Editing European dragon (section)

===Legends and tales===
The 12th-century [[Wales|Welsh]] monk [[Geoffrey of Monmouth]] recounts a famous legend in his {{Lang|la|[[Historia Regum Britanniae]]}} in which the child prophet [[Merlin]] witnesses the Romano-Celtic warlord [[Vortigern]] attempting to build a tower on [[Snowdon|Mount Snowdon]] to keep safe from the [[Anglo-Saxons]],{{sfn|Hughes|2005|page=106}} but the tower keeps being swallowed into the ground.{{sfn|Hughes|2005|page=106}} Merlin informs Vortigern that underneath the foundation he has built is a pool with two dragons sleeping in it.{{sfn|Hughes|2005|page=106}} Vortigern orders the pool to be drained, exposing a [[Welsh Dragon|red dragon]] and a [[white dragon]], who immediately begin fighting.{{sfn|Hughes|2005|page=106}} Merlin delivers a prophecy that the white dragon will triumph over the red, symbolizing England's conquest of Wales,{{sfn|Hughes|2005|page=106}} but declares that the red dragon will eventually return and defeat the white one.{{sfn|Hughes|2005|pages=106–107}} This story remained popular throughout the 15th century.{{sfn|Hughes|2005|pages=106–107}}

The 13th-century ''[[Golden Legend]]'', written in Latin, records the story of [[Margaret the Virgin|Saint Margaret of Antioch]],{{sfn|Morgan|2009|page=}} a virgin martyr who, after being tortured for her faith in the [[Diocletianic Persecution]] and thrown back into her cell, is said to have been confronted by a monstrous dragon,{{sfn|Morgan|2009|page=}} but she made the [[sign of the cross]] and the dragon vanished.{{sfn|Morgan|2009|page=}} In some versions of the story, she is swallowed by the dragon alive and, after making the sign of the cross in the dragon's stomach, emerges unharmed - or in another version, after a physical cross she carried irritated the dragon's innards.{{sfn|Morgan|2009|page=}}

Fantastic stories were invented in the Middle Ages to explain [[gargoyle]]s used as waterspouts on buildings.{{sfn|Cipa|2008|pages=1–3}}{{sfn|Sherman|2015|pages=183–184}} One medieval French legend holds that, in ancient times, a fearsome dragon known as ''La [[Gargouille]]'' had been causing floods and sinking ships on the river [[Seine]],{{sfn|Sherman|2015|page=184}} so the people of the town of [[Rouen]] would offer the dragon a [[human sacrifice]] once each year to appease its hunger.{{sfn|Sherman|2015|page=184}} Then, in around 600 AD, a priest named [[Romanus of Rouen|Romanus]] promised that, if the people would build a church, he would rid them of the dragon.{{sfn|Sherman|2015|page=184}} Romanus slew the dragon and its severed head was mounted on the walls of the city as the first gargoyle.{{sfn|Sherman|2015|page=184}}{{sfn|Cipa|2008|pages=1–30}}

====St George and the Dragon====
[[File:St George and the Dragon Verona ms 1853 26r.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|right|Manuscript illustration from [[Verona]] of [[Saint George and the Dragon|Saint George slaying the dragon]], ([[northern Italy]]) dating to {{circa}} 1270]]
The legend of [[Saint George and the Dragon]] is recorded as early as the sixth century AD,{{sfn|Niles|2013|page=53}}{{sfn|Thurston|1909|pages=453–455}} but the earliest artistic representations of it come from the 11th century{{sfn|Niles|2013|page=53}} and the first full account of it comes from an 11th-century [[Georgia (country)|Georgian]] text.{{sfn|Walter|2003|page=141}} The most famous version of the story from the ''[[Golden Legend]]'' holds that a dragon kept pillaging the sheep of the town of Silene in [[Ancient Libya|Libya]].{{sfn|Niles|2013|page=53}} After it ate a young shepherd, the people were forced to placate it by leaving two sheep as sacrificial offerings every morning beside the lake where the dragon lived.{{sfn|Niles|2013|page=53}} Eventually, the dragon ate all of the sheep{{sfn|Niles|2013|page=54}} and the people were forced to start offering it their own children.{{sfn|Niles|2013|page=54}} One day, the king's own daughter came up in the lottery and, despite the king's pleas for her life, she was dressed as a bride and chained to a rock beside the lake to be eaten.{{sfn|Niles|2013|page=54}} Then Saint George arrived and saw the princess.{{sfn|Niles|2013|page=54}} When the dragon arrived to eat her, he stabbed it with his lance and subdued it by making the sign of the cross and tying the princess's [[girdle]] around its neck.{{sfn|Niles|2013|page=54}} Saint George and the princess led the now docile dragon into the town and George promised to kill it if the townspeople would convert to Christianity.{{sfn|Niles|2013|page=55}} All the townspeople converted and Saint George killed the dragon with his sword.{{sfn|Niles|2013|page=55}} In some versions, Saint George marries the princess,{{sfn|Niles|2013|page=55}} but, in others, he continues wandering.{{sfn|Niles|2013|page=55}}