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= Dragon =
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Introduction
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A dragon is a magical legendary creature that appears in the folklore
of multiple cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary
considerably through regions, but dragons in Western cultures since
the High Middle Ages have often been depicted as winged, horned, and
capable of breathing fire. Dragons in eastern cultures are usually
depicted as wingless, four-legged, serpentine creatures with
above-average intelligence. Commonalities between dragons' traits are
often a hybridization of reptilian, mammalian, and avian features.
Etymology
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The word 'dragon' entered the English language in the early 13th
century from Old French , which, in turn, comes from Latin (genitive
), meaning "huge serpent, dragon", from , (genitive , ) "serpent".
The Greek and Latin term referred to any great serpent, not
necessarily mythological. The Greek word is most likely derived from
the Greek verb () meaning "I see", the aorist form of which is ().
This is thought to have referred to something with a "deadly glance",
or unusually bright or "sharp" eyes, or because a snake's eyes appear
to be always open; each eye actually sees through a big transparent
scale in its eyelids, which are permanently shut. The Greek word
probably derives from an Indo-European base meaning "to see"; the
Sanskrit root () also means "to see".
Overview
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Draconic creatures appear in virtually all cultures around the globe,
and the earliest attested reports of draconic creatures resemble giant
snakes. Draconic creatures are first described in the mythologies of
the ancient Near East and appear in ancient Mesopotamian art and
literature. Stories about storm gods slaying giant serpents occur
throughout nearly all Near Eastern and Indo-European mythologies.
Famous prototypical draconic creatures include the 'mušḫuššu' of
ancient Mesopotamia; Apep in Egyptian mythology; Vṛtra in the
'Rigveda'; the Leviathan in the Hebrew Bible; Grand'Goule in the
Poitou region in France; Python, Ladon, wyvern and the Lernaean Hydra
in Greek mythology; Kulshedra in Albanian mythology; Unhcegila in
Lakota mythology; Quetzalcoatl in Aztec culture; Jörmungandr,
Níðhöggr, and Fafnir in Norse mythology; the dragon from 'Beowulf';
and aži and az in ancient Persian mythology, closely related to
another mythological figure, called Aži Dahaka or Zahhak.
Nonetheless, scholars dispute where the idea of a dragon originates
from, and a wide variety of hypotheses have been proposed.
In his book 'An Instinct for Dragons' (2000), anthropologist David E.
Jones suggests a hypothesis that humans, like monkeys, have inherited
instinctive reactions to snakes, large cats, and birds of prey. He
cites a study which found that approximately 39 people in a hundred
are afraid of snakes and notes that fear of snakes is especially
prominent in children, even in areas where snakes are rare. The
earliest attested dragons all resemble snakes or have snakelike
attributes. Jones therefore concludes that dragons appear in nearly
all cultures because humans have an innate fear of snakes and other
animals that were major predators of humans' primate ancestors.
Dragons are usually said to reside in "dark caves, deep pools, wild
mountain reaches, sea bottoms, haunted forests", all places which
would have been fraught with danger for early human ancestors.
In her book 'The First Fossil Hunters: Dinosaurs, Mammoths, and Myth
in Greek and Roman Times' (2000), Adrienne Mayor argues that some
stories of dragons may have been inspired by ancient discoveries of
fossils belonging to dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals. She
argues that the dragon lore of northern India may have been inspired
by "observations of oversized, extraordinary bones in the fossilbeds
of the Siwalik Hills below the Himalayas" and that ancient Greek
artistic depictions of the Monster of Troy may have been influenced by
fossils of 'Samotherium', an extinct species of giraffe whose fossils
are common in the Mediterranean region. In China, a region where
fossils of large prehistoric animals are common, these remains are
frequently identified as "dragon bones" and are commonly used in
traditional Chinese medicine. Mayor, however, is careful to point out
that not all stories of dragons and giants are inspired by fossils and
notes that Scandinavia has many stories of dragons and sea monsters,
but has long "been considered barren of large fossils." In one of her
later books, she states that, "Many dragon images around the world
were based on folk knowledge or exaggerations of living reptiles, such
as Komodo dragons, Gila monsters, iguanas, alligators, or, in
California, alligator lizards, though this still fails to account for
the Scandinavian legends, as no such animals (historical or otherwise)
have ever been found in this region."
Robert Blust in 'The Origin of Dragons' (2000) argues that, like many
other creations of traditional cultures, dragons are largely
explicable as products of a convergence of rational pre-scientific
speculation about the world of real events. In this case, the event is
the natural mechanism governing rainfall and drought, with particular
attention paid to the phenomenon of the rainbow.
Egypt
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In Egyptian mythology, Apep or Apophis is a giant serpentine creature
who resides in the Duat, the Egyptian underworld. The Bremner-Rhind
papyrus, written around 310 BC, preserves an account of a much older
Egyptian tradition that the setting of the sun is caused by Ra
descending to the Duat to battle Apep. In some accounts, Apep is as
long as the height of eight men with a head made of flint.
Thunderstorms and earthquakes were thought to be caused by Apep's roar
and solar eclipses were thought to be the result of Apep attacking Ra
during the daytime. In some myths, Apep is slain by the god Set.
Nehebkau is another giant serpent who guards the Duat and aided Ra in
his battle against Apep. Nehebkau was so massive in some stories that
the entire earth was believed to rest atop his coils. Denwen is a
giant serpent mentioned in the Pyramid Texts whose body was made of
fire and who ignited a conflagration that nearly destroyed all the
gods of the Egyptian pantheon. He was ultimately defeated by the
Pharaoh, a victory which affirmed the Pharaoh's divine right to rule.
The ouroboros was a well-known Egyptian symbol of a serpent swallowing
its own tail. The precursor to the ouroboros was the "Many-Faced", a
serpent with five heads, who, according to the Amduat, the oldest
surviving Book of the Afterlife, was said to coil around the corpse of
the sun god Ra protectively. The earliest surviving depiction of a
"true" ouroboros comes from the gilded shrines in the tomb of
Tutankhamun. In the early centuries AD, the ouroboros was adopted as a
symbol by Gnostic Christians and chapter 136 of the 'Pistis Sophia',
an early Gnostic text, describes "a great dragon whose tail is in its
mouth". In medieval alchemy, the ouroboros became a typical western
dragon with wings, legs, and a tail. A famous image of the dragon
gnawing on its tail from the eleventh-century Codex Marcianus was
copied in numerous works on alchemy.
