
How to Train Your Dragon (novel series)

How to Train Your Dragon is a series of twelve children's books, written by British author Cressida Cowell. The books are set in a fictional Viking world and focus on the experiences of protagonist Hiccup as he overcomes great obstacles on his journey of Becoming a Hero, the Hard Way. The books were published by Hodder Children's Books in the UK and by Little, Brown and Company in the US. The first book was published in 2003 and the last one in 2015. By 2015 the series had sold more than seven million copies around the world.
The books have subsequently been made into a franchise consisting of three films of the same name, several short stories and an animated television series all produced by DreamWorks Animation. Only 4 of the books are made into films
Books.
Cowell has published twelve full novels, based around the adventures of a young Viking named Hiccup Horrendous Haddock The Third. The first book was published in 2003, and the last book was released in 2015. All the books have titles based around an instruction guide.
Related early reader books.
Dreamworks also published 6 early reader books based on the movies; these were not written by Cressida Cowell. They are:
Cowell published the supplementary spin-off stories as part of the series: "The Day of the Dreader" is a short story published in 2012 and the novella "How To Train Your Viking" was published as part of World Book Day 2006 and is claimed to be written by the dragon Toothless and translated by Cowell. Both of these titles were published in the US as part of the May 2014 "How to Train Your Dragon Special Edition: With Brand New Short Stories!" paperback movie tie-in edition. A picture book, "Hiccup the Seasick Viking" published in 2000, is not considered a part of the series despite featuring the same character of Hiccup. An illustrative guide to the dragon world, titled "The Incomplete Book of Dragons", was released in June 2014 (in the US it is titled "The Complete Book of Dragons").
Cowell cites the Scottish Inner Hebrides islands and stories of Scandinavian Scotland as inspirations for the book.
Characters and Voice Cast.
Overview.
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Plot Synopsis.
"Hiccup: The Viking Who Was Seasick" (2001).
Poor little Hiccup is spooked by the sea, and he's to make his first voyage soon—next Tuesday. His father, Stoick the Vast, says there's no such thing as a frightened Viking. But Hiccup's about to find out otherwise. Hiccup's hilarious tale shows the true meaning of bravery, and the delights that await when one faces one's fear. This book features the first appearance of Hiccup Horrendous Haddock The Third and his father, Stoick the Vast.
"How to Train Your Dragon" (2003).
The first book in the series follows Hiccup as he captures a dragon as a rite of passage and attempts to train him so that he will not be exiled from Berk, as is its tradition for young Viking boys on this island. Led by their teacher, Gobber the Belch, Hiccup manages to catch a small dragon, whom he names Toothless, and attempts to train it through his own methods. The Viking students are told to read a book called 'How to Train Your Dragon' by Professor Yobbish, but the book was found to have only one page and was therefore unhelpful. The Viking students must have their dragons trained before the Thor'sday Thursday Celebration in order to become proper Vikings. During this celebration, Toothless offends another dragon and a fight ensues between all the dragons. As this is seen as failure to train the dragons correctly, the boys are exiled, allowed to stay one night while a storm rages. During the storm, three Sea Dragons are washed up on the shore of the island and one seems a threat to the Vikings. Hiccup is chosen to negotiate with the dragon, who has eaten one of the other dragons. However, the dragon, who calls himself the Green Death, says he is going to kill all the Vikings. While the village elders argue over how to attack the Green Death, Hiccup, the boys and their dragons start a fight between the Green Death and the other sea dragon, the Purple Death, resulting in Hiccup nearly being swallowed and having to be rescued by Toothless, killing both sea dragons in the process. Hiccup and Toothless become heroes because of their bravery.
"How to Be A Pirate" (2004).
The sequel to "How to Train Your Dragon" starts during a Sword-Fighting-at-Sea lesson during a storm, but Hiccup is quite bad at sword-fighting. The fight is cut off as the boat tips over and is holed by an object, a coffin, upon which Hiccup rides back to the Isle of Berk. On the beach, it is discovered that it is the coffin of Grimbeard the Ghastly, the greatest pirate of all times and Hiccup's great great grandfather. Soon the coffin is opened and they find out that it contains a living man, named Alvin the Treacherous, who hides his true identity under the name Alvin the Poor-but-Honest-Farmer.
Alvin tells the Hooligans that he was locked in the coffin and sent out to sea by "some very rude people". He claims that he discovered the coffin buried in the Peaceable country, and upon opening it, a booby-trap was set off, which cut off his right hand. He also tells the Hooligans that in the coffin, he found a riddle that tells how to find the treasure of Grimbeard the Ghastly and a map that depicts the island where the treasure is buried.
They reckon that the treasure is in the Isle of Skullions, an island inhabited by dragons called Skullions, that while being blind, deaf, and flightless, have a keen sense of smell. According to the riddle, the hunting dragon of the heir to the Hairy Hooligan's tribe will sniff out the treasure. The Hooligans travel to the Isle of the Skullions, where a small treasure chest is found by Snotlout, along with Grimbeard's famous sword, the Stormblade. However, Grimbeard has booby-trapped the chest with a smell that would wake up all of the Skullions on the island, and a brief, desperate fight with the Skullions ensues, during which Hiccup dislocates his right arm. A few of the Skullions are killed, and the Vikings escape with the treasure. Upon nearing Berk, the Hooligans begin fighting over the treasure, and as they fight, they are ambushed by a group of cannibalistic Vikings known as the Outcasts. Alvin reveals himself to be the Outcast's chief, and another battle starts. The ship soon catches fire and sinks. Everyone abandons it, climbing on the Outcasts' ship to continue the battle, but Hiccup, Toothless, Fishlegs, and Alvin are trapped underneath the capsized ship, kept alive with an air pocket.
