Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Origin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the British Isles

Author: Lestón Mayo, María Aurora

Year: 2014

Source: https://minerva.usc.es/bitstreams/5ec426df-4f84-423b-9e93-fd55b67a1d57/download

Facultade de F iloloxía
Departam ento de Filoloxía In glesa e Ale m á

Tracing the Dragon:
A Study of t he Origin and Evolution of the Dragon
My th in the History and Literature of the British Isles

Mª Aurora Lestón Mayo

Tese de doutoramento dirixida polos Doutores
Fernando Alonso Romero e Cristina Mourón Figueroa

Santiago de Compostela, 2014

Tr a c i n g t h e D r a g o n : A S t u d y o f t h e O r i g i n a n d E v o l u t i o n o f t h e D r a g o n M y t h i n t h e H i s t o r y a n d L i t e r a t u r e o f t h e
Br i t i s h I s l e s .
M ª A u r o r a L e s t ó n M a y o

Facultade de F iloloxía
Departam ento de Filoloxía In glesa e Ale m á

Tracing the Dragon:
A Study of t he Origin and Evolution of the Dragon
My th in the History and Literature of the British Isles

A doutoranda Vº e prace dos directores

Mª Aurora Lestón Mayo Fernando Alonso Romero Cristina Mourón Figueroa

Acknowledg em ents
During the course o f this stud y , I ha ve be en in contact with a number of people who
have been instrumental in i ts development and, honestl y , even it s existence. After
several y ears of fruitful conversations, instructive messages, generous pieces of advi ce
and infinite patience on their part, I cannot pro ceed any fu rther wit hout mentioning here
all thos e kind souls who have aided m e in m y work and who will now be left in peace a t
last.
Fernando Mujico Can eda, who planted the seed of the d ragon craze wh en I was still
blindl y leafing through volumes of ancient lore and wondering which wa y to go.
Fernando Alonso Rome ro and Crist ina Mourón Figueroa, m y knowl edgeable and
resourceful guides in this stud y . I could not have wished for better director s.
Milagros Torrado Cespó n, Emilio Fonseca, Xosé Manuel González Reboredo, Alberto
López, Alfre do Erias, Ana Munín Baluja and A driana Zier er, all of whom gave me
precious advice in di fferent stages of the work or contributed with some long-sought-
after image.
Ana-María S my th and María Dolores Casas Liste, long -suffering friends and invaluable
supporters of this project.
Le onard Sm yth and Brion Mill iman, whom I suspect ma y have also suffe red more than
their due, if onl y b y hearing their wives complain of me.
My colleagues i n Turis mo de Santia go, but especiall y Isabel López Rodríguez, Mª d el
Rocío García Gil, La ura Labandeira Mirazo and Gonzalo Valiñas Martí nez. The y all

know t hat wit hout their c onstant help and support it would have taken me t wice as long
to finish this st udy .
My friends and family, who have borne with me remarkabl y well, ever silent and patient
whenever I got carried awa y with the topic. I will mention espec ially m y p arents, J aime
Le stón Martínez and Mª Dolores Ma yo Núñez, who were always on the lookout for
whatever I m ight need a nd strove to provide me with the most precious of help: time;
my brother Néstor, who went to gre at lengths to h elp me locate several it ems and pieces
of information, particula rly regardin g modern pr oductions, and even pro duced some
drawings himself; m y husband, Suso, whose patience I will never be able to repay , let
alone emulat e; and m y l ittle son Lois, for all t hose times I had to work i nto t he small
hours and could not pla y with him for as lon g as I wished. From now on, we will p la y
the da y s awa y.

To Fernando Alonso Romero,
whose generosity knows no bounds.

Aldrovandi, Ul y ssis. 163 9. Serpentum et draconum historiae .

Ind ex

Introduction .................................................................................................................... 12
Chapter 1. A Saint’s Predicament: Saint George ........................................................... 22
Chapter 2. A Bounty of Dragons: The British Isles ....................................................... 44
2. 1. Feats of Saints ..................................................................................................... 44
2. 1. 1. British Male Saints ..................................................................................... 47
2. 1. 2. Female Saints .............................................................................................. 60
2. 1. 3. Irish Saints .................................................................................................. 67
2. 2. Feats of Heroes ................................................................................................... 72
2. 2. 1. Folk Heroes ................................................................................................ 74
2. 2. 2. Literary Heroes ........................................................................................... 90
2. 2. 3. Make-Believe Heroes ............................................................................... 140
Chapter 3. A Study of Dragons: Summar y of T raits of the British Dra gon ................. 153
3. 1. How to Recognize a Hero ................................................................................. 153
3. 1. 1. Saintl y Hero es ......................................................................................... 154
3. 1. 2. Secular Heroes .......................................................................................... 157
3. 2. How to Recognize a Dragon ............................................................................. 160
3. 2. 1. Birth of a Dragon ...................................................................................... 161
3. 2. 2. Appearance ............................................................................................... 165
3. 2. 3. Dwelling ................................................................................................... 183

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

3. 2. 4. Disposition ................................................................................................ 198
3. 3. How to Defeat a Dragon ................................................................................... 217
3. 3. 1. The Dragon is Defeated with Ingenuit y ................................................... 219
3. 3. 2. The Hero Owns a Weapon of Extraordinary Properties ........................... 224
3. 3. 3. The Dragon is Tamed ............................................................................... 225
3. 3. 4. The Dragon Has One Vulnerable Spot ..................................................... 229
3. 4. Consequences of the Conflict ........................................................................... 230
3. 4. 1. The Defe at of the Dragon May Grant Knowledge or Physical
Invulnerability ...................................................................................................... 230
3. 4. 2. The Hero Perishes in the Fight ................................................................. 235
3. 4. 3. The Fight with the Dragon Justifies a Situation ....................................... 238
3. 4. 4. A P rophecy about the Drag on Breaking Loose W ill Herald the End of the
World .................................................................................................................... 246
3. 5. A Few Considerations about W hat Has Been Examined So Far ...................... 250
Chapter 4. A Revamping of Dragons: The Lege nd Goes Forth ................................... 260
4. 1. Literature ........................................................................................................... 263
4. 1. 1. Literary Productions Before 1960 ............................................................ 264
4. 1. 2. Literary Productions After 1960. .............................................................. 283
4. 2. Cinema and Media ............................................................................................ 302
4. 2. 1. Original Productions ................................................................................ 305
4. 2. 2. Adapted Productions ................................................................................ 316
Chapter 5. A New Breed: A Reflection on Modern Tendencies .................................. 327
5. 1. How to Recognize the Modern Hero ................................................................ 327

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

5. 1. 1. Lowly or Anon ymous heroe s ................................................................... 329
5. 1. 2. Reluctant Heroes....................................................................................... 332
5. 1. 3. Monstrous or Unworthy Heroes ............................................................... 333
5. 1. 4. Female Heroes .......................................................................................... 335
5. 1. 5. Children Heroes ........................................................................................ 336
5. 2. How to Recognize the Modern Dragon ............................................................ 339
5. 2. 1. Birth of a dragon ....................................................................................... 339
5. 2. 2. Appearance ............................................................................................... 341
5. 2. 3. Dwelling ................................................................................................... 343
5. 2. 4. Disposition ................................................................................................ 345
5. 2. 5. How to Defeat a Dragon ........................................................................... 358
5. 2. 6. Consequences of the Slaying .................................................................... 362
5. 2. 7. A Few Considerations: Before and After 1950 ........................................ 364
Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 369
References .................................................................................................................... 379
Primary Sources ........................................................................................................ 379
Secondary Sources .................................................................................................... 381
Appendix A: Dragon Stories in Folklore ...................................................................... 400
The Ben Vair Dragon (Scotland) .......................................................................... 401
The Bisterne Dragon (Hampshire, England) ........................................................ 402
The Bures Dragon (Essex /Suffolk, Eng land) ....................................................... 403
Cnoc na Cnoimh (Sutherland, Scotland) .............................................................. 403
John Aller and the Dragon (Somerset, En gland) ................................................. 404

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

The Dragon at Castle Carlton ( L incolnshi re, England) ....................................... 405
The Dragon of Filey (Yorkshire, England) .......................................................... 406
Lé Dragon d’la Hougue Bie (J ersey ) .................................................................... 409
The Dragon of Kingst on St. Mary ( Somerset, England) ...................................... 409
The Dragon of Llandeilo Graban (Radnorshire, Wales) ...................................... 410
The Dragon of Le Trou Bali gan (Flamanville, Normandy, France) .................... 410
The Dragon of Loch CorrieMohr (Scotland) ....................................................... 411
The Dragon of Shervage Wood (Somerset) .......................................................... 411
The Knucker of Lyminster (W est Sussex, England) ............................................. 412
The Lambton W orm ( Durham, England) .............................................................. 414
The Linton W orm (W est Linton, Scotland) .......................................................... 418
The Longwit ton Dragon (Nor thumberland, Engla nd) .......................................... 419
The Ludham Dragon (Norfolk, En gland) ............................................................. 421
Martin and the Dragon (Denbighshire, Wales).................................................... 421
The Mester Stoor Worm (The Orkney Islands) .................................................... 422
The Mordiford Dragon (Herefordshire, England) ................................................ 424
Le Serpent de Villedieu-les-Bailleul (Orne, Normand y , France) ......................... 424
The Sexhow Worm (Cleveland, England) ............................................................. 425
Sir John Conyers and the Sockburn Dragon (Durh am, England) ........................ 425
Sir Peter Loschy and the Dragon (Yorkshire, England) ...................................... 426
Sir Piers Shonks (Hertfordshire, En gland) ........................................................... 427
The Three Munster Heroes and the Piast ( Ir el and) .............................................. 428
The Two Dragons on L oc h Merkland (Scotland) ................................................. 429
The Walmsgate Dragons ( L i ncolnshire, En gland) ............................................... 429
Wyvill and the Dragon (North Yorkshire, England) ............................................ 429

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

proceed, in Chapter 3, to ex tract from them a numbe r of elements common to these
stories in t his particular geographical and cultural contex t, an identi kit sketch of sorts of
the dra gon, but at the sa me t ime a schematic vie w of their historical development and
what the y meant fo r the different societies that shared these tales.
In Chapters 5 and 6, the modern re-emergence of the dragon tale in t he 20 th and
21 st centuries will be addressed, obs erving which of those elements that were to b e
found in the traditional s tories ma y have survived to the present and, more importantl y ,
which have evolved, and the reasons behind these choices and developm ents. This wil l
be, I hope, revealing as to the wa y in which our present cultural and social situation has
influenced the manner in which we vi ew the w orld and th e themes of old. This wil l
prove rel evant to interp ret the revival of a dr agon-centred tradition w hich has been
increasingl y ma gnanimous towards this creature.
Obviousl y , due t o the co nstant cultural ex changes between t he British Isles and
neighbouring lands, it will be unavoidable to mention ex amples beyond the islands on a
frequent basis. An object ive stud y must bear in m ind the mut ual relations and i nfluences
that affect a given communit y . None of us are isolated. Nevertheless, I will tr y to restrict
them to t he main area of cultural influence and exchange to whi ch the British Isles h ave
been historicall y conne cted, that is, the European Atlantic lands, particular y regarding
the traditi onal models, and t he United States, in the analysis of the modern remakes. In
any case, occasional mentions of other cultures will be added, whenever they m a y add
something of import to the general discussion.
As regards to the methodology used, par adoxically , the pres entation of this stud y
does not match the t rain of thought that led t o it. W henever pos sible, facts, l ege nds ,
myths and lit erar y prod uctions are he re pr esented in a fairly consistent chronological
wa y , when the process o f investi gation could not have been more differe nt: part of my

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

intention is her e to dwell on the origins of the dragon, and, for t hat, I ha v e gone
backwards i n my exploration, starting at t he relativel y modern m yth of Saint George
and moving backwards from there in search of it s origins. Where does thi s st ory come
from? And where do the m y ths pre ceding it come from? And thus successively, throu gh
the Middle Ages, and from there to the C lassical Antiquit y , and from there to t he
Middle East m y ths, and Celtic traditions, and the I ron Age settlements… W here does
one stop? Basically , wh en one reaches a point in histor y when there is absolutely no
factual information re garding this engrossing topic (or an y other topic, for t hat matter). I
have been followin g a trail, but the trail is lost in the mists of time. I shall now attempt
to put some order and a good amount of thinking into the findings made .
The procedure used to s eize and work on t hese vague i deas with a modi cum of
scientific rigour is base d on the s ystematic anal ys is of a s elected number of works,
pertaining to literar y and filmic manifestations and l egends, as has bee n m entioned
above. The stud y has b een l imited to fictional works, with the intention of focusing the
efforts on a categor y with easil y defined boundaries, even thou gh the y m ay be rather
blurry at times, but also because fiction is the genre that better explores the s y mbol ism
attached to given episod es and motifs in th e different eras. I am aware that there is a
large b od y o f scientific work about dragons, both in zoological writings (at least up t o
the 17 th century ) and even t he odd documentary o n alternate universes 1 , and these I have
referred to on occasion, but the y are not the foc us of the analy sis and s o they do not
appear explicitl y in the corpus of work.
The ex amination of the corpus has be en divi ded i nto two stages. I n the first one,
works belonging to the hist orical period running from the first written reco rds up to t he

1 The Last Drago n (200 4). Chan nel 4 a nd Ani mal Pla net. Directed by Charlie Fo le y (09 .22.20 13.
http://www.i mdb.co m/title/tt0 433 367).

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

20 th century are presented and compared, and the result of their anal y si s is displa y ed and
interpreted before turning to more modern manifestations. Following this , works from
the 20 t h and 21 st centuries are li kewise conside red and di ssected, with a strong aim on
observing both how the y echo productions of previous centuries or how they differ, an d
the meaning behind these choices.
The reason for such a seemingly as y mmetric time division is that I h ave
observed th at t he tr eatment of t he dragon m y th did not change materially i n t he lon g
period up to t he 20 th centur y , but then a number of dramatic variations st arted to appear,
outwardl y all of a sudden. The minut e examination of these change s and what they
reveal about the societ y which produced t hem wil l go a long wa y to help us understand
the internal workings of a motif that has been present in human societ y si nce the dawn
of time.
I humbl y hop e that such a stud y will be helpful t o other researchers, at least in
the sense that i t p rovides them with a set of basic elements to look for when anal y sing
the dragon character in a given artisti c representation. Hopefull y , I wi ll manage to
determine what exactl y a dragon is, be yond the meagre and often confusing accounts
provided b y dictiona ries and the m ayhem of chaotic information regarding this matter
that seems to come from all directions, given the general and st eady fascination that
people have with dragons. I also aspire to brin g an updati ng on the general topic of the
dragon stories, as the sp ecific treatment given t o them in modern manifestations is
included. I have observed that an im portant number of the studi es related to Deformed
Discourse t end to tackl e comprehensive studies of the monstrous, t y pi cally in th e
context of the Europe an Middle Ages or in contemporar y W estern prod uctions. This
present stud y is narr ower i n that it i s circumscribed to a single manife station of the
monstrous (drag ons ) and in a lim ited geographical context (the British I sles). It is, based

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

on those two premises, a drop i n the ocean of m onster studies. On the ot her hand, it s
scope is extended in ter ms of t ime. One o f the a ims I wish to pursue here is t o b ridge
those two branches of stud y : the an alysis of the medieval monster and the anal y si s of
the modern one, and se e in which wa y s t he y are connected and in whi ch wa ys th e y
differ, and wh at t his portends. I find t hat it is relevant to attempt this, espe ciall y in the
case of t he dra gon, a cre ature that was centr al to medieval teratolo gy, but which has a
striking perman ence in our present-day culture, to the point that it is presently going
through a specta cular po pularit y , as attest the continuous flow of titl es ava ilable, both in
literature and fil m. But, above all, it is m y de arest wish that the re ading of these pages
will be simpl y s atisfying to the reader.
Finally, regarding the ma terials used for the s ection on folktales, it is onl y fair t o
acknowledge that m ost British dragon tales most ly exist nowada y s in sum maries from
recollections, since ve rbatim recording of stor y t ellers is a ver y recent method and
traditional collectors usuall y p araphrased the info rmation provided b y their informants.
I have tried to compi le as many of those stories t hat were collected comp lete as it h as
been possible, but i n many c ases I cannot but de fer to summaries and references with
variable de grees of obsc urit y , found in an assortment of works. I n an y case, I hav e
attempted to include all these varieties of sources in a wa y that r ead as smoothl y as
possible. In this effort, I owe a lot t o Jacqueline S impson, an author whose work has
been a constant guide and, even thou gh she plainly sa ys that it is unwis e t o explore the
topic of comparative methodolog y and its approach that dra gons may st em from
Creation M y ths (Si mpson, 2001: 49), I shall brav e the odds, for ever y thin g su ggests that
it is well worth some examini ng, at lea st.
On a final note, I must warn those who may be hoping for a series of proofs of
the ex istence or non-exi stenc e of dra gons th at t hey must look for them elsewhere. That

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

is not my inte rest, nor t he scope of t his stud y . O f course, it does not foll ow t hat I do not
have an opinion on the m atter, but I will leave s cientis ts m ore prepared than m e in those
areas to elucidate on that. I am certain t he information is out there for those who wish to
find it . As for me, I have no qualms i n stati ng that I b elieve dra gons are entirely a happ y
product of th e fertile human imagination, and it is as such that the y act ually hol d an
interest for me, as a crucial part of our i mmateria l herita ge. I am not interested in
discussing whethe r the y ma y be an exti nct species, ps y chic entities or just ver y r are
animals. What the y trul y are is a fascinating piece of the puzzl e that is humanity .

A detail from t he Altarpiece of St. George. Fi rst quarter of the 15th c. Victoria and Albert
Museum, London.

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

Chapter 1. A Saint’s Predica ment: Saint George
For thou emongst those Saints, whom thou doest see,
Shalt be a Saint, and thine owne nations frend
And Patrone: thou Saint George shalt called bee,
Saint George of m ery England, the si gne o f vi ctoree. (Spenser, The
Faerie Queene, Book 1, Canto 10. www.online-literature.com)

Not so ver y long ago, ever y En glish schoolboy us ed to be familiar wit h these lines, and,
even nowada ys, althou gh only the odd student wil l acknowledge having read them,
Saint George is universall y r ecognized as the single m ost important saint of England,
the patron saint of the country, English as clotted cream.
Above all, it is the episode in which Saint George fights the d ragon that gets the
lion’s share of attention, and testament t o its popularity are the innumerable versions of
the tale with which audiences have been regaled over the centu ries. G eorge, and others
like him, seems to have fought dragons all over England, too, for man y are the villa ges
that claim to be the s ite of such fightin g. If one l ooks into the countless v ersions of the
story, which I wil l in du e time, one will get the impression that dragons mu st have b een
a veritable pest in ancient Britain, for George an d his peers were nev er s hort of work.
And, certainl y, one can kill onl y so man y d ragons before becomi ng a national hero of
sorts.
The tale of S t George a nd the dragon wil l be presented in this chapter as an
archetype of the stories that have been chos en to shape the matter of st udy o f thi s
research. In Geo rge the reader will find that all the elements common to most legends
where the hero is antagonized b y a dragon are present, as if it were a thematic park o f
the dra gon fighting m otif. I t is also a choic e example with which to illustrate one o f the
themes that is constant in tales of monsters: the monster is a s ymbol of the unknown, the

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

alien. I t is an “Other” t hat coexists wit h us, but on the m arg ins of human society,
constantly thr eatening i t. Hence the need of a he ro to thwart i t, to “perfo rm the same
function the world over, that of clearing the field for humanit y” (Gilmor e, 2003: 11).
And George, the golden boy of heroic dragon ki llers, t riumphing over the dragon that
threatened a town, embodi es t his symbolism t o the letter. And where exactly in Britain 1
was this town that was fortunate to have received the aid of the saint?
There are two main pla ces in En gland v ying for t he reconnaissance of b eing th e
site of the not orious fight: Brinsop (Herefordshire) and Uffington (Oxfordshire). Here is
what each candidate claims:
The church of S t George in Brinsop has an early medieval t y m panum showing
the scene of th e sla y i ng (Si mpson, 2001: 53), and the local story provides geographical
evidence to our h eart’s c ontent: the dra gon dwelled in a well in Duck’s Pool Meadow,
just to the south of the c hurch, and the fight took place at Stanks M eadow. These pla ces
are still recog nizable no wadays, and a pride of l ions to the communit y , along with their
other, no less attractive, claims to fame 2 .
Uffington’s claim is, if p ossible, even more impre ssive, at least archaeologi cally-
wise.
There is here a ver y pop ular and ex traordinaril y sugge stive site and one i n th e
care of t he National Trust of the United Kingdom t oo: t he White Horse at Dra gon Hill 3 .

1 I a m here mentioni ng B ritis h locations onl y, but t he legend of St Geo rge is clai med b y to wns all o ver
Europe , and p art of Asia too, as will soon b e see n.
2 Which ar e, aside fro m St G eo rge and the d elig htful ch urch consecrated to hi m , memo rabilia related to
topics a s varied a s the p oet William Wor dsworth, World War II and Sir Ninia n Co mper and his stra wberr y
plant (09 .22 .2013. http:// www.br insopcourt.c om).
3 Dragon Hill is located on th e b orde r of the ci vil par ishes of U ffington and W oolstone. It w a s p art o f t he
county of Berk shire until 19 7 4, when it was tra nsferred to Oxfordshire. T here a re other white hor ses i n
England (the Marlbor ough White Horse, the Cherhill Whit e Horse and the W estbury White Horse) but not
only ar e the y mor e modern, their appea rance is also strikingly dis similar to tha t of the U ffington White
Horse ( 09.22. 2013. http:// www.british -histor y .ac. uk).

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

This i s a small conical chalk hill, on t he northern face of the Berkshire Downs, two
miles south of Uffington, which was once artificia lly fl atted and carved. If not hing else,
the fact of it s length y preservation alone must be awe- inspirin g. I t has been dated to the
La te Bronz e Age and t here a re several other prehistoric sites located in i ts vicinit y ,
notably the Iron Age Uf fington C astle (a hill fort), Wa y l and’s Smi thy (a long barrow),
the Lambourn Seven Barrows and the Blowing Stone (a p erforated stone which
produces a musical sound when blown through). The Ridgewa y (an ancie nt road) runs
beside it. The folklore surrounding this area is nothing short of impressive and it would
deserve a detailed comprehensive stud y.
The carving at Dragon Hill is an enigma. I t shows a sch ematic representation of
a four-footed l ong-necked slender animal, which has traditionally b een ide ntified with a
horse (at least si nce the 11 t h century) and is belie ved to represent Geo rge’s own st eed.
Others have argued that it actually represents the dragon i tself. It is said that it was on
this very summit that Ge orge fought and slew the dragon, and some versions even impl y
that the creature lies buried under the hill.
By t he earl y 18 th century, Tom Hughes recorded t hese lines b y a sheph erd called
Job Cork, which give us an id ea of the popularit y o f thi s association of St George an d
Dragon Hill:
If it is true as I hear say
King Gaarge did here the dragon sla y ,
And down below on y on der hill
They buried him, as I heard tell (Simps on, 2001: 54).
There is, j ust below t he White Horse, a curiousl y bare p atch of chalk, upon
which no grass eve r gro ws. This is s upposed t o be the exact place where t he dragon’s
blood spilled, effectivel y preventing the growth of any plant, or so the stor y claims.

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

In 1738 a new theor y ab out the carving emerged; the W hite Horse on Drag on Hil l had
been created to commemorate King Alfred’s victory a gainst the Danes in t he Battle of
Ashdown, which took place precisely i n the Vale of the White Horse 1 (Simpson, 2001:
54).
Le t us leave thi s elusi ve carving i n m ore competent hands and proceed with the
matter at h and, as t here are m an y ot her m yste ries that need t o be unravell ed, starting
with what should probably be th e first questions to ask:
What is a dragon?
Etymologicall y , the wo rd comes f rom the Latin draco, -onis , or the Gree k
drakon , both meaning “l arge serpent, d ragon”. The dra gon was considered a rightful
species until tim es as recent as t he 19 th centur y, a nd even nowada ys some still support
the theor y that the y are merel y extinct.
Its appearance ma y var y depending on t he culture and tim e in histor y in which
one finds the referen ce, which answe rs to certa in peculiarities and n ecessi ties of the
communit y in which i t is embedde d. Fo r example, Eg y pti an dra gons are v er y much li ke
crocodiles, a choice tha t is fairly reasonable, considering t hat the most dangerous
creature t hat the y were familiar with was the crocodile. However, there is alwa y s a
reptilian component to these descriptions. C onsider this entr y in the Enciclopedia
Universal Ilustrada Europeo-Americana (2161-2):
Reptil fabuloso de talla gigantesca, cuerpo cubierto de escamas, mirada
terrible aliento venenoso y que lanza fu ego p or la boca. Se suele
representar con alas y en ocasiones con varias cabezas (l a hidra d e
Lerna), y apar ece en las leye ndas griegas, nórdicas y asiáticas,
principalmente como guardián de man antiales cu rativos o adivinatorios

1 King Alfred (8 49-89 9) w as ver y li kely familiar with the White Horse, as he was bor n in the villa ge o f
Wanating (no w Wa nta ge), which is a mere 7 m i les away from U ffi ngton, and it is recor ded that during his
reign the ca rving wa s alr eady in existe nce ( 09.22.20 13. http:// www.br itish-histor y . ac.uk,
http://www.brita nnica. co m ).

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

connection that such a man could be no other than our own George, but it seems that the
Acta Sancti Georgii writer did not doubt it for a single moment 1 .
Such were the accounts that pav ed the wa y fo r the expansion of the story
towards the west of Eur ope, lusciously detailed and intolerably obscure at the same
time. What little is known about S t G eorge from the ancient sources com es basicall y
from these two tex ts mentioned above. Outside their margins, the researcher is doom ed
to the realm of interpretation and, sometimes, the wildest of h y pothes es.
Bishop Gr egory o f Tou rs (538-594), in his Glory of the Martyrs , states th at the
relics of Saint Ge orge were i n a n ora tor y of L im oges, where many miracles were
performed t hanks t o th em. Nev ertheless, as it is often the case, relics seemin gl y
multipli ed and soon ther e were no less than five heads of Saint George and multiple
limbs scattered all over Christendom 2 , something that a sardonic reader mi ght interpret
as accounting for the saint’s man y im probabl y concurrent feats in distant la nds.
Word of Saint George reached En gland in t he 7 th centur y , or so one gathers from
the ex isting eviden ce, for the first written account of him that h as been pr eserved dates
from A.D. 635, and it was written b y no ot her than Saint Adomnán of I on a 3 , who details
part of George’s mart yrdom, told to him by Arc uif, a French bishop who had been in
Jerusalem during the Crusades (10.02.2012. http://www.stgeorgesday.com). Bede is
reported to ha ve m entioned Geor ge in his M artyrology too, but, sa dly , there is no
surviving copy of this work to confirm it.

1 Aditionall y, in this te xt, George was raised to the rank o f trib une and, his father, to go verno r of P alestine.
2 For example, in the Collegiat e Chapel Ro yal, a t Windsor, the worshipp er could fi nd all of the follo wing:
part o f St George’s ar m, par t of his s kull and t wo fingers (0 9.22 .2013 . http:// www . enc yclo.co .uk).
3 Saint A d o mnán, Ada mnan or Eunan (Done gal 6 27/8 - Io na 7 04) was the abb ot of Iona (Sco tland), although
of Irish origi n. He is said to be a r elative of Saint Colu m b a, w hose b iograph y he wrote (09.22.2013 .
http://www.brita nnica. co m ).

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

In an y c ase, the cult to Saint George was rather i ndiffere nt in W estern Europe
during this time and it would remain so until the 11 th century.
That was the Era of the Crusades.
The First C rusade started in 1095. Some ye ars later, in 1120, Archbishop Baldric
of Dol in Brittany wrote that Saint George hims elf had turned up in battl e at Anti och in
1099, turning the tables in favour of the C hristians, as well as in later campaigns,
“including Barbarossa’s m arch through Anatolia” (Bachrach, 2003: 178). “He app eared
at the he ad of a heav enly arm y , ridi ng on white horses and carr y i ng white banners 1 ”
(Gardner, 2007: 15 ). Th is is far f rom unp recendented. Thi s account fo llows almost
exactl y that of the mira culous appearance of Sain t J ames in Spain, during the Battle o f
Clavijo (A.D. 844), where he app eared to help t he Christian troops to s c ore a victor y
against the Arabs. J ame s, too, rides his sig na ture white horse 2 . This m iraculous
intervention i s etch ed int o stone i n a church at Fordington, Dorset, whi ch is considered
as the e arliest c hurch in England to be de di cated to St. Geor ge (10.02.2012.
http://www.stgeorgesda y.com). Nev ertheless, asi de from th e odd reference in wills or
church buil dings, and epic miracles notwithstanding, t he saint would still be large l y
ignored on English ground unt il the Fourth Crusa de (1202-1204). Th e sur viving knights
of this campaign a rrived in England and spread an ex citing tale they had heard about a
By z antine warrior called Georgios of Lydia, who had kill ed a dragon that was blocking

1 The red cro ss b anners that King Richard is usuall y d epicted with in cine ma were actuall y introduced late r
in histor y, durin g the 1 4 th ce ntur y. B y the ti me of the Cr usad es, the E nglish knights w or e white cro sses to
tell them a part from t he Frenc h ( who wore t he r ed crosses) and the Fleming (who wore green crosses). T he
red cro ss o n white field b anne r associated w ith Saint George in En gland dates fro m t he reign of Ed ward III
(13 27-77) (Gard ner, 2007: 17) and George was a lread y de s cribed as w e aring such gar ments in t he Legend a
Aurea (late 13 th c). T he French d id not look kindl y upo n thi s choice, of course, mu ch le ss wh en K ing He nry
V captured Rouen in 141 8 and sa w it as pro of that Englan d’s clai m to the red cross was appr oved by Go d
(09 .22.2013 . http://www.britis h-histor y.ac.uk).
2 The selection of a white charger for these t w o saints is r ath er significant, as wh ite horse s w ere co nsidered
sacred (for exa m ple, the S un ro de a chariot with white horses) (Frazer , 1966 : I: 21, 31 5; II: 174 ).

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

the acce s s to a wat er suppl y . Such a st ory could not but excite the crusaders’
imagination and inflame t hem with a thi rst for adve nt ure. It proved to be exactl y w hat
was needed to rei gnite the Crusad ers’ belief, the insurmountable p r oof that God
embraced the idea of the Hol y W ar.
Once George had reached the shores of England, there was no turn back.
In the whi rl of the Briti sh enthusiasm for the Crusades, man y churches were
dedicated to S t George, and, i n 1222, the Council of Oxford declared April 23 rd to be S t.
George’s Da y (10.02.2012. http://www.stgeorge s da y . com). As soon as 1344, the saint’s
name had become the official batt le c r y for the En glish troops during the si ege o f
Calais. S oon after, in 13 48, King Ed ward III con stituted the Most Noble Order o f the
Garter, the m ost imp ortant knighthood to b e honoured with. Saint George, who
embodied all the values a knight could aspire t o have, was selected as the patron saint of
both the Garter and the ki ngdom of England. The king was inspired b y the chivalric
ideals that were g lorified i n t he Arthurian romances, which he greatl y admired, and the
knights of the Orde r of the Gar ter were ex pected to li ve up to the image of the chivalric
knight of the Round Table.
King Henr y V was also a powerful all y of the s aint. In 1415, after his vi ctory a t
the Battle of Ag i ncourt, St Georg e ’s Da y (April 23 rd ) 1 was declar ed a national festivit y
of equal importance as Christmas. On St George’ s Da y a ll labour was forbidden.
By this time, the story broug ht by the crusaders was quite changed. I t had
merged wit h the account of the m artyrdom and some characters had been modi fied. The
Emperor Constantius in the story (A.D. 337-361) had been swi tched to hi s grandfather
Constantius I ( also known as C onstantius Chlorus) (A.D. 250-306). The ch ange came in

1 T his had been established as the date of his mart y rdo m i n the Old Eng lish Martyrolo gy , an anonymo us
work written d urin g the secon d half of t he 9 th centur y (09.2 2.201 3. http://www.encyclo .co.uk).

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

handy for the Anglo-Sax ons, for Emperor Constantius I had been the Roman Governor
of Britain and, Geor ge b eing his f riend and a tri bune to the boot, he surel y must have
resided in Britain too. It all made perfect sense.
The passa ge about th e dragon sl a y in g h ad benefitted from th e addition of a
damsel in distress that n eeded to be sav ed from the dr agon and the original Turkish
Ly d ia had become Lydda in P alestine in some versions. Occasionall y , th e mart y rdom
was reported to have be en s uffered not b y G eorge, dauntin g warrior that he was, and
therefore unlikel y to b e captured b y an y foe, but by his parents.
The Legenda Aurea (13 th c.) has the dragon episode included. I t is during this
century that t he association of t he saint with the dragon came to full a cceptance in
Europe. This is how the text ex pounds on the fa mous passage:
On a time he came in to t he province of Lib y a, t o a cit y which is sai d
Silene. And b y thi s cit y was a stagne or a pond like a sea, wherein was
a dragon which env enomed all the country . And on a t ime the people
were assembled for to sl ay him, and when they saw him the y fled. And
when he came nigh t he c it y he venomed the people wit h hi s brea t h, and
therefore the people of t he city gave to him every da y t wo sheep for t o
feed him, because he should do no harm to the people, and when t he
sheep failed there was taken a man and a sheep. Then was an ordinance
made in the town that t here should be taken the children and y oun g
people of them of the town b y lot, and ever y eac h one as it fell, were he
gentle or poor, should be delivered when th e lot fell on him or he r. So it
happed t hat many of the m of the town were then delivered, ins omuch
that the lot f ell upon the king's dau ghter, whereof the kin g was sorry,
and said unto t he people: For the love of the gods take gold and silver
and all that I have, a nd l et me have m y d aughter (10.02.2012.
http://www.aug.edu/augusta/i conog raph y/goldenLegend/index.html).

