Although it might be true that there was considerable antagonism between the Wortley family and their tenants during the sixteenth century, there is no evidence whatsoever to indicate that the ballad is meant to satirise these conflicts, beyond the jesting tone of the lyrics and much wishful thinking.
Considering that the story of the Dragon of Wantley is identical to a dragon-slaying narrative associated with various locations across Yorkshire (with minor local variations), it would be an insult to the skill of any balladeers to suggest that they could not have been any more inventive. It seems far more probable that this migratory legend was already attached to Wantley, along with many other sites in the county, and the composer took his inspiration from it. Whilst this does not necessarily rule out the possibility that the ballad displays satirical intent, the narrative is simply too consistent with a wider dragon-slaying tradition to suggest that it was invented solely for that purpose.
It is particularly damning to Bosville’s case that the Moore family had left Moore Hall (located near Wharncliffe Crags in the Ewden Valley) half a century before the legal case the ballad is supposed to parody, and not one member of that line was ever recorded as a lawyer. Indeed, the connection between the Moore family and dragons appears to be much older than the sixteenth century. The family was associated with the area from the Norman Conquest at least and a dragon was featured on their family coat of arms. Meanwhile, there is a prominent stone effigy of a dragon in the medieval Church of St Nicholas at High Bradfield – of which the Moore family were patrons.
A dragon also features on the coat of arms of the Latimer family whose ancestral home was located at Well near Ripon, and there is a vague local legend to the effect that one of their ancestors slew such a beast at a spot between Well and Tanfield. This association between heraldry and dragons may well offer a clue as to the origin of some local dragon legends, casting them as back-formations designed to explain the choice of that particular motif in a noble family’s coat of arms. Dragons were commonly employed in medieval heraldry as a symbol of power and an association with dragon-slaying was especially favoured in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when the cult of St George was at its height in England.
As such, folklorists agree that a number English dragon stories represent ‘charter legends’ – narratives which arose to justify the origin and persistence of some social custom. In these cases, tales of dragon-slaying may have evolved to explain why a local landowning family were entitled to hold their position: namely that one of their ancestors had displayed great courage and valour in slaying a dragon which preyed on their tenants’ livelihoods and children. Such a story painted the noble family as men of character, with the implication that the local community should continue to be thankful that such men had saved them from a ravening menace and remained in a position to do so again in the future, should circumstances demand it.
A similar moral can be detected in the story of Sir William Wyvill, a fourteenth-century landowner who reputedly slew a dragon that tormented the region of Slingsby in the Vale of York. However, the only narrative in which the connection between dragon-slaying and ancestral estates is made explicit is the legend of the dragon of Handale in Cleveland. This monster liked to ‘beguile young damsels from the paths of truth and duty, and afterwards feed on their dainty limbs.’ It was killed by a local lad called Scaw, who subsequently married an Earl’s daughter he rescued from the beast’s lair and thereby eventually came into possession of her father’s lands. Yet, ironically, Scaw does not seem to have been an historical individual and the name may instead have been derived from a local toponym.
Nonetheless, a stone
Considering that the story of the Dragon of Wantley is identical to a dragon-slaying narrative associated with various locations across Yorkshire (with minor local variations), it would be an insult to the skill of any balladeers to suggest that they could not have been any more inventive. It seems far more probable that this migratory legend was already attached to Wantley, along with many other sites in the county, and the composer took his inspiration from it. Whilst this does not necessarily rule out the possibility that the ballad displays satirical intent, the narrative is simply too consistent with a wider dragon-slaying tradition to suggest that it was invented solely for that purpose.
It is particularly damning to Bosville’s case that the Moore family had left Moore Hall (located near Wharncliffe Crags in the Ewden Valley) half a century before the legal case the ballad is supposed to parody, and not one member of that line was ever recorded as a lawyer. Indeed, the connection between the Moore family and dragons appears to be much older than the sixteenth century. The family was associated with the area from the Norman Conquest at least and a dragon was featured on their family coat of arms. Meanwhile, there is a prominent stone effigy of a dragon in the medieval Church of St Nicholas at High Bradfield – of which the Moore family were patrons.
A dragon also features on the coat of arms of the Latimer family whose ancestral home was located at Well near Ripon, and there is a vague local legend to the effect that one of their ancestors slew such a beast at a spot between Well and Tanfield. This association between heraldry and dragons may well offer a clue as to the origin of some local dragon legends, casting them as back-formations designed to explain the choice of that particular motif in a noble family’s coat of arms. Dragons were commonly employed in medieval heraldry as a symbol of power and an association with dragon-slaying was especially favoured in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when the cult of St George was at its height in England.
As such, folklorists agree that a number English dragon stories represent ‘charter legends’ – narratives which arose to justify the origin and persistence of some social custom. In these cases, tales of dragon-slaying may have evolved to explain why a local landowning family were entitled to hold their position: namely that one of their ancestors had displayed great courage and valour in slaying a dragon which preyed on their tenants’ livelihoods and children. Such a story painted the noble family as men of character, with the implication that the local community should continue to be thankful that such men had saved them from a ravening menace and remained in a position to do so again in the future, should circumstances demand it.
A similar moral can be detected in the story of Sir William Wyvill, a fourteenth-century landowner who reputedly slew a dragon that tormented the region of Slingsby in the Vale of York. However, the only narrative in which the connection between dragon-slaying and ancestral estates is made explicit is the legend of the dragon of Handale in Cleveland. This monster liked to ‘beguile young damsels from the paths of truth and duty, and afterwards feed on their dainty limbs.’ It was killed by a local lad called Scaw, who subsequently married an Earl’s daughter he rescued from the beast’s lair and thereby eventually came into possession of her father’s lands. Yet, ironically, Scaw does not seem to have been an historical individual and the name may instead have been derived from a local toponym.
Nonetheless, a stone
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