Other flags of Wales
Historical flags
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- (English)
Excerpt describing the Flag of Wales
– Did you enjoy the conversation, Madonna? – Caraffa asked feigningly sincerely.– Thank you, Your Holiness. Yes, of course. Although, I would prefer to raise my daughter myself, as is customary in the normal world, and not give her into the hands of unknown people, just because you have some kind of plan for her. There isn't enough pain for one family, don't you think?
- Well, it depends on which one, Isidora! – Karaffa smiled. – Again, there is “family” and FAMILY... And yours, unfortunately, belongs to the second category... You are too strong and valuable to just live like that without paying for your opportunities. Remember, my “great Witch,” everything in this life has its price, and you have to pay for everything, regardless of whether you like it or not... And, unfortunately, you will have to pay very dearly. But let's not talk about bad things today! You had a wonderful time, didn't you? See you later, Madonna. I promise you, it will be very soon.
I froze... How familiar these words were to me!.. This bitter truth accompanied me so often in my still short life that I could not believe that I was hearing them from someone else!.. This is probably what It was indeed true that everyone had to pay, but not everyone did it voluntarily... And sometimes this payment was too expensive...
Stella peered into my face in surprise, apparently noticing my strange confusion. But I immediately showed her that “everything is fine, everything is fine,” and Isidora, who fell silent for a moment, continued her interrupted story.
Caraffa left, taking my dear baby away. The world around me darkened, and my devastated heart, drop by drop, was slowly filled with black, hopeless melancholy. The future seemed ominous. There was no hope in him, there was no usual confidence that, no matter how difficult it was now, in the end everything would work out somehow, and everything would definitely be fine.
Presentation for an English lesson on the topic: “Why is there no Welsh flag on the flag of Great Britain?” The work was completed by: Student 6 “G” of State Budgetary Educational Institution Secondary School No. 629 Tchaikovskaya A.
UK flag Why is it like this? Surely many of you have thought about this. Why are there so many colors, crosses and stripes on it? Without going into the wilds of heraldry, I will explain briefly.
Flag of Great Britain The flag of Great Britain very clearly and politically correct combines three flags with crosses of different colors, symbolizing the unification of three countries within Great Britain - England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
The flag was formed in this way. First, in 1606, after the creation of the union (union) of the kingdoms of England and Scotland, a new flag was approved. For this purpose, the Scottish flag with the cross of St. Andrew was superimposed on the English flag with the cross of St. George.
With the official emergence of the Kingdom of Great Britain a hundred years later, in 1707, it was this unified flag that became the symbol of the country. However, another hundred years later, in 1801, the act of unification of Great Britain and Ireland was adopted, as a result of which another symbol was superimposed on the existing flag - the Irish cross of St. Patrick.
In this form, the British flag or Union Jack has survived to this day. Even though Ireland gained independence in 1922 and the Kingdom of Great Britain currently includes only a piece of the Irish island - Northern Ireland
It must be said that today only the symbol of Wales is missing from the flag of the united kingdom of Great Britain, which causes quite a lot of criticism.
The flag of Wales features a red dragon on a white and green background. Legislated in 1959, although the red dragon has been a symbol of Wales since time immemorial, white and green are also associated with Wales. It is the only flag of the parts of the United Kingdom not included in its flag.
The first mentions of the Red Dragon are found in manuscripts dating back to 1200. The story “Lludd a Llefelys” tells the legend about the deliverance of Britain from the constantly fighting white and red dragons. Legend has it that by order of the kings, a hole was dug and filled with honey. The dragons quickly took the bait, got drunk, got drunk and fell asleep. The sleeping dragons were wrapped in canvas, thrown into a hole and covered with earth on top.
Soon King Vortigern decided to build a fortress on this site, but all the work done during the day was destroyed every night. Ambrose Aurelian, the successor of King Vortigern, thought that the cause of such destruction was the red and white dragons buried in this place. When they began to dig up the ground, the dragons broke free and began to fight again, and this time the red one defeated the white one. Ambrose explained to the king the meaning of what happened like this: a pit filled with water is the image of the world, the red dragon is the Welsh, the white dragon is the people who captured most of the British Isles and subjugated many of the peoples who lived on it, i.e. Saxons.
Wales is not represented on the royal flag because it was annexed by England long before the flag was designed. Wales has never been a sovereign state within its current borders, unlike Scotland and Ireland. When sovereign states united, images from their flags (the crosses of St. George, St. Andrew, St. Patrick) were also combined on the flag of the united state. Wales was already part of England at the time of all these unifications. And the royal Tudor dynasty itself is Welsh (they themselves are from Wales). If the Tudors had replaced English characters with Welsh ones in the 16th or 17th centuries (or added Welsh to English ones), no one would have understood them. And this could split the English kingdom.
