Book v

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The _cherub_ is traditionally regarded as a celestial spirit which in the hierarchy is placed next in order to the seraphim. All the several descriptions which the Scripture gives us of cherubim differ from one another, as they are described in the shapes of men, eagles, oxen, lions, and in a composition of all these figures put together. The hieroglyphical representations in the embroidery upon the curtains of the tabernacle were called by Moses (Ex. xxvi. 1) "cherubim of cunning work" (Calmet).

The _seraphim_ are regarded as an order of angels distinguished for fervent zeal and religious ardour. The word means "burning," _i.e._, with Divine Love.

The seraphim are described by Isaiah (vi. 1-3): "I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphim: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried to another and said, Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of Hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory." And in Revelation (iv. 6): "Round about the throne were four beasts full of eyes before and behind, and the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle. And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him, and they were full of eyes within." It will be noticed that these descriptions differ from that of Ezekiel, not only in the number of wings, but also in the individuality of each beast being separate and independent, not compounded of the four.

[Illustration: Tetramorph.]

Several forms of these mystical creatures, says Audsley, have been devised by the early mediæval artists; those which display the entire forms of _the man_, _the lion_, _the ox_, and _the eagle_, all winged and invested with the nimbus, appear to have been most frequently made use of. They are to be met with formed of the _heads of the mystical creatures_ on bodies or half-bodies of _winged human figures_; at other times we find them comprised in the heads and wings only of the four symbolic creatures. Sometimes they are found united and forming one mysterious being called the _Tetramorph_ with four heads and numerous wings covered with eyes, the feet resting on wheels, which are also winged. The example is taken from a Byzantine mosaic in the convent of Vatopedi, on Mount Athos.

Pugin's "Glossary of Ecclesiastical Ornament and Costume" says the cherubim are frequently represented of a bright red colour to set forth the intensity of divine love, and usually standing upon wheels, in reference to the vision of the prophet Ezekiel.

Cherubim and seraphim seem always vested in the alb or tunic, and a scarf tied in a knot round the neck.

Emblems of the Four Evangelists

The winged living figures, symbols of the evangelists, which are most frequently met with, and which have ever been most in favour with Early Christian artists, appear to have been used at a very early date. They are taken from the vision of Ezekiel and the Revelation of St. John. "The writings of St. Jerome," says Audsley, "in the beginning of the fifth century gave to artists authority for the appropriation of the four creatures to the evangelists," and for reasons which are there given at length.

ST. MATTHEW: _Winged Man_, Incarnation.--To St. Matthew was given the creature in human likeness, because he commences his gospel with the human generation of Christ, and because in his writings the human nature of Our Lord is more dwelt upon than the divine.

ST. MARK: _Winged Lion_, The Resurrection.--_The Lion_ was the symbol of St. Mark, who opens his gospel with the mission of John the Baptist, "the voice of one crying in the wilderness." He also sets forth the royal dignity of Christ and dwells upon His power manifested in the resurrection from the dead. The lion was accepted in early times as a symbol of the resurrection because the young lion was believed always to be born dead, but was awakened to vitality by the breath, the tongue, and roaring of its sire.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

ST. LUKE: _Winged Ox_, Passion.--The form of the ox, the beast of sacrifice, fitly sets forth the sacred office, and also the atonement for sin by blood, on which, in his gospel, he particularly dwells.

ST. JOHN: _The Eagle_, Ascension.--The eagle was allotted to St. John because, as the eagle soars towards heaven, he soared in spirit upwards to the heaven of heavens to bring back to earth revelation of sublime and awful mysteries.

Independently of their reference to the four evangelists these figures sometimes refer to _the Incarnation_, _the Passion_, _the Resurrection_, and _the Ascension_.

Sedulius, a priest and poet of the fifth century, says much the same in the following verse:

Hoc Matthæus agens, Hominem generaliter implet: Marcus ut alta fremit vox per deserta Leonis: Jura sacerdotis Lucas tenet ore Juvenci: More volens Aquilæ verbo petit astra Johannes.

THE LION OF ST. MARK.--In the ninth century the rapidly rising State of Venice was dignified by the reception of the relics of St. Mark, transported thither from Alexandria. "Few patron saints," says Theodore A. Buckley, "enjoy a greater popularity, whether socially or locally exemplified. His lion was emblazoned on the standard of the Republic, and stamped on the current coins, while his name was identified with the pride, the power, and glory of all Venice."[5]

Emblems of the evangelists do not often appear in heraldry.

Walter Reynolds, Archbishop of Canterbury, according to a manuscript at Lambeth (executed for Archbishop Laud), bore _azure on a cross or, between the symbols of the evangelists of the last, four lions rampant gules_.

The Freemasons appear to use a similar coat of arms upon their seal, viz., _a cross between the emblems of the four evangelists, and for supporters two cherubims, all proper_.

[Illustration: The Lion of St. Mark, Venice.]

Chimerical Creatures of the Dragon and Serpent kind

[Illustration]

The Dragon

"_The scaly monster of a dragon, coiled Full in the central field--unspeakable, With eyes oblique retorted, that askant Shot gleaming fire._" HESIOD.--"The Shield of Hercules."

The dragon is the most interesting and most frequently seen of all chimerical figures, and it is a remarkable fact that such a creature appears at an early period of the world's history to have been known in the East and in countries widely separated. Long anterior to the dawn of civilisation in the West of Europe, even in far-off China and Japan in the extreme East of Asia we find the dragon delineated in very much the same form in which it appears in our national heraldry.

The ancients conceived it as the embodiment of malignant and destructive power, and with attributes of the most terrible kind. Classic story makes us acquainted with many dreadful monsters of the dragon kind, to which reference will afterwards be more particularly made.

