Journal of Geomancy vol. 4 no. 1, October 1979

{16}

THE DRAGON AS CROCODILE

Michael Behrend

Strange animals have often appeared, and continue to appear, in Britain,as readers of Charles Fort and the Fortean Times will know.  Among them are the four young crocodiles which, as Fort records, were found at various times in the last century at Over Norton in Oxfordshire (1).  Reading his account, I wondered whether crocodiles had appeared in earlier times, giving rise to some of the dragon legends which occur all over the country.  I soon found that this was not a new theory, having been advanced for example by the 19th century antiquary Col. Hamilton Smith (2), and that there was some interesting evidence to support it. 

Let us begin with further details of the cases mentioned by Fort.  George R. Wright, FSA, wrote in 1866 (3) that while visiting his tenant William Phillips, a farmer at Over Norton, he noticed a young crocodile 12 or 13 inches long, preserved in a glass case.  Phillips explained that one morning in 1856 or 1857 he saw in the farmyard what he thought was a lizard, lately killed, with its bowels protruding from a wound in its belly.  Some labourers said they had killed it the day before, as it ran out from a stack of wood.  They added that such creatures were often seen at the ‘Tinny Pool’, in and out of the water, and even climbing trees; but they couldn’t produce another specimen despite a one-guinea reward.  Phillips had sent the animal to the British Museum, who identified it as a crocodile and suggested that it had very likely been dropped in a rain shower (sic) or had perhaps escaped from a travelling menagerie.  Wright himself then took the animal back to London, where it was identified as a crocodile by three authorities, including the well-known Professor Richard Owen.  Owen however refused to believe that it had been found alive in England: it must have been a preserved specimen, left by the labourers as a trick.  Wright was not inclined to believe this – though Phillips’s employees were obviously not above trying to pull his leg – and concluded: “I cannot help being of the opinion that more will come out of this interesting subject than at present is or can be known.”

Wright’s article in The Gentleman’s Magazine brought in several letters.  One correspondent (4) pointed out that farm workers could hardly get hold of a crocodile, dead or alive, and suggested that an egg had tumbled out from a menagerie and later hatched.  But C. Parr (5) vouched for the truth of the following facts.  A woman formerly living at Chipping Norton (a town 1 mile south of Over Norton) was crossing a field above the Common, in company with some friends, when they were pursued by a crocodile about 1 foot long that emerged from a pond.  The crocodile chased them across a field until one of the lads crushed its head with a large stone.  This had happened about 30 years before, i.e. about 1836; and crossing near the same place some years later the woman saw a smaller animal of the same species.  J.H. Belfrage (6) wrote that in the Welsh Harp Hotel, Edgware Road, London, {17} there was preserved in a glass case a young alligator, which had been brought over from America and lived for six months, before being killed by a blow from the butt of an angler’s rod.  Therefore, despite the “high authority of Professor Owen”, there was no difficulty in believing that a crocodile could survive in England. 

Fort also refers to an account of a fourth young crocodile at Over Norton, in The Field, 23 August 1862.  I haven’t seen this, but here’s one that Fort doesn’t mention.  In 1867 J.H. Belfrage (7) wrote in again: that according to a friend of his, some labourers had found a young crocodile in a drain at Great Heywood, Staffs., about 40 years before.  From its squealing they thought at first it was a dog, but when it poked its head out they all ran off.  Later the reptile suffered the usual fate,one of the men killing it with his pickaxe.  The body, about 3 feet long, was stuffed and handed over to Lord Talbot of Ingenstre Hall.  Since the drain communicated with the Trent, a navigable river, Belfrage’s friend thought the crocodile might have stowed away on some homeward-bound vessel and made its way upstream. 

One recent example: during the heatwave of 1975, a yachtsman, Maurice Scott, reported seeing a basking crocodile on the banks of the (Kentish) River Stour at Sandwich (8). 

