Draco volens, or flying dragon, a curious class of saurian reptiles peculiar to the East Indies, having membranous attachments to their limbs, which give them the appearance of flying as they leap from tree to tree.
Dragon’s blood, a vegetable balsam of a dark red colour brought from India, Africa, and South America. So called from its resemblance to dried and hardened masses of blood.
(The symbol of the Supreme Spirit of Evil, or the Evil One)
It was believed that in the gloomy land of the Cimmerians and the confines of Hades strange monsters were to be met; and not only there, but in any part of the universe which was conceived to bebeyond the pale of human habitation these weird creatures might be encountered. The same idea is recognised in the Semitic belief, that uncanny beings lurked in the outer deserts, where men did not penetrate at all, or did so only at great danger. The “place of dragons” is associated with “the shadow of death” (Ps. xliv. 19). Dragons are also associated with the waters of the deep (Ps. lxxiv. 13) and are called upon to praise Jehovah (Ps. cxlviii. 7); and Isaiah (xxxiv.), describing in vivid and picturesque language the destruction and utter desolation which shall come on Zion’s enemies, prophesies that her palaces and fortresses “shall be a habitation for dragons.”
The term dragon is applied by the translators of the Scriptures to some monsters of which we have no knowledge. The word is used by ecclesiastics of the Middle Ages as the symbol of sin in general and paganism in particular, though ofttimes heresy is denoted. The metaphor is derived from Rev. xii. 9, where Satan is termed the Great Dragon; in Psalm xci. 13, it is said “the saints shall trample the dragon under their feet.”
In the book of Job we recognise in Leviathan a creature more like the extinct saurians of the old world than any crocodile recorded in historic times; and this leviathan is treated as still existing in the days of David. In Psalm lxxiv. 13, 14, Jehovah is spoken of as having broken the heads of the dragons in the waters; in Isaiah li. 9, as havingwounded the dragon; and pæans are sung on the punishment of “Leviathan, that crooked serpent,” and the slaying of “the dragon that is in the sea” (Is. xxvii. 1). Finally, in the Apocalyptic vision, “there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads, and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads, and his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to earth” (Rev. xii. 3, 4); “I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand, and he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan, and bound him” (Rev. xx. 1, 2).
The Dragon of the Apocalypse.By Albert Dürer.
As a Christian emblem the dragon may be taken to symbolise the supreme spirit of evil, a veritable devil whom it was the special mission of militant saints to slay, as it had been the glory of the heroes of the pagan mythology to conquer. “In pictures of sacred and legendary subjects,” says a late writer, “thedragon usually formed an important feature. The evil thing was invariably depicted writhing under the foot of the saint, or transfixed with his triumphant spear. In like mannerthe virtuestrampled tranquilly each on her complementary vice, embodied in the form of some impossible creature; and if the rigid virtues were sometimes insipid, it must be allowed that the demons were usually grotesquely characteristic, and often delightful in colour.”
St. Michael and the Old Dragon.Arms of the Royal Burgh of Dumfries.
The prostrate attitude usually signifies the triumph of Christianity over Paganism, as in pictures of St. George and St. Sylvester; or over heresy and schism, as when it was adopted as the emblem of the Knights of the Order of the Dragon, in Hungary, which was instituted for the purpose of contending against the adherents of John Huss and Jerome of Prague.
The dragon in Christian Art is often very variously represented, sometimes as a serpent, at other times as a dragon or wyvern, or again in the symbolic figure partly human, under which form we find the “old serpent” (the Devil) often represented, as in the conflict of St. Michaelthe Archangel. The numerous legends of saints who have fought and overcome dragons prove the symbolic light in which the impersonation of evil was generally viewed.
From ancient carving.
