Let me begin with some housekeeping:
If you cast your eye down this page, you will notice that some sections of text are in solid and sensible bold, while others are frivolously unbolded.
This is because I find I cannot stick to a point with this project. Which is embarrassing, as I am in theory both a professional writer and a professional editor. With my editing hat on, I would come down very hard on the kind of writing I’m doing here.
Think of a writer as an old-timey showman - the sort who would set up a soapbox in the town square and yell ‘Roll up, roll up!’ until they had drawn a crowd, upon which they’d launch into some performance or speech or sales pitch or whatever.
In this scenario, the editor would be the ‘plant’ in the crowd. Their job is to gauge the mood of the audience, and to gesture this to the ‘writer’. For example, they might nod encouragingly when things are going well, or make a sharp ‘nix it and run!’ gesture if the crowd starts getting a bit lynchy.
When writing or editing for others, I am perfectly capable of keeping my stuff concise and to the point. I would go so far as to say that I am good at keeping my stuff sensible. If not set on fire with excitement and delight, audiences are perfectly content with it. They don’t get restless, they don’t wander off, and they rarely reach for their pitchforks.
In this case, however, I am writing for myself. I am out on my own, roaming in the wild with my dragonish soapbox, and I find myself entirely unable to self-edit.
Which brings me to the point of this lengthy digression: if I cannot stick to the point, I can at least save you the trouble of wading through my inane ramblings. Thus, the visual cue: relevant dragon-research is in bold, self-indulgent bollocks is not. Sensible stuff and bollocks are mixed together, but you should be able to skip the unbolded sections without much disruption to the reading experience.
Now, back to the dragon.
Last time, if you remember, I began telling you about my first dragon hunt. But then I veered off into a general explanation of the dragon legend and how I spent stupid amounts of time prodding at said legend during Lockdown.
Today, I think I should begin by explaining this legend in a little more detail. Not that there is much detail on the surface, but it is only fair that you, my reader(s?) know as much at the outset of this book as I did at the outset of the project.
Once I deem you sufficiently informed, we can proceed to the dragon hunting itself (don’t worry, you’re not being made to wait for anything juicy. The upcoming dragon hunting chapter is basically a description of various Killerton trees plus a swearing match with squirrels. The most exciting bit is when I go bum over baps down the side of a quarry - but I emerge with nothing but bruises so, frankly, the whole episode is disappointingly dull).
Here is the best-known (not the earliest - of which more later - but the best-known. Which isn’t saying much, frankly) account of the Exe Valley Dragon legend. It appears in A Provincial Glossary (pub.1781), by Francis Grose, and it goes like this:
“Here [Cadbury Castle] you may fee fome fyve myle diftant, to the fouth-eaft, in the parifh of Broad-Clyft, another down, called Dolbury-hill, between thefe two hillf (you may be pleafed to hear a pretty tale) that if faid (I sette not downe fhofe wordes to leffen your belief of the truthe of the matter) but to lette you knowe that, nil praeter auditum habeo
Take yt on thif condition.
Yt holdf credyt by tradition.
That a feiry dragon, or fome ignif fatuui in such lykenefs, hath bynne often feene to flye between fhefe hills, komming from the one to the other in the night feafon, whereby it is fuppofes there if a great treafure hydd in each of them, and that the dragon if the trufty treafurer and fure keeper thereof, as he waf of the Golden Fleece in Cholcof, which Jafon, by the help of Medea, brought thence…[at this point he quotes Ovid extensively, I shall spare you]
...it is conftantly believed of the credulous heer, and fome to aver to have feen yt lately. And of this hydden treafure the ryming proverbe here quited goes commonly and anciently
If Cadburye-castle and Dolebury-hill dolven were,
All England might ploughe with a golden sheere.”
If you’re not a philology nerd like me, this is a tricky swathe to read. Not least because Grose can’t keep to the point and will insist on bunging esoteric references in here, there and everywhere (yes, I know, pot kettle etc). So, here’s an explanation.
From Cadbury Castle, Grose tells us, you may look to the south-east and see, in the parish of Broadclyst, another ‘down’, named Dolbury Hill. ‘Down’ or ‘dun’ (or ‘pen’, in some cases) is an old Devon word for hillfort.
Grose proceeds to tell us a ‘pretty tale’ he has heard, that a ‘fiery dragon, or some ignis fatuui’ is often seen to fly between Dolbury and Cadbury duns. The legend runs that there is a great treasure buried within each dun, and that the dragon is the ‘treasurer and sure keeper’ of each. Draconian austerity measures may have led to this staffing problem.
Grose then describes the denizens of the Exe Valley as ‘credulous’, which is rude of him. Finally, he relates a local rhyme about the treasure the dragon guards:
“If Cadbury castle and Dolbury hill dolven were
All England might plough with a golden share”
‘Were’ and ‘share’ still rhyme in an Exe Valley dialect, btw, so it’s not as cobbled-together a rhyme as it appears.
Basically, what the rhyme means is that if the duns were to be dug up, so much gold would be found that everyone in England could plough their fields with a golden ploughshare. Which, as I have mentioned, would be a bad idea as gold is a poor choice for agricultural purposes.
Now, I have told you everything I knew about the dragon legend at the outset of this project. We can move onto the first dragon hunt (which really is a lot of self-indulgent bollocks and not nearly as exciting as it sounds).
