Real dragons in Wales?

The Red Dragon of Wales
Fact or Fantasy?
Do you believe in Dragons? Do they belong to the far distant
prehistoric past - or are they merely the fantastic and wondersome
Beasts of imagination and Dreams? Perhaps a combination of both
concepts may give the answer.
From the dawn of living Creation, this astonishing planet upon
which we live has seen the evolution and decline of creatures the like
of which even the most fertile imagination could not begin to fashion.
For over 500 million years, life has assumed countless forms; from
the tiny bizarre, 5 millimetre scraps of trilobitomorpha of 570 million
years ago, to the awesome, 27 metre long, gigantic reptiles of the
Jurassic age, nearly 400 million years later. In this Age of living
dragons, a 13 metre long marine carnivore called Plesiosaurus
terrorised the abundant Mesozoic oceans. This may even have been
the 'dragon' of the ancient maritime maps which carried dire warnings
of "Here Be Dragons"!
2Winged reptiles such as Rhamphorhynchus and the huge
Pteranodon swept the skies clean of prey - much as the fabled, red
'dragon' of Welsh lore may have done in fact, rather than in Legend
alone.
History has it that these denizens of a world that we were not to
see for another 170 million years, vanished, leaving only fragments of
their bones, fossilised, to prove that they, once, ruled the Earth. But
maybe not all disappeared without living trace; could it be that Chinese
Man lived with 'dragons' that flew like golden ribbons through the
Eastern sky? Perhaps Northern Man, terrified by monster carnivores,
fought and slew his 'dragon' to protect himself - and maybe, just
maybe, there is more than a grain of truth in the fact of a living,
soaring, scarlet 'dragon' that reigned in the Welsh mountains long,
long ago, and painted its' image upon the minds and culture of a
later-age Neanderthal Celtic ancestry.
The Origin of the Welsh Dragon
Geologically, the oldest known rock formation is to be found in
Wales. The Padarn Ridge series of rock in the Mona Complex Period
of the Pre-Cambrian Era, dates back 4,600 million years, and the
Lower Palaeozoic Era, wherein the first stirrings of Life began,
existed some 4,000 million years later, lasted roughly 175 million
years and took its geological reference exclusively from Wales. The
Welsh Mountains, weathered, softened and contoured by
unimaginable millennia, have seen Life since its beginnings; over the
vast aeon of time they have yielded up their geological wealth in gold
and silver from metamorphic rocks, and exposed the secrets of
primitive and pre-historic life from within a sedimentary heart.
The Dragon's Wing Fossil
Fossils are an essential feature of sedimentary rock and from such
sources as limestone, shale, chalk, clay and the muddy rock known as
marl, a rich tapestry of petrified Life is portrayed. Torrential waters
from a long-dead age have carved massive caverns in the body of
Wales and left, as a legacy, layers of sedimentary rock containing the
fossils of a bewildering variety of life. The intervention of Man, from
the earliest seekers of flint, through the years of Roman demand for
precious gold and silver, to the coal and lead mining of recent times,
have unearthed and created new 'mountains and valleys' of shale and
from one of these sources in particular, has emerged what is possibly
the first, real clue as to the existence of a small, winged reptile that
may have lived some 200 million years ago in the mountains and
crags of mid and west Wales. In the mid 1960's, in the valley of
Nany-y-Moch, where the "river runs swiftly", a new reservoir was
created displacing millions of tons of earth and rocks in the process.
Thirty years on, students, enjoying a walking holiday and strolling
along the banks of the reservoir, found a fragment of stone bearing
what appeared to be a fossil of plant origin. Closer examination of the
'fossil' showed it to have the characteristics of an animal, rather than
those of a vegetable. A distinct impression of a wing-tip seemed to be
dominant; the tip of a wing that may have belonged to a long extinct,
small flying reptile whose very existence would have been
overshadowed and threatened by its pterodactyl cousins.
From this scrap of primordial information, measurements were
taken to establish, as near aspossible, the size and shape of
this tiny dinosaur, and from an artists rendering, the image of an
original, primeval 'native' ofWales, was born.
This could have been,undoubtedly, the true Dragon of Wales.
Not, perhaps the great, flying monster of myth and nightmare, but a small
jewel-like, winged dinosaur, who made its home high in the rocky crags and outcroppings and who soared and glided on membranous wings, hunting for prey and searching for a mate.
The similarity between the reconstruction of the 'dragon' from the fossil, and the
depiction on the Standard of Wales, was seen to be quite remarkable by comparison.
Further similarities to sentient creatures were also to prove most interesting and
thought-provoking. The oldest known true bird,Archaeopteryx, showed evidence of reptile ancestry by the shape of its skull and teeth, and particularly by its long, sinuous lizard-like tail, which was an extension of the vertebral column.
Archaeopteryx was not dissimilar in size to the unnamed 'dragon' although
somewhat smaller being roughly 45cm in length, in comparison to the 62cm of
the long-tailed 'dragon'. Today, the famous Red Kite of Wales offers yet
another coincidental comparison. This modern monarch of the mountains is
almost exactly the same size as its long-dead 'dragon' ancestor!
6Sadly, the colour of our dainty, prehistoric aerialist must be left to imagination and a
bygone age, but perhaps it is not so far-fetched to picture a vivid scarlet image
silhouetted against the bright blue of a Mesozoic summer sky, vying with the
brilliantly hued, scintillating exuberance of those ancient dragonflies, fish, brightly
plumed birds and the bountiful and wondrous Life that existed long, long before we did.
The Legend and History of Y Ddraig Goch - the Red
Dragon of Wales.
The Legend
Fantasy tales of Y Ddraig Goch abound, and Legend places its
origins a thousand years and a thousand leagues apart, from Merlin's
myth to the Bible's Book of Revelations.
Welsh folk-lore tells of the great battle of the Dragons: the White,
representing the Saxon invader, and the Red, the defender of the
Britons. The two Dragons emerged in conflict from a subterranean
lake to fight to the death for supremacy. The Red Dragon of Wales
triumphed, and it is said, that those who "Follow the Red Dragon" -
("Y Ddraig Goch ddyry cychwyn") - shall "never more fear the invader"
and will evermore "prevail" (trechu).
The Book of Revelations tells of the prediction of a "Wonder of
Heaven", a Red Dragon, "spewing forth a Flood which was swallowed
by the Earth". Was this indeed the underground lake of Welsh saga?
Speculation perhaps, but the two stories told from time and distance
are a little too close to be mere coincidence!
The History
The prehistoric 'dragon' may long since have ceased to fly over
the mountains of Wales but has flown proudly on the Welsh Standard,
displaying itself in bright scarlet on green and white sarcenet for nearly
thirteen hundred years.
Borne by King Arthur in legend and
carried into battle in reality by warrior
prince Cadwaladr in the seventh
century, this bold banner became the
Standard of Rhodri Mawr (Rhodri the
Great) whose political unity of Wales in
the ninth century was inspiring. Later,
in the twelfth century, the infamous
brother of Owain Gwynedd flew the
Red Dragon Standard from the
battlements of his castle in Aberystwyth.
It is in the fifteenth century that the
link between the Red Dragon of Welsh culture and the possibility of the existence of a real Jurassic 'dragon'
is established. It was on the banks of the river Heddgen, high in the
ranges of the Plynlimon Mountains, that the followers of the great and
good Owain Glyndwr, under the Red Dragon Standard, "followed" the Dragon in unequal and awesome battle to fight and defeat, against all
the odds, a mighty invading army.
Six hundred years later, the fragment of stone containing an
unrecognised fossil, unseen for 70 million years, would lie waiting to
be discovered on the shoreline of a lake close to where that historical
battle was fought and won.
Whether the Red Dragon of Wales is fact or fantasy is a matter for
individual opinion and belief but there is no doubt that here, we have a
true Mystery. The renowned and
respected author of "Jaws", Peter
Benchley, wrote in his book "White Shark":
"Mysteries are wonderful things. It
would be boring to have all the answers.
It's like the Loch Ness Monster, I hope
they never find him either. We need
Dragons to keep our imagination alive."
And, just like the 'monster', of Loch
Ness, of which there are many claimed
'sightings' - some folk have claimed that on certain, sultry, summer
nights when the moon is full and drowned Nant-y-Moch lies waiting,
the whispering sound of leathery wings, beating over the still waters,
can be heard - although nothing can be seen! This indeed may be true- but as many of the countless sightings of 'Nessie' may be attributed
to that extra 'wee dram'; the sound of 'Nanty' in ghostly flight just
maybe the result of good Welsh ale!
No matter, whatever the facts, one truth will always remain, in the
hearts of all true believers the Red Dragon of Wales - Y Ddraig Goch
- will live forever.

View original pdf. doc. complete with photos and illustrations at: [link to www.nantinet.co.uk]