Chapter V: Book IV: of the treatise is devoted to the consideration of serpents (1)

and insects. Amongst serpents and insects the dragon naturally takes the place of honour. The writer evidently has his doubts, and carefully qualifies his description by a free use of the responsibility evading formula "it is said." He gives three illustrations. One of them represents a biped monster, crested and winged; the second has lost his legs, though he retains crest and wings; while the third creature is of serpentine nature, has neither wings nor legs, and only differs from the serpent forms in the book by the addition of his crest. The description runs as follows:--"The dragon, as described in the numerous fables and stories of several writers, may be justly questioned whether he really exists. I have read of serpents bred in Arabia, called Sirenas, which have wings, being very swift, running and flying at pleasure; and when they wound a man he dieth instantly. These are supposed to be a kind of dragons. It is said there are divers sorts of dragons or serpents that are so called, which are distinguished partly by their countries, partly by their magnitude, and partly by the different form of their external parts. They are said to be bred in India and Africa; those of India are much the largest, being of an incredible length; and of these there are also said to be two kinds, one of them living in the marshes, which are slow of pace and without combs on their heads; the other in the mountains, which are bigger and have combs, their backs being somewhat brown and their bodies less scaled. Some of them are of a yellow fiery colour, having sharp backs like saws. These also have beards. When they set up their scales they shine like silver. The apples of their eyes are (it is said) precious stones, and as bright as fire, in which it is affirmed there is a great virtue against many diseases. Their aspect is very fierce and terrible. Some dragons are said to have wings and no feet; some, again, have both feet and wings; and others neither feet nor wings, and are only distinguished from the common sort of serpents by the combs growing upon their heads and by their beards. Some do affirm that the dragon is of a black colour, somewhat green beneath and very beautiful, that it has a triple row of teeth in each jaw, that it has also two dewlaps growing under the chin, which hang down like a beard of a red colour; and the body is set all over with sharp scales, and on the neck with thick hair, much like the bristles of a wild boar." It will be seen by the foregoing that the imagination of our ancestors was allowed free play, abundant variety of form, magnitude, colour, and so forth being possible.

The dragon or winged serpent has formed a part in many creeds, and the dragon-slayer has been the hero of countless legends. The legend varies with climate and country, and with the development of the race in which it is found; and yet the prophecies of the Bible of the ultimate bruising of the serpent's head and the final victory over the dragon ("That old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan" Rev. xx. 2); the legends of classic days, such as that of Perseus and Andromeda; the still older struggles recorded in the slabs of Nineveh and Persepolis; the stories narrated to awed rings of listeners in the stillness of the Eastern night, or listened to by our children with eager eyes and rapt attention in the homes of England; the mass of legend that in mediæval times clustered around the names of God's faithful ones; and the local traditions of every land, from the equator to the poles, all dwell on the mischievous presence of some evil principle and record the ultimate triumph of good. Beneath the mass of ever-varying fable stands the like foundation, the strife between the two antagonistic principles; and thus the wide world over, in every age and in every clime, the mind of man, in broken accents, it may be, and with faltering tongue, records with joy its upward struggle, feels the need of help in the sore conflict, registers its belief in final triumph. Though the dragon-conflict occurs in many literatures, the same incidents occur over and over again, and we find in almost all the power and subtlety of the monster, the innocence and helplessness of his victims, the suddenness of his attack on them, and the completeness of his final overthrow, the dragon-slayers being the conquerors over tyranny and wrong, over paganism and every form of godless evil.

In Egypt he was Typhon, in Greece, Python. In India he is Kalli Naga, the thousand-headed, the foe and the vanquished of Vishnu. In Anglo-Saxon chronicles he is Lig-draca, the fire-drake or godes-andsacan, the denier of God--always unsleeping, poison-fanged, relentless, the terrible enemy of man, full of subtlety and full of power.

On the advent of Christianity these ancient legends were not wholly discarded, but suggested others of a like character, and a slight alteration transferred to saint or martyr those feats and victories which had formerly been ascribed to gods and demigods. It only remained for the new religion to point out the analogy, and to incorporate into itself the lessons they taught, the conflict won, the abnegation of self for the good of others.

It would take up far too much space if we were to endeavour to give many of these legends in detail. In some cases they were doubtless intended as descriptions of an actual conflict, by force of arms, with some real monster; but in others the conflict is allegorical; thus St. Loup, St. Martin of Tours, St. Hilary, and St. Donatus are all notable dragon-slayers, though the conflict was a mythical one, and their claim to regard on this score is based really on their gallant fight with either the heathenism of those amongst whom they laboured or the heresy of false brethren. The popular saint, too, receives often more than his due at the hands of his admirers, and legends gather thickly round his name, and his so-called biography is often romance and hero-worship from beginning to end. St. Romanus at Rouen, St. Veran at Arles, and St. Victor of Marseilles are all accredited with feats of dragon-slaying; but leaving them, St. Martial, St. Marcel, and many others to other chroniclers, we content ourselves with referring to two illustrious saints alone--the first because she is a lady, and may therefore well claim our courtesy, the second because he is our own patron saint.

