One day, it seems inevitable that divers will discover the Brisingamen’s wreck. They’ll check their O2 levels and their dive timers, pat their backup regulators for reassurance, then one by one slip in through the rents in the hull.

When they reach the mess, they’ll find the remaining debris of a meal in full sway. Pewter mugs tossed by the swell, trenchers of base metals and the remnants of long-rotted vittles.

At the table’s heart, a torn fragment of an old map, pinned to the oak by a sea-eaten dagger.

The paper is sodden and faded, but whatever waterproofing it once enjoyed has left it proof against the worst of the ocean’s entropy.

“Here be dragons,” reads the inscription. “Pray that you do not draw their attention.”

And if the divers were to peer closer, they’d recognise the unmistakable shape of the reef rising above the wreck.

They know that dragons are myth and ignorance, but through these tales, we know how little the Brisingamen cares for such semantics.

If the intruders trust their better judgements, if they swim clear with only knowledge and wonder in their hearts, this will be another happy ending. But woe betide those who delve deeper, with eyes full of gold and lost treasure; they may discover that claws of myth shred flesh just as well as those of substance.