St. Margaret is the patron saint of the borough ofLynn Regis, and on the old corporation seal she is represented standing on a dragon and wounding it with a cross. The Latin inscription on the seal is “Sub Margaret teritur draco stat cruce læta.” The modern shield of the town is now blazoned:azure three conger’s(or dragon’s)heads erased and erect, the jaws of each pierced with a cross crosslet fitchée or. In paintings St. Margaret is represented as a young woman of great beauty bearing the martyr’s palm and olive crown, or with the dragon chained and helpless at her feet as an attribute. Sometimes she is depicted coming from the dragon’s mouth, for the legend says the monster swallowed her, but on her making the sign of the cross he was compelled to free her again. A legend states that Olybus, Governor of Antioch, captivated by the beauty of Margaret, wished to marry her; as she rejected him with scorn he threw her into a dungeon, where the devil appearedto her in the form of a horrible dragon and endeavoured to frighten her from her path. Margaret held up the cross and the dragon fled. Other legends say he burst asunder.
St. George and the Dragon.
St. George, the patron saint of England, in his legendary combat with the monster, is a subject which occurs frequently in English sculpture and painting, and enters largely into the language and literature of the nation. St. George appears to have been selected as the patron saint of England not long after the Norman conquest. We find the anniversary ofhis martyrdom (April 23) was ordered to be observed as a festival by the National Synod of Oxford in 1222A.D.
The “Golden Legend,” printed by Pynson in 1507 (fol. cxix.), thus refers to “Saynt George”: “This blyssed and holy martyr Saynt George is patrone of this realme of Englōd: and ye crye of mē of warre; and in ye worsyp of whome is founded ye noble order of a garter: and also ye noble college in ye castell of Wyndsore, by Kynges of Englond. In whyche college is ye herte of Saynt George: whyche Sygysmond ye Emperour of Alamayn brought: and gaf it for a grete and precyous relyque to kynge Harry the fifte. And also the said Sygysmond was broder of the sayd garter. And also there is a piece of his head; which college is nobly endowed to thonour and worshippe almighty God and his blyssed Martyr Saynt George. Then late us praye vnto hym that he be specyel protectour and defendour of this royaume.”
The emblems commonly given to St. George, martyr, and patron saint of England are: a dragon, a shield bearing a red cross on a white field, and a spear. He is usually represented on horseback in the act of spearing the monster which is vomiting fire; or as standing with the slain dragon at his feet.
That St. George is a veritable character is beyond all reasonable doubt, and there seems no reason to deny that he was born in Armorica, and was beheaded in Diocletian’s persecution by order of Datianus, April 23, 303. St. Jerome (331-420)mentions him in one of his martyrologies; in the next century there were many churches erected to his honour. St. Gregory (540-604) has in his sacramentary a “Preface for St. George’s Day”; and the Venerable Bede (672-735) in his martyrology, says: “At last St. George truly finished his martyrdom by decapitation, although the gests of his passion are numbered among the apocryphal writings.”
According to the old ballad given in Bishop Percy’s “Reliques of Ancient Poetry,” St. George was the son of Lord Albert of Coventry. His mother died in giving him birth, and the new-born babe was stolen away by the weird lady of the woods, who brought him up to deeds of arms. His body had three marks: a dragon on the breast, a garter round one of the legs, and a blood-red cross on the arm. When he grew to manhood he first fought against the Saracens, and then went to Sylene, a city of Libya, where was a stagnant lake infested by a huge dragon, whose poisonous breath “had many a city slain,” and whose hide “no spear nor sword could pierce.” Every day a virgin was sacrificed to it, and at length it came to the lot of Sabra, the king’s daughter, to become its victim. Decked out in bridal array she went out to meet the dragon; she was tied to the stake, and left to be devoured, when St. George appeared in full panoply and mounted on his charger. He vowed to take her cause in hand, and when the dragon came on the scene it was encountered by the hero, who wounded it, and binding it to the lady’s girdle it wasled like a “meek beast” into the city. St. George there attacked it, thrusting his lance into its mouth, killed it on the spot, and a church dedicated to Our Lady and St. George was built to commemorate the event. After many adventures he carried off Sabra to England, where they were wedded, and at Coventry lived happily till their death.
