Elizabethton was threatened by a dragon Wednesday morning, but there is no need to worry. The preschool Storytime group at the Elizabethton/Carter County Public Library had it under control.

The dragon, which was large, stuffed and multi-olored, had set up a lair in the pavilion at Edward’s Island park. The preschool readers headed to the park to see what they could do about the dragon threat.

At the park, the youngsters donned their armor and crowns, grabbed their weapons and set out to defeat the great dragon menace.

The session was part of the Summer Reading Program for the preschool-age children, children’s librarian Ashlee Williams said.

“The theme this year is Super Heroes, so we thought we would look at the fairy tale heroes,” she said.

At the pavilion, different activity stations were set up for the young readers. They could make their own crowns and cardboard swords covered with aluminum foil. From there they could travel to the Castle Puppet Theater to act out some fairy tales.

Once the young warriors were appropriately armed and rested, the readers then set out to find the dragon.

Trevin Orloff, who is a ninja as well as a knight, explained that to properly defeat the dragon one must hit it in the head.

“That is what works,” he said, while showing off his ninja kicks.

Other readers had a different approach to handling the visiting the dragon. Maggie James and Gracie Maupin took their time to train the dragon to let them ride on its back.

“This is fun,” Maggie said, as she bounced around with the dragon.

After the dragon had been handled, the readers were rewarded with a refreshing, cold popsicle.