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Wales
Cymru
Origin
of Y Ddraig Goch
Y Ddraig Goch (the red dragon) is the national
flag of Wales, and has been officially recognised
as such since the 1950s. The white-over-green
field is in the livery colours of the Tudors, the
Welsh dynasty that once sat on the English
throne.
Roy Stilling, 27 November 1995
Conventional wisdom is that the 'draco' standards
of the Romans were adopted by the Britons,
probably as a metal (possibly real gold) head
with a windsock type of body made of silk. In the
mouth was a whistling type device that would make
sounds as it was waved with vigor. Supposedly
used by King Arthur, certainly used by the Wessex
lords in the 700s, the emblem has been used by
Britons right up to the present time.
Dave Martucci, 27 January 1998
History of Welsh Flags
[Note: The following is excerpted from "A
History of the Red Dragon" by Carl Lofmark,
edited by G.A. Wells (No. 4, Welsh Heritage
Series, Gwasg Carreg Gwalch, Llanrwst, Gwynedd,
Wales; 1995; ISBN 0-86381-317-8)]
The origins of the Welsh Dragon were undoubtedly
the Roman "draconi" standards of the
cohorts, which were far more numerous than the
legions, particularly after the gradual
withdrawal of the latter. "... the people
who were left behind when the legions withdrew
forever must most naturally have thought of the
Dragon as the symbol of that Roman civilisation
to which they belonged and which they were now
defending against the ravages of the barbarian
invaders. It is generally agreed that resistance
to the Saxons was first organized by Romans, or
Romanized Britons, presumably on Roman lines ...
For their battle standard no emblem was more
natural than the familiar Dragon of the Roman
cohort."
"The Welsh, as a distinct people, may be
said to date from about the seventh century, when
the advance of the Saxons to the Bristol Channel
and the Mersey isolated them from the rest of
Celtic Britain. The 'Historia Brittonum,' of
about 800 A.D. (traditionally ascribed to the
scholar Nennius), which drew on earlier sources,
described a Red Dragon as the symbol of the
British people in their wars against the White
Dragon of the Saxons. ... Early in the Welsh
literary tradition, in the tale 'Lludd a
Llefelys,' this Red Dragon is associated with
Merlin, who gives counsel to the earliest kings
in Briton."
"From the very first records of the Welsh
language the words 'draig,' 'dragon' mean
'warrior' and great warriors are referred to as
'pendraig,' 'pendragon,' i.e. 'chief
dragon'."
"The only thing that remains unclear about
the early British dragon is its colour. According
to Nennius, the dragon of the Britons is red. ...
The national dragon of Mediaeval Wales may be
red, or firey, or golden. ... It may be that his
colour was not yet fixed, though he was thought
to resemble fire, his most natural element: for
the colours, on those occasions when colour is
mentioned, are those appropriate to fire, and
never any other."
"While the warriors, chiefs and princes of
Wales were constantly called 'dragons', we do not
have any clear evidence to prove that they ever
used a dragon, let alone a red dragon, as a
military standard at any time before the
fifteenth century. It is perfectly likely that it
may have happened, but the literary and
historical documents which we have contain no
unambiguous reference to the use of a dragon
banner by Welsh resistance fighters until
1401."
"The arms of Llywelyn's [the Last,
proclaimed the first Prince of Wales in 1258,
died 1282] father, Gruffudd ap Llywelyn Fawr [of
the royal house of Gwynedd], were sketched by
Matthew Paris (died 1259) and they show,
quarterly or and gules (i.e. gold and red) four
lions passant counterchanged. ... there is no
dragon in the arms of Gwynedd. ... there is more
reason to suppose that Llywelyn fought under the
traditional Lions of Gwynedd, like other leaders
of Gwynedd both before and after him, up to Owain
Glyndwr and the Tudors."
An "englyn" written at the time refers
to Llywelyn and his army, "There is my lord
Llywelyn and tall warriors follow him; a
thousand, a host in green and white."
"These are the colours in which the Black
Prince, Edward of Woodstock, was to dress his
Welsh contingent at Crécy in 1346: these men
were, as D.L. Evans remarked, 'the first troops
to appear on a continental battlefield in
national uniform.' Thus, by the middle of the
fourteenth century, green and white appear to
have been understood as the national colours of
Wales; they were to be used later by Henry Tudor
as the field for the Red Dragon, and they remain
to this day the colours of the national flag,
upon which the Red Dragon is set."
"Owain Glendwr, ... in 1401-04 succeeded in
conquering virtually the whole of Wales."
"One of the earliest great successes of his
career was his siege of Caernarfon (2nd November
1401), at which he unfurled his banner,
displaying a golden dragon on a white field, as
the chronicler Adam of Usk records: 'in
multitudine glomerosa vexillum suum album cum
dracone aureo ibidem displicuit'."
"From 1404 onward we hear no more of Owain's
use of the dragon emblem. It seems that, having
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