The Hoard of the Gibbelins is a fantasy

Fantasy

Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...

 short story

Short story

A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...

 by Lord Dunsany

Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron Dunsany

Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany was an Irish writer and dramatist, notable for his work, mostly in fantasy, published under the name Lord Dunsany...

. It was first published in The Sketch

The Sketch

The Sketch was a British illustrated newspaper weekly, which focused on high society and the aristocracy. It ran for 2,989 issues between February 1, 1893 and June 17, 1959. It was published by the Illustrated London News Company and was primarily a society magazine with regular features on royalty...

in London and in The Book of Wonder in 1912. It was also reprinted in the anthology

Anthology

An anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts...

 The Spell of Seven

The Spell of Seven

The Spell of Seven is a 1965 anthology of fantasy short stories in the sword and sorcery subgenre, edited by L. Sprague de Camp and illustrated by Virgil Finlay. It was first published in paperback by Pyramid Books...

, edited by L. Sprague de Camp

L. Sprague de Camp

Lyon Sprague de Camp was an American author of science fiction and fantasy books, non-fiction and biography. In a writing career spanning 60 years, he wrote over 100 books, including novels and notable works of non-fiction, including biographies of other important fantasy authors...

.

The story, only 4.5 pages long in paperback, tells of the exploits of Alderic, Knight

Knight

A knight was a member of a class of lower nobility in the High Middle Ages.By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior....

 of the Order of the City, to seek and purloin the fabled hoard of precious gems rumoured to be held in the castle of the Gibbelins. These strange creatures live in a land chained to the Earth across the river ocean and they have a built a tower at the narrowest point to attract humans, on whom they feed.

Alderic, acting on conflicting advice, captures a dragon

Dragon

A dragon is a legendary creature, typically with serpentine or reptilian traits, that feature in the myths of many cultures. There are two distinct cultural traditions of dragons: the European dragon, derived from European folk traditions and ultimately related to Greek and Middle Eastern...

and rides upon it to the riverbank. He swims the river, spends the night breaking into the supposed treasure-cellar with a mighty pickaxe, and finds the gems. But the Gibbelins find him, capture and kill him.

The opening paragraph of the story gives a good indication of both tone and tenor of Dunsany's style at the time of writing:

The Gibbelins eat, as is well known, nothing less good than man. Their evil tower is joined to Terra Cognita, to the lands we know, by a bridge. Their hoard is beyond reason; avarice has no use for it; they have a separate cellar for emeralds and a separate cellar for sapphires; they have filled a hole with gold and dig it up when they need it. And the only use that is known for their ridiculous wealth is to attract to their larder a continual supply of food. In times of famine they have even been known to scatter rubies abroad, a little trail of them to some city of Man, and sure enough their larders would soon be full again.