A small galley went before the Lord Mayor’s barge on the Thames, carrying guns and a great red dragon that moved about and spat wildfire, with wild men throwing fire around it. The account comes from Anne Boleyn’s river procession of 1533. Strutt thought the fire-galley usually went out when the mayor went by water to Westminster on Lord Mayor’s Day, then 29 October, and cited a line from Jonson’s Silent Woman.
The fire-spitting dragon before the Lord Mayor’s barge
Printed under 29 October · River Thames, London
No longer kept
there went before the lord-mayor's barge, a foyste for a wafter full of ordinance; in which foyste was a great red dragon, continually moving and casting forth wild-fire
From Strutt's Sports and Pastimes, 2nd ed., p. 331. Read the original
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