and I think about how, not so long ago, it was common to believe that dragons actually lived in the British landscape, perhaps having only recently died out, perhaps still hidden in underground lairs. As late as the nineteenth century there are accounts of country folk treating newts with great superstition, believing they were dragon spawn . . . We all find our play in different places, after all. Some of us in the search for follies, some of us in the stories they suggest. What matters is that we play at all, that we nurture that particular quality of attention, that we keep up the dialogue
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