" Soon all sorts of birds began flocking around

To see the big egg that Myrtle had found-

Blue jays and redbirds and noisy magpies

And a big stuffy owl who was worldly and wise.

'It won't hatch, said the owl. 'That egg is stone-cold.

Why for all we know it's a thousand years old.'

"If it does hatch,' a jay said, 'I'll bet it's a turtle,

For, after all, you are a turtledove, Myrtle.'

But the dove didn't listen to what the birds said;

She was bound and determined to go right ahead."

"Drew the egg - colored it pinkish purplish bluish- and printed the title under it, and then wondered for a few years what could be in the egg. (I) went on to other things. I thought at first there might be a dragon in the egg, but then I thought, well, there have been so many dragon stories and I thought I could find something a little different. Finally I decided it would be a griffin." Bill Peet in an interview with E. Edwards, post 1970

Bill did eventually write a story about a dragon named Droofus and another mythical beast, a sea serpent named Cyrus, was the hero of another story.