Y Ddraig Goch
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- Welsh Dragon redirects here. For the food, see Welsh Dragon sausage
Y Ddraig Goch (IPA: [ə ðraiɡ ɡox]) (Welsh for the red dragon) appears on the national Flag of Wales (the flag itself is also called "Y Ddraig Goch"), and is the most famous dragon in Britain.
[edit] Mabinogion
In the Mabinogion story Lludd and Llefelys, the red dragon fights with an invading White Dragon. His pained shrieks cause women to miscarry and animals and plants to become barren. Lludd, king of Britain, goes to his wise brother Llefelys in France. Llefelys tells him to dig a pit in the centre of Britain, fill it with mead, and cover it with cloth. Lludd does this, and the dragons drink the mead and fall asleep. Lludd imprisons them, still wrapped in their cloth, in Dinas Emrys in Snowdonia (Welsh: Eryri).
[edit] Historia Britonum
The tale is taken up by Nennius in the Historia Britonum. The dragons remain at Dinas Emrys for centuries until King Vortigern tries to build a castle there. Every night the castle walls and foundations are demolished by unseen forces. Vortigern consults his advisers, who tell him to find a boy with no natural father, and sacrifice him. Vortigern finds such a boy (who is later, in some tellings, to become Merlin) who is supposed to be the wisest wizard to ever live. On hearing that he is to be put to death to solve the demolishing of the walls, the boy dismisses the knowledge of the advisors. The boy tells the king of the two dragons. Vortigern excavates the hill, freeing the dragons. They continue their fight and the red dragon finally defeats the white dragon. The boy tells Vortigern that the white dragon symbolises the Saxons and that the red dragon symbolises the people of Vortigern. If Vortigern is accepted to have lived in the fifth century, then these people are the British whom the Saxons failed to subdue and who became the Welsh.
The same story is repeated in Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain, where the red dragon is also a prophecy of the coming of King Arthur. It is notable that Arthur's father was "Uther Pendragon" (head of the dragon).
Henry Tudor flew the red dragon of Cadwaladr ap Cadwallon as his banner, overlaid on a green and white field representing the Tudor House, when he marched through Wales on his way to Bosworth Field.
