DRAGONS

Dragons!

Sometimes fire-breathing, always hideous, these creatures are the very stuff of nightmares and one of humankind’s oldest enemies.

Dragons are also as mysterious as they are fearsome, and one of the greatest puzzles about them is, where do they come from? I don’t mean, re can we find them, but just where did the very idea of dragons originate?

Although they seem to share a spooky amount in common with the dinosaurs, any link between the two seems quite impossible because humans didn’t come onto the scene until long after those great monsters of prehistory were extinct.

Is it possible that our very distant pre-human ancestors were so terribly frightened of the dinosaurs that their memories have come down to the present day?

There is no way of telling, but it is very strange that stories about dragons appear in almost every culture around the world.

In China Dragons are good. In the rest of the world – bad!

Occasionally, as in China, the dragon is seen as a force for good, but in most parts of the world these creatures are believed to be always sly, greedy, cunning, and usually evil.

Many great heroes, men like Sigurd, Beowulf, St George of course, and even St Michael the Archangel, fought against and overcame dragons, and these battles are portrayed in epic stories, in pictures and carvings, and have sometimes left their echoes upon the landscape.

The Modern Dragon Hunter’s gear

Which means that we can, if we fancy, try our hand at a bit of dragon hunting.

Now, if this idea appeals to you, the good news is you won’t need any swords, spears, or armour, and there’s no need to be fantastically brave either.

Instead your basic kit can be as simple as pencil and paper, though you might find a camera useful. If you are into gadgetry then a pair of binoculars and a pocket voice recorder could come in handy, but these are not necessary. Oh yes, and you’ll find a bit of creative imagination will add greatly to your fun.

Planning the Expedition

Of course, like any explorer you’ll need to do some research before setting off on your expedition.

Firstly you’ll need a map of the area you intend to explore. It would also be useful to look at any guide books on the area and to see if anyone has written about its local history. Here’s a tip, always check the older local history books because the people who wrote these often included some of the more fantastical information which is often missed out of today’s more accurate but less credulous books.

Don’t think that you have to buy lots of books by the way, the nearest library will be only too glad to help you with this part of your search.

Sometimes you may find books that deal with local legends and, if you are lucky enough to find one, then this would be the first place to look for any mention of dragons. Very occasionally there might be a well known dragon legend, such as the one at Bromfield near Ludlow where such a beast is said to guard a hoard of hidden treasure.

In guide books and local histories dragons sometimes crop up in place names or in the names of fields. For instance, if you come across a field called, say, ‘Drake’s Meadow’, this will have nothing to do with daddy ducks, because the word ‘Drake’ is an ancient way of referring to a dragon which might even be called a ‘Fire Drake’.

Another place to look for dragons is, as we said earlier, somewhere, like Bromfield, where there is a known dragon legend.

Or perhaps your book researches have led you to one of the several ancient churches where dragons are to be found carved in stone. These are often to be seen above doorways, but sometimes in other places around the building.

Into the Field!

So let’s imagine that you have arrived at a place linked with dragons. What do you do now?

Well this really depends on you. Do you want to simply make a list of the Dragon Places in your area, or the county, or near where you are on holiday?

If so then plot them carefully on the map then look to see if there is any sort of pattern to your finds. Are they grouped together? What sort of countryside are they in?

Dragons, Burial Mounds, and Treasure!

The Saxon peoples believed that dragons lived under ancient burial mounds and guarded huge piles of treasure. Are there any burial mounds, sometimes called ‘barrows’ or ‘tumuli’ on the map, near your Dragon Places?

Oh yes, and another name for Saxon burial mounds is a ‘low’ so where you find ‘low’ as part of a place name, such as Ludlow for instance, then try to find if there is a dragon legend nearby.

Finding a Monstrous Imagination

Alright, you’ve started your list by putting down the name of your Dragon Place. What can you do next?

Well a good idea, and a challenging one, might be to try to imagine just why that particular place is associated with a dragon. If there is a possible burial mound then that might be the answer. But what if you’re standing in a flat area miles from anywhere? This is where that very precious thing, your imagination, comes into play.

