Here be Dragons

So, I find it interesting that other people have statues of lions guarding their gates but nothing so mundane for the Welsh. No, for them only dragons will do.  

 And what do you suppose might be through that beautiful gate? Guarded by dragons. 

  
Castell Coch (literally translated as castle red, for obvious reasons) or Powys Castle. This was close to where most of my cousins live. Maybe someone in my family actually fought to protect it many many years ago. 

  

This is the deer field there with a kind of small deer I’ve never seen before, fallow dear. The stags have quite the horns.  

  
This dead tree was close to the deer. I think it was an oak. I saw quite a few stunted  (or short) Welsh oak trees 

 
I think this may have been how it looked before it died. If not the same tree then it was very similar. If it is this one then it was planted in 1650 give or take ten years. That a very old tree. The stories a tree like that could tell eh? 

   

The back side of Castle Coch. 

Powis (unlike the castles at Conwy, Caernarfon, Harlech and nearby Montgomery which were all built by the English to subdue the Welsh) was the fortress of Welsh princes.  So much history in the land of the red dragon.