It may not be generally known that the sister of Lazarus, the St. Martha of our legend, together with Mary Magdalene and two companions, Maxime and Marcellus, wandered so far away from Palestine as the shores of France. How much farther they may have intended to go the history does not tell us, but the untoward accident that stranded them on the shores of Languedoc was a most fortunate circumstance for the people of the district. The inhabitants of that region had been for some time tormented by a monster who fed on human flesh and had a most draconic appetite, and they at once appealed to these strangers to help them. This alone would seem to indicate the extremity in which they found themselves, or they would scarcely have applied to four shipwrecked strangers, half of them women, for aid in the hour of their necessity. St. Martha, however, in pitying consideration for their sad plight, at once agreed to help them. She had hardly entered the wood where the monster dwelt before the most frightful bellowings were heard, at which all the people sorely trembled and naturally concluded that this unarmed woman had fallen a victim to her temerity; but this alarming bellowing shortly ceased, and soon after St. Martha reappeared, holding in one hand a little wooden cross, and in the other a ribbon, with which she led forth her interesting captive. She then advanced into the middle of the town and presented the people with the dragon, as embarrassing a present as the proverbial white elephant; but they seem to have risen to the occasion, for we find afterwards an annual festival held in honour of the Saint, while good King Réné of Anjou instituted an Order of the Dragon for the more effectual keeping alive of the memory of the event. As St. Martha is more especially set down in the "Lives of the Saints" as the patron saint of good housewives, she might well have been excused had she declined a service in itself so dangerous and so far removed from the daily round, the trivial task; but the overthrowing of the mighty by an instrument so weak gives additional point to the story, and vindicates triumphantly the power of faith over evil.

The "Legenda Aurea," written by Jacobus de Voraigne, Archbishop of Genoa, in the year 1260, is what Warton termed "an inexhaustible repository of religious fable." For some centuries it was considered to have an almost sacred character, and its popularity was so great that it passed through an immense number of editions in the Latin, Dutch, German, and French languages. It should have the more interest to us, too, from the fact that it was one of the earliest of English printed books, Caxton publishing the first English edition in 1493. This was followed by other editions by Wynkyn de Worde in the years 1498, 1512, and 1527. The following account of our patron saint is taken from this source, a much less favourable history being found in Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire."[4]

[4] Appendix A.

Once upon a time the neighbourhood of the city of Sylene was infested with an enormous dragon, who, making a "ponde, lyke a sea," which skirted the walls, his usual residence, was accustomed to envenom the miserable citizens with his pestiferous breath, and therefore they gave him every day two sheep for his dinner, and when these were spent they chose by lot a male and female, daily, whom they exposed to the monster. At length, after many of the rich had been compelled to sacrifice their offspring, the lot fell upon the king's daughter, a lovely maiden, and the idol of a fond father, who, in the bitterness of his grief, entreated his subjects for the love of the gods to take his gold and silver, and all that he had, and spare his child; but they replied that he had himself made the law, and that they had suffered in obeying it, and concluded by telling him that unless he complied with his own mandate, they would take off his head. This answer only increased the king's affliction; but being anxious to defer, if he could not avert, his daughter's death, he craved that a respite of eight days might be given her; and his people, moved, apparently, by the groans and tears of the sorrowful old man, granted his request. When the stipulated time had elapsed, they came and said to him, "Ye see how the city perisheth!" So the monarch bade his child array herself in her richest apparel, and led her forth to "the place where the dragon was, and left her there."

It chanced that St. George, who, like a true knight-errant, was travelling in quest of dangerous adventures, arrived at the spot not long after the king's departure, and was much astonished when he beheld so fair a lady lingering there alone and weeping bitterly, and riding up he asked the cause of her sorrow. But she, unwilling to detain him in a place so perilous, entreated him to leave her to her fate. "Go on your way, young man," she said, "lest ye perish also." But St. George would know the truth, so the maiden told him. Then was the knight's heart merry within him, and he rejoined, "Fayre doughter, doubte ye no thynge hereof, for I shall helpe thee in the name of Jesu Christe." She said, "For Goddes sake, good knyght, goo your waye, and abyde not wyth me, for ye may not deliver me." St. George, however, was of a different opinion, and indeed, had he resolved, upon second thoughts, to escape, he could not have done so, for the dragon, smelling human flesh from afar, emerged from the lake while the lady was speaking, and now came running towards his victim. Not a moment was to be lost, so St. George crossed himself, drew his sword, and placing his lance in the rest, rushed to meet the monster, who, little expecting such a rough greeting, received the weapon "in his bosom," and rolled over in the dust. Then said the victor to the rescued virgin, "Take thy girdle, and bind it round the dragon's neck;" and when the lady had obeyed her champion, the monster followed her as if it had been "a meek beeste and debonayre." And so she led him into the city; and when the people saw her coming they fled with affright, expecting to perish all of them; but St. George shouted, "Doubt nothing, believe in God Jesus Christ, consent to be baptized, and I will slay the dragon before your eyes." The citizens immediately consented, so the Saint attacked the monster, and smote off his head, and commanded that he should be thrown into the green fields, and they took four carts with oxen, and drew him out of the city. Then were fifteen thousand men baptized (without reckoning the women and children), and the king erected a church, and dedicated it to Our Lady and St. George, in which floweth "a founteyne of lyuying water which heleth seeke people that drynke therof." After this the prince offered the champion incalculable riches, but he refused them all, and enjoining the king to take care of the church, to honour the priests, and pity the poor, he kissed him and departed.

