When designing the cover for Banner of the Red Dragon – book 2 of my Arthur of the Cymry trilogy – I was alarmed at how difficult it was to find any depictions of dragons in early British art. Surely dragons were a thing in ancient Britain, right? After all, the Welsh flag has a dragon on it and the very name ‘Pendragon’ comes from the Welsh ‘Pendraig’ meaning head or chief dragon (dragon being a poetic stand-in for warrior). Nevertheless, I was coming up decidedly short in my search for an authentic British or Romano-British depiction of a dragon.
The red dragon did not become a symbol of the British until the 9th century Historia Brittonum which likened the ongoing conflict between the Saxons and the Britons as a battle between two dragons; the former white and the latter red. Henry Tudor used the red dragon as his flag in 1485 as a direct reference to this tale, and it became forever associated with Wales. As for the epithet ‘Pendragon’, that was a name bestowed upon Arthur’s father Uther and Arthur himself is never referred to as Pendragon outside of modern fiction. The main reason that Pendragon couldn’t have been passed on to Arthur as a family name is that the early Welsh used patronyms – they took their father’s name as a surname and were either ‘mab’ (son of) or ‘ferch’ (daughter of). So if Arthur was the son of Uther Pendragon, he would be simply ‘Arthur mab Uther’.
The word ‘dragon’ seems to have entered the British language via the Romans who had a military standard called the ‘draco’. This may have been introduced into the Roman army by Sarmatian or Scythian cavalry units. Essentially it was a windsock attached to a metal dragon’s head which made a hissing sound when inflated by the wind.
I trawled through images of Celtic art going way back to pre-Roman times to see if there were any dragons. The only thing I found that came close was the Pictish ‘beast’. It’s a bit of a weird creature and some even think it represents a dolphin. But then, a fellow member of a Facebook group pointed me in the direction of a ‘dragon brooch’ kept in the British Museum. This was much more promising.
This dragonesque brooch is typically Romano-British and dates from the 1st or 2nd century. At last I had finally found a British image of a dragon dating to the time period directly before the Arthurian age. It’s design is a fascinating fusion of the Roman and the Celtic and perfectly symbolises Arthur himself. I only needed it as a small detail for my book cover but am pleased I was able to use something authentic that has some meaning to the story.
Banner of the Red Dragon is the second book in the Arthur of the Cymry series and tells the story of how Arthur, a young warrior, becomes ‘penteulu’ of Venedotia and wins his decisive victory over the Saxons at the Battle of Badon.
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