If you had to face an enormous sea dragon in a fight to the death would you grab a boat and row out to do battle or flee to the ends of the earth? This was the decision that faced Assipattle…

Assipattle was a seventh son. His name was simply 'the Cinder Lad'. He liked nothing better than lazing around and avoiding work whenever he could. His brothers thought he was a good-for-nothing.

Assipattle loved stories and he made up epic tales of heroes and dragons. Little did he know that he would have to fight the world’s largest, most evil, deadly sea-monster … the stoor worm!
Scotland is home to a fair few dragons, worms and sea and loch monsters. At the edge of maps the unknown was full of weird creatures - 'Here be Dragons'.

Most famous of all is Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster. She is the star of books, TV and Hollywood movies. The Loch Ness Monster is a cryptid, studied alongside Bigfoot, the Yeti, Igopogo, Champ of Lake Champlain, the Bunyip and the Jersey Devil.

In medieval plays in Scotland people carried fire-breathing giant puppet dragons. Scotland’s dragons and watery monsters include the Linton Worm, Morag of Loch Morar, the kelpies (water horses), the white serpent cooked by Michael Scott the Wizard, the Dundee dragon that ate nine maidens at Strathmartin, and the Maeshowe Dragon that Vikings carved in Maeshowe, Orkney, in the 12th century.

You’ll even find dragons carved in stone in the 15th century Rosslyn Chapel, a few miles south of Edinburgh.

© Tom Muir

May be freely used within schools and early years’ centres in Scotland.

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