These modern English crocodiles may not be the stuff of legend, but more fearsome specimens are, or were, preserved in various towns on the Continent.  A visitor to Brunn (now Brno, Czechoslovakia) in 1849 saw the body of an alleged lindwurm, or dragon, preserved “from a very remote period” and hanging in an arched passage leading to the town hall.  According to tradition this monster used to eat children and cattle and was invulnerable except at certain spots.  It was finally killed by a knight who placed a calf’s skin stuffed with quicklime at the entrance to the dragon’s cave.  After swallowing the bait the dragon became so thirsty that he was forced to drink until the effect of the water on the quicklime made him burst.  Describing this dragon in Notes and Queries (9) the author said he had been unable to examine the creature closely, but affirmed “it is undoubtedly of the crocodile or alligator species”.  He invited other correspondents to give further evidence of “the former existence of dragons under the shape of crocodiles”. 

Someone called “N.” (10) obliged with the following extract from Murray’s Northern Italy (11).  In the church at Santa Maria delle Grazie, near Mantua, is suspended a stuffed animal like a huge lizard, 6 or 7 feet long, which appeared in the waters of the neighbourhood some time after the foundation of the church (1406).  This reptile attacked two brothers, one of whom it killed, but the other slew the monster and presented its carcass to the Virgin.  “These stories (says Murray) are very common, and have led to the supposition that scattered individuals of a now extinct saurian family existed in Europe till a comparatively late period, and that, like the beaver in N. Wales, they have been extirpated by the extension of population.” To which N. adds that 8 or 10 years before he, or she, saw an animal of the same kind and size hanging from the roof of the cathedral at Abbeville in Picardy.  N. also suggests that crocodiles were brought back by crusaders as specimens of dragons – an explanation which, as mentioned below, is traditionally given for the dragon of Wormingford.  There is at least one well-authenticated battle between a knight and a crocodile.  The historian Vertot (12) tells that in 1342 the Knights of Rhodes were forbidden by their Grand Master to offer to fight a huge crocodile that lived on the island.  The monster, which had its lair in a cavern by the edge of a marsh, had already killed several knights.  Nevertheless, Dieudonné de Gozon set out against it with two bulldogs, which he had trained by means of a wooden model to attack the crocodile’s soft belly.  He was nearly killed, but thanks to his faithful dogs, he was finally able to rid the island of the beast.  W. Pinkerton (13) mentions the story and adds that the head of the ‘dragon’ was carefully preserved, even after the capture of Rhodes by the Turks in 1623.  He infers from a description by a 17th century traveller (14) that the head belonged to a hippopotamus, but other writers state that a mural painting (2) and carved screens (15) in churches on the island show an unmistakeable crocodile.  Incidentally, Sir John Lambton, slayer of the famous Lambton Worm, is also said to have been a Knight of Rhodes (16). 

A writer in 1898 (15) stated that the skin of the dragon slain by St Bertrand (fl. 1120) was preserved in the cathedral at St Bertrand de Comminges in Haute {18} Garonne, and really belonged to a small crocodile.  He also thought that the dragon, i.e. crocodile, which hung over the city gates at Amboise until the walls were pulled down in the early 19th century, was the same as the one killed by Dieudonné de Gozon.  This seems unlikely if the dragon’s head was kept on Rhodes – unless the Turks were fobbed off with a hippo’s head after all.  At Mons in Belgium a local knight is said to have freed the land from a dragon, whose head was still preserved in the last century and was really the skull of a crocodile (17).  And a contributor to Chambers’s Book of Days (18) mentions that “in churches at Marseilles, Lyons, Ragusa, and Cimiers, skins of stuffed alligators are exhibited as the remains of dragons”; unfortunately the author doesn’t say whether all these animals are supposed to have been killed in Europe. 

Returning now to British legends, there is at any rate one parallel to these Continental stories (19).  At Sexhow, a hamlet of Rudby parish in the North Riding, a dragon lived on a round knoll.  It required the milk of 9 cows every day, and if not fed it would alarm the whole neighbourhood with its hissing.  As in many of, these stories (20), the dragon’s breath was said to be poisonous.  Finally a strange knight appeared, killed the dragon, and went his way.  The villagers hung the skin over the Sexhow pew in the local church; but it has long since vanished, so unless a description of it turns up one can’t tell whether it belonged to a real animal, or, as surmised by John Michell (21), some kind of ceremonial costume. 

