Dragon Hill (Eccles Beorh)

Dragon Hill is a prominent natural outcrop immediately below the Uffington White Horse on the border of the civil parishes of Uffington and Woolstone in the English county of Oxfordshire. In legend it is the place where St. George slew the dragon its blood spilling on the hilltop and leaving forever a bare white patch where no grass can grow. It is said that the dragon was buried under the mound, others claim that the White Horse on the hillside above is representative of St. George's steed or the dragon itself! The Rev. Francis Wise mentioned the story in his writings of 1738. Earlier, in about 1670, the antiquarian, John Aubrey, had thought it to be a burial mound and suggested, in his 'Monumenta Britannica' (c.1670), that King Arthur's father, Uther Pendragon, might have fought the Saxons in the region and been buried there. Such battle stories probably inspired an alternative legend stating that the blood was that of Danish invaders. The hill certainly resembles a later Norman motte castle. It is the burial mound theory, however, which probably produced the hill's present name, since dragon's were thought to be treasure guardians and appear as such in other place-names like Drakenhorde field in Garsington (Oxfordshire).

Dragon Hill puts me in mind of Silbury Hill, its almost perfect conical shape and level summit have led to the assumption, over the years, that the mound was man-made. In fact, only the top appears to have been artificially flattened. Both were built with purpose in mind, in the case of Silbury Hill I feel it was to be seen from afar, as a focus, an omphalos or axis-mundi. Dragon Hill is a more personal place, hidden from The Ridgeway by the green slopes of White Horse Hill, its form to be seen from the lowland fields, meadows and woods to the north. If scoured like the horse and fort above it would shine bone white like a beacon, infering to all those below that it is a place of importance - as an aside I'm put in mind of the nearby town of Marlborough, or Marl-burh, literally 'chalk-mound'. Certainly it is a significant ritual place, a place associated with death. Perhaps it was a charnel ground, a place of dissection before internment in the barrows above.