"Sleep well, my darling," Eric's mother said, tucking her son in. "Sweet dreams." She kissed him goodnight and turned off the light.

"Good night, mommy," the little one mumbled sleepily and fell asleep shortly after.

Everything was quiet in Eric's room. His stuffed animals sat on the shelf looking down at him, and the little wooden Viking his mother had bought him at the Viking Museum stood next to him on the nightstand.

But later that night, something changed. Something unpleasant, oppressive spread through the room. From invisible cracks in the darkest corners drifted something gloomy.

A bad dream crept up on the sleeping boy. The dream brought fears and sadness, it would invade the child's sleep and feast on the fear and terror of little Eric.

Closer and closer it came to the bed, first offshoots of the evil dream already touched the sleeping boy, bringing nightmares with it. Eric's sleep became more restless, he began to roll around in bed, his breathing became heavier.

The bad dream began to feel the fear and terror in the little boy's sleep, its triumph was near.

But then the bad dream felt something it had never experienced before, it felt a stab go through its nightmare body. Its attention turned to the room, it wanted to know what disturbed it in its gloomy activity. And then it caught sight of the cause.

The little wooden Viking was standing on Eric's pillow, the wooden sword raised, the little shield turned against the evil dream!

The nightmare wanted to wipe away the troublemaker, but when it reached for him with a dream tentacle, the wooden sword hit the dream again. After a moment's hesitation, the evil dream decided to ignore the little Viking and instead turn back to the dreaming child, whose sleep had already become calmer because the nightmare had let go of him due to the disturbance.

But at that moment, the little wooden Viking jumped on the dream floating almost invisibly above the child and attacked him with his little sword.

If the first hit of the little Viking had been only a small stab, the evil dream now began to suffer real pain with every further stroke of the sword, a feeling it had never known before. It felt itself slowly beginning to fray from the wooden Viking's hits, more and more cracks and holes appearing in its nightmare body. It tried to shake off the small wooden figure, but the Viking did not let up, hitting the bad dream again and again.

Then the final blow fell and the bad dream disintegrated into countless small pieces and then disappeared completely. The wooden Viking stretched his little arms up in a victory pose and then looked over at Eric. The boy was now sleeping peacefully and undisturbed again, and the Viking returned to the bedside table.

There he guarded the rest of the night over the sleeping child, who rested peacefully and without disturbance until morning.

When his mother woke Eric the next morning, he excitedly told her about the amazing dream he had had: "There had been a bad monster, but a brave Viking had protected me and chased the monster away! It was great, Mom!"

The little wooden Viking stood on the bedside table and listened to the boy's words, and they made him very proud.

And for many years to come, he protected Eric every night from bad dreams, which he drove away with his little wooden sword.