One very prevailing form in early Gothic design was that of the mythic dragon, whose winged body and convoluted tail were easily and happily adapted to mix with the foliage or other decorative enrichments these artists chose to adopt. Hence we find no creature more common in early art than this purely fanciful one, rendered still more fanciful by grotesque combination. The bosses from which spring the vaulted ribs of Wells Cathedral furnish us with the instance engraved in [Fig. 64]; here two dragons twine round a bunch of foliage, biting each other’s tails.
Domestic utensils were often made to represent living things; the tendency to convert a globular vase or jug into a huge head or a fat figure, has been common to all people in all ages. The highly civilised Greeks indulged the whim, and our own potters continue it. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, vessels for liquids were often constructed of bronze, taking the form of lions, or mounted knights on horseback, of which specimens may be seen in our British Museum. The manufacturers of earthenware imitated these at a cheaper rate, and we engrave ([Fig. 65]) one example of their skill, the original being rudely coloured with a blue and yellow glaze on the surface of the brown clay which forms the body.
The door-knocker ([Fig. 66]), whimsically constructed in form of a human leg, the heel hitting against the door, is also a work of the fourteenth century; it is affixed to a house in the Rue des Conseils, at Auxerre, and is very characteristic in execution.
Our selection ([Fig. 67]) comprises a most rare domestic antiquity, to which a date cannot so readily be assigned, but which cannot be more modern than the sixteenth century, and may be older. It is a toasting-fork in the form of a dog, to whose breast a ring is attached for holding a plate. It is entirely constructed of wrought-iron, the body cut from a flat sheet of metal. It was found in clearing away the foundations of one of the oldest houses in Westminster. The tail of the dog forms a convenient handle; to the front foot a cross bar is appended to preserve its due equilibrium.