coins and on the front of pound notes.

The dragon is merely a fabulous animal, that is, a creature of the imagination, and the early traditions of the human race are full of the most curious stories in which a leading part is taken by dragons. Although those primitive, unlettered, and wonder-loving people of early times were unfettered and altogether unrestricted by existing facts, and gave free play to their imaginations in building up descriptions of the fabled monster, their accounts generally agreed in quite a number of the qualities that a dragon was supposed to possess.

First of all, a dragon was always of immense size and strength, and very frightful to behold - a monster, in fact. Although like the crawling serpent, of the reptile family, he always had four legs. But both his tail and his head were elongated to snake-like proportions, and he was further inclined towards the same class of animals in being covered with tough scales, in having poisonous fangs and a stinging tail, and in affecting slimy ways in desert wastes. Then, in addition, he was armed with terrible claws and had wings wherewith to pursue and overtake his enemies. Sometimes he had a barbed tail and a barbed tongue, and often he breathed out scorching, fiery breath.

Yet, though possessed of legs like a quadruped and of wings like a bird, he always remained essentially a reptile of the serpent class. An old Latin proverb said: "Unless a serpent eats a serpent it will not become a dragon." Indeed, dragons are, as Barham, one of our humorous poets, put it :

"Such great ugly things,
All legs and wings,
With nasty long tails armed with nasty stings !"

"The dragon's crest is to be feared," says another Latin proverb. It is the darting, poisonous crest, and the coiling, strangling tail of the dragon, which show his kindred to the serpent.

All reptiles appear to be so less natural than other animals that man is always disposed to regard them with dislike. In the ancient romance of chivalrous knighthood, Sir Percivale, in one of his adventures in the Quest of the Holy Grail, comes upon a lion fighting with a serpent who had stolen its cubs, and (says the old tale) "regarding the lion as the more natural beast of the two, he determined to help it. He drew his sword and slew the serpent ; whereupon the grateful lion fawned upon him, and followed him like a spaniel, couching at his feet when he lay down to sleep at night."

We can readily think of a lion becoming a tame, domesticated animal, but we cannot very easily reconcile ourselves to the notion of warming a frozen snake in one's bosom - which, indeed, the man in the fable found to be a very unwise thing to do.

The Bible has many allusions to the serpent - to its poisonous nature, its sharp tongue, and its dreadful bite ; in addition to which it is said in the Old Testament to be "subtle," and in the New to be "wise" - so subtle was it that it beguiled Man to his Fall. The prophet Isaiah speaks of a "fiery flying serpent," and in the Book of Revelation we read of "the great dragon...that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world." So we have in this text the important idea of a connecting link between the serpent and the dragon. The dragon seems to be a glorified serpent, a super-serpent, a serpent with added terrors. In fact the two creatures appear to be the same and their names interchangeable - a something, according to Scripture, to be "trampled" on, a something to be "slain" without hesitation or remorse. Also something, owing to its great cunning, to be very wary of. For Shakespeare, our sovereign poet, says "Come not between the dragon and its wrath."

If you go into an old parish church you may sometimes see an ancient tomb with the figure of the person buried beneath carved in stone or alabaster, represented in the costume of the period, often a knight in armour, or it may be a priest in his clerical robes. At the feet of this recumbent effigy some animal is nearly always represented as lying, as a lion or a dog ; but if the person commemorated is a dignitary of the church, the carving is invariably that of a dragon. This is in symbolic allusion to Psalm xci. 13 "The young lion and the dragon shalt thou tread under thy feet."

Now, why is it that by whatever name this creature is called, it is always to be attacked, and if possible to be overcome and slain ? It is simply because it is the symbol (or sign) of Evil - it may be of sin, or sometimes it may even stand for some bodily evil like plague and pestilence. But in whatever guise, or wherever placed, the dragon is generally to be taken for some evil which threatens mankind, wither in his soul or in his bodily health.

Among all eastern nations much use is made of language which is not to be taken literally, or according to the letter, but is to be interpreted in a figurative sense ; that is, a language in which one thing stands for another - for instance, in the parable of our Lord we have to interpret the "seed" to mean the Word of God, the "good ground" to mean the hearts of good men, and the "bad ground" to signify the hearts of wicked men. In the same way, in all these old tales and legends, we frequently have to accept a dragon as meaning some deadly evil, monstrous and vile, threatening to humankind, coming out of its hidden lurking-places at unexpected times, and then devouring and desolating everything before it.

Therefore it is that when any champion, more bold and daring than his fellows, has deliberately set forth and achieved some noble and mighty deed which delivered a person or a people from an affliction under which they were always suffering, or an overwhelming calamity which was always threatening to overtake them, he has been reckoned among the glorious and worshipful band of dragon-slaying heroes. And as such noble deeds have naturally won the blessing of the Church, quite a number of dragon-slayers are to be found in the ranks of the saints.