Since the Chipping Norton area seems to be an appearing-point for crocodiles, it is interesting that the town also has a dragon legend.  However, from our point of view the account is not altogether satisfactory: that in 1354 there was found near the town “a serpent having two heads, and two faces like women, one Face attired after the new fashion of women’s attire, the other face like the old attire, and had wings like a bat” (22).  Better evidence comes from issue 8 of Picwinnard.  Vince Russsett, reporting on the Quantock dragons, illustrates his article with a carving, dated about 1500, on the Rood Screen of Norton Fitzwarren church in Somerset.  It shows a ‘dragon’ which ravaged the Norton neighbourhood, killing cattle, and as it grew bigger, even people, till it was killed by one of the Fitzwarren family.  Like the carved dragons in the churches of Rhodes, this animal is clearly a crocodile. 

The Essex village of Wormingford, on the River Stour, is said to take its name from a worm, i.e. a dragon, that appeared there about 1400 and killed travellers at the ford.  A local author, Winifred Beaumont, records two versions of the story (23).  One says that a “great scaly monster” arose from the depths of the mere, and was killed by Sir Bertram de Haye, who felled a tree on top of its head.  But the other version says specifically that the beast was a “crocadil” that had been presented to Richard I by Saladin and had escaped from the menagerie at the Tower of London.  This can’t be true as it stands, for Richard I died in 1199, but the menagerie (started in 1235 with three leopards and a polar bear) might have lost a crocodile at some later date.  The second version also brings in a mythical element, that the dragon had to be appeased by the gift of young virgins, and says that it was killed with a lance by Sir George Marney.  No doubt this Wormingford dragon is identical with the one that appeared in 1405 at Bures, a couple of miles upstream.  A chronicler (24) described it as “vast in body with a crested head, teeth like a saw, and tail extending to an enormous length”, and stated that it had devoured many sheep.  When the dragon was attacked by archers “the arrows bounced off its back as if it were iron or hard rock”.  The whole countryside then banded against it, but “it fled into a marsh or mere and was not seen again.  Ms Beaumont concludes: “This reads like a factual report made from eyewitness accounts…The men described a crocodile, although they did not know such a beast existed.” The same applies to the dragon of Ludham in Norfolk (25).  It emerged from its burrow every night, although the villagers tried to block the entrance with bricks and stones.  Then one day it came out in broad daylight to bask in the afternoon sun, whereupon a courageous man stopped the hole with a single large stone.  When the dragon found its retreat blocked it made off across the fields, lashing its tail in fury and bellowing loudly, and disappeared into the ruins of St Bene’t’s Abbey.  Let us note {19} here that crocodiles can produce a loud bellow, and, when threatened, a deep hissing sound.  Being cold-blooded animals they are also.  fond of warming themselves in the sun. 

It seems that in general, the older a dragon story, the more it becomes mythologized.  The famous Linton Worm from Roxburghshire is an example.  The Barony of Linton is said to have been conferred on Sir John Somerville in 1174 as a reward for killing the worm.  In popular tradition this dragon was able to coil itself around a local hill called Wormington, and its dying convulsions gouged the hill into the present spiral shape.  This legend has led to speculations that the worm represents some kind of fertility spirit or earth current (20,21).  But the papers of the Somerville family in 1680 gave a more prosaic description: “in length three Scots yards, and somewhat bigger than an ordinary man’s leg, with a head more proportionable to its length than greatness, in form and colour like our common muir-edders” (16).  This sounds as if the worm was a real animal, probably some kind of reptile. 