Some time after this marvellous event the Emperor Diocletian so cruelly persecuted the Christians, that "twenty-two thousand were martyred in the course of one month," and many others forsook God and sacrificed to idols. When St. George heard this he laid aside his arms, and sold his possessions, and took the habit of a "crysten-man," and went into the midst of the "paynims," and began to denounce their gods as devils. "My God," cried he, "made heaven and earth, He only is the true God." Then said they to him, "How dare ye defame our deities? Who art thou?--what is thy name?"--"My name is George; I am a gentleman and knight of Cappadocia, and I have left all to serve my Lord," replied the Saint. Seeing that the stranger was no common man, the ruler of that district endeavoured to gain him over with fair words, but finding the knight inflexible, he tied him aloft on a gibbet, and caused him to be cruelly beaten; and then, having rubbed salt into his wounds, he bound him with heavy chains and thrust him into a dark dungeon. But our Lord appeared to him that same night and comforted him, "moche swetely," so that the warrior took good heart and feared no torment which he might have to suffer. The chief magistrate, whose name was Dacien, finding he could not shake his prisoner's faith by the infliction of torture, consulted with an enchanter, who agreed to lose his head should his "crafts" fail; and taking strong poison, the wizard mingled it with wine and invoked his gods and gave it to the Saint, who, making the sign of the cross, thanked him kindly, and drank it off without injury. Astonished at the failure of his plan, the magician made a draught still more venomous, and finding that this also had no ill effect on the charmed warrior, he himself acknowledged the might of Christ, embraced St. George's knees, and entreated to be made a Christian,--and his request was immediately granted.

The provost's fury knew no bounds when he witnessed these marvels. He stretched the champion on the rack, but the engine broke in pieces; he plunged him into boiling lead, and lo! the Saint came out "refreshed and strengthened." When Dacien saw this he began to moderate his anger, and again had recourse to flattery, praying the Saint to renounce his faith and sacrifice to the idols, and, much to his surprise, the knight questioned him with a smiling countenance why he had not asked him before, and promised to do his bidding. Then the provost was glad indeed, and assembled all the people to see the champion sacrifice. So they thronged the temple where the Saint was kneeling before the shrine of Jupiter, but he earnestly prayed a while to the true God, entreating Him to destroy those accursed images and convert the deluded Romans,--"and anone the fyre descended from heuens and brente the temple and the ydolles and theyr prestes;" and immediately after the earth opened and swallowed up all the ashes. This last marvel only hardened the ruler's heart and strengthened him in his infidelity; he caused the warrior to be brought before him, and sternly reproved him for his duplicity. "Thenne sayd to him Saynt George, 'Syr, beleue it not, but come wyth me and see how I shall sacrefise.' Thenne said Dacyan to him, 'I see wel thy frawde and thy treachery; thou wylt make the erthe to swalowe me lyke as thou hast the temple and my goddes.'"

Then said St. George, "O catiff, tell me how thy gods help thee when they cannot help themselves?" Then was the provost so enraged that he ran to his wife, and, telling her that he should die of anger if he could not master his prisoner, requested her counsel. "Cruel tyrant," replied his loving spouse, "instead of plotting against this heaven-protected knight, I too am resolved to become a Christian!" "Thou wilt!" returned her husband furiously, and taking her by her flowing tresses, he dashed her against the pavement, when, feeling herself in the agonies of death, she craved of St. George to know her future lot, seeing she had not been christened. Then answered the blessed Saint, "Doubt thee nothing, fair daughter, for thou shalt be baptized in thine own blood." Then began she to worship our Lord Jesus Christ, and so died and went to heaven. Thither the martyr followed her very shortly, for Dacien caused St. George to be beheaded, and "so he perished." But the cruel persecutor did not long survive his victim, for as he was returning to his palace, says the legend, from the place of execution, "fire came down from heaven and destroyed him and all his followers."[5]

[5] Appendix B.