Of course, the villagers would have none of that. After all, it had been the king
himself who had est ablished the dastardly rule and an y wa y s one can easil y imagine
them far from supportive of his plea when the y h ad lost so man y of their own children
to the dragon.

St Geor ge at the Al- Khidr church in Al-Salt, J ordan (photo: cou rtes y of J ordan Denar y .
05.26.2014. http://j ordan denari.com/).

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

So, the king gave in, although he ask ed for a reprieve of ei ght da y s, which he
was graciously granted.
And when the eight da y s were passed the y came to him and said: Thou
seest that the cit y p erishet h: Then did the king do arra y his dau ghter like
as she should be wedded, and embraced h er, kisse d her and gave her his
benediction, and after, led her t o the place where t he dragon was
(10.02.2012.
http://www.aug.edu/augusta/i conog raph y/goldenLegend/index.html).

But behold! Luckily a great warrior was at hand:
When she w as t here Saint George pass ed b y , and when he saw the la d y
he demand ed the lad y w hat she made there and she said: Go ye y ou r
wa y fair young m an, tha t y e perish not also. Then said he: Tell to me
what have y e and wh y w eep ye , and doubt ye of n othing. W hen she saw
that he would know, sh e said to him how s he was delivered to th e
dragon. Then said Saint George: Fair daughter, d oubt ye no thing hereof
for I shall help thee i n the name of J esu C hrist. She said: For God's
sake, good knight, g o your wa y , and abide not with m e, for y e ma y not
deliver me. Thus as the y spake together the dr agon appeared and came
running to t hem, and Saint George was upon his horse, and drew out his
sword and garnished hi m with the sign of the c ross, and rode hardil y
against the dragon whic h came towards him, and smote him wi th his
spear and hurt hi m sore and threw him t o t he ground. And after said to
the maid: Deliver to me y o ur girdle, and bi nd it about t he neck of the
dragon and be not a feard. When she had done so the dra gon foll owed
her as it had been a meek beast and debonair. Then she led him into the
city, and t he people fled by mount ains and valle ys, and said: Alas! alas!
we shall be all dead. Then Saint George said to them: Ne doubt y e no
thing, without more, believe y e in God, Jesu C hrist, and do ye to b e
baptized and I shall sl ay the drag on. Then the king was baptized and all
his people, and Saint George slew the dragon and smote off his head,
and commanded t hat he should be thrown in the fields, and they took
four carts with ox en that drew him out of the cit y (10.02.2012.
http://www.aug.edu/augusta/i conog raph y/goldenLegend/index.html).

After wit nessing such ex ceptional ev ents, the good people of S ilene conve rted to
Christianit y on the spot, naturally.
It is curious that, in this version of the stor y, the dragon is specificall y doo med to
“be thrown in the fields ”. This behaviour ma y remind the r eader of another dra gon of
the Classi cal Antiquit y which is also used to s ome ex tent to fertilize the soil: in t he

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

foundational story of Th ebes, Cadmus, who is searching for his sister, Europe 1 , arrived
one da y to Delphi to consult with the oracle of Apollo. Howeve r, the god had plans for
him other than to have him conti nue his search. He instructed Cadmus to follow a cow,
and found a city wherever the animal would kneel.
The hero ob viousl y followed t he advice of the god, and decided to found a cit y
which would be known as Thebes. But t he tasks the gods appoint are never simple.
When Cadmus went to fetc h water to a neighbouring sprin g, he found that i t was no
other that the sacred spring of Are s, g ua rded b y t he dragon I sm enos. Ismenos would not
allow Cadmus to go an ywhere near the sprin g and C admus would not look for a source
of water elsewhere, so there was nothing for them to do but fight. Cadmus emerged
victorious, killing the serpent with a deadl y cast of a stone. Then, the goddess Athena
told him to sow the dr agon’s teeth 2 , and a c rop of armed w arriors emerged from the
earth and started fi ghting each other. The five warriors that were l eft standing after th e
fight became the ancestors of the Thebans.
One may be inclined to obs erve in both these s torie s some rite of fertilization
which uses the dr agon as a s ymbol. As will be seen in other sections of thi s study, there
are plenty of other examples that point to thi s very ide a.
However, in spi te o f thi s suggestive reference, ex perts tend to liken this story
first and foremost with the Andromed a m y t h, especiall y in the recurrent formulaic motif
of the t hreatened woman (Andr iano, 1999: xvi). In truth, the w hole episode of St
George and the d ragon savours strongly of th is popular Greek stor y : Andromeda,
daughter of the Aethiopian monarchs Cepheus and C assiopeia, had the mi sfortune of

1 Europ e had b een abducted by Zeus unde r the guise of a bull (09 .22.2013. http:// www.pantheo n.org/).
2 The m otif of having dragon’s teeth sowed into a fi eld and an a rmy o f soldiers gro wing o ut of them i s also
found in the poe m Argo nau tica , composed b y Apo llonius o f R hodes in t he 3 rd c. B. C. (0 9.22.201 3.
http://www.brita nnica. co m ).

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

having a mother who was so foolish as to brag of her daughter’s uncom mon beaut y,
claiming t hat she could b e compared t o the very Nereids, the sea n ymphs that were
daughters of Poseidon. As ever yone (ex cept Cassiopeia, apparentl y) knows, such
boasting can onl y b ring mi sfortune. And so i t did. P oseidon was enraged b y the
matron’s careless words and retaliated b y s ending Ceto to destroy Cepheus’ kingdom.
Only t he offering of An dromeda, wretched Andromeda, who had not breathed a word,
would sate Ceto. Since t here s eemed to b e no oth er wa y out of a v er y dir e situation, the
princess was chained to a rock b y th e sea and in structed to fortif y h erself for her sad
fate. Luckily fo r her, in stepped Perseus, riding Pegasus. He a rrived just in time (fresh
from killi ng the Go rgon Medusa), slew the monster and rescued Andromeda.
Afterwards he claimed, and was granted, her hand in m arriag e. After her death, Athena
placed Andromeda among the constellations in the Northern sk y , where w e ca n see her,
chained for all eternit y (1 0.02.2012. http://www.pantheon.org).
This is t he best known example in Antiquity t hat is usually branded about as the
basis for St Georg e and the dragon, and certainl y it is very eas y t o spot the perceived
parallels between both stories, yet it is far from original its elf. Ver y sim ilar
combinations of motifs are found in othe r m yths from Greece (P y t hon and Le t o 1 ,
Herakles and Hesione 2 ), Eg y pt (Ra and Apep 3 , Isis and Seth 4 ), Bab y lon ( Marduk and

1 Leto, the daughter o f the Titans Phoebe and Coe us. Her name ca me to be used for the moo n Selene. Hera
was jealous of Le to because Ze us, the h usband of Her a, had fallen i n love with her. From their union Leto
bor e the divine t w i ns, Artemis and Apollo. Leto fou nd this to be an arduous task, as H era had refused Leto
to give bir th o n either terra firma or on an island out at sea. T o m a ke things even m ore diffic ult, while Leto
was still pregna nt with the d ivine t wins, the serp ent P ython was sent to molest her. As punish ment, Apollo
later killed P y tho n and t hen too k control o f the oracle o f Delp hi (09.2 2.2013. http://www.pantheo n.org).
2 He sione was t he d aug hter o f Laomedon, king o f T ro y . T o pacify Po seidon, Hes ione was t o be sacr ificed to
a sea monster that the god had sent to the lands surro unding T ro y. The monster w as killed by Heracles a nd
the girl was sp ared (09. 22.2013. http:// www.pantheon.o rg).
3 Apep or Apop his i s an E gyptian snake god, the personi fication of dar kness, evil a nd chaos, who i s in
constant ba ttle with Ra ( 09.2 2.201 3. http://www.pant heon.or g).
4 Seth is t he ancient Eg yptia n god of chao s. T he Greeks equated him with their T yphon. He chased Isis to
devour her u nborn son, Ho rus ( 09. 22.2013. http:// www.pantheon.or g).

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

Tiamat 1 ), Persia (Ahura Mazdah and Ahriman 2 ), India (Indra and V ritra 3 ), and i t is eve n
present in the oldest pr eserved written tale, the E pic of Gilgamesh 4 . This evidences that
the general structure of t he stor y of St Geor ge as found in t he Legenda Au rea must have
been inspired b y a t ale that was practicall y univer sal.
Going back t o the Legenda Aurea after t his brief detour, the reader wi ll fi nd that
after this epic narrative of Saint George ’s fi ght against the dragon, the author moves on
to the mart y rdom. George, who is a Christi an, confronts Diocletian and M aximini an
and, as consequ ence, i s submitt ed to a number of ter rible t ortures, none of which sways
his faith, despite the fact t hat he is killed three times, and three times resurrected, before
being ultimately b eheade d. Needless to say, t he main perpetrators did not escape di vine
justice.
The L egenda Aurea then deals with the location of the saint’s relics i n Ramys,
between J erusalem and J affa, as well as wit h G eorge’s miraculous help in the b attle

1 Mard uk means, literally, " b ull calf o f the s un". He was the son of Ea, leade r of t he gods, and a fertilit y
god, but originally he was a go d of thunderstor ms. According to Enu ma Elish , an ancient epic po em o f
creation, Marduk defeated T iamat and Kingu, the dragons of chao s, and thereb y gai ned supre me po wer.
Ackno wledged as the crea tor of the universe and of humankind, the god of ligh t and life, and the r uler of
destinies, he r ose to such eminence t hat he c laimed 5 0 titles. E ventuall y, he wa s called simply B el,
meaning " Lord" (09.22 .2013. http://www.pa ntheon.o rg).
2 Ahura M azda h (" Lord W isdom") was t he supre me god, h e wh o cre ated the hea vens and the E art h, and
another so n o f Zurva n. Ahriman, or Angra Ma inyu, is th e god o f darkness, the eter nal destro y er o f goo d,
personificat ion a nd creato r of e vil, b ringer o f de ath and disease. His symbol is the snake. Atar, Ahura
Mazdah’ss son, battle d Azhi Da haka, the great dr agon o f the sky, and bo und it i n chain s on a h igh mou ntain.
The dr agon was , ho w ever, d estined to esca pe and destro y a third of man kind at t he final re ckoning, be fore it
was slain (0 9.2 2.2013. http://www.pant heon.org).
3 In Ved ic ti m es, Indra w as th e supre me ruler of the god s. Indra' s most notab le explo it w as his ba ttle with
the as ura Vritra. Vritra too k the for m o f a might y dragon, and had stolen all the w a ter in the world for
himself. I ndra r ode forth to meet the terrible Vritra. H e smashed throu gh Vr itra’s ninety-n ine fortre sses, and
then came upo n the dra gon. The two clas hed, and after a long battle I ndra w as able to de stro y his po w er ful
enemy. Vritra had been keeping t he earth in a d rought, but when Indr a sp lit o pen the d e mon, the waters
again fell fro m the s kies (09.2 2.2 013. http:// www.pantheon. org).
4 T he Epic of Gilg amesh is one of the earl iest surviving w or ks o f literat ure, w hich date s t o the 18 th ce ntury
BC. Gil gamesh was a Su merian d e migod a nd the king o f U ruk ( modern da y Ir aq), where he rei gned for a
time much longer that a human li fe spa n (12 6 years, acco rding to trad ition). I n one o f his m a ny ad ventures
with E nkidu, the y fou ght Humbaba, a d ragon who w a s the guardian o f a cedar fo rest (09. 22.2013 .
http://www.pa ntheon.o rg).

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

against the Saracens. Th e t ext states that t he body of t he saint is kept in a chapel, b ut
that the head is missing 1 . It also explains that
(…) the bod y of Saint G eorge lieth in the mi ddle of the quire or choir o f
the said chapel, and in his tomb is an hole that a man may put in his hand.
And when a Saracen, bei ng mad, is brou ght thit her, and if he put his head
in the hole he shall anon be made perfectl y whole, and have his wit again
(10.02.2012.
http://www.aug.edu/augusta/i conog raph y/goldenLegend/index.html).

This is certainl y a kind gesture on Saint Geo rge’s part, and also seems the least
he could do after having been the main cause of their defea t at the hands of the
crusaders (10.02.2012. http ://saints.sqpn.com/the-golde n-le gend- b y -b lessed-jacobus-de-
voragine).
All these changes added a patina of chivalr y to the story which was ver y
palatable to the place and times. Who could resist such a gallant tale of chivalrous
deeds?
Willliam C axton’s translation of the Legenda Aurea into English (1483) spread
the story rapidly enough that it was soon well known all over the count r y . The motif of
the encounter with the dragon became a favourite topic wit h both artists and la y m en,
who would portra y the dramatic scene in t heir works (the artists) and r e-enact it in
processions and mock ba ttles (the la y men). Man y are the mummers’ pla y s that present
George as their hero, and many the hobb y -hor ses that included the drag on passa ge,
either directl y or indirectl y (10.02.2012. http: //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobb y _horse), as
will be seen in t he sectio n devoted to processi onal dragons in Chapter 2: “Make-believe
Heroes”.

1 T here are several heads of Sa int George, but the o ne which has t he greate st claim to authe nticity wa s found
by Pope Zachary (741 -752) in the Lateran P alace in Ro me (09 .22.2013 . http:// www . enc yclo .co.uk).

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

In En gland, however, there is a major contribution to the l ife of St Leonard that
is not found an ywhere e lse. In St Leonard’s Forest near Ho rsham (Sussex ), there w as
once a chapel d edicated to him 1 , and the s aint hi mself is said to have li ved there for
some time. I t must have been an ev entful s ta y , o r so the stor y suggests : In t his forest,
Le onard once came acros s a f earful dra gon, and the fight between m an a nd beast w as
terrible and scathing for both combatants. We are tol d that, after a long co mbat, Leonard
prevailed, but at the cost of terrible wounds and a great loss of b lood. I n reward fo r his
feat, wild lilies of the valley have ever since grow n on the patches of ground where his
blood was spilt 2 and no nightingale sings i n the forest, as punishment for having
distracted the saint with their song (Simpson, 2001: 54-5).
The stor y of St Leonard and the dra gon appears t o be ex clusive t o thi s pl ace in
England, for the saint is not viewed as a dra gon sla y e r an y where else. This suggests that
there ma y hav e alr ead y been a simi lar pa gan stor y in circulation that w as Christianiz ed
with the inclusion of the saint. “The major formative period in t he development of
British dragon-lore as w e now know it began in the later Middle A ges” (Si mpson, 2001:
121). There is indeed in the area a village called Dragon’s G reen, which s eems to have
arisen b ecause this state was owned b y a family surnamed “Dragons”, living at the
village of R offe y in 1296 (Sim pson, 2001: 55). A study on t he origins of the surname in
this specific case would greatl y a dd to the clarification of this st ory.

1 T he place has been kno wn as St Leonard ’s Forest s ince the 13 th century, at t he ver y least (Simpson 200 1:
54, 09.22.2013 , http:// www . br itish-histo ry.ac.uk).
2 T his r ever ses the a ccou nt o f t he fight bet ween Geo rge and the drago n at Drago n Hill ( Uf fington,
Oxford shire), where the grass does not gro w in the patc h o f land where the drag on’s blood was spilt
(Simpso n, 200 1: 54).

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

Quite interesting l y , and adding t o t he ge neral m y s tery, in 1614, it was suggested
in a serious pamphlet that the dragon might still be in e xistence, or so s ome
eyewitnesses declared:
This serpent (or dra gon, as some c all it) i s repute d to be ni ne feete, o r
rather more, in leng th, and shaped almost in the form of an ax letree of a
cart: a quantiti e of thickness in the middest, and somewhat sm aller at
both endes. Th e former part, which h e shootes forth as a necke, i s
supposed to be an elle long; with a white ring, as it were, o f s cales
about it. The scales alon g his backe seem to be blackish, and so much is
discovered unde r his belli e, appeareth to be red (...) i t is also di scovered
to have large f eete, but the eye ma y be there de ceived (...) There are
likewise upon either side of him discovered t wo great bunches so big as
a lar ge foot-ball, and (so som e thi nke) will i n t ime grow to win gs (... )
He will cast his venom about four rodde from him (...) His food is
thought to be, for t he most part, in a conie-w arren, which he m uch
frequents (Simpson, 2001: 125).

Was this the report of a true sig htin g of some exotic animal or only a hoax? I t is
difficult to tell, but t he story ce rtainl y benefitted from its already popular location and
related lore. I t is s omewhat amusing that it is now adays considered as part of the
folklore of S ussex, and y e t at the time of its pub lishing it was received with mockery,
when not open contempt (Simpson, 2001: 125).
Saint Samson o f Dol ( England)
Samson of Dol som ewhat reve rses L e onard’s career , being b y virtue o f his birth an
insular saint, but who moved to the continent in his adulthood. According to tradition,
he was born in Wales, b ut t he centre of Samson’s cult is in Brittany (France) 1 The Vit a
Samsonis , a tex t written in Brittany during the 8 th centur y gives us an e arly a ccount of

1 T here ar e many paris hes asso ciated with Saint Sa mpson i n Br ittany, No r m a nd y and the Chan nel Islands,
but he is also pre sent in Cornwall a nd the Isle s of Scill y (Ko ch, 200 6: 1558) .

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

his life and expl oits 1 . Among t hese, one of the mo st popular ones tells of how, while in
Cornwall, he led a dragon to its death, sending it over a sea cliff.
His hag io graph y relates how his conceiving w as miraculous. His parents, unable
to produce a child, “m ade an offerin g o f a silver rod the size of Samson’s mother Anna,
and she b ecomes pr egnant with Samson” 2 (Koch, 2006: 1558). It is said that, as a y oun g
boy, Samson became a disciple of St Illtud, abb ot of Llanilltud Fa wr i n Glamor gan
(Wales). This would have him li ve during the second half of the 5 th century .
Some i dentify him with bishop Samson, who lived during the 6 th century, or
with S amson bi shop of York, but li ttle i s known of either and there i s th erefore s cant
evidence, aside from their name, to suppo rt the cl aims they m a y have to dragon-sla y in g
status. He is, nevertheless, considered as the earliest Celtic saint of whom there are
printed records (Koch, 2006: 426).
Saint Armel (W ales)
With a bi ogra ph y similar to that of Samson, Saint Armel 3 too was born in Wales but is
revered mainl y in France, where he founded a mo nastery. I t is speculated that, at about
the ti me S amson had bee n residing i n Glamor gan, st udy in g under S t I llt ud, Armel was
born to this land. He, t oo, was educ at ed in Welsh monaster ies but, as he reache d
manhood, he removed to Brittan y in France. There, he performed several miracles an d
settled into quiet monastic life in his monaster y .

1 A very po pular episode of his life i s his e ncounter with a th eoma cha , a supernatural woman, w ho was o ne
of nine si sters who lived in a wood. T his “sister hood of nine” is e vocative o f the n ine sorcere sses t hat
inhabit t he isla nd o f Avalon or the n ine virgin priestes ses that Po mponius Mela describ e s as l iving in t he
island of Sena ( Koch, 2 006 : 146).
2 T his was a ver y com mon pra ctice. In the Sp anish r egion of Galicia, stil l no wadays, of ferings o f candles ar e
made to ask for the healing o f a r elative, and the leng th o f the candle mu st be the sa me as the hei ght of the
person who suffers t he disease .
3 Saint Armel, Arth fael i n W e lsh. Died c. 5 70. He fo unded the abb ey of P louarzel in Fr ance (0 9.2 2.2013.
http://www.e ncyclo.co .uk).

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
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Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

His contemplative acti vit y w as ab ruptly int errupted wh en a fie r y dragon
appeared in the forest of Teil , near the R oche-aux -Fé es 1 . Undaunted b y t he prospe ct,
thence Armel went, armed with hi s holiness and with some skill in battle gained during
his years as a soldier to the French king 2 . L it tle could the dragon ima gine that he was
about to meet an ex traordinary rival. Armel proved how put out he had been about the
interruption of his medi tations b y stran gling th e beast wi th his own v estments and
drowning it in the river Seiche without so much as a by y our l eave 3 . I can not help but
imagine b old Armel, after the d eed was done, shaking the dirt of f hi s clothes and
strutting back to the monaster y t o resume his pra ying.
Saint Germanus and Saint Serf (Scotland)
During the 5 th century, St Germanus used a simil ar technique as Armel, although his
methods are not as minutel y e xplained. We do know that once, after having been
informed of the exist enc e of a perilous dra gon that caused great t error, Germanus
bravely marched int o the beast’s cave and, putting his own handkerchief around its
neck, he dragged the m onster to a deep pit wh ere he c ast it for good (10.02.2012.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/etc/ddl/ddl16.htm ).
Without engag ing in a f ruitless di scussion on the comparative siz es of dra gon
and handkerchief, the ease with which thes e men handled dr agons mu st have been
astonishing to thei r cont emporaries and readers. But of course, the y we re not regular
men, but men of God.

1 Which means “the r ock of the fairies’. T his is very s uggestive, espe cially i n light of the acco unts telling
that it was there that the lo cal druids p erfor med their rites (Co lburn, 19 26: 506 ).
2 So m e versions have it that he aided Kin g Iuthahel of Br ittany in battle (09 .22.2013 .
http://www.e ncyclo.co .uk).
3 T his victory naturall y was int erpre ted as the triu m p h of the Christia n Churc h over pa ganism.

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

St Serf, whose da ys are recorded in the Vit a Sancti Servani ( Life of St Serf ) 1 had
a wa y with dra gons too , or so one gathers of the st or y of how he killed one su ch
creature using his pastoral staff. This happened at Dunning, where a solemn medieval
church still stands to giv e proof of the place whe re this happened, and of the regard of
the communit y for St S erf’s intervention.
Serf is believed to b e of noble birth, as most oth er saints here mentioned. Eastern
born, he lived durin g th e 6 th centur y and a fter man y t ravels he established himself i n
Scotland, where he made the acquaintance of A domnán and settled at C ulross and
where he would become the protector of St Mun go.
Saint Gilbert of Dorn och (Scotl and)
During the 13 th century, an age ripe for dra gon stories, another saint, Gilbert of
Dornoch 2 , had his chance to become a sla y er.
In S utherland, a dra gon had been born from a fir e which had lasted seven y e ars.
Born f rom it, the creature l ived in a st ate of permanent i ncandescence, and it s flaming
breath burned ever y thin g within reach.
This is how Dempster (1988: 156-7) records the st ory :
There lived once upon a tim e, in Sutherland, a great dragon, ver y fierce
and strong. I t was t his dragon who burnt all the fir- woods in Ross,
Sutherland, and the Rea y, of which the remains, c harre d, black, and hal f
decayed, ma y now b e found in ever y moss. M agnif icent forests t he y
must have been, but the dragon s et fire to them with his fiery breath, as
he r olled ove r the whole land. Men fled from before his face, and
women fainted when hi s shadow crossed the s k y -line. H e m ade the
whole land a desert. And it came to pass, t hat this evil spirit, whom the
people call ed “th e Beast,” and Dhu guisch (of the black firs ), c ame ni gh
to Dornoch, as near as t o L ochfinn, from whence he could see the town,
and the spire of St. Gilb ert-his church. “Pit y o f y o u, Do rnoch!” roared

1 The text was found in a m anuscrip t pro bably written i n t he 13 th ce ntury (09. 22.2 013.
http://www.e ncyclo.co .uk).
2 Also known as Gilbert de Mor avia or Gilbert of Caithne ss. Died 12 45. He w as a me mber of the family of
De Mor avia, po ssessed of grea t states in S utherland ( 09.2 2.201 3. http://www.britis h-histo ry.ac.uk).

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

the drag on. “Pit y of you, Dornoch!” said St. Gilbert; and taking with
him five long and sharp arrow s, and a lit tle lad to carry them, he went
out to meet the “Beast.” When he came over against it he said, “P ity of
y o u!” and drew his bow. The first arrow shot the Beast through the
heart. He w as buried b y th e townspeople. Men are alive now who
reckoned distance b y so or so far from “the stone of the Bea s t,” on the
moor between Ski bo an d Dornoch. The moor i s now planted, and a
wood called C aermore waves over the ashes of the fir-destro ying
dragon (From Alexander the Coppersmith).

Other versions of the story include a passage in which St Gilbert digs a hole and
hides hi mself i n it so that he sees the dragon before t he dragon has the chance of
perceiving hi m. This tri ck r eminds one of the Scandinavian Völsunga Saga 1 , where
Sigurd, the hero, hi d in a pi t and stabbed at t he drag on Fafnir wh en he crawled over it.
In the case of St Gilbert, his decision came from a prophec y about the dragon th at said
that “only a man who s hould see it before it saw him had power to sla y i t” (Dempster,
1888: 157).
This stor y finds its place in histor y at a relativel y late tim e, compared to most
other saintl y dr agon sla y i n g that has been s een (or will be seen) in t his section and
which took place no fu rther t han the 6 th centur y. One ma y wonder if this fact alone
accounts for the striking di ffere nces that ma y b e observed in it. For one, the dragon has
the power of speech, in a wa y hi ghl y reminiscen t of the Scandinavian dragons, whic h
also often converse with their opponents. I t i s al so endowed wit h a command of fire
which had so far b een b ut rarel y mentioned. It is curious t oo that it is stated that the
creature was born from a seven- year lon g fire, a nd not onl y be cause of the symbolism
attached to this sp ecific number 2 but because ther e is a surprising parallel i n S pain: in

1 T he Vö lsung a Saga was written in Iceland i n the 13 th century, althoug h the storie s it compiles must be
much o lder, the e arliest k nown renditio n being t he Rasmund carving, which was made at the t urn o f t he 11 th
century (0 9.22 .2013. http:// www.britannica.co m).
2 T he number seven is p resent bo th in nat ural (the co lour s of the rainbo w) and artificial d ivisio ns (t he da ys
of the week, the diato nic sca le), a nd it ap pears in man y tr aditions and tales in Europ e. In t he Hebra ic cu lture
there are plenty of example s t hat use this nu merology, but also in ancie nt Egipt and Greec e. T he mysticis m

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

Carnota (A C oruña, Gal icia), a legend tells how a dangerous dragon on ce inhabited
Monte Pindo 1 . The fie r y m onster breathed fire and, on one occasion, he s et fire to t he
mountain. M onte Pi ndo was aflame fo r seven y ea rs and t he fire was so t errible that even
the dragon who had caused it perished (Cores Trasmonte, 1999: 144-7)
Gilbert, apart from a dragon sla yer , is also regarded as a buil der saint. He is said
to have miraculously built the cathedral of Dornoch, with the help of an enchanted
hammer 2 .
And yet, not all saints were as wa rlike in thei r approac h to dragons as George
and L e onard and, to a lesser ex tent, the rest of the saints above. Although it is gene rall y
acknowledged that saintl y ladi es a re gentler in their dealing with dragons, men are not
foreign to a little tenderness. Let us consider these other examples.
Saint Petroc 3 (England )
Excerpts about the li fe of thi s six th-centur y saint are found in several medi eval
manuscripts, many of them, such as the Vita metrica and Miracula , fr om the 14 th
century. Ac cording to his hag i ograph y, he was the son and heir of a W elsh ki ng, but, on
his father’s demise, he declined the throne and became a monk instead.
It is s aid that he h ad no t one, but two encounters with dragons. Here is what
Simpson (2001: 56) relates about the first one, located in Cornwall:

of some n umbers (fa mousl y, number seve n and n umber thre e) m a y be d erived fro m the ob servatio n of
nature (for instance, t he numb er of la rge stellar objects that a re visible to the naked eye is seven), but I have
found no incontestable e xplan ation for the eminence o f nu mber seve n. Yet, it is over whel mingly prese nt in
Western tra dition.
1 Monte Pindo is one o f se ver al holy sites i n G alicia, whe re the ric hness o f folklor e an d archaeo logical
re m ains has e very exper t in awe.
2 Dempster, hearing in S utherl and that Gilb ert is also called the Gobha inn Saor , an e pithet that m eans the
nob le smith , co nnects the story with the Scand inavian tale o f Thor ( Dempster, 188 8: 1 58).
3 St P etroc o f Wa les ( died 5 64). His feast is on J une 4 th . After beco ming a monk, he tra velled fro m Wa les to
Ireland with a group o f noble follo wers to study Theolo gy. On his return to Wales, he settled in Cornwall.
He and his gro up e stablished the mselves for so me time a t a monastery near Pa dsto w, but P etro c is said to
have bee n consta ntly on t he move, tr avelli ng to many o f the holy p laces of Christe ndo m ( 09.2 2.201 3.
http://www.briti sh-hi stor y.ac.uk.).

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

In thos e da y s Tandurus reig n ed [in W estern B ritain], a man of fie rce
and cruel wa ys, who in his savage t yranny had gathered wo rms and all
sorts of noxious serpent s into a pit of water, in order to punish and
torture thieves there. After he died, hi s son, who succeeded him,
forbade the use of su ch t ortures; thereupon the famished snakes rose t o
the s urface in a ti ghtly p acked m ass and gnashed one another with their
vicious fan gs, so that out of all thei r great numb er there remained but
one alive – a horrible on e with a huge bod y , whi ch t ore cattle and men
to pieces in its gaping jaws and venomous mouth. The man of God
came to this place, and after kn eeling to p ra y in front of eve r y one h e
restored t o l ife a man who had died, and ordered the monster t o depart
to a wilderness beyond the seas, and never to harm an y on e again.

Other v ersions of this stor y have Petroc place a girdle around the monster’s neck
(09.22.2013. http:/ /www.ancientworlds.net), a co mmon practice among pacific saints
(and, more specifically, saintl y maid ens such as S t Martha, whose contribution wil l be
tackled later) when the y needed to hold some dr agon in check. S ome s imilar i nstances
have alre ad y been seen, such as St Germanus’ int ervention. S t S y lvester too used a
similar method when in Rome. There was then a drag on that l ived i n a pit i n the cit y ,
with a b reath so foul t hat it ki lled hundreds of people dail y. Th e emp eror Constanti ne
sent St S y lvester 1 to solve the situation and t he saint, after pra y ing and r eceiving the
necessar y inst ructions of St P eter, desc ended t o the pit, where a fter sp eakin g to the
dragon the animal received him meekly . Then, he bound the mouth of the beast wit h a
thread, effectivel y se aling it afterwards with the s ign of the cross. Thus, he saved th e
citizens from the venomous stench and th e y , g rateful, we re h app y to convert t o the new
faith. Interestingl y, S y l vester was co etaneous of Geor ge o f Laodicea, one of the
candidates t o S t George, although the y mi ght not have met, as S y lvester did not attend
the C ouncil of Nicaea. Nevertheless, it is curious how bot h m en of God, on opposite
sides during the Council, feature prominentl y in d ragon stories.
Speaking of which, here is the second dragon Petroc encountered:

1 Po pe Sylvester I ( Pap acy 314-335).

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

[On another occasion], a certain la rge d ragon which used to come
wandering round [P etroc’s] cell had a piece of w ood l odged in his right
eye, so, having voided o ut all i ts harmful venom, it hurried to the plac e
where th e saint was pra ying and there it la y for th ree d a y s with it s head
bowed, waitin g for t he s aint’s favour. B y ord er of the blessed Petroc,
the dragon w as t hen dr enched with a l iquid which was sprinkled ove r i t,
mix ed with dust from the paving st ones; the stren gth of thi s medicine at
once drew the piece of wood out of its e y e, and it went back healed to
its solitar y l air (Simpson, 2001: 56).

