Queen Elizabeth II 25th Anniversary Coronation First Day Cover, St. Helena postmarked on June 2, 1978.
St. Helena
1200 miles west of Africa and 700 miles southeast of Ascension, St. Helena rises rugged and mountainous, culminating in , the 2685 ft. Mount Actaeon. Its European, Asian and African population of 5000 came from its use as a staging post on the Britain to Australia and Far East voyages, and as a depot for liberated slaves, St. Helena being a British base in the early 19th century for the suppression of the slave trade.
The local heraldic beast shown in this Omnibus issue is the Sea Lion, a device used many years ago by the London East India Company. The sea lion proper (on which the heraldic beast is based) is, in fact, to be found in St. Helena, as well as on other coasts in South and North America, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. It grows to between five and twelve feet, with reddish-brown to black coarse hair, and unlike its relative the fur seal, has no distinct underfur. The sealion is gregarious, gathering in colonies to mate, each dominant male having a harem of about fifteen females. It feeds on fish, cephaloids, sea birds and crustaceans.
Also depicted in the issue is the Black Dragon of Ulster. The salt-water dragon Tiamat (so the Babylonian creation myth tells) — god of primeval chaos, was slain by Marduk and her body split in twain to form the oceans and the rainfilled heavens. Ancient Indo-European legend tells of Indra, often referred to as the bull, striking the dragon-clouds with his thunderbolt to make it rain; and the Ancient Egyptian God Nun was not only the primeval ocean, and the source of the Nile, but took the form of a serpent. Thus coming to have general meaning of divine guardianship, the symbol was used on the standards of Phoenicians, Assyrians, Persians, Scythians and Parthians, who gave it to the Romans. They fastened the emblem on spears, mouth agape so it would hiss in the wind.
The dragon-serpent turns up wherever the Indo-Europeans went; on Viking ship prows, as the name of Celtic Chieftains, on shields of invading Normans, and the Lionheart's crusaders. And not only the Indo-Europeans; when a Saracen Emir fell beneath the walls of Jerusalem to the Count of Milan, he was sporting the draconian divine protection on his shield! The count took it for his arms, and passed it on through his daughter's marriage to Lionel, Earl of Ulster . . . and he was the great great grandfather of Edward IV, first royal user of this Queen's Beast.