You know that somebody, at some time, thought that this particular place was linked with a dragon, or dragons. Why did they think that? Just stand there, look around you, then close your eyes and try to see what this particular location looked like a very long time ago. Try to forget any roads, buildings, modern ones at least, and to imagine you were standing in that same spot hundreds of years ago. So long ago indeed that people imagined there were dragons around.

When you have a picture in your mind make a sketch of it, or write down a few words that come to mind. When you get back home, or to base, then you can finish the picture or write the story or poem. When you do this you are doing exactly what the artists and storytellers of long ago did, seeing their own dragons, and telling their stories. Oh, and do be careful, such imaginings can get quite spooky!

Recording other sorts of Dragons

All these ideas also apply if you have found some stone carved dragons in an ancient church, but there are other things you can do here as well.

Firstly of course you can draw a picture of the dragon, or you might be able to make a rubbing of it. If you have a camera then you will no doubt photograph the carving. Then look where the carving is. Sometimes they are over doorways on what is called a ‘tympanum’.

Why might Dragons be found on church fonts?

Others are to be found on the font, that stone bowl usually to be found at the west end of a church near the door, where children and others are baptised as a sign of their beginning life in the Christian faith. And it is because Christians believe that Holy Baptism is the beginning of a new life with Jesus Christ that dragons were sometimes carved on font bowls.

Remember we said that in the western world the dragon is usually seen as an evil creature? Well the presence of a dragon on the font shows the Christian belief that through his death and Resurrection Jesus of Nazareth overcame evil, and in baptism Christians believe they are starting afresh in a new life in Christ.

Sometimes Dragons have a special story to tell us,like,' The Dragon and the Magic Star'

Occasionally a dragon carving has its own story to tell, or, as in this case, just a part of a story. There is a church not very far from Shrewsbury which has a very fine dragon carving on the tympanum over the outside of the blocked north door. Inside the church, on the stone post of that door there is another carving.

Really it’s only a scratch mark and almost certainly done in a hurry. Actually there are two scratch marks, and this is where it gets interesting. Somebody, at some time, has drawn the symbol of a five pointed star onto the door post. Only when they’d finished it, they realised they had got it wrong. You see, the five pointed star is a very ancient good luck symbol, but to be effective people believed it had to be drawn so that the single point was facing upwards. If it was upside down they thought that rather than a good luck sign it was just the opposite and would bring bad luck. Now we know of course that this was all rather silly, but when you are studying history you must try to see things as people saw them in the old days. So, the person who scratched the ‘upside down’ five pointed star on the doorpost must have suddenly realised they’d got it wrong, so what did they do?

They very hurriedly scribbled it out and made a new one, this time the ‘right way’ up. And why? Well we don’t actually know, but I’ll bet it was something to do with being frightened of the fearsome dragon lurking over the door on the other side of the wall.

Here’s a tip for hunting that particular Dragon

You’ll have noticed that I haven’t said exactly where this church is. Of course not! I don’t want to spoil your fun in seeking out dragons, but one very good series of books to search for dragon carvings is the Pevsner series of County Guides.

This dragon is in the Shropshire volume. Enjoy searching for it!

Now to find the biggest Dragon in Shropshire!

I will however tell you the location of Shropshire’s perhaps most mysterious, and most certainly its largest, dragon. This one isn’t limited to a field, or hidden in a burial mound, and it isn’t carved in stone.

No, it exists as a part of the very landscape, stretches over a distance of two miles, and might have been put there by our very ancient ancestors way back in the Bronze Age or even earlier.

This possible, and I stress the word possible, dragon was discovered by an antiquarian in, I believe, the nineteenth century. It is situated along the Stapeley Ridge near Shelve and the antiquarian in question saw the now disappeared Whetstones stone circles as the head of the dragon, traced a long neck to the Mitchell’s Fold circle which he thought of as the body, and then considered the tail to go as far as the Hoarstones stone circle – giving a total distance of two miles.

Whether the three stone circles were ever linked in any way we do not know, but it is interesting that the curvature of the serpentine path which links them does closely correspond to the ‘avenues’ connected to the great henge monument at Avebury in Wiltshire.

But walk the Stapeley ridge for yourselves, and make up your own minds. Are you following a three and a half thousand year old dragon marked out on the landscape? Whether you are or not, you are certainly walking amid a sacred landscape of that age, and exactly the sort of place where you might find dragons.