Dr. Wilson on Linton and its Legends. 35 



more dreadful and mysterious shapes. That which of all other 

 creatures appeared the most fruitful of evil, began at last to be 

 adopted as the symbol of evil, and it became then an easy trans- 

 ition to consider it as only another name for the principle of 

 evil itself. Dragons were seen in the air, as the portents of re- 

 markable calamities. "Anno Dccxcrii,'' says the Chronica de 

 Mailros, " visi sunt in acre flammei dracones, quod signum du« 

 pestes subsecutac sunt, prius intolerabilis fames, deinde sevicia 

 gentis paganorum et Norwagensium, qui eodem anno Lindis- 

 farnense Monasterium destruentes, monachos occiderunt, et 

 Northumbriam miserabile strage pereusserunt*." With the 

 ruthless northern spoilers the dragon was given as a name to their 

 ships, and it appeared on their helmets, their standards, and 

 their shields. In the romance of Merlin, as in an episode of the 

 history of Nennius, the red and white dragon are used as em- 

 blematical of a good and bad cause ; the white representing the 

 aggressor. The principle of evil being thus symbolized, the dragon 

 and Satan next stood to each other as interchangeable terms. 

 Another transition was to elevate the principle of evil into the 

 god of evil, a form of superstition which had a wider range than 

 the heresy of the Manichseans, or the faith of the more ancient 

 Magi ; and the dragon became now actually an object of adora- 

 tion, of which instances may be easily gathered from among the 

 pagan practices of the northern tribes f. Thus, as the dragon 

 had become the symbol of social evil with the imaginative hea- 

 then, it became the symbol of religious error with the early 

 Christian, scarcely less prone than the other to personify an 

 abstract principle. Hence to crush heathenism, or to subdue 

 heresy, was to destroy the dragon J. The legend of St. George 

 of Cappadocia is thus merely a Christian myth, admitting this 

 explanation ; and it will be observed, that, through all the va- 

 riations of the legend among different nations, one uniform result 

 of the victory, or rather condition of the contest, was the con- 

 vei-sion of the people whom the saintly knight delivered from 

 the monster. There is a beautiful tradition, connected with the 

 Drachenfels on the Rhine, which informs us that in ancient 

 times a dragon lay there, which received the worship of the in- 

 habitants of the district, and was propitiated by human sacrifices. 

 A young and noble Christian maiden, of singular beauty, and 

 who had been taken captive, was devoted as a victim, llobed 

 in white, and with a wreath of flowers in her hair, she was led 

 up the steep mountain, and bound to a tree near the dragon's 

 den, beside which was a large stone that served as an altar. 



♦ Chronica de Mailros, a.d. 793. 

 t Grimm's Deutsche Mythologie, p. 40. 

 \ Ducange, Glossarium Med. et Infim. Latin. ▼. Draco. 



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