As the air pocket is finally destroyed by the weight of the capsized ship, Toothless finds an underwater cavern filled with air. As the party begins to explore the cavern they come to a door and upon opening it, they find it filled with mountains of gold and jewels, the real treasure of Grimbeard the Ghastly. Alvin turns on Hiccup to kill him using the newly acquired Stormblade, the sword of Grimbeard the Ghastly. In the sword-fight that follows, Hiccup discovers that he is actually left-handed and hence why he was never good at sword-fighting. In the fight, Alvin steps on a pile of treasure under which is hidden a Monstrous Strangulator, an octopus-like creature that was placed there by Grimbeard to guard his treasure. It consumes Alvin, and as it comes next for Hiccup, Hiccup tricks the creature into injecting itself with its own poison. The creature's nervous system is destroyed and they escape, but Hiccup decides that the world is not ready for the treasure, and leaves it behind.
They soon surface with the aid of Toothless, and the book ends with Hiccup, Toothless and Fishlegs all getting back to the village and finding that the Hooligans had survived and won the battle with the Outcasts but had set them free.
In the epilogue, Hiccup tells us that in a secret compartment in the handle of the sword that he used to fight Alvin, he found the last will and testament of Grimbeard the Ghastly. It turns out that the sword was Grimbeard's favourite sword. It is revealed in "How to Steal a Dragon's Sword" that the sword's name is the Dragonsword, but Old Wrinkly names it the Endeavor.
"How to Speak Dragonese" (2005).
In the third installment, while Hiccup and Fishlegs are out at sea learning the Boarding-an-Enemy-Ship lesson, they become lost. Fishlegs, fearful of Sharkworms in the waters, accidentally boards a Roman Ship in the fog. Fishlegs is caught, while Hiccup hides and tries to figure out a way to free him and escape. Hiccup overhears a 'fiendishly clever' plan by the Fat Consul and the Thin Prefect to get the Hooligans and the Bog-Burglars to fight each other, then steal all their dragons while they are occupied. Hiccup is able to cause a distraction and escape with Fishlegs, but not before losing half of his How to Speak Dragonese notebook and Toothless getting captured.
The boys return to Berk having failed the lesson. Hiccup cannot sleep that night without his best friend, Toothless.
In the morning, Hiccup realizes he took home a Nanodragon from the Roman Ship who was covered in honey and about to be eaten by the Fat Consul. The Nanodragon is, in fact, the great king of the Nanodragons and self-proclaimed 'living god', Ziggerastica. For saving his life, Ziggerastica tells Hiccup he can call his name and he will come.
Later during another lesson, Hiccup and Fishlegs are kidnapped by poorly dressed Romans trying to look like Bog-Burglars to start a blood feud. The kidnappers take the boys to Fort Sinister, a base of operations for the Roman Empire in the Archipelago. Once there, Hiccup realizes that the Thin Prefect is in fact Alvin the Treacherous. Alvin would love to dispatch Hiccup right then and there, but the Fat Consul thinks it would be great entertainment to see the Barbarian children fight in the gladiatorial arena on Saturn's Day Saturday a few weeks hence.
Fishlegs and Hiccup are imprisoned along with the young female Bog-Burglar heir named Camicazi. Toothless is eventually allowed to stay with Hiccup. After several failed attempts at escape, Hiccup calls for Ziggerastica and comes up with a plan of escape on Saturn's Day Saturday.
When the festival day arrives, the gang are put on a ship and sail into the gladiatorial arena, where they are to fight deadly Sharkworms, rather than a traditional fight on land. However, due to Hiccup's planning with the nanodragon king, Hiccup appears to fly into the air like a Nicolas Cage and 'blow' the cage roof off. The stunned Fat Consul gives him his Roman Shield, while the Thin Prefect gives Hiccup back his How to Speak Dragonese book. The arena erupts in chaos and the children escape in a Roman Observation Balloon. Alvin manages to get his hand-hook lodged into the balloon basket, but the children are able to twist him off, and he falls into Sharkworm-infested waters.
They fly home in the balloon, then crash land onto the ships of Stoick and Big-Boobied Bertha. The two tribes make amends and return to their homes. Unbeknownst to Hiccup, Alvin had planted a Venomous Vorpent within the pages of his book, and it stings someone.
"How to Cheat a Dragon's Curse" (2006).
This book is the fourth in the series. During a hunting-with-bows-and-arrows-on-skis expedition, Hiccup finds Fishlegs acting strangely when they spot a group of Hysterics, a tribe of scary lunatic Vikings, who chase Fishlegs. Hiccup shoots an arrow at the chief Hysteric (known as Norbert the Nutjob) and hits him in the buttocks which infuriates him. Hiccup and Fishlegs flee on their skis, with the Hysterics behind in hot pursuit. Hiccup falls off the side of a cliff. At first One-Eye, the Saber-Toothed Driver dragon which had pulled Hiccup and Fishlegs to the top of the mountain, refuses to rescue Hiccup; but when Hiccup points out that if he does not save him, Snotface Snotlout (who had previously treated One-eye very badly) will become Chief of the Tribe, One-eye saves Hiccup after all, and Hiccup and Fishlegs return to the village. Hiccup is worried about Fishlegs and takes him to see Old Wrinkly. Old Wrinkly examines Fishlegs and tells Hiccup that Fishlegs is suffering from Vorpentitis, a disease caused by the sting of a Venomous Vorpent, and the only cure to this disease is a vegetable that they call the vegetable that no one dares name (potato) from the land that does not exist (America). Hiccup does not believe him, because all Vikings, except the Hysterics, believe that the world is as flat as a pancake, and there is NO such place as America (they think if you sail as far west as you can go you will fall of the face of the earth). Old Wrinkly tells Hiccup that Norbert the Nutjob's father, Bigjob, had actually gone to America and made friends with the Americans and brought back the potato to prove he was right about America being true. However, he was attacked by a Doomfang. Old Wrinkly predicts the potato might be in the Hysteric Territories, and tells him that he must bring it back before ten o'clock the next morning, or else Fishlegs will die. Hiccup asks his father Chief Stoick the Vast if he can go to Hysteria in order to retrieve the potato to save Fishlegs's life, but Stoick forbids him.
