Puff, the Magic Dragon poem titled "Custard the Dragon", about a "realio, trulio little pet dragon". The lyrics tell a story of the ageless dragon Puff and his playmate, Jackie Paper, a little boy who grows up and loses interest in the imaginary adventures of childhood and leaves Puff to be with himself. (The line "A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys" is generally thought to imply only that "little Jackie Paper" grew up.) The story of the song takes place "by the sea" in the fictional land of "Honalee". Lipton was friends with Peter Yarrow's housemate when they were all students
Puff, the Magic Dragon at Cornell. He used Yarrow's typewriter to get the poem out of his head. He then forgot about it until years later, when a friend called and told him Yarrow was looking for him, to give him credit for the lyrics. On making contact Yarrow gave Lipton half the songwriting credit, and he still gets royalties from the song. In an effort to be gender-neutral, Yarrow now sings the line "A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys" as "A dragon lives forever, but not so girls and boys." The original poem also had a stanza that was not