DRAGON ARCHETYPE
AN EXISTENTIAL REVELATION
Spiritual & Cultural Archetype
Enki Means Archetype
Enki's emblem was two serpents [twin human DNA] entwined on a staff - the basis for
the winged caduceus symbol used by modern Western medicine and the rod of Hermes.
Spiritual & Cultural Archetype
Enki Means Archetype
Enki's emblem was two serpents [twin human DNA] entwined on a staff - the basis for
the winged caduceus symbol used by modern Western medicine and the rod of Hermes.
The Dragon Field
The Dragon is the universal energetic field, slumbering at the center of the Universe. A hidden Dragon sleeps within our deep nature and guides our collective destiny. All the virtual and electromagnetic waves bathe all things in this radiation, in their motion. Through miniscule perturbations, waves can change to forms and images that can speak, becoming voices that can be heard by our sensitive energy bodies, feeding on biophotonic light. Transformed to vision and dreams they produce presentiments in us. We learn to see thorough our Dragon Eyes.
The prime paradigm of each era is that of its Age. Our story can only be understood against the vast backdrop of the archetype of Eternal Return: the Great Cycle of Precession which changes world Ages, but not without catastrophic growing pains. The Dragon remains unchanging at the heart of this process. Earth wants an answer to Chaos, and it may be We Dragon. The axiom "As Above, So Below" means Earth's sacred dragon clan mystically connects with the Dragon, the "Infinite Nothing" at the center of the Universe. Society is recalibrated from this cosmic zero-point -- an Archaic Renaissance begins the Great Cycle anew, and Earth once again knows the Dragon's footprint.
The Dragon symbolizes the universal ether as the fundamental light frequency or form of ‘pure energy’. All other forms of energy are a modification of this primal energy, creating the impression of a concrete physical world, along with the astral impressions of the imagination, and the various sensations and perceptions that accompany human existence. It appears that reality has two aspects: the underlying field continuum, and the nature of the form perceived in it.
The Asian Dragon represents chi, or universal prana, feeding on dragon energy. The Dragon is also connected with the serpent of wisdom, the dynamic energy connecting the paths of the tree of life, and sometimes depicted in myth as swallowing the sun or moon during eclipses. It is also related to the kundalini within another context. In one sense, Draco is the personification of Nuit, and infinite space itself. Ananta, the great serpent which surrounds the Universe, devours its own tail, thereby reducing it to Zero.
Drakenberg is a transformative imperative. The Akashic records are an energetic pattern, a frequency like a tuning fork vibration. Holographic images are pictures captured in light and hold the feeling of events and emotions so they may be viewed again as a learning tool. We can "consult" with our ancestors. In recent decades modern science has verified what the ancient traditions intuited long ago. In both tangible and mysterious ways, we are all interconnected, and any one of us can have a profound effect on the whole. And, if you accept the perennial mystical teaching that, at the level of consciousness, we are not only interconnected, but are actually one Self seeing through many eyes, then it should be clear that, like it or not, in the way we conduct our inner and outer lives, each of us is in fact always having an effect on the whole. What would you do if you realized that the entire human endeavor, the evolution of consciousness itself, depended on your willingness to transform your own consciousness?
The Dragon is the universal energetic field, slumbering at the center of the Universe. A hidden Dragon sleeps within our deep nature and guides our collective destiny. All the virtual and electromagnetic waves bathe all things in this radiation, in their motion. Through miniscule perturbations, waves can change to forms and images that can speak, becoming voices that can be heard by our sensitive energy bodies, feeding on biophotonic light. Transformed to vision and dreams they produce presentiments in us. We learn to see thorough our Dragon Eyes.
The prime paradigm of each era is that of its Age. Our story can only be understood against the vast backdrop of the archetype of Eternal Return: the Great Cycle of Precession which changes world Ages, but not without catastrophic growing pains. The Dragon remains unchanging at the heart of this process. Earth wants an answer to Chaos, and it may be We Dragon. The axiom "As Above, So Below" means Earth's sacred dragon clan mystically connects with the Dragon, the "Infinite Nothing" at the center of the Universe. Society is recalibrated from this cosmic zero-point -- an Archaic Renaissance begins the Great Cycle anew, and Earth once again knows the Dragon's footprint.
The Dragon symbolizes the universal ether as the fundamental light frequency or form of ‘pure energy’. All other forms of energy are a modification of this primal energy, creating the impression of a concrete physical world, along with the astral impressions of the imagination, and the various sensations and perceptions that accompany human existence. It appears that reality has two aspects: the underlying field continuum, and the nature of the form perceived in it.
The Asian Dragon represents chi, or universal prana, feeding on dragon energy. The Dragon is also connected with the serpent of wisdom, the dynamic energy connecting the paths of the tree of life, and sometimes depicted in myth as swallowing the sun or moon during eclipses. It is also related to the kundalini within another context. In one sense, Draco is the personification of Nuit, and infinite space itself. Ananta, the great serpent which surrounds the Universe, devours its own tail, thereby reducing it to Zero.
Drakenberg is a transformative imperative. The Akashic records are an energetic pattern, a frequency like a tuning fork vibration. Holographic images are pictures captured in light and hold the feeling of events and emotions so they may be viewed again as a learning tool. We can "consult" with our ancestors. In recent decades modern science has verified what the ancient traditions intuited long ago. In both tangible and mysterious ways, we are all interconnected, and any one of us can have a profound effect on the whole. And, if you accept the perennial mystical teaching that, at the level of consciousness, we are not only interconnected, but are actually one Self seeing through many eyes, then it should be clear that, like it or not, in the way we conduct our inner and outer lives, each of us is in fact always having an effect on the whole. What would you do if you realized that the entire human endeavor, the evolution of consciousness itself, depended on your willingness to transform your own consciousness?
Red Dragon & Woman Clothed with Sun
Pop Alchemy
Summon the Dragon by its true name. The true name of an object or entity is the sound it vibrates to, i.e., its frequency. This includes the Primal Dragon. Its definitive and purest name/frequency is the one it possessed when it was initially created at the beginning of time, OM. OM is known among the eastern adepts as the Pranava, meaning "that which creates prana." Prana, or life force, is what constituted the body or matrix of the Primal Dragon. In the cosmological order of creation, after its initial birth as life force the Primal Dragon created the physical universe out of itself by contracting and crystalling the life force that comprised its own body. Thus, the orignal frequency/name, and the best one to summon the Dragon, is OM.
Another frequency/name of the Dragon that will summon it as the life force is the letter "K" by itself or as "Ku." The ancient Dragon Masters were named Ku Ma Ra because they had united the universal polarity, the female and male principles (the Ma and Ra), to produce life as the life force or pure energy (the Ku). As Kumara, which was their frequency/name, they resided in bodies of pure Dragon Force.
"K" and "Ku" are included in many universal terms that denote the life force, including Ki, Reiki, and Kundalini (high frequency life force). They are also part of names ascribed to the Primal Dragon, including Enki, Can (pronounced Kan), Vasuki, Kukulcan, Quetzlcoatl, and Ammon Kematuf. And they have also been incorporated into the names of those figures and adepts who were born from and/or incarnated the Dragon power and wisdom, including Cain (pronounced Kain), Krishna, Christ (Khrist), Karttikeya, Kukulcan, Quetzlcoatl, Kahuna, Kumara, Kaberoi, Korybante, etc.
When you intone the name of the Primal Dragon you are a modern Merlin summoning his dragon to do his bidding. In India, and within the religion of Christianity, OM as Om or Amen is chanted at the begining and/or end of all prayers to summon the dragon as the life force that will manifest the prayers. In order for the dragon to most effectively manifest your prayers chant OM loudly at least three times while visualizing the object of your desire. Then the life force that is created by your OM will be encoded with a thoughtform/program of unfoldment and crystallization. Then the Dragon will manifest your physical desires from the life force constituting its own body.
Another frequency/name of the Dragon that will summon it as the life force is the letter "K" by itself or as "Ku." The ancient Dragon Masters were named Ku Ma Ra because they had united the universal polarity, the female and male principles (the Ma and Ra), to produce life as the life force or pure energy (the Ku). As Kumara, which was their frequency/name, they resided in bodies of pure Dragon Force.
"K" and "Ku" are included in many universal terms that denote the life force, including Ki, Reiki, and Kundalini (high frequency life force). They are also part of names ascribed to the Primal Dragon, including Enki, Can (pronounced Kan), Vasuki, Kukulcan, Quetzlcoatl, and Ammon Kematuf. And they have also been incorporated into the names of those figures and adepts who were born from and/or incarnated the Dragon power and wisdom, including Cain (pronounced Kain), Krishna, Christ (Khrist), Karttikeya, Kukulcan, Quetzlcoatl, Kahuna, Kumara, Kaberoi, Korybante, etc.
When you intone the name of the Primal Dragon you are a modern Merlin summoning his dragon to do his bidding. In India, and within the religion of Christianity, OM as Om or Amen is chanted at the begining and/or end of all prayers to summon the dragon as the life force that will manifest the prayers. In order for the dragon to most effectively manifest your prayers chant OM loudly at least three times while visualizing the object of your desire. Then the life force that is created by your OM will be encoded with a thoughtform/program of unfoldment and crystallization. Then the Dragon will manifest your physical desires from the life force constituting its own body.
Dragon lore is very old. It actually even extends into human prehistory. All cultures across the world speak of a time before the form and order of today’s world was “fixed”, and of powers dwelling in the world that predate humanity in both sentience and insight. Many of these still exist in the human species memory, and have been reflected in our own consciousness even if the original presence seems to be gone. Specifically, one of the most influential creatures of the terran “dreamtime” were dragons. Originally creator kings/queens of a sort, and would come to be the model of sovereignty for later human rulers. But more specifically, what were dragons? They were known universally for having either powers of concealment or shape changing. As a rule, they generally only become known as dragons when some action on their part reveals their nature, and possibly even their forms.
In many cultures, the highest divinities had “lesser” agents. Not lesser as in not as divine, but more focused or localized. In a sense, “incarnated” even before the act of creation became crystallized. Set in stone, or rather “flesh and blood”, and the dragons had for bodies the primal forces of creation itself. The earth, wind, fire, and waters, but also having an existence preceding even these states of matter. They had habits in the world, and across the world and in all human reckoning these habits weren’t merely quirks. They shaped the world itself, forming the behaviours of the later “fixed elements”. They also seemed to have a remarkable ability to exist “beyond death”, and were often the keepers of the boundary between the world and death itself. For all the dragon slaying, east or west, dragons never really died, instead reincarnating or transforming in a way that their spirit still lingers in the world itself. The dragons were often the patrons of later mystical traditions. Like the way of the Druids or the Japanese Shinto priests.
Or like the Sumerians and Babylonians? Indeed. In fact, Marduk, a demi-urge like God, was said to have slain a female dragon by the name of Tiamat, and although he slew her she was said to live on in the world. The actions of Gaia herself were the behaviours of Tiamat herself, and humanity were said to have been created from the blood of Tiamats consort Kingu. So humanity in Sumerian belief are the children of dragons, but not only Sumerian.
Didn’t the rulers of those regions typically have themselves deified into sculpture and myth as dragon-like themselves in looks and behaviour? They did. In Hindu belief, we have two dragon divinities alive in our bodies, and our very physical health and continued life is dependant on their harmony. Ida and Pingala are their names.
Who coincidentally wrap around each other as a helix, like DNA. Yes, and in the same culture there were beings resembling both serpent and man known as the Naga who were believed to be very wise and possessing an advancement in the sidhis or “powers” well beyond the human potential of the time.
The Dragon can be viewed as a winged serpent. From the perspective of the history of religions the serpent is a symbol of the earth and the underworld. The eagle (and birds in general) are symbols of the heavens. The dragon is a unity of these two fundamental principles. The Dragon is a picture of the Hermetic principle "That which is below is like that which is above and that which is above is like that which is below". In China the dragon is a symbol of Tao, that which is beyond all terms and all polarities (Yin and Yang) but also is the force behind all.
The Dragon represents the unknown and the hidden energy in man and in nature. The word dragon comes from the Greek verb derkein which means "to see". The Dragon is the principle of clear seeing: the ability to see things in a new light as they really are, beyond all illusions. For this reason the dragon has great wisdom and power in the myths. The wisdom of the dragon is symbolized by the treasure it guards or the pearl that the dragon carries in his mouth. To find this wisdom and knowledge man must search in his/her inner aspects and in the unknown. In Yoga the dragon is called the Kundalini, the force that is hidden inside.
In many cultures, the highest divinities had “lesser” agents. Not lesser as in not as divine, but more focused or localized. In a sense, “incarnated” even before the act of creation became crystallized. Set in stone, or rather “flesh and blood”, and the dragons had for bodies the primal forces of creation itself. The earth, wind, fire, and waters, but also having an existence preceding even these states of matter. They had habits in the world, and across the world and in all human reckoning these habits weren’t merely quirks. They shaped the world itself, forming the behaviours of the later “fixed elements”. They also seemed to have a remarkable ability to exist “beyond death”, and were often the keepers of the boundary between the world and death itself. For all the dragon slaying, east or west, dragons never really died, instead reincarnating or transforming in a way that their spirit still lingers in the world itself. The dragons were often the patrons of later mystical traditions. Like the way of the Druids or the Japanese Shinto priests.
Or like the Sumerians and Babylonians? Indeed. In fact, Marduk, a demi-urge like God, was said to have slain a female dragon by the name of Tiamat, and although he slew her she was said to live on in the world. The actions of Gaia herself were the behaviours of Tiamat herself, and humanity were said to have been created from the blood of Tiamats consort Kingu. So humanity in Sumerian belief are the children of dragons, but not only Sumerian.
Didn’t the rulers of those regions typically have themselves deified into sculpture and myth as dragon-like themselves in looks and behaviour? They did. In Hindu belief, we have two dragon divinities alive in our bodies, and our very physical health and continued life is dependant on their harmony. Ida and Pingala are their names.
Who coincidentally wrap around each other as a helix, like DNA. Yes, and in the same culture there were beings resembling both serpent and man known as the Naga who were believed to be very wise and possessing an advancement in the sidhis or “powers” well beyond the human potential of the time.
The Dragon can be viewed as a winged serpent. From the perspective of the history of religions the serpent is a symbol of the earth and the underworld. The eagle (and birds in general) are symbols of the heavens. The dragon is a unity of these two fundamental principles. The Dragon is a picture of the Hermetic principle "That which is below is like that which is above and that which is above is like that which is below". In China the dragon is a symbol of Tao, that which is beyond all terms and all polarities (Yin and Yang) but also is the force behind all.
The Dragon represents the unknown and the hidden energy in man and in nature. The word dragon comes from the Greek verb derkein which means "to see". The Dragon is the principle of clear seeing: the ability to see things in a new light as they really are, beyond all illusions. For this reason the dragon has great wisdom and power in the myths. The wisdom of the dragon is symbolized by the treasure it guards or the pearl that the dragon carries in his mouth. To find this wisdom and knowledge man must search in his/her inner aspects and in the unknown. In Yoga the dragon is called the Kundalini, the force that is hidden inside.
Dragon Creed
Return of the Serpents of Wisdom
http://books.google.com/books?id=46Hfa0Ss-kIC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
DRAGON MAGIC
http://www.scribd.com/doc/25832061/Dragon-Magic
DRAGON MAGIC
http://www.scribd.com/doc/25832061/Dragon-Magic
The image of the Greater
Dragon evokes in our consciousness the concepts of Awesome
Power, of Magistery, of Splendor, Terrible Beauty, and Mystery.
In the human psyche dragons can symbolize a meeting ground in the imaginable world of the unlimited power and possibilities of the Creation Magic of which universes are born-- together with the need to overcome, individually and collectively, the lower aspects of our nature while developing high moral character, integrity, honor, and nobility of motive.
The ancient Zoastrians and magi who started a tradition of chivalry more than 7,000 years ago used fire as a symbol representing the One Light, the Truth, and the Will to Goodness or “Nobility” that is inherent in the fabric of every soul. They knew Dragons and the fire elementals as living conscious beings who represented primarily Truth and Annihilation.
Annihilation of what you ask? Of the false ego, the false self concept that is limiting the current possibilities of what you can become. The obstacle between us and what we are becoming is physical death. The dragon reminds one that ultimately what remains after an encounter with one of their kind is what spirit wills, that which is eternal. But often not the physical body which rarely survives this encounter.
To face the dragon means to be prepared to let go of the truly unreal, of the false. For it is the spirit alone which can prevail over the dragons. There are many types of dragons in our consciousness now. We see them in movies, as the mainstay of books of fiction or fantasy, in art, and, and even in religious ceremonies. What do all these dragon archetypes mean?
The Sufi Master Inayat Khan called the Chinese dragon a representation “of power and at the same time a conception of the Almighty.” And further he comments that the dragon is also a symbol of unity for it combines the features and talents of many beings in oneness and wholeness. William Shakespeare wrote about the Western dragon in unflattering terms in several of his plays. North American Indians used it as a symbol for the supernatural while Central Amerinds called it a teacher of how to overcome the lower nature of ones beastman. Meeting one was always considered a dangerous and life changing adventure by all and sought after by only those who wished to progress upon their lives pathway.