Hiccup lies to Stoick saying that he was spending the night at Snotlout's house, but instead he goes to get the potato. He brings Camicazi and Toothless on the journey to Hysteria, with One-Eye pulling them on a sleigh. The two children enter through the roof (while the dragons wait on the roof) of the great hall where the Hysterics are celebrating Freya's day Friday. They lower Camicazi into the chimney, but Hiccup accidentally falls into a giant pot of onion soup, and gets discovered by Norbert the Nutjob. Hiccup makes Norbert show him the potato by pretending not to believe in the potato. Norbert finally reveals his father's preserved body(frozen in ice with the potato), and in Norbert's father's hand is a glass case with the frozen potato which has an arrow stuck in it. Hiccup tries to persuade Norbert to give him the potato, but Norbert refuses. Norbert soon gets annoyed with Hiccup, and decides whether Hiccup should or should not die by throwing his double-sided axe into the air. If it lands on the black side, Hiccup will die, if it lands on the golden side, he will live. Hiccup cheats by catching the axe just as it is about to land on the black. Norbert is annoyed that Hiccup cheated, and locks him in the cage. After the Hysterics fall asleep, Camicazi picks the lock of Hiccup's cage; freeing him (Toothless took the key to cage from Norbert's pocket, but swallows it, and accidentally sets fire to a bear skin carpet). Camicazi lowers herself down with a rope and grabs the potato, but sees Norbert's ticking-thing in the glass case and takes that too(she says bog burglars can't resist stealing extra things). Suddenly, the preserved body of Norbert's father falls on a row of Squealers (a type of dragon that Vikings use as an alarm), who give ear-piercing screams and (a pack) can devour a human in less than 10 seconds. All the Hysterics suddenly wake up. They think it is a friendly "party"
Hiccup, Camicazi and Toothless get out of the Hall through the chimney. The three, along with One-eye, escape in Hiccup's boat, but get attacked by the Doomfang, which lives under a frozen sea called the "Wrath of Thor". The Doomfang breaks out of the ice and uses its tongue to grab the potato and eats it. Hiccup realizes that his mission has failed and guesses that the Doomfang had Vorpentitis, as it showed the symptoms. Once he gets back, he realizes that Fishlegs had only caught a cold, and Old Wrinkly had made a mistake. Stoick yells at Old Wrinky for making Hiccup go on the quest for nothing and almost getting killed by Norbert. Hiccup suddenly falls on the same bed Fishlegs was lying on, and his entire body goes stiff. Old Wrinkly examines Hiccup and explains that it is actually Hiccup who has Vorpentitis. Hiccup desperately tries to speak, murmuring "Oot me!",(trying to say "shoot me!") and tries to point at the arrow on the table next to him which had been stuck in the potato for a long time. Fishlegs realizes that Hiccup wants him to shoot him with the arrow, which is soaked in the juices of the potato. Fishlegs shoots Hiccup on the foot, and Hiccup recovers. In the epilogue, Hiccup buries the arrow that saved his life and a seed on the end of it grows another potato which is used to cover the island with potatoes so no one dies of Vorpentitis ever again. In the epilogue, Hiccup explains that the Doomfang that ate the potato thanked Hiccup by following his boat and assisting in keeping Hiccup safe in impossible situations.
"How to Twist a Dragon's Tale" (2007).
The fifth book in the series. The story begins with the children on a herding exercise for their Pirate Training Programme. They are distracted by a huge fire rolling down the mountainside. The fire is found to be the doing of the Exterminators, big evil fire dragons. While most of the kids escape on Gobber's riding dragon, Goliath, before he is killed by the Exterminators, Hiccup and Gobber are left to defend themselves. Hiccup and Gobber are saved by a mysterious man in a fireproof suit riding a white dragon, whom they at first believe to be a man from the treacherous Lava-Lout tribe. The man soon reveals himself to be Humungously Hotshot, one of the greatest heroes on the planet. Although Hiccup's father, Stoick, begins to regard Hotshot with jealousy, he hires him as Hiccup's "bodyguard".
After that, Hotshot saves Hiccup from several deadly situations, all of which are later revealed to be his own doing. Later on at night, Hiccup wakes up to Hotshot looming over him with his swords, arguing with himself whether or not to kill Hiccup. He ultimately decides not to, and Hiccup asks him what he's doing. Hotshot begins to tell Hiccup his story, of how he fell in love with a Viking woman, but her father wanted her to marry someone clever. The woman's father sent Hotshot on an Impossible Task to find and bring back the Firestone, and the reward was the woman's hand in marriage. Hotshot traveled to the volcano where the Firestone was hidden, but he was captured soon after by the Lava Louts. After a few weeks, he became friends with a jailkeeper named Terrific Al. He asked Terrific Al to bring a half of the ruby heart to his love because she vowed to save him if she received the ruby heart. Terrific Al told Humongous that he would bring the ruby heart to his ladylove if he promised to do something for him and disappeared for fifteen years and came back to tell Humongous Hotshot that his love threw the heart out of the window and married somebody else who had already brought back the Firestone. Terrific Al (who mysteriously has lost a hand, half a leg, an eye and all of his hair) told Humongous the thing he must promise to do is to kill Hiccup, stating that Hiccup is a Prince of Darkness and a Devil Child, who will send terror across the Archipelago. After Hotshot finishes his story Hiccup figures out that the woman Humungous is talking about is Hiccup's own mother, who had thought he was dead, and that "Terrific Al" is really the terrible villain Alvin the Treacherous as Hiccup had guessed. Hiccup, Fishlegs, Hotshot, Camicazi, the White Dragon and the Windwalker, Hiccup's riding dragon travel to Lava-Lout Island to put the fire stone inside the volcano to stop the volcano from exploding and are attacked by Alvin riding an Exterminator. Alvin reveals the first Sharkworm he met tore out his eye, but he killed it and hid inside. However, after he got out on shore the dead Sharkworm's mouth shut on his leg, but he carved a new one from its teeth. The volcano erupts and the Exterminators hatch. Hiccup manages to put the stone into the volcano. But on contact with the lava, the fire stone hatches into a fire dragon, revealing that the fire stone is actually an egg. The dragon eats all the Exterminators, including the one Alvin is riding, swallowing Alvin (again, Hiccup thinks he's dead) and the dragon dives back into the lava. Hiccup and his riding dragon, Windwalker, run down the island away from lava and fall into the sea. Hiccup's father and others rescue him and everything works out well. In the epilogue, Hiccup tells us that Windwalker turns out to be his faithful flying dragon.