In the Middle Ages the dragon gave a title in Hungary to an order of knighthood, that of "the dragon overthrown." This was established in the year 1418, to perpetuate the memory of the condemnation of John Huss and Jerome of Prague by the Council of Constance for heresy, and to denote the overthrow of the doctrines these men propagated in Hungary, Bohemia, and elsewhere in Germany, and for which they were ultimately burnt at the stake. The badge of the order was a dragon prostrate. In China the dragon is the symbol of the Imperial power, and all our readers who are familiar with the appearance of the Celestial pottery, bronzes, and so forth, will readily recall how commonly the form is introduced. Some little time ago the Chinese Government permitted coal-mines to be opened at Kai-ping, but they were speedily closed again, as it was supposed that their continued working would release the earth-dragon, disturb the Manes of the Empress, and generally bring trouble upon the Imperial house and upon the nation. Uncharitable people, however, have been found to declare that the fear of the earth-dragon is all an excuse, and that, as the Government set its face against the introduction of railways, so it was equally prepared, in its rigid conservatism and hatred of innovations, to forswear the mining operations. The dragon of the Chinese designers is of the weirdest forms, and conceived with a freedom and wildness of fancy that puts to shame our Western attempts, powerful as they often are.

As a symbol and attribute the dragon is constantly appearing in mediæval work, as carvings, illuminations, and the like, and we may remind our readers that in the term gargoyle, used in speaking of the strange and monstrous forms often found in our old cathedrals and abbeys doing duty as water-shoots, we get the dragon idea again, as the word is derived from an old French word signifying some such draconic monster. While, however, we find ourselves thus classing the dragon amongst the mythical and arbitrary forms of the stone-carver or the herald, we must be careful to remember that its terror had not thus in earlier days lost its sting, for the workman who sculptured it on a capital or thrust its hideous form into any other noticeable position not only regarded it as a symbol, but believed very really and truly in its veritable existence. Albertus Magnus gives a long account of the creature, an account altogether too elaborate for us to here transcribe; but its capture, according to him, is an easy matter enough if one only goes the right way to work. It was fortunately ascertained that dragons are "greatly afraid of thunder, and the magicians who require dragons for their enchantments get drums, on which they roll heavily, so that the noise is mistaken for thunder by the dragons, and they are vanquished." The thing is simplicity itself, and rather detracts from the halo of heroism that has hitherto surrounded dragon vanquishers. A man is scarcely justified in blowing his trumpet when he has previously so cowed his antagonist by beating his drum and deluding its dull brains with his fictitious thunder. Pliny says that the eyes of a dragon, preserved dry, pulverised and then made up with honey, cause those who are anointed therewith to sleep securely from all dread of spirits of the darkness. In a mediæval work we are told that "the turning joint in the chine of a dragon doth promise an easy and favourable access into the presence of great lords." One can only wonder why this should be, all clue and thread of connection between the two things being now so hopelessly lost. We must not however forget that, smile now as we may at this, there was a time when our ancestors accepted the statement with the fullest faith, and many a man who would fain have pleaded his cause before king or noble bewailed with hearty regret his want of draconic chine, the "turning-point" of the dragon and of his own fortunes. Another valuable receipt--"Take the taile and head of a dragon, the haire growing upon the forehead of a lion, with a little of his marrow also, the froth moreover that a horse fomethe at the mouth who hath woon the victorie and prize in running a race, and the nailes besides of a dogs-feete: bind all these together with a piece of leather made of a red deers skin, with the sinewes partly of a stag, partly of a fallow deere, one with another: carry this about with you and it will work wonders." It seems almost a pity that the actual benefits to be derived from the possession of this compound are not more clearly defined, as there is no doubt that a considerable amount of trouble would be involved in getting the various materials together, and the zeal and ardour of the seeker after this wonder-working composition would be somewhat damped by the troublesome and recurring question, Wherefore? Mediæval medicine-men surely must have been somewhat chary of adopting the now familiar legend "Prescriptions accurately dispensed," when the onus of making up such a mixture could be laid upon them. John Leo, in his "History of Africa" says that the dragon is the progeny of the eagle and wolf. After describing its appearance, he says--"This monster, albeit I myself have not seen it yet, the common report of all Africa affirmeth that there is such a one." Other writers affirm that the dragon is generated by the great heat of India or springs from the volcanoes of Ethiopia; and one is tempted to take the prosaic view that this dragon rearing and slaying is but a more poetic way of dwelling on some miasmatic exhalation reduced to harmlessness by judicious drainage; that the monster that had slain its thousands was at last subdued by no glittering spear wielded by knightly or saintly arm, but by the spade of the navvy and the drain-pipes of the sanitary engineer. Father Pigafetta in his book declares that "Mont Atlas hath plenty of dragons, grosse of body, slow of motion, and in byting or touching incurably venomous. In Congo is a kind of dragons like in biggnesse to rammes with wings, having long tayles and divers jawes of teeth of blue and greene, painted like scales, with two feete, and feede on rawe fleshe." We cannot ourselves help feeling that if we saw a dragon like in bigness to a ram we should so far be disappointed in him. After having had our imagination filled by legend after legend we should look for something decidedly bulkier than that, and should feel that he really was not living up to his reputation. Abundant illustrations of the most unnatural history may be found in the works of Aldrovandus: his voluminous works on animals are very curious and interesting, and richly illustrated with engravings at least as quaint in character as the text. His "Monstrorum Historia," published in folio at Bologna in 1642, is a perfect treasure-house; the various volumes range in date from 1602 to 1668, and are, with one exception (Venice), published at either Bologna or Frankfort. If any of our readers can get an opportunity of looking through them they will find themselves well repaid.

