8 Famous Dundee Stories: Dragons, Polar Bears and the Beatles

Dundee is famous for "jute, jam and journalism", but some of its best stories are much stranger than that. This is a city with its own dragon legend, a polar bear that once went shopping, and a link to one of the most famous album covers ever made.

Here's eight of our favourite Dundee stories, and where to find them today.

1. The legend of the Dundee dragon

Photo: "Dragon on the loose" by tormentor4555, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Long ago, the story goes, a farmer at Pitempton, just north of Dundee, had nine daughters. One by one, they went to fetch water from the well and never came back. They'd been killed by a dragon living there.

A young man called Martin set out to stop it. He chased the beast across the countryside, through Baldragon, until at last the villagers cried "Strike, Martin!" and he drove his spear into its heart. The place names still carry the story, as the old rhyme goes:

"Tempted at Pitempton,
Draigled at Baldragon,
Stricken at Strathmartin,
And kill'd at Martin's Stane."

Martin's Stane, a carved Pictish stone, still stands in the fields near Strathmartine. In the city centre, look out for the Dundee Dragon sculpture guarding the east end of the High Street. It was designed by Alistair Smart and completed by his former student Tony Morrow.

2. Bruin, the polar bear who went shopping

Photo: "Polar bear Bruin" by Gerald England, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

In November 1878, a polar bear named Bruin was on show in Dundee as part of a travelling exhibition. Somehow, he escaped. Bruin wandered through the city streets, causing plenty of panic, and eventually followed a woman into a clothing shop.

Legend has it he was so taken with his own reflection in the shop mirror that he stopped still, giving his handlers the chance to get a rope around him. Nobody was hurt, and Bruin was led away.

Today, you can meet him on the High Street. David Annand's bronze sculpture, unveiled in 2021, shows the bear and a startled local scrambling up a block of ice. It's a favourite photo spot!

3. Mary Shelley found her imagination on the Tay

Long before she wrote Frankenstein, a young Mary Godwin came to stay in Dundee. In 1812, aged 14, she was sent by her father to live with the family of William Thomas Baxter, a Dundee linen manufacturer. She spent around 15 months with them over the next two years.

She never forgot it. In her 1831 introduction to Frankenstein, she remembered living on "the blank and dreary northern shores of the Tay, near Dundee", and called it "the eyry of freedom", where she could let her imagination run wild. Some say Dundee's whaling ships and Arctic voyages helped inspire the icy scenes of her novel. Mary Shelley's Dundee has more on her time in the city.

4. The Dundonian who shot the Abbey Road cover

One of the most famous photographs in music history was taken by a Dundee man. Iain Macmillan was born in the city in 1938 and went to the High School of Dundee before moving to London to study photography.

After meeting Yoko Ono, he was introduced to John Lennon, who asked him to shoot the cover for the Beatles' Abbey Road. On the morning of 8 August 1969, Macmillan climbed a stepladder in the middle of the road and took just six pictures of the band crossing the zebra crossing. One of them became the album cover, and it's been copied by fans ever since.

5. RRS Discovery sailed from Dundee to Antarctica

Photo: "RRS Discovery at Discovery Point, Dundee" by Hugh Venables, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

RRS Discovery was launched in Dundee in 1901, built to carry Captain Robert Falcon Scott's British National Antarctic Expedition. A young Ernest Shackleton was among the crew. The city's shipbuilders designed her to survive the ice, and she did.

Discovery came home to Dundee in 1986. Today, you can step aboard at Discovery Point and see where the crew lived, slept and worked on one of the toughest journeys on Earth.

6. The Dandy and The Beano were born in Dundee

"Journalism" is the third of Dundee's famous three Js, and DC Thomson is the name behind it. The company's comics have entertained generations of readers: The Dandy arrived in December 1937, followed by The Beano in July 1938.

They gave the world Desperate Dan and Dennis the Menace, while the Sunday Post introduced Oor Wullie and The Broons. You'll find statues of Desperate Dan, and of Minnie the Minx, in the city centre.

7. Lemmings and Grand Theft Auto started in Dundee

Dundee studio DMA Design released Lemmings in 1991, and in 1995 started work on the game that became Grand Theft Auto. Two of the world's best-known video games began life here.

It all started with local teenagers teaching themselves to code on ZX Spectrums, built at Dundee's Timex factory. Look out for the little bronze Lemmings in Seabraes Gardens, a nod to where it all began.

8. Janet Keiller put Dundee marmalade on the map

Dundee's "jam" is really marmalade. Janet Keiller and her husband John ran a cake and sweetie shop in the city. Legend has it a Spanish ship arrived with bitter oranges nobody wanted, and Janet turned them into a marmalade with chunks of peel.

In 1797, she went into business with her son James, and the Keiller name became famous far beyond Dundee. You'll find Janet on the Dundee Women's Trail, alongside other women who shaped the city.