The
Welsh Dragon (known in
WelshWelsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of Celtic spoken natively in Wales, in England by some along the Welsh border and in the Welsh immigrant colony in the Chubut Valley in Argentine Patagonia....
as
Y Ddraig Goch 'the red dragon', pronounced ) appears on the national
Flag of WalesThe Flag of Wales is Y Ddraig Goch , consisting of a red dragon passant on a green and white field. As with many heraldic charges, the exact representation of the dragon is not standardised and many renderings exist....
(the flag itself is also called
"Y Ddraig GochThe Welsh Dragon appears on the national Flag of Wales .-Mabinogion:...
").
In the
MabinogionThe Mabinogion is the title given to a collection of eleven prose stories collated from medieval Welsh manuscripts. The tales draw on pre-Christian Celtic mythology, international folktale motifs, and early medieval historical traditions...
story
Lludd and LlefelysLludd and Llefelys is an Middle Welsh prose tale written in the 12th or 13th century. It has been associated with the Mabinogion since it was collected by Charlotte Guest in the mid-19th century...
, the red dragon fights with an invading White Dragon. His pained shrieks cause women to miscarry, animals to perish and plants to become barren. Lludd, king of Britain, goes to his wise brother Llefelys in France.
The
Welsh Dragon (known in
WelshWelsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of Celtic spoken natively in Wales, in England by some along the Welsh border and in the Welsh immigrant colony in the Chubut Valley in Argentine Patagonia....
as
Y Ddraig Goch 'the red dragon', pronounced ) appears on the national
Flag of WalesThe Flag of Wales is Y Ddraig Goch , consisting of a red dragon passant on a green and white field. As with many heraldic charges, the exact representation of the dragon is not standardised and many renderings exist....
(the flag itself is also called
"Y Ddraig GochThe Welsh Dragon appears on the national Flag of Wales .-Mabinogion:...
").
Mabinogion
In the
MabinogionThe Mabinogion is the title given to a collection of eleven prose stories collated from medieval Welsh manuscripts. The tales draw on pre-Christian Celtic mythology, international folktale motifs, and early medieval historical traditions...
story
Lludd and LlefelysLludd and Llefelys is an Middle Welsh prose tale written in the 12th or 13th century. It has been associated with the Mabinogion since it was collected by Charlotte Guest in the mid-19th century...
, the red dragon fights with an invading White Dragon. His pained shrieks cause women to miscarry, animals to perish and plants to become barren. Lludd, king of Britain, goes to his wise brother Llefelys in France. Llefelys tells him to dig a pit in the centre of Britain, fill it with mead, and cover it with cloth. Lludd does this, and the dragons drink the mead and fall asleep. Lludd imprisons them, still wrapped in their cloth, in
Dinas EmrysDinas Emrys is a rocky and wooded hillock near Beddgelert in Gwynedd, north-west Wales. Rising some 76m above the floor of the Glaslyn river valley, it overlooks the southern end of Llyn Dinas in Snowdonia.-Arthurian associations:...
in
SnowdoniaSnowdonia is a region in north Wales and a national park of in area. It was the first to be designated of the three National Parks in Wales, in 1951.-Name and extent:...
.
Historia Britonum
The tale is taken up by
NenniusNennius was a Welsh monk of the 9th century who is chiefly known today as the author of the Historia Brittonum, an attribution contained in the prologue affixed to that work though David Dumville and others have cast doubt upon the ascription and upon the antiquity of the prologue...
in the
Historia BritonumThe Historia Brittonum, or The History of the Britons, is a historical work that was first composed around 830, and exists in several recensions of varying difference. It purports to relate the history of the Brittonic inhabitants of Britain from earliest times, and this text has been used to write...
.
The dragons remain at Dinas Emrys for centuries until King
VortigernVortigern , also spelled Vortiger and Vortigen, was a 5th-century warlord in Britain, a leading ruler among the Britons. His existence is considered likely, though information about him is shrouded in legend. He is said to have invited the Saxons to settle in Britain as mercenaries, only to see...
tries to build a castle there. Every night the castle walls and foundations are demolished by unseen forces. Vortigern consults his advisers, who tell him to find a boy with no natural father, and sacrifice him. Vortigern finds such a boy (who is later, in some tellings, to become Merlin) who is supposed to be the wisest wizard to ever live. On hearing that he is to be put to death to solve the demolishing of the walls, the boy dismisses the knowledge of the advisors. The boy tells the king of the two dragons. Vortigern excavates the hill, freeing the dragons. They continue their fight and the red dragon finally defeats the white dragon. The boy tells Vortigern that the white dragon symbolises the Saxons and that the red dragon symbolises the people of Vortigern. If Vortigern is accepted to have lived in the fifth century, then these people are the British whom the Saxons failed to subdue and who became the Welsh.
The same story is repeated in
Geoffrey of MonmouthGeoffrey of Monmouth was a British clergyman and one of the major figures in the development of British history and the popularity of tales of King Arthur...
