The red book of animal stories/Dragons

by H. S. C. Everard

DRAGONS

Nearly a thousand years ago there lived a historian who set down in his book not only accounts of real battles and sieges, but also a strange medley of other facts besides. Of course he thought all he wrote was true, for history, as the dictionary tells us, is ‘an account of facts and events,’ and the business of the historian is to write about them. The stories in this old book about magic, spells, dragons, and monsters may, perhaps, make us smile nowadays, when we are taught that fairy rings are not caused, as we should like to suppose, by the good people, but by ‘an agaric or fungus below the surface which has seeded in a circular range.’ But it must be remembered that to the men of old time all these matters were very real. Our historian, in common with many wise men who lived hundreds of years after him, believed without doubt that the world was full of strange creatures which lived in pathless woods, in rivers, on mountains, or in the sea. One of his tales is the description of a voyage by King Gorm Haraldson, under the guidance of Thorkill the Icelander, in quest of treasure supposed to be guarded by Giant Garfred, who lived in a ‘land where no light was, and where darkness reigned eternally.’ ‘The whole way was beset with perils, and hardly passable by mortal man;’ nevertheless, three hundred men declared their willingness to follow the King and make the attempt. After many adventures the wind took them to Utter Permland, a region of eternal cold and deep snows, full of pathless forests, haunted by dreadful beasts. King Gorm and his followers were met by a huge man named Gudmund, the brother of Giant Garfred, who gave himself out to be the guardian—the most faithful guardian—of all men who landed in that spot. In reality he was a treacherous scoundrel, but at the outset he invited them to be his guests, and ‘took them up in carriages.’ ‘As they went forward they saw a river which could be crossed by a bridge of gold. They wished to go over it, but Gudmund restrained them, telling them that, by this channel, Nature had divided the world of men from the world of monsters, and that no mortal track might go further.’ Well, here we take leave of King Gorm and Gudmund, and we will cross in imagination that golden bridge into monster-land, though they did not, nor does our historian, give any particular description of the monsters which lived there; but, from other ancient writers, we can get a pretty fair idea of what he would have been likely to say about them if it had suited his purpose. He would certainly have included a stray dragon or two; indeed, elsewhere, he does actually give us two dragon-slaying stories, the first of which concerns King Fridleif, who was wrecked on an unknown island.

He fell asleep, and dreamt that a man appeared before him, and ordered him to dig up a buried treasure, and to attack the dragon that guarded it. To withstand the poison of the creature, he was told to cover himself and his shield with an ox-hide. When he awoke he saw the dragon coming out of the sea, but its scales were so hard that the spears thrown by Fridleif had no effect, and the only thing that happened was the uprooting of several trees by the monster, which wound its tail round them in a fit of temper. However, the King observed that by constantly going down to the sea the dragon had worn a path, hollowing the ground down to the solid rock to such an extent that a bank rose sheer on each hand; so Fridleif seems to have lain in ambush, as it were, in this hollow channel, and to have attacked the creature from beneath, where its armour was less proof against assault; in this way he slew it, unearthed the money, and had it taken off in his ships.