As one can see in these two instances, St Petroc had a gentle wa y with dragons 1 .
He had a wa y with the weather, too. In one occasion, havin g b een den ied the basic
courtesy of a drink of w ater b y an obnox ious hermit at Padstow, he struck t he ground
three times with his staff and, all of a sudden, a spring appeared there (09.22.2013.
http://www.turnbacktogod.com). He could also accuratel y p redict t he we ather, and even
control it to some extent (Rees, 1936: 39). I n this, he resembles St J ulien of Le Mans
(France), who lived during the 3 rd centur y and w ho was reported t o both have slain a
dragon and relieved a communit y which was suffering from a shortage of water. J ulien
thrust his s taff int o th e ground and water gushed out as he p rayed. The dra gon he
vanquished had his den near a templ e of Jupit er, and so Jul ien’s vict ory has b een
interpreted as the fall of pagan pol y th eism (Colburn, 1826: 506).
Saint Colu mba (Scotl and)
The earliest recording of St Columba’s 2 encounter with a water monster is S aint
Adomnán’s seventh-cent ury Vita Columbae ( Life of St Columba ), where we ma y read
this:

1 His chari ty e xtended to o ther ani mals, too. He is said to have once sa ved a stag b eing hunted b y hidin g it
beneath his cloa k, a nd he is also c redited with taming a wolf, w hic h is often r epre sented b y his s id e
(09 .22.2013 . http://www.turnb acktogod. co m ).
2 Co lumba (Co lum C ille or Colmcille in Irish). 7 December 52 1 – 9 June 597. Born in I reland, he is credited
for having spread Christia nit y in Scotla nd, w here he fo unded the abb ey of I ona. He is r emembered as one of
the T welve Apostles o f Ir eland ( Dh á Aspal D éag na h éireann ), the t w el ve sixth-centur y I rish saints who
studied under St Fi nian. P ractica lly all o ur kn o wled ge ab out him de rives fro m the Vita Colum bae b y

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

At another ti me (...) [ Columba] found it necessary to cross the River
Ness. When he comes to the bank, he sees some of the local people
burying an unfo rtunate fellow whom – so those bur y in g him claimed –
some aquatic monster had shortl y b efore snatched while he was
swimming. The hol y man orders one of his com panions to swim out
and bring over a cable moored on the other side. Hearin g and obe y in g
the command, Lugne Mocunim wit hout dela y t akes off his clothes
except his loincloth, and casts him self into the wa ter. But the monster,
perceiving the surface of the water di sturbed b y t he swimm er, suddenl y
comes up and moves towards him as he was crossi ng the m iddle of the
stream, and rush ed up wit h a great roar and open mout h. The hol y m an
seeing it (...) commanded the ferocious monster, say ing “Go thou no
further nor t ouch the man. Go back at onc e.” The n on hearin g this word
of the saint the monster was terrified and fl ed away again more quickl y
than if it had be en dragged on rop es, though it had approached Lugne as
he swam so closel y that between m an and monst er there was no mor e
than the length of one punt pole (Simpson, 2001: 49) .

Not surprisingl y , this is often considered as the earliest sightin g of the Loch
Ness monster 1 . Two things are for certain: it was a close call for Lugne Mocunim (who
surely would think twice before volunteering another tim e) and the creature went awa y
undisturbed. This stor y c omes to show that the slay in g of th e monster was not alwa ys
required. Another such ex ample may be f ound in the stor y o f St C arantoc.
Saint Carantoc ( Engl and)
A native saint of great f ame, Carantoc’s 2 pursuit of a quiet life dedicated to God was cut
short when a fierce serp ent li ving on a marsh on Ker Moor (Somerset) s tarted a c areer
of terror in the neighbourhood.

Adomnán, which was w r itte n al m o st a centur y a fter Col umba’s deat h. Several Latin h ymns have bee n
attributed to the saint, for whi ch he is r evered a s a patro n of the poets ( Koch, 2 006 : 468).
1 He re w e must re m ember that, although it surpa sses in fame any o ther la ke cre ature, the Loch N ess monster
is far fro m an od dit y , a s t here are co untless anecdo tes a nd talk of stra n ge cr eatures l urkin g in lake s, not least
in Ir eland, where Lady Gr ego ry r epor ted the sighti ng of a se rpent like ani mal t hat was o nce seen in Lough
Graney. As she aptly p ut it, “T here are queer things i n lakes” (Simpson 20 01: 4 8-9).
2 Car antoc, Car annog in Wel sh, Cairnec h i n I rish a nd Kar anteg in Br eton. He lived d uring the 6 th ce ntur y . A
repr esentative of the ear ly Ce ltic Church, he is said to have prea ched in Ir eland and B rittany a s well as in
Wales and many are the sto ries circulating regard ing his life and miracle s ( 09.2 2.201 3. http://www.british -
history.ac. uk, http://w ww.encyclo .co.uk).

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

and to a bonna con from Galatie (in Turke y ) 1 , was nigh to invincible, and it caused great
damage b y drownin g ever y ship that passed b y his hiding place. The locals, in despair,
turned to Martha for help.
Martha came upon t he dragon as it was devouring a man i n t he forest. Fa r from
being daunted b y the prospect, she cast hol y wate r on the be ast while hold ing her cross
high. The dra gon was su bdued at once. T ame as a sheep, it approached the m aiden, who
bound i t with her girdle . She then took it to the city, wh ere the dra gon wa s quickly put
to death by its inhabitants 2 .
In this practical use of her girdle, Ma rtha seem s to be of one accord with a
number of other saints. S t Bernard 3 , for example, o nce came upon a dra gon and a giant
at a mountain of the Alps. Bernard mad e the si gn of the cross, a g esture which gave th e
two monsters pause. Then, he put his own cloak around the dra gon’s neck. At once, the
cloak turned into chains and thus the dragon was held prisoner, a chance that t he nine
pilgrims that accompanied Bernard took to kill it. The relics of the silken ends of the
chains are kept in t he abbey o f St M aurice- en-Valais (Valais, Swit zerland) (09.22.2013.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/etc/ddl/ddl16.htm ).
St Pol also made us e of his stole i n one such sit uation, when he arrived to the
island of Batz (Brittany, France) and found that a dragon had m ade it his lodgings. He
commanded the dragon to exit his cave, wrapped his st ole around the animal’s neck and
led it to the cliffs, where he o rdered it to comm it sui cide. A t rue ex ample of docilit y.
The plac e h as si nce been called T rou du Serp ent (“the Se rpent’s Hole”), a nd locals sa y

1 Although so me translatio ns mean t his m o nster to be some mysterious “bo nacho” fr om “Galic ia”, the
original Latin te xt sa ys literal l y thi s: “ Vener at aute m per mare d e Galat ia Asye, generatus a leviat han, q ui
est serpens aquos us et ferocissi mus, et a bonacho animali, quod Galatie regio gignit”. T her efore, it is not to
be co nfused with an y of the m any lege ndar y creatures found in the m ytholog y of Galicia ( Spain).
2 T here is at Ai x a fossilized head of a n exti nct Sauria n reptil e, which for ma ny cen turies was co nsidered the
true head o f the dr agon tamed by St Martha ( 09.2 2.2013 . http://www.encyclo. co.uk).
3 St Ber nard o f Menthon (99 3-100 8).

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

that there i s a mark left by th e dra gon’s teeth on a stone and that, if one li st ens carefull y ,
it is easy to hear the s ea makin g st range noises as it cr ashes on t he ro cks, as i f the
dragon were still roaring i n the hole (09.22.2013. http://batz-decouverte.pagesperso-
orange.fr/StPol.htm ).
In Genoa (Ital y ), San S iro 1 (St C yr or St C yrus) d efeated a dr agon that once used
to live in an old well. His b reath destroy e d flocks and people alike. The saint “conjured
the monster and forced him to quit the well and then throw himself into the sea”
(Colburn, 1826: 506).
Yet another similar tactic was emplo yed b y St Rom ain, the archbishop of Rouen,
in Fra nce. It is said that t he Gargouille, a serpent drag on, used t o t errorize boats in t he
Seine R iver. I t also caused the odd flood from ti me t o ti me. Due t o t hese objectionable
pursuits, the vil lage rs we re none too happy wit h the creature. S t Romain then came into
the picture. He lured t he dra gon to shore with a f ake victim and, when t he beast arriv ed,
he subdued it making the sign of the cross. After the successful taming, Romain led the
dragon into town, where it was kill ed 2 .
In P aris, A. D. 136, S t Marcel had far more mercy. A dra gon had appeared “near
the tomb of a woman of qualit y who had led a disorderl y life” (Colburn , 1826: 506).
Marcel intervened to free the cit y from the dreadful beast in a fashion similar to that of
Romain: he knocked the monster on the head three times with hi s cross an d, this done,
he wrapped his cloak a round it s neck and led it be y ond the ga tes of P aris, where he
freed it on the promis e of never m aking itself a n uisance again. The dra gon, naturally,
complied (09.22.2013. ht tp://www.sacred-texts.com/etc/ddl/ddl16.htm). Thi s method

1 Saint Syrus o f Genoa. Died A.D. 381 . He was a p riest and la ter bishop of Genoa. He i s r eputed to have
perfor m e d se veral miracles du ring the course o f his life (0 9.2 2.2013 . http:// www . enc yclo.co .uk).
2 It has o ften bee n pointed o ut that this ma y b e t he b asis for t he carvi ng of gar go yles, b ut t here is no
universall y accepted c onclusio n regardin g this hypothesis.

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

reminds one all t oo well of St Germanus in Scotland, who also led a m onster forth with
his handkerchief.
But let us return to Martha.
After h elping ki ll the dr agon, she and Mar y took their abode in the cit y, which
adopted the name of Tarasconus, in r emembrance of the d ragon, and she ended her da y s
there, in a basilica she founded in honour of the Hol y Vir gin (Gutch, 1952: 195).
Martha performed m an y other miracles 1 in t he course of h er lif e, but it is her
taming of the T arasque t hat gets the most attenti on in art and folklore. It is somewhat
curious that her stor y par allels that of Geor ge i n thi s aspect, for, until the Middle Ages,
the main episodes in w hich she f eatured were the resurrection of L az arus and her
disgruntled protests ( and J esus’ answer) one d a y that she had to do t he housework all b y
herself while her sis ter Mar y w as whiling awa y her time listenin g to J esus. Her early
role was that of hostess to J esus, and those who f irst put the st ress on (or indeed made
any reference wh atsoever to) the dra gon tamin g in Fra nce were the medi eval authors,
thus effe ctivel y displ acing he r ori ginal role as protector of the household, both in texts
and iconograph y . W hatever did happen in the Middle Ages that st ern martyrs a nd gentle
saintl y m aidens suddenl y became involved with dragons? Simpson (2001: 120-1)
claims that the late Middle Age s (espe cially the 15 th and 16 th centuries) were the main
formative period in the development of British dragon-lore and that m ost of the legends
that emerged during this time m ust have derived from a common source. Interestingly,
across the Irish Sea things we re not so very different as one would ex pect from a place
where snakes and serpents are nowhere to be found.

1 Her r estoratio n to life of a dr owned youth feat ures pro minentl y amon g her miracles.

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
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Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

2. 1. 3. Irish Sai nts
The Irish Case: St. Pa trick and Beyond
Patrick is to Ir eland as George i s t o England: a patron s aint 1 and a foe of t he serpent.
Certainly, he w as not the first missionary 2 to be sent to Ireland to convert t he locals to
the new faith, but hi s i mpact on the Irish religion and culture was the gre atest of t hem
all, and his presence ev er since, i ndelible. His feast is on Ma rch 17 t h , the acknowledged
date of his death, which came at some indeterm inate moment betwe en A.D. 460 and
490.
If one follows his own text Confessio ( Declaration , in its English version), Patrick was
born at Bannavem Taburniae , an unknown location in Roman Britain. At sixteen, he
was captured in the course of a raid and taken to I r eland as a slave, where he worke d as
a shephe rd for six ye ars, at t he end of whi ch he turned to Christ ianity and returned to
Britain (some versions s ay th at t o Gaul) to d edicate hi s life to God. Tr adition has it that
Patrick first arrived back as m issionary in Ireland around the years 431 or 432, b y that
time already a bishop.
His m issionary y ears in Ireland w ere not ex empt of hardships, and he su ffered of
cold, hunge r, a nd viole nce, but, in spite of it all, he managed to establi sh seve ral
churches, and he would remain in the island to t he end of hi s da y s . His main area of
influence seems to have been the north.
There is no mention eith er i n text s written b y Pat rick or his disciples r eferring to
the mi racle of the snake banishing, but the ep isode certainl y stuck with the l ocal
population and soon th e main r epresentations of the s aint we re eithe r Patrick, in

1 Patric k shares the p atro nage of Ir eland with St Col umba and St Br igid (09 .22. 2013.
http://www.brita nnica. co m ).
2 T hat honour goes to P alladius (09 .22.2013. http:// www.brita nnica.co m).

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

Episcopal costume, holding the shamrock, or Patrick, st anding on dra gons and snakes
while t he y desperat ely e ndeavour to scurry aw a y. The l egend prob abl y appeared as a
wa y of exp laining the c urious absence of sn akes in I reland, which the popul ar st ory
explained in these terms: in one occasion, Patrick went to the top of a hill to pra y and
fast and, du ring th e 40 da y s that his m editations lasted, he w as unremittingl y atta cked
by vi cious snakes. At the end of his fort y -da y fast, P atrick chased them all int o the sea
and the y were never seen again in Irish grounds. The realit y , as naturalists ex plain it, is
that I rel and has been snake-free t erritory since the P ost-glac ial period. However, the tale
about St Patrick did not start to be in circulatio n until the 11 th century , and for that
reason on e ma y be temp ted to int erpret the l egend as Patrick’s triump h over D ruidism,
as the use of the serpent as symbol of pagan practices has alwa ys bee n co mmon.
To s ummarize, the legend has St Patrick r eleasing the Irish from all snakes
during th e 6 th century. Natural hi stor y , on the other hand, explains that there h ave b een
no snakes at all in Ireland for at least 18,000 years. I t does not seem the m ost favourable
of conditions for the dev elopment of dra gon lore, as dra gons b elon g t o the family o f the
snakes and one could ar gue th at t here is no possibilit y of developin g su ch a monster
without the observable natural reference on whi ch it is so blatantl y inspi red. And y et ,
there is dragon lore i n Ireland. Onl y, the Irish do not call their mons ters d ragons . The y
call them peists . These are large serp ent-like creatures that live in lakes and rivers, and
occasionally cause some discomfort to neighbouring human communit ies (Westropp,
1910). Peist lore i t is th en, for t hat is the t erm u nder which ar e lis ted th e m an y water
serpents and monsters of the dragon famil y that can be found in Ir i sh t radition. In spit e
of the historical absence of snakes in Ireland, th e Irish developed a se ries of s tories and
beliefs that speak o f huge serp ent-like creatures t hat dwell in lak es, ponds and rivers.
Westropp (1910: 476) suggests that:

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

There can be li ttle do ubt that t he hi ghly imaginative earl y Irish
personified the more ter rifying pow ers of natur e, such as t he sea, the
storm, and the thund er. The ro aring, writhing waves in a sea c reek or
river swirl may have sugge s ted some great crea ture, (too g r eat to be
natural), wallowin g under the wate rs, and so given rise to the endless
peist names and legends, in which a distinction is never drawn between
the spectral and the natural.

It occurs t o m e that i t is possi ble that t he Irish did not actuall y develop these
beliefs, as much as inhe rited them from their co ntinental ancestors. The resemblance
with stories found elsewher e is far too uncann y to bear any other explanation. It is also
possible that the islanders brought thes e tales from their trips to ot her lands, but they are
too embedded in traditions far and wide in t he is land t o have been an y thing other than
inherited. In fact, it is very tellin g that such stor ies are found with greater in tensit y i n the
Count y of Clar e, on the Atlantic shore, which woul d have been one of the territories less
likely to receive contribu tions from neighbouring folks across t he I rish S ea, but ins tead
it may have been influenced b y the prehistoric contacts with the South of Europe.
Ireland was first inhabited 8,000 y ears a go, durin g the Palaeolithic. This means
that t he peists , those serpent-like aquatic monsters of no obvious wickedness ma y hav e
arrived b y that time too. They could be regarded as fossils of Prehistoric legends,
although cov ered in the man y la yers of millennia of human his tory and c ulture. It will
be interesting t o see where the points in common ar e with traditions from other places,
where th e y meet and w here the y do not , and whether the y suppo rt the conclusions
reached in the previous section.
The first element th at jum ps up to one’s attent ion is the water component of
these traditions. All peists live in the water, be it in the form of river, pond or lake, but
usually f resh w ater r ather than oceanic. In Co. Cl are we ma y find not on l y stories but
also place-names s uch as P oulnapeasta (translated as “peist-hole” or “wa ter dragon’s
lair”). Some are hai r y and many are big-e ye d (the peist in a pool near C orofin); others

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

have large e ars and long tus ks (the peist of the anon y m ous fifteenth-cent ury poem T he
Hunt of Sliabh T ruim ). In this poem, there i s an allusion to Finn, a hero who slew all
sorts of spectres and monsters, and “banished from the raths eac h peist ” (W estropp,
1910: 476). These rat hs are earth-forts, and the ref erence i mplies that some peists must
have chosen such pl aces to dwell, with their conn ection with the de ad and the anc estors,
even thou gh the y are i n a minorit y. On th e othe r hand, almost all l akes o f im portance
were once tenanted b y a peist , althou gh almost all peist s have been banished b y the
action of heroes or saints. Here is the second similarit y t o continental storie s.
In t he 11 th century , pr ince Murchad, son of King Brian, is said to have
exterminated all peists and monsters in Ireland. It is an interesting not ion, for ver y
shortly after Patrick would be firmly established as the one I rish cha mpion aga inst
snakes and dragons, even though t he snake banishi ng was a belated a ddition to hi s
saintl y exploits . And y et, he was not even the onl y s aint to have engaged in such
activities in t he island. For ex ample, other saints worthy of noti ce in this regard a re St
Beircheart 1 and St Ciará n, who both drove dragons into lak es (Koch, 2006: 609;
Simpson, 2001: 29). Also St Murrough 2 , who is credited with drivin g ou t the last of
Ireland’s dra gons and se rpents, t hose whi ch had somehow esc aped Patric k’s not ice. A
version of t his tale h as it that it was ac tuall y onl y one dr agon, Paiste, which pla gued th e
lands around Lough Fo y l e. Saint Murrough tri cked Paiste (who was a talking d ragon) t o
lay down and put three rods of reeds over his back. Then he p ray e d until the rods g rew
over t he dragon, trapping hi m. Finall y , he comma nded the creature to g o into t he waters
of Lough Fo y le and there he is to this da y , stil l imprisoned in his cage, a nd awaiting the

1 Saint Beir cheart o f T ullylease was a d isciple of St P atrick. Pr obab ly of Anglo-Sa xon or igi ns, he is cred ited
with Christianizin g T ullyleas e, the last place in I reland in which Dr uidism was p ractic ed. H is feast is on
Februar y 18 th , kno wn as Ben’s Da y or T he W ell Day (09.2 2.201 3. http://www.e ncyclo.co.uk).
2 Also kno wn as St Murr ough O ’Heane y .

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

Da y of J udgement as th e saint commanded (09. 22.2013. http:/ /www.blackdrago.c om ).
In fa ct, t here is a tale about St Patrick himself driving awa y one of the greatest serpents
of Ireland, Oill iphéist. The monster, on hearing that the saint intended to confront him,
scampered awa y befo re Patrick could even begin to look for him.
But, as we have se en, Patrick was not t he only six th-centur y saint that I rish
dragons needed t o keep an eye on, and ot hers, like St Senan 1 , must be i nclude d in the
list on their own merits. The earliest records of S enan’s fight with the Cathach (or C ata)
are from A.D. 800 2 . This Cathac was a peist , that is, a water s erpent or d ragon, and he
picked up a fight against S enan by eating N arach, the saint’s sm ith. Forth marched
Senan, and s o did the Ca thac, “its eyes flashin g fl ame, with fi er y breath, s pitt ing venom
and openin g his t errible jaws”, all t o no avail, fo r t he saint m ade the si gn of the cross
and the monste r collapse d at the sight. The p easants that l ived at Doolough, near Mount
Callan (Co. Clare) during t he earl y 9 t h century to ld of Senan’s chaining o f the Cathach,
how he had thro wn it to the river and how, when there was a storm, the monster made
the water boil . He also br ought forth alive Narach, his smit h, who had been devoured b y
the m onster. All t his happened in Inisca tha (now adays, Scatter y ), in the e stuary of the
Sannon 3 . Senan then went on to b uild several chu rches, dedicatin g Kilm ihi l Church to
St Michael in gratitude for his help in the fight with the serpent 4 (Westropp, 1910: 256,

1 Sai nt Sena n (died A.D. 550) . Son of Gerrc hin of Iniscat ha o r Sca thery, he was bor n in M oylough and is
said to have spoke n b efore his baptis m, pro of o f his e xcept ionality. T raditio n sa ys tha t he saw his mot her
eating some wild fruit and sa id to her, “You have a n e arl y ap petite, mother!” to which she rep lied “You
have old talk, my child !” and named hi m Senan (fro m sean , meaning “old”) ( Westro pp 1910: 205-6).
2 In the Calend ar of Oen gus the re is an allu sion to it (W estrop p, 1 910: 447 ).
3 T he feat is also attr ib uted to the pagan hero Finn ( West rop p, 20 10: 477). I can not help b ut wonder
whether this F inn may be Finn MacCool (or Fionn mac C umhaill, the mythical w arr ior and hunter from t he
Fenian Cycle, who gained fanta stic wisdo m when he was coo king t he salmo n o f knowle dge for his master
Finn E ces, b urned his th umb, put it i n his m o uth, unknowingly s wallowing p art of the sa l m o n’s ski n). I t i s a
m o tif rep eated in o ther tales (i nterestin gly, that of Sigurd an d Fafnir, i n the Völsung a S aga , for example).
4 T here is a number of c hurch es in t he area where the sto ry takes place that spor t car vings of dra gons: at
Scatter y (a lar ge-e yed dragon with cr ocod ile ja w s); at Kilr ush; and at K ilkee (t he “patter n sto ne”, whic h

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

477). Later oral traditio ns (Westropp compiled them in the second half of the 19 th
century) added that St Michael had taken Senan to Knockanangel Hill and had helped
him to drive out the Cathac h and that the dragon was so large that he sl ept with his bod y
looped round Scattery, with his tail i n his mouth.
Saint Maccreiche 1 (or MacCreeh y ) confronted and
(…) ch ained the destruc tive Demon- Badger or Bruckee (Broc-sidhe) in
its cave Poulnabruckee, near Rathblamaic chu rch in Inchiquin, and
hurled it into R ath Lake (…). The head of the Bruckee is suppos ed to b e
represented in the carvings of large-eared dragons at Rath and
Kilmacreehy (Westropp, 1913: 208).

These representations ar e ver y similar t o the Ca tha carvings in S catter y : l ong
pointed ears, large e yes and enormous jaws with long sharp teeth. This c ould or could
not describe a dragon, but b y t he 15 t h centur y th e local asse rtion was th at the Bruckee
was no other thin g. As f or Maccreiche’s i ntervention, it was deemed rath er fortunate,
for the creature was a plague on men and cattle and six local saints had alread y
unsuccessfull y endeavoured to free the area from the nuisance with their pra y e rs.
Another Bruckee, thi s one, very m uch alive, is s aid t o dwell in Shandan gan L ou gh near
Corofin, and some claimed to have b een witness t o its rar e appearance, even by the end
of the 19 th century (Westropp, 1910: 478-9).
2. 2. Feats of Her o es
It is a well known fact t hat dragons have a sw eet tooth that makes them pre y on young
maidens. This is include d in practicall y ever y fairytale that has the mot if of the dr agon
conflict, from the G rimm’s The T wo Brothers , s o rich i n i mager y and magic devices, to

used to b e a t Scat ter y, and which s ho wed the Catha a s a cr eature “with sp iked bac k, sc ales, fish ta il, nose
curling up spirall y, and clawed forefeet”) (Westro pp, 1910: 478) .
1 Saint Maccr eiche was a sixth-cen tury m o nk, cr edited, alon g with his discip le Mainc hin, with the b uilding
of the c hurches of Kil macr eehy, Ki l m ana gheen, and Inagh, where they lie buried ( 09.2 2.2013.
http://www.e ncyclo.co .uk).

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

the si mpler stories that u sed to be told b y the fire i n ever y household unti l not so long
ago. A numb er o f thes e stories must have been c oncocted b y t he p easants, who, in th e
absence of writ ten records, wished to make sense of some specific feature of the
landscape, a p articular c rest of a local famil y or simpl y to justi fy a fami l y ’s claim t o
certain l ands. Th e dra gons, which had l ong been ex pelled from the temp les but were
believed to st ill dwell in the wilderness, pre ying on the unwar y, gradually b ecame th e
ultimate monsters for human heroes to vanquish.
The cultural manifestations containing this m y th a re varied enou gh as to call for
subdivisions. Thus, firstly I will address those st ories preserved in folklore through the
ages, legends learnt from our elders, which have been transmitted orall y , with an active
endeavour on the part of the tell ers to preserve thei r structure, t hemes and e ven mode of
narration, although the inclusion of variations over time is inevitable.
Secondly, a section will be devoted to a number li terary texts produced in the
British Isles t hat deal with the topic of the fight with the drag on. A literary text must of
necessit y be di fferent from a folktale, for in i t the writer pla ys an essential role, either as
creator or as recreator of the st ory. Therefore, eve n when they are b ased on oral sources,
there is a stron g component of creativit y i nvolved, as the author contribut es with new
ideas, perspectives, and even projectin g the general social envi ronment in which the
work is produced.
Thirdly, a whole s ectio n has b een put toge ther to introduce a very specific
phenomenon related to t he myth of the d ragon: t hat of the p rocessional re-enactments
that were in vo gue for man y centuries in England (and Europe) and whi ch can still be
enjoyed in some villages.
The selection that i s i ncluded here is but a representation of those tales th at are
particularly sim ilar t o that of St George , sharing its general structure, moti fs or

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

some versions) once caught a strange wo rm while fishin g 1 , put it in a well and went on
to forget all about it. Later, he went to fight t o Palestine (one presum es t hat he was a
crusader) and, whil e away, the worm grew into a fearful dra gon, which w ould soon be
feeding
On calves and lambs and sheep,
And swallow little bairns alive
When they lay down to sleep.
The whole country w as soon in uproar and word of it rea ched y oun g Lambton in
Palestine. He, understanding that he had unwit ting l y b rou ght the m onster to Lambton,
and feeling his responsibil ity acut ely, went back home, confr onted the worm and cut in
two halves 2 ,
And that soon stopped him eating bairns
And sheep and lambs and calves (Simpson, 2001: 141-2).
This also spared the dozen cows t he dra gon used to mil k when he felt he nee ded
some refreshment.
On a s ad not e, in the pr ocess of killing t he dragon, young Sir John Lambton
brought a curse upon his own famil y. I t is said th at, before confrontin g th e monster, he
approached a witch for counsel. S he demanded as fee fo r her s ervices the li fe of t he first
creature t hat Sir J ohn would meet after his vi ctor y over the dragon. This happened t o be
his own father, and as Sir J ohn could not bring himself to fulfil his promise to the witch,
she cursed his famil y : for nine generations no lor d of Lambton Castle wo uld die in hi s
bed (Simpson, 2001: 71).

1 Some versio ns of t he stor y e xplicitl y make him r esponsib le for the ap pearance o f the dragon b ecause he
was a dissolu te y outh, who wo uld go fis hing on a Su nda y and thought nothi ng of cur sing.
2 T his cutting of t he dr agon in two halves i s not an original o ccurrence, a nd it take s us to m any ot her stories,
not le ast o f which is the Bab ylonian Myth o f Creation, where Mar duk, a stor m-god, favou rs this ver y course
of action when confront ing T ia m a t, the dra gon godd ess of chao s.

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

The Knucker of Ly minster (Wes t Susse x, England)
The stor y of the Knucker Hole drag on, at Ly mi nster, has versions with heroe s for all
tastes, including the knight in shini ng a rmour and the clever local bo y .
The setting of the stor y is the same in b oth version s: near Ly mi nster church there
was a deep pool, known as the Knucker Hole, a nd a fearsome dr agon ha d made it his
dwelling. He was called t he Knuck er and for man y years h e brought great distress to the
area.
Here, the story ma y wan der into one of these directions:
The Kin g of Sussex, wishing to put an end to the situation, offe red his da ughter
in marriage to whoever would rid them of the Knucker. An errant kni ght who got wind
of the situation successfully confronted the dragon and was dutifully r ewarded with the
princess’ hand.
A second version has a l ocal p rotagonist: Jim Pulk (or J im Puttock), a farmer’s
boy from W ick, who baked a hu ge Sussex pie and put poi son i nside it. When the
Knucker ate the pudding, i t weighed s o heav y th at he could not stand up 1 , a chance Ji m
took to jump up and kill him with his scy th e (in other versions, with an axe).
He then went to the Si x Bells Inn, h ad a drink to celebrate his victor y,
and fell down dead. Presumabl y he had got some poison on his hands ,
which, no doubt, ver y properly, he dr ew across his mout h after downin g
his pint (Sim pson, 2001: 51).

A sad end for the brave chap.
In either case, there remains as proof of thi s tale a gravestone, altern atively
identified as J im’s or the kni ght’s. It used to lie i n t he local grave ya rd, but was at one
point carr ied inside t he c hurch, wh ere th e visit or can still decipher a weat hered carvin g

1 T his trick is a common m o tif of fairy tales, which we ca n fo und in so me of the most p opular ones, such as
The Wolf an d the Seven Little Kids . Stu ffing t he dragon with heavy a nd/or venomou s food is a co mmon
enough reso urce in t hese tales.

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

representing a cross ove r a herringbone pattern, or a sword over t he Knucker ’s ribs,
depending on which description one favours (Westwood, 1994: 116).
The Bisterne Dragon (Ha mpshire, England )
This creature used to terrorize Bisterne, and w as killed b y S ir Macdonie de Berkele y (in
some versions, Sir Moris Barkley) in what was afterwards known as the D ragon Field.
For this feat, he was knighted b y Kin g Edward IV, and the famil y took the dra gon as
their b adge (Simpson, 2 001: 63). The Bisterne dra gon is des cribed as a creature that
dwelled near a be acon, which i s an uncommon location for this sort of tale. Both hero
and monster died in the fight. The different versions of the story tell of two dogs t hat
accompanied him and also perished, as well as of a trick with which h e attracted the
dragon: the knight left so me milk ly in g around and, when the mons ter was bus y l apping
it up, he jumped out of his hiding place and kil led it. These events h appened in a place
called Dragon Field (Westwood, 1994: 54).
Having do gs as assistant s is rather common in the se stories, and we m ay find
such lo y al comp anions in the tale of W yvill 1 and his dog (Slingsb y, North Yorkshire),
who both perished in the fight a gainst a dragon (See Appendix A), and similar
occurrences at Kellington, Handal e (now Cleveland) and Nunnington (W estwood, 1994:
418).
Sir Piers Shonk s (Her tfordshire, England)
Tantum fame manet Cadmi sanctique Georgi
Posthuma; tempus edas ossa sepulchra vorat.
Hoc tamen in muro tutus, qui perdidit anguem,
Invite positus Daemone, Shonkus erat 2

1 The Wyvills o f Osgodb y were loca l landowners, who lived at Slingsby M anor at least fro m 1 215 to the
mid 14 th century (W estwood 19 94 : 418).
2 “Not hing o f Cad mus or St G eor ge, those names o f great reno wn, sur vives t hem b ut t heir fames; T ime wa s
so sharp set as to make no b ones of theirs, nor o f t heir m onumental stones. B ut Shon ks one serp ent kills,
t’other def ies, and in this wall, as in a for tress, lie s”. T hese lines a re b elieved to ha ve bee n co mposed b y the

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

O PIERS SHONKS
WHO DIED ANNO 1086
There is in St Mar y’s church at Brent Pelham (Hertfordshire) a tomb i dentified b y
means of the Latin inscript ion above, located on the wall behind. The to mb is that of
one P iers S honks, who di ed in 1086, l ord of the manor in the 11 t h century and a local
legendary fi gure. The tombstone depicts the ver y Shonks, being taken t o Heaven, while
the staff of a cross is thrust down the throat of a coiled dragon.
There used to be i ndeed a famil y bearin g the Shank name in this part of
Hertfordshire, at least in the 14 th century, which l ends believabilit y to t he exi stence of
Shonks. Our man was accounted to h ave fou ght a giant and sometim es described as a
giant himself. But what does one make of the dragon on the stone?
A local tale, which was well known at the end of the 19 t h century, relates that
there onc e was a yew tree standing at t he boundar y of Gre at Pepsells and Little Pepsells
fields, and under the roots of that y e w tree, a dragon had made his lair.
Pier S honks, t he main landowner, was determined to rid hi s m anor of this pest,
and one day he set out for the dragon’s l air, clad in full armour and taking with him an
attendant and three of his best dogs. After a fier ce batt le, S honks m anaged to thrust his
spear into the jaws of the monst er, and killed it.
The tale goes on t o include how the D evil cursed Shonks for daring t o destro y
his crea ture, vowing that he would t ake his soul at all costs, were h e b uried within a
church or not. But Shonks out witted him, for when he was close to dea th, he shot an
arrow that struck the wall of the church of St Mar y, and instructed to have h is tom b built

Revd Rap hael Keen, vica r of B rent Pelha m duri ng t he last half of the 16 th cent ury and until his de mise in
161 4. The “other” serpe nt de fied is the Dev il (Si m pso n 200 1: 94 ).

