XIII 

 THE DRAGON: A FANCY OR A FACT 



I AM about to write of loathly dragons, " gorgons 

 and hydras and chimaeras dire." Every one knows 

 what a dragon looks like, though probably most people 

 could not give a minute description of the beast. A 

 number of quite distinct creatures, some living on land, 

 some in sea, are spoken of in the Bible by a word which 

 is translated as " dragon." The ancient Welsh chieftains, 

 like many fighting princes of old days, bore a " dragon " 

 on their banners, and were themselves called " dragons " 

 (Pen-dragon), and when a knight slew such a chieftain 

 fabulous stories grew up as to his combat with and 

 slaughter of a " dragon." 



The complete, legitimate dragon of the present day 

 is the dragon of heraldry, which is maintained in proper 

 form and with authorised attributes by the Heralds' 

 College. I have a drawing of this " official " beast before 

 me (Fig. 16). He is represented as of large size, but 

 whether theoretically the heralds of to-day consider him 

 to be as large as a lion or ten times as long and tall I do 

 not know. His body is lizard-like, and covered with 

 scales resembling those of some lizards (unlike a crocodile 

 in this respect). His head is not unlike that of a croco- 

 dile, excepting that he has a short, sharp horn on his 

 nose, and a beard on his chin, and also a pair of large 



