Aeddan poked his head out of the water and looked into Ben’s eyes and said “glug?” “Hello. How are you?” asked Ben. “Glug glug glug,” replied Aeddan. “Okay. I’ll call you Aeddan,” said Ben “This is the village of Brompton,” explained Ben “Also do you want to learn English?” Asked Ben “Glug,” said Aeddan very enthusiastically “I’ll take that as a

sea dragon.png

yes then,” said Ben. So every night Ben would creep out of house and down to the river to teach Aeddan English. One evening Ben looked into the river and called for Aeddan but there was no reply! Ben called again but still there was no reply. Ben was looking around for Aeddan when he found a small rock with writing on it. It read “Goodbye Ben. I will miss you but I needed to go home. The water is too cold for me”. Ben felt sad that Aeddan was leaving but happy that he had successfully 

taught Aeddan English. Ben was rather lonely the rest of the year without Aeddan. But one day Ben saw rippling in the water. It was Aeddan. He had come back! “Hello, I will come back every year,” said Aeddan. And so he did. Even

his descendants came back from Africa to see the people of Brompton. The End. Epilogue: When Ben grew up and became a farmer he gave his fields names and one was called Aeddan’s Nook which was later renamed to Dragon’s Nook.

this story was inspired by the place-name near and far diagonal fields, in Brompton - to find out more, click here.

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