's
History of the Kings of BritainThe Historia Regum Britanniae is a pseudohistorical account of British history, written c. 1136 by Geoffrey of Monmouth. It chronicles the lives of the kings of the Britons in a chronological narrative spanning a time of two thousand years, beginning with the Trojans founding the British nation...
, where the red dragon is also a prophecy of the coming of
King ArthurKing Arthur is a legendary British leader who, according to medieval histories and romances, led the defense of Britain against the Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and his historical existence is debated...
. It is notable that Arthur's father was
Uther PendragonUther Pendragon is a legendary king of sub-Roman Britain and the father of King Arthur.A few minor references to Uther appear in Old Welsh poems, but his biography was first written down by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his Historia Regum Britanniae , and Geoffrey's account of the character was used in...
("chief dragon", erroneously translated by Geoffrey as "dragon's head").
Henry VII
Henry TudorHenry VII was the King of England and Lord of Ireland from his seizing the crown on 22 August 1485 until his death on 21 April 1509, as the first monarch of the Tudor dynasty.Henry was successful in restoring the power and stability of the English monarchy after the political upheavals of the Wars...
flew the red dragon of Cadwaladr ap Cadwallon as his banner, overlaid on a green and white field representing the Tudor House, when he marched through Wales on his way to
Bosworth FieldThe Battle of Bosworth Field was the penultimate battle of the Wars of the Roses, a civil war between the House of Lancaster and the House of York that raged across England in the latter half of the 15th century. Fought on 22 August 1485, the battle was won by the Lancastrians...
. After the battle the flag was carried in state to St. Paul's Cathedral to be blessed.
Royal Badge
In 1953 the Red Dragon badge of Henry VII was given an
augmentation of honourIn heraldry, an augmentation is a modification or addition to a coat of arms, typically given by a monarch as either a mere mark of favour, or a reward or recognition for some meritorious act...
. The augmented badge is
blazonedIn heraldry and heraldic vexillology, a blazon is a formal description of, most often, a coat of arms or flag, which enables a person to construct or reconstruct the appropriate image...
:
Within a circular riband ArgentIn heraldry, argent is the tincture of silver, and belongs to the class of light tinctures, called "metals". It is very frequently depicted as white and usually considered interchangeable with it...
fimbriated OrIn heraldry, Or is the tincture of gold and, together with argent , belongs to the class of light tinctures called "metals". In engravings and line drawings, it may be represented using a field of evenly spaced dots...
bearing the motto Y DDRAIG GOCH DDYRY CYCHWYN ["the red dragon inspires action"]
, in letters Vert, and ensigned with a representation of the Crown proper, an escutcheon per fesse Argent and Vert and thereon the Red Dragon passant.
Winston ChurchillSir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill KG, OM, CH, TD, FRS, PC was a British politician known chiefly for his leadership of the United Kingdom during World War II. He served as Prime Minister from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. A noted statesman and orator, Churchill was also an officer...
, the prime minister at the time, despised the badge's design, as is revealed in the following Cabinet minute from 1953:
In 1956 this badge was added to the arms of the Welsh capital city
CardiffCardiff is the capital, largest city and most populous county of Wales. The city is Wales' chief commercial centre, the base for many national cultural and sporting institutions, the Welsh national media, and the seat of the National Assembly for Wales. According to recent estimates, the...
by placing it on collars around the necks of the two
supportersIn heraldry, supporters are figures usually placed on either side of the shield and depicted holding it up. These figures may be real or imaginary animals, human figures, and in rare cases plants or inanimate objects...
of the shield. The badge was the basis of a flag of Wales in which it was placed on a background divided horizontally with the top half white and bottom half green. In 1959 Government use of this flag was dropped in favour of the
current flagThe Flag of Wales is Y Ddraig Goch , consisting of a red dragon passant on a green and white field. As with many heraldic charges, the exact representation of the dragon is not standardised and many renderings exist....
at the urging of the
Gorsedd of BardsA gorsedd plural gorseddau, is a community of modern-day bards. The word means "throne" in Welsh. It is occasionally spelled gorsedh , or goursez in Brittany....
The badge is currently used by the
Wales OfficeThe Wales Office / Swyddfa Cymru is a United Kingdom government department. It is a replacement for the old Welsh Office, which had extensive responsibility for governing Wales prior to Welsh devolution in 1999...
and is printed on Statutory Instruments made by the
National Assembly for WalesThe National Assembly for Wales is a devolved assembly with power to make legislation in Wales. The Assembly comprises 60 members, who are known as Assembly Members, or AMs...
. The badge was previously used in the corporate logo of the Assembly until the "dynamic dragon" logo was adopted.
There is a further badge for Wales, belonging to the Princes of Wales since 1901, of the red dragon on a mount but with a label of three points Argent about the shoulder to difference it from the monarch's badge. (A similar label of three points is used in his arms, crest and supporters for the same reason.)