The national animal of Wales is the mythical Welsh dragon, known in the native tongue as Y Ddraig Goch. This red dragon features boldly on the country’s flag and is a very important national symbol, though of course they do not really exist. It is more of a heraldic symbol like the Gallic rooster of France.
Flags are often something that can be hard to remember and identify when they are simply block colors.
The Welsh flag, though, is undoubtedly among the most recognizable in the western world.
The striking red dragon dominates the image and thus it is unsurprising that the dragon is also the official national animal.
Let’s find out more.
What is the national animal of Wales?
The national animal of Wales is the red Welsh dragon.
You are almost certainly familiar with this dragon if you have ever seen the Welsh flag.
The dragon is the only thing you will really remember; it sits bold and red at the centre covering most of the flag on a green and white background, making a white sky and green field.
It’s Welsh name, Y Drdraig Goch, simply means “red dragon” and it has been known has the “Red Dragon of Cadwaladr”.
It has been an emblem of Welsh rulers since at least the middle of the 7th Century, when it was used by King Cadwaladr of Gwynedd as an emblem.
We have many surviving stories of the Welsh myth cycles, indeed pre-Christian myths, in Medieval manuscripts which were based either on oral traditions or on older sources which are now mostly lost.
It features strongly in the Mabinogion, a collection of stories in the Welsh Arthurian tradition.
It is then also included in the Historia Brittonum, first written around 829 AD. Interestingly, unlike dragons in wider Arthurian legend, the red dragon is often the defender of Wales against the white dragon of the Anglo-Saxons.
So, what’s plain here is that Wales has not chosen a member of its actual fauna as its national animal.
This is not, by any means, for lack of options; there are plenty of diverse species in Wales.
But it is not uncommon for countries to choose as their national animal a symbolic, even mythical creature rather than an actual animal.
As mentioned, France has used the Gallic rooster as a symbol since the Middle Ages, but this is not really much to do with an actual animal—it’s simply a symbol.
So, what does the red dragon of Wales symbolize for the Welsh people?
Why is the dragon the symbol of Wales?
As we’ve seen, dragons have been a central part of Welsh myth since long before we can possibly imagine.
Written sources containing the stories are mostly medieval, but as mentioned they are doubtless based on both oral traditions and older written sources.
Though most people tend to think of the legend of King Arthur as being an English story, it was in fact completely Welsh in origin.
Most of the common stories we associate with Arthur today were written in France.
Dragons, though, were always an important part of the Arthur legend.
They were, also, not always malevolent and in need of slaying in the Welsh tradition—this, again, tended to be a more continental idea.
Wales and England throughout the Middle Ages were often at odds with each other, and while we have scant written evidence, archaeological evidence does show a great deal of conflict in the so-called “Dark Ages” when the myth of King Arthur is thought to have originated.
The red dragon, then, was at the earliest a symbol of Welsh strength and power and in particular in the face of aggression from the white dragon of the Anglo-Saxons.
The dragon, then, has been a Welsh symbol for longer than we can possibly guess.
Is the Welsh dragon good or bad?
It might perhaps be best to say that the Welsh dragon is neither good nor bad.
For the most part, it is seen as a symbol of the Welsh people and thus is mostly depicted in its struggle against other dragons, as opposed to against Arthur’s brave knights.
Dragons often befriended the wizard Merlin, though again Merlin does not feature as heavily in the surviving Welsh Arthurian legends and stories.
The Welsh dragon is seen, then, as an exceptionally fierce and powerful creature, but ultimately a benevolent force rather than an evil, greedy dragon that you might find elsewhere in later medieval myth.
Who killed the Welsh dragon?
The Welsh dragon is never killed in the stories that survive to us.
The story of St. George and the dragon concerns a different dragon entirely and the myths are not connected.
As mentioned, there was no requirement to kill or hunt the Welsh dragon as it was not a force for evil.
In some stories, the Welsh dragon is found to be on the brink of defeat from the white dragon of the Anglo-Saxons, but it is never killed.
No one, then, killed the Welsh dragon, either in reality or in the stories!
A fascinating mythic story, then, and an important part of Welsh and British culture in general now, the Welsh dragon is among the most striking of all worldwide national symbols.
It is the very embodiment of power and strength, and yet at the same time it is seen as a benevolent force despite the common associations of dragons in our minds today.