Richard III. as a badge had a black dragon. “The bages that he beryth by the Earldom of Wolstr (Ulster) ys a blacke dragon,” derived through his mother from the De Burghs, Earls of Ulster.
Mallet, in his “Northern Antiquities,” states “that the thick misshapen walls winding round a rude fortress at the summit of a rock were called by a name signifying dragon, and as women of distinction were, during the ages of chivalry, commonly placed in such castles for security, thence arose the romances of princesses of great beauty being guarded by dragons, and afterwards delivered by young heroes who could not achieve their rescue until they had overcome their terrible guardians.” The common heraldic signification of a dragon is one who has successfully overcome such a fortress, or it denotes the protection afforded to the helpless by him to whom it was granted, and the terror inspired in his foes by his doughty or warlike bearing. It was a title of supreme power among the early British.
A Dragon passant.
The dragon has always been an honourable bearing in British armoury, in some instances to commemorate a triumph over a mighty foe, or merely for the purpose of inspiring the enemy with terror. This seems to have been especially the case with the dragon standard—the “red dragon dreadful” of Wales (y Ddraig Coch) described as:
“A dragon grete and grimme
Full of fyre and eke venymme.”
The Crocodile as the Prototype of the Dragon
In the existing representatives of the antediluvian saurians, the crocodile and alligator, we see the prototypes of the dragons and hydras of poetic fancy. The crocodile is a well-known huge amphibious reptile, in general contour resembling a great lizard covered with large horny scales that cannot be easily pierced, except underneath, and reaching twenty-five to thirty feet in length. The crocodile was held sacred by the ancient Egyptians, the Nile was and is its best-known habitat; it is also found in the rivers of the Indian seas. Though an awkward creature upon land, it darts with rapidity through the water after fish, which is its appropriate food, but it is dangerous also to dogs and other creatures, as well as to human beings entering the water or lingering incautiously on the bank.
It is the Lacerta crocodilus of Linnæus, from Greek κροκοδειλος (krokodeilos) a word of uncertain origin. The Alligator, the American crocodile, takes its name from the Spanish El Legarto, the lizard. The Latin form is Lacertus or Lacerta.