[The Pomegranate 6.2 (2004) 175-198] ISSN 1528-0268 (Print) ISSN 1743-1735 (Online) © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2004, Unit 6, The Village, 101 Amies Street, London SW11 2JW. Raising the Dragon: Folklore and the Development of Contemporary British Eco-Paganism Andy Letcher andy@jabberwocky.freeserve.co.uk Abstract This article traces how a motif from folklore, that of the marauding dragon, became reinterpreted by UK Pagans and Earth Mystics—for whom it symbolised a mysterious ‘dragon energy’ circulating harmoniously through the landscape—and by a radically motivated branch of Paganism, namely Eco-Paganism. Eco-Paganism, which emerged during the environmental anti-road protests of the 1990s, advocated a blend of direct and magical action in the form of ‘dragon-raising’ rituals for the protection of threatened pieces of land. The history of this idea of the dragon is presented, with examples of political and dragon-raising rituals, with particular reference to those performed by the Dragon Environmental Group. Introduction 1 Contemporary United Kingdom Pagan spiritualities are noted for their incorporation of British and European myths and revived folk customs, into their beliefs and practices. 2 The many, sometimes ancient, British legends of marauding dragons dispatched by dragon-slaying heroes have continued to grip the popular Western artistic and literary imagi- nation, but have particularly animated contemporary Pagans involved in 1. An earlier version of this article was delivered at the Open University Conference ‘The Development of Paganism: History, Influences and Contexts, 1880– 2002’, Saturday 12 January 2002. 2. Ronald Hutton, The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles: Their Nature and Legacy (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993); Marion Bowman, ‘More of the Same? Christianity, Vernacular Religion and Alternative Spirituality in Glastonbury’, in Beyond New Age: Exploring Alternative Spirituality, ed. Steven Sutcliffe and Marion Bowman (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2000), 83-104; Jenny Blain, Nine Worlds of Seidr-Magic: Ecstacy and Neo-Shamanism in North European Paganism (London: Routledge, 2002); Robert J. Wallis, Shamans/Neo-Shamans: Ecstasy, Alternative Archaeologies and Contemporary Pagans (London: Routledge, 2003).