Dragons of Hull

The font located at the rear of Hull Parish Church, which is now pleased to be called a Minster, records an extraordinary scene. Judging by the fashion of the man depicted, and the decoration of the whole, I would judge it to be fifteenth-century. Remarkably, he is fighting a dragon with a spear -or is it an early form of gun, which Europeans began to employ around that time?

The official narrative is that the dragon is mere make-believe, a popular if clichéd artistic theme. Yet I wonder if the original mason and users of this font knew perfectly well that such great lizards existed, creatures we today call dinosaurs. The wilds of East Yorkshire would have been inhabited by such creatures after Noah’s Flood. With time’s passing, man better defended his great flocks for which the east coast became famous, its wool trade funding the many fine churches one finds that side of the Pennines. Applying God’s command to fill the earth and subdue it, these dangerous hunters were generally hunted to extinction.