Fictitious & Symbolic Creatures in Art Part 6

Dragon's Hill, Berks.h.i.+re, 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 Ammia.n.u.s 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. Planche, "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 s.h.i.+eld of arms."

Henry VII., first of the Tudor line, a.s.sumed 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 sa.r.s.enet" (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 c.o.c.k_, &c. On the union of Scotland and England under King James, the Scottish _unicorn_ was subst.i.tuted 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 princ.i.p.ality 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 pa.s.sant, 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 t.i.tle of supreme power among the early British.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Dragon pa.s.sant.]

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."

The Crocodile as the Prototype of the Dragon

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 h.o.r.n.y 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 the _Lacerta crocodilus_ of Linnaeus, from Greek ?????de????

(_krokodeilos_) a word of uncertain origin. The Alligator, the American crocodile, takes its name from the Spanish _El Legarto_, the lizard. The Latin form is _Lacertus_ or _Lacerta_.

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 Heraldic Dragon

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 st.u.r.dy legs terminating in eagle's feet strongly webbed, clawing and clutching 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Crest, a Dragon's Head erased 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 a _dragon's sinister wing charged with a similar cross_.

THE COUNTY OF CHESTER has for its supporters two dragons, each holding an ostrich feather.

Basingstoke, Linlithgow and Dumfries on the town seals have St. Michael overthrowing the dragon (_see_ p. 72).

The dragon appears in various forms in the arms of many towns, and also in those of some peers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 s.h.i.+eld 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 n.o.ble 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-s.h.i.+lling pieces have this 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

"_Seven great heads out of his body grew, An iron breast, and back of scaly bra.s.s; And all imbrued in blood his eyes did s.h.i.+ne as gla.s.s, His tail was stretched out in wondrous length._"

SPENSER, "Faerie Queen," Book i. c. vii.

The hydra is represented in heraldry as a dragon with seven heads; it is not of frequent occurrence as a bearing in armory.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Hercules and the Lernean Hydra. From Greek vase.]