YOUNG ALHS
MYTHICAL CREATURES
Stories about mythical creatures have been told to children for many hundreds of years. Mythical creatures are not real: they only appear in stories. But sometimes it can be difficult to know which animals are real and which are mythical. To someone very young a unicorn can feel very much more real than, say, a rhinoceros. After all, they see a lot more pictures of unicorns than of rhinos. In the past, children could not often see pictures of any animals, let alone mythical ones, but some of them appeared on the inn signs around Abergavenny. There has been a unicorn with the lion on the front of the King’s Arms Inn for a very long time – look at the royal coat of arms. There is a much bigger coat of arms in a picture in St Mary’s Priory church with a very elegant unicorn. Did you know that there is a wooden carving of a dragon in St Mary’s church too? Look at the choir stalls.
The Welsh red dragon is another mythical animal you will know well. You can’t walk around town without seeing a lot of Welsh dragons. Have you tried counting them? In the 1850s The Coffee Pot in Nevill Street was the Dragon’s Head Inn. And there was a very old pub in Lion Street called the Green Dragon.
The building that is now The Little Treat coffee shop in Frogmore Street was part of the Griffin Inn for about a hundred years. A griffin has an eagle’s front half and a lion’s back legs and tail. If you can’t imagine this then you can see two griffins holding shields carved in stone on the main gate of Bailey Park in the Hereford Road. And if you want to see some more mythical creatures and are in Parc Pen-y-fal, then have a look at the chimneys on the old hospital building to see an amazing collection.