The second story concerns another King, called Ragnar Lodbrog, which means Ragnar ‘Shaggy-Breeches.’ This is how he came to be known by his nickname, which was bestowed upon him by Herodd, King of the Swedes: Ragnar was in love with Thora, Herodd’s daughter, who had received from her father two snakes to rear as pets. They had given to them daily a whole ox upon which to gorge themselves, so they ate and ate, and grew and grew, until at length they became a public nuisance, so huge were they, and so venomous withal that they poisoned the whole country-side with their breath. The Swedish King repented his unlucky gift, and proclaimed that whosoever should remove the pests should marry his daughter. Many tried and perished; but Ragnar was now to prove himself the hero. He asked his nurse for a woollen mantle, and for some thigh-guards that were very hairy; he also put on a dress stuffed with hair, not too cumbersome, but one in which he could easily move about. He took a sword and spear, and, thus accoutred, fared forth to Sweden. When he arrived, he plunged into some water, clothes and all, and allowed the frost to fashion for him, as it were, a coat of mail, impervious to the venom of the snakes. Leaving his companions, be went on to the palace alone; then the combat began. An enormous snake met him, and another, as big, crawled up to help its companion; they belaboured Ragnar with their tails, and spat venom at him from poisonous jaws. Meantime, the King and his courtiers ‘betook themselves to safer hiding, watching the struggle from afar, like affrighted little girls.’ Ragnar, however, persevered, his frozen dress protecting him from the poison, and with his shield he repelled the attacks of the snakes’ teeth; at last, though hard pressed, he thrust his spear through the creatures’ hearts, and his battle ended in victory. A great banquet was held in the palace; Ragnar received at once his bride and his nickname of ‘Shaggy-Breeches,’ as we have seen. He did many other brave deeds, and was a successful rover; but was cruelly put to death by an English King called Ella, who threw him into a pit full of snakes. Ragnar’s device of freezing himself into a suit of ice

RAGNAR DOES BATTLE WITH THE SERPENTS

armour recalls to us a similar plan adopted by a race of monsters universally believed to have lived in Africa; nearly all the old writers of marvels allude to them, under the name of ‘Cynocephali,’ which means ‘dog-headed,’ that is to say, their bodies were those of men and women, but their heads were the heads of dogs. They lived upon goat’s milk; but although that seems to mean that they dwelt quietly amongst flocks and herds, they seem nevertheless to have been fond of a fight whenever there was the least chance of war with neighbouring tribes. To prepare for battle, like Ragnar, they jumped into water, and then rolled themselves in the dust until their bodies were covered with it; then they allowed the sun, which, of course, is always very powerful in Africa, to bake it into a sort of cake or mud-pie crust, which formed the first layer of defensive armour; when that was sufficiently dry and hard they repeated the process, not once or twice only, but again and again, until they thought their coat of mail, if we may so call it, strong enough to be proof against the arrows of the enemy.

A very worthy writer, who lived about 1600, has told us that he quite believes in the reality of winged dragons. After giving us some wonderful stories about them, he remarks that ‘from these and similar tales we can easily see that what we find in other authors about winged dragons is all true.’

Switzerland, especially that part of it round about the Lake of Lucerne, was famous for these creatures. There is opposite to the town of Lucerne a mountain, called Pilatus, from the tradition that Pontius Pilate, when banished by the Roman Emperor Tiberius, wandered there, and threw himself into a black lake at the summit. His ghost is supposed to haunt the place; once a year it appears, clothed in robes of office, and whoever is unlucky enough to see it, will die before the year is out. Mount Pilatus often has on a cap of clouds, and it is said that the weather will be fine, or the reverse, according as Pilatus has his cap off or on. We may well imagine it, therefore, to be a wild, eerie sort of place, in every way suitable for dragons to take up their abode. Our old author then tells us that a peasant one morning was mowing hay; he looked up, and at that moment there issued from Pilatus a huge dragon, which flew across the lake to a mountain on the other side. In its flight there dropped from it something which the peasant could not clearly distinguish, for he was too frightened to observe accurately, and indeed was nearly fainting; but when he recovered, he found in a meadow a mass of what appeared to be solid blood. Enclosed in this was a stone of many colours; this stone turned out to be of priceless value, for it was a certain cure for every disease under the sun; and more especially for such as were caused by poison or bad air of any kind; it was still in Lucerne at the time the author wrote.