The serpent/dragon archetype is world-wide and relates to a number of human concerns--death, rebirth, healing, immortality, knowledge, wisdom, wealth, and finally water, which has much the same symbolism. Joseph Campbell, in one of his less inspired moments, claimed that Eastern dragons were different than Western ones, but in fact they are not, though the attitude toward them is somewhat different. Like in the west, dragons are associated with water in the form of weather, streams, bodies of water, and the primal cosmic ocean. The oldest and most purely mythic dragon stories deal with creation and the primal oceanic chaos which is a great dragon. In other stories the dragon withholds the waters causing drought until defeated by a champion. In legendary, as opposed to mythic, stories the dragon guards a treasure and often has an appetite for women, especially virgins.
Whether your experience of dragons is purely symbolical or whether it is your reality- the experience itself is meant for your benefit. Toward the One. Toward the real Truth. Let us explore the many facets of the Dragon.
In the human psyche dragons can symbolize a meeting ground in the imaginable world of the unlimited power and possibilities of the Creation Magic of which universes are born-- together with the need to overcome, individually and collectively, the lower aspects of our nature while developing high moral character, integrity, honor, and nobility of motive.
The ancient Zoastrians and magi who started a tradition of chivalry more than 7,000 years ago used fire as a symbol representing the One Light, the Truth, and the Will to Goodness or “Nobility” that is inherent in the fabric of every soul. They knew Dragons and the fire elementals as living conscious beings who represented primarily Truth and Annihilation.
Annihilation of what you ask? Of the false ego, the false self concept that is limiting the current possibilities of what you can become. The obstacle between us and what we are becoming is physical death. The dragon reminds one that ultimately what remains after an encounter with one of their kind is what spirit wills, that which is eternal. But often not the physical body which rarely survives this encounter.
To face the dragon means to be prepared to let go of the truly unreal, of the false. For it is the spirit alone which can prevail over the dragons. There are many types of dragons in our consciousness now. We see them in movies, as the mainstay of books of fiction or fantasy, in art, and, and even in religious ceremonies. What do all these dragon archetypes mean?
The Sufi Master Inayat Khan called the Chinese dragon a representation “of power and at the same time a conception of the Almighty.” And further he comments that the dragon is also a symbol of unity for it combines the features and talents of many beings in oneness and wholeness. William Shakespeare wrote about the Western dragon in unflattering terms in several of his plays. North American Indians used it as a symbol for the supernatural while Central Amerinds called it a teacher of how to overcome the lower nature of ones beastman. Meeting one was always considered a dangerous and life changing adventure by all and sought after by only those who wished to progress upon their lives pathway.
The serpent/dragon archetype is world-wide and relates to a number of human concerns--death, rebirth, healing, immortality, knowledge, wisdom, wealth, and finally water, which has much the same symbolism. Joseph Campbell, in one of his less inspired moments, claimed that Eastern dragons were different than Western ones, but in fact they are not, though the attitude toward them is somewhat different. Like in the west, dragons are associated with water in the form of weather, streams, bodies of water, and the primal cosmic ocean. The oldest and most purely mythic dragon stories deal with creation and the primal oceanic chaos which is a great dragon. In other stories the dragon withholds the waters causing drought until defeated by a champion. In legendary, as opposed to mythic, stories the dragon guards a treasure and often has an appetite for women, especially virgins.
Whether your experience of dragons is purely symbolical or whether it is your reality- the experience itself is meant for your benefit. Toward the One. Toward the real Truth. Let us explore the many facets of the Dragon.
The etymology of the word 'dragon' comes to us via the Latin but is derived ultimately, it is thought, from the Greek, though the origin of the word and its definition is probably much older. The word in Greek is drakon (drakon); as in edrakon (edrakon), an aorist of derkesthai (derkesthai), which means 'to see clearly'.
A dragon was one who saw clearly, and clarity of vision engendered and was always classically associated with wisdom, which itself produced power. Today we say that knowledge is power, so nothing has changed in that respect, except that it is actually wisdom - the ability to predict or intuit and synthesize knowledge - a prerequisite of druidic or fairy neuro-physiology, that actually affords the greatest power of all.
In a progression of logic that naturally suggests itself, we are therefore entering in upon the linguistic territory of the seer, the witch and the magus, with whom the foregoing qualities have always been closely identified, a state of affairs with which etymologists concur.
From there, in the Gaelic realms, we encounter the 'Merlins', a name which, like 'Dragon', literally means 'seer', and who furthermore, were of a class of druid priests or 'philosophus' or 'magi', as they were also known in classical times. Anciently the foregoing regional epithets were all attributed to one royal, priestly tribe originally known in Indo-European as the Arya: The 'race of the wise ones', a caste who were described in Latin as the 'nobilis', a name which originated from the Greek root gnogno) meaning 'to know'.
Similarly the word king is derived from the related Gothic word kuningzam, meaning both "knowing one" and "scion of the noble, (meaning wise), race". In addition we have the associated word siddhis, meaning 'the powers' and from this word or vice versa, was derived the tribal name 'the Scythians' the 'Arya-Sidhe' or 'Sidheans'. The 'siddhis' were a range of psychic or paranormal phenomena which manifested themselves as the attributes of those Tantric priests in Eurasia who had attained 'samadhi' or 'enlightenment'.
These people, coterminously the Aryans or Scythians, who are thought to have developed Tantra in Sumeria, were known as the legendary Tuadha d'Anu (tribe of Anu and by a traditional, widely known derivation - "people of the stars") or daouine sidhe (meaning people of the powers) in the Gaelic countries. They were the 'wise ones', the elves or fairies; and from this we can conclude that by correct definition, a Dragon was originally, (by blood descent from the race of the wise), an overlord, an archdruid or bruidhina, magus and a seer, an elven goddess-queen or god-king.
Such are not to be confused with the warrior kings or tinker dynasties installed by the Roman Church over the last 1500 years, nor with any modern royal family. The druidhe were kings above kings.
The dragon or fairy gene was very rare and true archdruidic, royal dragon families were rarer still. Persecutions excepted, if this were not the case anyway, then perhaps many fairy stories of the popular genre which originated from outside the dragon culture would never have taken hold, because the reality would have been constantly staring people in the face.
Traditionally and consistently, the symbol of both wisdom (Sophia) and healing was the serpent or, as it was also known, the dragon. In keeping with this the kings and queens of pre-catholic history were noted for their healing capabilities and as such, in Judaic mythology, were called, perhaps after the archangel Raphael, the Repha'im or Rapha'Elohim; the healing gods of the Anunnaki. Raphael was the Prince who appeared to Adam in Eden according to Milton.
No mention of this is made in Genesis and one suspects that of the two entities that did appear to Adam, Enlil and Enki, or if you like: God and the Catholic Satan. Raphael - the Angel of the Rising Sun - must have been Enki who gave Kingship to man in the form of the Elven Overlords and after whom, by various related epithets; including 'The Repha'im', the Elven Kings are known.
Authorities believe that these people were identical to both the Nephilim and the Anakim of Idumea and Canaan. In early heraldry, derived from ancient sources, the dragon was depicted as a serpent with the wings of a swan. This image was also given the wings of a bat.
The dragon nevertheless was humanoid and so the symbolism in the dragon glyph ought rather be interpreted to substantiate the etymology of the word itself. The serpent stands for the wisdom and healing powers of the sacred king or queen whose regalia often consisted of serpent-like scale armour and whose consciousness soars above that of humanity as if carried on wings, which were symbolized by shamanic swan's feather cloaks.
The nocturnal habits of the dragon people, typically those of the Cimmerian Scythians, were noted by their contemporaries and the swan's wings of the dragon glyph.
One of their earlier names - Anunnaki - means "heaven meets earth". Lots of fanciful notions have been put forward to suggest that the Anunnaki were from outer space, but a far simpler way of understanding the name is to ask a simple question: "when do the heavens - the An or Stars - meet the Earth?". The answer is of course - "at night time".
When considering the nature of the elves or the Anunnaki, rather than believing they came from a different planet, it might be worth considering that they occupied a different dimension. If this sounds equally as fanciful and implausible, consider this. A multitude of different animal species on this planet can be seen and touched.
However, because of their physiology and chemical make-up were different and these differences in synaptic connections and hormone levels altered their perceptions of their universe, these species actually lived in another dimension and at a higher frequency, where time and the environment for them were totally different to the way humans perceived them. The level to which the fairies experienced life was far deeper than the level to which humans experienced it.
In real terms the fairies inhabited an entirely alien world but occupied the same planet. In this sense they were from a different dimension, characterized and regulated by their body chemistry which enabled them to see more in the environment than humans could. In this they were no more remarkable than any other non-human species we are able to study today.
Flies, Sharks, Dolphins and a host of other lifeforms have attributes and abilities humans do not possess and the way in which they interact with the planet is completely alien to the way in which humans do. For a fly time is completely different and for a Shark, any warm blooded creature glows with a blue, electro-chemical haze or aura, proving to some extent, the veracity of the theory of Kirlian photography.
The Fairies were dragons and this means that they 'saw clearly', they saw subtler emanations than man could. In order to be able to do this the fairy would have to have their senses tuned into a higher frequency than man, meaning that the fairies, perforce, were tuned to a higher frequency of perception and activity generally.
In cybernetic terms, any system that is faster and consequently higher than a given base is called a nautonnier or navigator and in cybernetics these systems are set over and in control of the slower functional operations within any given mechanical or organic arrangement.
If we transpose this theory onto human society we get leaders and followers, where the leaders are supposed to be able to function at a faster rate than the followers and thereby anticipate any given direction the system might go in and plan sensible strategies that the system might adopt for its well-being.
Today this is a joke and incompetent, self-seeking, middle class idiots more often find themselves voted into control of vast social systems which, once upon a time, no-one would trust to anyone but the Elves.
In the past therefore, because the Fairies were, for millennia, physiologically bred and exhaustively trained to operate at a higher level than men, humans often invited them to become social navigators or nautonniers. The Sumerian word for a navigator is a GALL, which sounds a bit like a Gael, doesn't it? The language of the western Royal Scythians was Gaelic and the Royal Scythians were the fairies, the Elves: The Dragons.
The dragon's fiery breath symbolized the pneuma, the spirit of the divine, which coalesced into the Torah or cosmic law that the Dragon queens and kings delivered as their pronouncements in the affairs of man. Thus the image of the dragon of myth and legend is complete, as a set of symbolic attributes belonging to an ancient magical race of praeter-natural beings, the vampyr overlords or fairy overkings.
Though humanoid, Dragons were not Homo Sapiens but from the far older elven race sometimes called in literature - the Elda or Eldar, probably suggested or derived from the name of an ancient queen and her ancient, former habitation in Mesopotamia and possibly intended, in its attribution as a simile for Elder perhaps, to imply some form of racial primogeniture.
Reflected upon within the context of early Sumerian historical records, such a synonym would indeed seem to be apposite, inasmuch as this ancient and mysterious people claimed that the Dragons, with Queen Hawah Elda's assistance, made mankind.
On wings of thunder
Honor bound
Search me out,
I drum the sound
Twist and turn in the night
Dragon come, my guiding light.
Protector, guardian, friend not foe
Come to me, see my sigil glow.
Strong and true this friendship charm
I beckon thee, keep me from harm.
Around and about your magick swirls
Come to me
Your wings unfurled.
© 2000 Bill Wescott
Honor bound
Search me out,
I drum the sound
Twist and turn in the night
Dragon come, my guiding light.
Protector, guardian, friend not foe
Come to me, see my sigil glow.
Strong and true this friendship charm
I beckon thee, keep me from harm.
Around and about your magick swirls
Come to me
Your wings unfurled.
© 2000 Bill Wescott
Children of the Stars - by Nicholas de Vere
Anu ’s father was Asher, Marduk was called Asar or Ra, the grandfather of Osiris who himself was also called Ashur or Asar ( As - Ar: ’Seeing Lord’, a Naga or Dragon, A Merlin or Druidhe). These and their variants, including the Norse Aesir and the Gaelic Scythian (Aryan) Aes Dan mean "he who sees", (Ashshur - he who sees - [again: Ash Shar - ’Seeing Lord’] from segment six of an Assyrian clay tablet formed as a disc of eight segments, copied from an earlier Sumerian original - excavated from the ruins of the Royal Library of Nineveh) which is the very foundation and meaning of the Greek word derkesthai, from whence we derive the word Dragon.
In Aryan Samael or Ahura (Ash-ura?) Mazda is called Tvashtri or Tv-Ash-Tri and rumor has it that he, the elder brother, actually sired Indra who, when the pantheon is streamlined, turns out to be Dyaus Pater, which has certain ramifications when converted into Sumerian because Tvashtri "the Fashioner" converts as we have seen into Enki-Nidimmud "The Craftsman" whose brother isn’t Ninurta (Indra), but Dyaus Pater or Enlil.
The conflict between Enki and Enlil therefore, might have been more deep seated than at first we realized, because it may not have been just simply the rivalry between two brothers, but the rivalry between a father - Enki, and his forbidden brother-son - Enlil. Such a conflict was played out between Zeus and Cronos (who had led a rebellion of the Titans against Uranus), but also between Zeus and Prometheus.
In Aryan (ancient Scythian) the Asuras are also called Devas meaning "shining ones" and this epithet also becomes applied to both the members of the Anunnaki and the later fairies who descended from them. Earlier scholarly sources have the name Anunnaki translated also as the variant ’Anunnagi’, meaning "shining ones" and here we have a relationship with the Vedic Nagas.
From the Sumerian Chronicles we learn that the children of Anu were "the Anunnaki who decree the fates" meaning that they themselves were also the mori or fata, the "Fairies" the scale-armoured leprachauns - the dragon kings who, in the Aryan Vedas appear alongside their divine companions and are referred to as the Nagas, who became the snake deities of India who guard a submerged treasure, echoing the central theme of the grail and ring cycles.
The Grail and the lake represent the womb. The Magic Ring hidden in the lake and the red gold flow and the dew of the Grail both represent the life giving blood and mumae, the "submerged" or "hidden" treasure of the serpent tailed and swan’s winged mermaids, the Naga goddesses of the north, whose wouivre or double-ended tails and wings are also to be found in representations of the ancient "Aesir" - the Titan * or elder god - Typhon, son of Gaia and Tartarus, whose other children included these vampiric Lamias - the meremaids or naiads, and whose name is closely associated with Tartaria in Transylvania, the original home of theDragon Queens and Kings.
* Titan derives from the Sumerian TI.TI.AN which means:
1) The breath of life of Anu (the Sons of Anu - the Nefilim)
2) The Spirits of the Stars (the Star People)
Several thousand years after the contest between Typhon and Zeus, Typhon’s fairy descendants, Ygraine, Morgana and Melusine were still portrayed in medieval church architecture with his wings and double ended tail, and a depiction of Melusine with these physical attributes appears as a supporter in the arms of the Imperial and royal house of Vere.
In Typhon as a Dragon God, we remember Odin, who himself was often portrayed as a dragon or serpent, a Naga, and that he too was an Aesir, a member of the old, warlike order of gods. Odin is always associated with Yggdrasil or Yggd-Rad -Aes-Hel the World Ash of the Norse and here we will recall that the tree’s name means Steed of Yggd or Odin and was a goddess who performed the same function as the queens of Avallon. As a serpent he is often seen entwined around the Aes Tree echoing the depiction of Samael as the Serpent (N’H’SH), entwined in Lilith’s branches.
Subtext - The Naga
At this juncture we must break off and study the Aryan Naga - the serpent devas, guardians of treasures "hidden in water". We will do this by first looking at the Hebrew word nahash. this word means serpent (and thus dragon) and derives from the consonant root N’H’SH - a snake.
In Hebrew Qabalah and particularly and rather oddly, in relation to the Jewish practice of divination by birds or Ornithomancy, the serpent or Nahash is one who discovers hidden secrets or wisdom from the Raven, the Dove or the Swan (Warburg Lectures, Universtity of London, private dissertation on Qabalah and Jewish Ornithomancy 1996). The N’H’SH is Enki-Samael the SU.HUR.MASH (Capricorn - the Goat-Headed Sea Serpent) or A.LU.LIM (Ram of the "Glittering" [or Shining, as in Elven] Waters) is associated with Lilith of the Qlipphoth or "Abyss" (the APSU or watery deeps - ie lakes, wells, vulvas etc).
Closely associated with the relationship between Lilith and Samael, as outlined above, are the Raven and the Dove as birds of divination. In this context it becomes clear that these qabalistic, symbolic animals are meant to represent the Valkyries, the Morganas and Magdalenes - the Ishtar priestesses who are the Maidens of the Ring and the Grail.
The Dove, specifically the Turtle Dove or Barbary Dove is a soft brown colour and has a ring around its neck that lies open at the throat. This dove, specifically sacred to Venus, is a symbol of love and devotion. and is the bird referred to in the name Mary Magdalene. Magdal or Migdal meaning a dove.
