Note 54.1 — Chapter XVII · THE RESCUE OF ANDROMEDA IN SAGAS.

I may pause here to observe that the device of rendering the dragon torpid by gorging it is not unknown in Western tales. To give a single example, it shall be one that Sir Robert Atkyns turns aside from his dreary genealogies and heraldic studies to mention, because the hero was the traditional founder of one of those innumerable county families whose exciting chronicle of births, marriages, and deaths is of such vast importance to the local historian, and of none whatever to the rest of the world. The story is that the neighbourhood of Deerhurst, in Gloucestershire, was plagued by “a serpent of prodigious bigness,” which poisoned the inhabitants and slew their cattle. The people petitioned the king; and a proclamation was issued in response, offering an estate, then belonging to the Crown, on Walton Hill in the parish of Deerhurst to any one who should kill the serpent. This was accomplished by one John Smith, “a labourer.” He put a quantity of milk in a place frequented by the monster; and the brute, having swallowed the whole, “lay down in the sun with his scales ruffled up. Seeing him in this situation, Smith advanced, and striking between the scales with his axe, took off his head. The family of the Smiths enjoyed the estate when Sir Robert compiled this account, and Mr. Lane, who married a widow of that family, had then the axe in his possession.”54.1 Here for saki we have milk; and the Mikado’s sword is replaced by Mr. Lane’s axe. The church at Deerhurst is one of the most ancient in the country. Its tower in particular is of singular interest; and it has been assigned to a date as early as the eighth century. Beyond doubt it witnessed the Norman Conquest, and was probably by no means a new building then. Immediately over the door projects a broken stone, roughly carved into the shape of a dragon’s head; and above a window higher up is a second stone of a similar form. It is quite likely that, as in the case of the statue at Mansfeld, so here, the carving on the church has caused the localisation of the legend.55.1