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

inside that wall. Thus, h e was buried neither within t he church no r outside (Westwood,
1994: 128-31).
As for the the d ragon dwelling under the roots of the y e w tree, one c annot help
but being transpo rted to a number o f other stories, including a few m yths of ot her
cultures, where serpents are described in rel ation to trees, Such as t he Scandinavian
dragon Níðhö ggr, who whiles away his da y s gnawing at the roots of Yggdrasil, the
sacred ash tree (02.11.2013. http:/ /www.pantheon.org) .
The Linton Wor m (W est Linto n, Scotland)
This S cottish stor y const itut es a charter m yth t hat explains the crest of the Som erville
family, and also t he existence of some topo gra p hical feature of the area where it is set,
as well as making sense of several local pieces of art depicting the fight.
In a curious mix ture of motifs, t his stor y h as a n oble hero who uses tricker y to
dispose of the dragon. He is named either th e Laird of Lariston or J ohn S omerville,
depending on which ve rsion one comes across. A brave young man, and a l ittle
mercenary i f one h eeds what the legend suggests , he went to Linton to kill the W orm of
Linton, for “liberal guerdons were of fered to an y champion who woul d rid the count r y
of such a scourge” (VV.AA, 1998: 292). This said worm was venomous and a s courge
for the countr y , and none of the applicants had y et managed to find a wa y to kill it. Our
hero first tried with the usual weapons (sword, spear, shi eld), but having failed, he did
not think much of dem eaning himself and resorted to tricker y. He dipp ed a peat in
scalding pitch, fix ed it on his lance and t hrust it do wn the monster’s throat. But we must
not begrudge him hi s glory , as it proved to be a n effective m ethod and the nature and
power of hi s dra gon mo re than justified i t, for the monst er was so stron g and terrible

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

that, while d y in g, it coiled in pain and wit h the force of his movements ma rks were left
on the sides of Wormington Hill.
In the ol d parish church, a sculpture was suppose d to commemorate the f eat. It
was a kni ght with a f alcon on his arm and tw o m onsters near him. T here was a n
accompanying inscription which, according to Sir W alter Scott, read:
The wode laird of Lariestoun
Slew the wode worm of Wormistoune,
And wan all Linton paroschine (Scott, 1802, in Westwood, 1994: 470).

Some have ar gue d that the sculpture was a ctuall y supposed to depict Mi chael
and the devil, or S t George and t he dragon, and that t he peasantry had concocted th e
legend basin g it on the histor y of th e local gent ry. What is true, though, is that the
indentations on the hill are certainly there, for everyone to see.
Fulk Fitzw arrin (So merset, Engl and)
There is an intermediat e t ype of he ro, between noble and lowl y , where we find those
who were bo rn in a high c radle but fell from grace. Such is the c ase with Fulk
Fitzwarrin, hist orical personage who was outlawed by King J ohn due t o his opposition
to the king. As an outcast, his life was embellished with different adventures, both i n
England and in foreign lands. Dragons were not excluded from them:
In Ca rthage he ov ercame a m onster or dragon t hat lived upon human
flesh in a m ountain near the sea, which had carri ed off t he daughter of
the Duke of I b erie. Th e writer seems to hav e got well confused as to the
nature of this beast. When Fulk is fightin g with it he describes a huge
winged reptile like the traditional dragon of St George . Elsewh ere,
however, it app ears as a half-human mons ter (...). I t lived in a hous e
upon the mountain wi th a great door, and t he Duke’s dau ghter tol d Fulk
how “when his hi deous face and be ard wer e smeared with blood, he
would come to me and cause me to wash with cl ear water his face and
his beard and his breast.” When he had killed the drag on, Fulk took the
cool gold upon which alone it could sleep, because of the hot fire in its
belly, and having returned the princess to her father, sail ed ba ck to
England (Keen, 1961: 43, in Simpson, 2001: 57).

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

Although an account tha t differs from the usual structure of the dragon s la y i ng
story, it still has the same recurrent motifs: the hoard of gold and the maiden kidnapped
by the dr agon, althou gh there is a sex ual undertone present as well, which savours
strongly of other fairy tales, such as Bluebeard or L ittle Red Riding Hood .
Even though this version takes us t o an exotic land, Fulk did also fight a dragon
in his homeland, more s pecificall y , in Somerset. There , n ear Taunton, the re is a vi llage
called Norton Fitzwarren, where the y bo ast one of the most int eresting tradit ions related
to dragons. It was there that this ex traordinary event took pl ace:
The dragon is said to have emerged from the ca mp af ter a fierce battle.
There were p iles of d ead bodies and, b y a process not unlike
spontaneous combusti on they generated the dragon, which terrorised
the neighbourhood, causing gre at damage and loss of life. It was a gain a
local valiant, Fulk Fitzwarine, who came to the resc ue, killi ng th e
monster and saving the people from further distress (Palmer, 1976: 77).

Near Norton Fitzwarren, archaeologists have found t he remains of an
encampment d ating from the Iron Age, and reused later, during R oman and Saxon
times. Much has been ar gued as to t he possibil it y that Norton Camp was attacked b y t he
Danes in about A.D. 683, according to an extremel y brief an d general entry i n the
Anglo-Saxon Chroni cle t hat reads “Centwine drove the Brito-Welsh as far as the sea”
(Simpson, 2001:57). It must also be noted that the im age of the dra gon was quite
common on Wessex st a ndards, at least during the 8 th century , although t heir relation
with this particular story awaits further research 1 .
By the end o f the 15 t h centur y, a r ood scene c ommemorating the stor y and
attributed to Ralph H arris was mad e for the lo cal parish. This implies th at the le gend
must have been at least older than t hat, althoug h the scene depicted on the screen
includes elements which do not appear in the surviving legend, such as s everal dogs (a

1 In fact, so me of the bra nches o f the Fitz warrin fa mily bear a dra gon as their crest (Si mpso n, 20 01:57).

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

gre y hound, a y ellow hou nd and a black hound), t wo men which appear to be busy either
trying to entrap or kill the dragon or making good t heir escape, a three y o ke of ox en
dragging a pl ough, a peasant represented in the process of seeding, a naked m aiden
pra y ing as the monster is about to d evour her and three other naked fi gures. Originally,
the dragon was p ainted black with a g olden strip e on his ba ck, which remi nds us of t he
salamanders as seen in old natural histor y books. This is surely a seque nce of scenes
that was related to the o riginal stor y, but the painful lack of evidence th at one usuall y
finds i n folklore or written records keeps us f rom knowing exactl y in what m anner this
was so.
Only a few miles away from Norton Fitzwarren there is a small villag e ,
Crowcombe, with a parish church containing ver y ancient benches. One of these
benches had its end car v ed at about the same time as the s creen o f the church of No rton
Fitzwarren, and it shows two men in the act of assaulting a doubl e-headed dragon, with
small wings and a short tail. Although there is no surviving tale that accounts for this
carving, the zealous researcher ma y find a dra gon stor y related t o S hervage Wood, not
far from Crowcombe, at Kingston S t. Mar y, where the dr agon was killed b y a local hero
who r olled a great ston e into the monster’s mouth as it roared, thus choking him
(Palmer, 1976: 79). Her e one would do well to r emember that S omerset is also a fertile
land as far as dragon st ories are concerned, bei ng also t he setting of St Carantoc’s
encounter with the serpent. According to all the evidenc e present both in lege nds and
artwork, there i s no shortage of vol unteers i n Som erset when a dr agon needs to be
brought round. Saintl y , noble, or pl ebeian he roes, none wi ll as much as flinch at the
prospect, and it is onl y to be lamented that the tales behind the carved benches and
rood-screen have not be en preserved fo r us to enjo y full y, along wit h th e art that w as
created around them.

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
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Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

The Deerhur st Drago n (Glouce stershire , England)
There goes a stor y, that a serpent of a p rodigious bigness was a great
grievance to all the c ountr y about Deerhurst, b y poisoning th e
inhabitants, and killing t heir cattle. The inhabitant s petitioned the king,
and a p roclamati on was iss ued out, that whos oever should kill t he
serpent, should enjoy an estate on W alton hill in this parish, which then
belonged to the crown. One J ohn Sm ith, a labourer, und ertook it, an d
succeeded; for finding the serpe nt ly i ng in the sun, with his sca l es
ruffled up, he stru ck between the sc ales with his ax, and st ruck off hi s
head (Atkyns, 1712, in Westwood, 1994: 305).

This J ohn S mith i s an example of the lowl y or unpromising hero, that is, a common
fellow of whom few would have ex pected to come back unscathed from a fight with a
dragon. It i s also a chart er m yth, which exp lains the ownership of the stat e on Walton
Hill, a manor belon ging to t he Smi th famil y in t he 18 th century , when th e le gend w as
recorded.
Y Carrog (Borou gh, Wales)
In Dol garrog (Wales), t here is a ni ce st or y where the whole communi ty is involved.
There is here no hero singlehandedl y ridding the countr y of a mons ter, but the joined
work of a group of well meaning nei ghbours (or ill meaning, depending on which s ide
one takes). The dragon i n thi s case did all the usual pre y in g on c attle one can expect,
and the neighbours were none too happy about it, understandabl y . So, one f ine da y , the y
all gathered t heir bows, arrows and spears and set off to hunt down the monster. The
one neighbour whose n ame has been pass ed on t o us, Nico Ifan, was also the onl y one
who refus ed to j oin in t he hunt . He h ad dr eamt t hat the Carro g woul d c ause hi s death
and he di d not wish to r isk the dream to come t r ue by b ehaving foolishl y and putt ing
himself forward on the hunt. Not Nico Ifan. He sat safel y at home, wa iting for t he
outcome.

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

In the m eanwhile, the other farmers put their pl an into practice. Using a
poisoned sheep as bait, the y lured the Carro g out of his lair and, when he was engrossed
in eating the sheep, they caught him b y surp rise and killed him.
It was then t hat Nico I f an turned up, strutted around and gloated over the dead
dragon, bragging t hat he had not been killed by the monst er, as the dream h ad
foreshadowed. But he was not y et safe from fate. When he viciousl y ki cked the corpse
of the dragon, the poi soned wing of the monst er caught on his leg a nd pierced it,
causing him almost insta nt death (Westwood, 1994: 355). Dr eams and dr agons ar e not
to be taken lightl y 1 .
The Oilliphéist and th e Piper (Irel and)
This is t he name of a lake monster in the trad itions and legends of
Ireland. Th e name “Oilliphéist” derives from the Irish Gaelic oll ,
meaning “great,” and péist , meanin g “ fabulous beast.” This vast
monster, described as looking somethin g like a dragon, was so huge and
of such len gth that as it travelled it gou ged the l ength of th e Shannon
River. However, the l egend relates that when it h eard that Saint Patrick
was coming to exorcise it, the hitherto beni gn Oilliphéist became
enraged. It swallowed a drunken piper who happe ned to be in the wrong
place at the wron g time, but, undaunted, the man continued to play i n
the monster’s bell y. Thi s made Oilliphéist so irritated that it disgorged
the drunkard oblivious to his adventure, who continued his journe y
playing as before (Rose, 2000: 277).

Some versions of the tale name the piper as O ’R ourke, but m ore often than not, h e
remains nameless. It is curious that the hero in this episode is not onl y a la y man, but
appears as devoid of an y of the basic f eatures that characterize the hero: he i s not brave,
or cunning. He is merely careless.

1 T his id ea of the p rophecy t hat is u nexpec tedl y f ulfilled by a de ad crea ture’s bite (no rmally a viper ) is
common to se veral other W el sh lege nds. S uch is the c ase i n the serpent that killed the h eir o f Pe nhesgyn
when, after taking many pains to kill it, the bo y kicked the dea d viper in co ntempt and i ts fa ng pie rced his
foot, p oisoning him (W estwoo d, 1994: 355).

Fafnir, from t he Völsung a Saga , i s t he archet y pe of the ho arding d ragon (drawing b y the author of
this stud y ).

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

Most rea ders of the poem will easil y remark upon the fact that the level of
difficulty experienced b y Beowulf increases wi th each battle, even in spit e of the
matching increase in t he amount of weaponr y us ed: he def eats G rendel i n a masterful
fight where he uses his bare hands; Grendel’s mother pres ents a much more difficult
battle, but Beowulf is a rmed with not one, but two swords; and, finall y, the dragon,
whom he confronts armed wit h two swords and a shield, proves fatal. It i s also worth y
of consideration that in both the episodes of Grende l’s m other and the dragon, it is the
monsters that are pr esented as the a ggrieved parti es. I n the case of the dragon, t his s ense
is reinforced in t he t ext b y fo cusing on the monst er’s perspective, which is a radical
departure from t he average dragon stor y. I f one considers t he lines 2,287- 2,295, for
example, it is clear as day that t he poet seems to be courting the audience’s sympath y
for the dragon’s plight:

þa se wyrm onwoc, wroht wæs geniwad; When the dragon awoke, new woe was
kindled.
stonc ða æfter stane, stearcheort onfand O’er the stone he snu ffed. The sta rk-heart
found
feondes fotlast; he to forð g estop footprint of foe who so far had gone
dyrnan cræfte dracan heafde neah. i n his hidden craft by the crea ture’s h ead.
Swa mæg unfæge eaðe gedigan So may the undoomed easil y flee
wean ond wræcsið, se ðe waldendes evils and exile, if only he gain
hyldo gehealdeþ! Hordweard sohte the grace of The Wield er! That w arden of
gold
georne æfter grunde, wolde guman findan, o’er the ground went seeking, greed y t o
find
þone þe him on sweofote sare geteode, the man who wrought h im such wrong in
sleep 1

Notice how the roles of the characters are here reversed: the dragon i s described
as “stark-heart” ( st earcheort ), whil e the human is the foe ( feond ). This might be rela ted

1 Beowulf text and translatio n fro m OE b y Francis Gu mme re (0 2.01.201 3.
http://www.for dham.ed u/halsall/b asis/beo wulf.asp).

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

to another fact, which i s t hat the drag on is never overtl y identi fied with the devil. Even
though the C hristian set of i deals is p resent in other parts o f the po em (for ex ample,
Grendel and his mother a re expli citly d escribed as t he descendants of Cain) , t he serpent,
although terrible in n ature, has no relation whatso ever with the fo rces of Hell. The idea
that the reader can infer from this text and other sim ilar ones is that northern dra gons
are pr esented as monstr ous creatures, f erocious and magnificent, legend ary be asts of
great power and splendo ur, but never God’s ene mies, but si mpl y animals of the natural
world, as well as the choice m onsters with whi ch to prove on e’s wo rth a s a warrior. I t
must not be forgotten that Beow ulf’s encounter with the dragon was not a completel y
unusual occurrence, and that i s som ething which is brought to notice ev en in the contex t
of the poem itself: in its first section a bard recites the st or y o f S igemund, who slew a
terrible dr agon who guarded a t reasure. This b rave Sigemund is the same who is father
to Siegfried in the 7 ibelungenlied , alt hough his character there i s p resented in a much
less heroic l ight (Talbot, 1983). I t is interesting to recall, when considering these st ories,
that the Scandinavian and Ger manic dr agon tales constitute a group of stories which a re
slightly out of the C hristi an influence, or which, at least, wer e modified to a l esser
extent. This phenomenon provides us with a m ythology and a set of tra ditions which
preserve ancient themes to a gr eat degree, themes and stories which ma y have on ce
been known to the inhabitants of the British Isles too.
Tristan and Isol t
The legend of Tristan (also Tristram) and Isolt (also I solde, Iseult, I s eut, Ysolde, Yseult
or Yseut) is one of the m ost i nfluential of all medieval romances, proo f of which is that
it was incorporated to the Arthurian Cyc l e in the 13 th century . Although t he earliest
surviving written works dealing with this st ory d ate from the 12 th century , the Celtic

Tracing the Dragon: A Study of the Ori gin and Evolution of the Dragon Myth in the History and Literature of the
British Isles.
Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

source fo r the stor y i s m uch older, as it usuall y h appens with such text s, but especiall y
so in the case of thi s specific on e, for, as Filippo Olivieri (2005: 46-8) re marks, Ireland
never was as influenced b y the Roman culture as other European territories, and so it
kept to a great ext ent the most archaic feat ures of the Celtic soci ety, virtuall y
unimpeded b y the C lassical l iterature, the Christ ian ideolog y and the courtly l ove that is
ever so present in the Ar thurian Cycle. Irish m y th ologica l accounts offer a vision of the
Ir ish societ y and culture at a time long before t he evangelization of the i sland, and
which ma y be set in the Iron Age.
As mentioned above, the first written versions of the stor y of Tristan and Isolt
were compos ed durin g the 12 th centur y b y French poets, namely, Thomas of Britain and
Béroul, and these are considered as the closest to t he root material, t hat is, the Celtic
legend. I n Britain, the earliest l iterary work crafte d around this tale was th e fourteenth-
century romance Sir Tris trem (se e App endix B). However, the st or y soon bec ame b est
known as pa rt of S ir Thom as Malor y’s Le Morte d’Arthur i n the 15 th centur y . Malor y
drew his passage f rom the Prose Tristan (13 t h century), which was the first adaptation to
tie the stor y t o the Arthurian legend b y havin g Tristan become a knight of the Round
Table. I n the continent, though, it was Gottfried von Strassbourg’s thirteenth-centur y
version that becam e more influential, and the mai n material W agner used when writing
his opera Tristan und I solde . One of the motifs w hich is treated differently (quite
radically so ) i s the dragon fig ht . So radicall y different, in fac t, as to not bei ng present at
all in Malory’s text. I t is Sir L an celot who fights a dragon there. But, of this, more later.
Now, in the texts b y B éroul and Thomas of Britain, however, this beautiful
passage i s l eft for the reader to enjo y . Gottfrie d von Strasbourg (see Appendix B),
relying on t he material written during the 12 t h century b y Thom as of Britain, takes i t to
its full potential. Given that in the versions by either Béroul or Thomas of Britain the

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Mª Aurora Lestón M ay o

100
passage about t he dra gon is m uch less elaborated (as a matter of fact, the m ajorit y of t he
text b y Thom as of Britain is lost), and t hat Gott fr i ed von Strasbourg himself claims that
his Tri stan and Isolt i s based on Thomas’, it see ms the best version to go b y. I do not
pretend t o ignore that we do not know to what extent his text does stay true t o Thomas’,
as there is little that has been preserved fo r us to compare, but, still, it appea rs that this
will be, by far, our best shot. I t is t his work, then, that I will follow here to i ntroduce and
anal y ze th e main events of this beautiful tale:
In the earl y stages of the traged y we see how Kin g Marke of Cornwall, un cle to
y o un g T ristan, s ends his courageous nephe w t o woo Princess I sol t of I r lant in his stead.
King Goram of Ireland h ad off ered t he h and of his daughter to whomever would kill the
intractable dragon that plagued t he kingdom, and Tristan, l oyal and intrepid to a fault,
braced himself to con front it for the sake of pleading his uncle’s case. The dragon,
termed “a ver y dan gerous serpent”, was a t errifying pred ator that wrought so much
destruction that the king felt compelled to offer his greatest treasure, his daughter, to
stop the monst er. Here, o ne should not ice, the maiden is not offe red to the dragon, as in
other t ales, but rather to the brave knight who mana ges t o kill i t, which, taken in
perspective, seems a much less unpleasant fate altogether.
Therefore, thence went Tristan, clad in all his war rior gear and riding his s turdy
charger, the best of his spears in hi s hand. “He sped t oward the vale o f Anfergin an,
where the dragon had its lair” (lines 8,940-1 ), a nd on arrival he witnessed four men
galloping awa y from t he si te, one of t hem, the quee n’s own seneschal, who also aspired
to the hand of the fair Isolt:
On s eeing t he men’s quick retreat, Tristan quickl y gathered that the drag o n must
be lurking nearby, and so it was.

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So he expl ored in that direction and had not ridd en ver y far before a s ight
smote his vi sion – the frightfull y revolting ser pent! Spurting from its
gaping j aws a blast of smoke and flames worthy of the devil’s kind, it
advanced straight at him (lines 8,966-73).

A fierce battle ensued, but in t he end Trist an em erged victorious. Th e writer
does not spare t he reader an y of the crud e details t hat could make the battle more
colourful. Let us see these two formidable creatur es at work:
Tristan levelled his great spear and took his hor se with the spurs. His
charge carried wit h such force that the sp ear, tearing throu gh its jaws,
penetrated down it s throat ver y n earl y t o the heart. R ider and horse
together collided with the beast so ha rd that the horse was killed b y th e
impact and the rider was lucky to survive.
The dragon rava ged th e dead horse with slashin g teeth and flames until
this monster had consumed the half of it before the saddle.
But now the spear in its gut began to cause it such agon y t hat it left the
carcass that remained and fled toward its stony lair.
But Tristan, its real opponent, followed hot on its trail.
The fiend went raging on ahead with s uch violent impetus while ripping
through th e underbrush and scorchin g it to ash es that the entir e forest
resounded with its frightful roaring. But at the climax of it s rampag e i ts
painful wound overc ame it and it wedged itself for refuge d eep b eneath
a stony cliff.
Tristan, approaching, dr ew his sword, hopin g t o find i t exhausted. Not
at all —the fight grew worse than ever it had been before. Yet never did
it get so fearsome as to deter Tristan from attac k. The dragon fou ght
back ferociousl y , put ting t he man to such great peril he thought it would
be his end. S till he di vert ed its worst assaults, or it quickly would h ave
left him without attack or defences. Nor was this viper a simple foe—
it brought as allies into battle not onl y smoke and vapours but other
armaments as well, fire and things t o st rike wit h, huge teeth and
fearsome c laws acute as though hone d to a point and cutting edge
sharper than a razor.
Brandishing these weapons the dragon c has ed him a round, dodging
trees and through the bu sh— he had t o t ake whatever cover m ight give
him some protection, fo r now it had hi m on the run. Whi le doing his
best to parry t he worst of its onslaughts, his shield had been scorched to
cinders almost down to his hand, since tr ying to repel th e flames ha d
left him almost no escape.
But then the tide began to turn—that bloodthirsty serpent began t o
reach the point where it s vigour had to slacken. The embedded spear,
working deeper, finall y brought the creature d own where it la y i n
twisting agon y . Tristan swiftl y took hi s chance, driving straight in fo r
the ki ll. Ne x t t o the spear, he plunged his sword rig ht throug h the heart,
up to his hand. At this the fiendish scourge burst out wit h one last howl

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as awesome and so dir e from deep within its dismal gullet as at the
collapse of earth and heaven, and thi s final mortal s hriek echoed across
hills and fields—Tristan himself was horrified (lines 8,974-9,055).

On recovering f rom such a tremendous fight, which many would be happ y t o
have on screen, Tristran sliced the dra gon’s ton gue awa y as proo f of hi s deed and he
secured it inside his shirt i n a not altogether wise move: afterwards, when he went to
rest b y the river nearby, the venom from the tongue over came him and he l ost
consciousness.
While he was thus in capacitated, the kin g’s sen eschal, a co wardl y but shrewd
man, cam e again into the picture. He arrived before an y on e els e to the scene of the fight
and, to his horror, happened on the half eaten horse and t he carcass of the dragon. At
first, he panicked, but s oon he collected hi s wit s enough to realize that it was his one
chance to win the princess. He seiz ed the opportunity wi th alacrit y , de cidi ng to make
believe that he, and not Tristan, was the h ero that had killed t he dragon. But first, he
looked for Tristan, whom he thought d ead or at least badl y wounded, with the thought
of disposing o f him so that nobod y could disp ute his stor y . W hen h e could find no trace
of the man, he left, i n onl y partial securit y of the success of his impost ure, though not
before spearing the dead dragon with a vengeance , although if this was done t o vent out
his frustration, to have the s ensation of having per formed the act of kill ing, or because i t
gave him some sort of twisted pleaure one can o nly esp eculate. Once hi s energies ha d
been s pent and his t emper appeased, he lost no time in going ba ck to W eisford, to claim
the victory (and the princess) for himself. Th ere, he commandeered a team of four
horses and a wagon with whi ch to fetch the dragon’s h ead as proof o f his deed. He
spread t he tale far and w ide, taking care to impre ss upon his audience t hat it had been
his devotion to t he lad y Isolt and his uncommon st rength that had made him t riumph

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where lesser men had f ailed. He also reminded th e king of his solemn oat h to give the
princess’ hand to whoever killed the serpent.
However, when Princess I sol t heard o f this event, she could not b e reconciled to
marriage to the seneschal. Suspecting foul pl a y , th e queen proposed to s ecretly go to th e
site of the fight, and t hence t he y went, I solt, her mother t he que en, her cousin
Brangaene and her pa ge P aranis. Soon, the y foun d Tristan (who the y knew as Tantris,
the minstrel), l y in g in the wat er, close to d eath . He h ad in hi s po wer the dragon’s
tongue, proof that he, and not t he seneschal, was the true hero of the tale. The queen,
who was well versed in the arts of healin g, soon had Tristan r ecover. He w as taken back
to the palace and there, with t heir mi nistrations, he soon rega i ned his s treng th. When he
recovered enough t o talk, he gave them an a ccount of the fi ght with the dragon, but
carefully refrained from revealing his identit y , or his true intentions.
In the meantime, the s eneschal was pressin g hi s suit and offering to m eet in
combat an yone who wou ld presume on his mendacity . Th e king summon ed a board of
advisors t o re nder couns el i n the matter of allowing the senesc hal to marry t he princess.
The queen also gave h er advice, and ver y d ecidedl y claimed that the s eneschal h ad
usurped for himself the exploit of another and that she could prove i t ea sil y . Sh e
confronted him on his f abrication and he b rought up the he ad of the dra gon he had taken
as proof o f his vi ctor y , adhering to his ve rsion of the tale. The qu een then a greed to
bring her champion for l egal combat in t hree da y s time, to s ee which of the two men
was telling the truth. During that span of time, T ristan was nursed back t o full health
and Isolt found out, to h er distress, th at he was n o ot her than the m urderer of his own
uncle, Morolt. She qui ck ly told her mot her of both her discover y and her intentions of
revenge, but the que en tal ked her out of the idea o f killing her champion, at least for the
time being, and Morolt was left unav enged. Instead, the y bot h questioned Trist an, who

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finally confessed to them his true missi on in coming to Irlant to sl a y t he dr agon, and
King Marke’s wishes regarding princess I solt, and they reached a truce.
The da y came of the trial b y combat, and there was much spe culation as who
would t ake th e field on behalf of the lad y Isolt. Eventually , Tristan emerged, full y clad
in his best clothes and armour, and a clamour of compliments rose from the crowd.
Then, both opponents p resented their claim s to th e hand of the p rincess. T he seneschal,
once again, produced the head of the dra gon. Trist an, calml y anticipating his victor y,
requested that the h ead was examined and that, should there be a tongue i nside it, he
would renoun ce hi s ri ghts in full. O f course, “when the head h ad been cut open, nothing
was found in the g ullet. Tristan immediately commande d t he t ongue to be retrieved and
shown” (lines 11,240-43). The seneschal’s de ceit was thus publicl y ex posed, as
Tristran’s possession of the tong ue was i rrefutable p roof that he, Tristan, must have
been the one who slew the dragon. The usur per could not prove in an y wa y that
Tristan’s claim was not l icit . He was universally deemed as dishonourabl e and his tale,
an outrageous fabrication. The wretch s till pressed to have a combat, bu t hi s retainers
and relatives persuaded him t o desist. The usurper was unmasked and the true hero
gained the recognition of the court and the fair priz e that came with it, an d that he had
won for King Marke.
The story then g oes on to relate in detail the great tra gedy of the two y oun g
lovers, which has so often been reinterpr eted in lit erature , music, cinema and art. But
few versions have mana ge d t o be as colourful as this one is. Not even Sir Trist rem , the
earliest Brit ish work that told this story , and which dedica t ed no less than seven stanzas
to the fight with the dragon. I n addition, t he episode by Gottfried von Strasbourg gives
us a fantasticall y detailed account of th e ferocit y a nd dan ger that one ma y ex pect from a
dragon. His creature is destructive for no apparent reason (there are no wounded

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feelings or prior attacks described). It is a fire-breathing, almost invulnerable serpent,
whose venom is so potent it affe cts the hero even after the creature has b een killed and
its tongue cut off. But the mot if which probably is the most appealing of all is not
directly related to the fight , but to the t heme of the fal se hero , also p resent i n a number
of folktales (such as The T wo Brothers ), and the t est to spot the t rue dragon ki ller. An
almost exact parallel is found in one of the most beautiful and complex pla y s w ritten for
children, L a cabeza del drag on (2009), by the talented Spanish writer Ramón María del
Valle-Inclán. H ere, the gifted writer dis pla y s all of the conventions o f the g enre: the
dragon who demands to be fed a p rincess, and who is described as a mo nster that has
traces of the serpent and of the horse, with the wings of a b at (4th scen e, p. 68); the
villain who tries to rob the hero of his t riumph by presenting the dr agon’s head; and the
evidence of the tongue that was cut from the d ragon’s mouth b y the tr ue he ro, and
which is produced in the clim atic end. Valle- Inclán proves here to be a true connoisseur
of t he st ructure of the folkt ale, decades be fore philologist studies turned in that
direction, but also an intellectual who knew his Tristran well.
Sir Bevis of H am pton
Bevis of Hampton is a le gendary English hero w hose adventures were immortaliz ed in
romance. The oldest ex isting version is an Anglo-Norman t ext dating from the 13 th
century, but the re are v ersions of this s tory in F rench (13 th c.), I talian, Yiddish, Ir ish
(15 th c.) and Russian (16 th c.), among other languages, which is a proof of its popularit y .
The ea rliest English ro mance (14 th c.) is based on French ori ginals an d its enormous
appeal to mediev al audiences is exemplified i n the numerous versions of it that have
survived, but also in the g r eat influence it had on other authors, among wh om one must

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One of the first to realize this was Chrétien de Troyes, who is believed to have
written no less than five works on Arthurian t hemes: Erec et Enide (1170), Cl igés
(1176), Y vain and Lancelot (between 1177 and 1181) and the unfini shed Perceval
(between 1180 and 1191). His is a completely new a pproach to the raw materials
provided b y Geo ffre y o f Monmouth. W here M onmouth and Wace sought simpl y to
embellish historical event s, Chrétien de Tro y es hi ghlights the thirst for adventure of his
characters. His truth is not the hi storical truth, but a reelaboration of it that suits the
reigning ideolo g y of t his time in hi story. He uses motifs inherited f rom both folklore
and literature, but also f rom the culture of t he t ime. He, and man y ot hers afte r him,
wrote for a set of nobi lity t hat had c ertain beliefs, and certain r equirements, and that is
the reason wh y these works are more t han le gends or outrageus advent ures, the y a re
reflections of an era. A complex era, at that. Th e 13 t h centur y , in p articular, saw the
ultimate prosification and Christianization of the Matter of Britain. The di ffusion of
these works was extraordinar y , even in a civilization of such limit ed means as was
Medieval Europe.
And, rather unsurprisingly, the Arthurian le gends are rip e with dra gons too. The
list of tex ts that m ay b e branded as part of the Arthurian C y cle is so extensive and the y
are all so fertile in dr agon encounters that a detail ed ex amination of them a ll would give
cause to a whole new study. That is the reason why I have decided on a ve r y na rrow
selection of episodes, grounding m y decision on the following aspects: th e importance
of t he stor y i n t he ge ner al contex t of the A rthurian c ycle and its recurrent presence in
the different works; the p opularity of the text at t he time, whi ch would result in a
spreading of the tal e f ar and wide; and the distribution in the B ritish I s les, which would
grant knowledge of the work b y the popul ation and, therefore, it s influ ence on new
productions attempted in the islands.

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To this I wil l add that t hose works dealin g wi th t he very specific br eed of the
dragon maiden (and ver y numerous the y were t oo!) will be addressed i n a s ection of
their own, where the same requirements that rule this selection will apply.
This leaves us with t he basics of the Arthurian stories. Bearing this in mind, it is
obvious that the first s tory that must dem and our attention by it s own meri ts i s the ver y
one that gives a name to the whole line of literar y production: Arthur.
The very ori gin of this legendar y kin g and warrior is hera lded b y dra gons, as he
is engendered b y no ot her than Uther or Uth yr, who had earned hims elf the n ame
Pendragon 1 , a name t hat his son bore with pride as well. The most pop ular rendition of
Uther appears in Geoffre y of Monmouth’s Historia Regnum Britanniae 2 . The epithet
pendragon literall y mean s “chief-dragon”, meaning that he is a leader of leaders. If this
were not enough, his life is sp rinkled with several dragon episodes. The first one, that he
once witnessed a d ragon-shaped comet, an o ccurrence that heralded great things and
which i nspired both his name and his dra gon sta ndards, and even his son ’s helm, which
bore a red dragon that would eventuall y find its way into the Welsh flag.
But, long before that, another central character to the Arthurian C y cl e had
become involved in a dragon episode t oo, and it was a ver y r elevant one: w hen t he main
character of this stor y was but a bo y, the politics of the tim e were, if an y thi ng, turbulent.
Vortigern was the chie f a dviser of king C onstans, and pra cticall y a surro gate king. After
having Const ans kill ed, a long conflict ensued between th e Britons and t he Saxons, who
were th en beginning to settle in Britain. During a meetin g between bot h parties, the
Saxons m assacre d the Briti sh nobles. Only Vorti gern was spared and he fled to W ales.

1 Uther Pendr agon (al so Uth yr B endrago n), a lege ndary king of Celtic Brit ain (04.2 1.2 013.
http://www.briti sh-hi stor y.ac.uk).
2 Geoffrey o f Monmout h (Wal es c. 1 100 – c. 1155) (09.22.201 3. http:// www.british- history.ac. uk).