The ring around its neck is a torque, which, in Gaelic lore symbolizes, as do all rings, Kingship and therefore wisdom and seership - the derkesthai or Dragon Nature. That Mary is named Magdalene, "of the place of the doves" which are sacred to Venus and thus Ishtar and mistakenly Hathor, means that she, Mary, was a priestess of this Goddess of ’Love’.
The link between the raven, known as the Phoenix, the dove and Samael is alchemical. At one level the raven and the dove are female and interchangeable, the dove or doves (in Magdal: the place of doves or temple of the priestesses of Ishtar/Hathor/Venus) being the priestess or priestesses of Ishtar, the other - the raven - being the priestess of Morrighan.
The qabalah specifically says that the raven and the dove are the same bird and in the Northern hemisphere the brown singing ravens of the Druids are obviously the Turtle doves or priestesses, brown morrighans, equivalent to swan maidens.
Samael , in his congress with them, obtaining the "wisdom of the qlipphoth" or the abyss - ie the waters of the deep. The Barbary dove or Migdal links the ring cycle to Mary Magdalene and thence Jesus. Both then are linked again to Hathor, the raven Goddesses of the Druids, to An and the Phoenix of the Scythians and thence the Ring and the Dragon Orobourous, called Janus by the Phoenicians and Jormungar by the Danes. Like Enki and Chem, Siva is the woad painted Lord of the Goats.
Jormungar - ’The Earth Spanner’ : ’The encircler’ or Vala of the Vedas, lives in the watery deeps and once upon a time long, long ago, Thor and the giant (Titan) Hymir went fishing for him. As bait they used an Ox-head which, as we have seen symbolizes the ovaries, fallopian tubes, womb and vagina of the virgin goddess.
Here again is a link between water, Samael the Dragon and virgins. The Brown raven or choral priestess of the Druidic cult is the turtle dove and the swan maiden because both animals are used in alchemy and Tantra to symbolize the brain, the pineal gland and the Ajna Chakra.
In Vala we have the original root of the words Valhalla and Valkyrie. It is now known, as we had suggested, that the Valhallas were forest halls. There were in fact built on mounds and displayed giant Dragon heads at each end. These were the dwellings of the Vala Aes, the Dragon Overlords of the forest and beneath them, lying in the Creachaire tomb- raths, were the remains of their ancestors, the Gods of Heaven.
The Valhallas were the dwelling places of the Gods of Heaven and Earth, the serpent queens and kings. The Great Hall on the summit of the mound of the Otherworld was identical to the temple at the peak of the ziggurat. These Halls were where the Valkyries, the singers of the Gods assembled. In this capacity these were sometimes called the brown ravens, meaning that they were still the Morrighans, but assumed the magical, Grail role of brown Turtle Doves, the lovers of the Phoenix or Dragon God. Hence the Valhalla was also a variant of the Judaic Magdala or House of Doves.
The swan-serpent caduceus and the descended dove originate here and in placing the paten into the Grail both symbolize this love of the Turtle and the Phoenix. The serpillion is a swan or serpent necked dove depicted in medieval architecture and the link here is clear. In the association of Lilith with the abyss of the qlipphoth and the raven and dove who symbolize Ishtar, we have another link between Diana and Persephone and a clarification of the nature of Hades.
As the watery abyss, it is identified with the Gaelic Otherworld reached by water. The masculine nature of the raven is echoed in Machen’s alchemical riddle where a serpent eating a serpent becomes a dragon (a serpent who eats its tail makes a circle and completes itself: it transcends) and a dragon eating a dragon (a transcended one drinking from another transcended one, Samael drinking Lilith) becomes a phoenix - a Raven King, Swan Knight/Prince, Dragon Queen, Rephaim etc.
The Phoenix in its final transcendent glory becomes a flaming, leaping star, an An, or Shining One. "The Nahash is taught by the Raven or the Dove" means that The Dragon Kings drink from Grail Princesses of the Abyss or Qlipphoth, the Tree of Life of the Left Hand Path - Kaula Vama Marg! The pool at the foot of Yggdrasil.
In the ’Phoenix and the Turtle’ by ""William Shakespeare"" (I don’t think!) there are mentioned the Turtle Dove, the Phoenix, the Raven, the Swan and the Screech Owl (Lilith). It is said that out of the Phoenix myth, ""Shakespeare"" (I don’t think!) created a myth of his own. Not so. What he did was to expand the myth and fill it with its proper alchemical symbolism and demonstrate the purpose of the original story, that being divine union.
The Phoenix of myth, the only bird of its kind (symbolizing the Oneness of the All perceived by those who become united with The All and thus are alone) travels from its eastern paradise and makes a ’nest’ of ’spices’ (see Song of Songs) in an Arabian Palm Tree (A Sufic symbol and emblem of the Tamaris Princesses, read Lily and Rose again, back a few pages).
Having burnt up in its own fire (been consumed in the energy generated by enthea) it takes the ashes to the temple of the Sun at Heliopolis and lays them on the Altar. Other birds (ranks of druidism aforementioned) and men gather to rejoice and in chorus (Cor) they accompany the singing Phoenix as it soars to heaven and returns to its lonely paradise eg Samadhi, Bodhisatva, Heaven, Transcendence, Enlightenment, Divine Union, Scythia!
Summary: The Transcended Dragon King needs to drink from a Dragon Princess, a fairy lover. He travels to Arabia, meets his Tamaris and drinks from her ’Nest of spices’ and she bestows stillness and ecstasy upon him.
He is consumed by fire (the spirit or combined energy), is reborn and takes his ashes, his mortal body, and lays on the altar of the Sun, symbolized by the Dragon, Lion, Hawk and Bull in Persian Mithraism (Mithras the mediator or Balance) to symbolize his achievement of the balance or nil point and subsequent oneness with the Cosmos. Everyone is seriously chuffed that he has managed to regenerate and won’t be acting like a complete pillock and ruining everything now he has refreshed his sovereignty with a living goddess.
He can now go back to Scythia/Heaven and carry on reigning and being the wisdom and fertility of the land, end of story. Shakespeare’s version describes beautifully the emotions of enthea and anyone who has experienced this divine union with another of the blood will not fail to be deeply moved, both with joy and sadness.
Again this is another Solomonic, vampirerite and proof yet again that vampirism is born of a love so deep that it tears the soul from the body, as this tale suggests. It also implies that the rite has to be repeated and that feeding must be recurrent.
The OTO call the ’Rite of the Phoenix’ the ’Mass of the Vampire’ for good reason. The Phoenix, along with the other birds in Shakespeare’s poem are called Bennu Birds and are identified with each other by Grant (’Magical Revival’) and this is because all classes of druid are vampires and need to feed in order to remain transcendent.
The Bennu Bird or Bird of Return symbolizes a being that regenerates or must regenerate itself at regular intervals and the vampire itself bears an appellation that is named after this process. In folklore though the vampire, as ’one who returns’ is mistaken for ’one who returns from the grave’ instead of ’one who MUST return to feed and regenerate’.
The Phoenix is symbolized in Transylvania by the double-headed Raven, brother of Lilith. This bird was adopted by the Hittites and came to symbolize the holy roman empire in the corrupted form of an eagle. This Double Headed Raven, the Phoenix, is the penultimate symbol of the dragon people. In the last process of its regeneration, the Phoenix becomes The Star, the An of the Anunnagi, the Elves or Shining Ones: the ultimate symbol of the Dragon Race.
The Serpent N’H’SH
In translating the word N’H’SH, firstly we will take the Hebrew consonants back, via Phoenician, to their Sumerian roots and remember also that, in Sumerian, syllable groups could be reversed and yet still render the same meaning in an overall phrase. So, the N is Nun, the H is Heth (as opposed to He) and the SH is Shin (as opposed to either Sade or Samekh).
We check these through the Phoenician to ensure a continuity of shape in the correct pictograms as we venture back into the Sumerian and discover the following: Nun = Nag, Heth = H.A. and Shin = Salmunuz. Therefore from the Hebrew Nahash, we derive the original Sumerian Naghasalmunuz, Nagha Salmunuz or NAG.HA.SAL.MUNUZ., which translates as Drink (NAG) - Fish (HA) - Vulva (SALMUNUZ).
If this sounds a bit odd, the author explains that a fish is "of water" and so in Sumerian the equivalent to our letter ’A’ means water whilst the ’H’ is the article which stands for of. So the Hebrew N’H’SH - the Serpent - translates into the Sumerian "One (a dragon) who - Drinks of (the) Water (of the) Vulva".
One notices that in this phrase - Nagha Salmunuz - two things stand out. Firstly we have the Aryan word Naga spelt Nagha which would be pronounced with the gh sounding like a nasally, softly gargled ch (as in the Scottish word loch) identical to the Spanish x or g. According to the OED, ’H’ which in Sumerian was H.A. evolved into the Greek h - (h)eta which was originally pronounced kh, which was pronounced as defined above, as an Iberian (Aryo-Scythian Celtic) x or ch.
In this way we can also justifiably spell Naga as Naxa and then we begin to understand the profound relationship between the Naga guardians of the Aryan pantheons and the Nixes or Nixas of western Europe who were, likewise, the female guardians of watery treasures, and like the Nagas or Naxas, these meremaids or Swan Maidens were Devas or Shining Ones (Anunnagi).
The second thing we notice is that the Sumerian word for a vulva is Salmunuz and immediately the poetic connection between the ’Sacred Vulva’ (the well of Nechtan [Nixtan] - the pure one, the Nix or Nothing) and the Salmon (Salmunuz) of Wisdom that swims in the well should immediately spring to mind - as should the Ichthys - as being the vulva of the Virgin Mary Magdalene. Praise the Lord for the Single Poetic Theme!
In remembering that Sumerian can be reversed, we can look at the Hebrew N’H’SH again and see that if it is reversed, as was the custom in Hebrew Qabalah when rabbis were tinkering around with language looking for hidden meanings, it becomes SH’H’N which is pronounced She’an, ’of the Powers’. Furthermore the numerical or gematric value of N’H’SH in Qabalah is 9 which is the number of Yesod, the sephirah of the Moon, whose Phoenician God was the Sumerian SIN or SHIN - She’en.
The symbols associated with SIN included the Axe, the Labrys which is a device which, as we know, depicts the Vulva. The Axe symbol, prevalent in Mittani and Minoan Cretan culture became the spinning Hammer of Thor (the swastika) who as Zeus, was the wielder of the lightning bolt which, in northern Europe, was symbolized by the Norse ’Sig’ Rune. Sig - the lightning bolt of inspiration (cf. Mead of Inspiration) - is the Greek Sigma which is the Hebrew Shin, last consonant of N’H’SH, and SIN - Sumerian god of the Moon.
Sig is the serpentine lightning bolt that courses down the Qabalistic Tree of Life. In one sense it represents Enki-Samael entwined around Lilith. The upturned crescent moon is also said to be associated with Samael (Sumaire-El) and, in an ancient Sumerian picture reproduced by Langdon, the moon as a dish is depicted next to the Star of Anu, below which is the serpent N’H’SH entwined around the tree, symbolizing Lilith.
Finally we must consider Tiamat. Her name - TI.A.MAT - means life-water-maiden. This translates as "maiden of the waters of life" and it is then clear that her name indicates she was both the first known matriarch and virgin priestess - the "feeding mother" - of the vampire dragon queens and kings. The mother of the Elven dynasty, she was the generatrix of a vampire lineage of goddess-queens and god-kings spanning seven thousand years.
She was a Nagha or Nixa and it is from her that Lilith, and all the ensuing Grail Maidens, including Sheba and Morgana of the Apple Trees, Tamaris, Mary Magdalene, the Princesses of Avallon, Melusine, Niniane and Ygraine owe their identifications as "Trees of Life". Consequently we can say that Tiamat, the first Tamaris - the Maiden who gives the Waters of Life - was also the Tir Mat or Tir Mata, the first "Tree Mother" of the Lords and Ladies of the Forest, the Druids and Druidesses - the People of the Trees (of Life).
Of the younger gods of the Aryans, the Adityas, two - Tara and Bhaga - stand out prominently. As we have seen Ulick Beck and several other scholars have traced the origin of the Scythian-Irish Tuadha d’Anu to the same region as the Aryans, and have gone as far as saying that they were one and the same.
Interestingly we find that the goddess Tara - wife of Rudra, Indra’s charioteer, appears in Eire as Tara, the Hill or Rath of ghosts in County Meath, Eire. Tara was the sacred centre of the united Irish kingdom and was the seat of the Danaan Kings of Tara during the Iron Age.
Some scholars attribute the name of Tara in Eire to some complicated sounding god name which I find implausible in the light of the fact that a Goddess Tara already existed in the Scythian-Aryan pantheon. Whether Asura or Aditya, Danaan or Milesian, all of the ancient Goddess Queens were the source of sovereignty associated with sacred mounds and it seems therefore entirely appropriate to name a Sidhe rath, a portal to the otherworld and thus the source of sovereignty, after a goddess who would herself have represented sovereignty.
In the case of Bhaga, or Vaga as his name would have been pronounced in Gaelic, scholars think that he became the Slavic god Bogh, a word which came to mean "god" in Thrace, where the Danaan Fir Bolg were once exiled, prior to their return to Ireland. In Fir Bolg we either have the title "men of God", meaning druids, or we have, as is commonly thought, "men of the bags" which means "men of God" anyway, because the "bag", specifically the "Crane Skin Bag", was an accessory of the Godthi’s and the Druid’s: the "men of the gods".
Myth or reality?
Considering the foregoing, it is interesting to note that in Tolkien’s ’Silmarillion’ - the background mythology that supports his ’Lord of the Rings’ - we find a vocabulary and etymology that includes the following words - Ainur, Ainu, Vala, Maiar, Eldar, Ea.
Tolkien ’s word Ainur means the "Holy Ones" of which the singular is Ainu. There are two orders of these gods in his mythology - the Valar and the Maiar. The plural Ainur and the singular Ainu are clearly derived from the Sumerian father of the gods - Anu and the Anunnaki, whilst Valar appears in the Aryan pantheon as Vala "The encircler", reminiscent of the Orobourus, the alchemical Dragon Ring that Tolkien wrote so much about. We will also remember the Val-Kyrie at this juncture.
The word Maia is spelt Maja in Spanish and denotes a female line of nobility and royalty. The ’i’ was originally ’j’ and came, along with the word majesty, from the Latin majes or majus, a variant of which is magi or magus, from the Greek magos - magos, a bloodline member of a caste or genetic strain comprising of individuals heritably steeped in magic, (OED), in other words the Arya - or Scythian Derkesthai - The Dragon Goddess Queens and God Kings.
At this point we return to the concept of the derkesthai and the bloodline of the dragon god-kings - the Asuras and the Anunnaki. In the ’Silmarillion’ Maia becomes Maiar and it accords with the ancient concept of deific royalty - Maia - which, related to Mana is the ’spirit of the gods carried in the blood’, the attribute of a goddess-queen or god-king of the Dragon who are in themselves collectively an ’order of the gods’ - the ’elves’ - the shining ones - or ’gods incarnate’- the Devas and Avatars.
The ’spirits of the gods - the ancestors - carried in the blood’ we will remember are the spirits summoned from the ’deeps’, the subconscious, by the witch, (Vampire or Druid) who gains her or his name - wicce or wicca - from the ability to yield or bend to, or rather to draw to the surface of consciousness, these spiritual intelligences and their wisdom from her or his ancestral, and thus genetic, inheritance. In other words their waking consciousness is pacified or "yields", to allow the older spirit, or racial memory, to give voice.
Avatar is a word Tolkien includes in his Silmarillion as Aratar the eight most powerful of his Valar or order of old gods which, it seems obvious, were intended to mimic the Egyptian gods of the Ogdoad, the eight Anunnaki who tended the Holy Mountain after the Black Sea flood.
Another of Tolkien’s words similar to Avatar - Avathar - to him means "The Shadows" which he uses as a name for a land near his ’Bay of Eldemar’. Comparably, in our world, an Avatar is a ’god made flesh’ - a Dragon King or Queen who often occupied tombs and would have been thought of as a "shadow", a spirit of the otherworld, the realm of the Shining Ones.
So in the Vala and Maiar we have two orders of gods taken from the Dragon tradition itself whilst, according to the legends of Tolkien’s elves, the word Eldar became used as a name for the three elven kindreds, one of which Tolkien named the Vanyar, who appear to be the Vanir Gods of the Danes, cousins of the Tuadha d’Anu. Tolkien’s largest variety of wicked Orcs he named the Uruks and Uruk a City State ofthe Anunnaki. The Orcs he said were once fair elves who had been imprisoned and tortured in the Land of Mordor.
’Eldar’, explains Tolkien, means ’People of the Stars’, echoing a traditional Gaelic epithet for the Tuadha d’Anu and also one of the original meanings of the name Anunnaki - People of the Stars.