Mesopotamia
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Ancient people across the Near East believed in creatures similar to
what modern people call "dragons". These ancient people were unaware
of the existence of dinosaurs or similar creatures in the distant
past. References to dragons of both benevolent and malevolent
characters occur throughout ancient Mesopotamian literature. In
Sumerian poetry, great kings are often compared to the 'ušumgal', a
gigantic, serpentine monster. A draconic creature with the foreparts
of a lion and the hind-legs, tail, and wings of a bird appears in
Mesopotamian artwork from the Akkadian Period ( 2334 - 2154 BC) until
the Neo-Babylonian Period (626 BC-539 BC). The dragon is usually shown
with its mouth open. It may have been known as the '(ūmu) nā'iru',
which means "roaring weather beast", and may have been associated with
the god Ishkur (Hadad). A slightly different lion-dragon with two
horns and the tail of a scorpion appears in art from the Neo-Assyrian
Period (911 BC-609 BC). A relief probably commissioned by Sennacherib
shows the gods Ashur, Sin, and Adad standing on its back.
Another draconic creature with horns, the body and neck of a snake,
the forelegs of a lion, and the hind-legs of a bird appears in
Mesopotamian art from the Akkadian Period until the Hellenistic Period
(323 BC-31 BC). This creature, known in Akkadian as the 'mušḫuššu',
meaning "furious serpent", was used as a symbol for particular deities
and also as a general protective emblem. It seems to have originally
been the attendant of the Underworld god Ninazu, but later became the
attendant to the Hurrian storm-god Tishpak, as well as, later,
Ninazu's son Ningishzida, the Babylonian national god Marduk, the
scribal god Nabu, and the Assyrian national god Ashur.
Scholars disagree regarding the appearance of Tiamat, the Babylonian
goddess personifying primeval chaos, slain by Marduk in the Babylonian
creation epic 'Enûma Eliš'. She was traditionally regarded by scholars
as having had the form of a giant serpent, but several scholars have
pointed out that this shape "cannot be imputed to Tiamat with
certainty" and she seems to have at least sometimes been regarded as
anthropomorphic. Nonetheless, in some texts, she seems to be described
with horns, a tail, and a hide that no weapon can penetrate, all
features which suggest she was conceived as some form of dragoness.
Levant
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In the mythologies of the Ugarit region, specifically the Baal Cycle
from the Ugaritic texts, the sea-dragon Lōtanu is described as "the
twisting serpent / the powerful one with seven heads." In 'KTU' 1.5 I
2-3, Lōtanu is slain by the storm-god Baal, but, in 'KTU' 1.3 III
41-42, he is instead slain by the virgin warrior goddess Anat.
In the Hebrew Bible, in the Book of Psalms, Psalm 74, Psalm 74:13-14,
the sea-dragon Leviathan, is slain by Yahweh, god of the kingdoms of
Israel and Judah, as part of the creation of the world. Isaiah
describes Leviathan as a (), which is translated as "sea monster",
"serpent", or "dragon". In Isaiah 27:1, Yahweh's destruction of
Leviathan is foretold as part of his impending overhaul of the
universal order:
Job 41:1-34 contains a detailed description of Leviathan, who is
described as being so powerful that only Yahweh can overcome it. Job
41:19-21 states that Leviathan exhales fire and smoke, making its
identification as a mythical dragon clearly apparent. In some parts of
the Old Testament, Leviathan is historicized as a symbol for the
nations that stand against Yahweh. Rahab, a synonym for "Leviathan",
is used in several Biblical passages in reference to Egypt. Isaiah
30:7 declares: "For Egypt's help is worthless and empty, therefore I
have called her 'the silenced Rahab'." Similarly, Psalm 87:3 reads: "I
reckon Rahab and Babylon as those that know me..." In Ezekiel 29:3-5
and Ezekiel 32:2-8, the pharaoh of Egypt is described as a "dragon"
('tannîn'). In the deuterocanonical story of Bel and the Dragon from
the Book of Daniel, the prophet Daniel sees a dragon being worshipped
by the Babylonians. Daniel makes "cakes of pitch, fat, and hair"; the
dragon eats them and bursts open.
Iran
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Azhi Dahaka (Avestan Great Snake) is a dragon or demonic figure in the
texts and mythology of Zoroastrian Persia, where he is one of the
subordinates of Angra Mainyu. Alternate names include Azi Dahak,
Dahaka, and Dahak. Aži (nominative ažiš) is the Avestan word for
"serpent" or "dragon. The Avestan term Aži Dahāka and the Middle
Persian azdahāg are the sources of the Middle Persian Manichaean demon
of greed "Az", Old Armenian mythological figure Azhdahak, Modern
Persian 'aždehâ/aždahâ', Tajik Persian 'azhdahâ', Urdu 'azhdahā'
(اژدها).
The name also migrated to Eastern Europe, assumed the form "azhdaja"
and the meaning "dragon", "dragoness" or "water snake" in the Balkanic
and Slavic languages.
Despite the negative aspect of Aži Dahāka in mythology, dragons have
been used on some banners of war throughout the history of Iranian
peoples.
The Azhdarchid group of pterosaurs are named from a Persian word for
"dragon" that ultimately comes from Aži Dahāka.
In Persian Sufi literature, Rumi writes in his 'Masnavi' that the
dragon symbolizes the sensual soul ('nafs'), greed and lust, that need
to be mortified in a spiritual battle.
In Ferdowsi's 'Shahnameh,' the Iranian hero Rostam must slay an
80-meter-long dragon (which renders itself invisible to human sight)
with the aid of his legendary horse, Rakhsh. As Rostam is sleeping,
the dragon approaches; Rakhsh attempts to wake Rostam, but fails to
alert him to the danger until Rostam sees the dragon. Rakhsh bites the
dragon, while Rostam decapitates it. This is the third trial of
Rostam's Seven Labors.
