Go to the Main Scottish Cave and Mine Database Search Page

Dragon Hole

Kinnoull Hill, Perthshire.

Cave in a south facing cliff at Kinnoul Hill, Perth.

The Dragon Hole was the scene of pre-Reformation festivities on the 1st of May. It is also said to have been associated with William Wallace. It is a cave about 10 ft high and extremely difficult to access. It would accommodate a dozen people. The floor of the cave is 6.5 m above the base of the cliff and at least an equal distance from the top. The cave penetrates the cliff for 3.0 m . It is 5.0 m high by 1.5 m wide at the entrance, tapering to 2.0 m high by 0,6 m wide at the back. [Canmore]

The Dragon's Hole was said to be the den of a deadly dragon during the 6th Century. The beast would leave its lair within the steeply wooded slopes of the Kinnoull Hill in Perthshire and descend on the helpless inhabitants of the Tay Valley. Cattle were slaughtered and beautiful maidens were abducted. In desperation, the people turned to Saint Serf, a Pictish saint, and begged him to rescue them. [Spooky Scotland]

Dragon Hole is supposed to have been the residence of a dragon slain by St. Serf about the end of the 6th century. [Canmore]

According to the Vita Sancti Servani (Dublin, Marsh Library, MS Z 4.5.5), when he [Saint Serf] was in Dunning, he heard tell that a dragon great and terrible and very loathesome, whose look no mortal could endure, had come into his city. The Saint went out to meet it, and taking his staff in his right hand, fought with the dragon in a certain valley and slew it. From that day that valley is called the Dragon's Den. The above translation is quoted from a translation of the Vita originally published in Lives of the Scottish Saints, ed. by W. M. Metcalfe [Paisley: Alexander Gardner, 1895].

The Lives of the Scottish Saints make it clear that the dragon was supposedly killed in a valley not at the cave so it is the valley at Dunning that is called the Dragon's Den not the cave.

It was in the 6th century that this terrifying beast made its base in a deep cave in Kinnoull Hill. It would torment the local countryside, snatching up livestock in its powerful jaws and carrying off bonnie, young lassies. The people of Perth were in a panic. They knew where the dragons cave was, but none of them were brave enough or strong enough to fight the beast. They turned to St Serf who had no problems in slaying the mighty dragon with his staff. This dragon had a diamond like stone in the middle of its head, which was believed to be the source of its power. Somehow, in the drama around the dragon's demise, the stone was forgotten about and lost.

Every May 1st, otherwise known as Beltane, the fiery Festival of the Dragon was held on Kinnoull Hill. Young men and women would march through the town, beating drums and playing pipes on their way to the hill. There, they would try and climb up to the cave as a spectacularly dressed figure representing the dragon looked on, with only a handful succeeding. It was far from a Christian festival, but the crowd was allegedly still full of monks enjoying a break from their usual solemn activities. In the 16th century, after the Scottish Reformation, the Festival of the Dragon was banned and the cave mostly ignored. [VisitScotland]

Supposedly he was slain by the Christian saint. St. Serf. I say supposedly, because what's more telling is that the dragon was consecrated to Belinus, the Celtic sun god. The great festival of Belinus is Beltane that is celebrated on May 1, one of the two main Celtic festivals, the other being Samhain --- or Halloween. On Beltane, people celebrated the birth of the sun, with fires, dances and debauchery. Even all marriage vows were suspended for one day. Beltane was celebrated on Kinnoull in a small hollow below the summit called Windy Cowl [sic Gowl], a place reputed to have of multiple echoes and eerie sounds. [Vagabond and the Gypsy Wife]

In early times, the Dragon Hole was a factor in the social life of the people as a resort on various occasions and for various purposes. It is a cave in the rock on Kinnoull Hill, facing the Dundee Road. It was the scene of annual processions of young people on 1st May, a practice which evidently originated in Druid times, connected with Beltane or Bel-fire, the worship of the Sun. The rejoicings continued to be observed in various forms in early Christian times, and the Dragon Hole was known as such from the most remote antiquity. It is extremely difficult of access, is about 10 feet high, and will accommodate a dozen persons. It is said Sir William Wallace frequented it, and hid in it during his military manoeuvres around Perth. Adamson mentions a certain James Keddie, who found in the Dragon Hole a stone which had the power of rendering its possessor invisible. Keddie lost the stone, and though he often searched for it, it was ever afterwards invisible to him. In the Kirk Session Records of 1580 there is the following entry: "Ordain an act to be made by the minister concerning the discharging of all persons passing to the Dragon Hole superstitiously, and the same to be published from the pulpit and thereafter given to the magistrates and proclaimed at the Mercat Cross." The act was as follows: "Because the assembly of ministers and elders understand that the resort to the Dragon Hole by young men and women with their piping and drums going through the town has caused no small slander to the congregation, not without suspicion of improprieties following thereon, the assembly with consent of the magistrates have ordained that neither man nor woman resort to the Dragon Hole as they have done hitherto on 1st May under a penalty of twenty shillings Scots for each person found guilty, and that they make their repentance on Sunday in presence of the people." [Cowan]

Keddie's Ring

Around this time, a local man [James Keddie] was said to have found the stone in the dragon's cave. It gave him the power of invisibility and he used it innocently to play pranks on his friends. Unfortunately, he managed to lose it again himself, so this special stone could be hiding around the slopes of Kinnoull Hill today.

