Dragons are Dinosaurs
Dragons are Dinosaurs Video
Ichthyosaur Fossil. Museum of Somerset. Taunton
As a creationist I do not believe in the theory of evolution. The theory requires millions of years for animals to evolve and it claims that dinosaurs were creatures that existed hundreds of millions of years ago.
Dinosaurs are actually exactly the same creatures that we know as dragons. It was only in the nineteenth century that the word “dinosaur”was invented to explain the fossils of dragons that were being found.
Almost every culture in the world has stories of dragons. Some countries even have them on their flags. However we are led to believe that dragons never existed. Instead of trying to examine the history of dragons all over the world I will just look at their history in my local area. Specifically, I will look at the County of Somerset which has a Wyvern (a two legged dragon) on its coat of arms.
Coat of Arms of Somerset Featuring a Wyvern Dragon
We are still fascinated with Dragons. I recently walked around Taunton, the County Town of Somerset, and took random pictures of dragon/dinosaur related things as I was walking around.
Dragon Carving in Taunton High Street
Dragon Games in Taunton Book Shop
Taunton Dragon Trail
Dinosaur Puzzle
This is one of the earliest representations of a dragon slaying in Britain.The Church of St Mary the Virgin at East Stoke in Stoke-sub-Hamdon, Somerset, England dates from the 12th century.
Somerset at one time was famous for its dragons. Here are ten places in Somerset that have dragon legends. Here is a list from the website "Off the Beaten Track in Somerset".
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Norton Fitzwarren: a dragon lived on the Iron Age hillfort and was killed by a local man called Fulk Fitzwarin
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Carhampton: a Celtic saint named St Carantoc defeated a dragon which lived on the marshes.
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Bicknoller: there is a legend that a dying dragon will try and reach the sea, which is why there is a Dragon's Cross at Bilbrook.
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Shervage Wood: the Gurt Wurm or Great Worm was cut in half by a woodman from Stogumber. One part ran to Bilbrook and the other to Kingston St Mary.
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Kingston St Mary: a dragon lived nearby and breathed out flames, which it used to cook its animal and human victims. A villager rolled a large stone down a hill into its mouth and killed it.
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Churchstanton: a dragon was slain by a valiant knight.
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Castle Neroche: a dragon stole treasure from passing travellers but it was eventually drowned by local villagers.
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Aller: there are several versions of the story. One is that John Aller killed a dragon with a spear.
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Dulcote: a dragon with the face of a woman was terrorising the area. It was slain with a sacred sword from Glastonbury by Bishop Jocelyn of Wells.
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Kilve: a dragon called Blue Ben went into the sea to cool off but got stuck in the mud and drowned when the tide came in.
In fact, the churches of Somerset are littered with carvings of dragons, in the stonework and also on the pews.
So, Somerset has always had a connection with dragons. Interestingly it has also been an outstanding area for dinosaur fossils, particularly those known as “Sea Dragons”. The point I am making is that there are a lot of dragon stories in Somerset because there were a lot of “dinosaurs” in Somerset.This brings us to the story of Blue Ben.
The legend is that a dragon used to live at Kilve on the north coast of Somerset. There are many versions of the legend but basically the story is that this fire breathing dragon lived in caves and built a causeway across the mudflats to the sea so that he could cool off. Unfortunately Blue Ben was chosen by the devil as his steed. Blue Ben did not enjoy this role and in his desperation to escape back to his cave he became stuck in the mud and drowned.
Picture of Dragon from Medieval Bestiary. Dragon Harley MS 3244.png. From Wikipedia.
The interesting point is that this legend came from an area well known for fossils. The fossilised skull of an Ichthyosaur was discovered in the area and many fossils of both Ichthyosaurs and Plesiosaurs, known as “Sea Dragons” have been found in Somerset.
So we have an area both rich in dragon legends and dinosaur fossils. To me there is a clear connection between the two. In my mind the villagers of Kilve saw a sea dragon (or Ichthyosaur) dead in the mud and the legend grew around it. There are many accounts of dragon sightings in medieval times and they were included in medieval bestiaries along with other animals that we are more familiar with today.
Ichthyosaur skull. Museum of Somerset. Taunton
Dragons are Dinosaurs Part 2
Dragons are Dinosaurs Part 2. Video
Plesiosaur Fossil. Museum of Somerset. Taunton
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Page from a booklet called Nature in Somerset published by the Somerset Wildlife Trust
Somerset is full of “Sea Dragon” fossils. If you read the normal history of the area it will tell you something like the following: -
“two hundred million years ago, during the early Jurassic period of geological time, much of Somerset was covered by a warm shallow sea.”