Rostam is also credited with the slaughter of other dragons in the
'Shahnameh' and in other Iranian oral traditions, notably in the myth
of 'Babr-e-Bayan'. In this tale, Rostam is still an adolescent and
kills a dragon in the "Orient" (either India or China, depending on
the source) by forcing it to swallow either ox hides filled with
quicklime and stones or poisoned blades. The dragon swallows these
foreign objects and its stomach bursts, after which Rostam flays the
dragon and fashions a coat from its hide called the 'babr-e bayān'. In
some variants of the story, Rostam then remains unconscious for two
days and nights, but is guarded by his steed Rakhsh. On reviving, he
washes himself in a spring. In the Mandean tradition of the story,
Rostam hides in a box, is swallowed by the dragon, and kills it from
inside its belly. The king of China then gives Rostam his daughter in
marriage as a reward.
China
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Archaeologist Zhōu Chong-Fa believes that the Chinese word for dragon
is an onomatopoeia of the sound of thunder or 'lùhng' in Cantonese.
The Chinese dragon () is the highest-ranking creature in the Chinese
animal hierarchy. Its origins are vague, but its "ancestors can be
found on Neolithic pottery as well as Bronze Age ritual vessels." A
number of popular stories deal with the rearing of dragons. The 'Zuo
zhuan', which was probably written during the Warring States period,
describes a man named Dongfu, a descendant of Yangshu'an, who loved
dragons and, because he could understand a dragon's will, he was able
to tame them and raise them well. He served Emperor Shun, who gave him
the family name Huanlong, meaning "dragon-raiser". In another story,
Kong Jia, the fourteenth emperor of the Xia dynasty, was given a male
and a female dragon as a reward for his obedience to the god of
heaven, but could not train them, so he hired a dragon-trainer named
Liulei, who had learned how to train dragons from Huanlong. One day,
the female dragon died unexpectedly, so Liulei secretly chopped her
up, cooked her meat, and served it to the king, who loved it so much
that he demanded Liulei to serve him the same meal again. Since Liulei
had no means of procuring more dragon meat, he fled the palace.
One of the most famous dragon stories is about the Lord Ye Gao, who
loved dragons obsessively, even though he had never seen one. He
decorated his whole house with dragon motifs and, seeing this display
of admiration, a real dragon came and visited Ye Gao, but the lord was
so terrified at the sight of the creature that he ran away. In Chinese
legend, the culture hero Fu Hsi is said to have been crossing the Lo
River, when he saw the 'lung ma', a Chinese horse-dragon with seven
dots on its face, six on its back, eight on its left flank, and nine
on its right flank. He was so moved by this apparition that, when he
arrived home, he drew a picture of it, including the dots. He later
used these dots as letters and invented Chinese writing, which he used
to write his book 'I Ching'. In another Chinese legend, the physician
Ma Shih Huang is said to have healed a sick dragon. Another legend
reports that a man once came to the healer Lo Chên-jen, telling him
that he was a dragon and that he needed to be healed. After Lo
Chên-jen healed the man, a dragon appeared to him and carried him to
heaven.
In the 'Shanhaijing', a classic mythography probably compiled mostly
during the Han dynasty, various deities and demigods are associated
with dragons. One of the most famous Chinese dragons is Ying Long
("responding dragon"), who helped the Huangdi, the Yellow Emperor,
defeat the tyrant Chiyou. The dragon Zhulong ("torch dragon") is a god
"who composed the universe with his body." In the 'Shanhaijing', many
mythic heroes are said to have been conceived after their mothers
copulated with divine dragons, including Huangdi, Shennong, Emperor
Yao, and Emperor Shun. The god Zhurong and the emperor Qi are both
described as being carried by two dragons, as are Huangdi, Zhuanxu,
Yuqiang, and Roshou in various other texts. According to the
'Huainanzi', an evil black dragon once caused a destructive deluge,
which was ended by the mother goddess Nüwa by slaying the dragon.
A large number of ethnic myths about dragons are told throughout
China. The 'Houhanshu', compiled in the fifth century BC by Fan Ye,
reports a story belonging to the Ailaoyi people, which holds that a
woman named Shayi who lived in the region around Mount Lao became
pregnant with ten sons after being touched by a tree trunk floating in
the water while fishing. She gave birth to the sons and the tree trunk
turned into a dragon, who asked to see his sons. The woman showed them
to him, but all of them ran away except for the youngest, who the
dragon licked on the back and named Jiu Long, meaning "sitting back".
The sons later elected him king and the descendants of the ten sons
became the Ailaoyi people, who tattooed dragons on their backs in
honor of their ancestor. The Miao people of southwest China have a
story that a divine dragon created the first humans by breathing on
monkeys that came to play in his cave. The Han people have many
stories about Short-Tailed Old Li, a black dragon who was born to a
poor family in Shandong. When his mother saw him for the first time,
she fainted and, when his father came home from the field and saw him,
he hit him with a spade and cut off part of his tail. Li burst through
the ceiling and flew away to the Black Dragon River in northeast
China, where he became the god of that river. On the anniversary of
his mother's death on the Chinese lunar calendar, Old Li returns home,
causing it to rain. He is still worshipped as a rain god.
In China, a dragon is thought to have power over rain. Dragons and
their associations with rain are the source of the Chinese customs of
dragon dancing and dragon boat racing. Dragons are closely associated
with rain and drought is thought to be caused by a dragon's laziness.
Prayers invoking dragons to bring rain are common in Chinese texts.
The 'Luxuriant Dew of the Spring and Autumn Annals', attributed to the
Han dynasty scholar Dong Zhongshu, prescribes making clay figurines of
dragons during a time of drought and having young men and boys pace
and dance among the figurines in order to encourage the dragons to
bring rain. Texts from the Qing dynasty advise hurling the bone of a
tiger or dirty objects into the pool where the dragon lives; since
dragons cannot stand tigers or dirt, the dragon of the pool will cause
heavy rain to drive the object out. Rainmaking rituals invoking
dragons are still very common in many Chinese villages, where each
village has its own god said to bring rain and many of these gods are
dragons. The Chinese dragon kings are thought of as the inspiration
for the Hindu myth of the naga. According to these stories, every body
of water is ruled by a dragon king, each with a different power, rank,
and ability, so people began establishing temples across the
countryside dedicated to these figures.
