The Dragon on the Belfry

The legend begins far from Ghent, far from Flanders, on the shores of the Bosporus. In Constantinople, the story goes, a golden dragon hung on the dome of the Hagia Sophia — spoils of war or a gift, no one knows for certain. But when Count Baldwin IX of Flanders went on crusade in 1204 and conquered Constantinople, he took the dragon home.

What happened to the creature after that the sources tell differently. According to some, Baldwin gave the dragon to the small town of Biervliet as a reward for faithful service. Others say the dragon went straight to Bruges, where it perched on a church tower for two hundred years as a symbol of power and wealth.

In 1382 Ghent marched against Bruges at the Battle of Beverhoutsveld. The men of Ghent, led by Philip van Artevelde, defeated the Brugeois and plundered the city. And amid the spoils, between the silver platters and the velvet curtains, they found the dragon — gleaming, menacing and magnificent.

The dragon was carried to Ghent in triumph and placed at the highest point of the city: the summit of the Belfry, the tower that guarded the civic liberties. For inside the Belfry lay the secret chamber where the city charters were kept, the documents that guaranteed the freedom of Ghent. And what better to guard that freedom than a dragon that had already stood watch in Constantinople, already stood watch in Bruges, and would now stand watch for Ghent?

The dragon still sits there. Not the original — that is long gone, worn away by wind and time — but its successor, and the successor of its successor. The current dragon, the third, was forged in 1980 by the metalworking company Aelbrecht-Maes and is a beast of considerable stature: three metres fifty-five long, four hundred and fifty-five kilograms heavy, with a gilded skin that glows at sunset as though it burns from within.

On special occasions the dragon was surrounded by glowing coals, so that it seemed to breathe fire — a fire-breathing sentinel above a city that was never tamed. In 2018, during the Ghent Festivals, the dragon breathed fire again for the first time in nearly two hundred years.

Anyone walking across the Korenmarkt today and looking up will see it sitting there: still, patient, with that eternally open mouth. It still guards the liberties of Ghent, just as it once guarded the treasures of Constantinople and the pride of Bruges. And anyone who listens closely on a quiet evening, when the wind blows through the bells of the Belfry, may hear the soft rustle of copper wings that will never fold.