"A Hero's Guide To Deadly Dragons" (2007).
The sixth book in the series is the only one not to have the word "How" in its title. But it is also named "How NOT to Celebrate your Birthday". Its cover name is named only "A Hero's Guide to Deadly Dragons" after Hiccup's informative book inside this book. Hiccup is lost in the Library Labyrinth and the Driller Dragons and Madguts the Murderous are on the prowl, all because of a book! Hiccup's birthday is not going to be the quiet affair he might have hoped for. This book contains an open-up map of the Barbaric Archipelago, a Dragonese Dictionary at the back, Dragon Profiles and "Conversations with Toothless".
Hiccup wakes up that morning, wishing for a peaceful birthday. He then tries to persuade Toothless to eat his breakfast, which is spinach and driftwood. Toothless refuses, so Hiccup goes to the Finals of a Burglary Competition between the Bog-Burglars and the Hooligans alone. When Hiccup returns home, he realizes Toothless has eaten three-quarters of Stoick's throne. Stoick comes in the room, and is in a bad temper because he had made a bet to Big-Boobied Bertha that he could prove that the Hooligans were just as good at Burglary as the Bog-Burglars by the end of the day, and also because Hiccup has been researching about dragons and writing in notebooks about them. He throws a tantrum, but remembers that Gobber has stolen the "How to Train Your Dragon" manual from the Meathead Library under the nose of the Hairy Scary Librarian. Stoick tells Hiccup that if Toothless does one more thing like this, he will banish him, and goes off to find the book.
Toothless guiltily reveals that he also burned the copy of "How To Train Your Dragon". Camicazi suggests that they can go to the Meathead Library, and supposedly there might be another copy of the book, and get back home "in time for tea". Hiccup, Camicazi and Fishlegs go to the Island of Forget Me on a Stealth Dragon Big-Boobied Bertha had stolen from Madguts the Murderous, the Chief of the Murderous Tribe, for the bet with Stoick, to visit the Meathead Public Library. With the help of Stormfly, Camicazi's dragon, they find the copy of "How to Train Your Dragon", though it is a second edition. The Hairy Scary Librarian catches them stealing the book and fights with Camicazi and Hiccup. Fishlegs throws a book at the Hairy Scary Librarian. However, Stormfly is knocked out in the process, and awakens with no memory of who she is, and how did she get in. The Librarian, who falls onto the floor, which is full of Red Hot Itchyworms (the worms went into his pants, tickling him) runs toward the exit, laughing and screaming. The noise attracts Driller Dragons who are dwelling in the Library.
Hiccup finds a book that was written by Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the II called "A Hero's Guide To Deadly Dragons" which was exactly the same book that Hiccup the third wrote, which had been taken from him earlier that morning. He pulls the book out and the shelf opens, revealing a hole filled with Poisonous Piffleworms. Their only exit would be to go through the hole.
Hiccup takes back the second edition of "How to Train Your Dragon" to the Isle of Berk. Meanwhile, Madguts tracks down the Stealth Dragon and it leads him to the Isle of Forget Me. They find that it has gone to the Isle of Berk and go there. On the Isle of Berk, both Stoick and Bertha find the stolen things they have got for the bet are missing. The Hairy Scary Librarian arrives and shoots Stoick with a Northbow but Hiccup's handwritten book saves Stoick's life and Hiccup, Fishlegs, and Camicazi come from the sky and squash the Librarian flat with the Stealth Dragon. Madguts and Gumboil arrive for the Stealth Dragon and are about to kill Bertha. Hiccup saves her by lying to Madguts, telling him that the Scary Hairy Librarian had stolen the Stealth Dragon instead, so she squashed the Librarian. Madguts believes him and takes the Librarian away. Hiccup persuades Stoick that books are useful and books are unbanned by order of the Thing.
At the end of the book, there is Hiccup's finished A Hero's Guide To Deadly Dragons, as well as a Dragonese dictionary and conversation starters with Toothless.
"How to Ride a Dragon's Storm" (2008).
This is the seventh book in the series. The story starts at the beach at the bottom the Murderous Mountains. Madguts the Murderous invites two tribes, the Bog-burglars and the Hairy Hooligans to join the Murderous Tribe, over for an Intertribal Friendly Swimming race. The winner may have a single request which will be granted by the three Chiefs of the three tribes. The winner of the swimming race is the one who is the Last Man (or Woman) back. Madguts, Stoick and Big Boobied Bertha set off to the water more slowly than the others, more certain that they will win the race. Gumboil and Madguts laugh at the fact that Bog-burglars and the Hooligans are all wearing Blubberwing fat to keep themselves warm, and show them the Deepest Purple Fleshfang oil they are wearing, which is so hot, in fact, that a steam is billowing off Madgut's chest. And then they tell them that there is a pot at the edge of the water. Gumboil assures the two Chiefs that they can go back, because the race does not start until you start swimming. The two Chiefs realise the pot is empty, and also realises that they have been tricked into returning to the beach in three minutes and twenty-two seconds, and become the losers of the Race. Hiccup, Camicazi and Fishlegs have difficulty in swimming the farther waters, even though their hunting dragons are trying to help, especially Fishlegs, who has to swim in armbands. They encounter Snotlout and Dogsbreath, who destroy Fishlegs' armbands. Camicazi and Fishlegs are pulled underwater after a while. Hiccup also is pulled down, and is pulled back to the surface, realising that he and his friends have been captured by Raptortongues. They are taken to a ship and tied up. Their hunting dragons are tied up too.
