(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 be beyond 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 having wounded
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).
[Illustration: 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, "the dragon 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 manner _the
virtues_ trampled 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."
[Illustration: 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. Michael the
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.
[Illustration: From ancient carving.]
St. Margaret is the patron saint of the borough of LYNN 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 appeared to 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.
[Illustration: St. George and the Dragon.
"In many a church his form is seen,
With sword, and shield, and helmet sheen:
Ye know him by his steed of pride,
And by the dragon at his side."
CHR. SCHMID.]
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 of
his martyrdom (April 23) was ordered to be observed as a festival by the
National Synod of Oxford in 1222 A.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 was led 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 ingenious arguments as to the real
meaning of the symbolism in the worship of DAGON 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 a visit 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 among DRAGON-SLAYERS of Christian legend we find the following:
_St. Philip the Apostle_ is 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. Clement_ of
Metz, all killed dragons--if we may trust old legends.
_St. Keyne_ of Cornwall slew a dragon.
_St. Florent_ killed a terrible dragon who haunted the Loire.
_St. Cado_, _St. Maudet_ and _St. Paull_ did similar feats in Brittany.
The town of WORMS (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." (_See_ p. 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 the _Tarasque_ and _Gargouille_, 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
gave to the troops who used it the name of "dragoniers," whence is
derived the well-known term dragoons. They used to be armed with
_dragons_--_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 chemical actions. 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.