It is often argued that the monsters of tradition are but the personification of solar influences, storms, the desert wind, the great deeps, rivers inundating their banks, or other violent phenomena of nature, and so, no doubt, they are, and have been; but the strange fact remains that the same draconic form with slight modifications constantly appears as the type of the thing most dreaded, and instead of melting into an abstraction and dying out of view, it has remained from age to age, in form, distinctly a ferocious flying reptile, until in the opinion of many the tradition has been justified by prosaic science. It is surprising to find that the popular conception of the dragon--founded on tradition, passed on through hundreds of generations--not only retains its identity, but bears a startling resemblance to the original antediluvian saurians, whose fossil remains now come to light through geological research, almost proving the marvellous power of tradition and the veracity of those who passed it on.

Mr. Moncure Conway ("Demonology, or Devil Lore") says: "The opinion has steadily gained that the conventional dragon is the traditional form of some huge saurian. It has been suggested that some of those extinct saurians may have been contemporaneous with the earliest men, and that traditions of conflicts with them, transmitted orally and pictorially, have resulted in preserving their forms in fable proximately."

"Among the geological specimens in the British Museum," says Hugh Miller, "the visitor sees shapes that more than rival in strangeness the great dragons and griffins of mediæval legends; enormous jaws, bristling with pointed teeth, gape horrid, in stone, under staring eye-sockets a foot in diameter; and necks that half equal in length the entire body of a boa-constrictor. And here we see a winged dragon that, armed with sharp teeth and strong claws, has careered through the air on leathern wings like those of a bat." We are also told in the sacred Scriptures by Moses of "fiery serpents," and by Isaiah of "a fiery flying serpent." Other monsters--dragons, cockatrices, and some of whose form we have no conception--are also mentioned. Euripides describes a dragon or snake breathing forth fire and slaughter, and rowing its way with its wings. It is evident that such a creature may at one time have existed. Looking at the widespread belief in dragons, there seems little doubt that the semi-myth of to-day is the traditional successor of a really once-existent animal, whose huge size, snake-like appearance, and possibly dangerous powers of offence made him so terrible that the earlier races of mankind adopted him unanimously as the most fearful embodiment of animal ferocity to be found.

One of the latest acquisitions in the Natural History Museum, South Kensington, is the skeleton of that enormous creature the long-limbed dinosaur (_Diplodicus Carnegii_), recently discovered in America, eighty-nine feet in length from the head to the tip of the tail, the huge bulky framework of the monster measuring eleven feet in height at the shoulder. The enormous length of its neck and tail, with relatively small head, would indicate it to be an amphibious inhabitant of the waters, feeding on the vegetation growing in its depths.

Mr. Moncure Conway, in his remarkable work, "Demonology, or Devil Lore," describes all intermediate stages between demon and devil under the head of dragon. This he believes to be the only fabulous form which accurately describes all the transitions. Throughout all the representations of the dragon one feature is common, and that is the idealised serpent. The dragon possesses all the properties of the demon along with that of harmfulness, but differs from the devil in not having the desire of doing evil. The dragon in mythology is the combination of every bad feature in nature, all of which is combined into one horrible whole. "The modern conventional dragon," says Mr. Conway, "is a terrible monster. His body is partially green, with memories of the sea and of slime, and partly brown or dark, with lingering shadows of storm-clouds. The lightning flames still in his red eyes, and flashes from his fire-breathing mouth. The thunderbolt of Jove, the spear of Woden, are in the barbed point of his tail. His huge wings--bat-like and spiked--sum up all the mysteries of extinct harpies and vampires. Spine of crocodile is on his neck, tail of the serpent and all the jagged ridges of rocks and sharp thorns of jungles bristle round him, while the ice of glaciers and brassy glitter of sunstrokes are in his scales. He is ideal of all that is hard, destructive, perilous, loathsome, horrible in nature; every detail of him has been seen through and vanquished by man, here or there; but in selection and combination they rise again as principles, and conspire to form one great generalisation of the forms of pain, the sum of every creature's worst."

"THE EXTERNAL FORMS OF DRAGONS are greatly dependent on the nature of the country in which they originate. In the far north, where exist the legends of the swan and pigeon, maidens and vampires, exists the swan-shaped dragon. As demons of excessive heat principally existed in the south, so in the north the great enemy of man was excessive cold. In the northern countries is found also the serpent element, but as serpents are there frequently harmless, this feature does not enter much into their composition. The CUTTLEFISH is supposed to have helped in the formation of the HYDRA, which in its turn assisted in forming the dragon of the Apocalypse. Assyrian ideas also seem to have assisted in the pictorial impersonations of the hydra. This many-headed monster is a representation of a torrent, which being cut off in one direction breaks out in another. The conflicts of Hercules with the hydra are repeated in those of the Assyrian Bel with Trinant (the deep), and also in the contentions of St. Michael with the dragon. The old dragon myths left in Europe were frequently utilised by the Christians. Other saints besides St. Michael were invested with the feats of Hercules; St. Margaret, St. Andrew, and many others are pictured as trampling dragons under their feet. The Egyptian dragon is based on the crocodile, and this form being received into Christian symbolism did greatly away with other pagan monsters. The hideousness of the crocodile and the alligator could easily be exaggerated so as to suit the most horrible contortions of the human imagination. Amongst the most terrible dragons is Typhon, the impersonation of all the terrors of nature. Son of Tartarus, father of the harpies and of the winds, he lives in the African deserts; from thence fled in fear, to escape his terrible breath, all the gods and goddesses. He is coiled in the whirlwind, and his many heads are symbolical of the tempest, the scrive, the hurricane, and the tornado."