The ship happens to have Madguts, Norbert the Nutjob (Chief of the Hysterics) and Gumboil. Norbert has asked Madguts to take Hiccup, Camicazi and Fishlegs to the boat, and in return letting him rest on the boat for a few hours, before he continues the race, being the Last Man Back. After Madguts and Gumboil leave, Hiccup returns the ticking thing, which he had stolen from Norbert in an earlier adventure. Norbert attempts to use the ticking thing to get to America. Norbert is about to kill Hiccup, Camicazi and Fishlegs with the Axe of Doom, but is forced to untie the three because he cannot read the ticking thing. Hiccup and his friends explore the boat, finding many interesting contraptions that have been made by Norbert, for example: a machine that generates a high-pitched noise that will startle giant dragons and a flying Machine that is tested by crew members every day, only to crash into the ocean. Hiccup discovers there are slaves called the Northern Wanderers on the boat. He falls into the Slave Hatch by accident one day and meets Bearcub and his grandmother. Hiccup pleads that Wanderers not to kill him, and promises to free them, and is rescued by Norbert. The boat reaches the land of Polar-serpents, where dangerous dragons called Polar-serpents roam. Hiccup decides to use Dragon-nip to make the Hysterics fall asleep and escape with the Wanderers. Hiccup pours dragon-nip into the crew's dinner, making them all fall asleep. After all Wanderers are safe on the emergency boats, Hiccup falls off the boat and lands on an iceberg, and is chased into a cave by Polar Serpents. Hiccup accidentally wakes up a gigantic dragon, which also chases Hiccup. Hiccup manages to get back onto the boat, and uses the machine that generates a high pitched noise to keep the monster away, identifying it as a Leviathorgan. America is in sight, but a storm breaks out, and the Leviathorgan from the cave attacks the ship. Norbert and Hiccup fight on the top of the ship. Lightning strikes Norbert's axe and it enters the sea, killing the Leviathorgan. Hiccup falls off the mast, as he swims up he hits his head on a sinking cauldron which shortly gives him amnesia, and then he passes out. He is rescued by Fishlegs and Camicazi. Back at the Murderous Mountains, Madguts is clearly the winner, and demands Stoick and Big-Boobied Bertha to be sacrificed to Sky Dragons. Old Wrinkly announces that Hiccup, Fishlegs and Camicazi have not yet returned, and the race is supposed to be three months, five days and six hours, so they still have to wait for three months, before Madguts is declared winner, and the two other Chiefs will be under temporary custody under Madguts.
Camicazi and Fishlegs are rescued by the Wanderers. The two take Hiccup on board too, and after Bearcub's grandmother's medicine, Hiccup awakens. After a long time, the ticking thing start to tick louder, because Old Wrinkly had set an alarm on it. With only six hours left, and thinking that Old Wrinkly really did have a reason to set the alarm, the three fly to Berk on Norbert's flying machine, which the Wanderers had collected. The machine works well, but as they near Berk, the machine breaks and crashes into the ocean. Hiccup and his friends come just in time for the alarm to set off. Because Hiccup is the last person back, he demands Madguts to sing a love song at the next "Thing" while dressed up as an "ickle pretty shepherdess".
It is revealed that in turn for his life, the Northern Wanderers have tattooed Hiccup with the Slavemark, a Viking symbol which now means he is technically a slave. However, he can hide the Slavemark under his helmet and so now will have to wear his helmet forever.
"How to Break a Dragon's Heart" (2009).
This is the eighth book in the series. The Hooligans, while searching for Camicazi (who had been shipwrecked during a storm) in the Eastern Archipelago(a dangerous section in the Barbaric Archipelago), accidentally crash their ship into a rock, and the ship sinks in the shallow waters of the Beach of the Broken Heart, a haunted beach belonging to wicked pirates called Uglithugs, forcing the Hooligans to camp there. While on the beach, they find a mysterious object, and they discover it is a throne belonging to Hooligans, as the Hooligan coat of arms is on it.
In the middle of the night, the leader of the Uglithugs, UG, and his men, discover the Hooligans, waking them up. UG tells them that he doesn't want to kill them, but wants to talk to them about a strange event: a Hooligan has been sending love letters to UG's daughter, Tantrum O'Ugerly, and explains that if the person is of royal blood, the person can ask for Tantrum's hand in marriage after the person finishes an Impossible Task, and if not, the person will be killed. Hiccup realizes that Fishlegs is the one who sent the letters, and spares Fishlegs's life by telling UG that he himself wrote the letters. UG then tells him the Impossible Task: to give them a barrel of mead made from the honey made by the bees on the Island of Berserk, an island inhabited by crazy lunatics who enjoy feeding people alive to a dragon known as "the Beast" in wicker baskets. UG then tells Hiccup that he should be back at UG's castle on Midsummer's day at five o'clock in the morning with five pots of Berserk honey.
Back on the little isle of Berk, Stoick convinces the other Hooligans to help Hiccup collect the honey. Meanwhile, Fishlegs realizes that he himself is a Berserk, after going berserk himself. And that he had been thrown into the sea in a lobster pot and had been adopted by Hooligans, and goes off to Berserk on his Chickenpoxer dragon. Hiccup and Toothless follow him on the Windwalker.
On Berserk, Fishlegs successfully collect five pots of honey, but gets captured by Berserks. So is Hiccup. At the Berserk Village, Hiccup and Fishlegs meet the other fiancés of Tantrum, one of them being Humongously Hotshot the Hero. All of them are to be fed to "the Beast" later in the evening. Hiccup realizes that the chef of the Berserk Chief is actually Alvin the Treacherous (who is in chains). Alvin explains that when he was in the Fire Dragon in Book 5, he had used his sword to pop open the stomach of the Exterminator Dragon he was riding (because there is lots of laughing gas in the stomach of dragons). The Fire dragon burst out in laughter, melting off Alvin's nose, and Alvin floated out in a bubble, which was later shot down by a Berserk. Alvin then fell from the sky onto the Berserk Chief's chef, killing him, and spared his own life by agreeing to become the Chief's new chef. Hiccup tells Alvin that he can help him escape if he shows him where Camicazi is imprisoned (Hiccup had already knew that she was imprisoned in Berserk). Alvin agrees but while they are in the woods, he pushed Hiccup into a tree cell, where he meets a witch who introduces herself as Hogtrude(and Hiccup introducing himself as Fishlegs), who helps get some nasty things from Toothless's tummy. The witch then finds Hiccup suspicious and decides to tell him a story and at the end of the story, they will both guess each other's names and whoever guesses right will get to kill the other.
