Dragon of Wantley
POEM
The Dragon of Wantley; Dragon of wantley; The Dragon of Wantley (opera)
The Dragon of Wantley is a legend of a dragon-slaying by a knight on Wharncliffe Crags in South Yorkshire, recounted in a comic broadside ballad of 1685, later included in Thomas Percy's 1767 Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, and enjoying widespread popularity in the 18th and 19th centuries, although less well-known today. The ballad tells of how a huge dragon - almost as big as the Trojan Horse - devours anything it wishes, even trees and buildings, until the Falstaffian knight Moore of Moore Hall obtains a bespoke suit of spiked Sheffield armour and delivers a fatal kick to the dragon's "arse-gut" - its only vulnerable spot, as the dragon explains with its dying breath.