Amongst the Lansdowne MSS. in the British Museum will be found Aubrey's "Gentilisme and Judaisme." His remarks on St. George and the dragon are sufficiently quaint and interesting to justify insertion here. "Dr. Peter Heylin," he says, "did write the Historie of St. George of Cappadocia, which is a very blind business. When I was of Trin. Coll. there was a sale of Mr. William Cartright's (poet) books, many whereof I had: amongst others (I know not how) was Dr. Daniel Featley's Handmayd to Religion, which was printed shortly after Dr. Heylin's Hist. aforesaid. In the Holyday Devotions he speaks of St. George, and asserts the story to be fabulous, and that there never was any such man. William Cartright writes in the margent--For this assertion was Dr. Featley brought upon his knees before William Laud, Abp. of Canterbury. See Sir Thomas Browne's 'Vulgar Errors' concerning St. George, where are good Remarks. He is of opinion that ye picture of St. George was only emblematical. Methinks ye picture of St. George fighting with ye Dragon hath some resemblance of St. Michael fighting with the Devil, who is pourtrayed like a Dragon. Ned Bagshaw of Chr. Ch. 1652, shewed me somewhere in Nicophorus Gregoras that ye picture of St. George's horse on a wall neighed on some occasion."

A vast amount of learning upon the subject of our patron saint may be found in Selden's "Titles of Honour," in which he treats of "The chiefest testimonies concerning St. George in the Western Church, and a consideration how he came to be taken for the patron saint of the English nation." Selden originally inclined to the idea that the saint first stepped into this exalted position in the reign of Edward III., but in "a most ancient Martyrologie" that he afterwards came across--one of Saxon date in the library of one of the Cambridge Colleges--he found a sufficient testimony that the position of the saint as patron of Britain dated from a much earlier time.

Peter Suchenwirt, a German poet of the fourteenth century, gives in one of his poems a very curious and striking illustration of the esteem in which at the battle of Poictiers the English soldiers held their patron saint:--

"Di Frantzois schrienn 'Nater Dam!'
Das spricht Unser Fraw mit nam;
Der chrey erhal;
'Sand Jors! Sand Jors!'"

"The French shout forth 'Notre Dame,'
Thus calling on our Lady's name;
To which the English host reply,
'St. George! St. George!' their battle cry."

The Celtic use of the word dragon for a chieftain is curious: in time of danger a sort of dictator was appointed under the title of pen-dragon. Hence any of the English knights who slew a chieftain in battle were dragon vanquishers, and it has been suggested that the military title was at times confused with that of the fabulous monster, and that a man thus got an added credit that did not belong to him. The theory is not, however, really tenable, as all the veritable dragon-slayers had the great advantage of living a long time ago, and no such halo of romance could well have attached itself to men of comparatively modern times. In any case, too, the use of the Celtic word is very local, and does not meet the case of a tithe of the histories of such deeds of valour. The red dragon was the ensign of Cadwallader, the last of the British kings. The Tudors claimed descent from this ancient monarch, and Henry VII. adopted this device for his standard at the battle of Bosworth Field. There is a place in Berkshire called Dragon Hill, near Uffington, and the more famous White Horse Hill, that is in local legend the scene of the encounter between St. George and the dragon; and for full confirmation a bare place is shown on the hillside where nothing will grow, because there the poisonous blood of the creature was shed. We learn, however, in the Saxon annals that Cedric, the West-Saxon monarch, overthrew and slew here the pen-dragon Naud, with five thousand of his men. The name of the hill, therefore, commemorates this ancient victory; but the common folk of the district, who know nothing of pen-dragons, erroneously ascribe the battle won there to the more familiar St. George.