As a creationist I do not agree with this interpretation. However much of Somerset was either underwater or boggy marsh in the past, before the land was drained. This made it an ideal habitat for dragons. Dragons were better suited to life before the Flood. The climate was more temperate and the Oxygen content of the atmosphere was higher. After the Flood of Noah life became harsher and Dragons struggled to support their own body weight and maintain their body temperature. Boggy, marshy places were ideal for them as they could hide in the rushes and float in the water, only coming on to land when they needed to.
The Leviathan in the bible is clearly some sort of dragon, as it breathes fire from its mouth and nostrils
[Job 41:19-21 KJV] 19 Out of his mouth go burning lamps, [and] sparks of fire leap out. 20 Out of his nostrils goeth smoke, as [out] of a seething pot or caldron. 21 His breath kindleth coals, and a flame goeth out of his mouth.
It is also a sea creature, unlike the Behemoth mentioned in Job 41 which is a land creature.
[Job 41:31-32 ESV] 31 He makes the deep boil like a pot; he makes the sea like a pot of ointment. 32 Behind him he leaves a shining wake; one would think the deep to be white-haired.
This 12th Century picture from medieval encyclopedia known as the Book of Flowers clearly depicts the Leviathan in water.
The Antichrist sitting on the Leviathan. From the Liber Floridus ("Book of Flowers"). A medieval encyclopedia that was compiled between 1090 and 1120 by Lambert, Canon of Saint-Omer. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Remember that depictions of dragons in medieval times were regarded as illustrations of living creatures. There are some similarities between the picture of the Leviathan and fossils of Ichthyosaurs and Plesiosaurs. For instance the long snout, the long tail and sharp teeth.
It is interesting how the bible account of the Leviathan ties up with the Somerset legends. there is a legend that a dying dragon will try and reach the sea, which is why there is a Dragon's Cross at Bilbrook in Somerset. Also the dragons of the legends of Norton Fitzwarren and Kingston St Mary both breathed fire just as the Leviathan did.
The theory of evolution would have us believe that life on earth has, for some reason, developed from simple organisms to advanced ones over billions of years. In fact the reverse is true. Life on earth has been deteriorating since the time of creation and in particular since the Flood.
An Ichthyosaur fossil. Museum of Somerset. Taunton
When I look around the local museums I can see how amazing life must have been thousands of years ago. The plants and animals were larger and more developed than they are now.
Ammonites were marine animals that are now extinct. The largest one in the picture is a Titanites Giganteus. It is incomplete. Imagine how large it would have been with a body and long tentacles.
As we get nearer to the end more and more creatures are dying out. The bible tells us that the earth is staggering under the weight of our sins
[Isa 24:20 KJV] 20 The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage; and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it; and it shall fall, and not rise again.
Ammonites on show at the Museum of Somerset. Taunton.
Fossils are everywhere, all over the planet. Deposited in the earth as a result of the Flood. They are not hard to find. They are God’s witness to his creation and the great cataclysm that destroyed life on earth as a result of the wickedness that had overcome the world. I found this fossil of a leaf just walking along a beach in Somerset.
The only land creatures that survived the flood were those that Noah took on the ark. The Ark is a picture of Jesus. If we accept him then we are saved by the love of God from the wrath that is to come.
I saw this imprint of what I think is a leaf on a stone on a beach in Somerset.
Dragons are Dinosaurs. Medieval Sightings
Dragons are Dinosaurs. Medieval Sightings Video
The epic of Beowulf is usually seen as just a myth or story
In April of 2023 I did two videos explaining that dinosaurs are actually the same creatures as dragons. This is an important aspect of prophecy as dinosaurs are held by many to have lived millions of years ago and are cited as evidence of evolution. My point here is that every culture in the world has reports of dragons and they existed up until the middle ages. History is only 6,000 years old. Men and dragons coexisted.
One of the earliest prose poems we have in English is the epic of Beowulf. The poem survives in a single manuscript copy that was made about 1,000 AD. The events in the poem take place over the 5th and 6th centuries,in Denmark. The writers of the epic have several words to describe the different types dragon, or serpent, that the people of the poem were dealing with. I am indebted to Bill Cooper who wrote the book After the Flood for the following list of serpents identified in Beowulf.