The name "dragon" is said to have come from a word meaning "to see," or "to watch," and to have been given to the monster which was not only winged and armed with enormous claws, but had set in its crested head the most fiery and watchful of eyes. In this sense, therefore, a dragon is understood to be a creature which is fiercely and spitefully watchful above all others.

In this connection many tales of old romance tell of watchful dragons being employed as the guardians of hidden treasures, or more frequently of beautiful ladies imprisoned within the walls of enchanted castles. Old feudal castles had great winding walls round them and inner walls again enclosing the central stronghold, the securest place to keep captives and the safest place for defenders. Perhaps the romancers meant to show that when the adventurous attackers had scaled such serpentine walls and at last gained access to the imprisoned ladies or the guarded treasure, they had overcome guardian dragons.

In vast countries the inundations caused by the overflow of mighty rivers have often worked enormous destruction to life and property. Because of such periodical devastation these great floods, in those lands subject to them, have been called dragons. In Roman mythology the monster serpent Python, hatched from the mud of a deluge, was slain near Delphi by Apollo - that is, by the Sun-god, who of course dries up all floods !

Perhaps, again, it was the winding course of certain rivers, peculiarly liable to flood and overflow, resembling, when viewed from a high position, the twinings and twistings of a mighty serpent coiled along the land, which first gave rise to the idea of their being regarded as devouring, devastating dragons. In Bythinia, in Asia Minor, there is a river with numerous windings which is called Draco, apparently from some connection with this notion. In Italy and in Germany are found rivers deriving similar names from the same cause ; while in Switzerland the name "drach" is given to a number of rushing mountain torrents which, suddenly breaking out, descend like avalanches on the lower country.

While in Christian legend the vile enemy overcome by the human hero generally stands for some overwhelming danger to man, either spiritual or material, in pagan mythology the idea presented in emblematical of the victory of spring over winter, of light over darkness, or of the ultimate prevalence of some other beneficent physical phenomenon.

The introduction of the device of St. George and the Dragon on the English coinage after the victory of Waterloo was intended to symbolise the overthrow of French militarism.

In the Vedas, or sacred books of the Hindus, mention is made  of the dragon Ahi, understood to be "the throttling snake of darkness" ; and of Sesha, the wicked serpent whose baleful influence leads to storms and the strife of the elements in thunder, lightning, and tempest, from which ultimately the fructification of the land is effected - they "churn the ocean to produce the drink of the gods," which, of course, is the fertilising rain. Other monsters influence the midsummer sun, which parches the soil and burns up the vegetation. To some association with the latter may possibly be traced the origin of the old English custom of celebrating Midsummer Eve with bonfires.

Many dragon superstitions had their origin in ancient systems of astronomy. By the ancient Greeks the solstices were called "the head and tail of the dragon" ; similarly the Hindus identified the nodes of the moon as "the head and tail of the dragon" - the beginning and end of astronomical periods.

When an eclipse is visible in the far east, the Chinese, the natives of Sumatra, and others set about making a great noise with sounding instruments, purposing by this horrible din to frighten away the dragon - otherwise to prevent one luminary from devouring the other.

Not a few dragon-legends pretend to account for certain striking physical features of the locality in which they have originated. The more ancient myths of the east seek to explain meteorological phenomena by attributing them to dragon influences ; thus, the lightnings are flying fiery serpents, the equinoctial gales and the menacing spring tides are caused by the awakening of some potent cave-dragon, and so on.

The old alchemists, too, had their system of dragon-lore. The most powerful of medicaments were yielded by dragons. One deadly dragon that lived within the deepest gloom of the forest, and which no basilisk could equal, had "no want of poison ; when he saw the sun, or fire, he spat out venom while flying, of which no living creature could be cured. From his poison physic is produced, which he entirely consumes, and eats his own venomous tail. This must be accomplished by him in order to produce the noblest balm." A possible interpretation is the conversion, in the operations of nature, of excessive heat into fertility. "Heat is life."

The serpent has long been used as the emblem of life and healing. Did not Moses lift up the figure of a brazen serpent in the wilderness, to heal the stricken Israelites ?

Concerning the dietary of dragons we know from the detailed incidents of a number of legends that their favourite food would appear to be the flesh of young, beautiful, and innocent virgins, As to their favourite beverage we have but one authority - that of the old Elizabethan writer Edward Topsall, who in one of those quaint works known as a "Bestiary," which purports to describe "the true and lively figure of every four-footed beast that walketh upon the earth," it is mentioned, under the zoology of the elephant, that this great pachyderm possesses the coldest blood in the world, "and that dragons in the scorching heate of summer cannot get anything to cool them except this blood."