In his history of the Order of the Garter Mr. Antis warmly censures those who would doubt the traditionary history of that saint, and says “he who would credit St. Ambrose will not detract from the honour of our George, the soldier and martyr of Christ, concerning the dragon and the deliverance of the beautiful royal virgin, which is related in so many pictures,” adding that “he shall not contradict those who make an allegory of it, so that they do not deny the certainty of this history.... Suppose every one George, who being clothed with the virtue of baptism and armour of faith, keeps his earthly body in subjection by the due exercise of religion and piety, and by the armour of the Spirit overcomes, and by the true spiritual art crushes and confounds the serpent’s poison, the snares of the old Dragon, and his diabolical arts and stratagems.”
The dragon slain by St. George is simply a common allegory to express the triumph of the Christian hero over evil, which St. John the Evangelist beheld under the figure of a dragon. Similarly St. Michael, St. Margaret, St. Sylvester and St. Martha are all depicted as slaying dragons;the Saviour and the Virgin as treading them under foot; and St. John the Evangelist as charming a winged dragon from a poisoned chalice given him to drink. Even John Bunyan avails himself of the same figure, when he makes Christian encounter Apollyon and prevail against him.
A learned Frenchman, M. Clermont Ganneau, in a treatise lately published, traces the legend of St. George and the dragon to a very remote antiquity. In the Louvre at Paris he found an Egyptian bas-relief, which he identified as the combat of Horus against Set, or Typhon, in the well-known Egyptian legend. It represents a man on horseback in Roman armour slaying a crocodile with a spear; but for the fact that the rider has a hawk’s head, the group might easily be mistaken for the traditional combat of St. George and the dragon. Extending his investigations, M. Ganneau has brought to light some most startling proofs of the connection between the eastern and western mythologies. We have therefore, he considers, evidence as clear and convincing as evidence from deduction can be, that the Egyptian “Horus and Typhon”; the Greek “Perseus and Andromeda”; the “Bel and Dragon” of the Apocrypha; the Archangel Michael of Christian legend who also slays the old dragon, are all one and the same story with that of our own St. George. We pass over the intermediate steps by which he reconciles the divergent names and qualities of the personages identified, and also the ingeniousarguments as to the real meaning of the symbolism in the worship ofDagon the Fish-god.
In all the old romances dealing with feats of chivalry and knight-errantry the dragon plays an essential if not a leading part; and a romance without some dragon or monster was as rare as one without a valiant knight or a beautiful lady. But of all the malignant creatures dreaded of gods and men, the most hateful and wicked is that prime dragon personified by Spenser under the type of the “blatant beast,” and which confronts his hero, the Red Cross Knight, at every turn: “a dreadful fiend, of gods and men ydrad,” who has a thousand tongues, speaks things most shameful, most unrighteous, most untrue, and with his sting steeps them in poison.
As an example of the inception and development of a dragon legend from slender materials, the following is related in Figuer’s “World before the Deluge”:
In the city of Klagenfurth, in Carinthia, is a fountain on which is sculptured a monstrous dragon with six feet, and a head armed with a stout horn. According to popular tradition this dragon lived in a cave, whence it issued from time to time to ravage the country. A bold and venturous knight at last kills the monster, paying with his life the forfeit of his rashness. The head of the pretended dragon is preserved in the Hotel de Ville, and this head has furnished the sculptor for a model of the dragon on the fountain. A learned professor of Vienna on avisit to the city recognised it at a glance as the cranium of the fossil rhinoceros. Its discovery in some cave had probably originated the fable of the knight and the dragon—and all similar legends are capable of some such explanation when we trace them back to their sources and reason the circumstances on which they are founded. The famous bird, the roc, which played so important a part in the myths of the people of Asia, is also believed to have originated in the discovery of some gigantic bones.
Chief amongDragon-slayersof Christian legend we find the following:
St. Philip the Apostleis said to have destroyed a huge dragon at Hierapolis, in Phrygia.
St. Michael,St. George,St. Margaret,Pope Sylvester,St. Samson, Archbishop of Dol;Donatus(fourth century),St. Clementof Metz, all killed dragons—if we may trust old legends.
St. Keyneof Cornwall slew a dragon.
St. Florentkilled a terrible dragon who haunted the Loire.