Many traditional Chinese customs revolve around dragons. During
various holidays, including the Spring Festival and Lantern Festival,
villagers will construct an approximately sixteen-foot-long dragon
from grass, cloth, bamboo strips, and paper, which they will parade
through the city as part of a dragon dance. The original purpose of
this ritual was to bring good weather and a strong harvest, but now it
is done mostly only for entertainment. During the Duanwu festival,
several villages, or even a whole province, will hold a dragon boat
race, in which people race across a body of water in boats carved to
look like dragons, while a large audience watches on the banks. The
custom is traditionally said to have originated after the poet Qu Yuan
committed suicide by drowning himself in the Miluo River and people
raced out in boats hoping to save him. But most historians agree that
the custom actually originated much earlier as a ritual to avert ill
fortune. Starting during the Han dynasty and continuing until the Qing
dynasty, the Chinese emperor gradually became closely identified with
dragons, and emperors themselves claimed to be the incarnations of a
divine dragon. Eventually, dragons were only allowed to appear on
clothing, houses, and articles of everyday use belonging to the
emperor and any commoner who possessed everyday items bearing the
image of the dragon was ordered to be executed. After the last Chinese
emperor was overthrown in 1911, this situation changed and now many
ordinary Chinese people identify themselves as descendants of dragons.
The impression of dragons in a large number of Asian countries has
been influenced by Chinese culture, such as Korea, Vietnam, Japan, and
so on. Chinese tradition has always used the dragon totem as the
national emblem, and the "Yellow Dragon flag" of the Qing dynasty has
influenced the impression that China is a dragon in many European
countries.
Korea
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The Korean dragon is in many ways similar in appearance to other East
Asian dragons such as the Chinese and Japanese dragons. It differs
from the Chinese dragon in that it developed a longer beard. Very
occasionally, a dragon may be depicted as carrying an orb known as the
Yeouiju (), the Korean name for the mythical Cintamani, in its claws
or its mouth. It was said that whoever could wield the Yeouiju was
blessed with the abilities of omnipotence and creation at will, and
that only four-toed dragons (who had thumbs with which to hold the
orbs) were both wise and powerful enough to wield these orbs, as
opposed to the lesser, three-toed dragons. As with China, the number
nine is significant and auspicious in Korea, and dragons were said to
have 81 (9×9) scales on their backs, representing yang essence.
Dragons in Korean mythology are primarily benevolent beings related to
water and agriculture, often considered bringers of rain and clouds.
Hence, many Korean dragons are said to have resided in rivers, lakes,
oceans, or even deep mountain ponds. And human journeys to undersea
realms, and especially the undersea palace of the Dragon King (), are
common in Korean folklore.
In Korean myths, some kings who founded kingdoms were described as
descendants of dragons because the dragon was a symbol of the monarch.
Lady Aryeong, who was the first queen of Silla, is said to have been
born from a cockatrice, while the grandmother of Taejo of Goryeo,
founder of Goryeo, was reportedly the daughter of the dragon king of
the West Sea. And King Munmu of Silla who, on his deathbed, wished to
become a dragon of the East Sea in order to protect the kingdom.
Dragon patterns were used exclusively by the royal family. The royal
robe was also called the dragon robe (). In the Joseon period, the
royal insignia, featuring embroidered dragons, were attached to the
robe's shoulders, the chest, and back. The King wore five-taloned
dragon insignia while the Crown Prince wore four-taloned dragon
insignia.
Korean folk mythology states that most dragons were originally (), or
lesser dragons, which were said to resemble gigantic serpents. There
are a few different versions of Korean folklore that describe both
what imugis are and how they aspire to become full-fledged dragons.
Koreans thought that an Imugi could become a true dragon, 'yong' or
'mireu', if it caught a Yeouiju which had fallen from heaven. Another
explanation states they are hornless creatures resembling dragons who
have been cursed and thus were unable to become dragons. By other
accounts, an Imugi is a 'proto-dragon' which must survive one thousand
years in order to become a fully-fledged dragon. In either case, they
are said to be large, benevolent, python-like creatures that live in
water or caves, and their sighting is associated with good luck.
Japan
=======
Japanese dragon myths amalgamate native legends with imported stories
about dragons from China. Like some other dragons, most Japanese
dragons are water deities associated with rainfall and bodies of
water, and are typically depicted as large, wingless, serpentine
creatures with clawed feet. Gould writes (1896:248), the Japanese
dragon is "invariably figured as possessing three claws". A story
about the 'samurai' Minamoto no Mitsunaka tells that, while he was
hunting in his own territory of Settsu, he dreamt under a tree and had
a dream in which a beautiful woman appeared to him and begged him to
save her land from a giant serpent which was defiling it. Mitsunaka
agreed to help and the maiden gave him a magnificent horse. When he
woke up, the seahorse was standing before him. He rode it to the
Sumiyoshi temple, where he prayed for eight days. Then he confronted
the serpent and slew it with an arrow.
It was believed that dragons could be appeased or exorcised with
metal. Nitta Yoshisada is said to have hurled a famous sword into the
sea at Sagami to appease the dragon-god of the sea and Ki no Tsurayuki
threw a metal mirror into the sea at Sumiyoshi for the same purpose.
Japanese Buddhism has also adapted dragons by subjecting them to
Buddhist law; the Japanese Buddhist deities Benten and Kwannon are
often shown sitting or standing on the back of a dragon. Several
Japanese 'sennin' ("immortals") have taken dragons as their mounts.
Bômô is said to have hurled his staff into a puddle of water, causing
a dragon to come forth and let him ride it to heaven. The 'rakan'
Handaka is said to have been able to conjure a dragon out of a bowl,
which he is often shown playing with on 'kagamibuta'. The 'shachihoko'
is a creature with the head of a dragon, a bushy tail, fishlike
scales, and sometimes with fire emerging from its armpits. The 'fun'
has the head of a dragon, feathered wings, and the tail and claws of a
bird. A white dragon was believed to reside in a pool in Yamashiro
Province and, every fifty years, it would turn into a bird called the
Ogonchô, which had a call like the "howling of a wild dog". This event
was believed to herald terrible famine. In the Japanese village of
Okumura, near Edo, during times of drought, the villagers would make a
dragon effigy out of straw, magnolia leaves, and bamboo and parade it
through the village to attract rainfall.
