From Eternia to Ancient Mythology — An Unexpected Return to Wells
Sometimes a place seems to call you back before you quite understand why.
We had already visited Wells during our summer solstice journey through Somerset, and I hadn't expected to return quite so soon. Our first visit had brought one of the most beautiful encounters of the trip: the family of swans that would eventually inspire my journal entry When Brigid Sent a Swan.
This time, however, Wells had something entirely different waiting for us.
Dragons.
Not hidden in an old carving or tucked quietly into a medieval manuscript.
A vast, brilliantly coloured dragon was flying directly through the nave of Wells Cathedral.
Returning to Wells — and Walking into Eternia
There was another reason I was fascinated to return to the cathedral.
Wells Cathedral recently became part of an entirely different mythology when it was used as a filming location for the new 2026 Masters of the Universe film.
The story of He-Man takes place on the magical planet of Eternia, and Wells Cathedral was one of the remarkable real locations chosen to help bring that world to life. Filming also took place at nearby Wookey Hole Caves, while other South West locations were used to create different parts of this fantastical world.
Walking through the cathedral after seeing the film, the architecture suddenly looks different.
Those immense pointed arches.
The long stone passageways.
The vaulted ceilings soaring overhead.
The ancient staircases and shadowed doorways.
They already possess the scale of a fantasy kingdom.
The filmmakers then extended and transformed the cathedral digitally: the production's visual-effects supervisor has explained that the Wells sequences involved substantial digital set extensions, including extending the building itself and replacing its glass.
The result is rather wonderful.
A medieval English cathedral became part of Eternia.
The soaring Gothic interior of Wells Cathedral — part of the real architecture used to bring Eternia to the screen in Masters of the Universe.
A Cathedral Filled With Mythical Creatures
But on this particular visit, fiction and mythology had crossed over in another direction entirely.
Wells Cathedral was hosting its summer exhibition Mythical Creatures.
Throughout the cathedral, creatures seemed to have escaped from the pages of ancient books and taken up residence among the pillars, chapels and medieval stonework.
And towering above everything was the dragon.
The cathedral itself describes the exhibition as drawing upon its own historic collections — including its 1650 copy of Historia Naturalis, its medieval stone carvings, misericords and books preserved within the cathedral library.
So although the enormous colourful dragon is playful and contemporary, the idea behind the exhibition reaches much further back.
Because dragons have inhabited our stories for centuries.
Dragons in the Sacred Landscape
What fascinated me most was seeing a dragon placed inside such an unmistakably sacred Christian building.
Today we tend to divide these worlds very neatly.
Dragons belong to mythology.
Saints belong to Christianity.
Ancient goddesses belong to the pre-Christian landscape.
But history is rarely so tidy.
Dragon and serpent imagery appears again and again throughout European mythology, folklore and Christian tradition. Sometimes the dragon represents chaos or danger. Sometimes it guards treasure, water, land or hidden knowledge. Sometimes it becomes something that must be confronted or transformed.
And across Britain, stories of dragons have become woven into the landscape itself.
Hills, caves, wells, ancient monuments and old churches preserve fragments of stories in which serpent-like creatures seem to occupy the boundary between the human world and something older.
That is part of what has drawn me so deeply into researching Brigantia, the ancient goddess associated with northern Britain.
My own exploration of Brigantia has repeatedly led me towards dragons, serpents, sacred landscape and the older mythology of Britain.
And suddenly, here they were again.
The Dragon Beneath the Cathedral Vaults
Standing beneath the great dragon was particularly striking.
Above it stretched the medieval vaulting of the cathedral — architecture created centuries before anyone could have imagined a brightly coloured dragon suspended there as part of an exhibition.
Yet somehow it didn't feel entirely out of place.
Perhaps that is because medieval churches themselves were never devoid of mythical creatures.
Look closely at ancient religious buildings and you find strange beasts everywhere: grotesques, dragons, serpents, hybrid animals and creatures whose origins reach far beyond straightforward Biblical imagery.
The medieval imagination was populated by them.
The cathedral itself even referenced a wonderfully unexpected Biblical line when introducing the exhibition:
“Praise the Lord from the earth, dragons and all deeps.” — Psalm 148:7
I loved discovering that.
Dragons, it seems, were not quite as far removed from the cathedral as we might imagine.
The Golden Dragon Eggs
One of the strangest parts of the trail led us outside.
There, beneath the earth beside the cathedral, were the golden dragon eggs.
There is something wonderfully symbolic about that image alone: the dragon flying high beneath the cathedral vaults while its eggs lie hidden within the earth outside.
Sky and earth.
The visible and the hidden.
The creature above and the possibility of new life waiting below.
Whatever interpretation we place upon it, it was an image that stayed with me.
Beneath the ground outside Wells Cathedral — part of the trail leading to the hidden golden dragon eggs.
From Ancient Cathedral to Fantasy Kingdom
There was another layer to all of this that I found fascinating.
Only recently this same building had been transformed into Eternia for Masters of the Universe.
Now dragons were flying beneath its arches.
The cathedral had become a meeting point between several different kinds of storytelling: medieval Christianity, ancient mythology, modern fantasy and the stories we continue to create around dragons today.
Perhaps that is why places such as Wells make such convincing fantasy worlds.
Film-makers don't have to invent the sense of age.
It is already there.
They don't have to manufacture the monumental arches, worn stone staircases or mysterious passageways.
Generations of people have already walked through them.
Centuries of footsteps have worn the stone inside Wells Cathedral — architecture that now belongs to both medieval history and the imagined world of Eternia.
And Then the Choir Began to Sing
There was one final moment that I couldn't have planned.
While we were standing inside the cathedral, beneath that enormous dragon, a visiting male choir from Glastonbury began to sing.
And the song they chose was:
Don't Look Back in Anger.
An Oasis song that happens to be particularly loved in our family.
For a moment everything seemed to stop.
An ancient cathedral.
A dragon suspended above us.
A place transformed into Eternia on film.
And this completely familiar song echoing through the enormous stone space.
It was one of those strange little moments that probably means nothing to anyone else and yet somehow becomes the thing you remember.
Why Do the Dragons Keep Appearing?
I don't necessarily believe every coincidence needs an explanation.
Sometimes it is enough simply to notice it.
But I have been writing and researching more and more about Brigantia and the dragon traditions of Britain. Dragons have begun appearing repeatedly within that journey — through mythology, landscape, art and unexpected encounters.
And then, on a family return to Wells for reasons that had very little to do with my work, I walked through the doors of the cathedral and found an enormous dragon flying towards me.
Perhaps coincidence.
Perhaps simply good timing.
But it made me smile.
Because one of the things creating House of Bridie has taught me is to pay attention when the same symbols keep appearing.
Not necessarily because they provide answers.
Sometimes they simply lead us towards the next question.
And for me, the dragons of Britain are becoming a question I very much want to keep exploring.
From Brigid to Brigantia — Following the Threads
My journey began with Brigid.
But following her story backwards through the landscape of Britain, Ireland and now Wales has opened pathways I never expected: sacred wells, eternal flames, swans, ancient stones, goddesses, serpents — and increasingly, dragons.
Brigantia remains one of the most mysterious figures within that landscape.
There is so much we no longer know about her.
Perhaps that is exactly why I feel drawn to keep looking.
The old stories haven't disappeared completely.
Sometimes they survive in archaeology and inscriptions.
Sometimes in folklore.
Sometimes carved quietly into stone.
And occasionally, when you least expect it, a dragon flies through the nave of a cathedral.
Wells Cathedral, Somerset — an ancient sacred space that continues to inspire new stories.
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