Of men, Tolkien concurs that they are the second, younger race which his elves called the Atani, (Adamae) a name, says Tolkien, that later became the Edain, obviously the children of Eden. Again we have a borrowing of Dragon Lore where the Elves, the Children of Anu, the Anukim or Repha’im of the Old Testament, appeared first, followed by our Adamae, or the Atani as Tolkien would have it.
Edain is obviously Eden, whilst he uses Eä as a name for the Earth which in Sumerian is the name for the dragon god of the ’Earth and Waters’ - Enki-Samael, the leader of the elder "Eldar" gods - the Aesir. Tolkien, in his epic works, with their plethora of borrowed names and borrowed linguistics and their elder and younger races, is obviously writing about the family, particularly when one peruses his vocabulary and discovers the name Avallónë, a haven and city of the Eldar - the Elves - situated on ’the lonely isle’ - Tol Eressea, which was drawn across the ocean and rooted finally in the Bay of Eldemar, adjacent to Avathar - the land of Shadows: our Avalon or Otherworld.
The various names by which our planet is known all stem from the word Eridu, which was the first city founded by Enki-Samael in Mesopotamia. As a variant of Eridu, in the Silmarillion, Tolkien has Eriador and his Elven word for Earth is Arda, which is also derived from Eridu.
Nicholas de Vere
Anu ’s father was Asher, Marduk was called Asar or Ra, the grandfather of Osiris who himself was also called Ashur or Asar ( As - Ar: ’Seeing Lord’, a Naga or Dragon, A Merlin or Druidhe). These and their variants, including the Norse Aesir and the Gaelic Scythian (Aryan) Aes Dan mean "he who sees", (Ashshur - he who sees - [again: Ash Shar - ’Seeing Lord’] from segment six of an Assyrian clay tablet formed as a disc of eight segments, copied from an earlier Sumerian original - excavated from the ruins of the Royal Library of Nineveh) which is the very foundation and meaning of the Greek word derkesthai, from whence we derive the word Dragon.
In Aryan Samael or Ahura (Ash-ura?) Mazda is called Tvashtri or Tv-Ash-Tri and rumor has it that he, the elder brother, actually sired Indra who, when the pantheon is streamlined, turns out to be Dyaus Pater, which has certain ramifications when converted into Sumerian because Tvashtri "the Fashioner" converts as we have seen into Enki-Nidimmud "The Craftsman" whose brother isn’t Ninurta (Indra), but Dyaus Pater or Enlil.
The conflict between Enki and Enlil therefore, might have been more deep seated than at first we realized, because it may not have been just simply the rivalry between two brothers, but the rivalry between a father - Enki, and his forbidden brother-son - Enlil. Such a conflict was played out between Zeus and Cronos (who had led a rebellion of the Titans against Uranus), but also between Zeus and Prometheus.
In Aryan (ancient Scythian) the Asuras are also called Devas meaning "shining ones" and this epithet also becomes applied to both the members of the Anunnaki and the later fairies who descended from them. Earlier scholarly sources have the name Anunnaki translated also as the variant ’Anunnagi’, meaning "shining ones" and here we have a relationship with the Vedic Nagas.
From the Sumerian Chronicles we learn that the children of Anu were "the Anunnaki who decree the fates" meaning that they themselves were also the mori or fata, the "Fairies" the scale-armoured leprachauns - the dragon kings who, in the Aryan Vedas appear alongside their divine companions and are referred to as the Nagas, who became the snake deities of India who guard a submerged treasure, echoing the central theme of the grail and ring cycles.
The Grail and the lake represent the womb. The Magic Ring hidden in the lake and the red gold flow and the dew of the Grail both represent the life giving blood and mumae, the "submerged" or "hidden" treasure of the serpent tailed and swan’s winged mermaids, the Naga goddesses of the north, whose wouivre or double-ended tails and wings are also to be found in representations of the ancient "Aesir" - the Titan * or elder god - Typhon, son of Gaia and Tartarus, whose other children included these vampiric Lamias - the meremaids or naiads, and whose name is closely associated with Tartaria in Transylvania, the original home of theDragon Queens and Kings.
* Titan derives from the Sumerian TI.TI.AN which means:
1) The breath of life of Anu (the Sons of Anu - the Nefilim)
2) The Spirits of the Stars (the Star People)
Several thousand years after the contest between Typhon and Zeus, Typhon’s fairy descendants, Ygraine, Morgana and Melusine were still portrayed in medieval church architecture with his wings and double ended tail, and a depiction of Melusine with these physical attributes appears as a supporter in the arms of the Imperial and royal house of Vere.
In Typhon as a Dragon God, we remember Odin, who himself was often portrayed as a dragon or serpent, a Naga, and that he too was an Aesir, a member of the old, warlike order of gods. Odin is always associated with Yggdrasil or Yggd-Rad -Aes-Hel the World Ash of the Norse and here we will recall that the tree’s name means Steed of Yggd or Odin and was a goddess who performed the same function as the queens of Avallon. As a serpent he is often seen entwined around the Aes Tree echoing the depiction of Samael as the Serpent (N’H’SH), entwined in Lilith’s branches.
Subtext - The Naga
At this juncture we must break off and study the Aryan Naga - the serpent devas, guardians of treasures "hidden in water". We will do this by first looking at the Hebrew word nahash. this word means serpent (and thus dragon) and derives from the consonant root N’H’SH - a snake.
In Hebrew Qabalah and particularly and rather oddly, in relation to the Jewish practice of divination by birds or Ornithomancy, the serpent or Nahash is one who discovers hidden secrets or wisdom from the Raven, the Dove or the Swan (Warburg Lectures, Universtity of London, private dissertation on Qabalah and Jewish Ornithomancy 1996). The N’H’SH is Enki-Samael the SU.HUR.MASH (Capricorn - the Goat-Headed Sea Serpent) or A.LU.LIM (Ram of the "Glittering" [or Shining, as in Elven] Waters) is associated with Lilith of the Qlipphoth or "Abyss" (the APSU or watery deeps - ie lakes, wells, vulvas etc).
Closely associated with the relationship between Lilith and Samael, as outlined above, are the Raven and the Dove as birds of divination. In this context it becomes clear that these qabalistic, symbolic animals are meant to represent the Valkyries, the Morganas and Magdalenes - the Ishtar priestesses who are the Maidens of the Ring and the Grail.
The Dove, specifically the Turtle Dove or Barbary Dove is a soft brown colour and has a ring around its neck that lies open at the throat. This dove, specifically sacred to Venus, is a symbol of love and devotion. and is the bird referred to in the name Mary Magdalene. Magdal or Migdal meaning a dove.
The ring around its neck is a torque, which, in Gaelic lore symbolizes, as do all rings, Kingship and therefore wisdom and seership - the derkesthai or Dragon Nature. That Mary is named Magdalene, "of the place of the doves" which are sacred to Venus and thus Ishtar and mistakenly Hathor, means that she, Mary, was a priestess of this Goddess of ’Love’.
The link between the raven, known as the Phoenix, the dove and Samael is alchemical. At one level the raven and the dove are female and interchangeable, the dove or doves (in Magdal: the place of doves or temple of the priestesses of Ishtar/Hathor/Venus) being the priestess or priestesses of Ishtar, the other - the raven - being the priestess of Morrighan.
The qabalah specifically says that the raven and the dove are the same bird and in the Northern hemisphere the brown singing ravens of the Druids are obviously the Turtle doves or priestesses, brown morrighans, equivalent to swan maidens.
Samael , in his congress with them, obtaining the "wisdom of the qlipphoth" or the abyss - ie the waters of the deep. The Barbary dove or Migdal links the ring cycle to Mary Magdalene and thence Jesus. Both then are linked again to Hathor, the raven Goddesses of the Druids, to An and the Phoenix of the Scythians and thence the Ring and the Dragon Orobourous, called Janus by the Phoenicians and Jormungar by the Danes. Like Enki and Chem, Siva is the woad painted Lord of the Goats.
Jormungar - ’The Earth Spanner’ : ’The encircler’ or Vala of the Vedas, lives in the watery deeps and once upon a time long, long ago, Thor and the giant (Titan) Hymir went fishing for him. As bait they used an Ox-head which, as we have seen symbolizes the ovaries, fallopian tubes, womb and vagina of the virgin goddess.
Here again is a link between water, Samael the Dragon and virgins. The Brown raven or choral priestess of the Druidic cult is the turtle dove and the swan maiden because both animals are used in alchemy and Tantra to symbolize the brain, the pineal gland and the Ajna Chakra.
In Vala we have the original root of the words Valhalla and Valkyrie. It is now known, as we had suggested, that the Valhallas were forest halls. There were in fact built on mounds and displayed giant Dragon heads at each end. These were the dwellings of the Vala Aes, the Dragon Overlords of the forest and beneath them, lying in the Creachaire tomb- raths, were the remains of their ancestors, the Gods of Heaven.
The Valhallas were the dwelling places of the Gods of Heaven and Earth, the serpent queens and kings. The Great Hall on the summit of the mound of the Otherworld was identical to the temple at the peak of the ziggurat. These Halls were where the Valkyries, the singers of the Gods assembled. In this capacity these were sometimes called the brown ravens, meaning that they were still the Morrighans, but assumed the magical, Grail role of brown Turtle Doves, the lovers of the Phoenix or Dragon God. Hence the Valhalla was also a variant of the Judaic Magdala or House of Doves.
The swan-serpent caduceus and the descended dove originate here and in placing the paten into the Grail both symbolize this love of the Turtle and the Phoenix. The serpillion is a swan or serpent necked dove depicted in medieval architecture and the link here is clear. In the association of Lilith with the abyss of the qlipphoth and the raven and dove who symbolize Ishtar, we have another link between Diana and Persephone and a clarification of the nature of Hades.
As the watery abyss, it is identified with the Gaelic Otherworld reached by water. The masculine nature of the raven is echoed in Machen’s alchemical riddle where a serpent eating a serpent becomes a dragon (a serpent who eats its tail makes a circle and completes itself: it transcends) and a dragon eating a dragon (a transcended one drinking from another transcended one, Samael drinking Lilith) becomes a phoenix - a Raven King, Swan Knight/Prince, Dragon Queen, Rephaim etc.
The Phoenix in its final transcendent glory becomes a flaming, leaping star, an An, or Shining One. "The Nahash is taught by the Raven or the Dove" means that The Dragon Kings drink from Grail Princesses of the Abyss or Qlipphoth, the Tree of Life of the Left Hand Path - Kaula Vama Marg! The pool at the foot of Yggdrasil.
In the ’Phoenix and the Turtle’ by ""William Shakespeare"" (I don’t think!) there are mentioned the Turtle Dove, the Phoenix, the Raven, the Swan and the Screech Owl (Lilith). It is said that out of the Phoenix myth, ""Shakespeare"" (I don’t think!) created a myth of his own. Not so. What he did was to expand the myth and fill it with its proper alchemical symbolism and demonstrate the purpose of the original story, that being divine union.
The Phoenix of myth, the only bird of its kind (symbolizing the Oneness of the All perceived by those who become united with The All and thus are alone) travels from its eastern paradise and makes a ’nest’ of ’spices’ (see Song of Songs) in an Arabian Palm Tree (A Sufic symbol and emblem of the Tamaris Princesses, read Lily and Rose again, back a few pages).
Having burnt up in its own fire (been consumed in the energy generated by enthea) it takes the ashes to the temple of the Sun at Heliopolis and lays them on the Altar. Other birds (ranks of druidism aforementioned) and men gather to rejoice and in chorus (Cor) they accompany the singing Phoenix as it soars to heaven and returns to its lonely paradise eg Samadhi, Bodhisatva, Heaven, Transcendence, Enlightenment, Divine Union, Scythia!
Summary: The Transcended Dragon King needs to drink from a Dragon Princess, a fairy lover. He travels to Arabia, meets his Tamaris and drinks from her ’Nest of spices’ and she bestows stillness and ecstasy upon him.
He is consumed by fire (the spirit or combined energy), is reborn and takes his ashes, his mortal body, and lays on the altar of the Sun, symbolized by the Dragon, Lion, Hawk and Bull in Persian Mithraism (Mithras the mediator or Balance) to symbolize his achievement of the balance or nil point and subsequent oneness with the Cosmos. Everyone is seriously chuffed that he has managed to regenerate and won’t be acting like a complete pillock and ruining everything now he has refreshed his sovereignty with a living goddess.
He can now go back to Scythia/Heaven and carry on reigning and being the wisdom and fertility of the land, end of story. Shakespeare’s version describes beautifully the emotions of enthea and anyone who has experienced this divine union with another of the blood will not fail to be deeply moved, both with joy and sadness.
Again this is another Solomonic, vampirerite and proof yet again that vampirism is born of a love so deep that it tears the soul from the body, as this tale suggests. It also implies that the rite has to be repeated and that feeding must be recurrent.
The OTO call the ’Rite of the Phoenix’ the ’Mass of the Vampire’ for good reason. The Phoenix, along with the other birds in Shakespeare’s poem are called Bennu Birds and are identified with each other by Grant (’Magical Revival’) and this is because all classes of druid are vampires and need to feed in order to remain transcendent.
The Bennu Bird or Bird of Return symbolizes a being that regenerates or must regenerate itself at regular intervals and the vampire itself bears an appellation that is named after this process. In folklore though the vampire, as ’one who returns’ is mistaken for ’one who returns from the grave’ instead of ’one who MUST return to feed and regenerate’.
The Phoenix is symbolized in Transylvania by the double-headed Raven, brother of Lilith. This bird was adopted by the Hittites and came to symbolize the holy roman empire in the corrupted form of an eagle. This Double Headed Raven, the Phoenix, is the penultimate symbol of the dragon people. In the last process of its regeneration, the Phoenix becomes The Star, the An of the Anunnagi, the Elves or Shining Ones: the ultimate symbol of the Dragon Race.
The Serpent N’H’SH
In translating the word N’H’SH, firstly we will take the Hebrew consonants back, via Phoenician, to their Sumerian roots and remember also that, in Sumerian, syllable groups could be reversed and yet still render the same meaning in an overall phrase. So, the N is Nun, the H is Heth (as opposed to He) and the SH is Shin (as opposed to either Sade or Samekh).
We check these through the Phoenician to ensure a continuity of shape in the correct pictograms as we venture back into the Sumerian and discover the following: Nun = Nag, Heth = H.A. and Shin = Salmunuz. Therefore from the Hebrew Nahash, we derive the original Sumerian Naghasalmunuz, Nagha Salmunuz or NAG.HA.SAL.MUNUZ., which translates as Drink (NAG) - Fish (HA) - Vulva (SALMUNUZ).
If this sounds a bit odd, the author explains that a fish is "of water" and so in Sumerian the equivalent to our letter ’A’ means water whilst the ’H’ is the article which stands for of. So the Hebrew N’H’SH - the Serpent - translates into the Sumerian "One (a dragon) who - Drinks of (the) Water (of the) Vulva".
One notices that in this phrase - Nagha Salmunuz - two things stand out. Firstly we have the Aryan word Naga spelt Nagha which would be pronounced with the gh sounding like a nasally, softly gargled ch (as in the Scottish word loch) identical to the Spanish x or g. According to the OED, ’H’ which in Sumerian was H.A. evolved into the Greek h - (h)eta which was originally pronounced kh, which was pronounced as defined above, as an Iberian (Aryo-Scythian Celtic) x or ch.
In this way we can also justifiably spell Naga as Naxa and then we begin to understand the profound relationship between the Naga guardians of the Aryan pantheons and the Nixes or Nixas of western Europe who were, likewise, the female guardians of watery treasures, and like the Nagas or Naxas, these meremaids or Swan Maidens were Devas or Shining Ones (Anunnagi).
The second thing we notice is that the Sumerian word for a vulva is Salmunuz and immediately the poetic connection between the ’Sacred Vulva’ (the well of Nechtan [Nixtan] - the pure one, the Nix or Nothing) and the Salmon (Salmunuz) of Wisdom that swims in the well should immediately spring to mind - as should the Ichthys - as being the vulva of the Virgin Mary Magdalene. Praise the Lord for the Single Poetic Theme!
In remembering that Sumerian can be reversed, we can look at the Hebrew N’H’SH again and see that if it is reversed, as was the custom in Hebrew Qabalah when rabbis were tinkering around with language looking for hidden meanings, it becomes SH’H’N which is pronounced She’an, ’of the Powers’. Furthermore the numerical or gematric value of N’H’SH in Qabalah is 9 which is the number of Yesod, the sephirah of the Moon, whose Phoenician God was the Sumerian SIN or SHIN - She’en.
The symbols associated with SIN included the Axe, the Labrys which is a device which, as we know, depicts the Vulva. The Axe symbol, prevalent in Mittani and Minoan Cretan culture became the spinning Hammer of Thor (the swastika) who as Zeus, was the wielder of the lightning bolt which, in northern Europe, was symbolized by the Norse ’Sig’ Rune. Sig - the lightning bolt of inspiration (cf. Mead of Inspiration) - is the Greek Sigma which is the Hebrew Shin, last consonant of N’H’SH, and SIN - Sumerian god of the Moon.
