Bisterne Dragon
The Bisterne Dragon is a dragon of New Forest folklore that lived on Burley Beacon, drank milk delivered daily at Bisterne, and was killed by a knight named Berkeley with the help of two dogs.
| Also known as | Dragon of Bisterne, Burley Dragon, Burley Beacon dragon |
|---|---|
| Type | dragon |
| Tradition | English (Hampshire) |
| Category | Folklore |
| Associated with | Bisterne and Burley Beacon, New Forest, Hampshire, England |
| Earliest source | Marginal note on a Berkeley family pedigree roll at Berkeley Castle, written before 1618 |
| Wings | Not specified |
| Breathes fire | Not specified |
| Guards treasure | No |
| Nature | Hostile |
The Story
A dragon made its lair on Burley Beacon, a hill in the New Forest of Hampshire. Each morning it went to the village of Bisterne, where the people left out a pail of milk for it, and it terrorized the district. A knight named Berkeley, usually called Sir Maurice Berkeley, lord of the manor of Bisterne, set out to kill it.
He built a hide near the dragon's path and waited there with his two dogs. In some tellings he protected himself by coating his armor with sticky bird-lime and broken glass. When the dragon came, the dogs attacked first and Berkeley finished it, though the dogs died in the fight. Accounts disagree about the knight: in some he triumphs, in others he dies soon after his victory. One tradition says the dragon's corpse became Bolton's Bench, a mound near Lyndhurst.
Appearance and Powers
The tradition says little about how the dragon looked. Its milk-drinking and morning journey are its most distinctive habits, and they appear in other English worm tales, such as those of Lambton and Spindlestone Heugh, where communities pacify a dragon with milk.
Origins and Sources
The earliest written version is a marginal note on a Berkeley family pedigree roll, written before 1618 and kept at Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire; it names the slayer as Sir Maurice Berkeley. A carving of the family arms dated 1652, in which the dragon appears, sits over the front of Bisterne manor house. A spot near the village is still called Dragon Field. The details vary considerably between tellers, and the tale is best read as a family legend tied to real landmarks.
Legacy
The Bisterne Dragon is one of the best-known New Forest legends. Its special touch is the role of the hounds, a reminder of how much a medieval knight relied on his dogs in the hunt. See Western dragons for comparable legends.
Related
- Knucker: The Knucker is a water dragon of Sussex folklore that lived in the Knucker Hole, a deep pool at Lyminster, and was killed either by a knight or by a local lad with a poisoned pie.
- Lambton Worm: The Lambton Worm is a giant serpent of County Durham folklore, fished from the River Wear by young John Lambton, which grew huge, coiled around a hill, and could rejoin its body whenever it was cut apart.
- Mordiford Wyvern: The Mordiford Wyvern is a dragon of Herefordshire folklore, raised from a hatchling by a village girl named Maud, which grew into a man-eating monster and was killed near the River Lugg.
- Western Dragons
- Dragon Legends
Sources and Further Reading
- Jacqueline Simpson, British Dragons (Batsford, 1980; Wordsworth, 2001)
- Jennifer Westwood and Jacqueline Simpson, The Lore of the Land: A Guide to England's Legends (Penguin, 2005)
Cite this entry: “Bisterne Dragon,” Draconika Encyclopedia of Dragons, https://www.draconika.com/dragons/bisterne-dragon.