Vietnam
=========
The Vietnamese dragon () was a mythical creature that was often used
as a deity symbol and was associated with royalty. Similar to other
cultures, dragons in Vietnamese culture represent yang and godly
beings associated with creation and life. In the creation myth of the
Vietnamese people, they are descended from the dragon lord Lạc Long
Quân and the fairy Âu Cơ, who bore 100 eggs. When they separated, Lạc
Long Quân brought 50 children to the sea while Âu Cơ brought the rest
up the mountains. To this day, Vietnamese people often describe
themselves as "Children of the dragon, grandchildren of the fairy"
('Con rồng cháu tiên').
India
=======
In the 'Rigveda', the oldest of the four Vedas, Indra, the Vedic god
of storms, battles Vṛtra, a giant serpent who represents drought.
Indra kills Vṛtra using his 'vajra' (thunderbolt) and clears the path
for rain, which is described in the form of cattle: "You won the cows,
hero, you won the Soma,/You freed the seven streams to flow"
('Rigveda' 1.32.12). In another Rigvedic legend, the three-headed
serpent Viśvarūpa, the son of Tvaṣṭṛ, guards a wealth of cows and
horses. Indra delivers Viśvarūpa to a god named Trita Āptya, who
fights and kills him and sets his cattle free. Indra cuts off
Viśvarūpa's heads and drives the cattle home for Trita. This same
story is alluded to in the Younger Avesta, in which the hero
Thraētaona, the son of Āthbya, slays the three-headed dragon Aži
Dahāka and takes his two beautiful wives as spoils. Thraētaona's name
(meaning "third grandson of the waters") indicates that Aži Dahāka,
like Vṛtra, was seen as a blocker of waters and cause of drought.
Bhutan
========
The Druk (), also known as 'Thunder Dragon', is one of the national
symbols of Bhutan. In the Dzongkha language, Bhutan is known as 'Druk
Yul' "Land of Druk", and Bhutanese leaders are called Druk Gyalpo,
"Thunder Dragon Kings". The druk was adopted as an emblem by the
Drukpa Lineage, which originated in Tibet and later spread to Bhutan.
Proto-Indo-European
=====================
The tale of a hero slaying a giant serpent occurs in almost all
Indo-European mythology. In most stories, the hero is some kind of
thunder-god. In nearly every iteration of the story, the serpent is
either multi-headed or "multiple" in some other way. Furthermore, in
nearly every story, the serpent is always somehow associated with
water. Bruce Lincoln has proposed that a Proto-Indo-European
dragon-slaying myth can be reconstructed as follows: First, the sky
gods give cattle to a man named '*Tritos' ("the third"), who is so
named because he is the third man on earth, but a three-headed serpent
named steals them. '*Tritos' pursues the serpent and is accompanied
by '*Hanér', whose name means "man". Together, the two heroes slay the
serpent and rescue the cattle.
Ancient Greece
================
The ancient Greek word usually translated as "dragon" ( 'drákōn',
genitive 'drákontos') could also mean "snake", but it usually refers
to a kind of giant serpent that either possesses supernatural
characteristics or is otherwise controlled by some supernatural power.
The first mention of a "dragon" in ancient Greek literature occurs in
the 'Iliad', in which Agamemnon is described as having a blue dragon
motif on his sword belt and an emblem of a three-headed dragon on his
breast plate. In lines 820-880 of the 'Theogony', a Greek poem written
in the seventh century BC by the Boeotian poet Hesiod, the Greek god
Zeus battles the monster Typhon, who has one hundred serpent heads
that breathe fire and make many frightening animal noises. Zeus
scorches all of Typhon's heads with his lightning bolts and then hurls
Typhon into Tartarus. In other Greek sources, Typhon is often depicted
as a winged, fire-breathing serpent-like dragon. In the 'Homeric Hymn
to Apollo', the god Apollo uses his poisoned arrows to slay the
serpent Python, who has been causing death and pestilence in the area
around Delphi. Apollo then sets up his shrine there.
The Roman poet Virgil in his poem 'Culex', lines 163-201
[
http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/appvergculex.html Appendix Vergiliana:
Culex], describing a shepherd having a fight with a big constricting
snake, calls it "serpens" and also "draco", showing that in his time
the two words were probably interchangeable.
Hesiod also mentions that the hero Heracles slew the Lernaean Hydra, a
multiple-headed serpent which dwelt in the swamps of Lerna. The name
"Hydra" means "water snake" in Greek. According to the 'Bibliotheka'
of Pseudo-Apollodorus, the slaying of the Hydra was the second of the
Twelve Labors of Heracles. Accounts disagree on which weapon Heracles
used to slay the Hydra, but, by the end of the sixth century BC, it
was agreed that the clubbed or severed heads needed to be cauterized
to prevent them from growing back. Heracles was aided in this task by
his nephew Iolaus. During the battle, a giant crab crawled out of the
marsh and pinched Heracles's foot, but he crushed it under his heel.
Hera placed the crab in the sky as the constellation Cancer. One of
the Hydra's heads was immortal, so Heracles buried it under a heavy
rock after cutting it off. For his Eleventh Labor, Heracles must
procure a golden apple from the tree in the Garden of the Hesperides,
which is guarded by an enormous serpent that never sleeps, which
Pseudo-Apollodorus calls "Ladon". In earlier depictions, Ladon is
often shown with many heads. In Pseudo-Apollodorus's account, Ladon is
immortal, but Sophocles and Euripides both describe Heracles as
killing him, although neither of them specifies how. Some suggest that
the golden apple was not claimed through battle with Ladon at all but
through Heracles charming the Hesperides. The mythographer Herodorus
is the first to state that Heracles slew him using his famous club.
Apollonius of Rhodes, in his epic poem, the 'Argonautica', describes
Ladon as having been shot full of poisoned arrows dipped in the blood
of the Hydra.
In Pindar's 'Fourth Pythian Ode', Aeëtes of Colchis tells the hero
Jason that the Golden Fleece he is seeking is in a copse guarded by a
dragon, "which surpassed in breadth and length a fifty-oared ship".