Dragons are Dinosaurs Chart. PDF
Image of an Afanc
These creatures were very familiar to the Saxon and norse people. They had specific words for the different types of monster. Grendel himself was a bipedal monster with two large legs and puny forearms. Beowulf was able to defeat him by going in under the creature’s powerful jaws and grabbing his claws, then pulling away and ripping one of the arms off. The description of Grendel is similar to a dinosaur such as a velociraptor.
There are a truly vast number of sightings of dragons and monsters in Britain in the middle ages. Their names are remembered in place names up and down the country. There are innumerable carvings and pictures from the middle ages recording dragons. In Wales there were reptilian species known as the addanc or afanc (a lake monster) and the carrog. The addanc survived until comparatively recent times at such places as Bedd-yr-Afanc near Brynberian, at Llyn-yr-Afanc above Bettws-y-Coed on the River Conwy (the killing of this monster was described in the year 1693), and Llyn Barfog. A carrog is commemorated at Carrog near Corwen, and at Dol-y-Carrog in the Vale of Conwy.
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This saxon carving can be seen at church of Saint Mary and Saint Hardulph Breedon-on-the-Hill. It shows a bipedal animal with small arms, similar to the description of Grendel, attacking a group of quadrupeds
Winged serpents were also commonly sighted in Wales right up until the early 20th century when they were reportedly seen in the woods around
Penlin castle in Glamorgan.They snacked on the local produce, and sparkled and shimmered when escaping farmers; These brilliantly coloured flying feathered serpents were said to inhabit the woods of Penllyn as recently as the mid 19th century. People who were old men and women at the beginning of the 20th century recalled them well from their youth. They said the crested dragons of Penllyn were prone to raid chicken coops and as a result were hunted into extinction.
There are hundreds of such sightings around Britain especially in the middle ages but also up to relatively recent times. I will continue with more historical reports of dragon sightings in part two of this series. For now now just consider the number of place names, crests, carvings etc there are depicting dragons. I will finish the video with some pictures of these things.
Dragon ornament from the Anglo-Saxon ship burial site at Sutton Hoo, Suffolk, England, c. 620–625 AD
The Sutton Hoo helmet is a decorated Anglo-Saxon helmet found during a 1939 excavation of the Sutton Hoo ship. It was buried around the years c. 620–625 AD. The visage contains eyebrows, a nose, and moustache, creating the image of a man joined by a dragon's head to become a soaring dragon with outstretched wings
16th-century bench end of naked men fighting a two headed dragon. Crowcombe, Church of the Holy Ghost. Somerset.
Flag of the County of Somerset, England
Dragons are Dinosaurs. Medieval Sightings. Part 2.
Dragons are Dinosaurs. Medieval Sightings. Part 2. Video
It is interesting to me that there are so many dragon sightings in Britain in the middle ages and from so many different sources.
One of the most famous is St Columba’s meeting with what we would now call The Loch Ness Monster in 565 AD. The incident is recorded by Adomnán of Iona, a seventh century abbot and relative of the saint in the Vita Columbae (Life of St. Columba). According to Adomnán’s account, while traveling along the River Ness, Columba comes upon a group of Picts burying a man said to have been dragged underwater and killed by an unknown beast in the water. One of Columba’s companions decides to cross the river himself and is subsequently pursued by the creature, which opens its jaws with a terrible roar! Columba saves his friend by making the Sign of the Cross and commanding the monster to “go no further, nor touch the man; go back with all speed.” The creature beats a hasty retreat, and the astonished Picts glorify God.
St Columba meets the Loch Ness Monster
Fiery Dragons in the Sky
Another sighting from the the year 793 AD was recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
A.D. 793. This year dire forewarnings came over the land of the Northumbrians, and miserably terrified the people; these were excessive whirlwinds and lightnings, and fiery dragons were seen flying in the air. A great famine soon followed these tokens; and a little after that, in the same year, on the 6th of the ides of January [8th Jan.], the ravaging of heathen men lamentably destroyed God's church at Lindisfarne, through rapine and slaughter.
So in these reports we see a monster that lived in water and dragons that flew. Both types of creature, as we saw in the previous video, were recorded in Beowulf.
Dragons are everywhere in medieval literature. In Geoffrey of Monmouth’s 12th century History of Britain we have the famous dragon prophecy where the red British dragon fights the white Saxon dragon.
A Wyvern Dragon on the Flag of Somerset
This is not an actual sighting but it does show how prevalent dragons were in the culture of the time. During the Middle Ages dragons were reported in every region of Britain. A good list of 29 different sightings is given on the web page British Dragons. The link for this is:
https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/britishdragons.html#shervage.