Sig is the serpentine lightning bolt that courses down the Qabalistic Tree of Life. In one sense it represents Enki-Samael entwined around Lilith. The upturned crescent moon is also said to be associated with Samael (Sumaire-El) and, in an ancient Sumerian picture reproduced by Langdon, the moon as a dish is depicted next to the Star of Anu, below which is the serpent N’H’SH entwined around the tree, symbolizing Lilith.
Finally we must consider Tiamat. Her name - TI.A.MAT - means life-water-maiden. This translates as "maiden of the waters of life" and it is then clear that her name indicates she was both the first known matriarch and virgin priestess - the "feeding mother" - of the vampire dragon queens and kings. The mother of the Elven dynasty, she was the generatrix of a vampire lineage of goddess-queens and god-kings spanning seven thousand years.
She was a Nagha or Nixa and it is from her that Lilith, and all the ensuing Grail Maidens, including Sheba and Morgana of the Apple Trees, Tamaris, Mary Magdalene, the Princesses of Avallon, Melusine, Niniane and Ygraine owe their identifications as "Trees of Life". Consequently we can say that Tiamat, the first Tamaris - the Maiden who gives the Waters of Life - was also the Tir Mat or Tir Mata, the first "Tree Mother" of the Lords and Ladies of the Forest, the Druids and Druidesses - the People of the Trees (of Life).
Of the younger gods of the Aryans, the Adityas, two - Tara and Bhaga - stand out prominently. As we have seen Ulick Beck and several other scholars have traced the origin of the Scythian-Irish Tuadha d’Anu to the same region as the Aryans, and have gone as far as saying that they were one and the same.
Interestingly we find that the goddess Tara - wife of Rudra, Indra’s charioteer, appears in Eire as Tara, the Hill or Rath of ghosts in County Meath, Eire. Tara was the sacred centre of the united Irish kingdom and was the seat of the Danaan Kings of Tara during the Iron Age.
Some scholars attribute the name of Tara in Eire to some complicated sounding god name which I find implausible in the light of the fact that a Goddess Tara already existed in the Scythian-Aryan pantheon. Whether Asura or Aditya, Danaan or Milesian, all of the ancient Goddess Queens were the source of sovereignty associated with sacred mounds and it seems therefore entirely appropriate to name a Sidhe rath, a portal to the otherworld and thus the source of sovereignty, after a goddess who would herself have represented sovereignty.
In the case of Bhaga, or Vaga as his name would have been pronounced in Gaelic, scholars think that he became the Slavic god Bogh, a word which came to mean "god" in Thrace, where the Danaan Fir Bolg were once exiled, prior to their return to Ireland. In Fir Bolg we either have the title "men of God", meaning druids, or we have, as is commonly thought, "men of the bags" which means "men of God" anyway, because the "bag", specifically the "Crane Skin Bag", was an accessory of the Godthi’s and the Druid’s: the "men of the gods".
Myth or reality?
Considering the foregoing, it is interesting to note that in Tolkien’s ’Silmarillion’ - the background mythology that supports his ’Lord of the Rings’ - we find a vocabulary and etymology that includes the following words - Ainur, Ainu, Vala, Maiar, Eldar, Ea.
Tolkien ’s word Ainur means the "Holy Ones" of which the singular is Ainu. There are two orders of these gods in his mythology - the Valar and the Maiar. The plural Ainur and the singular Ainu are clearly derived from the Sumerian father of the gods - Anu and the Anunnaki, whilst Valar appears in the Aryan pantheon as Vala "The encircler", reminiscent of the Orobourus, the alchemical Dragon Ring that Tolkien wrote so much about. We will also remember the Val-Kyrie at this juncture.
The word Maia is spelt Maja in Spanish and denotes a female line of nobility and royalty. The ’i’ was originally ’j’ and came, along with the word majesty, from the Latin majes or majus, a variant of which is magi or magus, from the Greek magos - magos, a bloodline member of a caste or genetic strain comprising of individuals heritably steeped in magic, (OED), in other words the Arya - or Scythian Derkesthai - The Dragon Goddess Queens and God Kings.
At this point we return to the concept of the derkesthai and the bloodline of the dragon god-kings - the Asuras and the Anunnaki. In the ’Silmarillion’ Maia becomes Maiar and it accords with the ancient concept of deific royalty - Maia - which, related to Mana is the ’spirit of the gods carried in the blood’, the attribute of a goddess-queen or god-king of the Dragon who are in themselves collectively an ’order of the gods’ - the ’elves’ - the shining ones - or ’gods incarnate’- the Devas and Avatars.
The ’spirits of the gods - the ancestors - carried in the blood’ we will remember are the spirits summoned from the ’deeps’, the subconscious, by the witch, (Vampire or Druid) who gains her or his name - wicce or wicca - from the ability to yield or bend to, or rather to draw to the surface of consciousness, these spiritual intelligences and their wisdom from her or his ancestral, and thus genetic, inheritance. In other words their waking consciousness is pacified or "yields", to allow the older spirit, or racial memory, to give voice.
Avatar is a word Tolkien includes in his Silmarillion as Aratar the eight most powerful of his Valar or order of old gods which, it seems obvious, were intended to mimic the Egyptian gods of the Ogdoad, the eight Anunnaki who tended the Holy Mountain after the Black Sea flood.
Another of Tolkien’s words similar to Avatar - Avathar - to him means "The Shadows" which he uses as a name for a land near his ’Bay of Eldemar’. Comparably, in our world, an Avatar is a ’god made flesh’ - a Dragon King or Queen who often occupied tombs and would have been thought of as a "shadow", a spirit of the otherworld, the realm of the Shining Ones.
So in the Vala and Maiar we have two orders of gods taken from the Dragon tradition itself whilst, according to the legends of Tolkien’s elves, the word Eldar became used as a name for the three elven kindreds, one of which Tolkien named the Vanyar, who appear to be the Vanir Gods of the Danes, cousins of the Tuadha d’Anu. Tolkien’s largest variety of wicked Orcs he named the Uruks and Uruk a City State ofthe Anunnaki. The Orcs he said were once fair elves who had been imprisoned and tortured in the Land of Mordor.
’Eldar’, explains Tolkien, means ’People of the Stars’, echoing a traditional Gaelic epithet for the Tuadha d’Anu and also one of the original meanings of the name Anunnaki - People of the Stars.
Of men, Tolkien concurs that they are the second, younger race which his elves called the Atani, (Adamae) a name, says Tolkien, that later became the Edain, obviously the children of Eden. Again we have a borrowing of Dragon Lore where the Elves, the Children of Anu, the Anukim or Repha’im of the Old Testament, appeared first, followed by our Adamae, or the Atani as Tolkien would have it.
Edain is obviously Eden, whilst he uses Eä as a name for the Earth which in Sumerian is the name for the dragon god of the ’Earth and Waters’ - Enki-Samael, the leader of the elder "Eldar" gods - the Aesir. Tolkien, in his epic works, with their plethora of borrowed names and borrowed linguistics and their elder and younger races, is obviously writing about the family, particularly when one peruses his vocabulary and discovers the name Avallónë, a haven and city of the Eldar - the Elves - situated on ’the lonely isle’ - Tol Eressea, which was drawn across the ocean and rooted finally in the Bay of Eldemar, adjacent to Avathar - the land of Shadows: our Avalon or Otherworld.
The various names by which our planet is known all stem from the word Eridu, which was the first city founded by Enki-Samael in Mesopotamia. As a variant of Eridu, in the Silmarillion, Tolkien has Eriador and his Elven word for Earth is Arda, which is also derived from Eridu.
Nicholas de Vere
DRAGONS OF CREATION, DESTRUCTION, REGENERATION, WISDOM, GNOSIS & ENLIGHTENMENT
Dragons are real and the basis of scientific priesthood and royal lineage. The sacred past is a story of sacred dragon or serpent worship. The triangular Dragon Book is essentially a magical astonomical text. Civilization was originally rooted in ancient prehistoric observations of the order of the stars. It tracked time and created calendars, and most importantly allowed predictions of eclipses rooted in the GREAT CYCLE of PRECESSION of the Zodiac, the serpentine ring of the Ecliptic.
Dragons that 'fought with the Sun' probably described the celestrial upheaval of large fearsome comets that streaked across the sky with their long tails. They appeared cyclically and broke up upon nearing the sun, some of which collided with Earth. Eclipses were also considered celestial battles between the dark and light. In ancient times the cataclysmic forces of nature were personified as a great cosmic dragon or serpent.
Many ancient mythologies, and many god-like characters who appear in world myth, owe their existence to cosmic disasters that occurred in our solar system and which were witnessed by the inhabitants of the Earth. The cataclysmic events (involving comets and exploding planets) were permanently archived in what we nowadays refer to as the "collective unconscious." They were deeply etched in the racial memory of all mankind.
Decoding the sky meant connecting the dots of the starry constellations, making star maps, reproducing that heaven on earth in the form of sacred sites, and embodying it in sacred royal lineage. The most ancient lines are symbolically related to the circumpolar constellation Draco, the great Dragon or Serpent. The winged serpent was a symbol of the Gods of Egypt, Phoenicia, China, Persia, and Hindustan.
The serpent is set in the symbol of the "Chalice," or downward pointing triangle, that has long been a womb symbol. In the Far East, this symbol is known as the Yoni. The word "one" derives from this word denoting the female womb. The title-page of St. Germain's triangular DRAGON BOOK mimics this Dragon in the downward-pointing triangle and describes magic, treasures and immortality. Ritual swallowing by the snake in the underworld led to the symbolic return to the embryonic state, rejuvination and rebirth in the mystery schools.
Roughly 3000 BC, the heavens revolved around the Great Dragon, and so did earthly civilization. Dragons became synonymous with immortality because the celestial dragon was exempt from the cycle of time and because the dragon lineage did not die but was preserved in the noble bloodline. The point of circumpolar rotation, inhabited by the star Thuban or not, became the "Eye of the Dragon". Egyptian rulers wore the Uraeus serpent (Wadjet) as their crown symbol of sovereignty (serpent of life), a link to the celestial Ouroborous.
The serpent cult worshipped the esoteric or inner sun, manifested as the biophotonic energy body. This inner light is the realization of our own hyperdimensional connection to the greater universe, of our own inner balance and our own growth toward attune to or resonance with the world around us. It is also the part of ourselves and our outer world, which gives life, sustains and gives growth. The dragon and serpent cults inspired megalithic monuments, global dragon and serpent mounds. The most ancient initiatory and healing symbols, the circumpunct, a dot within a circle and/or a cross within a circle symbolize this inner sun.
DRAGON CODE
Dragon history is extensive and wide-spread, as almost every mythology has unique styles of dragon. The Sumerian word for dragon is "ushum". Chinese dragons date back to around 5,000 BCE. The Chinese believed that they were the "decendants of the dragons," too. Like comets, they could rise to the heavens or go to the bottom of the seas. Like Mesopotamian and Egyptian rulers, Chinese emperors were said to be sons of the dragons and wore special robes. The sign of the celestial dragon could only be worn by the emperor, and it was the sign of the ultimate power.
The venom of the snake was used as an Elixir to help prevent disease through boosting the immune system with high levels of protein. And secondly mixing the neurotoxic venom with the blood of the snake or mammalian host such as a horse brings on altered states of consciousness much akin to certain drugs used by shaman across the world from ancient times. Visions of ‘otherworlds’ seen in such trances are often depicted as tombs, wombs or caves, within which sometimes benevolent, sometimes terrible, serpents are encountered.
In any discussion of serpent wisdom we cannot fail to also mention the ancient Hindu Kundalini practice. Kundalini means simply "coiled serpent" and in the Indian system the ida and pingala energy (through serpent channels) are raised up and down the spine to raise the consciousness of the adept. The dual serpentine caduceus is known to all health practitioners the world over.
Dragons are real and the basis of scientific priesthood and royal lineage. The sacred past is a story of sacred dragon or serpent worship. The triangular Dragon Book is essentially a magical astonomical text. Civilization was originally rooted in ancient prehistoric observations of the order of the stars. It tracked time and created calendars, and most importantly allowed predictions of eclipses rooted in the GREAT CYCLE of PRECESSION of the Zodiac, the serpentine ring of the Ecliptic.
Dragons that 'fought with the Sun' probably described the celestrial upheaval of large fearsome comets that streaked across the sky with their long tails. They appeared cyclically and broke up upon nearing the sun, some of which collided with Earth. Eclipses were also considered celestial battles between the dark and light. In ancient times the cataclysmic forces of nature were personified as a great cosmic dragon or serpent.
Many ancient mythologies, and many god-like characters who appear in world myth, owe their existence to cosmic disasters that occurred in our solar system and which were witnessed by the inhabitants of the Earth. The cataclysmic events (involving comets and exploding planets) were permanently archived in what we nowadays refer to as the "collective unconscious." They were deeply etched in the racial memory of all mankind.
Decoding the sky meant connecting the dots of the starry constellations, making star maps, reproducing that heaven on earth in the form of sacred sites, and embodying it in sacred royal lineage. The most ancient lines are symbolically related to the circumpolar constellation Draco, the great Dragon or Serpent. The winged serpent was a symbol of the Gods of Egypt, Phoenicia, China, Persia, and Hindustan.
The serpent is set in the symbol of the "Chalice," or downward pointing triangle, that has long been a womb symbol. In the Far East, this symbol is known as the Yoni. The word "one" derives from this word denoting the female womb. The title-page of St. Germain's triangular DRAGON BOOK mimics this Dragon in the downward-pointing triangle and describes magic, treasures and immortality. Ritual swallowing by the snake in the underworld led to the symbolic return to the embryonic state, rejuvination and rebirth in the mystery schools.
Roughly 3000 BC, the heavens revolved around the Great Dragon, and so did earthly civilization. Dragons became synonymous with immortality because the celestial dragon was exempt from the cycle of time and because the dragon lineage did not die but was preserved in the noble bloodline. The point of circumpolar rotation, inhabited by the star Thuban or not, became the "Eye of the Dragon". Egyptian rulers wore the Uraeus serpent (Wadjet) as their crown symbol of sovereignty (serpent of life), a link to the celestial Ouroborous.
The serpent cult worshipped the esoteric or inner sun, manifested as the biophotonic energy body. This inner light is the realization of our own hyperdimensional connection to the greater universe, of our own inner balance and our own growth toward attune to or resonance with the world around us. It is also the part of ourselves and our outer world, which gives life, sustains and gives growth. The dragon and serpent cults inspired megalithic monuments, global dragon and serpent mounds. The most ancient initiatory and healing symbols, the circumpunct, a dot within a circle and/or a cross within a circle symbolize this inner sun.
DRAGON CODE
Dragon history is extensive and wide-spread, as almost every mythology has unique styles of dragon. The Sumerian word for dragon is "ushum". Chinese dragons date back to around 5,000 BCE. The Chinese believed that they were the "decendants of the dragons," too. Like comets, they could rise to the heavens or go to the bottom of the seas. Like Mesopotamian and Egyptian rulers, Chinese emperors were said to be sons of the dragons and wore special robes. The sign of the celestial dragon could only be worn by the emperor, and it was the sign of the ultimate power.
The venom of the snake was used as an Elixir to help prevent disease through boosting the immune system with high levels of protein. And secondly mixing the neurotoxic venom with the blood of the snake or mammalian host such as a horse brings on altered states of consciousness much akin to certain drugs used by shaman across the world from ancient times. Visions of ‘otherworlds’ seen in such trances are often depicted as tombs, wombs or caves, within which sometimes benevolent, sometimes terrible, serpents are encountered.
In any discussion of serpent wisdom we cannot fail to also mention the ancient Hindu Kundalini practice. Kundalini means simply "coiled serpent" and in the Indian system the ida and pingala energy (through serpent channels) are raised up and down the spine to raise the consciousness of the adept. The dual serpentine caduceus is known to all health practitioners the world over.
In European mythology, a dragon is a serpent-like
legendary creature. The Latin word draco, as in the constellation Draco,
comes directly from Greek, drákōn. The word for dragon in Germanic
mythology and its descendants is worm, meaning snake or serpent. In Old
English wyrm means "serpent", draca means "dragon". Though a winged
creature, the dragon is generally to be found in its underground lair, a
cave that identifies it as an ancient creature of earth, like the
mythic serpent, that was a source of knowledge even in Eden. Likely, the
dragons of European and Mid Eastern mythology stem from the cult of
snakes found in religions throughout the world.
Many modern stories represent dragons as extremely intelligent creatures who can talk, associated with (and sometimes in control of) powerful magic. Dragon's blood often has magical properties: for example it let Siegfried understand the language of the Forest Bird. The typical dragon protects a cavern filled with gold and treasure and is often associated with a great hero who tries to slay it, but dragons can be written in to a story in as many ways as a human character. This includes the monster being used as a wise being whom heroes could approach for help and advice.
