Case file · Folklore / legend
The dragons of Dinas Emrys
The Historia Brittonum (about 829) tells how King Vortigern's fortress on Dinas Emrys kept collapsing until the boy Ambrosius revealed two dragons, red and white, fighting in a pool beneath it.
829 CE · 53.02, -4.09 · status: legend
The account
The red dragon stood for the Britons and the white for the Saxons. Geoffrey of Monmouth later gave the prophecy to Merlin, and the red dragon became the emblem of Wales. Excavations found a pool and later fortifications on the hill.
The sceptical view
A political allegory written centuries after Vortigern's time.