“In truth,” said Merlin, “they need not worry about being defeated or driven from their lands as long as I have my powers. But you may well know that hardship is growing every day for you and for them. For the great dragon, thus says the prophecy, will come to drive the great crowned lion out of Great Britain utterly, with help from twenty-nine serpents who are wonderfully big and strong, unless the great leopard, so big and strong, stops him in part by the love he has for the crowned serpent, to whom all the beasts of Great Britain and the kingdom of Carmelide will bow down, and in part by his great fierceness and prowess. But the great leopard is not yet born by whom that great lion will be so upheld that the great dragon will not have the power to drive him out of his habitat.”

Vulgate Merlin