Dragons

The Chinese dragon is a long and slithery thing, seventy-five metres of claws - sharp teeth and slimy green scales, a threat to men and maidens both; of the kind St George fought and killed. Now days they’re all extinct, at least in Europe. - Probably not many left in china either. Always a thing to be feared, they’re not much  missed remembered only  in  ritual   and   traditional   forms.

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The Welsh dragon is a different thing completely, short, between thirty and forty centimetres high, ginger haired, with rough and patchy coat, which some think is scaly, with rudimentary tufts at its shoulder blades, like small wings and a long  rather  heavy  tail it drags behind. A shy animal, which keeps away from people, hiding in isolated  areas. In  its habitat usually  quite  difficult  to  see.

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Occasionally in the more remote parts of the Brecon Beacons or Black Mountains, you can see it scampering, with its ridiculous  bounding  gait,  looking to the left or right at the top of each bound,  or  its quiet sprightly flight, from  where  coal  scree  outcrops  on the  hillsides.  Eating  coal  fuels its breathing   and   sometimes   in  very  dry  autumns,  it  sets  the  gorse  alight.

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Mostly confined to the south they have on occasion been seen as far north as Snowdon and the Lleyn Peninsular, but beyond that, in Lancashire or Cumbria, it’s much too harsh, they can't cope with England’s bleak and inhospitable weather and cold bite of desolation. They thrive in those parts where the anthracite is best.  No  one  knows  what will happen to them  now  that  the   mines  are  closing.

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Protected as an endangered species they are not allowed to be hunted, captured or shown in zoos, or filmed with David Attenborough for television. Wardens patrol their breeding grounds, warning off intruders so as not to disturb these timid creatures. But if you walk quietly, in  the  more  wild  parts,  in  harmony with  nature  all  around  you,  they  can be seen, if only fleetingly, I  assure  you.