The dragon of Wantley deserves a passing word, since he supplies a good illustration of how the mythical and the material are often mixed up. Wantley is merely a corruption of Wharncliffe, a delightful spot[6] near Sheffield, and here, of all places in the world, this very objectionable dragon took up his abode. One ordinarily expects to hear of such creatures uncoiling their monstrous forms in some dense morass or lurking in the dark recesses of some wide-stretching and gloomy forest; possibly he may have found the choice of such an attractive locality may have helped him to an occasional tourist. On the opposite side of the Don to the crag that held the cave of the dragon stood the desirable residence of More Hall; and its owner, doubtless feeling that the presence of such an objectionable neighbour was a great depreciation of his property, determined one day to bring matters to a crisis; so he walked up to the mouth of the cave clad in a suit of armour thickly covered with spikes, and administered such a vigorous kick in the dragon's mouth, the only place where he was vulnerable, that the whole transaction was over almost at once, and he was back again in ample time for lunch. Dr. Percy, the editor of "Reliques of Antient English Poetry," holds that we must not accept this story too seriously; that, in fact, the old ballad in which it is set forth is a burlesque, and that the real facts are as follows:--that the dragon was an overbearing and rascally lawyer who had long availed himself of his position and influence to oppress his poorer neighbours, but he capped a long series of dishonest and disreputable actions by depriving three orphan children of an estate to which they were entitled. A Mr. More generously took up their cause, brought all the armoury of the law to bear upon the spoiler, and completely defeated him, and the thievish attorney shortly afterwards died of chagrin and vexation.

[6] Lady Mary Wortley Montagu lived here for some time. Writing
afterwards from Avignon, and dwelling on the exquisite landscape
there spread out before her when standing on the Castle height, she
exclaims that "it is the most beautiful land prospect I ever saw,
except Wharncliffe."

"Old stories tell how Hercules
A dragon slew at Lerna,
With seven heads and fourteen eyes,
To see and well discern-a;
But he had a club this dragon to drub,
Or he had ne'er done it, I warrant ye;
But More of More Hall, with nothing at all,
He slew the dragon of Wantley.

This dragon had two furious wings,
Each one upon each shoulder;
With a sting in his tayl, as long as a flayl,
Which made him bolder and bolder.
He had long claws, and in his jaws
Four-and-forty teeth of iron;
With a hide as tough as any buff,
Which did him round environ.

Have you not heard how the Trojan horse
Held seventy men in his belly?
This dragon was not quite as big,
But very near, I tell ye.
Devouréd he poor children three,
That could not with him grapple;
And at one sup, he eat them up,
As one would eat an apple.

All sorts of cattle this dragon did eat,
Some say he did eat up trees,
And that the forests sure he could
Devour up by degrees:
For houses and churches were to him geese and turkeys:
He eat all, and left none behind,
But some stones, dear Jack, that he could not crack,
Which on the hills you will find.

In Yorkshire, near fair Rotherham,
The place I know it well;
Some two or three miles, or thereabouts,
I vow I cannot tell;
But there is a hedge, just on the hill edge,
And Matthew's house hard by it;
O there and then was this dragon's den,
You could not chuse but spy it.

Hard by a furious knight there dwelt,
Of whom all towns did ring;
For he could wrestle, play quarterstaff, kick and cuff,
And any such kind of a thing;
By the tail and the main with his hands twain
He swung a horse till he was dead,
And that which is stranger, he in his anger
Eat him all up but his head.

These children, as I told, being eat;
Men, women, girls and boys,
Sighing and sobbing, came to his lodging,
And made a hideous noise:
'O save us all, More of More Hall,
Thou peerless knight of these woods;
Do but slay this dragon, who won't leave us a rag on,
We'll give thee all our goods.'

'Tut, tut,' quoth he, 'no goods I want;
But I want, I want, in sooth,
A fair maid of sixteen that's brisk and keen,
And smiles about the mouth:
Hair black as sloe, skin white as snow,
With blushes her cheeks adorning;
To anoynt me o'er night, ere I go out to fight,
And to gird me in the morning.'

This being done, he did engage
To hew the dragon down;
But first he went, new armour to
Bespeak at Sheffield town;
With spikes all about, not within but without,
Of steel so sharp and strong;
Both behind and before, arms, legs, and all o'er,
Some five or six inches long.

Had you but seen him in this dress,
How fierce he looked and how big,
You would have thought him for to be
Some Egyptian porcupig:
He frighted all, cats, dogs, and all,
Each cow, each horse, and each hog;
For fear they did flee, for they took him to be
Some strange outlandish hedge-hog.

It is not strength that always wins,
For wit doth strength excell;
Which made our cunning champion
Creep down into a well,
Where he did think this dragon would drink,
And so he did in truth;
And as he stooped low he rose up and cried 'boh!'
And hit him in the mouth.

Our politick knight, on the other side
Crept out upon the brink,
And gave the dragon such a crack,
He knew not what to think.
'Aha,' quoth he, 'say you so, do you see?'
And then at him he let fly
With hand and with foot, and so they both went to't,
And the word it was, hey, boys, hey!