St. Cado,St. MaudetandSt. Paulldid similar feats in Brittany.
The town ofWorms(famous as the place at which the Diet of Worms was held before which the reformer Luther was summoned) owes its name to the “Lind-wurm” or dragon there conquered by the hero Siegfried as related in the “Nibelungen Lied.” (Seep. 100.)
Drachenfels, on the Rhine (Dragon Rocks), is so called from the same monster; and at Arles and Rouen legends are preserved of victories gained by saints over theTarasqueandGargouille, both local names for the dragon. St. Martha conquered the fabulous Tarasque of the city of Languedoc, which bears the name of “Tarascon.” Gargouille (waterspout) was the great dragon that lived in the Seine, ravaged Rouen, and was slain by St. Romanus, Bishop of Rouen, in the seventh century. The latter name has come down to us in the term “gargoyle,” applied to the monstrous heads which often decorate the waterspouts of old churches.
A strange relic of the ancient faith is perpetuated in the remains of early Celtic art in the curiously wrought interlaced monsters which form the chief ornament of ancient Irish crosses, and particularly in the borders and initials of illuminated manuscripts, whose spirals and interminable interlacements of the most complex character, often allied with equally strange colouring, form a style perfectly unique in itself, and unlike any other; the elaborate knots terminating in draconic heads, and with wings and animal extremities in wonderfully ingenious patterns that seem almost beyond the limits of human ingenuity. In the kindred art of Scandinavia we find similar decoration founded on serpentine forms.
Another survival of the dragon myth exists in the name given to some of our fighting men on the introduction of firearms. A kind of blunderbus gaveto the troops who used it the name of “dragoniers,” whence is derived the well-known term dragoons. They used to be armed withdragons—i.e., short muskets—which spouted fire, like the fabulous beast so named. The head of a dragon was wrought on the muzzles of these muskets. We have all heard of the Dragonades, a series of persecutions by Louis XIV., which drove many thousands of Protestants out of France—and out of the world. Their object was to root out “heresy.” A bishop, with certain ecclesiastics, was sent to see if the heretics would recant; if not they were left to the tender mercies of the Dragonniers, who followed these “ministers of peace and good will to men.” The same game of conversion was practised by the Reformed Church upon the Presbyterians of Scotland, with its accompaniment of “dragons let loose”—in which Claverhouse took a leading part.
“In mediæval alchemy the dragon seems to have been the emblem of Mercury; hence the dragon became one of the ‘properties’ of the chemist and apothecary, was painted upon his drug pots, hung up as his sign, and some dusty stuffed crocodile hanging from the ceiling in the laboratory had to do service for the monster, and inspire the vulgar with a profound awe of the mighty man who had conquered the vicious reptile.”[6]
When apothecaries’ signs were not derived from heraldry, they were used to typify certain chemicalactions. In an old German work on alchemy one of the plates represents a dragon eating his own tail; underneath are the words which, translated, signify: “This is a great wonder and very strange; the dragon contains the greatest medicament,” and much more of similar import.
The dragon does not seem to have been a native emblem with the Romans, and when they adopted it it was only as a sort of subordinate emblem—the eagle still holding the first place. It seems to have been in consequence of their intercourse with other nations either of Pelasgic or Teutonic race. Amongst all the new races which overran Europe at the termination of the classical period the dragon seems to have occupied nearly the same place that it held in the earlier stages of Greek life. Among the Teutonic tribes which settled in England the dragon was from the first a principal emblem, and the custom ofcarrying the dragon in procession with great jollity on May eve to Burford is referred to by old historians. The custom is said by Brand also to have prevailed in Germany, and was probably common in other parts of England.
Nor was the dragon peculiar to the Teutonic races. Amongst the Celts it was the symbol of sovereignty, and as such was borne on the sovereign’s crest. Mr. Tennyson’s “Idylls” have made us familiar with “the dragon of the great Pendragonship” blazing on Arthur’s helmet as he rode forth to his last battle, and “making all the night a stream of fire.” The fiery dragon or drake and the flying dragon of the air were national phenomena of which we have frequent accounts in old books.
