Great Britain

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Across
  1. 1. golden herald of Welsh spring, its trumpet blooms worn on lapels each March 1st beside leeks and dragon banners in defiance of Saxon winters.
  2. 3. craggy Welsh titan, its slopes scarred by Victorian railways and Iron Age forts, where mist swallows climbers whole like some hungry Celtic god.
  3. 5. alchemical fusion of Lancaster’s gore and York’s pallor, blooming from Bosworth’s butchered soil to adorn everything from royal standards to shortbread tins.
  4. 8. industrial Goliath of linen and rivets, where Titanic’s ghost haunts docks still echoing with the clatter of peace walls and shipyard hammers.
  5. 10. Cappadocian knight repackaged as England’s patron, his dragon-slaying exploits reduced to pub signs and cricket pavilion murals.
  6. 12. Roman slave turned Hibernia’s patron, his shamrock sermons and serpent-banishing lore now drowned in green beer from Chicago to Cork.
  7. 13. Galilean fisherman turned Scottish saint, his saltire cross said to mimic clouds parting for a Pictish king’s battlefield epiphany near modern-day golf courses.
  8. 14. granitic Scottish colossus, its summit a windswept altar where meteorologists and madmen argue whether the true peak is cairn or trig point.
  9. 16. maritime dragon’s den, where coal barons’ castles crumble into bay-front regeneration and the Millennium Stadium roars with hymns and rugby anthems.
  10. 17. prickly purple guardian of Caledonia’s glens, adopted when a Norseman’s barefoot yelp betrayed its thorns to kilted sentinels near ancient fords.
Down
  1. 2. labyrinth of Saxon shore and glass-and-steel minotaurs, where the Tube’s subterranean veins pump commuters past Nelson’s unblinking eye.
  2. 4. Sea storm-lashed Celtic moat, where Viking longships once carved runes on Skellig Michael’s stones and modern ferries battle the same indifferent waves.
  3. 6. clover-leaf Trinity cipher, pressed into hagiographic service by a Roman captive to explain three-in-one divinity, now drowned in pints from Dublin to Boston.
  4. 7. sinuous Marches serpent, its bore tide a twice-daily rebellion against lunar gravity, drowning salmon and Saxon ghosts in equal measure.
  5. 9. liquid chronicle of London’s underbelly, its tide bearing Roman relics and Dickensian filth past Tower ravens and the skeletal grins of traitors’ skulls.
  6. 11. Gothic city of volcanic bones and Enlightenment whispers, where Arthur’s Seat looms over wynds where Burke and Hare once tread.
  7. 15. Channel narrow saltwater gauntlet, where Napoleon’s ambitions and modern migrants alike founder on the same relentless tides and Home Office paperwork.