114

Illumination of a 15 th centur y manus cript of Historia Regnum Britanniae
(05.26.2014. http://www.vortigernstudies.org.uk/artlit /image3.htm).

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Here is what happened there:
He tried to bu ild a str ongh old in Sn ow donia, but three times, in the
night, the b u i l d i n g ma terials mysteriously vanished. He consulte d h is
magi cians, wh o told him he w ould on ly su cceed if h e s prink led th e
foundat ions w ith the bl ood of a bo y born w ithou t a f ather
1
. Such a
boy w as f ound and when h e was broug ht t o the Kin g, t old hi m that
be neat h a certa in stone wa s a pool , whic h was under m ini ng his
foundat ions. In the p ool t hey w ould f ind a tent cont ainin g two
dragons, on e red, th e other white. Ev erythin g turn ed ou t as the bo y
had s aid, an d w hen the dra gons we re u ncov ered the y be gan to figh t.
First the whi te one se emed to b e w inni ng, but then the re d one drov e
him out of the tent. The boy s aid the tent w as B ritain, the w hit e
dragon the Saxons, and the red the W elsh, wh o in t he fu llness of time
would r eco nquer the ir lands. V orti gern h ims elf mus t g ive up his
citadel t o the boy, whos e name w as Emrys
2
or 'Ambr ose' and w ho, it
is i mpli ed, was t hat s ame Am brosius Aure lian us whom trad ition
claims launc hed the co unter- attac k ag ainst the Saxons which King
Arthur led (Westwood , 1994: 340).

Geoffrey of Monmouth had this bo y named as Merlin, and such he woul d
remain in most future works.
A tradition recorded in 1861 adds that Merlin l eft there a treasure, which only a
y o uth wit h blue e y es an d y e llow hair would find (Westwood, 1994: 341). It has n ever
been ascertained whether such person ever claime d it.
As for the stor y of the t wo battling dragons, it i s not unique: some le gends of
combats between two dra gons seem to commem orate past battles. S o it has been
suggested to be the c ase with the fight described in a fifteenth-century ch ronicle
nowadays kept i n Canterbur y Cathedral, about a battle between two fire-breathin g
dragons t hat took place in a marsh y field known as Sharpfight Meadow or Shalford
Meadow, on th e afternoon of Frida y, 25 S epte mber 1449, near th e vil lage of Little

1 T his unsavour y method (spr inkling the foundatio ns with t he b lood of a child) is prob ably the re mnants of
some fou ndation sacrifice. West w ood (19 94: 340 -1) mentions t hat, as late as 1 717 , it is known t hat D utch
and Ger man workers atte mpte d to sacrifice childre n under s ome dykes.
2 It has bee n d isco vered, in t he site of t his lege nd, an Ir on Age set tle ment, whic h was re -occupied in the
second p art of the 5 th centur y and goes b y the name o f Di na s E m rys. Ambrosi us is said to have lived i n this
place in the 5 th centur y too (W estwood, 1 994 : 341).

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Cornard (Suffolk). One cannot ge t much m ore s pecific than th at. One of the dra gons
was black and ha iled from Kedington Hill; the other , red and spotted, came f rom
Ballingdon Hill, in Essex . After fighting for the better part on an hour, the red dra gon
won, and both returned to their dwellings, both alive, although one can imagine the
black dragon would be a littl e worse fo r wear. Now, this ver y spot where the two
dragons battled is accounted to be the place where Boa dicea decima ted the Ninth
Legion from Colchester (W estwood, 1994: 185-6).
But let us return to Arthur, who had an en counter with a dragon, too, although it
did not involve much real fighting for the king:
Arthyr and hi s hosts wen t to the port of Northham twn; and when he got
a fair wind he s ailed for fraink. And when h e had reached the m iddle of
the ocean, a sleep as o f the de ad held him much o f the night, and he saw
a dre am. He saw fl y i ng from t he sout h a sort of monster, with a terrible
voice, alighting on the s hore of ffraink; and he saw a dra gon coming
from the west, and b y the glare of its e y es the s ea was li ghted up. And
he saw the dragon and the Bear (A rth) en gaging; and when the y h ad
fought for a lon g time, he saw th e dragon spitt ing out gleaming flames
of fire upon the Bear, and burning him up compl etely. And p erplexing
was the dream to Arth y r. And then he awoke and told hi s comrades of
the vision; and thus di d the y m ake interpretation: 'Thou, Lord, shalt
fight some monster o f a giant and conque r him, for t he d ragon signifies
thyself.' B ut Arth yr put n o t rust in thi s, for he believed t hat it should be
between the emperor and himself (translation b y E ttlinger, 1948: 100).

Dream i nterpretation w as a comm on (and seriou s) pastime in the Middle Ages,
and professional dream-r eaders were frequ ently s ummoned t o unravel som e particularl y
intricate dream. It seems there w as no such fi gur e amon g Arthur’s attendants, since he
doubts the interpretation they g ive him . He appears to be much more confident of what
he hears i n S ir Thom as Malory ’s version of this same episode, which will be presented
in the section following this one.
It is somewhat curious that, even thou gh Arthur’s life is punctuated with dragon
episodes, he did not once fight one. They are generall y used as elements of prophec y or

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in dream sequences, such as the one seen above. The y o ften stand for kin gs, sometimes
for nations, and alwa ys for portentous events. T his use was hardl y surp rising fo r the
readers at th e tim e, for all creatures, plants and even stones h ad allegorical meanings
during the Mi ddle Ages. Even the s cientific manuals adapted from clas sical writers
from the Antiqui t y were embellis hed and modifi ed to charge t he descript ions with t he
new s y mbolic references.
In any event, thes e were the chief episodes t hat would be repeated time and
again b y European writer s during the Medieval e ra and be y ond, reelaborati ng the stories
of King Arthur and hi s knights ad i nfinitum, b lurring som e aspects and sharpenin g
others, depending on the aim of the author and the tastes of the time.
The question of whether Arthur was a his torical fi gure or a creature of le gend is
still under debate. The l atest studies seem to poi nt towards t he confusion between a
militar y commander at t he time of the R oman colonization and some local divinit y of
war. The i mpressive am ount of medieval fiction that was written around his figure and
that of his knights h as its roots deep in ancient folklore. But not onl y in Celt ic folklore.
Even should one refuse to contemplate Littleton’s claims of an eastern origin of th e
Arthurian m y th, on e cannot but acquiesce to the f act that m edieval literatu re was greatl y
influenced b y classical s ources, whi ch inspi red a number of si tuations and adventures of
the Matter of Brit ain . F antastic adventu res, haz ardous travels and fabulous m onsters
were not unheard of in Greece and R ome, and a perusal of the Odissey or t he Illiad , to
give but two examples, would give an y writer th e inspiration needed to put pen to paper.
Sir Thomas Mal ory ’s Le Morte D’Arthur
Sir Thomas M alory is the acknowledged author of Le Morte d’Arthur . Seve ral i dentities
have been propos ed for this “knig ht prisoner”, Sir Thomas M alory of New bold R ebel in

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Warwickshire 1 (c. 1405-1471) being the one that is more generally a cknowledged. The
little that is known with some certaint y i s that he must have come from a well-off famil y
and that he w as f amiliar with the dialect spoken in Yorkshire. Obviousl y , he was also
familiar with the lit erary tradition around th e fi gure of King Arthur, and must have b een
influenced by works such as Geoffre y o f Monmo uth’s Histori a Regnum Britanniae (12 th
century), Wace’s Roma n de Brut (12 th century ) and The Allliterati ve Morte Arthure
(14 th century), among others (Kor decki, 1984: 67- 8).
The oldest surviving cop y of Le Mort e d’Arthu r is found i n t he Winchester
manuscript, which was written after the author’ s death, but the version that became
popular was William Caxton’s one, which differ ed slightl y , although there is proof that
Caxton knew and even w as at some point in possession of the Winchester m anuscript. It
was W illiam Caxton who re-titled the original w ork ( The hoole booke of kyng Arthur &
of his nobl e knyghtes of the rounde table ) as Le Morte d’Arthur in 1485, a t itle that was
uniformly embr aced. T he manuscript is now adays kept i n the Britis h Library
(03.22.2013. http:/ /www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/englit/malory). The work proved
popular and had several reprints ove r the nex t two centuries, and had a r evival during
the Romantic period of the 19 th century .
The plot is as famous as it can get. Structured in 21 b ooks, i t retells the story o f
King Arthur, his m arriage to Guinev ere, t he no ble deeds of the Knights of the Roun d
Table and the Qu est for the Hol y Grail. It has been argued t hat t he author i ntended it as
a model of an ideal ki ngdom, as a contrast to the disorderly times of t he W ar of the
Roses. Besides, i t i s written in prose, which gives i t an aura of seriousness, as t ales were
written in verse and prose was used in his tor y . This, as well as other f eatures, ma rks it

1 He is believed to have written the text while he was i mprisoned, during the 1450 s ( 03.22 .2013.
http://www.e ncyclo.co .uk).

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as a ve r y modern wo rk for its time. But, even m ore importantl y, M alory ’s L e Morte
d’Arthur is the main production from which authors after him have drawn their material,
first in literature and arts and, more recentl y, in c i nema.
Regarding the occurrence of dr agons in t his wo rk, Kordecki has notic ed the
following pattern:
(Dragons) are often found in an episode which proves significant or even
determinative to the major themes of Arthurian romance, i.e., Arthur's
life, Round Fable chiv alry , and the qu est for the Holy Gr ail. This i n itself
is not so remarkable since drag ons or otherwise monstrous creatures
frequently appe ar in prophetic sequences, such as dreams, and prophec y
would be used t o foreshadow the prominent events of the narratives.
What struck me was t he evidence of p remeditation in tales that seem to
flaunt sloppy plots the rather surprising attention to over all meaning
(Kordecki, 1984: 62).

What the author means is that there is eviden ce, as we saw above, t hat the
medieval mentalit y r ecognized the use of a series of animals or objects a s s ymbols of
something else enti rel y . For instance, Zeldenrust 1 (2011) ex plores the specific case of
the dragon maiden, and observes that it seems to repre s ent a turning point i n the
development of the kni ght, and a necessar y adventure to establish his identit y . In
Malory, the dra gon motif punctuates some parts of the narrative, and the y are used
predominantly as omens or signs of something to come.
Serpents make an app earance in Book I, Chapter XIX, in a dr eam Arthur has
after inadvertentl y sleepi ng with his own sister:
Thenne t he k y ng dremed a merueillous dre me wherof he w as sore adrad
/ But al this t yme k y ng Arthur knewe not that k y n g Lots w y f was his
syster / Thus was th e dreme of Arthur / h y m t hought t her was come in
to this land Gry ffons and S erpentes / And h ym th oughte the y brente and
slough alle the pepl e in the l ād And thenn e h y m thoughte / h e f aughte
with hem / and t hey d yd h y m passynge grete har me / and wounded h y m
ful sore / but at the last he slewe hem (Book I , Capitulum x ix)

1 Her Re search Master T hes is, “Whe n a Kni ght Meets a Dra go n Maiden: Hu man Id entity a nd the M onstro us
Animal Ot her”, found at w ww.acad em ia.ed u, dea ls with this topic extensively.

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(03.01.2013.
http://quod.l ib.umich.edu/c/cme /Malor y Wks2/ 1:23.3? rgn= di v2;view=to
c).

This fateful night, Arthur conceives a s on, Mordred, who will eventually bring
about his death and the end of his kingdom. Arthur awakes in dis tress, which is
perfectly understandable, for, in this specific instance, the presence of monsters is
clearly an evil omen. Here, the author makes us e of the shift of m eaning o f t he s ymbol
of the s erpent, which b ecame asso ciated with the Devil in the C hristian im ager y . B y the
end of th e book, Arthur dreams again o f serpen ts, the night b efore the battle against
Mordred:
Soo vpon Tr y n y te sonday at n yghte kynge Arthur dremed a wonderful
dreme / & that w as this / t hat hym semed / he s atte vpon a chaflet in a
chayer / and the cha yer was fast to a whele and therupon satte k y nge
Arthur in the ryche st cl othe of gold that myg ht e be made / and the
kyng thou ghte th er was vnder h y m f er f rom h y m an h y dous depe blak
water / and there in were alle maner of serpentes and wormes and
wylde bestes foule and h orr y ble / and sodenl y th e k ynge t houghte the
whele torn ed vp soo do une / and he felle amonge the serpent ys / &
euery beest took hym b y a l ymme / and thenne t he kynge cr y ed as he
lay in his bedde and slepte / helpe / And t henne kny ght es squ y ers and
y o men awaked the k ynge (Book XX I, Capitu lum iij) (03.01.2013.
http://quod.l ib.umich.edu/c/cme /Malor y Wks2/ 1:23.3? rgn= di v2;view=t
oc).

Arthur is not one to skir t a good battle, but in th is case his kni ghts advise him
against milit ary action. Mordred a grees to si gn a treat y wit h his father, but, during th e
signing, a black snake causes one of his men to draw his sword, and that leads t o an
impromptu b attle, where both Mordred and Arthur find their death. Th e prediction is
thus fulfilled, and with the aid of a snake, no less.
The motif is again us ed in the Christi an sense in Book X IV , Chapt er V I, when
Sir P ercival helps a l ion to defeat a s erpent, and then he d reams o f two women, one
astride a lion, one astri de a serpent, which are later interpreted as alle gorie s o f the

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Church, t he new law (the wom an on the lion) and the Devil, the old law (the one on t he
dragon).
However, the serpent may b e a positive presence when it appears in a dream or
vision. I n those cases, the creature i s identified a s a dragon, and it seems to inherit its
traits not form the C hristian imagery, but from the traditional tales of extraordinaril y
powerful c reatures, not directl y linked with the evilness of Hell. There i s one such
example i n Book V, Chapter I V, when Arthur i s sailing to northern Europe, directl y
after declaring war to Rome:
And as the k y n g la ye in his caba n in shy p / he fyll in a sl omery nge an d
dremed a merue yllous dreme / h y m semed that a dredeful d ragon d y d
drowne mo che o f his p epl e / and he cam fleynge oute of the west / and
his hede was enameled wit h asure / and his sholders shone as gold / his
bely l y k e ma y lles of a merue yllous hewe / his t aylle ful o f tatters / his
feet ful of f yne sable / & his clawes l y ke f y ne gold And an h ydous
flamme of f y re fle we oute of his mout he / l yke as the l onde and w ater
had flammed all of f y re / After h y m semed there came out e of t hor y ent /
a gr y ml y bor e al blak in a clowde / and his paw es as b ygge as a post / h e
was ru gged lok ynge roughl y / he was the foules t beest that euer man
sawe / he rored and rom ed soo h y drousl y that i t were m erueill to here /
Thenne t he dredeful dra gon auaunced h y m and cam in the w y nde l yke a
fawcon gyuynge grete strokes on the bore / and the bore h y tte h y m
ageyne with his grysly tuskes / that his brest was al blody / and that the
hote blood made alle the see reed of his blood / Thenne t he dragon
flewe aw e y al on a he y ȝ te / and come doune with s uche a swough and
smote t he bore on the r y dge whiche w as x foote large fro the hed e to the
taylle / and smote the bor e all to powdre bothe flesshe and bon y s / that it
flutteryd al abrod e on the see (Book V, C apitulum iiij ) (03.01.2013.
http://quod.l ib.umich.edu/c/cme /Malor y Wks2/ 1:23.3? rgn= di v2;view=to
c).

On waking up, the king s ummons a phil osopher to have him i nterpret t he dream,
and he is told that t he dragon represents Arthur hims elf, and the boar (a bear in the
Winchester edition), a t y rant which thre atens his people. I t is a very conv enient
interpretation, which presents the ki ng ver y flatteringl y , in the guise of a sp lendid
dragon which flies and b reathes fir e, and one whi ch foresees his victor y over Rome (the

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In th e Victorian b allad The Laidl ey Worm of Spindleston Huegh 1 , the sit uation is
fairl y similar. Th e girl in this tale, Ma rgaret, has been changed b y h er st epmother too.
As a worm, she has a deadly breath and is fond of mil k, and seven cows are mi lked
daily for her benefit and the milk is taken in a t roug h t o Spindlestone Heugh, whe re she
has her lair. The spell can only b e broken b y her own brother, the Chi ld of W y nd.
Although the stepmother goes to great lengths to stop him from acting, he eventuall y
gives her s ister t he neces sar y three kisses to disenchant her. The stepmothe r is turned to
a hideous toad, as punis hment for h er actions. T here us ed to b e in Spi ndleston, where
these proceedings take pl ace, a Worm’s C ave, which has been quar ried, to t he dejection
of an y rese archer who m ight have wished to explore it in search of archaeol ogical traces
of this legend (Simpson, 2001: 59-60, Westwood, 1994: 399-400).
Similar stories can be found in ballads such as Al ison Gross (where it is the bo y
that i s t urned into a worm and hi s si ster the one who comes to provide assistance) an d
The L aidly W orm and t he Machrel of th e Sea (where both broth er and sister are
transformed into a worm and a ma ckerel, respecti vely , but onl y he succeeds in breaking
the spell) (Simpson, 2001: 59).
Outside of the British I sl es, the stor y is also highly popular. In I cel and, the saga
of Áslól and Hjálmtèr deals with it:
Áslól is transformed, along with her brother and sister, b y their evil stepmother.
Áslól, particularly, has been turned into a hideous m onster and she will on ly b e released
from the sp ell if a king’s son consents t o kiss her. I n ver y m uch the s ame s tructure as i n
the Scottish ballad of Kemp Ow yne, prin ce Hjálmt èr i s accosted by Áslól, who
convinces him to kiss her in ex chang e of a ver y powerf ul sword.

1 T he verses were p ublis hed by t he Rev. Mr Lamb, Vicar of No rtham, who c laimed he was transcrib ing
from a m an uscript from the 13 th century ( Simpson, 2 001 : 59).

129

John D. Batten, The Lai dly Worm of Spindl eston Heugh , for J oseph Jacobs’ English Fairy
Tales . 1890
(05.27.2014.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/English_Fair y _T ales/The_ La idl y _W orm_of_Spi ndleston_Heug
h).

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In Denma rk, we find Jo mfruen i Orme ham , a bal lad preserved in manuscript s of
the 16 th and 17 th centuri es tells t he stor y of Sir Jenus. Here, the maid can retain h er
human form for a portion of the da y, but turns in to a littl e snake when the clock strikes
midnight. She appears at Sir Jenus’s bedside as a maiden and offers him gi fts, but he is
fast asleep a nd cannot he lp her. His p age, ho wever, witnesses the episode, and he
repeats to his m aster all that has occurred. Then, Sir J enus orders his horse and rides in
search of the s nake. Onc e he finds it, he kisses it, and t he snake turns into the girl a gain.
There is onl y one thing left for Sir Jenus to do, and that i s asking for her hand in
marriage.
The moti f of the cursed maiden who i s r eleased with a kiss is repeated in other
Danish tales, although the maiden herself ma y b e transformed into creature s other than a
snake or dragon (a tree, a troll, etc), but the sna ke is, beyond an y dou bt, the most
common one.
In Galicia (Spain) the re i s a p eculiar v ariation of this stor y . It says that there is a
serpent living in a lake called Lagoa da S erpe 1 (“the ser pent’s lake”) in A Veiga
(Ourense). Durin g th e fu ll moon, t he creature met amorphoses into a be autiful maiden,
with long flowing black hair, that she brushes carefull y as dawn breaks on the da y of St
John. S he usuall y s its on a stone, pensive and s ad, for she is waiting for some brave soul
to help her break her enchantment. It is said that once she bes eeched a y ou ng chap from
the neighbouring village of Xares to help her, explaining that all he had to do was meet
her i n her s erpent form at da wn and spi t on h er mouth. A fter man y e ntreaties and
promises t hat she would not hurt him as a serpent, the y outh decided to do the deed. She

1 Indep endently o f this specific lege nd, the Lago a da Serp e is a plac e rip e with le gend a nd tr adition. I t i s
believed that it s water c ause s death to whome ver drinks it, and, should one be as foolis h as to bathe there,
escape fro m its perilou s water s would b e i m possible ( 04.0 1.201 3. http://www. galiciaenca ntada.co m).

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had promised to give him her h and and a great f ortune, and he, finding h er as pr ett y as
he could wish and himself a fearless fellow, promised to do as told.
The following m orning, he appeared at the lake at the appointed t ime, and there
was the serpent, large and terrible, swim ming i n the lake. When the m onster saw th e
boy, she app roached gently, takin g great pains so that he would not be scared, but it was
in vain. The chap was frightened to death and he scampered awa y.
A different version has the happ y - ever-after resolution. This one relates how a
y o un g m an from the vil lage of Ponte, being given the same instructions , m anaged t o
keep hi s countenance when the serpent arrive d and succeeded in breaking t he curse.
(04.01.2013.
http://www.galiciaencantada.com/dentro.asp? c=4&id=1 550&n=a_lagoa_da_serpe_de_p
ena_trevinca).
Actually, t he North of Spain is ripe with s tories such as this one: maidens of the
underworld, who live b y wells and turn into serp ents, or who guard s ome treasure t hat
can onl y b e acquire d b y releasing t he moura (or xana , or anjana , depending on whether
one comes across her i n Galicia, Asturias, León or C antabria), or sol ving som e riddle
she presents to t he male who approaches he r. Th e procedure to br eak the curse alwa ys
involves some deed with s exual undertones: in San Amaro (Ourense, Galici a), the worm
carries a flower in h er mouth, and t he would-be hero has to t ake i t fro m her with his
mouth in order to have her turn back into a woman. In S an Vic encio de Vi go (Carr al, A
Coruña, Galici a), a y oung lo cal chap serendipitiousl y learnt that to hel p a b eautiful
maiden who is under a spell he needed to ki ss her three tim es. The foll owing da y, he
went to the spot where he had seen t he girl and waited for her but, instead of the
ravishing beaut y h e had ex pected, an enormous and ugl y s erpent c ame gliding through
the river water. Although terrified, the bo y kissed the creature three times and, after the

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third one, she recovered her female form and bot h left for a farawa y land , taking with
them a great treasure (González R eboredo, 1995: 109-10) .
Many of these encounters t ake place on significant dates, very particularl y on the
eve of S t J ohn’s Da y . Caro Bar oj a (1979: 276- 7) gives a great man y examples of this
stirring of the fantastic beings on such a date i n many Spanish villages: enchanted
maidens and giants, and m y sterious beings of all sorts. This includes t he lamias of the
La miñerréka river (Cebe rio, Viz cay a, Basque C ountry) , o r “the river of the lamias”,
who once rev ealed mortals the secre t to ext erminate t hem 1 (278). In J araiz de la Vera
(Cáceres, Extremadura), he uncovers a st riking s tor y , much to the liking of this
researcher:
En el castillo de Jaraiz sale una infant a mora mo ntada en un dra gón y en
los ni dos de águila d e l os picac hos d e l a Vera, a los que va, b usca un
huevo no empollado en el cual pretende encontr ar un anillo mágico que
contrarreste el efecto de ot ro que l leva puesto en el dedo del corazón 2
(Caro Baroja, 1979: 277).

The theme and some of t he elements of this st ory, while uncommon in ot her
tales (at l east in those that have been preserved ), are trul y exciting in that the y both
mirror ancient motifs (the mag i cal ring) and herald others tha t are nowadays
exceptionall y popul ar (the dragon riding), as will be evidenced in Chapter 4.
These are but a small fraction of the many examples of stories all over Europe
that contain this theme of the dragon m aiden, and the y illustrate the eno rmous
popularity that they once had.

1 T his w a s an i mprude nt decisi on o n their part to be sure. For those of y o u who ma y ever find y ourselve s i n
need of extinguishin g the la mia race, you must kno w that you will need to plo ugh the neighbouri ng lands
using a te am o f b ro wn bullocks bo rn o n t he da y of St Jo hn (Caro Ba roja, 1979: 2 78). T hat is, pr ovided the
lamias spo ke truth.
2 “In the castle o f Ja raiz a M oo r p rincess set s o ff ridin g a d ragon a nd she trave ls to the p ea ks of Vega, where
she r ummages the eagles ’ ne sts in sear ch of an u nfertilized egg, where she expects to find a m a gical ring to
neutralize the e ffect o f the one she carr ies on her middle fin ger” (translation b y the author o f this stud y ).

133

Adam and Eve in the Garden by M ichelangelo. Notice how the s nake has a female upper
body. This imagery is common to man y other aut hors who pa inted this episode, such a s
Masolino da Panicale (15
th
century ), Girolamo Macchietti and Giulio Romano (16
th

ce ntur y) .

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But we must not forget the second set of st ories, that one revolvin g around t he
myth of Melusine. Although she was not named until the late Middle Ages, the s tory of
the woman who forbids her husband to seek h er on Saturda ys, be cause during that da y
she becomes half s erpent, had been in circulation for a lon g ti me, both in literature and
folklore. She was p resent in J ean d’Arras’ Mélusi ne ou La 7obl e Histoi re de Lusignan
(late 14 th centur y ) , which is arguabl y the m ost popular of all productions co ntaining this
tale, which goes as foll ows: Remondin, the hero, m eets Mélusine, a beautiful princess,
near a sprin g. She has been curs ed b y her mother to turn in to a half-serpent eve r y
Saturday, but R emondin is unaware o f this and he marries her. She, f earing his reaction
should he find out about her condition, makes him agree that h e must never look for her
on Saturda y s. Th e y h ave man y children and, fo r most of the tex t, the tex t revolves
around their lives, Mélusine’s particular cir cumstances laid aside until the end of the
story. Then, it tells how Remondin g rows curi ous of t he Saturday agreement and,
fearing adulter y , seeks her out. He finds her in her bath, in all her monstrosity . Althou gh
repulsed, h e do es not m ention it to her until later, and when he does, in a mom ent of
rage, she makes a dignified speech and leaves him, turning into a serpent permanentl y .
The stor y was recreated in severa l l anguages dur ing the 15 th and 16 th centuries
and became a pop ular w ork i n the whole of Europe during that time. Also, variations of
the t heme a re found in L es Voeux du Paon (14 th centur y) , and in G ervais of Tilbur y’ s
Otia Imperialia (13 th century).
Researcher Lydia Zeldenrust (2011), to whom I owe an essential part of the
background for this chapter, has obse rved tha t these episodes contributed to the
formation of medieval identit y . The y appear on the story for the sake of the hero’s

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development, in the context of chivalric societ y, as a necessar y step for t he h ero to
establish himself as a worth y ch aracter 1 before he c an reveal his identit y .
Returning to the init ial question raised by this particular type of creature, it is not
eas y t o determine wheth er the y are m ostl y human or m ostl y monste rs. True, t he lamia
eventuall y becomes a w oman, and is perceived throug hout as a woman trapped in a
monstrous body ; and t he melusine eventuall y be comes a serpent, which would make her
fit i n the animal world rat her than i n th e hum an o ne. The y ma y be the b est examples yet
of Gilmore’s explanation of the monster (2003: 191):
(…) ther e is alwa y s a non-fix ed boundary between men and monsters. In
the end, there can be no clear division between us and t hem, between
civilization and bestiality . As we pe er into the aby ss , the abyss stares
back.

And yet, it is interesting to note that, in the work b y Arras, Mélusine makes a
heated d efence of h er hu manit y and of how h er h usband has wronged her, which s eems
more in tune with our present day sensibilititi es tha n with the medieval ideals.
Finally, let us not forget t hat the dragon maiden is not an exclusive occurrence of
the medieval imager y, for s he was p resent in ancient cultures too: Tiamat, in
Mesopotamia, was in essentials a dragon m aiden; Medusa, in Greece, is even more
obvious; and even Pallas could hav e be en a dragon maiden in the origin of the m y t h. In
the first two c ases, th e hero unhesitatin gly kille d the maidens. In the t hird, she was
moulded i nto the new religion and survived as a goddess, with onl y a few trace s le ft of
her ophidian past, all of them accounted for so that there would be no blemish on her.

1 Regar ding t his, s he has br ought to notice t hat t he stor ies introduci ng the lamia c haracter appe ar in t he
group of medie val ro mances kno wn a s “The Fair U nknown Ro mances”, wher e t he hero is initiall y u nnamed
and he needs to p rove his w o r th b efore he establis hes his i dentit y. Structurally, t he d rago n m aide n e pisode
occurs be fore the kni ght revea ls his name ( Zelden hurst, 20 11: 34 ).

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After Malory
The shadow of Sir Tho mas Malor y loomed lar ge over the literature and art produced
after the publication of Le Morte d’Arthur . Most authors who wished to deal with some
Arthurian matter would mechanicall y t urn to his work as a model to follow. His
influence can be traced from Elizabethan Drama (prominently, in George Peele’s The
Old Wives’ Tale ) to the works of the Romantics (with a nod to Lor d Ten nyson’s Idylls
of t he King ). His themes and m otifs would be reproduced b y ev ery author worth his salt,
and every reader could instantl y re cognize every character and turn of the plot .
Le t us consider, for exampl e, P eele’s play. The Old W ives ’ T ale was publi shed
in 1595. A shockingl y short work, compared to th e rest of his production, s ome authors
consider that it m ay hav e been either shortened or cut for provincial pla y in g, and t hat
much may have gone astray with such a measure (Crow, 1947: 300). This would exp lain
the occasionall y contrive d flow of t he ev ents pres ented. Pla y s li ke this one wer e all t he
rage in the 1570s and 1580s. Authors t hen wrote piece s of medieval he roics, much li ke
the romances that had been writ ten in the pr evious centuries. “Wild an d flambo y ant
these plays are, like t he romances on which th ey are bas ed; filled with impos sible
characters, ext raordinar y adventures, s udden and violent shifts of scene” (Herrington,
1919: 453). Magic and e nchantment were alw a y s central to the plot and the adventures
were as outlandish as the author’s imagination allowed.
Serpents and dragons abound too, as is onl y fitting in stories such as these. In
The Old Wives’ T ale the na rrator (Madge) tells how Princess D elia was once stolen
away from her fathe r’s c astle, ca rried b y Sacrapant, a powerful conjurer who could turn
into a dra gon. Man y we re the kni ghts s ent to reco ver her, b ut none returned, and at long
last her own two brothers went to seek her. The y encountered man y different adventures

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en route to Sac rapant’s house, where their sist er lived with the dragon-magician unde r
an ench antment. In f act, the y did not manage to rescue their sister, as the y too were
taken b y the conjurer. It was a wanderin g kni ght, who had been in love with Delia all
along, that eventuall y solved all the riddles that protected Sacrapant, wit h the help of a
ghostl y figure whom he had assisted earlier in the stor y , and the conjurer’s head was
severed as soon as he lost his power.
The plot i s fantastically convoluted and it invo lves all sorts of motifs in its
continuous crossing of st ories, but all of them would b e easil y foll owed b y an audien ce
that was familiar with th e meanin gs b ehind t he p resentation of t he differe nt characters
(the helpful ghost, the fo ol, the ugly but kindhearted sister that is r ewarded, the beautiful
but shrewish one that is puni shed…) and situations (being kind to a stranger, the
unsolvable riddle, the test to the hero’s constanc y…).
Some t en y e ars lat er, Ed mund S penser could pro bably be found sc rawling The
Faerie Queene . In t his masterpiece, he reveals a deep knowledge of the classical and
biblical themes, but also of lives of saints and me dieval romances, all of which he uses
and ad apts masterfull y f or hi s own purposes. His dragons come from a breed that is
found most ly in the Bibl e. The y represent evil, and the forces of Hell, and as such they
must be vanquished at all costs. The y are also s ymbols of religious conflict, and of th e
new faith of Britain. Sp enser d resses hi s romance in religious s y mbolis m, to bett er
prove his point to his readers. For example, in hi s adaptation of Malor y ’ s s even-headed
dragon that Duesa rides and the serpent Errour, which is defeated b y the Redcrosse
Knight:
Spenser mak es good us e of both d ragons, but alters their si gnificance to
match his all eg or y. The first dragon becomes a sign of stru ggle wit h a
corrupted li terar y and historical tradition; the second becomes a marker
of the transition, not from paganism to Christianit y , but from C atholicism
to Protestantism (Hodges, 2012: 131).

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enter the hol y precincts, and had to remain outsi de seated on the
“dragon stone” (Lane, 1976: 21-2, in Si mpson, 2001: 106).