Everything seems to be working out smoothly... But these days, conversations and discussions periodically arise about ways to fit the flag of Wales, white and green with a red dragon, onto the flag of Great Britain. There are proposals to supplement the flag of Great Britain, for example, like this:
Almost 72% of respondents believe the British flag should contain elements of the Welsh flag. Many options for consoling the wounded Welsh pride have been developed in history. But fortunately, so far the Welsh have not been able to agree with London on any of the options for the placement of Welsh symbols on the British flag, because for the British, observing long-standing traditions is most important.
Sources used: http://britainrus.co.uk/stats/Flag_Velikobritanii/ https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Wales https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Flag_of Great Britain http:// forum.sherwood -tavern.net/viewtopic.php?id=2610
GulesFlag of Wales(Welsh: Baner Cymru or Y Ddraig Gotch , which means Red Dragon) consists of a red dragon resembling a green and white field. As with many heraldic charges, the exact representation of the dragon is not standardized and many renderings exist.
The flag includes the red dragon Cadualadr, King of Gwynedd, along with the Tudor colors of green and white. It was used by Henry VII at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, after which it was carried in state until St Paul's Cathedral. The red dragon was then included as a supporter of the Tudor royal arms to show their Welsh origins. It was officially recognized as the Welsh national flag in 1959. Several cities include a dragon in their flag design, including Cardiff, the Welsh capital, and the Welsh-based city of Puerto Madryn in Argentina.
Red Dragon of Wales
Historical use
A 15th-century image illustrating the story of Vortigern and the blue and white dragons.
The oldest known use of a dragon to represent Wales from Stories of the Britons, written around 830; The text describes a fight between two snakes deep underground that prevents King Vortigern from building a fortress. This story was later adapted into a prophecy made by the master Myrddin (or Merlin) of the long struggle between the red dragon and the white dragon. According to the prophecy, the white dragon, representing the Saxons, will dominate at first, but eventually the red dragon, symbolizing the Britons, will defeat and retake Lloegr. According to legend, this victory will be caused by Y Mab Darogan. This is believed to represent the conflict in the 5th and 6th centuries between the British and the invading Saxons. A version of the tale also appears as part of the poem "Cyfranc Llud Llefelys" in the Mabinogion. One twelfth century account of this is Geoffrey Moneth's History of the Kings of Britain, where he states Merlin's prophecies.
The red dragon is popularly believed to have been the battle standard of Arthur and other ancient Celtic/Romano-British leaders. There is considerable evidence that during this period the dragon was a symbol of the Romano-British monarchy and perhaps of Romano-British society more broadly, including some from Anglo-Saxon poetry. The dragon is associated primarily in Welsh poetry with Cadualadr of king Gwynedd from c.655 to 682. Arthur's dragons and Cadualadr may have been based on the DRACO standards of transported Roman cavalry units located in Britain. Draco originated with the Sarmatians, a block of whom were stationed at Ribchester from the 2nd to 4th centuries.
Despite its close association throughout early Welsh history, the dragon was not used exclusively as a symbol of Wales during this period, and it was used throughout Britain as a symbol of power. In 1138 it was adopted as the Scottish royal standard, and Richard I adopted the dragon standard for the Third Crusade in 1191. Henry III fought under the dragon at the Battle of Lewes and was used later by Edward III at the Battle of Crécy.
c.1400 - c.1416 Y Ddraig Aur, royal standard of Owain Glyndwr
Other musicians who have used the flag include Nicky Wire from Manic Street Preachers, who often draped the Welsh flag over their amplifiers when playing live, and Cerys Matthews, who wore the image on his clothing, while classical singer Katherine Jenkins took the flag on stage during live performances. speeches.
Former Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters album " Radio KAOS(1987) follows the story of a young disabled Welsh man grounded in California who regularly expresses longing and hope for a return to his homeland. The "Sunset" chorus uses images of the Welsh flag to highlight this.
“Listen, Your Majesty, do you know what kind of dragons we have there in Wales?... Here,” he took out from his wallet a well-worn photo identikit of a red dragon, for clarity, drawn sitting on the railing of an abstract castle. - “These are such creatures, as big as the elephant in your circus, but not at all as funny. Don't look at how small he is here - I drew this from afar, from the pub. They’re always on guard near pubs, well, you remember, you came to the barbecue last year!”
