MUIRHEAD'S MYSTERIES: Dragons

In the depths of my archives I found a story titled `The Dragon Farm` from a book called Avery Memorial. It was written by someone calling themselves 'C.C.C.' All other details are unknown. There is an Avery near Midhurst in West Sussex and one near Southampton. I have a vague memory of finding this short account whilst working in Warwickshire in the mid 1990s but I am not absolutely sure. However, the mention of Alcester (`Roman fort on the river Alne`) would seem to confirm the Warwickshire connection. The following is an abridged version.

'Though I had often heard of The Dragon Farm and the curious chimney-piece preserved there, it was not until recently that I had an opportunity of paying it a visit. The house I found to be an old half-timbered one,standing upon a base of stone-work, and moated on its hill side. From the number of perpendiculars in the timber work and the form of the angle-pieces it would appear to be a place of some antiquity, though not belonging to the Saurian period as the local tradition would imply.

'The place derives its name from two so-called dragons,carved in oak, on an otherwise plain chimney-piece in one of the rooms, and the story told of them is as follows:- In that extinct age when the dragon and the wyvern, the cockatrice and the fire-drake, to say nothing of gigantic serpents, griffons &c,existed upon the earth, there lived at the farm house a certain man who had large flocks of sheep. To his great mortification, however, these, instead of increasing, decreased in number to an alarming extent. Whither the missing ones went he could not tell, and the rangers, woodwards and verdurers (?) of Feckenham assured him that they had not strayed in the forest; neither could he find about his own pastures any trace of their having been torn by wolves. In his distress he went to consult a holy man who simply bade him “Watch and pray”, and he therefore set his shepherds to watch while he betook himself to his beads. On the night following, the shepherd came to his master and told him that two evil beasts were dragging away some lambs, whereupon the men armed themselves with (with “guns” says one of my informants) and were quickly in pursuit. They followed the ravening creatures and saw them disappear with their prey through a hole in the butt of an enormous oak tree. Having found the den of the spoilers they quickly shot them, and the flocks thenceforth began to increase. On examining the tree they found the trunk quite hollow, and there was room within to turn a coach round!

'It was in commemoration of this strange occurrence,says the tradition, that the two so-called dragons were carved over the chimney-piece at the farm. An inspection, however, of the carving will show any one versed in such matters that it is a piece of very good work of the time of James I. Did not the date 1614 on a shield inform us positively of this.

'The creatures themselves should have been described as serpents rather than dragons; their tails, barbed at the ends, are interlaced, and the eyes in their regardant heads glare fiercely at each other; the teeth, however are those of a crocodile, though the tongue ends in what is intended to represent a sting. This kind of nondescript is not unfrequent in our neighbourhood and examples may be seen at Tookey`s Farm, at Alcester, and elsewhere.' (1)

A web site about the Ropen, Papua New Guinea`s supposed living pterosaur, says: 'What do dragons and pterosaurs have in common? Celtic dragons had arrows at the end of their tails, which may relate to ptero-saur tails. What about Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur tails? Are not dragon tails also long? Perhaps most noteworthy are the wings: both pterosaurs and flying dragons have featherless wings' (2)



1. C.C.C. No. 247. The Dragon Farm. Avery Memorial. Date unknown
2.. Are Dragons Pterosaurs? http://www.objectiveness.com/dragons-1/ [accessed November 25 2009]

Talking Heads-Animals


I`m mad….And that`s a fact
I found out…Animals don`t help
Animals think…They`re pretty smart
Shit on the ground…See in the dark
They wander around like a crazy dog
Make a mistake in the parking lot
Always bumping into things
Always let you down down down down