The processions and genera l c elebration wer e o f a hi ghl y festive qu ality. Th e
Snap was released and wreaked havoc amon g the populace , and p eople l aughingl y fled
from i t or teased i t, as in a children game. In fact, the locals usually grew as fond of the
dragon as t o make the celebrations sl ightl y heretic, to the e y e s of s ome, and
outrageousl y so, t o other s. Philli p S tubbes, a fifteenth-century author, cou nted hi mself
among t he l ast. His work Anatomie of Abuses (1583) denounced religious practices that
he considered una cceptable, and among t hem there were some that leaned dangerously
towards pa ganism. In th e case o f snap-d ragons, he was mos t vocal, and used so m uch
energy i n explaining why precisel y these practices were nothi ng but blasphem y that he
inadvertentl y p rovided his readers wi th an account that is as scornful as it is delightfull y
detailed:
They bedecke t hemselve s wit h scarfes, ribons and laces, h anged all over
with golde rynges, p recious st ones, and other jewelles; this doen, t hey
tye about either legge twentie or fourtie belle s, which rich hand-
kerchefes in their han ds, and someti mes l ayed across over thei r
shoulders and n eckes, borrowed for th e most parte of t heir prettie
Mopsies and loving Bessies for buss y n ge th em in the darke. Thus all
thinges set in orde r, the n have th e y their hobbie-horse s, dragons, and
other antiques [i.e. grotesque figures], together w ith their baudie pipers
and thunder ying drommers, to st rike up the Deville’s daunce withal:
then m arche thes e he athen compani e towards t he churche and
churcheyarde, their piper s piping, dromm ers thonder yng, their stumpes
dauncyng, their belles j yng l y in g, their h and-kerchefes sw yngyng about
their heades l ike madmen, t heir hobbi e-horses and othe r monster s
skyrmyshyng amongs the throng : and in this sorte t hey goe to the
churche (thou gh t he mini ster b ee at praier o r p reach y ing), daunc y n g and
swyngyng th eir hand-k erchefes ov er their he ades in churche, like
devilles incarnate, with such a confused noise, that no man can heare his
owne voice. Then the foolishe people, the y looke, the y sta re, the y
laughe, the y fleere, t he y mount upon formes and pewes, to s ee t hese
goodly pa gea unt es s olemniz ed in this sort. Then after this, aboute the
churche the y goe a gaine and againe, and so forthe into the
churcheyarde, where th ey have commonly t heir sommer halles, their
bowers, arbours and banqueting houses set up, wher ein the y feaste,
banquet and daunce all t hat daie, and (peradventure) all that ni ght t oo.

145
A nd t hus t he s e t e r r e s t r i a l f ur i e s s p e nt t he i r S a bb a ot h D a i e ! ( S t ubb e s
1 583, i n S i m p s on, 2001 : 1 02- 3) .

A fearless y oun g bo y ch allenges the Coca de Redondela (photo b y the aut hor of this st udy .
2010).

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What a charming table au Stubbes paints here! One can easily perceive his
indignation over the whole scene, and how ve r y m uch more outraged he would be were
he to know t hat the deno unce he penned is a jo y for t he folklorist. Here, h e is describing
the festivities of M idsummer, where a Lord of Misrule presided and was assisted b y
Morris dancers and hobb y-horses and hobb y -dra gons. This was probably a description
that fitted many a village in Britain at the time.
The association between hobb y -dragons and Morris dancers has been but rarel y
studied, and when it has, i t has be en quite i nsufficientl y . It is not surprising, thou gh,
given the lack of inform ation regarding these cus toms. What is known is that t he bond
already existed in the late M iddle Ages, as attest sever al repor ts about vill age festivities
(one such ex ample is Stubbes’ comments abov e) and that b y the 18 t h centur y these
public manifestations had become increasin gly rare.
In Sussex, the C hanctonbury Morris Men are also accompanied b y a hobb y-
horse, and, as the creature parades and mingles wi th t he people, the children feed him
coins (Si mpson, 2001: 103-4). The Norwich S nap also used to open hi s jaws t o receive
coins that wer e tossed t o hi m and, in more recent times, he becam e emboldened and
stole the caps from the heads of bo ys, which he would onl y give back when paid ransom
(Simpson, 2001: 113). In Metz (France) the monster Graouilly used to f ind i tself in a
similar situation, when the village rs treated it to cake and bread, as offerings for a good
harvest. In R edondela (Spain), the C oca also “ate” in the p rocession, at l east until the
second h alf of t he 19 th century (González Perez, 2003: 9). Vicente Risco (1994: 3: 635)
describes it as a hollow figure, with a mouth that opened and closed, and t hree children
operating it from inside who, whenever it suited them, would t ake an arm out of the
mouth and grab anything th at t ook their fanc y : pieces o f br ed, hand fuls of cherries,
sweets or muffins, whil e the assaulted laughed heartily. When I had the chance to

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witness t his festivit y in R edondela, i n 2010, th e Coca had evolved i nto a pl ump creature
made of wood and papi er-mâché, bereft of occ upants and paraded b y a maiordomo
(“butler”) b y a rope. Feeding the monster seem ed to have fallen into o blivion, but I
could observe how most villagers striv ed to put their hands into t he dragon’s mouth and
parents ea gerl y encou raged their young char ges to follow the e xample. Whether this
particular beh aviour is in som e way inherited from the old tradition of nourishing t he
dragon or if it merel y answers to the human im pulse to put ourselves at risk and laugh in
the face of danger (even though in a mock situation such as this one is), I cannot dec ide.
The snap-dragon (or hob by-dragon) i s a close relative of the hobby-horse . The y
probably are the b est examples of the ritual animal disguise in Brit ain 1 . Their
appearances and roles are also s trikingly simi lar: unruly beh aviour, reversal of roles and
general me rr y makin g run rampant whenever a snap-dragon o r hobb y -horse is on the
loose. The effigies, man-operated and us uall y articulated, ex ercise a mock
aggressiveness that has them run and swing and twirl, to the sheer de light of the
onlookers. Another p oint in common between hobby-dragons and hobb y -horses i s the
collecting of mone y or gifts.
As for the differences, Simpson (2001: 113-4), points out the following:
- Hobby- dragons tend to appear in a Christian context, under the patronage of a
church, a guild or a civic authorit y . Hobb y-horses we re inh erited from ancient folk
traditions and survived best in rural areas.

1 There a re also some exa mple s o f hob b y-sheep, hobb y- b ulls and hob by-stags, but t he hobb y-horses are
over whelmingly nu merous in co mparison. T here i s e videnc e of the use of hobb y-horse s i n Engla nd and
Wales at least fro m the 1 5 th century ( Simpson, 2 001 : 113).

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- Hobb y -d ragons were used i n feasts that t ake place durin g the spring or
summertime, whereas hobb y- horses belon g to midwinter (the latest m anifestations
occur at Easter time), and were probabl y part of a ritual of renewal of fertilit y.
It is possible to s uggest that the hobb y -dragon is the offspring of th e hobb y-
horse, desi gned to i mitat e its appearance and b ehaviour for public entertai nments. Yet,
how does one ex plain case s such as the P adstow hobby-hor se (in Cornwall) and the
Minehead S ailors’ Horse (in Somerset), which show st riking va riations that sets t hem
apart from others? M ay b e because influences usuall y go in both directions.
These two hobb y -horses are dif ferent i n that they app ear on Ma y Da y, rather
than in wint er. Their d es ign is also unus ual if we compa re them with i nstances f rom
other parts of En gland. T he dragon influences co me from bits and piece s of legends and
anecdotes and traditions that, put t ogethe r, seem to spring from a dragon legend.
Padstow, for example, t akes its name from St Petroc 1 (see Chapter 2 ), a saint with a
dragon stor y att ached. It is also said that St George him self once visited Padstow and
that a spring gushed out from the s pot where his horse stepped. W hen the Oss (the
nickname b y which the P adstow hobby-horse is locall y kno wn) dies, this verse is sung:
O where is St George? O where is he-o?
He’s out in his long-boat all on the salt sea-o (Simpson, 2001: 115).
The obscurit y o f the verse leav es much to the imagination, but a reference to St
George almost immediatel y brin gs to mind an im age of the dragon.
As for Minehead, it is in close proximit y (onl y four mil es) to Carhampton, where
St Caractoc’s 2 monaster y was founded (see Chap ter 2). The Mineh ead H orse has an
obligatory stop in it s parade at Dunster C astle, which i s regarded as the s tronghold

1 St Pe troc’s feast-da y is on Ma y 16 th .
2 St Carantoc ’s feast-da y is on June 4 th .

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where St Caranctoc led the dragon, and also at the spot called Dragon’s Cr oss (Simpson,
2001: 115). It can not get much more evocative than that.
At Minehead, a loca l anecdote tells how the place was once threa tened b y
Viking raide rs, but a group of local sailors chased them away b y dis guising a boat t o
look as a sea serp ent, a nd that the Horse com memorates that stor y (Simpson, 2001:
115).
After regarding these and ot her features, Simpson (2001: 115) spe culates that
maybe these t wo specific hobb y -horses were th e remnants o f a mediev al pa geant in
which the two saints figured, along with their respective dragons.
One c an hardl y resist the t emptation of giving som e consideration t o the i dea
that these hobb y -horses may b e the descendants of some forgotten hobb y-dragon. But
nourishing such ideas wi thout the support of evide nce i s futile. I n fact, if hobb y -ho rses
are dragons, what is the point of having both in the same pro cession? S uch a situati on
marks them as dist inctly different representations. Can it be that the origin for both is
the same but the process of acculturization has been such as t o have th em coexist as
different entiti es? M uch as I would like t o think it so, one would have to c onsider this in
detail to reach a satisf y in g conclusion.
As it happens, Simpson (2001: 116) has reached a satisfying conclusion alread y .
It is that hobb y -horses, b ulls, sheep and stags are more ancient and more widespread in
England th an hobb y-dragons. Th e y are also relat ed to a s pecific t ime of the y ear and
have obvious fertilit y p roperties. And ye t , there are ex ceptions to this rule:
A dragon is said to come up out of t he River Stour, between
Wormingford and D edham, in Ma y -time ever y year, t o tak e a y oun g
maiden. There is no killing in this tale, which as serts that the dra gon is

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still ali ve and active. A part from this modern 1 instance, how ever, the
legends show no seasonal aspects (Simpson, 2001: 116).

As s een above, in a number of these reenactments, St Marga ret came to be
identified with the m aiden in distress so common of drag on stories, and crucia l t o the
legend of St George. She too had b een a dr agon slayer, albeit her m ethods were a little
more spiritual than George’s (but effective all the same), and in the popul a r imager y she
probably bl ended with the lad y t hat George rescued from the dragon, h elpless t hough
this nameless lad y us ually w as in t he stor y . Th e identification between M argaret-lad y -
George was so stron g that in some particula r cas es, the stor y of St George came t o be
performed to celebrate St Mar garet’s Day 2 (which falls on Jul y 20 t h ).
According to Gonz ález Pérez (2003: 10), the ori gin for the processions including
dragons must be sou ght i n the pre -Christian civil izations. Among those which are closer
in time and sp ace, and our most direct ancestors in terms of culture (and therefore
cannot be ignored on the grounds of implausibi lit y ), one must mention t he Roman
civilization.
Every sprin g, the young Romans walked to t he caves wher e the snakes of the
goddess J uno were belie ved to dw ell. The y carried gifts for the reptiles, which we re l eft
in the caves to f avour a good harvest (González Pérez, 2003: 9). W e cannot fail to be
reminded here of the dragons at C hanctonbur y (Sussex , England), Metz (France) and
Redondela (Galicia, Spain), who also r eceived gener ous offerings from th e villagers. It
is an element odd enough to provoke one to look into it more closely, for, if the dragon
is a representative of evi l, what purpose can the villager s have in “feeding” it? I t is a

1 Her reference to the moderni ty of the lege nd is t hat it is of as r ece nt collectio n as 1 976 (Si mpson, 20 01:
116 ).
2 T his odd r eversal happened, for exa m ple, at Ba ssingbour n ( Ca mbridgeshir e), w here a s taged pro duction o f
a play called “The Holy M art y r St George” was per formed on St Margaret ’s Day, in 151 1 (Simpso n, 2001:
107 ).

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side-effect of the man y i nstances of s y ncretism that t ook place l ong ago, when adapting
the old t raditions to the new order (Christianity), that some el ements could not be
efficiently supp ressed or adequatel y ch anged and ended up b eing incorporated to t he
new c eremonies, even th ough the y did not completely fit into them, as a k not in a piece
of wood that cannot be totall y smoot hed awa y .
Gradually, George and his dra gon moved out of the public scene and processi ons
and pla y s disapp eared from most British towns and villages 1 . The few s urviving
processions including the Snap lost their rel igious t inge and b ecame a civil
entertainment, mostl y du e to the restrictions of the R eformation re garding the cult to the
saints. Dates o f celebration were chan ged, charac ters disappeared and guilds dissolved
or evolved into som ething different. I n Norwich, for example, the St George’ s Guild
reconstituted it as “the feast of the Ma yor, Sheriff, Aldermen and Council”, to be held,
after some c han ges, on Midsummer Day. The fea st itself disposed of the religious
elements, of Ma rgaret and even of Geor ge! Only the Snap prevail ed, but with a new
role, as the Mayor’s Dragon 2 , which trul y was a leap forward in his career.
Even with the changes, the tradition had its s hare of prosecution, and was in
turns lauded and banned, depending on the tide 3 . P redictabl y , man y Snap s could not
take such come and go and eventuall y disapp eared, finall y vanquished b y one of the
most destructive weapons that ever existed: narrow-mindedness.

1 I n Yo rk, for e xample, there are acco unts of a pla y abo ut St Ge orge that, sadl y, has not be en pr eserved
(McRee, 1 99 4: 198-20 2 in Mourón Figuero a, 20 05: 207).
2 A career t hat was mirro red in t hat of many of his fello w Snap-Drago ns a ll o ver the co untry ( Simpso n,
200 1: 108).
3 For exam p le, in 183 5, Parliament passed a Mun icipal Refo rm Act forbidding all p ageants and proc essions
(Simpso n, 200 1: 112).

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Aldrovandi, Ul y ssis. 163 9. Serpentum et draconum historiae .

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Chapter 3. A Study of Dragons: Summary of Traits of the B ritish
Dragon
3. 1. How to Rec o gnize a Her o
Most of the exampl es p resented above show an evolution in the concep t of dra gon
fighting that stretch from the E arl y Middle A ges to the 19 th centur y, with a strong st ress
on the medieval times. Even folktales, which w ere compiled mostl y during the 19 th and
early 20 th c enturies, usu all y claim t o h ave been in circulation since th e Middle Ages.
Difficult as it obviously i s to prove such claim s, it is nonetheless true that man y of them
present traces that echo those t imes and even be yond. As for the literary t ext s, most of
them, even t he most recent ones used i n this selection, rel y heavil y on the medieval
heritage. Th e anal y si s of medieval tex ts is alway s strenuous, if onl y b ecause we are
dealing with a social cont ext so wholl y di fferent from our o wn, and one of which so
little written evidence has b een preserved. In addition to that, t he researcher cannot
forget t hat up to the 11 th century t he development of written tradition was slow and
onerous, and up to the ti me the work of creation and compil ation was ver y much an oral
process. As such, it lea ned heavil y on folklore, and t he s et of beliefs o f t he e ra. For
example, i n British m edieval literature one can trace references to the primit ive
Germanic societ y o f the early Middle Ages, and also to the Chris tian societ y t hat wa s
established over it . Thus, many mediev al works superpose both worlds, occasionall y
blending them, stretching and twisting the motifs to adapt them to the tastes of the time
and the needs of th e status quo. Old ideals are varnished wit h t he new, characters
develop new traits to accommodate them to w hat is now expected from them, and

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This play was probabl y the evolution of some magical rite desi gned to fertili se
the fields from the r em ote past and, althou gh it was her e presented as some sort of
public entertainment, still s ome original elements can be p erceived, such as the ritual
keeping of the blood to use as both protection and fertiliser of the fields. In t he story o f
Cadmus, some versions say that H armonia, Cadmus’ wife, was in f act daughter t o
Ismesnos, bot h dragon and king of Thebes, and that Cadmus needed to slay hi m and
marry his daughter in order to succeed him to the throne (Frazer, 1966: IV: 84).
In keeping with this ritual slaying, it was not uncommon that the sla y er absorbed
part of t he faculties of the deceased serpent- god. Cadmus got himself a wife and a
throne, Sigurd learned the language of birds, and St George b ecame, in m an y places, a
spirit of ve geta tion and fertilit y. In the Mi ddle Eas t, S t George is Al-Khdir, the Green,
and also Mâr Jirjis 1 , and sites related to him are frequented b y ba rren women who wish
to be with child. In 1903, Prof. Curtiss witnessed a fertilit y ritual at J ûne, very nea r
Beirut, where the shrine of Al-Khdir is found. There was b y the se a an arti ficial cave,
called el-Bâtî ye h, domin ating the church of M âr Ji rjis (Saint George), s ome distance
away. That cave belon gs t o t he s aint and th ere ar e two annual festivals: one on the day
when St. George slew t he dragon and another on the day St. George was kil led. On
those da ys, “barren couples bathe in the cave, into which the wat er w ashes from the sea.
St. George makes the marria ge fruitful, and all chi ldren born after such a b ath in the salt
water, which h as proc reati ve powers, are called George, after their actual sire” (Curti ss,
1904: 336). I n ti mes pas t, animals were s acrificed in this cave as w ell, in fulfil ment of
vows, but b y th e tim e Curtis s t ook his holiday t here, the custom seemed not t o be in
vogue an ymore. Howev er, sheep w ere still s acrificed before the l aunching of ships, i n a

1 T he Mosle m p op ulation call St Geo rge Al-Khdir, Chidr, or h âdir-wa -nâdir. T he Christia ns call hi m Mâ r
Jirjis (Curtis s, 199 4: 3 34).

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ceremony where the neck of the animal was laid on prow of the new ship and cut so that
the blood ran i nto t he sea. Then, t he sheep was t hrown into the water as an offering to
St. George (Curtiss, 1904: 336).
In Europe, St George is the p rotector of cattle an d, i n som e places, t he giver of
rain a nd the helper of childl ess women. Frazer (1966: II : 347-8) suggests that the
European St George ma y h ave disp laced some o ld god of th e spring, and as such he is
sometimes blended with Jack in the Green, or the Green M an, him self a s ymbol both of
fertility and rebirth.

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Church and oakwood of Santo Estevo do Campo (Arzúa, A Coruña, Galicia) , where the
Romaría da Mota is held ever y September (photo: Turismo de Santi ago . 04.06.2014.
http://www.santiagoturismo.com)

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Artwork for the film Reign of Fi re (Rob Bowman, 2002)

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Chapter 4. A Revamping of Dragons: The Legend Goes Forth
The age of dr agons has not really ended y et. The old tales are done over and over, and
adapted to the n eeds of each new e ra. H eroes h ave been fightin g dra gons well into the
nineteenth and t wentieth centuries, and not even this very flash y, ov erwhelmingl y
technological twent y-f irst century has st rayed that much from t he topics explored in
those stories of y or e. In spite of the ult imate dismissal of dra gons as z oological
creatures of an y substan ce, they still have figured extensivel y in all sor ts of artisti c
productions in the last 15 0 y ea rs. The y fea ture in R ichard W ag ner’s operatic Ri ng c y cle
( The Ring of the 7ibelung , 1876), a b reathtaking number of modern fantas y books and,
more recentl y, in cinema and the new media. One of the reasons for their p ermanence in
fiction and arts is that they are phenomenal as entertainment tropes, certain to draw
attention to the work in which the y appe ar, if only fo r aesthetic purposes.
This transition from the traditional treatment of the mot if to the modern
interpretation in which dragons are regarde d as purely m ythological cr eatures (and
therefore onl y zool ogicall y possibl e in parallel worlds of fantas y ) has not been a
bumpless road. The old familiar elements have been m ixed, kneaded, stretched, and
shaped to en gender a whole new set of themes and functions in som e instances, and yet
never losing si ght of their original referent. Thus, damsels are no longer in di stress,
dragons are no longer vi llains, and heroes ar e no longer imposs ibly brave. Or the y are,
depending on the will of the author, but the variations do exist. Above all, it i s important
to note that these alterations do not answe r to a whim on the part of t he artist, bent on
devising a creation diff erent to everything the world has seen so far. O r, t hey do not

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answer solel y to that. I n order to explain this notion, we need to travel back a gain to the
time of the great heroes:
It i s common knowl ed ge that medi eval li terar y productions and works of art,
whichever the topi c the y deal with, carr y a ba ggage of meanin gs and interpretations o f
the world in which the y are produ ced, most of whi ch lean s trongl y towards s y mbolism
and didacticism (Benedett i & Bovo, 2002: 4). Such an outtake will necessarily affect
every aspect of the p roduction: structure, themes, motifs, and virtuall y ev erything else is
permeated b y t he social st rictures of the time in such a wa y that the work cannot b e
completely understood i f considered i ndependently of the social c ontext in which it w as
created. Thus, the inclu sion of a fight a gainst a dragon (or any ot her m otif, for that
matter) alwa ys fulfil s s ome particular role in the stor y, and it s presence is heavil y
charged with s ymbolic meaning, even thou gh it s inclusion ma y not b e an alto ge ther
conscious choic e on the part of the author. Yet, t his is not at all exclusi ve of mediev al
productions. We tend to beli eve that we live in an era of wondrous freedo m of thought,
and that we are fre e of an y sort of restriction, me ntally at le ast. But nothi ng is furth er
than the truth. If carefully ex amined, the artist ic productions of our tim e reflect as muc h
the general m entalit y of our da y s as th e thi rteenth-century romances did of the folks
living then. The di fferen ce is that the m otifs have evolved to suit what authors toda y
wish to emphasiz e. Some have been kept, m an y others have been altered , a few even
reversed, but we cannot forget that ever y change made in society answers to a need t hat
has to be fulfilled, for t hat art m irrors the socie ty in which i t is p roduced. Below are
some of the m ost popular and influential examples of fictional works, both in l iterature
and cinema, that revolve around the dra gon confli ct. In this cha pter I will examine them
and anal y se which m otifs have be en pr eserved, which have changed , and which
purposes the y answ er in our societ y.

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For this, I will explore productions created both in literature and cin ema. To a
certain extent, cinema c an be compared to folklore, i n t he sense that i t is constructed
similarl y , t hat i s, using t he images and s ets of s ymbols that the communit y is familiar
with, and answering to a longing on the p art of t hat communit y t o ex perience (at l east in
tale-form) situations that would normall y fall into the realm of either t he improbable or
the impossible. C omics have b een l eft outside of this particula r stud y, but onl y because
although d ragons o ccasionall y b ecome some ki nd of second nature of some supervillain
or superhero, this i s often i n name alone (for example, as in Erik Lars en’s Savage
Dragon 1 (1982)). The pa rti cular motif of the d ragon sla y ing is lar gel y absent from this
visual medium and those works that include i t either appear onl y as inci dental to the
main story or have not achieved the general r elease and popularit y t hat I f ind are basic
to justif y th eir inclusion here.
Whenever nec essary for the i llustration of some t heme or m otif, I wil l all ude t o
some books or films other than those that are the object of direct study here. Those will
be either lesser known works or not directly ascribed to the theme of the stud y , but
which nonetheless may contribute to t he g eneral discussion.
Finally, I must add t hat these chapters mus t necessaril y be shorter than the
previous ones. The main reason for this is that I wil l be covering a m uch shorter span of
time (about a century), as oppos ed to the ten centuries of British and I rish hist ory and
literature examined in the previous chapter s, as w ell as the several mill ennia of ge n eral
history. Nevertheless, in spite of the few er examples of productions relate d to the
subject matter available in the present chapter, I hop e that the i nterest of the issues
raised during their anal y s is will be on a par with the older ones.

1 Savage Dragon is a muta nt who occa sionally be co m es a green monster with a fin o n h is head, but who is
not partic ularly drago n-like.

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4. 1. Literature
One would think that the reading of dra gon t ales is nowadays the province of children,
and to a great extent it is. If we we re to judge onl y from the amount of titles available i n
children literature that deal with the subjec t of the dragon (man y of them, with a
pseudo-zoological b ent), this would be more than apparent. And yet, adu lts to this day
still enjo y works of a sim ilar bent unabashedl y . There is somethin g about dragons that is
truly compellin g to readers of all ages. Kenneth Graha me’s The Reluctant Dragon , the
first of the works to b e examined in this section, is a p rime exampl e of how a work
primarily written for chil dren ma y be appealing to the publi c at lar ge, as are th e works
written by J. R . R . Tolkien and C. S . L ewis in the fantastic genre. These three authors
revised and revived th e traditional conventions of both the British and Northern
mythologies in their superb works and, aft er them, several generation s of writers
followed t heir lead, contributing to the ge nre, bu t at the same time striving to take a
different approach to this particular moti f, as well as othe rs. The result is a bod y of
books that stra y in multiple directions from the story of refere nce, but which seldom do
completely disregard it.
The selection pr esented below contains a few of the most relevant titles that
were either publis hed b y authors of th e British Isles or st rongl y r eferenced t he culture
and histor y of those te rritories, even thou gh the authors mi ght not be British born. Th ese
works have been divide d into two categories, according to their t ime of publi cation.
Although i nitiall y this ma y s eem an entirel y whi msical choice, it actually responds to
the necessit y to diff erentiate two perceived great periods in the artistic evolution of the
fantastic genre, both i n terms of the themes and adhere nce to convention s that can be
detected in the books written during each interval.

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4. 1. 1. Literary Prod uctions B efore 1960
Kenneth Graha me’s The Reluc tant D ragon (1898)
The Scotti sh author 1 is mostl y famous for The Wind in the W ill ows (1908), an all time
classic of children’s literature, but his short stor y The Reluctant Dragon comes easil y as
a close second 2 . Thi s short story was published in his collection Dream Da ys (1898). It
is a merry and lightheart ed tale, but it was also instrumental in bringing t he focus b ack
to dragon stories and it helped set the basis for a new line of literary productions that
redid the usual conventions of a well known genre. The Reluctant Drag on is a gentle
satire of the dragon-sla ying st ories, p resented th rough the perspective of a child who
finds that he has to t ake cha rge of matters whi ch generall y are t he provi nce of th e
adults, even though he is but a bo y and needs to be home before dinner time:
"KNEW I had forgotten something," he said. "There ought to be a
Princess. Terror-stricken and chaine d to a rock, and all that sort of
thing. Boy, can't y ou a rrange a Princess?"
The Bo y was in t he middle of a tremendous y a wn. "I'm tired to death,"
he wailed, "and I CAN 'T arrange a Prin cess, or a nything more, at this
time of night. And m y mother's sitti ng up, and DO stop asking me to
arrange more things till tomorrow!" (Grahame, 19 88 3 : 22).

Adults in this story , and dragons too, for that matter, do not behave as is
expected of them. I n T he Reluctant Dragon , appearances are deceivin g: the bo y i s the
only sensibl e person around; t he dragon is huge and endowed with l arge teeth and
claws, but he is as gentle a creature as ever there was one, more interested in composing
sonnets and discussing the m erits of poetr y than in en gaging in the usual dragon

1 Ke nneth Gr ahame (Ed imburgh 18 59 – P angbourne, B erkshi re 1932) . A gi fted writer, hi s s hort stories w ere
hugely acclai med when first publis hed and the y have si nce d elighted ge nerations o f childre n.
2 Both these wor ks were made into a nimated features b y Walt Disney: The Wind in the Wi llows (1949 ) and
The Relu ctan t Dragon ( 1951).
3 I have chosen this particular edition due to its adherence to the original te xt, b ut I will not den y that the
gorgeous illu strations b y Inga Moo re also w ei ghed in the dec ision.

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activities of rampag ing a nd s kirmishing; St Georg e arrives to slay him because that is
what he is suppos ed to do, but even h e is w eary o f this strea nous t ask of ki lling dragons
and would mu ch rather leave t hem be. How ever, that is not possible, fo r t here are rules
to be follow ed in thes e si tuations, as the bo y t ries to (unsu ccessfull y ) instill in the
dragon:
“(…) You see there's no ge ttin g over the hard fact that y ou 're a dra gon,
is there? And when you talk of settling down, an d the neighbours, and
so on, I can't help feeli ng that you don 't quit e realize y our position.
You're an enem y of the h uman race, y ou see!"
"Haven't got an enem y i n the world," said the dragon, cheerfull y. " Too
laz y to make 'e m , to begin with. And if I DO read other fellows m y
poetry, I'm always ready to listen to t heirs!"
"Oh, d ear!" cried t he bo y , " I wish you'd tr y and grasp t he situation
properl y . When t he other people find you out, t hey' ll come after you
with spears and swords and all sorts of thi ngs. You'll have to be
exterminated, acc ordin g to their way of looki ng at it! You' re a scourge,
and a pest, and a baneful monst er!"
"Not a word o f truth i n it ," said th e dragon, wa gging his h ead sol emnl y .
"Character'll b ear the st rictest investigation. And now, ther e's a little
sonnet-thing I was working on when y ou appe ared on the scene--"
"Oh, if you WON'T be s ensible," cried the Bo y, getting up, "I'm goin g
off home. No, I can't stop for sonnets; m y mot her's sitting up. I'll look
y o u up to-morrow, somet ime or other, and do for goodness' sake tr y and
realize that y ou 're a pes tilential s courg e, o r you'll find y ourself in a
most awful fix. Good-night!" (Grahame, 1988: 9-1 0).

Of course, the dragon d oes not pay an y m ind to the boy’s ominous words, and
soon he finds hi mself in a quandar y when wo rd o f his ex istence gets round to S t Geor ge
and he travels to the vill age to do his heroic dut y. The villagers, eager for a good fi ght
and proud that such a momentous event wil l t ake place in their community , ex aggera te
the si tuation to St George and complain of the dragon havin g indulged in all sorts of
mischief. Even after the bo y has man aged t o talk some sense into St George, there
seems to be no way of el uding the fight. Finall y , in a hilarious scene, George and the
dragon agree on putting up a sham so that the neighbours will be satisfied. The rules of

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ringing blow that shocked him ex ceeding l y . (…) Tailbiter did the best it
could in inexperienced hands” (Tolkien, 1988 1 : 43).

Giles of Ham ma y b e an unli kely h ero, and on e not at all adept at wielding the weapons
used b y gentility, but he has streets sm arts and he repeatedl y outwits th e dra gon and
bargains with him, which earns hi m his nei ghbours’ unendin g r espect, enorm ous wealth
and ultimatel y , a ki ngdom. I n a final nod to tradi tion, his adventures become the matter
of song and t he tale a ch arter m y th that explains much of th e topon ymy o f this m y thi cal
country of the tale, as well as the ori gin of the nob ilit y of the kingdom 2 . Dra gon inspired
ceremonies do not escape the author’s notic e either, and the y find a comic place in th e
lost custom of having Dragon’s Tail serv ed up at t he King’s Christm as Fea st, which due
to the growing scarcit y of dragons, at the be ginning of the t ale had developed into a
Mock Dragon’s Tail made of cake and almond-pas te.
Many of these motifs find their way into Tolkien ’s legendarium too. His t e xts on
Middle Earth ar e full of references to d ragons and des criptive p assages about the m
abound. Of all the conventions studied, one whic h seems to b e common t o t hem all is
the hoarding of a treasure, a central theme to The Hobbit , but not absent from other
stories too. In T he Silmarillion , Scatha is acc ount ed to have a hoard, and Glaurung, who
is as bus y as a worm may be fig ht ing w ars and cas ting sp ells on y oun g l adies, st ill finds
the time to get (and lose) a hoard:
Here it must be tol d t hat after the departure of Glaurung Mim the Pett y -
Dwarf had found his wa y to N argothrond, and c rept within the ruined
halls; and he took pos session of them, and sat ther e fin ger i ng the gold

1 This edition was chose n o n account of its hav ing been pub lished by the origi nal p ublis her s of t he work of
J. R. R. T olkien, A l len & U nwin, re puted to be respec tful o f T olkien ’s work. I t i s also b eautifull y ill ustrated
by P auline B aynes, app ointe d by T olkien himself a s ill ustrator of several of his wo rks (10 .12.2013.
http://www.pa ulineba ynes.co m).
2 T his is par alleled i n The S ilma rillion , o n a myt hical sca le, when the d eat h o f Ancalagon t he Black, the
mightiest o f all dr agons c ause s the d estruction of t he h uge mou ntain of Thangorodr im: “B efore the rising of
the s un Eare ndil s le w Ancalago n the Black, the mi ghtiest o f the d ragon-host, and cast him f ro m the sky; a nd
he fell upon t he to wers of T hangorodri m, and they were broken i n his ruin” ( To lkien, 201 3: 30 2-3).

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and the gems, l etting the m run ever throu gh his hands (Tolkien, 2013 1 :
276).

Another common convention is the impenetrability of these m onters’ hi des, wit h
the ex ception of some spot on their throats or b ellies. During hi s inspection of the cave,
Bilbo not ices that Smaug has fashioned an odd set of armour with precious stones, save
for a tin y spot over his breast, right over his heart:
"My armour is like t enfold shields, m y teeth are swords, m y cl aws
spears, t he shock o f m y tail a thunderbolt, m y w ings a hurricane, an d
my breath death!"
"I h ave alwa y s understo od," s aid Bilbo in a fri ghtened squeak, "that
dragons were softe r underneath, especially in t he r egion of th e-er-chest;
but doubtless one so fortified has thought of that."
The dragon st opped s hort in his boasting. "Your information is
antiquated," he snapped. "I am armoured abov e and below with iron
scales and hard gems. No blade can pierce me."
"I might have guessed it," said Bilbo. "Trul y there can; nowhere b e
found the equal of Lord Smaug the Impenetrable. What m ag nificence to
possess a waistcoat of fine diamonds!"
"Yes, it is ra re and won derful, inde ed," said Sm aug absurdl y pleased.
He did not know t hat t he hobbit had already c aught a glimpse of his
peculiar und er-covering on hi s previous visit, and was itching for a
closer view for reasons of his own. The dragon rol led over. "L ook!" h e
said. "What do y ou sa y t o that?"
"Dazzlingl y marvellous! Perfect! Fl awless! Staggering!" ex claimed
Bilbo aloud, but what he thought insi de was: "Old fool! Wh y there is a
large p atch in t he hollow of his le ft breast as b are as a snail out of its
shell!" (Tolkien, 2012: II, 52).