The king, who miraculously survived after that trip, hastily nodded: the dragons, after the Welsh moonshine, which unobtrusively replaced all the kebab on that trip, really arrived excellent. (epigraph from here)
Dragons are found in the legends of peoples all over the world, both in the West and in the East. Great Britain is no exception, where the main place of residence of dragons is Wales. And this is not surprising, since this is a rather wild and also mountainous place. Most of the territory of Wales has long been covered with rather gloomy forests, where everyone found refuge - from gnomes and trolls to druids and dragons. The dragon has been used in Britain since Roman times. Initially it was depicted on the banners of Roman cohorts, and in post-Roman times it was used not only by the Britons, but also by the Saxons and Scots.
However, the red dragon is a specifically British symbol. Nennius's British dragon is red, but in the Middle Ages it was found in various variations on the theme of fire (red, fiery, gold).
In the Middle Ages, the British created stories about their ancestors' battles with the dragon to establish land ownership. Dragons may have been a figment of the imagination, but sometimes the stories about them had a basis in reality. An interesting episode, documented by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle:
“In 793, the monks from the monastery of St. Gutbert, located on the rocky islet of Lindisfarne off the east coast of England, heard a loud hissing... The eyes (of the holy fathers) were presented with a truly extraordinary sight: many dragons were playing and frolicking in the sky. The scales of huge snakes glittered dimly in the unclear northern sun... Soon after, on the sixth day before the Ides of January, the pagans bringing violence and death destroyed the Church of God on Lindisfarne..."
According to an ancient Irish legend, the city of Cork was founded by Saint Finebarr in the late 6th-early 7th century in honor of the victory over the last dragon in Ireland.
According to ancient legend, in the county of Essex, in a bottomless hole, which was called “Naker's Hole,” there lived a dragon who ate people and animals. The King of Essex offered his daughter in marriage to whoever slayed the dragon. Jim Palk, a local boy, the son of a farmer, outwitted the dragon. He prepared a poisoned pie, which the dragon ate and then died. But even after death, the dragon Naker managed to take revenge, because during the celebration of the victory over the dragon, the boy fell dead. He probably didn't wash his hands after baking the poisoned pie.
On November 30, 1222, an incredible thunderstorm broke out over London. Due to the heavy rainfall, the Thames overflowed its banks and many houses were damaged as a result of devastating flooding. Some believed that this disaster was caused by dragons. There were also eyewitnesses who saw dragons in the sky.
For the first time, the Welsh red dragon or I-Ddraig Goch (from the Welsh. Y Ddraig Goch) is mentioned in the Mabinogion, in the story “Lludd and Llefelys” (Welsh. Lludd a Llefelys), about King Llyud, and his brother - the French king Llewelis, who deliver Britain from the red and white dragons fighting among themselves. Every year on the eve of May 1, a terrifying scream of incredible power was heard over the island, and it was so terrible that because of it the water, land, trees and animals of Britain became barren. And this was the cry of a dragon who was fighting with another dragon somewhere in the south of the island. Llyud, the king of Britain, managed to free the island from these disasters, following the wise advice of Llevelis. According to legend, the kings ordered a hole to be dug and filled with honey. When the dragons, having taken the bait, got drunk and fell asleep, their bodies were wrapped in canvas, and the hole was covered with earth. After this, relative calm reigned on the island.
The story of the dragons buried in Snowdonia (the most elevated area of Wales) is described by Hennius and Geoffrey of Monmouth, where it is said that King Vortigern (Gurteirn the Weak) built the fortress of Dinas Emrys on this site (Welsh: Dinas Emrys, later the Fortress of Ambrose). Ambrosius). But the fortress began to collapse for no reason. To get rid of this scourge, the king is advised to sacrifice a boy born without a father. This child turns out to be Ambrosius Aurelian (Merlin Ambrosius, Myrddin Emrys), the future associate of King Arthur. Ambrosius (Merlin) tells Vortigern, that the reason for the failure of the construction was an underground lake where two warring dragons were buried. When, by order of the king, the earth was excavated there, two dragons really escaped from there - red and white, which immediately began to fight among themselves and the red dragon won. As Ambrose explained this to the king , an underground lake - personifies the image of a world where the red dragon is the people of Vortigern, and the white dragon is the people who captured many regions in Britain and subjugated many of the peoples living in it - the Saxons.
“Woe to the red dragon, for his humiliation is near. A white dragon wants to occupy his cave, personifying the Saxons you have called upon, while the red dragon is the original tribe of Britons, oppressed by the white dragon. The mountains of Britain will become equal to her valleys, and the rivers in her valleys will flow with blood.
But a boar from Cornubia will come to the rescue and trample the foreigners with its hooves. With his power he will protect the islands lying on the ocean and take possession of the Gallic forests. His deeds will provide food for singers and bards, and the people will glorify his valor."
Allegedly, since ancient times the red dragon has been a symbol of Wales.