Under the head of THE COLONIAL DRAGON Mr. Conway has embodied all the horrors and difficulties with which the early colonists would be beset. Amongst these he places the GORGON and the CHIMERA. The most widely spread of all is the last named, and from it is supposed that all Christian and British dragons are descended. The Christian myth of ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON is but a variation of BELLEROPHON AND THE CHIMERA, in which the last has given place to the dragon and the pagan hero to St. George.

[Illustration: Japanese Dragon.]

"In ancient families there are usually traditions of some far-distant ancestor having slain a desperate monster. It is always the colonial dragon that has been borrowed by poets and romancers. THE DRAGON killed by Guy of Warwick is but another variation of the chimera. There is again the SOCKBURN WORM, slain by Sir John Conyers for the devouring of the people of the neighbourhood; the well-known tradition of the LAMBTON WORM is in reality a modification of the ARYAN DRAGON OF THE STORMCLOUD; smaller than a man's hand he swells out to prodigious dimensions."

A favourite subject for Chinese and Japanese painting and sculpture is a dragon very much of the same type, and a monstrous representation of a dragon in the form of a huge Saurian still forms the central object at Japanese festivals.

Among the Chinese the dragon is the representation of sovereignty, and is the imperial emblem borne upon banners, and otherwise displayed as the national ensign. To the people of that vast country it represents everything powerful and imposing; and it plays an important part in many religious ceremonies and observances. Dr. S. Wells Williams, the eminent sinalogue, describes the fabulous monster of Chinese imagination in the following passage: "There are three dragons--the _lung_ in the sky, the _li_ in the sea, and the _kiau_ in the marshes. The first is the only _authentic_ species according to the Chinese; it has the head of a camel, the horns of a deer, eyes of a rabbit, ears of a cow, neck of a snake, belly of a frog, scales of a carp, claws of a hawk, and palm of a tiger. On each side of the mouth are whiskers, and its beard contains a bright pearl; the breath is sometimes changed into water and sometimes into fire, and its voice is like the jingling of copper pans. The dragon of the sea occasionally ascends to heaven in waterspouts, and is the ruler of all oceanic phenomena." The fishermen and sailors before venturing away from land or returning to port, burn joss-sticks and beat gongs to ward off the evil influences of the dragon, and it is worshipped in a variety of ways. According to a fable current in China, the Celestial Emperor Hoang-ti was carried up to heaven, along with seventy other persons, by a great dragon; those who were only able to catch at his moustaches were shaken off and thrown on the ground. It is still the custom when an emperor dies to say that the dragon has ascended to heaven. An eclipse the simple Celestials believe to be caused by a great dragon that seeks to devour the sun or moon. A great noise is made by firing guns, beating drums, and the rattling and jangling of pairs of discordant instruments to frighten the monster away. A frequent subject of their artists is the dreadful dragon sprawling through masses of curling clouds in the act of grasping at or swallowing the great luminary, a subject which no doubt bears a deeper meaning than we see, and one intimately connected with their mythology.

[Illustration: JAPANESE IMPERIAL DEVICE. The Dragon, the Ho-Ho, or Phœnix, and the Chrysanthemum.]

In some of their splendid festivals the worship of the dragon is celebrated with great excitement and furore. On the Canton river a boat of immense length formed like a dragon in many wondrous folds, rowed by fifty or more natives, with wild music and dancing, and accompanied by a crowd of junks; the unfurling of sails and the streaming of flags from the masts, the beating of drums, the noise and smoke from the firing of guns, all exhibit the fondness of a people for the pleasures of a national holiday.

_Dragon's Teeth._--Cadmus slew the dragon that guarded the well of Ares, and sowed some of the teeth, from which sprang up the armed men who all killed each other except five, who were the ancestors of the Thebans. Those teeth which Cadmus did not sow, came to the possession of Ætes, King of Colchis; and one of the tasks he enjoined on Jason was to sow these teeth and slay the armed warriors that rose therefrom. The frequent allusion to the classic term _dragon's teeth_ refers to subjects of civil strife; whatever rouses citizens to rise in arms.

The mythical dragon has left the lasting impress of his name in various ways in our language and literature, as in the art of nearly every country.

Ω _Dragon's Head_ and ℧ _Dragon's Tail_.--In astronomy _Nodes_ are the opposite points in which the orbit of a planet, or of a moon, crosses the ecliptic. The ascending node marked by the character (Ω), termed the _Dragon's head_, is where the planet or moon ascends from the south to the north side of the ecliptic, and the descending node indicated by the character (℧) the _Dragon's tail_ is where it passes from the north to the south side.

_Draco_, a constellation in the northern hemisphere, representing the monster that watched the golden apples in the garden of the Hesperides, slain by Hercules, and set as a constellation in the heavens.

_Draco volens_, a meteor sometimes visible in marshy countries--_Ignus fatuus_, or will-o'-the-wisp.

_Draco volens_, or flying dragon, a curious class of saurian reptiles peculiar to the East Indies, having membranous attachments to their limbs, which give them the appearance of flying as they leap from tree to tree.

_Dragon's blood_, a vegetable balsam of a dark red colour brought from India, Africa, and South America. So called from its resemblance to dried and hardened masses of blood.

The Dragon in Christian Art

(The symbol of the Supreme Spirit of Evil, or the Evil One)

It was believed that in the gloomy land of the Cimmerians and the confines of Hades strange monsters were to be met; and not only there, but in any part of the universe which was conceived to be beyond the pale of human habitation these weird creatures might be encountered. The same idea is recognised in the Semitic belief, that uncanny beings lurked in the outer deserts, where men did not penetrate at all, or did so only at great danger. The "place of dragons" is associated with "the shadow of death" (Ps. xliv. 19). Dragons are also associated with the waters of the deep (Ps. lxxiv. 13) and are called upon to praise Jehovah (Ps. cxlviii. 7); and Isaiah (xxxiv.), describing in vivid and picturesque language the destruction and utter desolation which shall come on Zion's enemies, prophesies that her palaces and fortresses "shall be a habitation for dragons."