Glaurung, too, h ad a vul nerable underside, where he was stabb ed in two
occasions, as stated in The Silmaril lion : the first, b y Azaghal, the dwarf kin g of
Belegost, but he survived the fi ght (Tolkien, 2013: 229). On the second tim e he perished
by the hand of Túrin Turambar:
Then he drew Gu rthang, and with all the might of his arm, and of his
hate, he thrust it into the soft bell y of the W orm, even up to the hilts.
But when Glaurung felt hi s death-pang, he scream ed, and in his dreadful

1 T he choice of t his editio n o f The S ilmarillion (2 013 ), as well as that o f The Hob bit (20 12), w a s d ecided o n
the basis o f t heir bein g not o nl y the late st a vailable ed itions b ut also editio ns of repu ted q ualit y, accordin g to
the specialized website s (10 .13.20 13. http:// www . amazo n.co. uk, http:// www.good reads.com).

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throe he heaved up his bulk and hurled hims elf acro ss the chasm, an d
there lay lashing and coiling in his agon y . And h e set all in a blaz e about
him, and beat all to ruin, until at last his fires died, and he la y sti ll
(Tolkien, 2013: 265-6).

Another common feature , p ossibl y inspired in t he Northern m yths is that of the
different natural characteristics of dra gons. Scanning Tolki en’s texts, one ma y come
across fl y ing dra gons, such as Sm aug and B eowulf’s dra gon; the pow erful Urulóki,
sired b y Glaurun g and which, l ike him, are wingless fir e-breathing wo rms, as Fafnir
was; and ev en a p articular breed of cold drak es such as S catha the Wor m, which, one
assumes, are termed so b ecause th e y do not breath fire, although this is never explicitl y
stated in the texts.
The mot if of t he maiden is quit e rare, and it appears onl y i n t he st or y of Turin
and Nienor, and here it is used in conjunction with another, much more common in
Tolkien’s writings: that of the mali ce of dra gons and the danger of t heir gaze and their
speech. This characteristic is found in some folktales, and is also p resent i n the Bible
where we can read:
And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he h ad tw o
horns li ke a lamb, and h e spake as a dragon . And he exerciseth all t he
power of t he first beast before him, and causet h the earth and them
which dwell therein to worship t he first beast, wh ose deadl y wound was
healed (Revelation, 13:14-15) (italics mine).

That this beast speaks as a dragon means that it has a si lver tongue and can
persuade others e asily. Tol kien’s dragons are al so accounted b y most characters t o be
extremel y dangerous in t heir speech. In T he Silm arill ion , Glaurung often makes use of
this power, along with t he binding spell of his gaze (he is, after all, called The
Deceiver). In Farmer Gil es of Ham both Giles and Chr y soph y lax choose their words
carefully, and in The Hobbit , Bilbo and Sm aug engage in a dangerous battle of wits:
“I supp ose y ou got a fai r price for t hat cup l ast night?" he went on .
"Come now, did y ou? Nothing at all! W ell, that's just l ike them. And I

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suppose they are skulking outside, and your job is to do all the
dangerous work and get what y ou c an when I'm not l ooking-f or them?
And you will get a fair s hare? Don't you believe i t! If y ou ge t off alive,
y o u will be luck y."
Bilbo was now b eg inni ng to feel reall y unco mfortable. Whenever
Smaug's rovin g e y e, s eeking for him i n the shadows, flashed across
him, he trembled, and a n unaccountable d esire seized hold of him to
rush out and reveal himself and tell all the truth to Smaug. I n fact he
was in grievous danger of coming under the dragon- spell (Tolkien,
2012: II, 49-50).

Tolkien admits to be rather fonder of Fafnir that of the Beowulf d ragon, even
though h e w as a great a dmirer of the po em and acknowledged it as one of his primar y
sources, but he admit ted to have b orrowed the im petus for this conversation from the
Norse versions of the Sigurd story (Letter 122. December 18 th 1949).
The use of ex traordinary weapons to defeat the dragon is also common: Turin
wields the sword An glachel, which he renam ed Gurthang, Iron of Death, a gainst
Glaurung the Gol den in The Si lmarillion . Giles of Ham was fortun ate en ough to have
Tailbiter in his poss ession when he went to the encounter o f Chr ysoph y l ax Dive, and
the very grim and ver y brave Bard the Bower u ses the black arrow to bring Smau g
down in T he Hobbit . This particular feat of Bard is replicated b y several folk heroes,
such as St Gilber t of Dornoch (whose dra gon was a speaking beast too) or the father in
The Dragon of Loch C orri eMohr 1 . In fact, on e wo uld say this m an and Bar d might have
been somewhat related, or at least that the y sha re some common beliefs:
"Wait! W ait!" it said t o hi m. "The m oon i s rising . Look for the hollow
of the left breast as he flies and turns above you! " And while Bard
paused in wonder i t told him of tidings up in the Mountain and of all
that it had heard. Then Bard drew his bow-string t o his ear. The drag o n
was cir cling back, fl y in g l ow, and as he came the moon rose above the
eastern shore and silvered his great wings.
"Arrow!" said the bo wman. "Bla ck arrow! I have saved y ou to the last .
You have never failed me and alwa y s I hav e r ecovered you. I had you

1 Bo th these legends co me fro m Scotla nd.

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from m y father and he fr om of old. I f ever y ou came from the forges of
the true king under the Mountain, go now and speed well!"
The dragon swooped once more lower than ever, and as he turned and
dived down his belly glittered whit e with sparkling fires of gems in the
moon-but not in one pl a ce. Th e great bow twanged. The black arrow
sped straight f rom the string, straight for the hol low by t he left breast
where the fo releg w as fl ung wide. In it smote and vanished, barb, shaft
and feather, so fierce w as its flight. With a shrie k t hat deafened men,
felled trees and s plit stone, Smaug shot spout ing int o the air, t urned
over and crashed down from on high in ruin (Tolkien, 2012: II, 78-9) .

Finally, regarding the c onsequence s of the sla ying, it is to be noted that a
number of Tolkien’s heroes pe rish trag icall y, Beowulf-like, in their fight a gainst
monsters. In earl y drafts of The Hobbit Bard w as supposed t o find his death in battl e
against Smaug, althou gh the final tex t had him survive. The b est incarnation of thi s
tragic fi gure in Tolki en’s fiction i s Turin Turambar, son of Hurin. In his fierce b attle
against Glaurung he is victorious, but the depth of the dragon’s malice reaches him and
he kill s hi mself to escape despair on ce h e le arns of the fate of Níniel. As Tolkien well
knew, death b y a dragon is a fitting end to a t ale about the achievements of a promisi ng
y o un g warrior, his elevation in li fe and his downfa l l by the machinations of fate.
La tel y , Tolkien’s t exts have be en subje ct t o re creation in cinema. Followi ng the
widely acclaimed trilog y The Lord of the Rings (2 001-3), directed b y Peter Jackson, the
filmmaker has embarke d in another trilo gy wit h which to cover the u niverse of T he
Hobbit , and of which tw o of the three p arts have so far been released, in 2012 and 2013.
Another attempt, rather more discreet, was made in the 1970s. The Silmarilli on has
never bee n adapted to t he screen, and given its t remendous compl exit y , it is unlikely
that it will soon be, if ever. Farmer Gil es of Ham also remains undiscovered b y t he
industry. As for t he on e film that has been released that includes th e dr agon conflict (or
part of it), t hat is, The Hobbit: T he Desolation of Smaug (2013), it must be noticed th at
the director, Peter J ackson, has tak en a f ew libe rties with the ori ginal tex t. W hether the y

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are unde rstandable or outrageousl y uncalled fo r, the fans of the book do not seem to
decide, or at least one so gathers from the miriad of threads on t he topic that are to be
found on the Internet. Re garding this present st udy, I must sa y that in spite of this film’s
manifold attractions and undisputable aesthetic presenc e, it falls short on the account of
the tre atment of t he hero: in Tolkien’s The Hobbit , the hero is, undeniably , Bilbo
Baggins, the hobbit who is dragged int o an unexpected and unwanted adventure with a
compan y of dwa rves. Among the man y situati ons in which he finds himself, much t o
his chagrin, the encount er with the dragon stands out. Twice does Bilbo sneak into
Smaug’s lair. The first time, he steals a cup, much like the wanderer in B eowulf does,
and Smaug, also mirroring his Old English relative, is enrage d and feels wro nged by it:
Thieves! Fir e! M urder! Such a thing had not happened since first h e
came t o the Mountain! His rage p asses description (Tolkien, 2012: II,
41).

On t he se cond occasion, Bilbo and Smaug strike a dangerous conv ersation, after
which the hobbit barel y escapes alive. Soon a fterwards, the dragon l eaves to attack th e
city of Lake.
These two scenes are blended into one in Pete r Jackson’s movie, with one
important change : whereas in the book Bilbo is left alone in his quest , the filmic
dwarves ar e much more mindful of his wellbeing and the y enter the mountain t o help
him in hi s confrontation with the dragon. This i s som ething that the book Bilbo would
never have anticipated, for he muses:
The most that can b e s aid for the dwarves i s t his: the y intend ed to pa y
Bilbo reall y handsomel y for hi s services; the y h a d brought him to do a
nasty job for them, and t hey did not m ind the poor littl e fellow doing i t
if he would; but t he y would all have done their best to get him out of
trouble, if he got into it, as the y did in the case of t he trolls at t he
beginning of their adv entures before the y had any par ticular r easons fo r
being grateful to him. There it is: dwarves are not heroes, but
calculating folk with a great idea of the value of mone y ; some are t rick y

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and treacherous and prett y b ad lots; some are not, b ut are decent enough
people like Thorin and Com pany, if you don't expect too much
(Tolkien, 2012: II, 36-7).

So, where Tolki en’s dwarves ha rangue Bilbo for stealing th e cup and stirring up
the wrath of t he dragon earlier t han is needed, Peter J ackson’s d warves a re ext remel y
courageous and rush into to help their little frie nd. Once ins ide the mountain, Thorin
Oakenshield conf ronts Smaug in true heroic fashi on and, in a highly cinematic scene,
the dragon i s covered in molt en g old. This, far from killing hi m, enrages him even
further, and he flies away to L ak e.
A change of these propo rtions is not hing s hort of biz arre, and I can not account
for it, other than it being a device to make Thorin Oake ns hield appear as more epic that
he is in the book. However, b y introducin g a tradit ional aristocratic hero, th e movie robs
the stor y of its ori ginal hero, Bilbo, who becomes a necessary companio n to Thorin’ s
greatness, when part of the charm of t he original stor y was the central p osition of this
very humble, and ver y reluctant, hero, who was often as cowardl y and pr actical as the
next hobbit, but who eventually did what was ne eded to fulfil his part of t he bargain, or
out of the need to survive.
Now, it onl y remains t o be seen how the scenes with Bard will play out, but for
that we will have to wait a little longer.
C. S. Lew is’ The Voyage of the D awn T reader (1952)
Even though C. S. Lewis 1 ’ work was not particularl y d ragon c entred, he di d create some
unperishable dr agon characters in hi s popular series The Chroni cles of 7arnia 1 (1949-

1 C. S. Lewis (B elfast, Ireland, 1898 – Oxford , UK 1963) . He develop ed his acade mic career in t he
universities of Oxford and Cambrid ge, where he held t he Chair o f Med ieval and Re naiss ance Literature. A
friend o f J . R. R. T olkien, who fa m ous ly co nvinced hi m out of hi s athei sm, his vast p rod uction incl udes
both acae mic research a nd fictio n (10 .14.2013 . https://www. cslewis.co m/uk).

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54). It is in the third volume of th e s eries, The Voyage of t he Dawn Treader (1952) t hat
he deals m ore ex tensively with th em. In this adve nture, Edmund and L uc y P evensie, the
y o un gest of the Pevensie siblings, and their obnoxious cousin Eustace S crubb travel to
Narnia b y means of a painting of a ship they find in the Scrubbs’ home. There, the y
enrole i n a new adventure with Caspian, no w King Caspian X, on bo ard the Dawn
Treader .
In Chapt er 5, the fo cus o f the aventure turns t o E ustace S crubbs. The read er sees
him enter a cave and wit ness the arrival of t he m ost formidable of monsters. The
creature is, as expected, a lizard-like anim al, winged and covered in sca les, and it is
suggested that it can breat he fire (in later passa ges the reader also discove rs that dr agons
have cannibalistic tend encies). But this dragon Eustace encounters i s an old specimen,
and it di es a natural death even as Eustace is digesting the ver y fact of i ts existence.
Exhil arated, Eustac e
almost laughed out loud. He began to feel as if h e had fou ght and kille d
the dragon instead of merely seeing it die (Lewis, 1998 2 : 94).

Then, he took s helter f rom the heav y rain in t he dragon’s c ave, completel y
unsuspecting of what he might find there, for
Eustace had read onl y t he wrong books. The y had a lot to say about
exports and i mports and governments and drains , but the y were weak
on dragons (Lewis, 1998: 94).

As the reader does not have t hat im pediment i n common with Eustace, it is not
difficult to foresee that what he found was no other thing that a fabulous ho ard of gold.

1 The Chro nicles o f 7a rnia is a series of se ven boo ks dea ling w ith t he fantasy world of N arnia, where four
siblings o f the real world trave l magically in several o ccasio ns.
2 I a m us ing this ed ition of the book because o f the avowed intention of t he publishers to present a revised
edition that follo ws the origin al text scr upulou sly, to the po int that it a lters presentat ion of the vol umes to
suit the ord er P rofessor Lewis pre ferred.

280

Eustace as a deeply distressed dragon (illustration: P auline Bayne s ).

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Almost at once, practical, down-to-earth Eustace saw the possibil ities of having
access to such rich es in a world free of tax es, and st arted to evaluate how t o best carr y it
with him. However, a fter a whi le, exhausted fro m the events o f the da y, he fell asleep.
On waking up he was dismayed to discover he had turned into a dragon:
But just as he reached the ed ge of the pool two things happened. First o f
all it came over him like a thunder-clap that he h ad been running on all
fours - and wh y on earth had he been doing that? And secondl y , as h e
bent towards the water, he t hought for a second that y et another dr agon
was starin g up at him out of the p ool. But i n an i nstant he r ealized the
truth. The dragon face in the pool was his own reflec tion. There was n o
doubt of it. I t moved as he moved: it opened and shut it s mouth as he
opened and shut his.
He had turned into a dragon whil e he was asleep. Sleeping on a
dragon's hoard with greed y , d ragonish thoughts in his heart, he had
become a dragon himself (Lewis, 1998: 99).

This passa ge is fitti ng, fo r, aft er all , this volume deals stron gly with the them e of
temptation, and how those who do not resist it ma y find thems elves f acing greater
dangers than the fulfilment of their wishes can ever compensate. But a central theme is
also redemption. One of the best examples of both these themes is Eustace Scrubb, who,
in hi s greed, is metamorphosed into a drag on, but who, as soon as he discovers his
power, realises that he does not reall y wis h for it:
He was a t error himself and nothi ng in the wo rld but a kni ght (and not
all of those) would dare to attack him. He could ge t even with Caspian
and Edmund now.
But the moment he thought thi s he realized that he didn't want to. He
wanted to be friends. H e wanted to get back am ong humans and t alk
and laugh and sha re t hings. He r ealized that he was a monster cut off
from the whole human r ace. An appalling lonelines s came ov er him. H e
began to see that the others had not reall y been f riends at all. He began
to wonder if he himself had been such a nic e per son as he had alwa ys
supposed (Lewis, 1998: 100).

The second pa rt of the conflict as presented on t he book is that o f appro aching
his friends in his new dra gon form without being s lain by th em, but this is als o achieved
with relative ease. Almost as soon as the turns up before t hem, Lucy r ecognizes this

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fairy tales. It is also t he reason wh y she tak es p ains t o have all four contestants use
methods to approach the ir respec tive dragons that are as outl andish as t o make them
unrecognizable to the usual dragon-stor y reader.
Critics usuall y poi nt out that one of the ke ys of the success of Rowling’s seri es is
that her books are not rigi dly targeted, and therefore a re enjo y ed b y childre n and y oung
adults equally . Th e unive rsalit y of the th emes t reated in the different story arcs is also a
clue to their appeal (the comi ng of age, the overcoming of prejudice, and, ver y centrall y,
death). Its cultural impact has also been enormous, and the Har r y Potter fandom is ver y
active, even y ea rs after the release of the last novel and film adaptation 1 .
Gaomi Govik’s T em e raire Series (2006 - )
The American author N aomi Novik 2 stepped i nto the fantas y genre i n 2006 with a
surprising remake of the dragon conventions. Of her work, th e Ame rican author T erry
Brooks said that “just when y ou think y ou’ve seen ev er y v ariation p ossible on the
dragon s tor y , along comes Naomi Novik to prove you wrong” (ww w.temeraire.org.
10.21.2013). How exactly does she succeed in this daunting task? F or one, she takes the
action to uncharted territory in the fantas y wo rld: the Napoleonic Wars.
The first book of series 3 ( she is currentl y working on t he ninth) is His Majesty’s
Dragon (2006), where the reader is introduced into an alternative wo rld in which

1 War ner Br os. r eleased o ne fil m per each o f t he Harr y Pott er b ooks b etween 20 01 a nd 20 11 (10.19.2013.
http://www.i mdb.co m). T he H arry P otter a nd the Go blet o f Fire fil mic version w as relea s ed in 2 005 , and it
was, as all of the m u sually were, rat her fa ithful to the o riginal. T he sce ne with the Hu ngarian Horntail
dragon is fantastica lly e xecute d, thanks to the conte m p ora ry see mingl y al l p o w e rful sp ecial effects. T he
creature p resented in t he fil m is a large wyvern with a spik y head , delightf ully fero cious and with a long
range for fire spitting, and it puts Harr y i nto co nsider able more tro uble in their aer ial c o mbat than it s writte n
counterpart, pro bab ly for the sa ke of visual enterta inme nt.
2 Na omi No vik ( New Yor k, 197 3). H er Temeraire Ser ies have made her a b estselling novelist and the
winner of t he 2007 Co mpton Crook A ward in t he science fiction and fantasy catego ry (1 0.21 .2013.
http://nao minovik.livej ournal. com, http:// www.te meraire.o rg).
3 T he novels publis hed so far are His Ma jesty’s Drag on (2006), Th rone of Jad e (2006) , Black Powde r War
(20 06), Empire o f Ivory ( 2007), V ictory of Eagle s (2008 ), Tong ues of Se rpents (2010 ), Crucible o f Gold

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dragons are a real species and have bee n tamed in Europe since the times of the Roman
Empire (and much prio r to that i n t he countri es of t he fa r E ast). Europe i s in the m iddle
of a cru ent war, and d ragons are indispensable to the Aerial Corps of all countries,
England and France among them.
A great part of t he appeal of thi s work i s how t he author manage s t o seamlessl y
introduce an element so foreign to the us ual stories of Regency En gland, and how it is
presented as somethin g t hat has alwa ys been i n ex istence, but which s till clashes against
the well ordered world of the En glish gentry (dragon riders are p ractically social
castaways, in spit e of th e service the y render the nation, because, due to the particular
nature of t heir duties, they function on the fringes of polite society and cannot hope to
keep acqu aintances other t hat those formed within the Aerial C orps). Novik starts t he
story masterfull y , with the int roduction of a moral conflict: after a nav al batt le, the
English ship HMS Reliant captures the Fr ench frigate Amiti é , and a dragon egg is found
on board. Given that th e egg is about t o hatch and dragons form an immediate bond
with their riders as soo n as the y are bo rn and harnessed, t he main human character,
Captain William Laurence, finds himself morally forced to accept an unwanted position
as rider when the dra gon dismisses the sailor elected by lot to be his rider and turns to
him instead. As an outsider to the Aerial Corps, the reader gradually learns about hi s
new position alongside hi m, while at the same tim e he shares his impressions on
Temeraire’s (the dragon) growth and developm ent.
Naomi Novik’s dragons var y insomuch as t here a re different breeds, artifi ciall y
manipulated alon g the c enturies to come up wit h the most adequate dra gons fo r e ach
task. Thus, some are hu ge and can carr y dozes of men, whil e othe rs have the s ize of a

(20 12) and Blood of Tyran ts (20 13). Her ninth b ook will be published with the title L eag ue of Drag ons
(10 .21.2013 . http://naominovi k.livejourna l.co m).

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cow. V ery few of them breathe fire and all of t hem fl y. In England, t he most valued
breed is the Longwings, who spit fire and are only ridden b y women. As for Temeraire,
it is ex plained earl y in the first book t hat h e is an oriental breed ( a C elestial), and
therefore h e h as som e features dif ferent from those favoured in the European breeding
grounds:
The Chinese had been br eeding dragons for thous ands of y e ars before
the Romans had ever domesticated the wild breeds of Europe (…).
“(…) Th e Chinese br eed first for intell igence and grace; t he y have
such overwhelming air superiority the y do no t need t o seek s uch
abilities in t heir lines. Japanese dra gons are far m ore likel y among the
Oriental bree ds to have an y spe cial offensive capabilities” (Novik,
2006 1 : 62)

Here, Novik shows that she is awa re of the opposed views of d ragons i n
European and Oriental f olklore. European dragons are alm ost alwa ys feral predators,
whereas t he Oriental ones tend to be benign creature s . Along with this gener al
knowledge, she also proves that she is f amiliar with the usual conventions of European
and, more particularl y , Britis h lore. This can be o bserved in the followin g examples:
All dragons in Novik’s world are talkin g dragons . Thi s is a feature that, as has
been seen, i s fairl y common, and found in some stories of saints, such a s t hose of St
Gilbert of Dornoth and St Murrough, as w ell as in folktales, as is seen, for i nstance, in
Martin and the Drago n . W hat is probabl y t heir most su gge stive and original
characteristic i n this respect is that t hey have a human sort of int ellig ence, with some
breeds being more clever or simple or more pro ne t o philosophi zing (Tem eraire) than
others.
Another coincidence wi th the traditi onal dra gon is that t he specimens in the
Temeraire series are inordinatel y fond of gold and other forms of shiny metals and

1 I am usin g here a fir st edition of the boo k.

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stones. Ver y earl y in t heir relationship, Laurence finds t hat Tem eraire shares thi s
fondness too, when the dragon spots a peculiar stone and asks him about it excitedl y :
“No, it is just p y rite, but it is very prett y, is it not? I suppose you are on e
of those hoarding c reatures,” Laurence said, looking affectionatel y up at
Temeraire; man y dr agons had an inborn fascination with j ewels or
precious metals. “I am afraid I am not rich enou gh a pa rtner for y ou; I
will not be able to give you a heap of gold to sleep on” (Novik, 2006:
54).

La uren ce ma y be remini scing he re about the Be owulf poem, which is the best
example of this sort of behaviour in dragons. Not long after this episode, he bu y s
Temeraire a golden chain, which makes him extremel y happ y.
Finally, Temeraire is d escribed as bein g fond of the w ater, which s oon is
discovered to be a common trait among dragons, albeit a generall y i gnored one. I am
reluctant to consider this as something other th an a trope included for the s ake of adding
some lighthe arted episodes to t he stor y , b ut at the same time I can not but remember all
the numerous instances of dragons, both in legends and literar y works, that are found
living in the water, or near som e water s ources, and ponder whether t he author ma y
have been influenced b y this comm on notion to some extent.
On the whole, i t must be said that Novik’s work makes for a ver y enjo y a bl e
reading, punctuated wi th interesting elements t hat suggest some well grounded
investigation of the clas sical sources and folklor e accounts, as se en above, but at t he
same t ime var y in g s ome of the basic elements of the traditional stori es. The m ost
obvious one is that the author took the genera l co nvention of evil drag ons and t urned it
to have them become th e mos t i mportant of allies to the humans, a sort of ex tremely
powerful air force, ex tremel y lo y al to their riders, and a fantastic h elp i n their fights
against a variet y of foes, so much so that the conflict in this work is not between
dragons and humans, but rather betwe en nations wit h access to a dragon force. In an y

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sort of battle, m anageable dragons that one m a y ri de are d eemed exceptionall y valuable,
and with good reason. E ven when riding them is out of the question, having a tamed
dragon on one’s side is a powerful inducement to their capture, and this is a moti f
explored by some of the authors towards whom we will be turning next 1 .
Cressida Cow ell’s How to Train Y our Drago n Series (2003 - )
In the p ast f ew y ears, C ressida Cowell 2 has managed to write nine book s out of the
twelve titl es planne d for the How to Trai n Your Dragon series, and she has be en
involved in t he production of thre e Pix ar films loosel y b ased on them, of w hich the first
one, released in 2010, was a brilliant success.
Cowell’s books have a great appeal for children, beca use o f a set of char acters
any child will easil y ident ify with or recognise (the bo y who does not fit in, t he bully ,
the clueless but supporting fathe r, etc); their silly , slightl y on the gross side, humour;
and the universalit y of their themes (the stru ggle of a boy to r each manh ood and fill in
his expected role in societ y ). Th at there are dragons galore in them does not hurt either.
Hiccup, Cressi da Cowel l’s main character, is the best example of an unli kely
hero t aken to the ex treme. He i s th e son of a Viking chief , and it is ex pected of him that
he will one day b ecome the l eader of the tribe, but he is, i n t ruth, the laug hi ngstock of
the island of Berk, and his comrades do not hesitate to humi liate him, even when in the
presence of adults (who are actuall y o f the s ame mind, wit h t he exception of Hiccup’s
father and grandfather, who have great faith in hi m):

1 T he rights of Novik ’s books have recentl y been b ought a nd a high b udget film is expecte d to be r eleased in
the immediate future, d irected by Peter J ackson (10 .26. 2013. http:// www.imdb.co m).
2 Cressida Cowell (Lo ndon, 1966) is a succe ssful illustrator an d w rite r of children’s books. Her fo nd
memories of childhood holidays sp ent on a s mall, uninhabit ed island off the west co ast of Scotla nd, where
she indulged in explor ation, dr agon hunti ng and w riti ng are ac knowledged b y t he a uthor as her chief
inspiration for the saga o f the Ber k Vikings (10 .26.20 13. http:// www.cressidaco well.co.u k).

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You have probabl y gues sed b y now th at Hiccup was not y ou r natural
Viking Hero.
For a start, he di dn't LOOK like a H ero. Somebod y like S notlout, for
instance, was tall , muscle y , covered in skeleton tattoos, and already
had the beginnings of a small moustache (…).
Hiccup w as on the small si de and had the kind of fa ce that was almost
entirely unm emorable. He D ID have Heroic Hair, which was a v er y
bright r ed and stood up verticall y howev er much you tried to w et i t
down with seawater. But nobod y ever saw that b ecause i t was hidden
under his helmet most of the time.
You would NEVER have picked Hi ccup out of those ten bo y s to be
the Hero of this stor y (C owell, 2010 1 : 24-5)
(…)
"Anywa y ," said Old W rinkl y, "it might b e jus t w hat t his Tribe needs, a
change i n l eadership st yle. Because the t hing is, tim es are changin g.
We can't get awa y wit h being bigger and more viol ent than everybody
else an y more. IMAG INATION. That 's what they need and what
y o u 've got. A Hero of the Future is going to h ave to be clever and
cunning, not j ust a big lump with overdeveloped muscles (Cowell,
2010: 73-4)

Hiccup, an intell igent b o y , i s acutely aware that he i s not up to the general
standards of the tribe, m uch less to be come a pro per leader. The first boo k of the series
deals with his struggle to overcome his s hortcomings, and be accepted as an equal.
Unfortunately for him, he will have to achieve this “the hard way”.
Very mu ch like the bo y in Kenneth Grahame’s T he Reluctant Dragon a nd t he
Pevensie children of C. S. L ewis’ The 7arnia Chronicles , Hiccup has spent quite some
time s tudying the creatures, and a result he kno ws more about dra gon lore than th e
average Vikin g bo y. This knowledge will come in handy in the man y difficul t s ituations
he will have to face i n the course of his adventures and most of all to help hi m bond
with his own dragon, Toothless.
Cowell i magines a whole z oological stud y of dr agons. Basing h er c reations on
real animals of the natur al world, and addin g a s prinkle of the b asics of t he Theor y of

1 The reason of my selecti ng this 2010 edition is merely b ec ause at t he time it was not p ossible to locate an
ealier o ne.

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the Evolution, she comes up with a number of different cr eatures, all of t hem adapted to
the medium where the y are s upposed to breed and with vary in g de grees of feroc it y,
intelligence and adaptabilit y to t he Vikings’ needs:
Although I re ally enjoyed books about dragons as a child, suc h as
Tolkien’s The Hobbit , I always wondered wh y t he y alwa ys seemed to
look the same, l ike a big green li zard with wings. Surely dra gons would
have developed along the sa me lines as dinosaurs, into all sorts of
different species, especi ally adapted to their environments in different
wa y s? I h ave great fun creating all thes e species. I mix up different real-
life creatures to make a new fantastical animal. For instance, in How to
Break a Dragon’s Hear t , I had a g iant Bee-eating dra gon that was a
mixture of a Basking shark and a giant ra y. It glided through the
treetops with its m outh permanentl y open, to catch bees rather tha n
plankton. And then there ar e cham eleon dra gons, and see throu gh
dragons, and dragons with horns on the ends of their noses li ke
narwhals…great big Se adragons man y , man y times larger than a
Tyrannasaurus R ex, and teen y lit tle nanodragons no bi gger than your
fingernail (10.26.2013. http:// www.howtotrainy ou rdragonbooks.com).

But even wit h all these p ossibl e variations, all dragons fall into s imilar patterns:
they a re all reptili an, they have the abilit y of fl y i n g and breathing fire, their g aze is
hypnotic and their intelli gence is hi gher than th e avera ge animal, due t o which the y
have developed the power of speech (the y even have a language in common,
Dragonese, which is wit hin the range of human studies). The y are also m alicious, fond
of jokes and riddles, and some of them have a cannibalistic streak.
These are f eatures that are far from new. Aside from the ver y common traits of
being reptilian, fl ying an d breathing fire, the h ypnotic gaze is found in su ch specimens
as those present in the universal stories of P erseus and Medusa and Gilgamesh and
Humbaba, and the moti f m ay have reached Cowel l through the use that J . R. R. Tolkien
makes of it in The Hobbit , which she acknowledges as an influen ce to her wor k
(10.26.2013. http: //www.howtotrainyourdragonbooks.com). The s ame can be said of the
dragon’s m alice and fondness of riddles with whi ch t o entrap its pre y . As for the power
of speech, thi s i s a feature that is present in several folktales. For inst ance, t he

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Sutherland dragon en gaged in conversation with S t Gilbert of Dornoth before being
pierced t hrough the heart with a de adly arrow. A nd, in Ire land, St Murrough outwi tted
Paiste, another talking d ragon, and tricked hi m into l y ing on the ground t o be bound.
Others, such as the serpents found b y St C olumba or St Petroc, unde rstood human
speech.
The m ain dragon ch aracter, Toothless, belongs to one of the m ost common
breeds created b y Cow ell (Comm on or Garden) . He i s small er than average, and,
although cl ever, he is quite contrar y , and ver y selfi sh, as all dra gons a re suppos ed to be,
which gives Hiccup s ome hard times when he is try in g to t ame and train him 1 .
However, in the end Toot hless reveals a fondness for Hiccup that is essential in the
resolution of the final battl e. The Green Death and the Purple Death, the two huge se a
serpents that threaten the Viking island in those last scenes seem to have been borrowed
from the Mester Stoor W orm, or the Norse m yth of J örmungandr. L ik e Jörmungandr,
they h ave been inactive i n a len ghth y s lumber for a ver y lon g time, but when the y w ake
up, the y a re a threat of such magnitude that every li ving creature, down t o limpets, flees
the area. Like the Meste r Stoor W orm, they are so large t hat there is no creature that
poses a threat to them. Also in a twist that reminds the reader of this folktale of the
Orkney Islands, t he hero needs t o be swallowed by the dragon (The Gr een Death) to
have an y possibili ty o f t riumphing over it. I n The Mester St oor W orm , y oung Ass ipattle
sails into the worm’s body and, once inside, he cuts a hole in his liver and stuffs a peat
into the wound. The monster’s liver burns and he dies in great torment. In How to Train
Y our Dragon , Hiccup is devoured b y Th e Green Death, but he survives h anging from a
spear stuck on the dragon’s throat. There, he sees the holes t hrough which the fire of t he

1 Cre ssida Co well has ac knowled ged that T oo thless is base d mostly on a c at, althoug h he a lso has so me
dog-like charac teristics ( 10.2 6.201 3. http://www.ho wtotrain y ourd ragonbo oks.co m ).

