The national symbol of Wales, the dragon is one of the earliest ‘national’ emblems to emerge in the British Isles, first being mentioned in around the year 829. In that famous story King Vortigern’s attempts to build a castle at Dinas Emrys are mysteriously foiled, until the boy Merlin reveals that two dragons are fighting below the ground – a red dragon and a white dragon. Freed from the ground, the red dragons triumph over the white, and this was interpreted to foretell of the eventual victory of the Britons over the Anglo-Saxons.