The term dragon is applied by the translators of the Scriptures to some monsters of which we have no knowledge. The word is used by ecclesiastics of the Middle Ages as the symbol of sin in general and paganism in particular, though ofttimes heresy is denoted. The metaphor is derived from Rev. xii. 9, where Satan is termed the Great Dragon; in Psalm xci. 13, it is said "the saints shall trample the dragon under their feet."

In the book of Job we recognise in Leviathan a creature more like the extinct saurians of the old world than any crocodile recorded in historic times; and this leviathan is treated as still existing in the days of David. In Psalm lxxiv. 13, 14, Jehovah is spoken of as having broken the heads of the dragons in the waters; in Isaiah li. 9, as having wounded the dragon; and pæans are sung on the punishment of "Leviathan, that crooked serpent," and the slaying of "the dragon that is in the sea" (Is. xxvii. 1). Finally, in the Apocalyptic vision, "there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads, and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads, and his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to earth" (Rev. xii. 3, 4); "I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand, and he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan, and bound him" (Rev. xx. 1, 2).

[Illustration: The Dragon of the Apocalypse. By Albert Dürer.]

As a Christian emblem the dragon may be taken to symbolise the supreme spirit of evil, a veritable devil whom it was the special mission of militant saints to slay, as it had been the glory of the heroes of the pagan mythology to conquer. "In pictures of sacred and legendary subjects," says a late writer, "the dragon usually formed an important feature. The evil thing was invariably depicted writhing under the foot of the saint, or transfixed with his triumphant spear. In like manner _the virtues_ trampled tranquilly each on her complementary vice, embodied in the form of some impossible creature; and if the rigid virtues were sometimes insipid, it must be allowed that the demons were usually grotesquely characteristic, and often delightful in colour."

[Illustration: St. Michael and the Old Dragon. Arms of the Royal Burgh of Dumfries.]

The prostrate attitude usually signifies the triumph of Christianity over Paganism, as in pictures of St. George and St. Sylvester; or over heresy and schism, as when it was adopted as the emblem of the Knights of the Order of the Dragon, in Hungary, which was instituted for the purpose of contending against the adherents of John Huss and Jerome of Prague.

The dragon in Christian Art is often very variously represented, sometimes as a serpent, at other times as a dragon or wyvern, or again in the symbolic figure partly human, under which form we find the "old serpent" (the Devil) often represented, as in the conflict of St. Michael the Archangel. The numerous legends of saints who have fought and overcome dragons prove the symbolic light in which the impersonation of evil was generally viewed.

[Illustration: From ancient carving.]

St. Margaret is the patron saint of the borough of LYNN REGIS, and on the old corporation seal she is represented standing on a dragon and wounding it with a cross. The Latin inscription on the seal is "Sub Margaret teritur draco stat cruce læta." The modern shield of the town is now blazoned: _azure three conger's_ (or dragon's) _heads erased and erect, the jaws of each pierced with a cross crosslet fitchée or_. In paintings St. Margaret is represented as a young woman of great beauty bearing the martyr's palm and olive crown, or with the dragon chained and helpless at her feet as an attribute. Sometimes she is depicted coming from the dragon's mouth, for the legend says the monster swallowed her, but on her making the sign of the cross he was compelled to free her again. A legend states that Olybus, Governor of Antioch, captivated by the beauty of Margaret, wished to marry her; as she rejected him with scorn he threw her into a dungeon, where the devil appeared to her in the form of a horrible dragon and endeavoured to frighten her from her path. Margaret held up the cross and the dragon fled. Other legends say he burst asunder.

[Illustration: St. George and the Dragon.

"In many a church his form is seen, With sword, and shield, and helmet sheen: Ye know him by his steed of pride, And by the dragon at his side." CHR. SCHMID.]

ST. GEORGE, the patron saint of England, in his legendary combat with the monster, is a subject which occurs frequently in English sculpture and painting, and enters largely into the language and literature of the nation. St. George appears to have been selected as the patron saint of England not long after the Norman conquest. We find the anniversary of his martyrdom (April 23) was ordered to be observed as a festival by the National Synod of Oxford in 1222 A.D.

The "Golden Legend," printed by Pynson in 1507 (fol. cxix.), thus refers to "Saynt George": "This blyssed and holy martyr Saynt George is patrone of this realme of Englōd: and ye crye of mē of warre; and in ye worsyp of whome is founded ye noble order of a garter: and also ye noble college in ye castell of Wyndsore, by Kynges of Englond. In whyche college is ye herte of Saynt George: whyche Sygysmond ye Emperour of Alamayn brought: and gaf it for a grete and precyous relyque to kynge Harry the fifte. And also the said Sygysmond was broder of the sayd garter. And also there is a piece of his head; which college is nobly endowed to thonour and worshippe almighty God and his blyssed Martyr Saynt George. Then late us praye vnto hym that he be specyel protectour and defendour of this royaume."

The emblems commonly given to St. George, martyr, and patron saint of England are: a dragon, a shield bearing a red cross on a white field, and a spear. He is usually represented on horseback in the act of spearing the monster which is vomiting fire; or as standing with the slain dragon at his feet.