It is theorized that western dragons have descended from Roman dragons. Roman dragons evolved from serpentine Greek ones, combined with the dragons of Persia, in the mix that characterized the hybrid Greek/Eastern Hellenistic culture. The later Babylonian dragon worshiped by the court of the Persian Cyrus the Great, in the Hebrew narrative in Bel and the Dragon probably dates to the late 2nd century BCE. John's Book of Revelation — Greek literature, not Roman — describes Satan as "a great dragon, flaming red, with seven heads and ten horns". Much of John's literary inspiration is late Hebrew and Greek, but John's dragon, like his Satan, are both more likely to have come originally through Persia. Perhaps our distinctions between dragons of western origin and Chinese dragons are arbitrary.
Though the Latin is draco, draconis, it has been supposed by some scholars, including John Tanke of the University of Michigan, that the word dragon comes from the Old Norse draugr, which literally means a spirit who guards the burial mound of a king. How this image of a vengeful guardian spirit is related to a fire-breathing serpent is unclear. Many others assume the word dragon comes from the ancient Greek verb derkesthai, meaning "to see", referring to the dragon's legendarily keen eyesight. In any case, the image of a dragon as a serpent-like creature was already standard at least by the 8th century when Beowulf was written down. Although today we associate dragons almost universally with fire, in medieval legend the creatures were often associated with water, guarding springs or living near or under water.
Many modern stories represent dragons as extremely intelligent creatures who can talk, associated with (and sometimes in control of) powerful magic. Dragon's blood often has magical properties: for example it let Siegfried understand the language of the Forest Bird. The typical dragon protects a cavern filled with gold and treasure and is often associated with a great hero who tries to slay it, but dragons can be written in to a story in as many ways as a human character. This includes the monster being used as a wise being whom heroes could approach for help and advice.
It is theorized that western dragons have descended from Roman dragons. Roman dragons evolved from serpentine Greek ones, combined with the dragons of Persia, in the mix that characterized the hybrid Greek/Eastern Hellenistic culture. The later Babylonian dragon worshiped by the court of the Persian Cyrus the Great, in the Hebrew narrative in Bel and the Dragon probably dates to the late 2nd century BCE. John's Book of Revelation — Greek literature, not Roman — describes Satan as "a great dragon, flaming red, with seven heads and ten horns". Much of John's literary inspiration is late Hebrew and Greek, but John's dragon, like his Satan, are both more likely to have come originally through Persia. Perhaps our distinctions between dragons of western origin and Chinese dragons are arbitrary.
Though the Latin is draco, draconis, it has been supposed by some scholars, including John Tanke of the University of Michigan, that the word dragon comes from the Old Norse draugr, which literally means a spirit who guards the burial mound of a king. How this image of a vengeful guardian spirit is related to a fire-breathing serpent is unclear. Many others assume the word dragon comes from the ancient Greek verb derkesthai, meaning "to see", referring to the dragon's legendarily keen eyesight. In any case, the image of a dragon as a serpent-like creature was already standard at least by the 8th century when Beowulf was written down. Although today we associate dragons almost universally with fire, in medieval legend the creatures were often associated with water, guarding springs or living near or under water.
Esoteric & Biological
The Dragon as an Archetype
by Laurence Mee (Wyrm)
Before we begin to explore the Dragon as an Archetype, we first must define what we mean by an archetype in this context. The word itself is derived from the Latin archetypum and the Greek arkhetupon (arch as in chief, and tupos as in stamp) and in context it takes on three meanings. We can use it as a reference to a prototype, or initial image, something from which all the various forms of Dragons throughout the world were based on. We can choose the classical Jungian hypothesis of the primitive mental image, inherited from man's earliest ancestors and which is supposedly present in the collective unconscious. Lastly we can use the definition which describes a motif that recurs throughout art and literature. The following parts examine each of these definitions based on the recorded images and myths concerning Dragons. As probably expected, the fourth edition of the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English (published in 1951) does not mention Jung's notion of the primordial image archetype, it being a relatively new meaning that had not been popularised at the time.
The Prototype for the Dragon -
In defining the archetypal Dragon as a prototype image, we are faced with the problem of tracing back all the various Dragon forms to a single source. This is not made any easier considering that many of the myths were formed before writing was developed. To start with, we can explore the very early Dragon myths and attempt to determine a lineage with the later legends.
In early Egypt, the Dragon was chiefly a representation, albeit with some embellishments, of the snake. In Egyptian myth Re, the sun god, travelled through Duat, the underworld, each night. Whilst travelling through the underworld Re reaches a two open doors guarded by snakes, some having human heads and four legs others having three snake heads and wings. Re passes by these without incident as they are only guards. Later Re observes the demise of Apophis, the giant serpent representing chaos, whose severed coils are bound by Aker, a Dragon representing the earth. There are many occurrences of Dragons in Egyptian mythology, another example being Denwen. Denwen was attested in the third millennium BC and is described as a fiery serpent who would have caused a conflagration destroying all of the gods if it had not been thwarted by the King. If one is to draw any conclusion from this it can only be that the Egyptian mythology was influenced by an early form of snake worship.
The Chinese Lung, in contrast to the Egyptian image of the destructive serpent, was more benevolent. The Lung has its origins in the oracle bones of the Shang and the I'Ching, and was ascribed lizard like qualities before it's later association with rain. This association was formed in the second and first millennium BC and though they would take on varied attributes through the centuries, this association remained fixed. The I'Ching was probably used to divine various agricultural concerns - when to plant and when to harvest. It refers to Dragons as the bringers of thunderstorms. The Dragons hibernate over the winter in pools, then in summer they take to the sky bringing on the rains. Azure Dragons were symbols of spring, the sighting of one heralded the onset of the spring thunderstorms and the end of hibernation. The horse-dragon, a creature with hooves on its four legs and curly hair on its back which could walk on water as well as fly. It featured prominently in Chinese mythology emerging from the Yellow River to give the 'River Map' to the legendary Emperor Fu Xi which formed the basis of the I'Ching. The first images of the Lung were actually half-man, half-fish creations, but this soon took on the more lizard like look of the current Chinese Dragons. These representations of Dragons also occur in ancient Japan and Korea, both in the Shinto beliefs and Buddhism.
The Babylonians provide us with a clear picture of a Dragon in the Epic of Creation from the early second millennium BC. It details the struggle of Apsu (god of the primordial waters under the earth) and Tiamat (the sea) against their son Ea. Apsu is defeated by Ea who takes over his domain and produces a son, the god-hero Marduk. Tiamat created all sorts of Dragons, including the mushussu Dragon, in order to have her revenge, but she is defeated in single combat by Marduk and her body is split to form the earth and the sky. The mushussu is subdued by Marduk and takes its place at his feet. In the Babylonian texts Dragons are differentiated from snakes, and whilst they are scaly they also have both reptilian and mammalian characteristics. Thus we have the Babylonian idea of a Dragon as a completely fictional creature with no basis in nature, both as an image of chaos and as a guardian. These images were relatively short lived however, as the Chinese Lungs soon came to dominate in later Near Eastern mythology.
In early India, images of the Dragon were in some ways similar to the Egyptian ones in that they represented the form of the snake. There were those, however, that represented the form of the crocodile, such as the makara. We see through Hindu myth that the Indians identified the Dragon with nature. One of the Indian Dragons, Vritra, caused drought by withholding water in its body until it is slain by Indra, god of rain, with a bolt of lightning thus starting the monsoon. While there are many similarities with the Egyptian images, we can also see influences from the Chinese Lung. The obvious conclusion is that the Indian Dragon had the same background of early snake worship, and to a lesser extent crocodile cults, but was later influenced by the Chinese images.
All of the Eurasian Dragon images can be traced back to the early forms of Egypt, the Near East, and the Far East. This can be clearly seen in the Greek Dragons, the word drakkon meaning large serpent as well as Dragon. The Greeks carried on the idea of the Dragon as a Guardian Serpent - Ladon guarding the Golden Apples of the Hesperides, Colchis guarding the Golden Fleece. We now, however, see the Dragon as a creature that is slain by the hero, rather than tamed. This imagery was to last, becoming eventually a symbol of evil.
Dragons in the Islamic world initially started out as astronomical figures, and were linked to the Egyptian myth of Re's voyage through the underworld. The Dragon Jawzahr was responsible for eclipses and comets, the Dragons Draco and Serpentarius were emblazoned in the stars. There are many tales in Persian mythology of Dragons representing evil being slain by heroes, influenced by the Greek legends. It is here that the idea of Dragons guarding treasure emerges, the treasure eventually passing to the King who represents good. This, however, was not to last for when the Mongols invaded Persia they imposed their own Chinese style images.
Celtic and Nordic dragons were almost certainly derived from the more ancient myths, though there seems few similarities. We have the Midgard Serpent with its myriad of snakes gnawing at the roots of the World Tree - a corruption of the creation myths of Babylon and Egypt. The story of Sigurd and Fafnir shows the destructive qualities of the Dragon but also illustrates the slaying of the Dragon by the hero. The long-ships used by the Vikings bore on their prows the heads of Dragons, in keeping with the association of Dragons with water. The Celts used Dragons as heraldic symbols such as in the story of Hercules, who after triumphing over Ladon carried the image of the Dragon on his shield. The best example of this is the Welsh Legend of the fight between the Red Dragon of Cadwallader representing Wales and the White Dragon representing the Saxons, also mentioned in the tale of Lludd and Llevelys. Of these representations, only the heraldic device would continue to be used after the Christian ideals spread throughout Europe.
Taking much from the Greek and Arabian legends, the Christians were responsible for turning the Dragon into the image we generally associate with it, that of the fire breathing monster. The Christians used the image of the Serpent, or Dragon, to represent evil, and commonly Satan himself. They drew much from the cultures of the lands they encountered - the legend of St George and the Dragon is taken from the Near East. The Christian image of the Dragon, however, is a perverted one being set up in opposition of the pagan religions such as snake worship. The snake is seen as the Devil in the Garden of Eden, the Dragon is seen as the incarnation of evil in many horrific forms to be vanquished by the hero representing the virtues of God. It is known that the early Christians brought people into their religion by all manner of ways, building churches on old pagan sites for example, and casting the pagan Dragon as the personification of evil and having it defeated by the Christian Hero was a typical ploy.
Complicating matters further, we have the apparently totally unconnected development of Dragons in the Americas. There are the lake spirits of the North American creation myths, and there is also the plumed serpent of Central and South America. The Mayan Kukulkan, later the Aztec Quetzalcoatl, was both good and evil and was though to rule the four parts of the earth. The greatest god of the Aztecs was Xiuhtecuhtli who took on many manifestations, one of which being the fire serpent. There are parallels with the Chinese myths in that Quetzalcoatl is described as being able to take the form of the sun and is depicted as being swallowed by the earth serpent thus causing an eclipse.
We have seen how many of the later Dragon myths derived from earlier ones, albeit with some embellishment, some reaching as far back as early snake worship. Yet we cannot ignore the fact that the various ancient Dragon images appeared around the same time with different connotations - the Egyptian serpent, the Babylonian hybrid, and the Chinese lizard. There is no evidence that these originated from a single prototype, and given the dissimilarities between these ancient creatures one must conclude that they arose spontaneously out of the needs of the people to explain various natural phenomenon. In Egypt it explained night and day, in Babylon it formed part of the creation, and in China it was used to predict the spring rains. All we can infer from this is that there was no single prototype for the Dragon myth, rather there were several, probably one for each centre of ancient civilisation.
The Jungian Dragon
In trying to define the archetypal Dragon in Jungian terms, we must first understand Jung's notion of the archetype. Jung refers to the Archetype as the 'type' in the psyche, an inner mental image (type being derived from the Greek tupos meaning imprint or blow). Though an archetype as an imprint presupposes that there was an imprinter in the first place, Jung does not concern himself with this, rather he concentrates on the image within the collective unconscious that dominates when there is no other rational thoughts. The unconscious is said to modify the conscious. Jung's idea of the archetype as a Primordial Image required that it was at least common to entire races, or entire epochs, the most powerful archetypes being common to all races at all times. It also required that the image was in close accord to the ancient myths and symbols. The ancient symbols were supposedly created from the collective unconscious to explain certain phenomena of the world, rational thought being impossible at that time.
Jung referred to Dragons in a number of his works. He initially cites it as the arch-enemy of the Hero archetype, drawing mainly from the New Testament and Gnosticism. Viewing it as the mother Dragon which threatens to overwhelm the birth of the God, thus the Hero must defeat the Dragon before becoming the Hero. He later views the Tiamat-Marduk myth as the basis of the Mercurial Serpent image - the Dragon that both destroys and creates itself and represents the Prime Material (or Philosopher's Stone). However Jung does fall back on his Mother Dragon theory in stating that the father figure triumphs over the matriarch thus signifying the transition of the world towards the masculine. He identifies the Dragon directly with the unconscious, which in being vanquished by the Hero indicates the natural state of the conscious. In a sense, both the mother Dragon and the Mercurial Serpent are closely linked, both being creators. So we see Jung's idea of the Dragon as an archetype.
When one considers the various ancient myths, however, one soon finds problems with Jung's rather simplistic, and overtly Christian, notion. Third generation Jungian psychology, called archetypal psychology, rejects the primacy of the hero. Identification with the over-striving ego has gotten us into our modern dilemma that is destroying our planet. Many less heroic approaches to life and the Dragon are equally valid points of view. For those of dragon blood, the dragon is not something to be tamed and controlled, but that to which we naturally submit.
Tiamat is indeed the mother of creation, however she created the mushussu which was later tamed by Marduk. No doubt Jung would again describe this as the victory of the conscious Hero over the unconscious extension of the matriarch, but the mushussu is not a matriarchal figure nor is it vanquished. Instead it is more of a guardian image, tamed by the Hero and protecting the Hero. The Egyptian serpentine Dragons bear even less resemblance to Jung's archetype. Though they are identified as being in conflict with the Gods in a parallel of the Hero myth, yet they do not represent the feminine, nor are they anything to do with the Prime Material - identified in both Osiris and Re. Indeed the conflict between brothers, which is prominent in Egyptian tales (primarily Seth slaying Osiris), also falls contrary to Jung's ideal of the mother-son conflict. Even more at conflict with Jung are the Chinese Lung, who are identified as life-givers in that they bring the spring rains. Although this could be though of as a matriarchal figure, and the association with water as a representation of the Prime Material - said to be a form of water, there is no conflict and it does not play a part in the creation. The Aztec images also fall contrary to the Hero's adversary. If one can salvage anything from the Jungian archetype, it is that the Dragon may be a representation of the life-giving mother, though this is not true for all civilisations.
Unable to justify the Mother Dragon archetype in all civilisations, one has to fall back on Jung's statement that an archetype is something shared (at least) by the collective unconsciousness of a single race. We can then ascribe the matriarchal figure with the Babylonian Tiamat, and as an archetype of the Sumerians. The Egyptian archetype is that of the snake which destroys life and has to be defeated before life is reborn - in other words the Prime Material. Whereas the Chinese archetype is that of the life-giver, the lizard which emerges with the onset of the spring rains.
These archetypes were still influencing the conscious a long time after their inception. The Chinese archetype has remained intact throughout the centuries, it is still the life-giver. The Christians, however, took on the notion of the Dragon as the Hero's adversary identifying it with the alleged Satanic connotations of Pagan religions. It does surface as the matriarchal figure, and as that of the Prime Material, through the writings of the early philosophers however these were eventually denounced by the mainstream - frightened that the old Pagan religions might surface again. The Christian teachings show the domination of the conscious over the unconscious. All in all, though there is evidence to support separate archetypal Dragons, there is none to support a single archetype for the whole human race.
The Image of the Dragon -
Throughout the world, there are references to Dragons in art and literature as far back as the fourth millennium BC. Is it possible that these all share common symbolisms or motifs? If one looks at the ancient forms of Dragons which were carved or engraved before the development of writing in the third millennium, one sees an apparently unconnected series of images. The early Chinese and inhabitants of Pakistan favoured ornaments decorated with snakes and dragon-like composite beasts. The Chinese Pig-Dragon circa 3500 BC is a case in point, though it is not known if this image was considered to be a Dragon or what it symbolised. Early versions of Chinese Lungs were fishes with the heads of men, more akin to merfolk than Dragons. Due to the limited knowledge about these very early stages in civilisation we cannot draw many conclusions from these artifacts.
When writing was developed, in the third millennium BC, we begin to see Dragon images more clearly. We have already discussed the Snake like Serpent images of Egypt, the composite reptile-mammal Dragons of Sumeria, the Crocodile Dragons of early India, and the Lizard like Lungs of China. This is not to forget the Water spirits of North America and the bird-like images of South America. It is not difficult to see that there is little parallel in their physical attributes, but they are still Dragons and they still play a role in the literature of the time.
Following on from those early images, we see the spread of the Chinese Lung image over the Eastern world. Supplanting or enhancing the images from India, and eventually working their way into Persia. However, though the image spread the associated meaning did not. The Persian Dragons were seen as creatures who guarded hordes of treasure and were slain by Heroes who then inherited the treasure. In this we see the birth of the typical Western Dragon image. The Greeks also played their part in developing the Dragon, though they took their inspiration from the Egyptian myths. It is in Greek mythology that we first see Dragons identified with trees - those guarding the Golden Fleece and the Golden Apples are clear evidence of this. This connection recurs in other Dragon myths, most notably in the Norse World Serpent at the roots of the World Tree. The Greek Dragons are still serpentine, though they do have multiple heads. One explanation for the multiple head images comes directly from nature where snakes with two heads are occasionally born and live to a reasonable age. Once can readily imagine the early Greeks being terrified of such a creature and promoting them in their legends.