'Oh,' quoth the dragon with a deep sigh,
And turned six times together,
Sobbing and tearing, cursing and swearing,
Out of his throat of leather;
'More of More Hall! O thou rascàl!
Would I had seen thee never;
With that thing at thy foot thou hast pricked me sore,
And I'm quite undone for ever.'

'Murder, murder,' the dragon cried,
'Alack, alack, for grief;
Had you but missed that place, you could
Have done me no mischief.'
Then his head he shaked, he trembled and quaked,
And down he laid and cried;
First on one knee, then on back tumbled he,
And groaned, and kicked, and died."

We sometimes see allusions in poetry and the press to the sowing of dragons' teeth. The reference is always to some subject of civil strife, to some burning question that rouses the people of a state to take up arms against each other.

The incident is derived from the old classic legend of the founding of Thebes by Kadmos. Arriving on the site of the future city, he proposed to make a sacrifice to the protecting goddess Athene, but on sending his men to a not far distant fountain for water, they were attacked and slain by a terrible dragon. Kadmos thereupon went himself and slew the monster, and at the command of Athene sowed its teeth in the ground, from whence immediately sprang a host of armed giants. These on the instant all turned their arms against each other, and that too with such fury that all were presently slain save five. Kadmos invoked the aid of these giants in the building of the new city, and from these five the noblest families of Thebes hereafter traced their lineage. The myth has been the cause of much perplexity to scholars and antiquaries, but it has been fairly generally accepted that the slaying of the dragon after it had destroyed many of the followers of Kadmos indicates the final reduction of some great natural obstacle, after some few or more had been first vanquished by it. We may imagine such an obstacle to colonisation as a river hastily rising and sweeping all before it in its headlong flood, or an aguish and fever-breeding morass. The springing-up of the armed men from the soil has been construed as signifying that the Thebans in after times regarded themselves as the original inhabitants of the country--no mere interlopers, but sons of the soil from time immemorial; while their conflicts amongst themselves, as their city rose to fame, have been too frequently reflected time after time elsewhere to need any very special exposition.

Another literary allusion in which the dragon bears its part is seen in the dragonnades, those religious persecutions which drove so many thousands of Protestants out of France during the Middle Ages. Their object was to root heresy out of the land. Those who were willing to recant were left in peaceable possession of their goods, while the others were handed over to the tender mercies of the soldiery let loose upon them. These were chiefly dragoons; hence the origin of the term dragonnade; and these dragoons were so called because they were armed with a short musket or carbine called a dragon, while the gun in turn was so called because it spouted out fire like the dreadful monsters of the legends were held to do. On many of the early muskets this idea was emphasised by having the head of a dragon wrought on the muzzle, the actual flash of the piece on its discharge issuing from its mouth.

One naturally turns to Shakespeare for an apt illustration of any conceivable point that may arise. The lover finds in him his tender sonnets, the lawyer his quillets of the law, the soldier the glorification of arms, and the philosopher rich mines of wisdom. The antiquary finds in him no less a golden wealth of allusion to all the customs and beliefs of his day. In "Midsummer Night's Dream" we find the lines--

"Night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast,
And yonder comes Aurora's harbinger."

We get much the same idea again in the line in "Cymbeline"--"Swift, swift you dragons of the night," and in "Troilus and Cressida"--"The dragon wing of night o'erspreads the earth." "Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf," and many other horrible ingredients are found in the witches' caldron in "Macbeth," while in "King Lear" we are advised not to come "between the dragon and his wrath." King Richard III. rushes to his fate with the words, "Our ancient word of courage, fair St. George, inspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons." In "Coriolanus" we find another admirable allusion--

"Though I go alone, like to a lonely dragon that his fen
Makes feared and talked of more than seen."

In the play of "Pericles" we have the lines--

"Golden fruit, but dangerous to be touched,
For death-like dragons here affright thee hard."

And there are other references in "Romeo and Juliet" and other plays--references that it is needless here to give, as enough has been quoted to show our great poet's realisation of this scaly monster of the marsh and forest. In the last extract we have given, that from "Pericles," the golden fruit are the apples of the Hesperides, guarded by the dragon Ladon, foul offspring of Typhon and Echidna. Allusions to this golden fruit are very common amongst the poets, so we content ourselves with quoting as an illustration one that is less well known than many, from a poem by Robert Greene in the year 1598:--

"Shew thee the tree, leafed with refinèd gold,
Whereon the fearful dragon held his seat,
That watched the garden called Hesperides."