I have limited my own interest to the County of Somerset because I couldn’t possibly follow up all the hundreds of sightings that have been recorded around the country.
As I showed in the first Dragons are Dinosaurs video, Somerset was perfect habitat for dinosaurs because it was close to the sea and full of marshes where dragons could rest and support their body weight. Since the flood of Noah and the reduced Oxygen levels in the air, dragons always struggled to find habitats where they could survive. I am producing here a reminder of some of them is reproduced in this chart.
The point I want to make here is that in just this one county we can find all the dragons/monsters mentioned in the the epic of Beowulf. This is more evidence that there were distinct species of dragon and they were all relatable to dinosaur species.
I think I have laboured this point enough so I want to finish by reproducing the Dragons are Dinosaurs chart that I showed in the previous video and relate each creature to a dragon sighting in Somerset.
If you are interested in this subject and want more details I would recommend Brian Wright’s book Somerset Dragons.
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Somerset Dragon Sightings Chart. PDF
Dragons.
Their Spiritual and Prophetic Significance
Image of Mearcstapa (marshstepper)
Image of Ythgewinnes or Wavethrasher
Flying Dragon
Image of St Columba
Dragons.Their Spiritual and Prophetic Significance. Video
I have tried to show in the previous videos that dragons are the same creatures as dinosaurs. The vast number of stories involving dragons, particularly in the middle ages, is sufficient evidence for me that dragons are real and coexisted with humans.
In the bible dragons are usually connected with evil and with satan himself. However they are also cited as the pinnacle of God’s creation. The Behemoth, a land dragon in the book of Job, is described as follows
[Job 40:19 KJV] 19 He [is] the chief of the ways of God:
This creature was huge with a tail like a cedar tree. It lived in fens and marshes and would be something like the mearcstapa (marshstepper) in Beowulf. Similarly the sea dragon monster known as the Leviathan is described as one of the greatest of God’s creatures
[Job 41:33 KJV] 33 Upon earth there is not his like, who is made without fear.
The Leviathan is described as being covered in scales and breathing fire. It would be something like the Ythgewinnes or Wavethrasher described in Beowulf.
So, biblically speaking dragons are not all bad. The serpent in the Garden of Eden was just one branch of the dragon family and was known for being more subtle, that is crafty, than any other beast. Serpents do not have legs because the curse on them was to crawl on their belly.
[Gen 3:14 KJV] 14 And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou [art] cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:
The other members of the dragon family do have legs and are not under this curse.
However it is true that dragons do tend to be associated with evil. The Leviathan is currently still living somewhere in the depths of the ocean and will eventually be killed by the Lord himself.
[Isa 27:1 KJV] 1 In that day the LORD with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that [is] in the sea.
Traditionally dragon sightings have been taken as portents or omens of evil. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle tells us that in 793 AD, when dragons were seen in the sky above the Holy island of Lindisfarne, they pressaged evil days to come
A.D. 793. This year dire forewarnings came over the land of the Northumbrians, and miserably terrified the people; these were excessive whirlwinds and lightnings, and fiery dragons were seen flying in the air. A great famine soon followed these tokens; and a little after that, in the same year, on the 6th of the ides of January [8th Jan.], the ravaging of heathen men lamentably destroyed God's church at Lindisfarne, through rapine and slaughter.
Interestingly, in China, dragons are also omens of evil. In AD 373, Chinese records chronicled “fire dragons” lighting up the sky before a significant quake, leaving people in awe and dread.
So there seem to be two aspects to dragons. In the natural they were just beasts that always seemed to be hungry and caused trouble by eating the livestock in their area. In the spiritual realm they represent evil and darkness. However it’s worth noting that like any beast they could be tamed by bringing them under the authority of Jesus. We have many stories of Saints of old, such as St Carantoc and St Columba, who were able to control them.
Finally I could not end without mentioning the fact that Satan himself is characterised as a dragon
[Rev 20:2 KJV] 2 And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,
Satan was an angel who rebelled against God and fell from heaven. God did not allow him to inhabit a man as man is made in the image of God. He therefore inhabited the serpent which was the greatest of God’s creatures but still just a beast, not made in God’s image.
[Rev 20:2 KJV] 2 And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,
Satan’s physical form is that of a dragon or serpent. Although he is crafty and able to appear to us in many different guises, these are actually disguises. His real form is that of a serpent.
AI image of a Serpent