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Friday, June 4, 2010

The Welsh Red Dragon Tattoo

The Welsh Red Dragon is one of the single most popular tattoo designs for those of Welsh heritage and family roots in Wales, as popular as the Rampant Lion is with the Scots, or the Lion Standard with the English. A symbol with a rich and ancient heraldic past, the Welsh dragon tattoo design contain a fascinating history - just one of the many reasons it makes such a wonderful and powerful tattoo symbol that represents Welsh heritage.

The red dragon and dragon tattoo art has been prominent in the folklore of most cultures, so many physical characteristics are present or absent in great variations around the world and include combinations of numerous animals. The Welsh national flag has a dragon on it it has two equal horizontal stripes, white above green, and a large red dragon passant. The dragon standard was perhaps first seen in Britain in the shape of the "draco" a standard carried by the cohorts of the Roman legion. There are many adaptations of this dragon ranging from ones that looked exactly like the Welsh flag to more stylized versions.

Folklore says that red dragon represents Wales and the white dragon represents the invading Saxons.

In the end, both dragons get drunk with mead and are buried in the center of the island of Britain, at Oxford, in a stone coffin. The white dragon comes to symbolize death, with its absence of color, and the red takes on the role of anger. In Arthurian legend, Uther Pendragon, the father of King Arthur, was supposed to have used the dragon as his symbol in war. Even today, the Wesh red dragon is a part of the coat of arms of the Prince of Wales.

In later Christian iconography, the dragon appears most often as a symbol of the devil.

It can be very important to understand the meaning or symbolism behind dragon art tattoos or the Meaning of Celtic Knot Tattoo so you, your friends, your clients, or anybody for that matter, knows the symbolism of their Welsh dragon tattoo designs before selecting one.

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