The Irishdragmeans “fire,” and the Welshdreigiaw(silent flashes of lightning) “fiery meteors”; hence Shakespeare says:
“Swift, swift, ye dragons of the night!—that dawningMay bare the raven’s eye.”Cymbeline, ii. 2.
A principal source of the Dragon legends in these countries is the Celtic use of the word “dragon” for “a chief.” Hence Pen-dragon (sumus rex), a sort of dictator in times of danger. Those knights who slew a chief in battle slew a dragon, and the military title soon got confounded with the fabulous monster. The name or titlePendragon(dragon’s head) was among British kings and princes whatBretwalda was among the Saxons; and his authority or supremacy over the confederation was greater or less according to his valour, ability, and good fortune. Arthur succeeded his father Uther, and was raised to the pendragonship in the first quarter of the sixth century.
The dragon was a symbol among the heathen. One of the sons of Odin was thus invoked: “Child of the Dragon, Son of Conquest, arise! grasp thy silver spear; thy snowy steed prepare and haste thee to the strife of the shield! Uprise thou Dragon of Onslaught!” And again:
“Wave high the dragon’s flaming sign,Roll wide the shout of glee;Ho! conquest ope thy crimson gatesThis day I give to thee.”
“The Dragon of the Shield struck his sounding war-board with his ponderous spada. The fierce-browed children of Hilda gathered round at the signal.”
Maglocue, a British king who was a great warrior and of a remarkable stature, whose exploits had rendered him terrible to his foes, as a surname was called “The Dragon of the Isle,” perhaps from his seat in Anglesey.
Dragon Standard.From the Bayeux Tapestry.
Cuthred, King of Wessex, bore a dragon on his banner. A dragon was also the device of the British King Uther Pendragon, or Dragon’s-head, father of that King Arthur of chivalric memory, who so bravely withstood the incursions of the Saxons.Twodragons addorsed—that is, back to back—are ascribed to Arthur, as well as several other devices.
Dragon’s Hill, Berkshire, is where the legend says St. George killed the dragon. A bare place is shown on the hill where nothing will grow, and there the blood ran out. In Saxon annals we are told that Cedric, founder of the West Saxon kingdom, slew there Naud, the pendragon, with 5000 men. This Naud is called Natan-leod, a corruption of Naud-an-ludh; Naud, the people’s refuge.[7]
“It has sometimes been thought,” says Miss Millington, “that the royal Saxon banner bore a dragon; certain it is, that on the Bayeux tapestry a dragon raised upon a pole is constantly represented near a figure, whilst the words ‘Hic Harold’ prove to be intended for Harold; yet Matthew of Westminster, in describing a battle fought in the time of Edward I., says that the place of the king was ‘between the dragon and the standard,’ which seems to imply that the standard or banner had some other device. The dragon was perhaps a kind of standard borne to indicate the presence of the king. Henry III. carried one at the Battle of Lewes, fought against Simon de Montfort in 1264:
“‘Symoun com to the feld,And put up his banere;The king schewed forth his scheld,His dragon full austere.’
It was not, however, at that time restricted to the King, for Simon himself in the same battle
“‘Displaied his banere, lift up his dragoun.’
The English at the Battle of Crecy carried a ‘burning dragon, made of red silk adorned and beaten with very broad and fair lilies of gold, and broidered about with gold and vermilion.’ This banner,” adds Miss Millington, “perhaps resembled that used by the Parthians and Dacians, which is described by Ammianus Marcellinus as ‘a dragon, formed of purple stuff, resplendent with gold and precious stones fixed on a long pike, and so contrived that when held in a certain manner, with its mouth to the wind, the entire body became inflated, and stretched its sinuous length upon the air.’”
“The dragon,” says Mr. Planché, “was the customary standard of the kings of England from the time of the Conquest. It was borne in the battle between Canute and Edmund Ironside; it is figured in the Bayeux tapestry, and there are directions for making one in the reign of Henry III., but it never formed a portion of their armorial bearings,i.e., as a charge upon the shield of arms.”