That St. George is a veritable character is beyond all reasonable doubt, and there seems no reason to deny that he was born in Armorica, and was beheaded in Diocletian's persecution by order of Datianus, April 23, 303. St. Jerome (331-420) mentions him in one of his martyrologies; in the next century there were many churches erected to his honour. St. Gregory (540-604) has in his sacramentary a "Preface for St. George's Day"; and the Venerable Bede (672-735) in his martyrology, says: "At last St. George truly finished his martyrdom by decapitation, although the gests of his passion are numbered among the apocryphal writings."

According to the old ballad given in Bishop Percy's "Reliques of Ancient Poetry," St. George was the son of Lord Albert of Coventry. His mother died in giving him birth, and the new-born babe was stolen away by the weird lady of the woods, who brought him up to deeds of arms. His body had three marks: a dragon on the breast, a garter round one of the legs, and a blood-red cross on the arm. When he grew to manhood he first fought against the Saracens, and then went to Sylene, a city of Libya, where was a stagnant lake infested by a huge dragon, whose poisonous breath "had many a city slain," and whose hide "no spear nor sword could pierce." Every day a virgin was sacrificed to it, and at length it came to the lot of Sabra, the king's daughter, to become its victim. Decked out in bridal array she went out to meet the dragon; she was tied to the stake, and left to be devoured, when St. George appeared in full panoply and mounted on his charger. He vowed to take her cause in hand, and when the dragon came on the scene it was encountered by the hero, who wounded it, and binding it to the lady's girdle it was led like a "meek beast" into the city. St. George there attacked it, thrusting his lance into its mouth, killed it on the spot, and a church dedicated to Our Lady and St. George was built to commemorate the event. After many adventures he carried off Sabra to England, where they were wedded, and at Coventry lived happily till their death.

In his history of the Order of the Garter Mr. Antis warmly censures those who would doubt the traditionary history of that saint, and says "he who would credit St. Ambrose will not detract from the honour of our George, the soldier and martyr of Christ, concerning the dragon and the deliverance of the beautiful royal virgin, which is related in so many pictures," adding that "he shall not contradict those who make an allegory of it, so that they do not deny the certainty of this history.... Suppose every one George, who being clothed with the virtue of baptism and armour of faith, keeps his earthly body in subjection by the due exercise of religion and piety, and by the armour of the Spirit overcomes, and by the true spiritual art crushes and confounds the serpent's poison, the snares of the old Dragon, and his diabolical arts and stratagems."

The dragon slain by St. George is simply a common allegory to express the triumph of the Christian hero over evil, which St. John the Evangelist beheld under the figure of a dragon. Similarly St. Michael, St. Margaret, St. Sylvester and St. Martha are all depicted as slaying dragons; the Saviour and the Virgin as treading them under foot; and St. John the Evangelist as charming a winged dragon from a poisoned chalice given him to drink. Even John Bunyan avails himself of the same figure, when he makes Christian encounter Apollyon and prevail against him.

A learned Frenchman, M. Clermont Ganneau, in a treatise lately published, traces the legend of St. George and the dragon to a very remote antiquity. In the Louvre at Paris he found an Egyptian bas-relief, which he identified as the combat of Horus against Set, or Typhon, in the well-known Egyptian legend. It represents a man on horseback in Roman armour slaying a crocodile with a spear; but for the fact that the rider has a hawk's head, the group might easily be mistaken for the traditional combat of St. George and the dragon. Extending his investigations, M. Ganneau has brought to light some most startling proofs of the connection between the eastern and western mythologies. We have therefore, he considers, evidence as clear and convincing as evidence from deduction can be, that the Egyptian "Horus and Typhon"; the Greek "Perseus and Andromeda"; the "Bel and Dragon" of the Apocrypha; the Archangel Michael of Christian legend who also slays the old dragon, are all one and the same story with that of our own St. George. We pass over the intermediate steps by which he reconciles the divergent names and qualities of the personages identified, and also the ingenious arguments as to the real meaning of the symbolism in the worship of DAGON THE FISH-GOD.

In all the old romances dealing with feats of chivalry and knight-errantry the dragon plays an essential if not a leading part; and a romance without some dragon or monster was as rare as one without a valiant knight or a beautiful lady. But of all the malignant creatures dreaded of gods and men, the most hateful and wicked is that prime dragon personified by Spenser under the type of the "blatant beast," and which confronts his hero, the Red Cross Knight, at every turn: "a dreadful fiend, of gods and men ydrad," who has a thousand tongues, speaks things most shameful, most unrighteous, most untrue, and with his sting steeps them in poison.

As an example of the inception and development of a dragon legend from slender materials, the following is related in Figuer's "World before the Deluge":

In the city of Klagenfurth, in Carinthia, is a fountain on which is sculptured a monstrous dragon with six feet, and a head armed with a stout horn. According to popular tradition this dragon lived in a cave, whence it issued from time to time to ravage the country. A bold and venturous knight at last kills the monster, paying with his life the forfeit of his rashness. The head of the pretended dragon is preserved in the Hotel de Ville, and this head has furnished the sculptor for a model of the dragon on the fountain. A learned professor of Vienna on a visit to the city recognised it at a glance as the cranium of the fossil rhinoceros. Its discovery in some cave had probably originated the fable of the knight and the dragon--and all similar legends are capable of some such explanation when we trace them back to their sources and reason the circumstances on which they are founded. The famous bird, the roc, which played so important a part in the myths of the people of Asia, is also believed to have originated in the discovery of some gigantic bones.

Chief among DRAGON-SLAYERS of Christian legend we find the following:

_St. Philip the Apostle_ is said to have destroyed a huge dragon at Hierapolis, in Phrygia.

