Notes and Queries, Number 64, January 18, 1851

by Various

REPLIES.

DRAGONS.

(Vol. ii., p. 517.)

The subject on which R.S. jun. writes in No. 61. is one of so much interest in many points of view, that I hope that a few notices relating to it may not be considered unworthy of insertion in "NOTES AND QUERIES."

In Murray's Handbook of Northern Italy, mention is made, in the account of the church of St. Maria delle Grazie, near Mantua, of a stuffed lizard, crocodile, or other reptile, which is preserved suspended in the church. This is said to have been killed in the adjacent swamps, about the year 1406. It is stated to be six or seven feet long.

Eight or ten years ago, I saw an animal of the same order, and about the same size, hanging from the roof of the cathedral of Abbeville, in Picardy. I then took it for a small crocodile, but I cannot say positively that it was one. I am not sure whether it still remains in the cathedral. I do not know whether any legend exists respecting this specimen, or whether it owed its distinguished post to its being deemed an appropriate ornament.

At the west door of the cathedral of Cracow are hanging some bones, said to have belonged to the dragon which inhabited the cave at the foot of the rock (the Wawel) on which the cathedral and the royal castle stand; and was destroyed by Krak, the founder of the city. I regret that my want of osteological science prevented me from ascertaining to what animal these bones had belonged. I thought them the bones of some small species of whale.

I hope that some competent observer may inform us of what animals these and the lindwurm at Brünn are the remains.

It has struck me as possible that the real history of these crocodiles or alligators, if they are such, may be, that they were brought home by crusaders as specimens of dragons, just as Henry the Lion, Duke of Brunswick, brought from the Holy Land the antelope's horn which had been palmed upon

him as a specimen of a griffin's claw, and which may still be seen in the cathedral of that city. That they should afterwards be fitted with appropriate legends, is not surprising.