Henry VII., first of the Tudor line, assumed as one of his badges the red dragon ofCadwallader—“Red dragon dreadful.” Henry claimed an uninterrupted descent from the aboriginal princes of Britain, Arthur and Uther, Caradoc, Halstan, Pendragon, &c. His grandfather, Owen Tudor, bore a dragon as his device in proof of his descent from Cadwallader, the last British prince and first King of Wales (678A.D.), the dragon being the ensign of that monarch. At the Battle of Bosworth Field Henry bore the dragon standard. After the battle of Bosworth Field Henry went in state to St. Paul’s, where he offered three standards. On one was the image of St. George, on the other a “red fierce dragon beaten upon green and white sarsenet” (the livery colours of the House of Tudor); on the third was painted a dun cow upon yellow tartan,—the dun cow, in token of his descent from Guy Earl of Warwick, who had slain
“A monstrous wyld and cruelle beasteCalled ye dun cow of Dunsmore Heath.”
The dun cow is still one of the badges of the Guards. This monarch founded the office ofRouge dragon pursuivanton the day before his coronation (October 29, 1485). Henry VII., Henry VIII., Edward V., Mary and Elizabeth all carried the dragon as a supporter to the royal arms, but varied in position, and at times superseded by a greyhound. (A greyhound argent, collared or, the collar charged with a rose gules, was a Lancastrian badge.) Henry VIII. used for supporters thered dragon andwhite greyhoundof his family;a red dragonanda lion gardant gold, sometimes crowned; at other timesa silver greyhoundanda golden lion,an antelope,a white bull,a cock, &c. On the union of Scotland and England under King James, the Scottishunicornwas substituted for the sinister supporter, while thelion gardant, first adopted by Henry VIII., appears to have permanently superseded the red dragon of Wales, the white greyhound, &c., as the other supporter of the royal arms, the dragon being relegated to be the special badge of the principality of Wales, which position it still retains. The present royal badges, as settled at the union, 1801, are:
Richard III. as a badge had a black dragon. “The bages that he beryth by the Earldom of Wolstr(Ulster) ys a blacke dragon,” derived through his mother from the De Burghs, Earls of Ulster.
Mallet, in his “Northern Antiquities,” states “that the thick misshapen walls winding round a rude fortress at the summit of a rock were called by a name signifying dragon, and as women of distinctionwere, during the ages of chivalry, commonly placed in such castles for security, thence arose the romances of princesses of great beauty being guarded by dragons, and afterwards delivered by young heroes who could not achieve their rescue until they had overcome their terrible guardians.” The common heraldic signification of a dragon is one who has successfully overcome such a fortress, or it denotes the protection afforded to the helpless by him to whom it was granted, and the terror inspired in his foes by his doughty or warlike bearing. It was a title of supreme power among the early British.
A Dragon passant.
The dragon has always been an honourable bearing in British armoury, in some instances to commemorate a triumph over a mighty foe, or merely for the purpose of inspiring the enemy with terror. This seems to have been especially the case with the dragon standard—the “red dragon dreadful” of Wales (y Ddraig Coch) described as:
“A dragon grete and grimmeFull of fyre and eke venymme.”
In the existing representatives of the antediluvian saurians, the crocodile and alligator, we see the prototypes of the dragons and hydras of poetic fancy. The crocodile is a well-known huge amphibious reptile, in general contour resembling a great lizard covered with large horny scales that cannot be easily pierced, except underneath, and reaching twenty-five to thirty feet in length. The crocodile was held sacred by the ancient Egyptians, the Nile was and is its best-known habitat; it is also found in the rivers of the Indian seas. Though an awkward creature upon land, it darts with rapidity through the water after fish, which is its appropriate food, but it is dangerous also to dogs and other creatures, as well as to human beings entering the water or lingering incautiously on the bank.
It is theLacerta crocodilusof Linnæus, from Greek κροκοδειλος (krokodeilos) a word of uncertain origin. The Alligator, the American crocodile, takes its name from the SpanishEl Legarto, the lizard. The Latin form isLacertusorLacerta.