Jason slays the dragon and makes off with the Golden Fleece together
with his co-conspirator, Aeëtes's daughter, Medea. The earliest
artistic representation of this story is an Attic red-figure 'kylix'
dated to 480-470 BC, showing a bedraggled Jason being disgorged from
the dragon's open mouth as the Golden Fleece hangs in a tree behind
him and Athena, the goddess of wisdom, stands watching. A fragment
from Pherecydes of Athens states that Jason killed the dragon, but
fragments from the 'Naupactica' and from Herodorus state that he
merely stole the Fleece and escaped. In Euripides's 'Medea', Medea
boasts that she killed the Colchian dragon herself. In the final scene
of the play, Medea also flies away on a chariot pulled by two dragons.
In the most famous retelling of the story from Apollonius of Rhodes's
'Argonautica', Medea drugs the dragon to sleep, allowing Jason to
steal the Fleece. Greek vase paintings show her feeding the dragon the
sleeping drug in a liquid form from a 'phialē', or shallow cup.
In the founding myth of Thebes, Cadmus, a Phoenician prince, was
instructed by Apollo to follow a heifer and found a city wherever it
laid down. Cadmus and his men followed the heifer and, when it laid
down, Cadmus ordered his men to find a spring so he could sacrifice
the heifer to Athena. His men found a spring, but it was guarded by a
dragon, which had been placed there by the god Ares, and the dragon
killed them. Cadmus killed the dragon in revenge, either by smashing
its head with a rock or using his sword. Following the advice of
Athena, Cadmus tore out the dragon's teeth and planted them in the
earth. An army of giant warriors (known as 'spartoi', which means
"sown men") grew from the teeth like plants. Cadmus hurled stones into
their midst, causing them to kill each other until only five were
left. To make restitution for having killed Ares's dragon, Cadmus was
forced to serve Ares as a slave for eight years. At the end of this
period, Cadmus married Harmonia, the daughter of Ares and Aphrodite.
Cadmus and Harmonia moved to Illyria, where they ruled as king and
queen, before eventually being transformed into dragons themselves.
In the fifth century BC, the Greek historian Herodotus reported in
Book IV of his 'Histories' that western Libya was inhabited by
monstrous serpents and, in Book III, he states that Arabia was home to
many small, winged serpents, which came in a variety of colors and
enjoyed the trees that produced frankincense. Herodotus remarks that
the serpent's wings were like those of bats and that, unlike vipers,
which are found in every land, winged serpents are only found in
Arabia. The second-century BC Greek astronomer Hipparchus ( 190 BC -
120 BC) listed the constellation Draco ("the dragon") as one of
forty-six constellations. Hipparchus described the constellation as
containing fifteen stars, but the later astronomer Ptolemy ( 100 -
170 AD) increased this number to thirty-one in his 'Almagest'.
In the New Testament, Revelation 12:3, written by John of Patmos,
describes a vision of a Great Red Dragon with seven heads, ten horns,
seven crowns, and a massive tail, an image which is clearly inspired
by the vision of the four beasts from the sea in the Book of Daniel
and the Leviathan described in various Old Testament passages. The
Great Red Dragon knocks "a third of the sun ... a third of the moon,
and a third of the stars" out of the sky and pursues the Woman of the
Apocalypse. Revelation 12:7-9 declares: "And war broke out in Heaven.
Michael and his angels fought against Dragon. Dragon and his angels
fought back, but they were defeated, and there was no longer any place
for them in Heaven. Dragon the Great was thrown down, that ancient
serpent who is called Devil and Satan, the one deceiving the whole
inhabited World - he was thrown down to earth and his angels were
thrown down with him." Then a voice booms down from Heaven heralding
the defeat of "the Accuser" ('ho Kantegor').
In , Flavius Philostratus discussed dragons (δράκων, drákōn) in India
in 'The Life of Apollonius of Tyana' (II,17 and III,6-8). The Loeb
Classical Library translation (by F.C. Conybeare) mentions (III,7)
that, "In most respects the tusks resemble the largest swine's, but
they are slighter in build and twisted, and have a point as unabraded
as sharks' teeth." According to a collection of books by Claudius
Aelianus called 'On Animals', Ethiopia was inhabited by a species of
dragon that hunted elephants and could grow to a length of 180 feet
(55 m) with a lifespan rivaling that of the most enduring of animals.
In the 4th century, Basil of Caesarea, on chapter IX of his Address to
Young Men on Greek Literature, mentions mythological dragons as
guarding treasures and riches.
Germanic
==========
In the Old Norse poem 'Grímnismál' in the 'Poetic Edda', the dragon
Níðhöggr is described as gnawing on the roots of Yggdrasil, the world
tree. In Norse mythology, Jörmungandr is a giant serpent that
encircles the entire realm of Miðgarð in the sea around it. According
to the 'Gylfaginning' from the 'Prose Edda', written by the
thirteenth-century Icelandic mythographer Snorri Sturluson, Thor, the
Norse god of thunder, once went out on a boat with the giant Hymnir to
the outer sea and fished for Jörmungandr using an ox-head as bait.
Thor caught the serpent and, after pulling its head out of the water,
smashed it with his hammer, Mjölnir. Snorri states that the blow was
not fatal: "and men say that he struck its head off on the sea bed.
But I think the truth to tell you is that the Miðgarð Serpent still
lives and lies in the surrounding sea."
Towards the end of the Old English epic poem 'Beowulf', a slave steals
a cup from the hoard of a sleeping dragon, causing the dragon to wake
up and go on a rampage of destruction across the countryside. Beowulf
insists on confronting the dragon alone, even though he is of advanced
age, but Wiglaf, the youngest of the twelve warriors Beowulf has
brought with him, insists on accompanying his king into the battle.
Beowulf's sword shatters during the fight and he is mortally wounded,
but Wiglaf comes to his rescue and helps him slay the dragon. Beowulf
dies and tells Wiglaf that the dragon's treasure must be buried rather
than shared with the cowardly warriors who did not come to the aid of
their king.