Meane while our boat, by Freertown hole doth slide, Our course not stopped with the flowing tide, We ned nor card, nor crostaffe for our Pole, But from thence landing clam the Dragon hole, With crampets on our feet, and clubs in hand, Where its recorded Iamie Keddie fand A stone inchanted, like to Gyges ring, Which made him disappear, a wondrous thing,

If it had been his hap to have retaind it, But loosing it, againe could never finde it: Within this cove ofttimes did we repose As being sundred from the citie woes. From thence we, passing by the Windie gowle, Did make the hollow rocks with echoes yowle; And all alongst the mountains of Kinnoule, Where did we shut at many foxe and fowle. [Adamson]

Local Festivals

"At the opening of a dark but narrow fissure in the rock stood a figure fantastically dressed and adorned with garlands of flowers. Several young men and women were clambering up the rocks towards the cavern, while a knot of spectators stood below, whose shouts rent the air, as occasionally some unlucky aspirant missed his or her hold, slipped down again into the crowds or, more unlucky still, regained not their footing until they had toppled down the steep bank beneath, which was formed of small stones too recently dislodged from the parent rock to admit even a handful of furze or fern to break the fall of the unskillful.

Beyond this crowd a long line of people in their holiday attire among whom many religious habits were visible, extended along by the foot of the cliff, until lost to view within a ravine, out of which the procession seemed still slowly advancing.

As Oliver drew near, he observed an elderly respectable-looking citizen standing aloof from the rest. To him he advanced, and after the usual salutations of the morning, enquired what the concourse meant. 'You are surely a stranger in these parts,' replied his informant, 'not to have heard of the Festival of the Dragon on May morning.' 'I had heard of such a custom being observed at St Johnstoun, but knew not that a spot so wild and romantic had been chosen for its celebrations. I think it is said to have its origins in the rejoicings which were instituted after the slaughter of a dragon which long infested the neighborhood.'" [George Penny]

To get to the cave involves a scramble which isn't technically difficult but it is dangerous because of the amount of loose rock. It's not much of a cave but there are engravings on the wall. [Susan Morrison]

Alternative Names: Dragon's Hole, Wallace's Cave [8], Keddie's Ring Cave, Dragon's Den

Notes: The cave is centred on a rocky outcrop quarried on its south side, and with a rough dwelling constructed inside the quarry hollow, including a room 4 m square. However the whole knoll is contained in a massive square structure battered to the base, which might indicate a tower here. Notes unclear - but seem to indicate 15 m square base. This structure is on the southern edge of a larger platform, the western edge of it is 6 m from the mound, and the north-west angle 24 m, and it is about 30 m from a near vertical north-south edge of the summit. [Canmore]

Not certain of location due to lack of any map referenced landmarks but think it is at NO 132226. It is on a knoll 15 m north of a ruined building 9.5 by 6 m, which is beside one of the tarmac paths just north of a clearing. There is a terraced north-south path 16 m west of the knoll. This area called Goul Hill on Macfarlane's Map 1792. The knoll originally featured a circular enclosure about 18 m diameter, of which the wall is best preserved on the south arc, and only fragmentarily elsewhere. An L-shaped building was constructed within it, the E-W part is about 2.5 m from the inside of the curve of the wall, and is about 12 m long by 9 m wide over a wall in excess of 2 m thick. The north arm projects from the west end, and utilises part of the circular wall as a room divide, with a sloping room beyond. [T.C. Welsh]

Part of the duties of Christian missionaries was to root out Pagan practices. At Dunning there was a sacred grove of thorn trees and the Gaelic word for thorn tree is drae-gen. The symbolic slaying of the dragon by St Serf can be taken as the replacement of the pagan festival of Beltane by Christian Rites [not unfortunately a real dragon]. Part of the town [Newton of Pitcairn] is still locally called Drae-gen. This just to the east of Thorny Hill [The Newsroom]

At Dunning, a memorial to St Serf, may place the site of the dragon slaying slightly further south in Glen Devon. "In Donnyng, of his devotion And prayer, he slew a fell dragowne; Where he was slain, the place was ay The Dragownes Den called to this day.". Some transcriptions replace Donnyng with Devon. [The Newsroom/The Modern Antiquarian]

The legend of James Keddie's ring repeats a mythalogical theme used in several stories from H.G.Wells' Invisible Man and J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit. The magic ring granting invisibility is cursed to lead the wearer into evil as invisibility allows action without consequence (or punishment). Gyges Ring or the Ring of Gyges was mentioned in Plato's Republic. It grants its owner the power to become invisible at will. Using the ring as an example, this section of the Republic considers whether a rational, intelligent person who has no need to fear negative consequences for committing an injustice would nevertheless act justly. A similar theme is used in Wagner's Ring Cycle recounting how the ring of the Nebilung, forged by the Nibelung dwarf Alberich from gold he stole from the Rhine maidens and is based on German and Norse myths.

Gyges of Lydia was a historical king, the founder of the Mermnad dynasty of Lydian kings. In the recounting of the myth by Glaucon (Plato's older brother, as a character of The Republic), an unnamed ancestor of Gyges was a shepherd in the service of the king of Lydia. After an earthquake, a chasm was revealed in a mountainside where he was feeding his flock. Entering the chasm, he discovered that it was in fact a tomb with a bronze horse containing a corpse, larger than that of a man, who wore a golden ring, which he then pocketed. He discovered that by adjusting the ring, he gained the power of invisibility. He then arranged to become one of the king's messengers as to the status of the flocks. Arriving at the palace, he used his new power of invisibility to seduce the queen, and with her help, murder the king, and become king of Lydia himself. [Wikipedia]

Hydrographic Feeds: None

Hydrographic Resurgences: None