THE organiser of a petition calling for a penis to be added to the dragon on the Welsh flag has spoken out.

Rhŷn Williams, an artist and Welsh researcher from Tudweilog and who now lives Pwllheli, has spoken to the Argus about why he set up his petition, entitled 'Demand that all depictions of our dragon have a penis'. So far it has been signed by 803 people.

Mr Williams said the dragon depicted on the flag is a symbolic image of the royal lineage, passed down from one Welsh royal to another, and predates Arthurian legend and the Roman invasion - and that adding genitals would make the flag historically and cuturally correct.

"Over the last 200 years, we've censored the dragon," he said. "This may be due to prudishness or just by mistake, however the dragon's 'bit' is critical to the symbolism within heraldry.

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"Due to this confusion, many poets, writers, artists etc, wrongfully (unknowingly) depicted our dragon as a female. Due to my petition, some may view my reasons as being sexist because I'm switching the dragon's sex to male, when in reality, I'm just highlighting how the Welsh dynasty portrayed the dragon within their realm.

"As seen in the Tudor coat of arms of the King Henry VII image, which is Henry Tudor's coat of arms, we can see that he intended for our dragon to show the dragon's 'bit' - they depicted the dragon with a phallus to symbolise male fertility, potency or/and dominance, which is important when you want to translate this to your army and against your combatants.

South Wales Argus: Original from illustrator Cooke Clarenceux, binder unknown. Robert Cooke (born c. 1535, died 1592–3), Clarenceux King of Arms.Original from illustrator Cooke Clarenceux, binder unknown. Robert Cooke (born c. 1535, died 1592–3), Clarenceux King of Arms.

"However, when the Tudors were in power, the phallus of the dragon was not always shown throughout the kingdom.. this may be down to lack of resources when re-creating the original image, a loss in translation as to speak.

"But we can clearly see that the phallus was used over and over again within the Tudor arms, and the current royal family continue to depict our dragon with a phallus, and it is the population and our government who do not because we are non-the-wiser about the power of symbology within the arts."

View the petition here.