Another man of that city, called Victor, saw a still stranger thing on Mount Pilatus. He was a cooper by trade, and one day, when out looking for wood wherewith to make his casks, he lost his way in the recesses of these Alpine rocks and forests. All day long he wandered about, until, at twilight, as he was just about to lie down and rest, he fell into a deep chasm which, owing to the failing light, he had not noticed. Fortunately he fell into some soft mud at the bottom, but though he broke no bones, he fainted. When he recovered, and began to look round, he discovered that there were absolutely no means of escape. The hole was as deep as a well, with steep sides which could not be scaled. Stretching along the whole length of this cavern, and on either side, were other tunnel-like openings, a succession of smaller caves; into one of which he was about to enter when, lo! two dragons came forth from it, and he supposed that his last hour was at hand. The creatures, however, offered him no violence; they were inquisitive, it is true, wondering, no doubt, what sort of new companion this was, who had found his way into their dwelling; but all they did was to rub themselves against the man’s body, caressing him, as it were, with their long necks and with their tails, just like a purring cat. For six months Victor lived in this underground cavern. ‘But what did he live on?’ you may ask, with Alice, when the Dormouse told his story of Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie in the well. These three sisters, you may remember, lived upon treacle, which was sweet, if unwholesome; but the Lucerne man’s diet was even less satisfying, being only the moisture which trickled from the surface of the rock. Learned men have certainly proved that it is possible to keep oneself alive for many weeks without food, if a sufficient supply of water be taken; but I do not remember to have met with any other case where any one lived for six months upon such provender. When spring came round the dragons thought it time to leave their abode; unfolding its wings, the first one flew up, and the second was preparing to follow, when Victor, seizing at once his opportunity and the tail of the dragon, was carried by the creature into the upper world. He found his way back to Lucerne; but a return to his ordinary food, of which he had been for so long deprived, brought on an illness, and in two months he died. His adventures were embroidered upon an ecclesiastical vestment, which used to be shown in the church of St. Leodegarus to any sight-seers who might wish to see it.

Near the church of St. Stephen in the city of Rhodes there was a vast rock, and a cavern in it from which issued a stream of water.^[1] In this subterranean cave there lived, in the year 1345, a terrible dragon, which devastated the whole island; not only did it devour sheep, cattle, men, anything living, upon which it could seize, but its breathing was so pestilential that the very atmosphere was poisoned by it. Nobody could venture to go near the part of the coast where it dwelt; in fact the Grand Master of the Knights strictly forbade anybody belonging to the Order to attempt it, under this severe penalty: First, he was to suffer the disgrace of

VICTOR CARRIED UP THE CHASM BY THE DRAGON

being deprived of the marks and dress of the Order; and, secondly, his very life was to be forfeited. Nevertheless there was a young Gascon Knight, of noble birth and great courage, who was not to be deterred from his project by this edict; on the contrary, he thought an opportunity presented itself of winning much honour and renown. His name was Deodatus de Gozon. He kept his own counsel, telling nobody in the city of his plan, but he went to the Grand Master and begged leave of absence on the pretext of business at home. Having got leave he went into the country to carry out his design; but he was careful, before starting, to observe the dragon as closely as possible, so as to remember every point in its horrid carcass. What he saw is thus described: It had a body as thick as that of a carthorse; its long and prickly neck ended in a serpent’s head, which was provided with long ears like those of a mule; its mouth gaped widely open, and was furnished with the sharpest of teeth; its enormous eyes shone so brightly that they seemed to emit flames of fire; and its feet (of which it had four) were armed, like bears’ feet, with sharp claws. In its tail and other parts of its body it resembled a crocodile, wearing an armour of the hardest scales cunningly disposed; from its sides issued two gristly wings, in colour not unlike a dolphin’s gills—the upper surface blue, the lower a sort of reddish yellow, this last being the general hue of its entire body. Swifter than a horse, when it moved abroad in search of food, it did so partly by flying, partly by running; its scales, too, made such a clattering, as of crockery, and its hissing was so terrifying that people at a great distance were almost frightened to death.

