A Double Urn Cinerary Burial
Having just written this piece on Emrys and Mabon -
- I felt I should tie up the loose ends with a closer look at the origin of the Red Dragon of Dinas Emrys. While I'll felt fairly confident about my findings on this subject for many years now, a sort of summary was long overdue.
The story of the Red Dragon as found in the HISTORIA BRITTONUM is as follows:
iterum puer ad magos dixit “proferte
mihi quid est in stagno.” et siluerunt et non potuerunt reuelare illi. et ille
dixit illis “ego uobis reuelabo. duo uasa conclusa sunt in eo. et sic
inuenietis.” uenerunt et uiderunt sic. et puer ad magos dixit “quid in uasis
conclusis habetur?” at ipsi siluerunt et non potuerunt reuelare illi. at ille
asseruit “in medio eorum tentorium est. separate ea et sic inuenietis.” et
rex separari iussit et sic inuentum est tentorium complicatum sicut dixerat.
iterum puer interrogauit magos eius “quid in medio tentorii est? etiam
nunc narrate.” et non potuerunt. et dixit puer “duo uermes sunt in eo,
unus albus et alter rufus. tentorium expandite.” et extenderunt et duo
uermes dormientes inuenti sunt. et dixit puer “expectate et considerate
quid faciant uermes.” et coeperunt uermes ut alter alterum expelleret;
alius autem scapulas suas ponebat ut eum usque ad dimidium tentorii
expelleret, aliquando usque ad oram tentorii pellebat. et sic faciebant
tribus uicibus. tamen tandem infirmior uidebatur uermis rufus, et postea
fortior albo fuit et extra finem tentorii expulit. tunc alter alterum secutus
trans stagnum est et tentorium euanuit.
Again, the boy said to the wizards “Tell me what is in
the pond.” And they were silent and could not tell him. And he said to
them “I shall tell you. Two vessels are contained in it. And you will find it
so.” They came and saw it was so. And the boy said to the wizards “What
is held in the sealed vessels?” And they were silent and could not tell him.
But he declared “There is a tent in the middle of them. Break them and
you will find it so.” And the king ordered them to be broken, and so a
folded tent was found, just as he had said. Again, the boy asked his
wizards “What is in the middle of the tent? So tell me now.” And they
could not. And the boy said “There are two worms in it, one white and the
other red. Unfold the tent.” And they unfolded and two sleeping worms
were found. And the boy said “Watch and think about what the worms will
do.” And the worms began, one to push out the other; the other, though,
placed its shoulders so that it could push it to the half of the tent,
sometimes it drove it right to the door of the tent. And they did this on
three occasions. However, eventually the red worm appeared the weaker
but afterwards was stronger than the white and pushed it from the
bounds of the tent. Then one chased the other across the pond and the
tent vanished.
Emry interprets this marvel as follows:
regni tui est figura tentorium. duo uermes duo dracones sunt. uermis rufus draco
tuus est et stagnum figura huius mundi est. at ille albus draco illius gentis
quę occupauit gentes et regiones plurimas in brittannia et pęne a mari
usque ad mare tenebunt. et postea gens nostra surget et gentem
anglorum trans mare uiriliter deiciet.
The tent is a symbol of your kingdom. The two worms are two dragons.
The red worm is your dragon and the pond is a representation of this
world. But that white dragon is of that people that has occupied peoples
and many regions in Britain and will control it almost from coast to coast.
And afterwards, our people will rise up and manfully throw the people of
the English across the sea.
Now, I have a great many articles treating of this folktale. A couple important ones are provided here:
Along with a good recent article on serpents in the Roman lararium:
In brief, what we have in the Dinas Emrys story is Emrys causing to be excavated two cinerary urns. Inside the urns are the cloth-wrapped bone remains of cremated warriors or chieftains (i.e. "dragons"). The use of the word tent (tentorium) may be a confusion for the pall (L. pallium) that could be draped over the urns. Red and white were traditional colors for Otherworld animals in Welsh tradition and I've discussed before the red and white sexual dimorphism of the Common European Viper in Britain. After the discovery of the urns the story veers in another direction. The two dead dragons ("sleeping" is a metaphor for death in this context) are associated with the frequently paired snakes of the Roman lararium. These creatures themselves have been linked to the geni loci, protective spirits of places. And from there it was an easy step to make one into the genius loci of the British and the other the protective spirit of the Saxons.
But the real question is why Emrys is the one who reveals the two geni loci at Dinas Emrys?
Well, if I'm right and the historical Ambrosius (himself a conflation of the Gallic prefect and his saintly son) was also combined with Mabon, we need only remember that Mabon was identified in the Roman period with Apollo. And what was Apollo most famous for?
He slew the Python, a great serpent-dragon who guarded the sacred omphalos at Delphi in Greece. And what was the omphalos? The symbolic center of the world. As the guardian of this place, the Python served the function of a genius loci.
In Britain, the omphalos was Stonehenge at Amesbury, transferred in legend to Dinas Emrys in Gwynedd.
Perhaps the most important conclusion from all of this is that the Red Dragon of Wales does not represent a relic of the Roman draco, a conclusion we might draw from the account of Uther's standard in the pseudo-history of Geoffrey of Monmouth. Instead, it quite plainly stands for the genius loci of the British people. Monmouth's fable is due entirely to his misinterpreting the Pendragon epithet. To him, the term meant 'the Dragon's head.' In reality Pendragon means either 'Chief-warrior' or 'Chief of warriors' (Bromwich, TRIADS). The attempt to then relate Uther's draco standard to the Sarmatian dragon standard is misplaced. For not only had the draco in the Late Roman period become a "standard" standard (if my readers will permit the bad pun) for the entire army, but there is, in fact, absolutely no evidence for a draco existing among the Sarmatians (see https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2024/02/there-is-absolutely-no-evidence-for.html).
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