The witch then tells Hiccup how Grimbeard the Ghastly had three kids, Thugheart, Chucklehead and Hiccup Horrendous Haddock II. Grimbeard tried to kill the second Hiccup by leaving him in the mountainside, upsetting his wife who left to look for the second Hiccup. Meanwhile, the second Hiccup was adopted by Grimler dragons and learned to speak Dragonese, but was found by Hooligans, and he and his adopted step dragon brother, a Seadragonus Giganticus Maximus named Furious, lived with Grimbeard. One day, Hiccup wanted to hold a petition for the dragons to demand freedom. However, Thugheart tricked Grimbeard into thinking that it was an attack and Grimbeard killed Hiccup, but soon he realizes that Hiccup just wanted a peaceful petition, and regrets his actions and buried his treasures and left in his boat(Furious took the second Hiccup's corpse away). The witch guesses Hiccup's correct name, and Hiccup guesses that the witch is Alvin the Treacherous's mother, both being correct. Hiccup then escapes by using a key that had been in Toothless' belly to unlock the door to the cell and rescues Camicazi and they return to the Berserk Village. Hiccup goes back into his cage just as the feeding of "the Beast" begins. Alvin, surprised that Hiccup has returned, chooses Hiccup to be fed to "the Beast" first. Hiccup realizes that "the Beast" is actually Furious. After realizing that Hiccup is a descendant of a boy he loved, he swears a "cross my heart and hope to die" oath (this is an oath that any dragon cannot break) if Hiccup sets him free. The oath was that Furious will help free the prisoners on the island and never harm humans. Hiccup realizes that the key he has can free Furious and they free the thirteen fiancés and cause chaos in the village. Furious, however, then reveals that he only has "half a heart"; therefore he can obey a part of the oath and ignore the other (the Dragon Furious picked the first part, obviously). He sets fire to the Berserk woods and tells Hiccup that a year after he leaves the Archipelago, he shall return to destroy the humans along with a dragon army. Hiccup, Camicazi, Fishlegs, Toothless, the Windwalker and the Chickenpoxer return to Berk along with the honey.
Meanwhile, Humongous bring his five pots of honey to UG's room and goes on his honeymoon with Tantrum (because Humongous had been the one she had loved). In the epilogue, Hiccup reveals that sometimes he dreams he is the father of the second Hiccup, and sees him riding on a dragon, promising he will return.
"How to Steal a Dragon's Sword" (2011).
This is the ninth book in the series. Bad times come to the Archipelago, and ever since the woods of Berserk burned down it is as if the world is cursed. Hiccup and other young warriors are brought to the island where "Flashburn's School of Swordfighting" waits for them. The children have 3 weeks at the school to train their sword fighting for New Year's Day; there will be a sword fighting competition, in which the winner is declared a new warrior of his tribe. The youngsters have to go up the cliff, "The Hard Way", and are attacked by a pack of dragons of different species, which is unusual behaviour for dragons. Hiccup's clever plan saves the lot of them. But once at the school, no one is to be found. Worse still, the only person there, the wicked witch Excellinor (Alvin the Treacherous's Mother) has returned as the castle's witch. She tells everyone that the dragons are revolting in a "Red Rage" and are led by the dragon Furious, who was one year before released by... Hiccup. She tells the tribes that the sword fighting competition must be used to find the next king of the Wilderwest. She tells them a prophecy which is about the next king: he has a dragon with no teeth, an arrow from a land that does not exist, Grimbeard's second-best sword, a ticking-thing, a rectangular shield, a throne, a crown, and the Dragon Jewel. Hiccup has got all of these things, except the throne, though he knows where it is, the crown, and the dragon jewel. Meanwhile, the witch makes sure that her son Alvin has no challengers during the competition, using methods such as making Stoick disappear and placing an urchin in Camicazi's boot (leaving her limping). Hiccup finds the crown under Flashburn's school, along with a dragon called the Wodensfang, a very old, ancient dragon that was told to guard the crown by Grimbeard the Ghastly. The Wodensfang tells him he was the one who gave the first Hiccup the Dragon Jewel. He gets back into the hut and the witch attacks him but he was immune to the vorpent venom on her claws, gets himself covered in the poison in the struggle, and wins the competition, beating his own father, leaving Alvin third. Hiccup is declared winner and tells the tribes that he wanted to free all dragons so that there would be no revolt in the first place. He wants to abolish slavery for both humans and dragons. Most tribes agree on this, but then, when all looks so well, Snotlout throws a stone at his head, knocking Hiccup's helmet off, revealing he has the Slavemark. Since he has the Slavemark, Hiccup is automatically a slave, disqualified from the competition, exiled from his tribe, and could never become chief, let alone a king. Stoick, Hiccup's father, is also banished, because he knew Hiccup was a 'runt', and thus should not have been part of their tribe in the first place, but instead abandoned as a baby. Fishlegs, who is also a runt, was abandoned, but he ended up on Berk. Everyone has to turn their backs, excluding Fishlegs, who gives Hiccup his lobster-claw necklace, the only thing Fishlegs has from his parents. Alvin's the new king, and declares war on the dragons. Furious arrives and the war begins. Only Windwalker and Toothless stay faithful, and bring Hiccup to safety. He is followed by the dragons, who think he has the Dragon Jewel, the only thing that could stop the dragons now. In mid-chase he falls unconscious on dragonback and wakes up safe in a cave, Hiccup now all alone, an outcast, an exile, no sword, no helmet, only the Windwalker, Toothless and the Wodensfang by his side, Hiccup's in despair, until he finds he actually has the map to find the Dragon Jewel (Which is revealed by the venom on his hands uncovering the secret map on Grimbeard the Ghastly's will), and triumphantly cries: "This is not the end! I will be back!"
"How to Seize a Dragon's Jewel" (2012).