In the Old Norse 'Völsunga saga', the hero Sigurd catches the dragon
Fafnir by digging a pit between the cave where he lives and the spring
where he drinks his water and kills him by stabbing him in the
underside. At the advice of Odin, Sigurd drains Fafnir's blood and
drinks it, which gives him the ability to understand the language of
the birds, who he hears talking about how his mentor Regin is plotting
to betray him so that he can keep all of Fafnir's treasure for
himself. The motif of a hero trying to sneak past a sleeping dragon
and steal some of its treasure is common throughout many Old Norse
sagas. The fourteenth-century 'Flóres saga konungs ok sona hans'
describes a hero who is actively concerned not to wake a sleeping
dragon while sneaking past it. In the 'Yngvars saga víðförla', the
protagonist attempts to steal treasure from several sleeping dragons,
but accidentally wakes them up.
Post-classical
================
The modern, western image of a dragon developed in western Europe
during the Middle Ages through the combination of the snakelike
dragons of classical Graeco-Roman literature, references to Near
Eastern dragons preserved in the Bible, and western European folk
traditions. The period between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries
represents the height of European interest in dragons as living
creatures. The twelfth-century Welsh monk, Geoffrey of Monmouth,
recounts a famous legend in his 'Historia Regum Britanniae' in which
the child prophet Merlin witnesses the Romano-Celtic warlord Vortigern
attempt to build a tower on Snowdon to keep safe from the
Anglo-Saxons, but the tower keeps being swallowed into the ground.
Merlin informs Vortigern that, underneath the foundation he has built,
is a pool with two dragons sleeping in it. Vortigern orders for the
pool to be drained, exposing a red dragon and a white dragon, who
immediately begin fighting. Merlin delivers a prophecy that the white
dragon will triumph over the red, symbolizing England's conquest of
Wales, but declares that the red dragon will eventually return and
defeat the white one. This story remained popular throughout the
fifteenth century.
Dragons are generally depicted as living in rivers or having an
underground lair or cave. They are envisioned as greedy and
gluttonous, with voracious appetites. They are often identified with
Satan, due to the references to Satan as a "dragon" in the Book of
Revelation. The thirteenth-century 'Golden Legend', written in Latin,
records the story of Saint Margaret of Antioch, a virgin martyr who,
after being tortured for her faith in the Diocletianic Persecution and
thrown back into her cell, is said to have been confronted by a
monstrous dragon, but she made the sign of the cross and the dragon
vanished. In some versions of the story, she is actually swallowed by
the dragon alive and, after making the sign of the cross in the
dragon's stomach, emerges unharmed.
The legend of Saint George and the Dragon may be referenced as early
as the sixth century AD, but the earliest artistic representations of
it come from the eleventh century and the first full account of it
comes from an eleventh-century Georgian text. The most famous version
of the story from the 'Golden Legend' holds that a dragon kept
pillaging the sheep of the town of Silene in Libya. After it ate a
young shepherd, the people were forced to placate it by leaving two
sheep as sacrificial offerings every morning beside the lake where the
dragon lived. Eventually, the dragon ate all of the sheep and the
people were forced to start offering it their own children. One day,
the king's own daughter came up in the lottery and, despite the king's
pleas for her life, she was dressed as a bride and chained to a rock
beside the lake to be eaten. Then, Saint George arrived and saw the
princess. When the dragon arrived to eat her, he stabbed it with his
lance and subdued it by making the sign of the cross and tying the
princess's girdle around its neck. Saint George and the princess led
the now-docile dragon into the town and George promised to kill it if
the townspeople would convert to Christianity. All the townspeople
converted and Saint George killed the dragon with his sword. In some
versions, Saint George marries the princess, but, in others, he
continues wandering.
Dragons are well known in myths and legends of Spain, in no small part
because St. George (Catalan Sant Jordi) is the patron saint of
Catalonia. Like most mythical reptiles, the Catalan dragon (Catalan
drac) is an enormous serpent-like creature with four legs and a pair
of wings, or rarely, a two-legged creature with a pair of wings,
called a wyvern. As in many other parts of the world, the dragon's
face may be like that of some other animal, such as a lion or a bull.
As is common elsewhere, Catalan dragons are fire-breathers, and the
dragon-fire is all-consuming. Catalan dragons also can emit a fetid
odor, which can rot away anything it touches.
Gargoyles are carved stone figures sometimes resembling dragons that
originally served as waterspouts on buildings. Precursors to the
medieval gargoyle can be found on ancient Greek and Egyptian temples,
but, over the course of the Middle Ages, many fantastic stories were
invented to explain them. One medieval French legend holds that, in
ancient times, a fearsome dragon known as 'La Gargouille' had been
causing floods and sinking ships on the river Seine, so the people of
the town of Rouen would offer the dragon a human sacrifice once each
year to appease its hunger. Then, around 600 AD, a priest named
Romanus promised that, if the people would build a church, he would
rid them of the dragon. Romanus slew the dragon and its severed head
was mounted on the walls of the city as the first gargoyle.
Dragons are prominent in medieval heraldry. Uther Pendragon was
famously said to have had two gold dragons crowned with red standing
back-to-back on his royal coat of arms. Originally, heraldic dragons
could have any number of legs, but, by the late Middle Ages, due to
the widespread proliferation of bestiaries, heraldry began to
distinguish between a "dragon" (which could only have exactly four
legs) and a "wyvern" (which could only have exactly two). In myths,
wyverns are associated with viciousness, envy, and pestilence, but, in
heraldry, they are used as symbols for overthrowing the tyranny of
Satan and his demonic forces. Late medieval heraldry also
distinguished a draconic creature known as a "cockatrice". A
cockatrice is supposedly born when a serpent hatches an egg that has
been laid on a dunghill by a rooster and it is so venomous that its
breath and its gaze are both lethal to any living creature, except for
a weasel, which is the cockatrice's mortal enemy. A basilisk is a
serpent with the head of a dragon at the end of its tail that is born
when a toad hatches an egg that has been laid in a midden by a
nine-year-old cockatrice. Like the cockatrice, its glare is said to be
deadly.
Post-classical Eastern
========================
In Albanian mythology and folklore, 'stihi', 'ljubi', 'bolla, bollar,
errshaja, and kulshedra' are mythological figures described as
serpentine dragons. It is believed that 'bolla', a water and chthonic
demonic serpent, undergoes metamorphosis passing through four distinct
phases if it lives many years without being seen by a human. The
'bollar' and 'errshaja' are the intermediate stages, while the
'kulshedra' is the ultimate phase, described as a huge multi-headed
fire-spitting female serpent which causes drought, storms, flooding,
earthquakes, and other natural disasters against mankind. She is
usually fought and defeated by a drangue, a semi-human winged divine
hero and protector of humans. Heavy thunderstorms are thought to be
the result of their battles.
