Category Archives: Mythology

“Domine dirige nos:” The Dragon of London

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The dragon guarding the Southwark landing of the London Bridge is the location of an important episode in Kate Griffin’s “Midnight Mayor.”

At the heart of London are two cities: the City of London and the City of Westminster. The City of London is the ancient part of London that was once known as the Roman city of Londinium. It comprises an area of one square mile and is located north of South Bank and London Bridge. Dragons stand guard at the ancient gates into the ancient city of London, at the bridges and main streets that now bring people into and out of old London. As guardians or gatekeepers of the City all the dragons face outwards, so if the dragon is looking at you, you’re outside the City, if he has his back to you, you’re inside the City. The dragons are poised to protect the City from those coming to attack.

The dragons lean on the shield of London, which show a red cross on a white background and a small red sword. red cross on a white background is the flag of St. George, patron saint of England (along with many other nations around the world). Inside the top left-hand quarter of the flag there is an upright red sword. This commemorates St. Paul, the patron saint of the City of London. Since the 7th century there has been a cathedral dedicated to St Paul on Ludgate Hill in the City. The sword commemorates Paul’s beheading by sword in Rome c. 66 AD during the persecution of Christians under Nero. The Latin motto of London, “Domine dirige nos” (“O Lord, direct/guide us”) is also seen below the dragon and shield.

Why dragons? The reason seems lost in the mists of time. Some suspect the London dragon–which is silver or white–is an old Saxon emblem set to attack the ancient Welsh emblem of another (red) dragon. Some think the London dragon is derived from the story of St. George. Others think that the London dragon is just another dragon commonly used in heraldry to display coats-of-arms and shields. But I like how Kate Griffin describes the dragon that simply IS London in her novel Midnight Mayor:

It was…

…dragon didn’t quite cover it.

Dragon implies something made out of scales, with a nod in the direction of reptilian ancestry: dinosaur meets flamethrower with wings….

To say it was made of shadows would be to imply that light or darkness even got a look-in. Sure, it had crawled out if them, in the way that the diplodocus had once crawled out of the ameba of the sea. And if a comet came from the heavens to smash it, it wouldn’t be squished, just spread so wide and thin across the earth that it would look like night had fallen down, dragging all the stars with it–before, with a good thorough shake to push the stardust off its skin, the creature slid back to its brilliant, angry, maddened shape.

Of course, the dragon might itself be said to have attacked the City in the Great Fire. The Great Fire of London was the conflagration that swept through the central parts of the City from Sunday, 2 September to Thursday, 6 September 1666. The fire gutted the medieval City of London inside the old Roman city wall.

A dragon on the Holborn Viaduct in London. (photo by S. Morris)

Executions

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Ancient lithography representing the elements of devotional practices towards the holy souls of the executed in Sicily.

June 29, 1972 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled (5-4) that capital punishment was a violation of the Eighth Amendment prohibiting “cruel and unusual punishment.” The decision spared the lives of 600 individuals then sitting on death row. Four years later, in another ruling, the Court reversed itself and determined the death penalty was not cruel and unusual punishment. On October 4, 1976, the ban was lifted on the death penalty in cases involving murder.

Executions and the corpses of the executed have always fascinated people. Stories about the corpses fill books of folklore, legends and mythology. A hanged man’s hand was used to cure warts and skin tumors in England. All sorts of body parts were used in magic and medicine and these were taken from the corpses of the executed either by the executioner or by people who came to unearth and exhume the bodies of the executed in graveyards.

Prayers, folklore and customs from Southern Italy testify that even the souls of criminals had their part in the devotional practices of the population. Invoking the holy souls of the executed who dwelled for a long time in Purgatory, people established a compassionate connection between the actual and the heavenly world. The Catholic and political context of places like 19th-century Sicily, where the bandit might be seen as a popular hero who opposed the Bourbon oppressor, strongly connotes the concept of “holy soul”.

“In the Forest, Deep and Dark….”

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It’s increasingly rare to find a forest that hasn’t been shaped by human use. Ohikulkija/CC BY-SA 3.0

When I was small, there was a tremendous forest across the field from my great-grandmother’s house on San Juan Island. I called it the Black Forest, after the famous fairy-tale forest in Germany. It was everything I ever imagined a fairy tale forest would be and never went more than a few feet into the trees. I was terrified of becoming lost and wandering in the woods. I was certain that either Baba Yaga or the gingerbread-house witch would find us if we ever wandered too far under the great trees.

Forests are big, dark, and mysterious. They appear in many–if not most–fairy tales. Forests hide Big Bad Wolves. Witches hide their gingerbread houses in forests. Castles that belong to mysterious strangers are surrounded by forests. Sometimes the forest is itself enchanted. Forests are always dangerous and places of adventure that mark the edges of this world and the worlds of spirit and imagination.

Facts, folklore, superstitions, myths, and anecdotes about trees and forests have always fascinated us. A wonderful book came out recently, Forests in Folklore and Mythology, that makes these tales available all in one place and examines the threads or traits they have in common. Customs, temples and sacred groves; mythical forest creatures such as witches, fairies, demons, wood spirits, and wood nymphs are all in its pages.

Certain kinds of trees are associated with wisdom, life, or death. Celtic mythology tells us that birch trees are important in both the winter and summer to purify the world. Birches were celebrated during the festival of Samhain (what is now Hallowe’en)–bundles of birch twigs were used to drive out the spirits of the old year. Later this would evolve into the ‘beating the bounds’ ceremonies in local parishes, a festival in the springtime. Gardeners still use the birch brooms to ‘purify’ their gardens.

According to Atlas Obscura, the last of the great fairy tale forests can be found in Finland, or on the Carpathian or Balkan mountain ranges that slice across Romania and Bulgaria.