Don't look a gift-dragon in the mouth: On the Hill, St. Patrick's Day isn't about shamrocks and beer—it's about parading a giant beast through campus and setting it aflame.
Don't look a gift-dragon in the mouth: On the Hill, St. Patrick's Day isn't about shamrocks and beer—it's about parading a giant beast through campus and setting it aflame. Each winter, freshman architecture students (like these outside Rand Hall in 2006) build a dragon and march it to the Arts Quad. Some years, the dragon does battle with a phoenix designed by freshman engineers, but it always goes out the same way: in a blaze of glory. Although revelers are often clad in winter coats and mittens—and spectators have been known to get beaned by balls of ice—at Cornell, Dragon Day is the first sign of spring.