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Something about Dragons,

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WITH THE CURIOUS AND COMICAL STORY OF THE DRAGON OF WANTLEY,"

MADE READABLE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE.

LD Legends are full of the stories of Dragons, and old historians assert, in the most positive terms, that gigantic monsters-land monsters-enormous reptiles were known in ancient times. Some of them are recorded to have stopped armies in their course, and others to have devastated provinces, and alarmed their inhabitants most grievously. They were generally called Dragons, and are usually depicted as having snake-like bodies, of enormous length, fierce eyes, enormous jaws armed with pike-like teeth, while they had short wings on their shoulders, and generally four creeping legs like those of the crocodile, at the extremities of which were great crooked claws, with hooked talons a foot long. The stories concerning such monsters remind one of the modern discoveries of geologists-for the

beds of ancient stone, which have been of late years laid open to view, abound in gigantic frogs as large as bulls; crocodiles of colossal forms, by far larger than any of the present day; the skeleton of an enormous animal allied to the fish and lizard,

called Ichthyosaurus, of which the cut shows the form, and the bones of which may be seen in the British Museum. Another kind of reptile was called the Plesiosaurus, to mark a nearer approach to the lizard. The first of these had the beak of a porpoise, the bulk of a crocodile, the head and breast of a lizard, and the vertebræ of a fish. The other had a very long neck, paddles like the turtle, the head of a lizard, the teeth of a crocodile, and the neck of a serpent. There was also another monster called the Pterodactyle or Wingfingered, a flying-reptile, whose toes terminated in hooks like those of the bat, which used to pitch on trees, and cliffs, and fly about in the dusky twilight; all these and some others were inhabitants of this earth, before man was created. But it has been imagined that some might have remained within, what is called the historical period, and, if so, there may be some truth in the stories of dragons, and such monsters as are generally looked upon as fabulous. However, with these matters I have little now to do; but in bringing forward some Legends, Ballads, and remarkable Histories of Ancient Times, I cannot help adverting to these matters by the way.

Most of my young friends have read Don Quixote, which is as they may remember, a droll satire upon the ridiculous knight-erranting of the Chivalric days. The humorous ditty which follows, called the Dragon of Wantley, is to old metrical romances in Ballads of Chivalry, what Don Quixote is to prose narratives of that kind—a lively satire on those extravagant fictions. In the writing of the poem, the author has brought in most of the common incidents which occur in romance. The description of the dragon-his outrages-the people flying to the Knight for succour-his care in choosing his armour-his being dressed for fight by a young damsel, and most of the circumstances of the battle and victory, allowing for the burlesque turn given to them, are what occur in every book of chivalry, whether in prose or verse. In the old Ballad, some coarse expressions occur, but these have been carefully weeded out, without in any way detracting from the humour of the piece. The Ballad was probably written

in the beginning of the last century.

The Bragon of Wantley.

Old stories tell, how Hercules

A dragon slew at Lerna,

With seven heads and fourteen eyes,

To see and well discern-a;

But he had a club, this dragon to drub,
Or he had ne'er done it, I warrant ye:
But More, of More Hall, with nothing at all,
He slew the dragon of Wantley.

This dragon had two furious wings,

Each one upon each shoulder;

With a sting in his tayl, as long as a flayl,

Which made him bolder and bolder.
He had long claws and in his jaws
Four-and-forty teeth of iron,

With a hide as tough as any buff,
Which did him round environ.

Have you not heard how the Trojan horse
Held seventy men in his belly?
This dragon was not quite so big,
But very near, I'll tell ye.
Devoured he poor children three,
That could not with him grapple;

And at one sup he cat them up,
As one would eat an apple.

All sorts of cattle this dragon did eat,
Some say he ate of trees,

And that the forests have he would

Devoured up by degrees:

For houses and churches were to him geese and turkeys;

He ate all, and he left none behind,

But some stones, alack-that he could not crack,

On the mountain you will find.

In Yorkshire, near fair Rotherham,

The place I know it well,

Some two or three miles, or thereabouts,

I vow I cannot tell;

But there is a hedge, just on the hill edge,
And a house not swallowed stands by it,
O there and then was the dragon's den,
You could not choose but espy it.

Some say this dragon was a witch,
Some say a dragon of evil,
For, from his nose, a smoke arose,
And with it a burning snivel,

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