"_Advance our standards, set upon our foes,
Our ancient word of courage fair Saint George
Inspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons._"
"Richard III.," Act v. sc. 3.
"_Come not between the dragon and his wrath._"
"King Lear," Act i. sc. 2.
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 of carrying 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 Irish _drag_ means "fire," and the Welsh _dreigiaw_ (silent flashes of
lightning) "fiery meteors"; hence Shakespeare says:
"Swift, swift, ye dragons of the night!--that dawning
May 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 title _Pendragon_ (dragon's head) was among
British kings and princes what Bretwalda 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 gates
This 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.
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. _Two dragons addorsed_--that is, back to
back--are ascribed to Arthur, as well as several other devices.
[Illustration: Dragon Standard. From the Bayeux Tapestry.]
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 of Cadwallader--"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 (678 A.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 beaste
Called ye dun cow of Dunsmore Heath."
The dun cow is still one of the badges of the Guards. This monarch founded
the office of _Rouge dragon pursuivant_ on 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 the _red dragon and white
greyhound_ of his family; _a red dragon_ and _a lion gardant gold_,
sometimes crowned; at other times _a silver greyhound_ and _a golden
lion_, _an antelope_, _a white bull_, _a cock_, &c. On the union of
Scotland and England under King James, the Scottish _unicorn_ was
substituted for the sinister supporter, while the _lion 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:
_A white rose within a red_ ENGLAND.
_A thistle_ SCOTLAND.
_A harp or, stringed argent,
and a trefoil or shamrock vert_ IRELAND.
_Upon a mount vert, a dragon
passant, wings expanded
and endorsed, gules_ WALES.
Richard III. as a badge had a black dragon. "_The bages that he beryth by
the Earldom of Wolst{r} (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 distinction were, 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.
[Illustration: 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 grimme
Full of fyre and eke venymme."