DEMONOLOGIST.

    [We have seen it stated that this case was tried in the Court of King’s
    Bench about the year 1687 or 1688.]

Did St. Paul’s Clock ever strike Thirteen.—­There is a very popular tradition that a soldier, who was taxed with having fallen asleep at midnight, whilst on guard, managed to escape the severe punishment annexed to so flagrant a dereliction of duty, by positively averring, as evidence of his having been “wide awake,” that he had heard the clock of St. Paul’s Cathedral strike thirteen at the very time at which he was charged with having indulged in forbidden slumbers.  The tradition of course adds, indeed this is its point, that, upon inquiry, it was found that the famous horary monitor of London city had, “for that night only,” actually treated those whose ears were open, with the, till then, unheard of phenomenon of “thirteen to the dozen.”  Can any of your readers state how this story originated, or whether it really has any foundation in fact?

HENRY CAMPKIN.

Jan. 9. 1851.

* * * * *

REPLIES.

DRAGONS.

(Vol. ii., p. 517.)

The subject on which R.S. jun. writes in No. 61. is one of so much interest in many points of view, that I hope that a few notices relating to it may not be considered unworthy of insertion in “NOTES AND QUERIES.”

In Murray’s Handbook of Northern Italy, mention is made, in the account of the church of St. Maria delle Grazie, near Mantua, of a stuffed lizard, crocodile, or other reptile, which is preserved suspended in the church.  This is said to have been killed in the adjacent swamps, about the year 1406.  It is stated to be six or seven feet long.

Eight or ten years ago, I saw an animal of the same order, and about the same size, hanging from the roof of the cathedral of Abbeville, in Picardy.  I then took it for a small crocodile, but I cannot say positively that it was one.  I am not sure whether it still remains in the cathedral.  I do not know whether any legend exists respecting this specimen, or whether it owed its distinguished post to its being deemed an appropriate ornament.

At the west door of the cathedral of Cracow are hanging some bones, said to have belonged to the dragon which inhabited the cave at the foot of the rock (the Wawel) on which the cathedral and the royal castle stand; and was destroyed by Krak, the founder of the city.  I regret that my want of osteological science prevented me from ascertaining to what animal these bones had belonged.  I thought them the bones of some small species of whale.

I hope that some competent observer may inform us of what animals these and the lindwurm at Bruenn are the remains.

It has struck me as possible that the real history of these crocodiles or alligators, if they are such, may be, that they were brought home by crusaders as specimens of dragons, just as Henry the Lion, Duke of Brunswick, brought from the Holy Land the antelope’s horn which had been palmed upon {41} him as a specimen of a griffin’s claw, and which may still be seen in the cathedral of that city.  That they should afterwards be fitted with appropriate legends, is not surprising.