Imagine a time of DRAGONS -- some larger than mountainsides, slumbering in the depths of the ocean; some smaller than your fingernail, hopping through the heather.
Imagine a time of VIKING HEROES, in which men were men and women were sort of men too and even some little babies had chest hair.
And now imagine that you are a boy called Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, not yet twelve years old and not yet turning out to be the kind of Hero his father would have liked him to be. That boy, of course, was really ME, but the boy I was then seems so far away to me now that I shall tell this story almost as if he were a stranger.
So, imagine that instead of being me, this stranger, this Hero-in-Waiting, is YOU.
You are small. You have red hair. You don't realize it yet, but you are about to set out on the most alarming episode of your life so far ... When you are an old, old man like I am you will call it "My First Encounter with the Roman Empire" -- and even at this distance in time it will still cause your old wrinkled arms to prickle with goose bumps as you remember the perils and dangers of that terrifying adventure...
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