Miss Millington, in her “Heraldry in History, Poetry and Romance,” says that both dragon and crocodile seem anciently to have been confounded under one name, and that Philip de Thaun, in his “Bestiarus,” says that “crocodille signifie diable en ceste vie.” Guillim, an old heraldic writer, says:“The dragons are naturally so hot that they cannot be cooled by drinking of waters, but still gape for the air to refresh them, as appeareth in Jeremiah xiv. 6.”
Young, author of “Night Thoughts,” in a footnote appended to the magnificent description of the leviathan (crocodile), in his paraphrase of part of the book of Job says: “The crocodile, say the naturalists, lying under water, and being there forced to hold its breath, when it emerges, the breath long repressed is hot, and bursts out so violently that it resembles fire and smoke. The horse suppresses not his breath by any means so long, neither is he so fierce and animated,” yet the most correct of poets ventures to use the same metaphor regarding him:
“Collectumque premens volvit sub naribus ignem.”
The mythical dragon is represented in heraldic art with the huge body of the reptile saurian type covered with impenetrable mail of plates and scales, a row of formidable spines extending from his head to his tail, which ends in a great and deadly sting; his enormous jaws, gaping and bristling with hideous fangs, belch forth sparks and flame; his round luminous eyes seem to shoot gleaming fire; from his nose issues a dreadful spike. He is furnished with sharp-pointed ears and a forked tongue, four sturdy legs terminating in eagle’s feet strongly webbed, clawing andclutching at his prey. Great leathern bat-like wings armed with sharp hook’s points, complete his equipment. The wings are always “endorsed,” that is, elevated and back to back.
Crest, a Dragon’s Headerased collared and chained.
The dragon of our modern books of heraldry is a miserable impostor, a degenerate representative of those “dragons of the prime, that tore each other in their slime.” It is curious to note in this the gradual degradation from the magnificent saurian type of the best period of heraldic art to a form not far removed from that given to an ordinary four-legged creature covered with plates and scales. His legs are longer and weaker, his mighty caudal appendage, shrunk to insignificant and useless proportion, and most unlike his ancient prototype the crocodile. This error of our modern heraldic artists displays remarkable lack of proper knowledge of this mythical creature and his attributes. Such a splendid creation of the fancy should not be represented in such a weak and meaningless form by the hands of twentieth-century artists. The ancient form is infinitely to be preferred as a work of symbolic art.
Domine dirige nos
Arms of the City of London.—Two dragons are the supporters of the arms of the City of London, the crest a dragon’s sinister wing. They are thus blazoned:Argent a cross gules, in the first quarter, a sword in pale point upwards of the last. Supporters, on either side a dragon with wings elevated and addorsed, argent, and charged on the wing with a cross gules.
The crest is adragon’s sinister wing charged with a similar cross.
The County of Chesterhas for its supporters two dragons, each holding an ostrich feather.
Basingstoke, Linlithgow and Dumfries on the town seals have St. Michael overthrowing the dragon (seep. 72).
The dragon appears in various forms in the arms of many towns, and also in those of some peers.
Sinister supporter of the arms of Viscount Gough.
One of the most extraordinary and elaborate coats of arms of modern times is that of Viscount Gough. The sinister supporter of the shield is a dragon (intended to represent the device upon a Chinese flag).A dragon or, gorged with a mural crown sable, inscribed with the word “China,” and chained gold.
Examples vary considerably in the form of the dragon, some early examples represent it to have four legs, others with only two, when it is properly a wyvern. The pendent “George” in the Order of the Garter represents it with a body similar to a crocodile, winged and covered with plates and scales.
A similar device to that of the George noble of Henry VIII. was the St. George slaying the dragon by Pistrucci, a foreigner employed at the mint. This handsome reverse, says Mr. Noel Humphrey, “Coin Collector’s Manual,” is nearly a copy from a figure in a battle-piece on an antique gem in the Orleans collection, but several Greek coins might equally well have furnished the model. Old George III. sovereigns and five-shilling pieces havethis most finely conceived and executed device on the reverse of the coins. It also appears upon some sovereigns of Queen Victoria. Prominence is naturally given to the figure of St. George, the dragon in consequence being diminished in its relative size.