Following on from the Greek and the Chinese influenced Persian myths, one sees the spread of Christian ideals. Here the Pagan Dragon is identified with the Devil, something to be overcome by the Christian Hero. The Christians seemed to have taken images from all of the early civilisations, the Snake in the Garden of Eden - yet another association of Dragons with trees, which is sometimes represented as a winged devil-headed Dragon. In the Old Testament we find again the identification with water. These horrific images were readily represented in the at of the time.
The Crusades also had a part to play in the development of the Dragon in that it brought back previously discredited tales such as St George and the Dragon - another example of the connection of the Dragon with water as the creature lived in a lake in Libya. At this time the Dragon images were varied, two-footed lizards, beasts resembling Lions, and various forms of winged serpent. Essentially the emphasis was on the Hero or Saint in the image rather than the Dragon, which occurred with regularity - St Philip, St Margaret of Antioch, and St Martha.
Dragons cropped up in alchemical works, being used as a form of code to keep their uninformed helpers in the dark as to what they were actually doing. Lastly, the Christians used Dragons as heraldic emblems, mirroring Hercules, used to symbolise the horrific power in an attempt to demoralise their enemies. In wasn't until 1807 that the Red Dragon was used as the King's Badge for Wales - after being supplanted as a supporter for the Royal Emblem by the Scottish Unicorn in 1603.
Eventually, through the depictions of Dragons in works by such artists as Titian, Tintoretto, and van Haarlem we see the dominance of the four footed, winged serpentine creature. The hoarding of treasure derives directly from the Persian myths that the Crusaders came into contact with. It's ability to breath fire originating with the Egyptians and probably being later associated with the fires of Hell, or representing the false prophets. In the story of St Philip the apostle, the Dragon that the people of Hieropolis in Phrygia were worshipping as Mars is banished but not before it has killed many with its poisonous breath, or false prophecies. Hence we have the image of the Dragon as an evil being, intent on destruction, sitting atop its pile of gold. This imagery is continued right up to the present day, the works of Tolkien show this. In the Silmarillion the representative of the Devil, Morgoth, creates the Dragons in order to defeat the Godly armies of the Elves. The Dragons are killed by Hero figures and in the case of Smaug in the Hobbit, the treasure falls to the righteous. This Christian image can be said to be artificial, or at best composite, its meaning having been twisted to suit the ends of a religion; however we can still see the attributes of old underlying this blasphemous beast.
The Modern Infestation -
When one looks at the historical references to Dragons, one sees several distinct images. So what remains of these in the modern view of Dragons. Well the classical Christian image of the fire breathing winged monster is still with us, a combination of the Lizard and Snake images with fire-breathing and wings as later embellishments. Yet we now see images of Dragons as benevolent creatures, playful creatures, almost pet-like. These can be seen as a further development of the Dragon image, a freeing of the ties of religion and the exploration of something that was previously forbidden. The image of a Dragon as a guardian is returning, as can be seen by the increase in cuddly Dragons that one can buy. The notion of Dragons as pets stems from the myths of old when Dragons were tamed rather than slain - going back as far as the Tiamat-Marduk legend.
The Dragon as a playful image is far more removed, there appears to be no precedent in myth. It could argued that it is a further development of the Dragon as a pet-guardian having been tamed to such a degree, or even as an extension of the Dragon as a riddler as prominent in some Egyptian and Celtic myths. It can also be seen as a complete rejection of the Christian image, the Dragon is now something that adorns the mantelpiece rather than being shunned as blasphemous. There are also connections with snake-worship in that the shamans 'played' with their snakes to show their power over the creatures. With the blending of images in this modern global civilisation one is bound to see many influences in the modern Dragon, however one can still see the basic ancient archetypes at the base of them all.
What evidence is there of the Jungian archetypes in modern civilisation. Well firstly one must consider what happens when different races with different archetypes intermix, as occurs today. Jung is not specific, so one is forced into conjecture. It could be though that the intermingling of the various races is the beginning of a new epoch in human civilisation, which according to Jung would allow a new archetype to be formed or at least the old archetypes to be abandoned. It could also be argued that the combination of differing archetypes causes an imbalance in the collective unconscious allowing all sorts of images to be visualised. Yet it can also be argued that the archetypes remain as inviolate and separate as they always have been.
The ancient Dragon images are still present in modern day views, though much more suppressed. This can be thought of as the rational mind dominating over the unconscious image. The early addition of wings is a very rational step, the Dragons were present in the sky thus they must have wings so that they can fly. This shows a tendency towards Jung's Extroverted Type. The archetypal Dragon is repressed, though it never loses its original meaning. We see this in the development of the guardian image, Dragons as pets., the Dragon is consciously shown to be something that is tamed and controlled. This has to be understood by the Extroverted Type so as to reduce the danger of lapsing into a nervous breakdown as the demands of the unconscious image force themselves onto the conscious producing extremes of either interest of disinterest in everything.
In the case of the Introverted Type, the mythical Dragons would take on powerful and terrifying qualities, almost magical. This would lead to the Introvert fearing all strange and different forms of Dragon as it would symbolise a magical animation of the image which is so attached to him. We see this in the perpetuation of the Dragon as a fearful and powerful creature - the fire-breathing serpent. This is something the Introverted Type must come to terms with if they are not to develop neuroses.
In coming to terms with the Dragon archetype, one must explore its influences over the conscious. This can be best done during symbolic play sessions where the active imagination can be left to roam. Jung was convinced of the healing power of play and the imagination through various media, and its ability to put people in touch with material that is ordinarily repressed. The fantasies thus produced are done so in controllable circumstances. The images these fantasies take are varied and unpredictable for during the state of play people are able to imagine anything. This can take the form of playful Dragons, Dragons doing things that are not in keeping with the Primordial Images. It is probably the best way in which to discover the influences that the archetypal image has over the conscious and rational mind; and in discovering the influences one can come to terms with them.
As for the depiction of Dragons in modern art and literature, there is certainly a paucity of variation in the image. The Dragon is almost always shown with four legs, a serpentine body, and with wings. This is only to be expected due to the dominance of Christianity and the conformity of artists over the centuries to this form. Other types of Dragon, such as the Wyvern and the wyrm, are not given anywhere near the same amount of emphasis. The only other image that endures is that of the Chinese Lung which has remained fairly true to the original despite the additions of successive generations. This is somewhat strange given the veritable plethora of Dragon behavioural types present in art and literature. The guardian Dragon, the playful Dragon, the fire-breathing dragon all share the same physical attributes - a cross between the Egyptian snake images and the Chinese lizards with the rational wings. The fire-breathing notion has been discarded somewhat, it has no real place in ancient mythology, though some form of breath weapon still remains in many tales. What we are seeing is the merging of the ancient archetypes into a composite image that resembles all of them, yet is also removed from them. One global image for one global civilisation.
Dragon Dynasties
Dragon mythos needs to be compared with the touchstone of dragon reality -- the living bloodline of the ancient royal Dragon dynasties. All images of the dragon pale next to its historical and biological manifestion as the ancient royal bloodline leading from the Annunaki through the dragon dynasties to the modern Dragon Court. The dragon is a primordial dynamic, a strange attractor of psyhosocial history, a biological mutation, and much more, not merely in lore but in fact. The bloodline is an invisible network within humanity's collective unconscious. It forms a dynamo that embodies and drives the esoteric nature of our existence.
Egregore (also egregor) is an occult concept representing a "thoughtform" or "collective group mind", an autonomous psychic entity made up of, and influencing, the thoughts of a group of people. The symbiotic relationship between an egregore and its group has been compared to the more recent, non-occult concepts of the corporation as a legal entity and the meme. The word "egregore" derives from the Greek word, ἐγρήγοροι (egrḗgoroi), meaning "watchers" (also transliterated "grigori"). The word appears in the Septuagint translation of the Book of Lamentations,[1] as well as the Book of Jubilees and the Book of Enoch. The Annunaki dragons were also known as "Watchers". Eliphas Lévi, in Le Grand Arcane the Nephilim.("The Great Mystery", 1868) identifies "egregors" (sic) with the tradition concerning the fathers of the Nephilim.
The concept of the egregore as a group thoughtform was developed in works of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and the Rosicrucians. The akashic records (akasha is a Sanskrit word meaning "sky", "space" or "aether") is a term used in theosophy (and Anthroposophy) to describe a compendium of mysticalplane of existence. These records are described as containing all knowledge of human experience and the history of the cosmos. They are metaphorically described as a library; other analogies commonly found in discourse on the subject include a "universal supercomputer" and the "Mind of God". People who describe the records assert that they are constantly updated automatically and that they can be accessed through astral projection[1] or when someone is placed under deep hypnosis. The concept was popularized in the theosophical movements of the 19th century and is derived from Hindu philosophySamkhya. It is promulgated in the Samkhya philosophy that the Akashic records are automatically recorded in the atoms of akasha ("air" or "aether"), one of the five types of atoms visualized as existing in the atomic theory of ancient India.
References: knowledge encoded in a non-physical
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English, Eighth Edition - R. E. Allen (Editor).
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English, Fourth Edition - H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler (Editors).
Mythical Beasts - John Cherry (Editor).
Mysterious Britain - Janet and Colin Bond.
Myth and Symbol in Ancient Egypt - R. T. Rundle Clark.
A Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses - George Hart.
Gods and Myths of Northern Europe - H. R. Ellis Davidson.
The Mabinogion - Jeffrey Gantz (Translator).
Legend of the Chinese Lung - The Chinese "Dragon" - Dr. Ong Hean-Tatt.
Psychological Types - C. G. Jung.
Psychology and Alchemy - C. G. Jung.
Jung on Active Imagination - C. G. Jung (Joan Chodorow - Editor).
Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts - Herbert Silberer.
Dragons, The Modern Infestation - Pamela Wharton Blanpied.
by Laurence Mee (Wyrm)
Before we begin to explore the Dragon as an Archetype, we first must define what we mean by an archetype in this context. The word itself is derived from the Latin archetypum and the Greek arkhetupon (arch as in chief, and tupos as in stamp) and in context it takes on three meanings. We can use it as a reference to a prototype, or initial image, something from which all the various forms of Dragons throughout the world were based on. We can choose the classical Jungian hypothesis of the primitive mental image, inherited from man's earliest ancestors and which is supposedly present in the collective unconscious. Lastly we can use the definition which describes a motif that recurs throughout art and literature. The following parts examine each of these definitions based on the recorded images and myths concerning Dragons. As probably expected, the fourth edition of the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English (published in 1951) does not mention Jung's notion of the primordial image archetype, it being a relatively new meaning that had not been popularised at the time.
The Prototype for the Dragon -
In defining the archetypal Dragon as a prototype image, we are faced with the problem of tracing back all the various Dragon forms to a single source. This is not made any easier considering that many of the myths were formed before writing was developed. To start with, we can explore the very early Dragon myths and attempt to determine a lineage with the later legends.
In early Egypt, the Dragon was chiefly a representation, albeit with some embellishments, of the snake. In Egyptian myth Re, the sun god, travelled through Duat, the underworld, each night. Whilst travelling through the underworld Re reaches a two open doors guarded by snakes, some having human heads and four legs others having three snake heads and wings. Re passes by these without incident as they are only guards. Later Re observes the demise of Apophis, the giant serpent representing chaos, whose severed coils are bound by Aker, a Dragon representing the earth. There are many occurrences of Dragons in Egyptian mythology, another example being Denwen. Denwen was attested in the third millennium BC and is described as a fiery serpent who would have caused a conflagration destroying all of the gods if it had not been thwarted by the King. If one is to draw any conclusion from this it can only be that the Egyptian mythology was influenced by an early form of snake worship.
The Chinese Lung, in contrast to the Egyptian image of the destructive serpent, was more benevolent. The Lung has its origins in the oracle bones of the Shang and the I'Ching, and was ascribed lizard like qualities before it's later association with rain. This association was formed in the second and first millennium BC and though they would take on varied attributes through the centuries, this association remained fixed. The I'Ching was probably used to divine various agricultural concerns - when to plant and when to harvest. It refers to Dragons as the bringers of thunderstorms. The Dragons hibernate over the winter in pools, then in summer they take to the sky bringing on the rains. Azure Dragons were symbols of spring, the sighting of one heralded the onset of the spring thunderstorms and the end of hibernation. The horse-dragon, a creature with hooves on its four legs and curly hair on its back which could walk on water as well as fly. It featured prominently in Chinese mythology emerging from the Yellow River to give the 'River Map' to the legendary Emperor Fu Xi which formed the basis of the I'Ching. The first images of the Lung were actually half-man, half-fish creations, but this soon took on the more lizard like look of the current Chinese Dragons. These representations of Dragons also occur in ancient Japan and Korea, both in the Shinto beliefs and Buddhism.
The Babylonians provide us with a clear picture of a Dragon in the Epic of Creation from the early second millennium BC. It details the struggle of Apsu (god of the primordial waters under the earth) and Tiamat (the sea) against their son Ea. Apsu is defeated by Ea who takes over his domain and produces a son, the god-hero Marduk. Tiamat created all sorts of Dragons, including the mushussu Dragon, in order to have her revenge, but she is defeated in single combat by Marduk and her body is split to form the earth and the sky. The mushussu is subdued by Marduk and takes its place at his feet. In the Babylonian texts Dragons are differentiated from snakes, and whilst they are scaly they also have both reptilian and mammalian characteristics. Thus we have the Babylonian idea of a Dragon as a completely fictional creature with no basis in nature, both as an image of chaos and as a guardian. These images were relatively short lived however, as the Chinese Lungs soon came to dominate in later Near Eastern mythology.
In early India, images of the Dragon were in some ways similar to the Egyptian ones in that they represented the form of the snake. There were those, however, that represented the form of the crocodile, such as the makara. We see through Hindu myth that the Indians identified the Dragon with nature. One of the Indian Dragons, Vritra, caused drought by withholding water in its body until it is slain by Indra, god of rain, with a bolt of lightning thus starting the monsoon. While there are many similarities with the Egyptian images, we can also see influences from the Chinese Lung. The obvious conclusion is that the Indian Dragon had the same background of early snake worship, and to a lesser extent crocodile cults, but was later influenced by the Chinese images.
All of the Eurasian Dragon images can be traced back to the early forms of Egypt, the Near East, and the Far East. This can be clearly seen in the Greek Dragons, the word drakkon meaning large serpent as well as Dragon. The Greeks carried on the idea of the Dragon as a Guardian Serpent - Ladon guarding the Golden Apples of the Hesperides, Colchis guarding the Golden Fleece. We now, however, see the Dragon as a creature that is slain by the hero, rather than tamed. This imagery was to last, becoming eventually a symbol of evil.
Dragons in the Islamic world initially started out as astronomical figures, and were linked to the Egyptian myth of Re's voyage through the underworld. The Dragon Jawzahr was responsible for eclipses and comets, the Dragons Draco and Serpentarius were emblazoned in the stars. There are many tales in Persian mythology of Dragons representing evil being slain by heroes, influenced by the Greek legends. It is here that the idea of Dragons guarding treasure emerges, the treasure eventually passing to the King who represents good. This, however, was not to last for when the Mongols invaded Persia they imposed their own Chinese style images.
Celtic and Nordic dragons were almost certainly derived from the more ancient myths, though there seems few similarities. We have the Midgard Serpent with its myriad of snakes gnawing at the roots of the World Tree - a corruption of the creation myths of Babylon and Egypt. The story of Sigurd and Fafnir shows the destructive qualities of the Dragon but also illustrates the slaying of the Dragon by the hero. The long-ships used by the Vikings bore on their prows the heads of Dragons, in keeping with the association of Dragons with water. The Celts used Dragons as heraldic symbols such as in the story of Hercules, who after triumphing over Ladon carried the image of the Dragon on his shield. The best example of this is the Welsh Legend of the fight between the Red Dragon of Cadwallader representing Wales and the White Dragon representing the Saxons, also mentioned in the tale of Lludd and Llevelys. Of these representations, only the heraldic device would continue to be used after the Christian ideals spread throughout Europe.
Taking much from the Greek and Arabian legends, the Christians were responsible for turning the Dragon into the image we generally associate with it, that of the fire breathing monster. The Christians used the image of the Serpent, or Dragon, to represent evil, and commonly Satan himself. They drew much from the cultures of the lands they encountered - the legend of St George and the Dragon is taken from the Near East. The Christian image of the Dragon, however, is a perverted one being set up in opposition of the pagan religions such as snake worship. The snake is seen as the Devil in the Garden of Eden, the Dragon is seen as the incarnation of evil in many horrific forms to be vanquished by the hero representing the virtues of God. It is known that the early Christians brought people into their religion by all manner of ways, building churches on old pagan sites for example, and casting the pagan Dragon as the personification of evil and having it defeated by the Christian Hero was a typical ploy.