This is the tenth book in the series. The Dragon Rebellion has begun. Snotlout is the new Chief of the Hooligan Tribe. Stoick has been banished and given the Slavemark. And Alvin the Treacherous has EIGHT of the King's Lost Things, and has been proclaimed the new King of the Wilderwest... but what can Hiccup do, now all alone and in exile, hunted by both humans and dragons? Can he find the Dragon Jewel, mankind's last and only hope? And if he does, what will he do with it?
The book starts with Hiccup in exile. He is nearly killed by his mother, Vallhallarama, while he deactivates dragon traps, and loses the map to her. He travels to a slave jail under Alvin the Treacherous's control to spy on Alvin. There, he finds and befriends many slaves, including his father, who now combs the beaches during low tide, looking for the Dragon Jewel. Alvin discovers Hiccup and makes him look for the Dragon Jewel by himself, with a deadly armed guard. A Deadly Shadow swoops down and snatches Hiccup before he has a chance to look for the Jewel. The dragon brings him to a hill to kill him, but notices that he has the lobster claw necklace. They (the dragon has three heads, Arrogance, Patience and Innocence) tell him that they had promised to care for a Berserker woman's baby who was supposed to be killed by drifting through the ocean. They lost sight of the baby however, and as it happened, it drifted to Berk and grew up to be Fishlegs. Hiccup admits he is not this child, and tells them of Fishlegs' fate (which was to be sucked into a hole in the ground). He goes to this hole and gets pulled in to it by its inhabitant, a large dragon with an eye on each finger. His dragon instincts tell him that this dragon can't be reasoned with, so Hiccup plays dead long enough for the dragon to eat him up to the waist, which is when Hiccup stabs the dragon in a major vulnerable spot. He ventures off into the creature's maze of glass walls because of a mysterious voice and finds Fishlegs. He also finds the Dragon Jewel. Then they swim to shore through and exit, and the Deadly Shadow picks them up, all flying triumphantly into the distance. Cressida Cowell tells readers to stop reading there if they want a happy story. However Valhallarama finds Hiccup and takes him to the slave jail. There she convinces the slaves and others to join Hiccup against Alvin by giving herself the slavemark and calling it instead the 'dragonmark'. The Dragons finally break into the jail and the humans flee. However, when Hiccup frees Toothless and the Wodensfang, he loses the Dragon Jewel to Alvin. The story ends with Hiccup happily being reunited with his human companions.
"How to Betray a Dragon's Hero" (2013).
This is the eleventh and second-to-last book in the series. The book opens with UG the Uglithug trying to trick the Druid Guardian into crowning him king, but the Druid Guardian finds it's a trick and the Dragon Guardians of Tomorrow kill him by "Airy Oblivion". While waiting for Valhallarama (she was going to retrieve the rest of the things from the Alvinsmen – Alvin's team – so Hiccup would become king), the ten companions of the Dragonmark (Hiccup, Fishlegs, Camicazi, Toothless, Wodensfang, Stormfly, Windwalker, Innocence, Arrogance and Patience) hear a human calling for help then abruptly stopping. Soon they find Wolf-fangs in the river, showing them why he was screaming. Then they see why he stopped. Thousands of Dragon Rebellion dragons were sleeping on the riverbank. Then they see who the human is... Snotlout. Everyone except Hiccup decides to leave him, but Hiccup persuades them to save him, accidentally waking up Snotlout's Hogfly. The Hogfly, in turn, accidentally wakes up the nearby Rebellion dragons. They all flee from the Rebellion dragons (joined by the dragon Furious) to their secret hideout, hiding as Furious and the dragons search for them. However, Alvin's Spydragons kidnap Camicazi so Snotlout brings them on a rescue mission to save her. When escaping from the Alvinsmen, Snotlout changes clothes with Hiccup to provide a diversion. Snotlout is shot down, and killed, and Hiccup's lament forgives him for his bullying. and praises his fine work as a strong young Viking later on. Therefore, everyone thinks Hiccup is dead, though he survived, but he is left unconscious on a beach.
"How to Fight a Dragon's Fury" (2015).
The twelfth and final book in the How to Train Your Dragon series. Hiccup wakes up on the beach at Hero's End with the Wodensfang, Hogfly... and amnesia sustained when he hit his head on the mast of the boat at the end of the previous book. The Wodensfang tries to explain who Hiccup is, but before they can they are attacked by Sharkworms and the Vampire Spydragon from the previous book. After defeating the dragons, Hiccup takes a boat which has washed up on the beach and sails towards Tomorrow. Fishlegs, Camicazi, and the Triple-Headed Deadly Shadow Dragon try and rescue Hiccup, but he attacks them because he doesn't know who they are and the Wodensfang is asleep from a poison dart. Once Hiccup reaches Tomorrow, he is captured by the Dragon Guardians of Tomorrow who attempt to kill by performing Death by Airy Oblivion, but halfway up realize that they have made a mistake and Hiccup should not be killed, and so drop him in the swamp. Hiccup crawls out of the swamp and enters Grimbeard the Ghastly's castle just as Alvin is about to be crowned king by the Druid Guardian. At this point, Hiccup regains his memory and gives a speech convincing the Druid Guardian to crown him king instead. Hiccup is crowned and prepares to engage Furious in single combat. The Druid Guardian tells Hiccup the secret of the Dragon Jewel: that it contains two tiny dragons which are carrying a deadly virus that can wipe out dragonkind if the jewel is cracked. However, Hiccup's jewel doesn't have the dragons, meaning that it is a fake. This means that Hiccup will have to defeat the Dragon Furious with might alone. Hiccup rides the Windwalker, accompanied by Toothless and the Wodensfang, into battle and is knocked off the Windwalker's back by Furious. As Furious prepares to kill Hiccup, Hiccup remembers a speech Furious gave at the beginning of battle, where he talks about how Hiccup was the new Grimbeard and would be a cruel king. Furious cites how Hiccup has the king's things and the lobster necklace, which Fishlegs gave him for luck. Hiccup deduces that the necklace was also Grimbeard's, and so gets Toothless to crack open the necklace with his jaws, revealing the real Dragon Jewel. Hiccup threatens Furious with the jewel and talks to him, reaching a peace agreement. Once the agreement has been reached, Hiccup throws the jewel into the sea. However, before the agreement can be made, Alvin and the Witch attack Furious, thus violating the laws of single combat. Furious gets the dragon army to attack and so soon there is an all-out Vikings vs. Dragons battle. Meanwhile, Camicazi and Fishlegs capture and detain Alvin, who reveals that he found the necklace in Grimbeard's tomb and gave it to a princess as a present while masquerading as a fisherman, which means that Alvin is Fishlegs' father. After telling this, Alvin prepares to kill Fishlegs before the Dragon Guardians intervene and kill him once and for all by giving him "death by airy oblivion". Hiccup convinces Furious to call off the attack once more and are once again about to reach a peace agreement when the Witch attacks Hiccup with the Stormblade. Furious intervenes and kills the Witch, then completes the treaty and makes himself and Hiccup blood brothers. However, the Stormblade was poisoned and so Furious leaves his command of the dragons to Luna, his second-in-command, and goes out to sea to die. The epilogue shows how Hiccup built a new kingdom of harmony on Tomorrow where humans and dragons could live in peace, but also had humans domesticate horses and hawks so that he can fulfill his promise which stated that if humans didn't change by the time he died, dragons would have to go into hibernation. Hiccup also instructed Fishlegs to perpetuate that the whole story was just a myth. The series ends the way it began: "There were dragons when I was a boy..."