An article on the Crocodile Theory must include the serpent of St Leonard’s Forest, although this animal has had an airing several times recently.  The forest, in Sussex, is said to be named after a French hermit who lived there in the sixth century.  The saint fought several battles with a dragon, and finally killed it.  Most modern accounts say that the wild lilies of the Forest sprang from the blood of the saint, but originally it was probably the dragon’s blood (26).  In August 1614 another dragon appeared in the forest near Horsham, and was described in detail in a contemporary pamphlet (27).  It was “reputed to be nine feet, or rather more, in length; and shaped almost in the form of an axle tree of a cart, a quantity of thickness about the midst, and somewhat smaller at both ends.  The former part, which he shoots forth as a neck, is supposed to be an ell long, with a white ring, as it were, of scales about it.  The scales along his back seem to be blackish, and so much as is discovered under his belly appeareth to be red.  … It is likewise discovered to have large feet.  … He is of countenance very proud, and at the sight or hearing of men or cattle, will raise his neck upright, and seem to listen and look about with great arrogancy.” It had killed two people, but appeared to live mainly on rabbits.  The serpent had poisonous breath and would “cast his venom about four rod from him”; also, “there is always in his track or path left a glutinous and slimy matter … which is very corrupt and offensive to the scent”.  A modern writer on crocodiles (28) records that in the mating season, and also when frightened or angry, the animals discharge a musk-like substance from glands in the throat and rectum.  This “frightful secretion”, with its persistent stench, is laid down as a trail to attract a mate, and can also be breathed out in the form of a spray or smoke.  Hence, I suggest, the alleged poisonous breath of so many “dragons”, and the foul-smelling trail of the Horsham serpent.  One unusual feature of the latter was “two great bunches as big as a large football” on each side, which it was feared might grow into wings.  It’s hard to say what these could have been, unless they were somebody’s misinterpretation of the creature’s legs. 

This was not the last dragon to be seen in the district, for a local antiquary noted in 1861 that “the belief in monstrous serpents lurking among the woods of the Weald of Sussex was not quite extinct in my boyhood” (29).  In 1863 a “monster serpent” 8 feet long was reported at Warningcamp (30).  This hamlet is only 2 miles from Lyminster, where a well known legend tells of a dragon that lived in a deep pool called the Knucker Hole.  About the same time the villagers of Fittleworth, 8 miles north of Warningcamp, reported that a serpent had made its lair near a by-path, which it would permit no-one to traverse.  A Mrs Latham (who didn’t believe these rustic superstitions) wrote facetiously that it would rush out at the “luckless wight” and drive him back with a terrible hissing and a very bad smell (31).  This again is consistent with a crocodile; but as far as I can discover, nobody bothered to investigate these reports seriously. 

Another 17th century pamphlet (22) tells of a creature very similar to the Horsham one, that appeared in the 1660s at Henham, near Saffron Walden in Essex.  Although the London publishers entitled it “the Flying Serpent”, and supplied an extravagant picture, the text gives a straightforward account, signed by seven witnesses, of a large unknown animal.  {20} The serpent was first seen at the end of May (year not stated) when it terrified a man on horseback.  Not long after, two men on foot saw it basking on a hillock.  They described it as “8 or 9 foot long, the smallest part of him about the thickness of a man’s leg, or the middle as big as a man’s thigh, his eyes very large and piercing, about the bigness of a sheep’s eye, in his mouth he had two row of teeth which appeared to their sight very white and sharp.” When he saw the men, “raising himself upon his breast about the height of two foot, he stood looking on them as daring them to the encounter” – but they kept their distance.  Although this serpent is said to have had wings, they were “altogether too weak to carry such an unwieldy body”, having a span of two feet at the utmost.  It seems acceptable that this animal was really a crocodile and that the “wings” were its forelegs with their webbed feet.  The local people tried several times to kill it, but it hid away in the undergrowth where guns were useless, and none dared go near it with clubs.  However, this specimen did no harm that was known of. 

The editor of the 1885 reprint professes amazement that “our ancestors, only two centuries ago, were capable of such ignorant credulity.” He thinks that what they saw was really a large bird, maybe a diver.  (Somebody else had “explained” the Horsham animal as an oddly-shaped log.) The same pamphlet also repeats a story that in former times a cockatrice had infested the neighbourhood of Saffron Walden.  It was killed by a knight wearing a coat of crystal glass, for “her venomous Nature not able to indure the purity of that fine mettle, she suddenly dyed”.  This legend may be a mythologized account of an earlier appearance of a crocodile in the same district. 

Finally, I realize that there is no positive proof that all the dragons I have mentioned were really crocodiles.  Previous writers have suggested, for instance, that the serpents of Horsham and Henham were in fact large snakes, and the theory cannot be ruled out.  Nor am I denying the importance of the dragon as a symbol of fertility, whose image was carried in procession in Spring festivals and during the blessing of the crops at Rogationtide.  However, the possibility that some dragon legends owe their origin to an encounter with a real animal is one that future researchers might like to keep in mind. 

References