_St. Michael_, _St. George_, _St. Margaret_, _Pope Sylvester_, _St. Samson_, Archbishop of Dol; _Donatus_ (fourth century), _St. Clement_ of Metz, all killed dragons--if we may trust old legends.

_St. Keyne_ of Cornwall slew a dragon.

_St. Florent_ killed a terrible dragon who haunted the Loire.

_St. Cado_, _St. Maudet_ and _St. Paull_ did similar feats in Brittany.

The town of WORMS (famous as the place at which the Diet of Worms was held before which the reformer Luther was summoned) owes its name to the "Lind-wurm" or dragon there conquered by the hero Siegfried as related in the "Nibelungen Lied." (_See_ p. 100.)

Drachenfels, on the Rhine (Dragon Rocks), is so called from the same monster; and at Arles and Rouen legends are preserved of victories gained by saints over the _Tarasque_ and _Gargouille_, both local names for the dragon. St. Martha conquered the fabulous Tarasque of the city of Languedoc, which bears the name of "Tarascon." Gargouille (waterspout) was the great dragon that lived in the Seine, ravaged Rouen, and was slain by St. Romanus, Bishop of Rouen, in the seventh century. The latter name has come down to us in the term "gargoyle," applied to the monstrous heads which often decorate the waterspouts of old churches.

A strange relic of the ancient faith is perpetuated in the remains of early Celtic art in the curiously wrought interlaced monsters which form the chief ornament of ancient Irish crosses, and particularly in the borders and initials of illuminated manuscripts, whose spirals and interminable interlacements of the most complex character, often allied with equally strange colouring, form a style perfectly unique in itself, and unlike any other; the elaborate knots terminating in draconic heads, and with wings and animal extremities in wonderfully ingenious patterns that seem almost beyond the limits of human ingenuity. In the kindred art of Scandinavia we find similar decoration founded on serpentine forms.

Another survival of the dragon myth exists in the name given to some of our fighting men on the introduction of firearms. A kind of blunderbus gave to the troops who used it the name of "dragoniers," whence is derived the well-known term dragoons. They used to be armed with _dragons_--_i.e._, short muskets--which spouted fire, like the fabulous beast so named. The head of a dragon was wrought on the muzzles of these muskets. We have all heard of the Dragonades, a series of persecutions by Louis XIV., which drove many thousands of Protestants out of France--and out of the world. Their object was to root out "heresy." A bishop, with certain ecclesiastics, was sent to see if the heretics would recant; if not they were left to the tender mercies of the Dragonniers, who followed these "ministers of peace and good will to men." The same game of conversion was practised by the Reformed Church upon the Presbyterians of Scotland, with its accompaniment of "dragons let loose"--in which Claverhouse took a leading part.

"In mediæval alchemy the dragon seems to have been the emblem of Mercury; hence the dragon became one of the 'properties' of the chemist and apothecary, was painted upon his drug pots, hung up as his sign, and some dusty stuffed crocodile hanging from the ceiling in the laboratory had to do service for the monster, and inspire the vulgar with a profound awe of the mighty man who had conquered the vicious reptile."[6]

When apothecaries' signs were not derived from heraldry, they were used to typify certain chemical actions. In an old German work on alchemy one of the plates represents a dragon eating his own tail; underneath are the words which, translated, signify: "This is a great wonder and very strange; the dragon contains the greatest medicament," and much more of similar import.

The Dragon in the Royal Heraldry of Britain

"_Advance our standards, set upon our foes, Our ancient word of courage fair Saint George Inspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons._" "Richard III.," Act v. sc. 3.

"_Come not between the dragon and his wrath._" "King Lear," Act i. sc. 2.

The dragon does not seem to have been a native emblem with the Romans, and when they adopted it it was only as a sort of subordinate emblem--the eagle still holding the first place. It seems to have been in consequence of their intercourse with other nations either of Pelasgic or Teutonic race. Amongst all the new races which overran Europe at the termination of the classical period the dragon seems to have occupied nearly the same place that it held in the earlier stages of Greek life. Among the Teutonic tribes which settled in England the dragon was from the first a principal emblem, and the custom of carrying the dragon in procession with great jollity on May eve to Burford is referred to by old historians. The custom is said by Brand also to have prevailed in Germany, and was probably common in other parts of England.

Nor was the dragon peculiar to the Teutonic races. Amongst the Celts it was the symbol of sovereignty, and as such was borne on the sovereign's crest. Mr. Tennyson's "Idylls" have made us familiar with "the dragon of the great Pendragonship" blazing on Arthur's helmet as he rode forth to his last battle, and "making all the night a stream of fire." The fiery dragon or drake and the flying dragon of the air were national phenomena of which we have frequent accounts in old books.

The Irish _drag_ means "fire," and the Welsh _dreigiaw_ (silent flashes of lightning) "fiery meteors"; hence Shakespeare says:

"Swift, swift, ye dragons of the night!--that dawning May bare the raven's eye." _Cymbeline_, ii. 2.

A principal source of the Dragon legends in these countries is the Celtic use of the word "_dragon_" for "a chief." Hence Pen-dragon (_sumus rex_), a sort of dictator in times of danger. Those knights who slew a chief in battle slew a dragon, and the military title soon got confounded with the fabulous monster. The name or title _Pendragon_ (dragon's head) was among British kings and princes what Bretwalda was among the Saxons; and his authority or supremacy over the confederation was greater or less according to his valour, ability, and good fortune. Arthur succeeded his father Uther, and was raised to the pendragonship in the first quarter of the sixth century.

The dragon was a symbol among the heathen. One of the sons of Odin was thus invoked: "Child of the Dragon, Son of Conquest, arise! grasp thy silver spear; thy snowy steed prepare and haste thee to the strife of the shield! Uprise thou Dragon of Onslaught!" And again:

"Wave high the dragon's flaming sign, Roll wide the shout of glee; Ho! conquest ope thy crimson gates This day I give to thee."