De Gozon, accordingly, having looked carefully at the monster, as we said, withdrew into the country, where he set to work and contrived a creature exactly like the dragon in every respect; he made it of paper and stuffed it with tow; then he bought a well-trained charger, and a couple of English dogs—bull-dogs, in all probability. He now taught his servants how to make the tow dragon imitate the movements of the real dragon; that is to say, they snapped its jaws, and made it lash its tail about and flap its wings; all this they did by means of ropes. Next he mounted his horse and brought his dogs into action, setting them at the sham dragon, and exciting them with cries, until their rage knew no bounds; hardly did they set eyes upon it, when they flew at it to tear it in pieces. These exercises went on for the space of two months, at the end of which De Gozon, considering his men and dogs sufficiently well drilled, returned to the city. Arrived there be lost no time in carrying out his project; arming himself with breastplate, lance and sword, he went to the church of St. Stephen, which was near the monster’s den, and prayed, devout knight as he was, that his enterprise might be crowned with success. He then gave particular instructions to his servants as to what they were to do: they were to watch the battle from a lofty rock, and if the creature won, they were to escape as best they could; but if he slew the dragon, they were to hasten to his aid, for it was only too likely that even victory would cost him dear, and that he would stand sadly in need of such remedies as they could bring.

All was now ready; so the Knight, entering the cave, began to screech and yell lustily in order to wake up the dragon and annoy it; then, rushing out himself, he mounted his charger, and awaited the attack on a piece of level ground. He did not have long to wait; scarcely was he mounted when the sound of the well-known hissing was heard, and the clattering of the huge plate-like scales warned him that the monster was after him in full cry—and, indeed, as it came at him, partly running, partly flying, the creature itself thought it saw in the bold Knight an opportunity not lightly to be missed; for all was grist that came to its mill—flocks, herds, horses, and men, as we have already seen. De Gozon hurled his spear at the beast, but the shaft shivered into a hundred pieces against the hard scales, so that, thus early, in the fight, he lost the use of one of his best weapons. But the dogs now made a diversion in his favour, for by worrying the monster on this side and on that, they so engaged its attention that the Knight had time to dis-

DE GOZON AND HIS DOGS FIGHT THE DRAGON

mount, and make ready with sword and shield for a combat on foot. Bearing itself up on its hind legs, the dragon endeavoured, as a bear will do, to hug its enemy to death, but it now exposed the under surface of its neck (which was comparatively unprotected by scales) to the attack of De Gozon. In an instant he thrust his sword into its throat; a deluge of blood gushed out; the monster tottered, and fell; but in its fall crushed to the ground the brave Knight, who was already sufficiently wearied with the strife, and half poisoned besides by the dragon’s noisome breath. The servants, however, seeing the dragon fall, rushed down from the neighbouring heights, and thinking they could discern some faint signs of life in their master, filled their caps with water from the stream hard by, and dashed it over him. He soon recovered sufficiently to be able to mount his horse and ride back to the city, where he told the Grand Master of his splendid exploit, thinking, not unnaturally, that honour, reward and glory would be his—who had freed the country from such a dire pest. But, alas! the Grand Master set the duty of obedience before even such deeds as De Gozon’s. The Knight had disobeyed the edict, had been altogether far too foolhardy and presumptuous, and must take the consequences; he was accordingly degraded and imprisoned. Not for very long, however, we are happy to think, for the tidings soon spread over the whole island, and people were so strong in his favour, that the Grand Master was induced to relent. De Gozon was liberated from prison and reinstated. Shortly afterwards all the people in the city assembled to do him honour in a procession; nor were the brave dogs forgotten, for had it not been for their furious onslaught it is not likely that the Knight would have lived to tell the tale. They were led at the head of the procession, with the dragon’s skin borne before them, heralds proclaiming as they went: ‘These are the brave English dogs, the preservers of the Knight, the conquerors of the dragon.’ Four years afterwards the Grand Master, Elio de Villanova, died; and Deodatus de Gozon was unanimously elected as his successor— in the year 1349.

1. The Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, or the Knights Hospitallers, as they are sometimes called, were an Order founded in the eleventh century, some time after the first crusade; in the fourteenth century they took the Island of Rhodes, in the Mediterranean, and held it against the Turks. It was during their life in this island that the events occurred which are now to be described. The account is taken from a history of the Order, which is quoted word for word by the author who has told us the story of the Lucerne dragons.