Edith Nesbit

“ And they looked here, and they looked there, but never a dragon could they see.
`But here's its trail,' said the Prince, and pointed to where the rock was scarred and scratched so as to make a track leading to a dark cave. It was like cart-ruts in a Sussex road, mixed with the marks of sea-gull's feet on the sea-sand. `Look, that's where it's dragged its brass tail and planted its steel claws.'
`Don't let's think how hard its tail and claws are,' said the Princess, `or I shall begin to be frightened -- and I know you can't tame anything, even by kindness, if you're frightened of it. Come on. ”

“ Of course it was no use going home and telling the King that the dragon didn't want princesses -- because His Majesty was very old-fashioned and would never have believed that a new-fashioned dragon could ever be at all different from an old-fashioned dragon. They could not go into the cave and kill the dragon. Indeed, unless he attacked the Princess it did not seem fair to kill him at all. ”

“ But as every well-brought-up prince was expected to kill a dragon, and rescue a princess, the dragons grew fewer and fewer till it was often quite hard for a princess to find a dragon to be rescued from. And at last there were no more dragons in France and no more dragons in Germany, or Spain, or Italy, or Russia. There were some left in China, and are still, but they are cold and bronzy, and there were never any, of course, in America. But the last real live dragon left was in England, and of course that was a very long time ago, before what you call English History began. ”