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dragon comes out and finds that the horns of his Viking helmet fit exactly in the tw o
holes, which causes the monster to first coil in distress and then explode, a littl e in the
wa y of St M argaret’s dragon, but on a much larger scale, naturall y.
Finally, of the motifs established and explored i n Chapter 3, I m ust remark on
the fact that there is no maiden in How to Train Y our Dragon , at least not in the books.
However, a girl does pla y an important part in the film version of the series, as will be
seen in the section on ci nema, for the changes incurred in i n the film are as great as to
make possible to consider it as a standalone work.
George R. R. M artin’ s A Song of Ice a nd Fire (1996 - )
This incredibly popular m odern saga b y the Ame rican author Geor ge R. R. Martin 1 has
successfull y updated the genre of Medieval fanta sy, and the recent H BO series 2 based
on the books ar e making the st or y wildl y pop ular, even thoug h it has long ha d a
considerable fandom.
The story is structur ed into a series of seven books 3 , five of which have been
published so far. Ther e are also several novellas t hat spring from the same st ory (these
include a cookbook and a Tyrion Lannister quotation volum e).
The author has a reputati on for writi ng science fiction and horror stories for
Hollywood and TV sho ws, but A Song of Ice and Fire was, reportedl y, his first att empt
at epic fantasy. Wit h t his work, he intended to put the ge neral conventions of t he genre
to the test, i nfusing some realism into it, i n the form of explicit s e xuality, ex treme

1 George R. R. M arti n (Ne w Jerse y, 19 48) . He started w riting at a youn g age a nd has b een pro fessionall y
writing since 19 79, b oth for p ublishing and for the e ntertainment i ndustry, and he has an i m p re ssive number
of fantasy a wards on h is shelv es (10 .27.2 013. http:// www .ge orgerr m arti n.co m ) .
2 A Game of Th rones ( HBO, 2 011 ). Four seaso ns ha ve been fil med so far
(10 .27.2013 http://www.hbo.c om/game-of -thrones#, h ttp://ww w.imdb.co m)
3 A Game of Th rones (1 996 ), A Clash o f Kin gs (1 998 ), A Sto rm of Swo rds (20 00) , A Fe ast for Cro ws (200 5),
and A Dance with Drag ons (20 11). T w o more are pla nned but not yet writte n: The Wind s o f Winter and A
Dream o f Spring . In this stud y I am usin g the first editio ns o f the p ublished works.

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violence and an ample variet y of gritty references and la y e red characters. The result is a
story t hat seems to be grounded on realism, in which the author do es not squirm from
the most ruthless aspects of the war nor of the base or ps ychopathic impulses of man y o f
his characters. The resulting h yperrealism and mature themes makes it certainl y not apt
for ever y one.
It has been not ed that the stor y b ears remark able si milarities to m any episodes of
the British histor y, si gnificantl y , the W ars of the R oses, and this has alrea dy given rise
to i nterest on the part of scholars, such as Dr. Cris tina Mourón Figueroa. M artin hi mself
has declared to have been inspired b y the W ars o f the Roses, the Crusades and several
other events of medieval Europe. He ha s also acknowledged to have been greatl y
influenced b y Tolkien’s work, speciall y as rega rds the structure of the story and the
treatment of s tor y arcs (10.27.2013. htt p://www.georgerrmartin.com), an d it is rather
noticeable th at at times he seems to be particularly m indful o f the British aut hor’s work,
either as inspiration or with t he int ent of stra y ing as far from it as he poss ibly c an. In
either case, it seems it has become quite impossible to escape Tolkien.
He also proves t hat he is familiar with the usual dragon traditions. Evide nce of
this influence is found in the n ames applied to various obj ects, where t heir pow er i s
validated b y their reference to dr agons. Fo r exa mple, dragonbone is a material highly
sought a fter b y artisans for the makin g o f bows (for i t is flex ible and fir eproof), and the
only we apon with which to kill a W hite Walke r (a sort of zombi e-like all-powerful
humanoids) must be made of dragonglass , a common name for obsidian, a form of
volcanic glass which, i n M artin’s universe, is f ound mainl y on Dragonstone island.
Dragonstone is the ancestral seat of House Tar garyen in the books, who are closel y
associated wit h dragons and fir e. Ev er y thi ng V aly r ian-related is also of great v alue in
the books. According t o the backstory o f the narration, the Val y ria n communit y

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stories, bot h ol d and ne w, elbowed their w a y in to the fashionabl e na rrative novelties,
eager to exhibit t hemselve s.
Regarding the pres ent topi c, there is a fair amount of films that boast dragon
characters. Not all of the m can b e s aid to possess the same filmic qualit y , but since it i s
not the obj ect of this study to elucidate on t hat, for thi s specific anal y s is I will
concentrate on those productions that meet the following conditions:
- They must be o riginal works, or, if based on a liter ar y work, the y ou ght t o be as
different from the source material as to des erve attention as a dif ferent
production.
- They must either b e set on the t erritory of the Brit ish I sl es, or be cultur ally based
on their history and folklore.
- They must b e rel evant in the context of filmic produ ctions, to ex ert some level
of influence in the development of the genr e and the general view of the topic
explored.
- Naturally, the dragon character must be central to the plot.
With these requirements in mi nd, the quantity of titles to e xamine t hins down
considerably. Howev er, i t m ust be noted that, eve n though the y ex plore Brit ish s ubjects,
almost the entiret y of th ese productions were made i n the United States and, as such,
they must reflect to some ex tent the values of that country that are ex ported to the rest
of the Western world.
The titles have also been org anized according to whether the stories were based
on l iterary o r legendar y tales or whether, on the contrary, the y came from original
scriptwrights. However, i n this last group, onl y t hose filmi c productions that stray from
the source material enough to be regarded as n ew creations will be considered. The
occasion for this differen tiation is that it will be interesting t o obs erve ho w well-known

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stories are modified on the screen, and what these changes suggest about t he aim of the
filmmakers and the response of the audience.
4. 2. 1. Original Prod uctions
As mentioned above, t he genre of fantas y and, more specificall y, the sub genre of
“sword and sorc ery” h as produced innumerable examples of films, m any of them
branded as B movies, and a luck y f ew handsomel y bud geted. The three instances
examined here belon g t o this last categor y , hav ing been lavishl y provided for b y th e
studios, a fact that was instrumental in their ha ving m uch more ample release and
improved their potential ex position to the audience. As a conse quence, the y are not onl y
popular worldwhile, but also considered as some of the most important drag on -themed
movies by both users and critics.
Dragonslayer ( Matthe w Robbins, 1981)
Dragonslayer 1 is one of the many films released during the ei ghties t hat may be
grouped under the h eading “s word and sorcer y”. These productions w ere set in a
pseudo-medieval realm, where the elements of ancient m yths and folkl ore generall y
dominate the pl ot. Partly inspired b y J. R. R. Tolkien’s books, t he pl ots presented
profited from the fact t hat the Dark Middle Ages a re re garded as a historical mist b y the
audience at large, and therefore every narrative choice about this era, however
outrageous, s eems eas y to justif y . In these prod uctions, magic and monsters are the
order of the da y , as are the bol d and ski lled warriors and impossi bly evil villains that
oppose them. The genre i s exploi ted by the mediums of videogames and comics, usuall y

1 Drago nslayer (19 81): “A King has made a pa ct with a d ra gon where he sacri fices virgins to it, and the
dragon lea ves his ki ngdom al one. An old wizard, a nd his k een young ap prentice volunteer to kil l the drago n
and a ttempt to save th e nex t virgin in line - the King’s own d aughter” (10.28.20 13.
http://www.i mdb.co m/title/tt0 082 288).

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to great s uccess. Another film in this categor y , this one featuring a dragon fight, and
which will be briefly mentioned i n the next sec t ions, is W il low 1 , which ex plores a
number of si milar t hemes to Dragonslayer , su ch as the im portance of magic in thes e
alternate medieval worlds or the young wizard who comes into his powers as the
adventure progresses.
The film Dragonslayer was directed b y M atthew R obbins and it hol ds the
dubious honour of bein g rather controversial during its t ime. This was m ainl y du e to its
dark and gritty tone, graphic portra y al of viole nce and adult themes. Naturall y, this
would not be noteworth y if this were not a f amil y-f riendl y rated W alt Dis ney film , but
even if i t we re not so, f ew viewers have forgotten the crude scen e wh ere the princess
gets devour ed b y the littl e dragons. This bein g sai d, it also boasts one of th e most iconic
dragons ever brou ght to the screen, Vermithrax P ejorative, a formidable fi re-breathing
villain who, even at the end of her days, can bring terror to a whole kingdom.
The action is set in the fictional medieval kingdom of Urland, which seems to
have been created in i mitation of England. At the beginning of the movie, the area has
been t errorized b y a dra gon, the very daunti ng Vermithrax Pejorative, for a span of ti me
that nears 400 y ears. Twice a y e ar, a vi rgin girl is selected by l ot and offered as a
sacrifice to the monster to appease her appetite.
The film starts when Galen Bradwarden, a young wizard-in-training, finds
himself forced b y a serie s of events to t ravel to Urland to tr y to rid t he countr y of the
threat of the dragon by sealing the entrance to her lair, but he fails. Soon after, Princess

1 Willow ( 198 8): “In the dunge ons o f t he ca stle o f t he ev il Q ueen- sorcere ss Ba vmorda, a priso ner gi ves b irth
to a chi ld who, accor ding to an a ncie nt prop hecy, will p ut a n end to t he rei gn of the Q uee n. A midwife saves
the child fro m the wrath o f B avmorda, but is forced to thro w her cr adle in a river when reac hed b y the
Hounds of t he Quee n. T he r iver br ings the child near a village of n elwyns ( a rac e o f sm all p eop le), and little
Willo w finds and adopts her . When t he Hound s reach the village, Willo w be gins a d ifficult j ourney to b ring
the bab y bac k to her peo ple and to fulfill t he pr ophec y ” (1 0.28 .2013.
http://www.i mdb.co m/title/tt0 096 446/?ref_= fn_al_tt_1).

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Elspeth, outraged th at her name h as alw a y s been kept out of the lot since s he became o f
age and therefore sa crificing m aterial, arranges i t so t hat s he is indisputably chosen as
the nex t m aiden to be offered t o V ermithrax. Her father , th e king, entreats Galen to sav e
her, and, in ord er to do s o, the y oung wizard and his new friend Valerian work together
to create a set of particul arly powerful we apons with which to fi ght t he dragon: an
enchanted sp ear and a sh ield m ade of dragon scales. However, ther e is lit tle the y c an do
to save the princess for, as t hey arrive to the dragon’s lair, she is already b eing eaten b y
the dragon’s brood. Ga len kill s the dragonets, but fails to do more than wound
Vermithrax. Onl y his dec eased maste r will be able to help hi m dispose of the dra gon, in
a completel y bewilderin g scene in whi ch he is resurrected, transports himself to the
dragon’s lair and, on Galen’s destruction of his amulet, expl odes, killing V ermithrax.
In a twis t that takes us all t he way back to Trist ram and Isolde , the king ar rives,
runs the dead dragon th rough with his sword a nd claims the g lor y for himself, but,
unlike in the po em, here the true hero does not r aise a fin ge r to prov e ot herwise. He is
content to leave the kingdom behind with his lover, Valerian (who h appens to be a
maiden in disguise). The last scenes of t he film serve to state the end of an age and the
beginning of another, as the people of Urland embrace Christianit y .
The film was considered a commercial f ailure, but it graduall y achieved the
status of cult classic. The creation of Vermithrax is even nowada ys re garded as on e of
the best dragons ever s een on a screen. However, critics ge ne rall y f ound that i t
borrowed too heavil y fro m the same themes found in Star W ars , as well as the modern
psychology th at seem ed to rule the decisions of the m ain characters (10.28.2013.
http://www.imdb.com/t itle /tt0082288).
Dragonslayer borrows a number of motifs from well known s tories of the genre
that deals with dragon fantasies, not least of which is the very obvious reference to

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Tristam and Isolde that may b e obse rved i n t he appearance o f the false he ro that claims
the victor y over the d ragon. In Dragonsl ayer it is t he king of Urland. In Tristam and
Isolde i t was the kin g’s seneschal. In th e folktale The Tw o Brothers , it w as t he kin g’s
marshal. Another ver y co mmon motif is t he offer ing of virgins to the dragon as a proved
wa y of app easing it. This is found in stories as popular as that of St George , but also i n
the more local folktale The Mester Stoor Worm . It must also b e pointed out t hat t he
dragon, V ermithrax Pejorative, h as kept some of the usual features ascribed to her r ace,
not onl y in he r fe rocit y and propensit y to spit fire, but also in the fact that she keeps to a
lair in an undergr ound lake, which combines two of the pref erred dwellings of dragons
in t radition. As for the hero, it is interesting th at, despite his p ower, G alen finds it
necessar y to a rm himself with an ext raordinar y s et of weapons: a magica l spear and a
shield assembled with the scal es shed b y Vermithrax. Other heroes of tradition that
considered thi s a suitable option i n their encounters with dra gons we re Beowulf, who
ordered his smiths to fo rge a shield that was st ronger than usual before he went in
search o f the offended dragon, and Sir Gu y o f W arwick, who had a flaming sword.
Magic is not unhe ard of in traditional t ales either, the m ost obvious ex ample being that
of The Longw itton Dragon (Appendix A), where the kni ght had a magic ointment that
he could anoint his e y es with to be able to s ee the invisi ble dragon. It is als o curious that
the slaying of the dragon involves a dramatic aerial fight and final explosi on, something
that might b e accounted for by the general tend ency to ex plode all sorts of things i n
films made during the 1980s. Yet, however much this may hav e influenced the creators
of Dragonslayer , death b y ex plosion was not unheard of in traditional dr agon tal es. In
St Margaret’s hagiograph y , we can r ead that the dragon swallowed her, and t hen burst
open. The same fate awaited the dragon of Bab y lon, when Daniel fed him a vile mixture
of pitch, fat and hair. And, although it was not a s tor y that was probabl y k nown t o man y

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of the inhabit ants of the British Isles, I can not i gnore a ve r y interesting e xample found
in the vicinit y of Santia go de Compost ela. There, the disciples of S t J ames, on seeing a
huge dragon coming tow ards them, made t he sign of the cross and sprinkled some hol y
water, and the monster e xploded on the spot. This is significant too in that i t takes us
directly to another element that is i nherited from the old tales, and that is th e presence of
the m an of god. Dragon slayer presents a world where th e wa ys o f ol d, that is, magic,
are coming t o an end, and a n ew religion is making its wa y int o the heart of human
society. Th e priest in Dragonslayer is t he representative of this new religion, and there
is a scene in the film where he inflames the villages into going in searc h of the drag on,
assuring them t hat the power of God is so strong that the m onster will be defeated at
once. This is a par allel of all the tales of s aints who, armed onl y with their f aith and,
occasionally, with some cross or holy water, h ave vanquished dra gons all over Europe.
But he re ends the parall el, for, when th e determ ined m ob gets near Vermi thrax, she,
unperturbed b y the cross , p roceeds to swallow th e priest. It is an i ronic t urn of events
that I think shows to what extent the general consideration of the Church h as changed i n
the last few decades.
Dragonheart (R ob Co hen, 1996 )
This fantas y epic is among the first titl es to come up in an y list of film s featurin g
dragons, and not j ust b e cause of its expli cit t itle. Although it has several awards on its
shelves, it remains a l ighthearted p roduction whi ch does not t ake itself seriousl y, and
that probably is one of its main strengths. On watching it , one has the impression that
the viewer is onl y ex pected to find enjo y m ent in it.

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Draco and Bowen ( George and the Dragon . Tom Reeve. 2004).

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Dragonheart 1 portra y s th e unlikel y f riendship of a disillusioned knight and t he
last remaining dragon, which he names Draco 2 . The premise presented i n t his film is
surprisingl y o riginal for the genre: when prince Einon is m ortally wounded, the queen
implores Draco t o save his life. The generous d ragon accedes to share his own heart
with the y oun g p rince, o n t he condition that he will grow to b e an honourable and fair
king. However, Einon becomes the polar opposite, a ruler so t y rannical th at his form er
mentor, Bowen, disgusted by the wa y in which hi s protégé has developed and blaming it
not on the nature of the boy, but on the corruptin g effect of the dragon’s heart, swears
vengeance on all dragons. Soon, he starts a crusade t o kill all of them, in a poor attempt
to undo the evil that afflicts Einon.
As menti oned above, Draco is t he last of hi s ki nd, and, in a twist similar to t he
one used by Kenneth Grahame in The Reluctant Dragon , he persuades Bowen to enter
into a pa rtnership and pe rform mock dra gon sl a y i ngs to defraud p easants and villa ger s
and stay in work. But these humorous episodes are soon brought to an end when Kara,
the young woman w ho y e ars before had accidentally wounded Einon, enlists both
Bowen and Draco (as well as Brother Gilbert, Bowen’s self -appointed cronist) to fight
the young tyrant. Together, the y or ganize t he villagers into an improvi sed arm y and
they fight Einon’s troops. During the battle, it is discovered that an y w ound i nficted

1 Drago nhea rt (1996): “The young, sic kly K ing Ei non w as wounded in a battle . In order for him to survive,
he is heale d b y Dr aco, a d ragon. So m e years later, B o w e n, a d ragon slayer, encou nters Dr ac o. T he two tea m
up to form a tra vellin g duo t hat pe rfor m a n act, b ut t he ac t i s o nly known b y the mselves. Bo w en supp osedl y
"slays" Draco and then co llect s a r eward fro m the to wn o r v illage t hat he pr otects by killing t he dr agon who
had bee n "ter rorizing" the m. Fr o m there, B o w en and Draco mus t save the entire ki ngdom fro m the rule of
the no w e vil Kin g E inon , wh o is p art of Draco and Dr aco a part of hi m” (10.29 .2013.
http://www.i mdb.co m/title/tt0 116 136).
2 As t he dragon moc kinly expl ains, “Draco” is not hing e lse than the w or d “dra gon” i n a different la nguage.
Ho w e ver, this appar ently sill y c hoice co nnect s thi s stor y with a lar ge number o f ot hers wh e re dra gons are
given equall y o bvio us names, de rived fro m t he ter ms used to say “dra gon”, “snake” or “worm” in di fferent
languages. T ake, for ex ampl e, all th e dragons w ho ar e n a med “wor m” ( The Mester Sto or Worm , Th e
Lambto n Worm , Th e Linton Worm , The Laidley Worm or Th e Sexho w Worm ), “knuc ker” ( The Knu cker of
Lyminster ), “carrog” ( Y Carr og ) or “peist” ( The Oilliphéis t an d the Piper ). In the film D ragon slayer , the
name Vermit hrax Pej ora tive was also a o bvious deriva tion of the Lati n term for “worm” ( “vermis”).

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upon eit her Draco or Einon will be felt b y th e other and that, conversely, if Dr aco is
kept from ha rm, Einon will be immortal. I n a f inal (and lon g ex pected) twist, Draco
sacrifices himself to rid the kingdom of the great harm of a vicious king.
Although on it s release the fil m r eceived mi x ed reviews, it was a sol id
commercial success and, as mentioned above, it is generally regarded as on e of the main
dragon-themed m ovies of all tim e. This is partl y due t o its vi sual ef fects, but also to the
characterization of t he dragon (D raco is a graceful creation) and his easy a nd clev er
banter with th e kni ght. It was a warded Best Fantasy Film b y the Academy of Scien ce
Fiction, Fantas y & Horror Films, and nomi nated b y the A cademy A wards in th e
category of Best Visual Effects (10.29.2013. http://www.imdb.com/ti tl e/t t0116136/,
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/dra gonheart).
As for how it relates to the topic of this dissertation, it is clear, even from t he
mere summar y of the plo t, that there are a num ber of elements that are directl y inhe rited
from tradition.
The first one that immediatel y calls one’s attention is the very one m entioned
last in the previous s ecti on. There i s a man of god in Dragonheart , as there used to be
one in man y of the dr agon stories t hat hav e been preserved both in Britain and I r eland,
and all over the European continent. But, i n a vein simil ar to that started in
Dragonslayer , Brother Gi lbert is not a heroic fi gure in this story, but more of a sidekick
to Bowe n, a sour ce for comic relief du ring m ost of the stor y, although tre ated with far
more sympathy than the priest in Dragonsl ayer .
Apart from the p riest, there is a t oken maiden. He re, Cara is not a princess, but a
fiery y oung woman wi th revolutionar y ideas. Both she and the queen h ave a special
connection with Dr aco. The queen treats hi m with t he respect deserved by a godlike
race, admired and possibl y worshipped b y her ancestors. As for Car a, she soon

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discovers t hat Draco is essentially h armless, an d treats him with the familiarit y of a
friend.
If w e turn to the char acterization of the dragon, Draco has three features that
stand out amon g the con ventional ones found i n t raditional tales. The first one is that he
has a vulnerable spot, alt hough here it is not his throa t or underbell y , b ut his heart. This
was an uncommon cho ice in folktales and classical lit erature, but not completel y
unheard of. Tristan and Sir Bevis of Hampton, for instance, were two of the heroes that
killed a dragon b y spearing hi s heart. The choice of this particular organ in Dragonheart
was probabl y due to cinematic rea s ons (the scenes of the drag on tearing his chest open
to ex pose hi s heart are not hing short of impressive, albeit a little grue some), as well as it
gave the stor y impetus in the theme o f t he bestowing o f a ver y precious gift on an
undeserving recipient.
The second feature i s that he is presented as a speaking creature. Th is is
paralleled in a great man y le ge nds (e.g. St Gilbert of Dornoth , St Murrough , Martin and
the Dragon ) and literar y text s (the most obvious influence here is the Völsunga Saga ,
possibl y vi a Tolkien’s tex ts).
Finally, t here is a r eversal of a ver y common mot if in dragon ch aracterizati on in
the fact that Draco is av erse to e ating human flesh. Where t he conventio nal dragon of
the t raditional stories would feast happily on maidens and children, Draco is appalled at
the ver y id ea. Reversals such as this one, and others that are dis cernible in these works,
will be examined in detail in C hapter 5.

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films or books befor e. At ti mes vicious and at t imes pit iful, he is revealed t o be no ot her
than Hrothgar’s demonic offspring. As in t he poem, Beowulf manages to rip hi s arm
off, and when Grendel returns to hi s cave and tells his mother, a water dem on, about the
fight, she swears reven ge on Beowulf. Meanwhil e, in the hall of Herot, Hrothgar gives
Beowulf a golden horn which commemorates hi s victory over the dragon Fafnir in his
y o uth.
Grendel’s mot her i n the film is p robably even more stricking t o the Beowulf
connoisseur that her son, if onl y because she is physically inspired by the actress
Angelina J olie and wears biz arre anachronic high heels. H er ch aracter is presented as a
shape-shifter, who chooses t o appear before B eowulf as a volupt uous and attractive
female, alb eit with a peculiar kind of braid t hat i s a serpent tail as the s am e ti me, and
with a general appe arance that is as allurin g as i t is oddl y thr eatening. When Beowulf
goes to her c ave to kill her, she seduces him, offering herself to him and promisi ng to
make him the grea t est king who ev er lived i f he agrees to give her the golden horn, and
to lay with her and give her a son t o atone for his slaying Grendel. Eventuall y, Beowulf
can not resist her advances and y i elds to bot h of her requests, but he cannot bring
himself to confess it to Wiglaf a fterwards and hi s deed becomes a heav y burden on his
conscience, even though, as promised, he does become a king soon enough.
Thus, t he viewer arrives to the third fight of the poem, which takes pl ace when
Beowulf i s in his ol d age and a slave finds the golden horn in a swamp and unwittingly
takes it, thus breaking the pact B eowulf m ade wit h Grendel’s mother. S oon, Be o wulf’s
son retaliates, and he a ppears in the form of a dragon and with the int ention of
destroying the ki ngdom. The now old king fi ghts the dragon alone in a d ramatic aerial
fight and eventuall y rips his heart out in a trul y gruesome s cene. Aft er t hat, the y both
perish, but not before Beowulf has con fessed hi s si ns to Wiglaf. The fil m ends on an

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ambiguous not e, with W iglaf hol ding the st are o f Gr endel’s m other, who seems to be
attempting to seduce him as well.
At the time of its release, the movie received high praise for its uncontested
technical qualit y and the originalit y it brought to a well known st ory. At the same time,
some critics found t hat the depth that could have been achieved in the plot had been
sacrificed in the maelstr om of t he awe-inspiring visual effects. Ei ther way , the general
consensus, both of critics and audienc e, is that this production has an entrancin g an d
eery qualit y , and t hat it haunts the vi ewer for a lo ng t ime after it has ended (10.06.2013.
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/beowulf).
In d esigning the dragon, it is apparent that the creators exerted themselves to
come up with som ething unique, and the y certainl y did succeed. I n Rob ert Zemeckis’
film, the dragon is a double creature. Sometim es a dra gon, som etimes a golden
humanoid, he is presented as a well formed y o ung man and a splendid creature, as
opposed to Grendel’s deformities.
And y et, h ere end all claim s to originalit y , for Beowulf’s son and Grendel’s
mother, both shape-shifters, are ver y probabl y based on the traditional tales of men
turned i nto drag ons ( Völsunga Saga ) and Laidley W orms, although the crea tors have
not explained to what extent this was a conscious choice.
The creators seem to have also turn ed to the classical motifs i n other asp ects of
the film too. For e xam ple, the subterranean lake, a water y realm where Grendel’s
mother lives, is an i nteresting combination of two sett ings t hat have alwa ys been related
to dragons, and its choic e for this production c an not come as much of a surprise, not
only becaus e of this, but also bec ause it was present i n t he ori ginal poem. On the ot her
hand, the choice of the h eart as the dragon’s vulnerable spot, while at va riance with the
poem, is not terribly ori ginal, bein g present in other medieval p roduction s, such as Si r

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Bevis of Hampton or Trist an and Isolde . As seen in the section a bout the film
Dragonheart (1996), in r ecent cre ations i t has become more usual to use the heart of t he
dragon as the weak point, than t he belly or m outh, as it was more often the case in other
periods of tale production.
How to Train Y our Dr agon (Chr is Sanders and Dea n DeBlois, 20 10)
One of the latest film productions that deal with dragons, How to T rain Your Dragon 1 ,
is based on the hom on ymous work b y Cressida C owell, but, even thou gh the author
supervised and approved of the fil m, i t is so dif ferent from her books th at it can st and as
an autonomous work.
On first vi ew, one would ex pect t his Dreamworks film to t ackle the umpteenth
version of the dragon-slay i n g theme of t he Viking tradition, but the directors m anage to
endow the ol d stories wit h a whole ne w perspective. Thus, what the viewers are
presented with here is a complete reversal of the usual Vikin g role and tone, as th e
protagonist, Hic cup, is a weak and clums y ex cuse for a Viking (that i s the wa y in which
he is depicted i n C owell’s books as well), and he would be a total social outcast if not
because h e happens t o be the son of t he chief. The main difference o f the p remise in t he
film as opposed t o Cowell’s books is that young Vikings in the fil m are not trained to
raise dragonets as pets, but to kill them in a rite of p assage to adult hood. Hiccup, our
smart but di ffident hero, finds himself in an awkward position, for he needs to prove his
worth unequivocall y s o as not to disgrace his father. Hen ce his dilemma when he has

1 How to Train Your Dragon (2010): “L o ng ago up No rth on the Isla nd of B erk, the young Viking, Hiccup,
wants to jo in his town's fi ght a gainst the d ragons t hat conti nually raid their to wn. Ho wever, his macho father
and village leader, Stoik the Vast, w i ll not allo w his small, clumsy, but i nventive son to d o so. Regard less,
Hiccup venture s o ut into b attle and downs a mysterious Nig ht Fur y drago n with his i nventio n, but c an't
bring hi mself to kill it. In stead , Hiccup and the dragon, who m he d ubs T oothless, begi n a friendship t hat
would op en up bo th their w orlds as the o bserva nt bo y lear ns that hi s p eople have misjudge d the species. Bu t
even as t he two eac h take fli ght i n their own way, the y find that t he y must fight the destructi ve i gnorance
plaguing their world” (11 .26.2013 . http:// www . imdb .co m/ titl e/tt089 2769 ).

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the chance of killi ng a dragon but he do es not wish to and, instead, h e decides to
befriend him.
Thematicall y , How t o Train Your Dragon app eals to emot ional connections
between characters (father-son, friends...) and presents the challenge of r ising over t he
circumstances and conq uering all odds, both the ps y chol ogical and p hysical (the
integration-of-handicapped theme i s a constant of the film). The theme of comi ng of
age, and t hose of prejudi ce and acceptance are al so very present at different levels, but
mostl y in the need to understand a different species and t heir motivation for fighting the
humans. Paradoxicall y ( in a film that presents drag ons p ositivel y ), the t rue villain is
another dragon, the Red Dea th, a huge sea se rpent who lives trapped in a mount ain and
is fed by the smaller breeds. Dragons and humans eventually le arn to cooperate to fi ght
and vanquish this monstrous threat.
Visually, the film ex plores the usual fire-br eath ing, flying dra gons, but t hese
have an intelligence and conscience to match their destructiveness. Keeping up with the
latest t endencies in anim ation, the dra gons are fo rmidable, but the y are a lso given an
odd Pokemon-like quality which is quite unforeseen and turns them into ver y lovable
characters, which is, of course, the int ention of the creators. There are many di fferent
breeds where one ma y fi nd dragons of all sorts, dependin g on the animal, or mi xture of
animals, on which they are inspired. This is a novelty in dragon characterization as
compared to the tr aditional stories, wh ere dragons were merel y ferociou s, withouth the
tales making an y reference whatsoever to any other feature that might make them
appear relatable to the a udience. Toothless, the dragon protagonist of the film , is as
dissimil ar to a conventional dragon as one m a y i magine , as both the author and t he film
creators found inspir ation for him in cats, r ather than the usual repti les. Unlike his
namesake in p rint, this Toothless i s no diminutive C ommon nor Garden dra gon, as he

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was in C owell’s original book, but the rare, very deadl y a nd never seen, let alone
captured, Ni ght Fur y , a true nightmare for an y Viking. Another dif ference f rom the
books is that i n the fil m none of the dra gons are capa b le of articulate spe ech 1 , although
they m anage to dev elop some basic communi cation with their human frie nds (and, in
the case of Toothless, not so basic).
In How to Train Y our Dragon there i s a m aiden too, but she is not at all the
traditional sort. The group d y n amics of the bun ch of teena gers whe re Hiccup find s
himself to his dismay ar e completel y dominated b y a girl, Astrid, who is beyond an y
doubt the best warrior of the tribe. Not easily scared and possessed of ph ysical abilities
above those of her m ale comrades, she can hold her own against any dragon, but she is
as prejudiced about the m as t he rest of her neighbours, and she will necessarily go a
long w a y before she is c onvinced t hat t he d ragon issue ca n be app roached in a diff erent
wa y to the one to which she has b een trained. In t his i ndomitable spirit, she is simil ar t o
other females present i n recent productions, as has been s een in this chapter, but in
direct opposition to t he maidens i n the legends and literarty works o f p ast centuries,
who tended to be much more passive in t heir dealings with dragons. One clear
exception to this t endency were the s aintl y m aidens (St Ma rtha, St Mar garet and,
particulary, St Ke yne), but even th e y tend ed to b e much less a ggressive than t heir male
counterparts. This was not an issue in Astrid’s case.
Apart from this up dating of the maiden, t he best example of the cr eators having
been i nfluenced b y the c onventions of the genre i s found in the bi g b attle a gainst t he
Red Death at the end o f the film. There, it is po ssible to perceive severa l of the mos t
popular motifs of the traditional dragon tale:

1 As t he reader will r eme mber, the To othless in the boo ks speaks Dragonese, although wi th a sta mmer, and
all the other d ragons sp eak Dr agonese as well.

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The first one is that of the dragons living in a cave under a mountain. As
explained in C hapter 3, a s ubterranean realm was a ver y common choice of dwelling for
dragons, and it figures in stories that ran ge from Beowulf to the hagiographies of S t
Germanus and St Maccreiche, and popular l egends such as The Ludha m Dragon . I n
addition t o thi s, the Red Death is s hown to be trapped i nside th e m ountain, due to its
enormous size, in a wa y that reminds one of Zeus trapping the s erpent T y phon under th e
Etna, but also of the more domestic stories of The Ludham Dragon , whis is trapped in
his lair by the hero, or that of St Maccreiche, who chained and confined the Bruckee.
If we move on to the scene of t he final batt le, two other conventions are
discernible. Firstl y , the method of sla y in g, wi th a blast to the Red Death’s mout h, is
something that will t ake t he viewer not onl y to the man y artistic repre sentations of
knights thrusting their spears int o the drag ons’ mouths, but also the much more similar
technique of forcing a burning peat down the monsters’ throats. This last opt ion is
observed in both The Linton W orm and Cnoc 7a Cnoimh .
Secondly, t he ver y com mon trope of the hero sacrificing himself for the greater
good is here pres ent too, as it was in Beowulf , Sir Peter L oschy and the Dragon , and
The Bisterne Dragon . All three of the heroes in these st ories manage to sla y their
respective d ragons, but at a very great cost for themselves, just as Hiccup in How To
Train Your Dragon , who is save d in extremis b y the writers.

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