In Slavic mythology, the words '"zmey"', '"zmiy",' or '"zmaj"' are
used to describe dragons. These words are masculine forms of the
Slavic word for "snake", which are normally feminine (like Russian
'zmeya'). In Romania, there is a similar figure, derived from the
Slavic dragon and named 'zmeu'. Exclusively in Polish and Belarusian
folklore, as well as in the other Slavic folklores, a dragon is also
called (variously) 'смок', 'цмок', or 'smok'. In South Slavic
folklores, the same thing is also called 'lamya' (ламя, ламjа, lamja).
Although quite similar to other European dragons, Slavic dragons have
their peculiarities.
In Russian and Ukrainian folklore, Zmey Gorynych is a dragon with
three heads, each one bearing twin goatlike horns. He is said to have
breathed fire and smelled of sulfur. It was believed that eclipses
were caused by Gorynych temporarily swallowing the sun. According to
one legend, Gorynych's uncle was the evil sorcerer Nemal Chelovek, who
abducted the daughter of the tsar and imprisoned her in his castle in
the Ural Mountains. Many knights tried to free her, but all of them
were killed by Gorynych's fire. Then a palace guard in Moscow named
Ivan Tsarevich overheard two crows talking about the princess. He went
to the tsar, who gave him a magic sword, and snuck into the castle.
When Chelovek attacked Ivan in the form of a giant, the sword flew
from Ivan's hand unbidden and killed him. Then the sword cut off all
three of Gorynych's heads at once. Ivan brought the princess back to
the tsar, who declared Ivan a nobleman and allowed him to marry the
princess.
A popular Polish folk tale is the legend of the Wawel Dragon, which is
first recorded in the 'Chronica Polonorum' of Wincenty Kadłubek,
written between 1190 and 1208. According to Kadłubek, the dragon
appeared during the reign of King Krakus and demanded to be fed a
fixed number of cattle every week. If the villagers failed to provide
enough cattle, the dragon would eat the same number of villagers as
the number of cattle they had failed to provide. Krakus ordered his
sons to slay the dragon. Since they could not slay it by hand, they
tricked the dragon into eating calfskins filled with burning sulfur.
Once the dragon was dead, the younger brother attacked and murdered
his older brother and returned home to claim all the glory for
himself, telling his father that his brother had died fighting the
dragon. The younger brother became king after his father died, but his
secret was eventually revealed and he was banished. In the fifteenth
century, Jan Długosz rewrote the story so that King Krakus himself was
the one who slew the dragon. Another version of the story told by
Marcin Bielski instead has the clever shoemaker Skuba come up with the
idea for slaying the dragon. Bielski's version is now the most
popular.
Modern depictions
======================================================================
Dragons and dragon motifs are featured in many works of modern
literature, particularly within the fantasy genre. As early as the
eighteenth century, critical thinkers such as Denis Diderot were
already asserting that too much literature had been published on
dragons: "There are already in books all too many fabulous stories of
dragons". In Lewis Carroll's classic children's novel 'Through the
Looking-Glass' (1871), one of the inset poems describes the
Jabberwock, a kind of dragon. Carroll's illustrator John Tenniel, a
famous political cartoonist, humorously showed the Jabberwock with the
waistcoat, buck teeth, and myopic eyes of a Victorian university
lecturer, such as Carroll himself. In works of comedic children's
fantasy, dragons often fulfill the role of a magic fairy tale helper.
In such works, rather than being frightening as they are traditionally
portrayed, dragons are instead represented as harmless, benevolent,
and inferior to humans. They are sometimes shown living in contact
with humans, or in isolated communities of only dragons. Though
popular in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, "such
comic and idyllic stories" began to grow increasingly rare after the
1960s, due to demand for more serious children's literature.
One of the most iconic modern dragons is Smaug from J. R. R. Tolkien's
classic novel, 'The Hobbit'. Dragons also appear in the best-selling
'Harry Potter' series of children's novels by J. K. Rowling. Other
prominent works depicting dragons include Anne McCaffrey's
'Dragonriders of Pern', Ursula K. Le Guin's 'Earthsea Cycle', George
R. R. Martin's series 'A Song of Ice and Fire', and Christopher
Paolini's 'The Inheritance Cycle'. Sandra Martina Schwab writes, "With
a few exceptions, including McCaffrey's Pern novels and the 2002 film
'Reign of Fire', dragons seem to fit more into the medievalized
setting of fantasy literature than into the more technological world
of science fiction. Indeed, they have been called the emblem of
fantasy. The hero's fight against the dragon emphasizes and celebrates
his masculinity, whereas revisionist fantasies of dragons and
dragon-slaying often undermine traditional gender roles. In children's
literature (such as Cressida Cowell's 'How to Train Your Dragon'
series) the friendly dragon may become a powerful ally in battling the
child's fears." The popular role-playing game system 'Dungeons &
Dragons' (D&D) makes heavy use of dragons.
File:Jabberwocky.jpg|John Tenniel's illustration of the Jabberwock for
Lewis Carroll's 'Through the Looking-Glass', showing the dragon as a
myopic professor
File:Gringotts Dragon (42428011465).jpg|Fire-breathing statue of the
Ukrainian Ironbelly from 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part
2' at Universal Studios Florida
File:DnD Dragon.png|Representation of a dragon as it appears in the
role-playing game 'Dungeons & Dragons'
See also
======================================================================
*Balaur
*Bat (heraldry)
*Behemoth
*Dragonology
*Feilong (mythology)
*Griffin
*Guivre
*Horned Serpent
*Ichneumon (medieval zoology)
*Lambton Worm
*'The Last Dragon', fictional 2004 documentary
*List of dragons in literature
*List of dragons in mythology and folklore
*List of dragons in popular culture
*Mokele-mbembe
*Partridge Creek monster
*Peluda
*Scylla
*Sea serpent
*Snallygaster
Bibliography
==============
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* Visser, Marinus Willem de;
[
https://archive.org/details/cu31924021444728 'The Dragon in China and
Japan'] , Amsterdam, J. Müller 1913.
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=========
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Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon
