How to Train Your Dragon: How to Cheat a Dragon's Curse
Cressida Cowell
You don’t have to read the Hiccup books in order.
But if you want to, this is the right order:
ABOUT HICCUP
Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third was
an awesome swordfighter, a dragon-whisperer,
and the greatest Viking Hero that ever lived.
But Hiccup’s memoirs look back to when
he was a very ordinary boy, and finding
it hard to be a Hero.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the
author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons,
living or dead, is coincidental.
Text and illustrations copyright © 2006 by Cressida Cowell
Cover design by Kristina Iulo
Cover © 2010 Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading,
and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful
piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the
book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the
publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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First ebook edition: June 2014
ISBN 978-0-316-33567-6
E3
~ CONTENTS ~
1. The Hunting-with-Bows-and-Arrows-on-Skis
Expedition ........................................................15
2. Sabre-Tooth Driver Dragons...............................29
3. The Hunters Become the Hunted........................48
4. Is There Something Wrong with Fishlegs?...........67
5. Smashsticks-on-Ice............................................79
6. What Old Wrinkly Said.......................................89
7. The Quest for the Frozen Potato........................100
8. The Wrath of Thor..............................................110
9. Back on Berk.....................................................118
10. Freya’sday Eve on Hysteria.............................120
11. In the Soup......................................................131
12. Will Toothless Save the Day? ..........................151
13. The Great Potato Burglary...............................158
14. The Potato-Burglars’ Run.................................176
15. They Might Just Make it, Now..........................182
16. The Doomfang..................................................186
17. The Quest is Over.............................................196
18. Fishlegs...........................................................207
19. The Final Chapter.............................................214
Epilogue.................................................................233
1. THE HUNTING-WITH-
BOWS-AND-ARROWS-ON-SKIS
EXPEDITION
Winters were always cold in the Viking Lands.
But this winter was the coldest in a hundred
years. It was so cold that the Sullen Sea had frozen over,
and all the islands in the Inner Isles were now joined
together by a great flat desert of solid ice, two
metres thick in places.
On this particularly cold
morning several hours before
breakfast, it was as if the whole
15
world was holding its breath, frozen in time. The air was
as sharp as broken glass, no sound disturbed the pure
snowy silence.
No sound, that is, apart from an appalling, mad
screaming coming from somewhere out in the middle
of the ice.
For a small party of young boys and their
teacher from the Hooligan Tribe had set out from
the little Isle of Berk where they lived to the Island of
Villainy to the south.
Not in a boat, of course, for you cannot sail
across a frozen sea.
16
They were speeding far too fast across the ice
in an enormous wooden Viking SLEIGH, pulled by six
pure white Sabre-Tooth Driver Dragons larger than lions
and faster than cheetahs.
The dreadful mad yelling was coming from the
man driving the sleigh, Gobber the Belch. Gobber was
the teacher in charge of the Pirate Training Programme
on Berk, and he was an enormous monster of a man
wrapped up in furs who could easily have been
mistaken for a grizzly bear with a dirty red beard and
an attitude problem.
‘GEDDONWITHIT YOU MISERABLE
WHITE WORMS!’ roared Gobber at the Sabre-Tooth
Dragons, cracking his whip above their heads. ‘I’VE
HAD SNAILS THAT HAVE MOVED QUICKER
THAN YOU LOT! MY GRANNY COULD SKIP
FASTER THAN THIS AND SHE’S A HUNDRED
AND FOUR! YEEEEEEHAAH!!’
One gigantic furry arm lashed out with a whip
that curled through the air like a great black serpent,
the other shook the reins in a lunatic frenzy that sent
the Driver Dragons bounding forwards in terrible
uncontrolled leaps.
Behind Gobber on the sleigh sat twelve of
his pupils.
17
Ten of these boys were ugly young thugs yelling
as loudly in crazy excitement as their teacher.
‘YEEEEEEEHAAAAH!’ they whooped, as the
sleigh hit a snowbank and sailed ten metres through
the air and then slammed back down on the ice with
stomach-churning violence.
‘YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAH!!’
The last two boys were smaller than the rest and
a lot less excited.
‘I’m glad,’ gasped Hiccup Horrendous Haddock
the Third, as the sleigh tipped over wildly on one
runner with an awful screech and spray of ice, ‘I’m glad
I didn’t have breakfast because I think it would have
come up again…’
Hiccup is, in fact, the Hero of this story, although
you would never have guessed it to look at him. He
was small, and red-haired, and very, very ordinary.
Hiccup’s best friend Fishlegs, a skinny runner-
bean of a boy with asthma and a squint, wasn’t
really listening. He was praying to Thor with his eyes
squeezed tight shut.
‘Please, Thor,’ begged Fishlegs, ‘please make it
stop…’
Fishlegs’s prayer was about to be answered.
The sleigh was approaching the great black cliffs
18
of the Visithugs Territo
ries far too impossibly fast for it
to stop in time…
‘Don’t open your eyes, Fishlegs,’ advised Hiccup.
Gobber the Belch reared up and with a mighty
roar of ‘WOOOOOOAH!!!’ leant back so far pulling
on the reins that he was nearly horizontal. The Sabre-
Tooths came to a plunging halt so sharply that the
sleigh wheeled round in a mad arc… they were going
to slam into that cliff at such a speed they would all be
smashed to splinters…
‘AAAAARGH!’ yelled Hiccup, shutting his
eyes too.
The sleigh screeched to a quivering halt. Hiccup
opened his eyes again. Astonishingly, they were still
alive. But the smooth black wall of the cliff was only
centimetres away from Hiccup’s cheek. Hiccup held on
to the rock for a second to help himself stop shaking.
‘RIGHT!’ bellowed Gobber, clambering out of
the sleigh entirely unconcerned. ‘WHAT ARE YOU
ALL DOING SKULKING IN THERE? GET OUT
AND STAND TO ATTENTION YOU PATHETIC
DRIBBLES OF EARWIG DROPPINGS!’
Yawning and chattering, all twelve boys
unpacked skis from the back of the sleigh, and
attached them to the bottom of their furry boots.
For six months of the year the Vikings lived
under SNOW… so a Viking Warrior had to be just as
good at SKIING as he was at SAILING.
This was a Hunting-with-Bows-and-Arrows-
on-Skis Expedition. The boys had to ski down Mount
Villainy, the largest mountain in the Inner Isles,
shooting with their arrows as many Semi-Spotted
Snowpeckers as they could.
‘I’m going to get at least FIFTY,’ boasted
Snotface Snotlout, a tall thug of a boy with huge
nostrils and a moustache like a little furry caterpillar
squirming on his upper lip.
20
‘SILENCE!’ screamed Gobber, cracking his
whip.
There was absolute silence immediately. It’s
a curious fact, but a heavily armed, mad, six-and-a-
half-foot teacher holding a whip tends to get his class’s
attention.
‘I will be staying here to guard the sleigh,’ yelled
Gobber. ‘Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third will
be in charge of the Hunting Party when you get to the
mountain.’
Ten of the boys groaned and turned round to
look furiously at Hiccup.
ALL of them reckoned they would make better
leaders than Hiccup.
Snotlout had won the Senseless Violence Cup
three years in a row. Wartihog could smash chairs to
pieces with his bare fists. Dogsbreath the Duhbrain
burped so loud he shattered glass.
Small, skinny and unimportant, only Hiccup
looked like he had no leadership skills whatsoever. He
stood on one leg apologetically and this made his skis
cross and he fell over.
‘Why does HICCUP get to be in charge
AGAIN?’ demanded Snotface Snotlout through
gritted teeth.
22
‘Because Hiccup is the son of the CHIEF and
one day he will be in charge PERMANENTLY, Thor
help us all…’ explained Gobber, helping Hiccup to his
feet and dusting the snow off him with one hairy hand.
‘Any questions?’ boomed Gobber.
Fishlegs put up his hand. ‘Just a small point, sir,’
he said. ‘How are we going to climb up the mountain in
the first place?’
‘The Sabre-Tooth Dragons will DRAG you to
the top ON your skis,’ replied Gobber. ‘It shouldn’t take
more than half an hour.’
Fishlegs and Hiccup looked dubiously at the
great white creatures crouching dangerously on the
ice, tongues spilling out over teeth as sharp as swords,
cat-like eyes gazing at their small human Masters with
the purest hatred.
23
‘So that’s that, then,’ said Gobber. ‘I shall wait
for you here and see you all in three hours’ time… I
really need a NAP… way too early for me…’
Gobber settled himself on the furs of the sleigh
and gave an enormous yawn. ‘Oh, and one more thing…
as you know, nobody lives on the island of Villainy, but
the island of Hysteria is just next door and I should
warn you that at this time of year there may be Hysterics
about…’
24
‘HYSTERICS???’ squeaked Fishlegs, somewhat,
well, hysterically. ‘But the Hysterics are trapped safely in
Hysteria, aren’t they?’