"The Dragon of the Shield struck his sounding war-board with his ponderous spada. The fierce-browed children of Hilda gathered round at the signal."

Maglocue, a British king who was a great warrior and of a remarkable stature, whose exploits had rendered him terrible to his foes, as a surname was called "The Dragon of the Isle," perhaps from his seat in Anglesey.

Cuthred, King of Wessex, bore a dragon on his banner. A dragon was also the device of the British King Uther Pendragon, or Dragon's-head, father of that King Arthur of chivalric memory, who so bravely withstood the incursions of the Saxons. _Two dragons addorsed_--that is, back to back--are ascribed to Arthur, as well as several other devices.

[Illustration: Dragon Standard. From the Bayeux Tapestry.]

Dragon's Hill, Berkshire, is where the legend says St. George killed the dragon. A bare place is shown on the hill where nothing will grow, and there the blood ran out. In Saxon annals we are told that Cedric, founder of the West Saxon kingdom, slew there Naud, the pendragon, with 5000 men. This Naud is called Natan-leod, a corruption of Naud-an-ludh; Naud, the people's refuge.[7]

"It has sometimes been thought," says Miss Millington, "that the royal Saxon banner bore a dragon; certain it is, that on the Bayeux tapestry a dragon raised upon a pole is constantly represented near a figure, whilst the words 'Hic Harold' prove to be intended for Harold; yet Matthew of Westminster, in describing a battle fought in the time of Edward I., says that the place of the king was 'between the dragon and the standard,' which seems to imply that the standard or banner had some other device. The dragon was perhaps a kind of standard borne to indicate the presence of the king. Henry III. carried one at the Battle of Lewes, fought against Simon de Montfort in 1264:

"'Symoun com to the feld, And put up his banere; The king schewed forth his scheld, His dragon full austere.'

It was not, however, at that time restricted to the King, for Simon himself in the same battle

"'Displaied his banere, lift up his dragoun.'

The English at the Battle of Crecy carried a 'burning dragon, made of red silk adorned and beaten with very broad and fair lilies of gold, and broidered about with gold and vermilion.' This banner," adds Miss Millington, "perhaps resembled that used by the Parthians and Dacians, which is described by Ammianus Marcellinus as 'a dragon, formed of purple stuff, resplendent with gold and precious stones fixed on a long pike, and so contrived that when held in a certain manner, with its mouth to the wind, the entire body became inflated, and stretched its sinuous length upon the air.'"

"The dragon," says Mr. Planché, "was the customary standard of the kings of England from the time of the Conquest. It was borne in the battle between Canute and Edmund Ironside; it is figured in the Bayeux tapestry, and there are directions for making one in the reign of Henry III., but it never formed a portion of their armorial bearings, _i.e._, as a charge upon the shield of arms."

Henry VII., first of the Tudor line, assumed as one of his badges the red dragon of Cadwallader--"Red dragon dreadful." Henry claimed an uninterrupted descent from the aboriginal princes of Britain, Arthur and Uther, Caradoc, Halstan, Pendragon, &c. His grandfather, Owen Tudor, bore a dragon as his device in proof of his descent from Cadwallader, the last British prince and first King of Wales (678 A.D.), the dragon being the ensign of that monarch. At the Battle of Bosworth Field Henry bore the dragon standard. After the battle of Bosworth Field Henry went in state to St. Paul's, where he offered three standards. On one was the image of St. George, on the other a "red fierce dragon beaten upon green and white sarsenet" (the livery colours of the House of Tudor); on the third was painted a dun cow upon yellow tartan,--the dun cow, in token of his descent from Guy Earl of Warwick, who had slain

"A monstrous wyld and cruelle beaste Called ye dun cow of Dunsmore Heath."

The dun cow is still one of the badges of the Guards. This monarch founded the office of _Rouge dragon pursuivant_ on the day before his coronation (October 29, 1485). Henry VII., Henry VIII., Edward V., Mary and Elizabeth all carried the dragon as a supporter to the royal arms, but varied in position, and at times superseded by a greyhound. (A greyhound argent, collared or, the collar charged with a rose gules, was a Lancastrian badge.) Henry VIII. used for supporters the _red dragon and white greyhound_ of his family; _a red dragon_ and _a lion gardant gold_, sometimes crowned; at other times _a silver greyhound_ and _a golden lion_, _an antelope_, _a white bull_, _a cock_, &c. On the union of Scotland and England under King James, the Scottish _unicorn_ was substituted for the sinister supporter, while the _lion gardant_, first adopted by Henry VIII., appears to have permanently superseded the red dragon of Wales, the white greyhound, &c., as the other supporter of the royal arms, the dragon being relegated to be the special badge of the principality of Wales, which position it still retains. The present royal badges, as settled at the union, 1801, are:

_A white rose within a red_ ENGLAND.

_A thistle_ SCOTLAND.

_A harp or, stringed argent, and a trefoil or shamrock vert_ IRELAND.

_Upon a mount vert, a dragon passant, wings expanded and endorsed, gules_ WALES.

Richard III. as a badge had a black dragon. "_The bages that he beryth by the Earldom of Wolst{r} (Ulster) ys a blacke dragon_," derived through his mother from the De Burghs, Earls of Ulster.