Films.
DreamWorks Animation released on 26 March 2010 a computer-animated film adaptation "How to Train Your Dragon", directed by Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois, the directors of "Lilo & Stitch". The film features Gerard Butler as Stoick the Vast, Hiccup's father, Craig Ferguson as Gobber the Belch, and Jay Baruchel as Hiccup. The film proved to be a resounding critical and box office success, and became a major media franchise for DreamWorks Animation including a 2014 feature film sequel "How to Train Your Dragon 2", with Dean DeBlois directing it. The franchise concluded in 2019 with "" with the dragons go into hiding to the Hidden World.
Differences from the first book.
The plot of the film is almost completely different from the first book in the series. The greatest change is how the Vikings in the book have the custom of capturing and training in combat against dragons even before the story begins – but in the film, they are fighting a fierce war against the dragons and only switch to training them after Hiccup shows that this can be done. Furthermore, Toothless is completely re-imagined as an injured Night Fury dragon, the rarest, fastest, and most powerful and intelligent breed that is capable of carrying human riders on its back as a flying mount. In the books Toothless is an exceptionally small and exceptionally common dragon who is extremely disobedient, essentially comparable to the films' Terrible Terrors; the production stated that the changes were made to add a sense of danger to Hiccup's efforts to train Toothless, with the Night Fury Toothless freely capable of biting Hiccup's limbs off if he wanted. However, Cowell stated in her blog that she felt approvingly that the film remained "true to the spirit and message of the book." Cowell also explained that she felt that the adaptation required a change in plot and characters.
A primary character in the films who does not appear in the books is Astrid, a fierce Viking girl and Hiccup's love interest. Like Camicazi, Astrid is a highly skilled warrior and fighter who is a close friend of Hiccup's. In the short film "Gift of the Night Fury", it is revealed that Astrid's Deadly Nadder dragon is named Stormfly, which is the name of Camicazi's dragon in the book series. However, Camicazi is from the Bog-Burglars tribe, whereas in the films Astrid is a Hooligan like Hiccup.
Fishlegs, who is portrayed as Hiccup's best friend in the series of novels, is merely acknowledged as a friend in the films (though he is one of Hiccup's closer friends in the television series). His appearance is also described very differently. In the books he is portrayed as a skinny, often cowardly and sickly boy who gets scared around even the most harmless of dragons. In the films he is stout, highly knowledgeable (especially about dragons), and gets excited about dragons – especially if they are a new species. Like Camicazi, in the books Fishlegs is technically from a different tribe (the Berserks) but was adopted by the Hooligan tribe when he was abandoned as an infant; the films make no reference to this.
Snotlout in the books, though very similar in personality, would never dream of becoming friends with Hiccup and actually bullies him. In the films he is Hiccup's friend, although not an especially close one; he is rude and competitive, but he knows and accepts that Hiccup will one day be chief (though in the final film, he claims he's second in line). In the books, he is Hiccup's cousin and possible heir to the Hooligan tribe; some of his animosity with Hiccup is his desire to prove that he'd make a better chief. In the books, Snotlout has a Monstrous Nightmare dragon named Fireworm. In the films he also has a Monstrous Nightmare, but it is named Hookfang.
The name "Fireworm" was transferred to an entire species of small and flammable dragons in the films.
As in the books, the final film in the franchise concludes with the dragons going into hiding, although this happens after Hiccup and his tribe relocate to a new island rather than at the end of Hiccup's life, Hiccup recognizing that too many people seek to use dragons as weapons for the tribe to continue living alongside their friends. The dragons relocate to the 'Hidden World', a vast underground network of caves, with Toothless as the alpha of all dragons, accompanied by his newfound mate, the Light Fury. The film ends with an 'epilogue' scene, with Hiccup narrating the opening lines from the first book, which is set several years after the dragons departed, when a now-married Hiccup and Astrid return to the outskirts of the Hidden World to introduce their children to the dragons, Hiccup musing as he flies with Toothless and his son (Astrid riding on Stormfly with their daughter while the Light Fury and the hatchlings fly alongside Toothless) that dragons "are waiting at the edge of the world for [humans] to learn to get along."
Audio adaptations.
All twelve novels have been recorded as audio-books and released by Hachette Audio, narrated by actor David Tennant, who also plays the voice of Spitelout, Snotlout's father, in the films and in "DreamWorks Dragons".
Audio-books of the novels have also been released in German, narrated by Benedikt Weber and released by Arena Verlag GmbH, and are currently available through Audible.com.
"How to be a Viking" was recorded and released by Hachette Audio in 2014, narrated by Cressida Cowell.