The hydra is represented in heraldry as a dragon with seven heads; it is not of frequent occurrence as a bearing in armory.
Hercules and the Lernean Hydra. From Greek vase.
The terrible dragon, with one hundred heads, that guarded the golden apples of the Hesperides, slain by Hercules, was celebrated in classic mythology; so was the Lernean hydra, a monster of the marshes that ravaged the country of Lerna in Argolis, destroying both men and beasts. The number of its heads varies with the poets, thoughancient gems usually represent it with seven or nine. Hercules was sent to kill it as one of his twelve labours. After driving the monster from its lair with arrows he attacked it with his sword, and in place of each head he struck off two sprang up. Setting fire to a neighbouring wood with the firebrands he seared the throat of the Hydra until he at length succeeded in slaying it. The fable is usually referred to in illustration of a difficulty which goes on increasing as it is combated. (Seepage 63.)
“Whereon this Hydra son of war is bornWhose dangerous eyes may well be charmed asleep.”Henry IV.part ii. sc. 2.
The Hydra.
The Lernean hydra, the watchful dragon of the garden of the Hesperides, the many-headed Naga or snake of the Hindu religion, are, say learned writers, only some of the many forms under which the relics of the ancient serpent-worship exhibited itself.
A hydra, wings endorsed vert, scaled or, is the crest ofBarretof Avely, Essex. It is also borne by the namesCrespineandDownes.
A Wyvern holding a fleur-de-lis.
(Saxon,Wivere, a serpent) said to represent a flying serpent, an imaginary creature resembling the dragon, but having only two legs, which are like aneagle’s, and a serpent-like tail, barbed, sometimes represented nowed after the manner of serpents. It is figured on one of the standards in the Bayeux tapestry (seeDragon,p. 86). It is erroneously termed a dragon by some writers, though perhaps they may both be classed together. Old heralds say of these imaginary monsters that they are emblems of pestilence, and are represented as strong and fierce animals covered with invulnerable mail, and fitly typify viciousness and envy. In armory they are properly applied to tyranny or the overthrow of a vicious enemy.
Occasionally a wyvern is borne with the tail nowed and without wings.
Lindworm.—It is not usual to say a wyvern “without wings” or “without legs,” butsans wingsorsans legs, as thecase may be. A dragon or wyvern sans wings is termed a lindworm. (Seepage 80.)
Wyvern, or Lindworm.(German version.)
Argent, a wyvern, wings endorsed gules, are the arms ofDrake, of Ashe, Devon (Bart.), 1600.
The town of Leicester has for crest awyvern, wings expanded, sans legs, strewed with wounds, gules.
Argent on a bend sable, between two lions rampant of the last, a wyvern volant in bend of the field, langued gules, Ruddings.
Two wyverns, wings endorsed and emitting flames, are the supporters of ViscountArbuthnot.
The arms of the King of Portugal are supported bytwo wyverns erect on their tails or, each holding a banner, the crest is ademi-wyvernout of a ducal coronet.
Guivre.—The wyvern or serpent in the arms of the Visconti, Lords of Milan,argent a guivre d’azure couronnée d’or, issante de gules(Guivreis represented as a serpent or wingless dragon sans feet, with a child’sbody issuing from its mouth), is said to commemorate the victory of a lord of that house over a fiery dragon or guivre which inhabited a cavern under the church of St. Denis in that place. “It is hardly possible,” says Miss Millington, “not to think that the story of the dragon as well as its adoption in the coat-of-arms bears allusion rather to the dragon of paganism, expelled from the city, as it might seem, by the church built upon the site of the cave, in which too, by the rite of Holy Baptism,childrenespecially were delivered from the power of Satan. Indeed, the innumerable legends of saints who have fought and overcome dragons sufficiently prove the symbolic light in which that creature was anciently viewed.” (Seealso Serpent Biscia,p. 117.)