Flag of Wales



Sarmation draco detail from a relief at the base of Trajan's Column (A.D. 113-117), Rome.


Ca. 883 depiction of draco standard from the Psalterium Aureum, a psalter created in the Abbey of St. Gall, in present-day Switzerland.


Bayeux tapestry, likely created in England, ca. 1077 showing a draco standard next to Harold (shot by an arrow)

There is no direct evidence that Romans introduced the symbol of the dragon to the British Isles, but the scenario seems a likely one. During the 400 year Roman invasion and occupation of these distant islands, there would have been ample opportunity for Britains to have observed the draco (Latin for dragon), the battle standard carried by Roman troops. A red or purple dragon was used in the 4th century as the standard of the cohort (480 men) while the eagle was used for the legion (ten cohorts). The Romans, in turn, likely adopted this symbol of war and authority from their Sarmatian foes of the eastern steppes, taking draco standards as spoils of war, as documented by the reliefs on the base of emperor Trajan’s column. The draco was made of a metal dragon’s head and a tubular fabric body, not unlike a modern wind sock, with the fabric body flowing in the breeze behind the head.

The first British visual reference to a draco appears in the Bayeux tapestry, created ca. 1077 for Bishop Odo, the Earl of Kent, and the half-brother of William the Conqueror. The tapestry shows that both Normans and Saxons were using the draco during the Battle of Hastings (in which William the Conqueror, leader of the Normans, defeats Harold, King of the Saxons, in 1066). The dragon image was eventually adopted as a royal English ensign in the centuries that followed, and also used as an actual flag, but by the mid-fourteenth century, the dragon symbol was becoming less popular and had largely disappeared from royal use.

It would seem that the Welsh didn’t use any type of battle ensign until the late twelfth century -- mentioned first in the History of Gruffyd ap Cynan, who died in 1137. From this same time period, we know that the words dragon, dragwn, draig in Welsh meant leader or chieftain. The earliest historical reference to the dragon used as a military ensign among the Welsh seems to be at the siege of Carnarvon, November 2, 1401, by Owen Glendower (in multitudine glomerosa vixillum suum album cum dracone aureo ibidem displicuit).
Finally, in terms of the historical symbolism, our earliest interpretation of a Welsh dragon comes from the Historia Britonum, purportedly written by Nennius, a Welsh monk of the 9th century:

Why use red for the dragon? Very early dragon ensigns were described variously as gold, red, and purple in color, although the description of colors is often faulty in early reports and the gold may have come from the metallic head of the early dracos. However, as far back as the paleolithic, which is essentially as far back as our record of the human use of coloring agents goes, red has been a significant, if not the most significant, color. Although we could look to an infinite number of cultures and peoples who have used red to symbolize everything from the hostile Egyptian god Seth to the flags of communist China, the overwhelming symbolism of red is blood and, hence, life, and by extension power.