Mallet, in his "Northern Antiquities," states "that the thick misshapen walls winding round a rude fortress at the summit of a rock were called by a name signifying dragon, and as women of distinction were, during the ages of chivalry, commonly placed in such castles for security, thence arose the romances of princesses of great beauty being guarded by dragons, and afterwards delivered by young heroes who could not achieve their rescue until they had overcome their terrible guardians." The common heraldic signification of a dragon is one who has successfully overcome such a fortress, or it denotes the protection afforded to the helpless by him to whom it was granted, and the terror inspired in his foes by his doughty or warlike bearing. It was a title of supreme power among the early British.

[Illustration: A Dragon passant.]

The dragon has always been an honourable bearing in British armoury, in some instances to commemorate a triumph over a mighty foe, or merely for the purpose of inspiring the enemy with terror. This seems to have been especially the case with the dragon standard--the "red dragon dreadful" of Wales (_y Ddraig Coch_) described as:

"A dragon grete and grimme Full of fyre and eke venymme."

The Crocodile as the Prototype of the Dragon

In the existing representatives of the antediluvian saurians, the crocodile and alligator, we see the prototypes of the dragons and hydras of poetic fancy. The crocodile is a well-known huge amphibious reptile, in general contour resembling a great lizard covered with large horny scales that cannot be easily pierced, except underneath, and reaching twenty-five to thirty feet in length. The crocodile was held sacred by the ancient Egyptians, the Nile was and is its best-known habitat; it is also found in the rivers of the Indian seas. Though an awkward creature upon land, it darts with rapidity through the water after fish, which is its appropriate food, but it is dangerous also to dogs and other creatures, as well as to human beings entering the water or lingering incautiously on the bank.

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

Miss Millington, in her "Heraldry in History, Poetry and Romance," says that both dragon and crocodile seem anciently to have been confounded under one name, and that Philip de Thaun, in his "Bestiarus," says that "crocodille signifie diable en ceste vie." Guillim, an old heraldic writer, says: "The dragons are naturally so hot that they cannot be cooled by drinking of waters, but still gape for the air to refresh them, as appeareth in Jeremiah xiv. 6."

Young, author of "Night Thoughts," in a footnote appended to the magnificent description of the leviathan (crocodile), in his paraphrase of part of the book of Job says: "The crocodile, say the naturalists, lying under water, and being there forced to hold its breath, when it emerges, the breath long repressed is hot, and bursts out so violently that it resembles fire and smoke. The horse suppresses not his breath by any means so long, neither is he so fierce and animated," yet the most correct of poets ventures to use the same metaphor regarding him:

"Collectumque premens volvit sub naribus ignem."

The Heraldic Dragon

The mythical dragon is represented in heraldic art with the huge body of the reptile saurian type covered with impenetrable mail of plates and scales, a row of formidable spines extending from his head to his tail, which ends in a great and deadly sting; his enormous jaws, gaping and bristling with hideous fangs, belch forth sparks and flame; his round luminous eyes seem to shoot gleaming fire; from his nose issues a dreadful spike. He is furnished with sharp-pointed ears and a forked tongue, four sturdy legs terminating in eagle's feet strongly webbed, clawing and clutching at his prey. Great leathern bat-like wings armed with sharp hook's points, complete his equipment. The wings are always "endorsed," that is, elevated and back to back.

[Illustration: Crest, a Dragon's Head erased collared and chained.]

The dragon of our modern books of heraldry is a miserable impostor, a degenerate representative of those "dragons of the prime, that tore each other in their slime." It is curious to note in this the gradual degradation from the magnificent saurian type of the best period of heraldic art to a form not far removed from that given to an ordinary four-legged creature covered with plates and scales. His legs are longer and weaker, his mighty caudal appendage, shrunk to insignificant and useless proportion, and most unlike his ancient prototype the crocodile. This error of our modern heraldic artists displays remarkable lack of proper knowledge of this mythical creature and his attributes. Such a splendid creation of the fancy should not be represented in such a weak and meaningless form by the hands of twentieth-century artists. The ancient form is infinitely to be preferred as a work of symbolic art.

[Illustration: Domine dirige nos]

ARMS OF THE CITY OF LONDON.--Two dragons are the supporters of the arms of the City of London, the crest a dragon's sinister wing. They are thus blazoned: _Argent a cross gules, in the first quarter, a sword in pale point upwards of the last. Supporters, on either side a dragon with wings elevated and addorsed, argent, and charged on the wing with a cross gules._

The crest is a _dragon's sinister wing charged with a similar cross_.

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

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

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

[Illustration: Sinister supporter of the arms of Viscount Gough.]

One of the most extraordinary and elaborate coats of arms of modern times is that of Viscount Gough. The sinister supporter of the shield is a dragon (intended to represent the device upon a Chinese flag). _A dragon or, gorged with a mural crown sable, inscribed with the word "China," and chained gold._

Examples vary considerably in the form of the dragon, some early examples represent it to have four legs, others with only two, when it is properly a wyvern. The pendent "George" in the Order of the Garter represents it with a body similar to a crocodile, winged and covered with plates and scales.

A similar device to that of the George noble of Henry VIII. was the St. George slaying the dragon by Pistrucci, a foreigner employed at the mint. This handsome reverse, says Mr. Noel Humphrey, "Coin Collector's Manual," is nearly a copy from a figure in a battle-piece on an antique gem in the Orleans collection, but several Greek coins might equally well have furnished the model. Old George III. sovereigns and five-shilling pieces have this most finely conceived and executed device on the reverse of the coins. It also appears upon some sovereigns of Queen Victoria. Prominence is naturally given to the figure of St. George, the dragon in consequence being diminished in its relative size.

The Hydra

"_Seven great heads out of his body grew, An iron breast, and back of scaly brass; And all imbrued in blood his eyes did shine as glass, His tail was stretched out in wondrous length._" SPENSER, "Faerie Queen,"