The dragon, like the griffin, is oftentimes the fabled guardian of treasure: we see this not only in the classic story of the garden of the Hesperides, but more especially in the tales of Eastern origin. Any of our readers who have duly gone through much of the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments" will scarcely have failed to notice the employment of the dragon as a defender of gold and other hoarded wealth. Guillim, in his quaint book on heraldry, says that these treasures are committed to their charge "because of their admirable sharpness of sight, and for that they are supposed of all other living things to be the most valiant." He goes on to add that "they are naturally so hot that they cannot be cooled by drinking of water, but still gape for the air to refresh them, as appeareth in Jeremiah xiv. 6, where it saith that the 'wild asses did stand in the high places, they snuffed up the wind like dragons.'" Any one who has been in any mountainous district in hot weather will no doubt have noticed the cattle fringing the ridges of the hills like a row of sentinels. When we first observed this, and wondered at it, in North Wales, we were at once told that it was a regular habit of the creatures, that they did it partly to avoid the plague of flies that haunted the lower levels and the woodlands, but more especially to get the benefit of any breeze that might be stirring. While Guillim is willing to admit that even a dragon can render valuable service to those who are so fortunate as to be able to procure his kind offices, and induce him to play the part of watchdog, he very properly regards him, and such like monsters, as something decidedly uncanny. "Another sort there is," he says, "of exorbitant Animals much more prodigious than all the former. Such are those creatures formed, or rather deformed, with the confused shapes of creatures of different kinds and qualities. These monsters (saith St. Augustine) cannot be reckoned amongst those good Creatures that God created before the transgression of Adam, for those did God, when He took the survey of them, pronounce to be _valde bona_, for they had in them neither excess nor defect, but were the perfect workmanship of God's creation. If man had not transgressed the Law of his Maker this dreadful deformity (in likelihood) had not happened in the creation of animals which some Philosophers do call _Peccata Naturæ_."

The dragon, though, as we have seen, at times induced to mount guard over other people's property, is ordinarily a very Ishmaelite; his hand is against everybody, and everybody's hand against him; yet would he appear, if we may credit Pliny, to bear an excess and maximum of ill-will against the elephant. The elephant always strikes one as being such a great good-natured beast, as one who could do so much mischief if he would, yet spends his strength instead for the good of others, that it is difficult to understand how he should in so pre-eminent a degree have earned the ill-will of so potent an enemy. The dragon would appear to be always the aggressor, and the elephant has to defend himself as well as he can against the uncalled-for attack: it is satisfactory in this case to know that the scaly assailant sometimes fully meets his match. In Book VIII. of Pliny's history we read that "India bringeth forth the biggest elephants, as also the dragons, that are continually at variance with them, and evermore fighting, and those of such greatnesse that they can easily clasp and wind them round the elephants, and withall tie them fast with a knot. In this conflict they die, both the one and the other; the elephant hee falls downe dead as conquered, and with his great and heavie weight crusheth and squeaseth the dragon that is wound and wreathed about him. Also the dragon assaileth him from an high tree, and launceth himselfe upon him, but the elephant knowing well enough he is not able to withstand his windings and knottings about him, seeketh to come close to some trees or hard rocks, and so for to crush and squeese the dragon between him and them. The dragons ware hereof, entangle and snare his feet and legs first with their taile; the elephants on the other side undoe those knots with their trunke as with a hand, but to prevent that againe, the dragons put in their heads into their snout, and so stop their wind, and withall fret and gnaw the tenderest parts that they find there." One does not quite understand how this last counter-plan of the dragon is effected, but it is evidently to be understood as equivalent to "checkmate."

In the "Bestiare Divin" of Guillaume this antagonism of the elephant and dragon is again referred to, and indeed we find it an accepted belief throughout the Middle Ages. Pliny's work was held for centuries in the greatest admiration, and to add "as Pliny saith" to any statement, no matter how wild, was considered amply sufficient. Guillaume's description of the dragon is as follows--"C'est le plus grand des animaux rampants. Il nait en Éthiopie: il a la gueule petit, le corps long et reluisant comme or fin. C'est l'ennemie de l'éléphant; c'est avec sa queue qu'il triomphe de lui: là est, en effet, le principe de sa force; sa gueule ne porte point venin de mort." The book of Guillaume is a fair type of several books of the sort written by ecclesiastics during the Middle Ages. Such books were an attempt to show that all the works of nature were symbols and teachers of great Scriptural truths; hence, while much that they give is interesting, their statements always require to be received with great caution. If the facts of the case got at all in the way of a good moral, so much the worse for the facts; and if a little or a great modification of the true state of the case could turn a good moral into one much better, the goodness of the intention was held to amply justify the departure from the hampering influence of the real facts. The MS. of Guillaume dates from the thirteenth century, and is at present preserved in the National Library in Paris. The writer was a Norman priest. The work has been very well reproduced in a French dress by Hippeau, a compatriot of the writer.[7] As we simply wish in our extract to bring out the belief in the antagonism between the elephant and the dragon, we forbear to add any moral teachings that a more or less morbid symbolism was able to deduct from the supposititious fact; but we shall have occasion to quote again more than once from the "Bestiare," and doubtless the peculiar connection between scientific error and religious truth will have an opportunity of making itself felt in one or more of these extracts.

[7] Appendix C.