The Dragon Stone

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Location:
Mordiford, Herefordshire, England, Europe

Images:

Description:
The Mordiford dragon terrorised the area around Mordiford, eating farm animals and humans. This popular tale comes in many varieties. The dragon has mainly been described by a painting on a local church. This painting had been altered over the years to have varying numbers of wings (from one pair to four pairs) and legs (none, one pair and two pairs). It was usually green, though sometimes red. The version of the dragon which is most know is it being shown as a wyvern, due to the connections with local landowners.

The Dragon and Maud
The story of the Mordiford dragon was retold in an 1848 publication 'The Mordiford Dragon' by J. Dacres Devlin. In this version, the dragon's early life is described.

There was a little girl called Maud. Whilst out in the woods (Haugh Wood), she discovered a little green baby dragon. When she took the dragonet home, her parents were horrified and told her to get rid of it. She secretly disobeyed, keeping the dragon hidden and feeding it on milk.

The dragon grew and soon developed a taste for meat. It became to eat local farm animals before moving onto eating people. It ended up leaving Maud and making its lair in the local woods. The dragon never forgot Maud's kindness and always treated her well.

What happened to the dragon? That is a subject of debate...

Death by Garston
One version tells how the dragon was slain by a member of the Garston family, a local landowning family. This family's crest included a wyvern. The legend was linked to a wyvern painting on one of the churches, which was said to be the Mordiford dragon, as slain by Garston. Little is known about this version of the story, as it had mainly died out in later years. This was probably due to the Garston family no longer being around.

The dragon painting on the church was accompanied by a verse (as recorded by Broome in 1670):

"This is the true Effigy of that strange
Prodigious monster which our woods did range.
In Eastwood it by Garston's hand was slain,
A truth which old mythologists maintain."

Death by Criminal
Some versions of the tale have a criminal facing execution fighting the dragon. Killing the dragon is the last chance of redemption and freedom for the criminal. How the criminal does this varies. Some are simple. He goes to where the dragon is sleeping and kills it with a sword, taking its tongue as proof.

Others are more elaborate, with the criminal hiding in a barrel where the rivers Lugg and Wye meet. Some say the barrel was covered in knives and was rammed into the dragon. Others say the criminal shot the dragon with a gun... not a very common dragon slaying method!

In these versions, the criminal ends up sharing the dragon's fate, as the dragon releases poisonous breath which kills him.

Death by Villagers
The river Lugg flooded. Not due to the dragon, but simply due to the weather. The flood drowned an ox, which made a good meal for the dragon. After eating the whole ox the dragon was full and settled down to sleep. The villagers armed themselves with whatever tools and weapons they could find. Sneaking up on the dragon, they surrounded it and attacked in force.

Selected References: Simpson, Jacqueline (1980); Whitlock, Ralph (1983)

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