Many people have conquered Wales, starting with Caesar. But no one was able to suppress it. To this day, the border between the “land of Cymru” and “good old England” is considered to be “Offa’s Ditch,” a giant earthen rampart built in the 8th century by the Anglo-Saxons, who tried to somehow protect themselves from the attacks of the inhabitants of the heather mountains and wastelands. And Wales (not everyone knows this) is a sovereign principality that is part of Great Britain, but is not formally subordinate to its monarch. The once shaggy Celtic leaders said to the victorious conqueror: “Either war to the end, or give us a master born on our soil and who does not speak a word of English.” And the wise King Edward brought to them his one-month-old firstborn, born on Welsh soil: “Here is your lord.” Since then, Llewelyn's iron ring, a symbol of power over Wales, has belonged to the crown princes. But on the eve of the coronation of the new monarch, the sacred relic passes to the next heir.
But let's return to the dragon.
The War of the Roses was a war fought by the descendants of Edward III, and scarlet was the symbol of the red dragon and white was the symbol of the white dragon. Accordingly - Britons and Angles + Saxons.
In 1485, the contender for the English throne Henry Tudor (Lancaster) - the future king of England Henry VII, before the Battle of Bosworth between York and Lancaster, in order to emphasize his ancient Welsh ancestry, added an image of a red Welsh dragon to his banner and officially approved it as his coat of arms
The Royal Mint even placed an image of a dragon on the obverse of Henry VII's gold coins. This is the first time a British monarch has used the image of a dragon as a mint mark.
Although Henry initially used the Welsh dragon as his personal emblem, under his descendants the red dragon with raised wings on a green mountain became established as the symbol of Wales. And in 1807, a red dragon on a green hill on a white field was officially approved as the royal badge of Wales.
In 1953 the badge was changed to a red dragon passan on a white and green field, the shield was surrounded by a ribbon with the motto Y Ddraig Goch Ddyry Cychwyn and topped with a crown. The flag of Wales was proclaimed to be the royal badge on a white field. In 1959, the Welsh flag took on its current form.
Wales. Gold Pattern Crown, 1830. George IV
Wales. Gold Pattern Crown, 1830. William IV
1911 Double Florin:
Based on Norman Sillman's sketches from the House of Heraldic design, the red dragon was reproduced on the 1995 and 2000 £1 coins:
And if you don't have enough of a real dragon coin, you can buy a chocolate bar:
2004 One Pound Coin:
There is a Welsh dragon on eurocents:
EuroEcu:
Two pound coin 2002.
The flag of Wales as we know it was established in 1959. However, the elements that make up the flag were established much earlier. Already at the beginning of the seventeenth century, the image had a close to modern appearance. For three hundred years, they played with the components as if with a construction set, either adding minor touches or shuffling existing ones. But first things first.
History and meaning of flowers
As mentioned above, the flag received a more or less stable content back in the seventeenth century, and more specifically, during the reign of the English Tudor dynasty. It was then that the two main colors – green and white (the family colors of the Tudor family) firmly became part of the flag and have successfully survived to this day. As time passed, it was decided to interpret these colors purely from a civic standpoint, viewing them through a national prism. Thus, the white color began to symbolize spiritual pacifism in the souls of the country's inhabitants, as well as the high moral principles of its citizens. The green color began to declare the self-identity of the state, the preservation of original features and cultural traditions.
According to another less common version, the appearance of green and white on the Welsh flag is directly related to the cultural symbol of the country, namely the leek. According to legend, Cadwaladr, the king of the previously existing kingdom of Gwynedd in the north of Wales, during a battle with the Saxons, ordered his warriors to attach leek sprouts to their helmets so that the soldiers could easily distinguish allies from the enemy. Since then, the heroic bow has been highly revered in the country.
Dragon as an integral element of culture
The situation is different with the third element of the flag - the red Welsh dragon. It was brought to the territory of Britain (and in particular Wales) by the Romans, at the same time making the island their own province.
Since then, the Welsh red dragon has firmly entered the cultural life of the population and regularly appears in the works of the national epic in the form of a specific image or references. Historically, the image of the Welsh dragon began to be identified with wisdom, courage and valor.
Modern look of the flag
In 1807, a model of the national flag was adopted, where the red dragon was located on a small green hill surrounded by a white field.
In 1953, the color scheme was aligned, the ratio of white and green was presented in equal proportions, and the image of the dragon was transferred to the shield and crowned. Since 1959, the appearance of the flag, familiar to our eyes, was approved.
Country: Wales
Capital: Cardiff
Total area: 20,779 km²
Date of formation: 600 BC uh
Population: 3,113,000
Currency: Pound Sterling (GBP)
Dialing code: 44
Colors: white, green
Figures: red dragon
Continent: ,