HYSTERICS, I should explain, were a
particularly bloodthirsty and lunatic Tribe of Vikings.
Even tough Tribes like the Visithugs were scared of the
Hysterics. Hiccup had never actually met a Hysteric, but
he knew they were renowned for killing you first, and
asking questions later.
Normally they didn’t trouble the other Tribes,
however, because three-quarters of the island ended in
dizzyingly high cliffs plunging straight into deep seas,
and on the north coast was the Wrath of Thor, where
an impossibly huge and monstrous Sea Dragon called
the DOOMFANG lived.
The good news about this was that nobody
could get into Hysteria, and even more importantly, the
Hysterics could not get out.
Except at this time of year…
‘Because at this time of year,’ boomed Gobber
happily, ‘the Wrath of Thor is all frozen over, and the
Doomfang is trapped under two metres solid of ice. So
if you do happen to come across a Hysteric – and I’m
SURE you won’t, it’s far too early in the morning – I
suggest you ski like fury in the opposite direction.’
And just like that, Gobber fell asleep.
26
Sabre-Tooth Driver Dragons
Sabre-Tooths are enormous lion-like dragons that
do not hibernate, and are therefore very useful
to the Vikings for pulling their sleighs, and
dragging them up mountains during the winter.
They have been known to eat their owners.
~STATISTICS~
COLOURS: Always white
ARMED WITH: Sabre-Teeth and spikes on head.
FEAR FACTOR:.................6
ATTACK:...........................7
SPEED:.............................7
SIZE:................................7
DISOBEDIENCE................6
2. SABRE-TOOTH DRIVER
DRAGONS
Gobber’s enormous snores rang out like a walrus calling
out to another walrus some fifty icebergs away.
As if they were all a part of the same creature, the
pack of Sabre-Tooth Driver Dragons settled themselves
down on the ice and refused to move. By Woden’s Armpit,
but those Drivers were BIG.
The boys looked at them.
‘Well come on, then, Hiccup,’ grunted Wartihog
impatiently. ‘Take charge!’
Hiccup cleared his throat and used his most
reasonable voice. ‘OK, guys,’ he said in Dragonese.* ‘I
don’t want any trouble…’
‘Oh look, it talkssss…’ hissed a particularly large
/>
and savage-looking Sabre-Tooth. He was missing an eye,
and from the specially royal way he held himself, seemed
to be the Leader of the Pack. ‘The little Human
Tadpole is speaking the noble Dragon tongue…’
The other Drivers laughed jeeringly.
‘We all know what we’re supposed to be doing
here...’ Hiccup continued.
30
‘We know what WE’RE going to be doing,’
sneered the Driver, closing his one eye and settling
himself comfortably. ‘WE’RE going to have a nice
long sleep right here while you sweat it up the
largest mountain in the Inner Isles…’
‘Oh for Thor’s sake!’ exploded Snotface Snotlout.
‘That girly “speaking Dragonese” stuff isn’t going to
work with these brutes!’
Snotlout grabbed the black whip from Gobber’s
relaxed hand, and cracked it.
Snnnnnnaaaap!
The Driver Dragons blinked open their eyes.
Snotlout cracked the whip again, this time
letting the end of it lash the face of the Sabre-Tooth
with the one eye. The Driver sprang to his feet with
a yowl of pain and the rest of the pack followed him,
furious but respectful. The boys cheered.
‘That’s the way to do it!’ grinned Snotlout,
whipping another of the dragons for the pure pleasure
of it. The animal howled and Snotlout laughed. ‘Disobey
ME, would you, you SNIVELLING CRAWLING
PIECES OF FORKED-TONGUE RUBBISH! This’ll
learn you!’
‘Don’t do that, Snotlout,’ said Hiccup quietly.
Hiccup didn’t normally stand up to Snotlout, but he
31
couldn’t bear to see an animal as proud and dignified
as a Sabre-Tooth Driver made to dance about like a
monkey.
Snotlout stopped what he was doing to turn on
Hiccup.
‘What’s this?’ sneered Snotlout. ‘Is Hiccup the
Useless trying to tell Snotlout the HERO what to do?
Face it, Hiccup, the snow will turn as blue as Gobber
