49 pages • 1 hour read
Cressida CowellHow to Train Your Dragon
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2003A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 4-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 4 Summary: “How to Train Your Dragon”
Led by Snotlout, the others mock Hiccup and his dragon. They notice the dragon has absolutely no teeth and start calling it “Toothless.” Fishlegs retorts that Snotlout has no right to the Monstrous Nightmare that he selected. By right, the fearsome beast belongs to Hiccup. The two boys argue, which ends in Fishlegs suggesting that Hiccup challenge Snotlout for the right. As the future chief, Hiccup reluctantly accepts, and the boys decide to settle it with a fistfight after Thor’sday Thursday.
Back at the village, Hiccup and Fishlegs go to the Great Hall to look for the book Gobber recommended, How to Train Your Dragon by Professor Yobbish. However, when they find the book, forgotten and almost falling into the fire, it only has one chapter that states simply: “Yell at it” (27).
Chapter 5 Summary: “A Chat with Old Wrinkly”
The next day, Hiccup talks with his grandfather, Old Wrinkly, who had foretold that Hiccup would find a dragon that would set him apart from the tribe. When Hiccup complains that it’ll only stand out because it’s smaller than everyone else’s, Old Wrinkly explains to him that “size is all relative” (29). The dragons in Berk are insignificant next to a real Sea Dragon. He says that the tribe is due for a change in leadership. Hiccup, he says, has the imagination and brains to turn the Hairy Hooligans less violent and get them to cooperate with each other.
Hiccup also complains that How to Train Your Dragon only gives instructions to yell at the dragon. He laments that he doesn’t have “the sheer charismatic force” (31) necessary to train his dragon because he is incapable of yelling.
Old Wrinkly notes Hiccup’s ability to talk with dragons, a rare skill. He suggests that Hiccup might be able to use his knowledge of Dragonese to add information to Professor Yobbish’s book. When Hiccup counters that yelling is probably the best way to train dragons, Old Wrinkly again reminds him of the relativity of size. He advises that yelling at a Sea Dragon would probably end poorly.
Chapter 6 Summary: “Meanwhile, Deep in the Ocean”
At the bottom of the ocean, a large Sea Dragon has slept for 600 or 700 years, sleeping off a large meal after eating an entire Roman encampment. However, a passing orca notices the dragon’s eye twitch, suggesting the dragon has come out of a deep sleep.
Chapters 4-6 Analysis
Hiccup’s conversation with his soothsayer grandfather sets the story’s direction, and the theme of The Underdog’s Triumph: “Size Is All Relative” emerges. Old Wrinkly functions as Hiccup’s mentor. He sets up the Sea Dragon as the book’s antagonist while also intertwining the idea that size is relative. (The short chapter depicting the roused dragon foreshadows the climactic fight to come.) The Vikings’ cultural trend to prize physical might will inevitably fail them when encountering a threat that outclasses them in size. Old Wrinkly’s suggestion that Hiccup will serve the tribe well as chief stems from the fact that Hiccup’s small stature has forced him to solve problems with critical thinking. In tandem, Old Wrinkly’s predictions develop the theme of Breaking Tradition: Ingenuity in Leadership.
Historically, Vikings believed in soothsaying and destiny, with the god Odin desperate to change the fate of the gods at the end of the world. In the novel, these chapters display that fate and fortune matter deeply to the Hooligans as well. The Vikings treat their bonds with dragons as predestined. Throughout the book, the dragons often display the personality traits of their masters. Physically, both Hiccup and Toothless are undersized for the rest of the tribe’s liking, but they have a strong connection in name as well. The boys ridicule Hiccup, calling him “Useless.” An idiomatic way of calling something useless (for example, a law with no punishment for breaking it) is to say it “lacks teeth.” In this way, Cowell introduces the key symbol of teeth. But more than just thematically tying the two characters together, these chapters also show Professor Yobbish’s book as useless for its intended purpose. It then becomes Hiccup’s destiny to create something more useful.