Complicating matters further, we have the apparently totally unconnected development of Dragons in the Americas. There are the lake spirits of the North American creation myths, and there is also the plumed serpent of Central and South America. The Mayan Kukulkan, later the Aztec Quetzalcoatl, was both good and evil and was though to rule the four parts of the earth. The greatest god of the Aztecs was Xiuhtecuhtli who took on many manifestations, one of which being the fire serpent. There are parallels with the Chinese myths in that Quetzalcoatl is described as being able to take the form of the sun and is depicted as being swallowed by the earth serpent thus causing an eclipse.
We have seen how many of the later Dragon myths derived from earlier ones, albeit with some embellishment, some reaching as far back as early snake worship. Yet we cannot ignore the fact that the various ancient Dragon images appeared around the same time with different connotations - the Egyptian serpent, the Babylonian hybrid, and the Chinese lizard. There is no evidence that these originated from a single prototype, and given the dissimilarities between these ancient creatures one must conclude that they arose spontaneously out of the needs of the people to explain various natural phenomenon. In Egypt it explained night and day, in Babylon it formed part of the creation, and in China it was used to predict the spring rains. All we can infer from this is that there was no single prototype for the Dragon myth, rather there were several, probably one for each centre of ancient civilisation.
The Jungian Dragon
In trying to define the archetypal Dragon in Jungian terms, we must first understand Jung's notion of the archetype. Jung refers to the Archetype as the 'type' in the psyche, an inner mental image (type being derived from the Greek tupos meaning imprint or blow). Though an archetype as an imprint presupposes that there was an imprinter in the first place, Jung does not concern himself with this, rather he concentrates on the image within the collective unconscious that dominates when there is no other rational thoughts. The unconscious is said to modify the conscious. Jung's idea of the archetype as a Primordial Image required that it was at least common to entire races, or entire epochs, the most powerful archetypes being common to all races at all times. It also required that the image was in close accord to the ancient myths and symbols. The ancient symbols were supposedly created from the collective unconscious to explain certain phenomena of the world, rational thought being impossible at that time.
Jung referred to Dragons in a number of his works. He initially cites it as the arch-enemy of the Hero archetype, drawing mainly from the New Testament and Gnosticism. Viewing it as the mother Dragon which threatens to overwhelm the birth of the God, thus the Hero must defeat the Dragon before becoming the Hero. He later views the Tiamat-Marduk myth as the basis of the Mercurial Serpent image - the Dragon that both destroys and creates itself and represents the Prime Material (or Philosopher's Stone). However Jung does fall back on his Mother Dragon theory in stating that the father figure triumphs over the matriarch thus signifying the transition of the world towards the masculine. He identifies the Dragon directly with the unconscious, which in being vanquished by the Hero indicates the natural state of the conscious. In a sense, both the mother Dragon and the Mercurial Serpent are closely linked, both being creators. So we see Jung's idea of the Dragon as an archetype.
When one considers the various ancient myths, however, one soon finds problems with Jung's rather simplistic, and overtly Christian, notion. Third generation Jungian psychology, called archetypal psychology, rejects the primacy of the hero. Identification with the over-striving ego has gotten us into our modern dilemma that is destroying our planet. Many less heroic approaches to life and the Dragon are equally valid points of view. For those of dragon blood, the dragon is not something to be tamed and controlled, but that to which we naturally submit.
Tiamat is indeed the mother of creation, however she created the mushussu which was later tamed by Marduk. No doubt Jung would again describe this as the victory of the conscious Hero over the unconscious extension of the matriarch, but the mushussu is not a matriarchal figure nor is it vanquished. Instead it is more of a guardian image, tamed by the Hero and protecting the Hero. The Egyptian serpentine Dragons bear even less resemblance to Jung's archetype. Though they are identified as being in conflict with the Gods in a parallel of the Hero myth, yet they do not represent the feminine, nor are they anything to do with the Prime Material - identified in both Osiris and Re. Indeed the conflict between brothers, which is prominent in Egyptian tales (primarily Seth slaying Osiris), also falls contrary to Jung's ideal of the mother-son conflict. Even more at conflict with Jung are the Chinese Lung, who are identified as life-givers in that they bring the spring rains. Although this could be though of as a matriarchal figure, and the association with water as a representation of the Prime Material - said to be a form of water, there is no conflict and it does not play a part in the creation. The Aztec images also fall contrary to the Hero's adversary. If one can salvage anything from the Jungian archetype, it is that the Dragon may be a representation of the life-giving mother, though this is not true for all civilisations.
Unable to justify the Mother Dragon archetype in all civilisations, one has to fall back on Jung's statement that an archetype is something shared (at least) by the collective unconsciousness of a single race. We can then ascribe the matriarchal figure with the Babylonian Tiamat, and as an archetype of the Sumerians. The Egyptian archetype is that of the snake which destroys life and has to be defeated before life is reborn - in other words the Prime Material. Whereas the Chinese archetype is that of the life-giver, the lizard which emerges with the onset of the spring rains.
These archetypes were still influencing the conscious a long time after their inception. The Chinese archetype has remained intact throughout the centuries, it is still the life-giver. The Christians, however, took on the notion of the Dragon as the Hero's adversary identifying it with the alleged Satanic connotations of Pagan religions. It does surface as the matriarchal figure, and as that of the Prime Material, through the writings of the early philosophers however these were eventually denounced by the mainstream - frightened that the old Pagan religions might surface again. The Christian teachings show the domination of the conscious over the unconscious. All in all, though there is evidence to support separate archetypal Dragons, there is none to support a single archetype for the whole human race.
The Image of the Dragon -
Throughout the world, there are references to Dragons in art and literature as far back as the fourth millennium BC. Is it possible that these all share common symbolisms or motifs? If one looks at the ancient forms of Dragons which were carved or engraved before the development of writing in the third millennium, one sees an apparently unconnected series of images. The early Chinese and inhabitants of Pakistan favoured ornaments decorated with snakes and dragon-like composite beasts. The Chinese Pig-Dragon circa 3500 BC is a case in point, though it is not known if this image was considered to be a Dragon or what it symbolised. Early versions of Chinese Lungs were fishes with the heads of men, more akin to merfolk than Dragons. Due to the limited knowledge about these very early stages in civilisation we cannot draw many conclusions from these artifacts.
When writing was developed, in the third millennium BC, we begin to see Dragon images more clearly. We have already discussed the Snake like Serpent images of Egypt, the composite reptile-mammal Dragons of Sumeria, the Crocodile Dragons of early India, and the Lizard like Lungs of China. This is not to forget the Water spirits of North America and the bird-like images of South America. It is not difficult to see that there is little parallel in their physical attributes, but they are still Dragons and they still play a role in the literature of the time.
Following on from those early images, we see the spread of the Chinese Lung image over the Eastern world. Supplanting or enhancing the images from India, and eventually working their way into Persia. However, though the image spread the associated meaning did not. The Persian Dragons were seen as creatures who guarded hordes of treasure and were slain by Heroes who then inherited the treasure. In this we see the birth of the typical Western Dragon image. The Greeks also played their part in developing the Dragon, though they took their inspiration from the Egyptian myths. It is in Greek mythology that we first see Dragons identified with trees - those guarding the Golden Fleece and the Golden Apples are clear evidence of this. This connection recurs in other Dragon myths, most notably in the Norse World Serpent at the roots of the World Tree. The Greek Dragons are still serpentine, though they do have multiple heads. One explanation for the multiple head images comes directly from nature where snakes with two heads are occasionally born and live to a reasonable age. Once can readily imagine the early Greeks being terrified of such a creature and promoting them in their legends.
Following on from the Greek and the Chinese influenced Persian myths, one sees the spread of Christian ideals. Here the Pagan Dragon is identified with the Devil, something to be overcome by the Christian Hero. The Christians seemed to have taken images from all of the early civilisations, the Snake in the Garden of Eden - yet another association of Dragons with trees, which is sometimes represented as a winged devil-headed Dragon. In the Old Testament we find again the identification with water. These horrific images were readily represented in the at of the time.
The Crusades also had a part to play in the development of the Dragon in that it brought back previously discredited tales such as St George and the Dragon - another example of the connection of the Dragon with water as the creature lived in a lake in Libya. At this time the Dragon images were varied, two-footed lizards, beasts resembling Lions, and various forms of winged serpent. Essentially the emphasis was on the Hero or Saint in the image rather than the Dragon, which occurred with regularity - St Philip, St Margaret of Antioch, and St Martha.
Dragons cropped up in alchemical works, being used as a form of code to keep their uninformed helpers in the dark as to what they were actually doing. Lastly, the Christians used Dragons as heraldic emblems, mirroring Hercules, used to symbolise the horrific power in an attempt to demoralise their enemies. In wasn't until 1807 that the Red Dragon was used as the King's Badge for Wales - after being supplanted as a supporter for the Royal Emblem by the Scottish Unicorn in 1603.
Eventually, through the depictions of Dragons in works by such artists as Titian, Tintoretto, and van Haarlem we see the dominance of the four footed, winged serpentine creature. The hoarding of treasure derives directly from the Persian myths that the Crusaders came into contact with. It's ability to breath fire originating with the Egyptians and probably being later associated with the fires of Hell, or representing the false prophets. In the story of St Philip the apostle, the Dragon that the people of Hieropolis in Phrygia were worshipping as Mars is banished but not before it has killed many with its poisonous breath, or false prophecies. Hence we have the image of the Dragon as an evil being, intent on destruction, sitting atop its pile of gold. This imagery is continued right up to the present day, the works of Tolkien show this. In the Silmarillion the representative of the Devil, Morgoth, creates the Dragons in order to defeat the Godly armies of the Elves. The Dragons are killed by Hero figures and in the case of Smaug in the Hobbit, the treasure falls to the righteous. This Christian image can be said to be artificial, or at best composite, its meaning having been twisted to suit the ends of a religion; however we can still see the attributes of old underlying this blasphemous beast.
The Modern Infestation -
When one looks at the historical references to Dragons, one sees several distinct images. So what remains of these in the modern view of Dragons. Well the classical Christian image of the fire breathing winged monster is still with us, a combination of the Lizard and Snake images with fire-breathing and wings as later embellishments. Yet we now see images of Dragons as benevolent creatures, playful creatures, almost pet-like. These can be seen as a further development of the Dragon image, a freeing of the ties of religion and the exploration of something that was previously forbidden. The image of a Dragon as a guardian is returning, as can be seen by the increase in cuddly Dragons that one can buy. The notion of Dragons as pets stems from the myths of old when Dragons were tamed rather than slain - going back as far as the Tiamat-Marduk legend.
The Dragon as a playful image is far more removed, there appears to be no precedent in myth. It could argued that it is a further development of the Dragon as a pet-guardian having been tamed to such a degree, or even as an extension of the Dragon as a riddler as prominent in some Egyptian and Celtic myths. It can also be seen as a complete rejection of the Christian image, the Dragon is now something that adorns the mantelpiece rather than being shunned as blasphemous. There are also connections with snake-worship in that the shamans 'played' with their snakes to show their power over the creatures. With the blending of images in this modern global civilisation one is bound to see many influences in the modern Dragon, however one can still see the basic ancient archetypes at the base of them all.
What evidence is there of the Jungian archetypes in modern civilisation. Well firstly one must consider what happens when different races with different archetypes intermix, as occurs today. Jung is not specific, so one is forced into conjecture. It could be though that the intermingling of the various races is the beginning of a new epoch in human civilisation, which according to Jung would allow a new archetype to be formed or at least the old archetypes to be abandoned. It could also be argued that the combination of differing archetypes causes an imbalance in the collective unconscious allowing all sorts of images to be visualised. Yet it can also be argued that the archetypes remain as inviolate and separate as they always have been.
The ancient Dragon images are still present in modern day views, though much more suppressed. This can be thought of as the rational mind dominating over the unconscious image. The early addition of wings is a very rational step, the Dragons were present in the sky thus they must have wings so that they can fly. This shows a tendency towards Jung's Extroverted Type. The archetypal Dragon is repressed, though it never loses its original meaning. We see this in the development of the guardian image, Dragons as pets., the Dragon is consciously shown to be something that is tamed and controlled. This has to be understood by the Extroverted Type so as to reduce the danger of lapsing into a nervous breakdown as the demands of the unconscious image force themselves onto the conscious producing extremes of either interest of disinterest in everything.
In the case of the Introverted Type, the mythical Dragons would take on powerful and terrifying qualities, almost magical. This would lead to the Introvert fearing all strange and different forms of Dragon as it would symbolise a magical animation of the image which is so attached to him. We see this in the perpetuation of the Dragon as a fearful and powerful creature - the fire-breathing serpent. This is something the Introverted Type must come to terms with if they are not to develop neuroses.
In coming to terms with the Dragon archetype, one must explore its influences over the conscious. This can be best done during symbolic play sessions where the active imagination can be left to roam. Jung was convinced of the healing power of play and the imagination through various media, and its ability to put people in touch with material that is ordinarily repressed. The fantasies thus produced are done so in controllable circumstances. The images these fantasies take are varied and unpredictable for during the state of play people are able to imagine anything. This can take the form of playful Dragons, Dragons doing things that are not in keeping with the Primordial Images. It is probably the best way in which to discover the influences that the archetypal image has over the conscious and rational mind; and in discovering the influences one can come to terms with them.
As for the depiction of Dragons in modern art and literature, there is certainly a paucity of variation in the image. The Dragon is almost always shown with four legs, a serpentine body, and with wings. This is only to be expected due to the dominance of Christianity and the conformity of artists over the centuries to this form. Other types of Dragon, such as the Wyvern and the wyrm, are not given anywhere near the same amount of emphasis. The only other image that endures is that of the Chinese Lung which has remained fairly true to the original despite the additions of successive generations. This is somewhat strange given the veritable plethora of Dragon behavioural types present in art and literature. The guardian Dragon, the playful Dragon, the fire-breathing dragon all share the same physical attributes - a cross between the Egyptian snake images and the Chinese lizards with the rational wings. The fire-breathing notion has been discarded somewhat, it has no real place in ancient mythology, though some form of breath weapon still remains in many tales. What we are seeing is the merging of the ancient archetypes into a composite image that resembles all of them, yet is also removed from them. One global image for one global civilisation.
Dragon Dynasties
Dragon mythos needs to be compared with the touchstone of dragon reality -- the living bloodline of the ancient royal Dragon dynasties. All images of the dragon pale next to its historical and biological manifestion as the ancient royal bloodline leading from the Annunaki through the dragon dynasties to the modern Dragon Court. The dragon is a primordial dynamic, a strange attractor of psyhosocial history, a biological mutation, and much more, not merely in lore but in fact. The bloodline is an invisible network within humanity's collective unconscious. It forms a dynamo that embodies and drives the esoteric nature of our existence.
Egregore (also egregor) is an occult concept representing a "thoughtform" or "collective group mind", an autonomous psychic entity made up of, and influencing, the thoughts of a group of people. The symbiotic relationship between an egregore and its group has been compared to the more recent, non-occult concepts of the corporation as a legal entity and the meme. The word "egregore" derives from the Greek word, ἐγρήγοροι (egrḗgoroi), meaning "watchers" (also transliterated "grigori"). The word appears in the Septuagint translation of the Book of Lamentations,[1] as well as the Book of Jubilees and the Book of Enoch. The Annunaki dragons were also known as "Watchers". Eliphas Lévi, in Le Grand Arcane the Nephilim.("The Great Mystery", 1868) identifies "egregors" (sic) with the tradition concerning the fathers of the Nephilim.
The concept of the egregore as a group thoughtform was developed in works of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and the Rosicrucians. The akashic records (akasha is a Sanskrit word meaning "sky", "space" or "aether") is a term used in theosophy (and Anthroposophy) to describe a compendium of mysticalplane of existence. These records are described as containing all knowledge of human experience and the history of the cosmos. They are metaphorically described as a library; other analogies commonly found in discourse on the subject include a "universal supercomputer" and the "Mind of God". People who describe the records assert that they are constantly updated automatically and that they can be accessed through astral projection[1] or when someone is placed under deep hypnosis. The concept was popularized in the theosophical movements of the 19th century and is derived from Hindu philosophySamkhya. It is promulgated in the Samkhya philosophy that the Akashic records are automatically recorded in the atoms of akasha ("air" or "aether"), one of the five types of atoms visualized as existing in the atomic theory of ancient India.
References: knowledge encoded in a non-physical
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English, Eighth Edition - R. E. Allen (Editor).
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English, Fourth Edition - H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler (Editors).
Mythical Beasts - John Cherry (Editor).
Mysterious Britain - Janet and Colin Bond.
Myth and Symbol in Ancient Egypt - R. T. Rundle Clark.
A Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses - George Hart.
Gods and Myths of Northern Europe - H. R. Ellis Davidson.
The Mabinogion - Jeffrey Gantz (Translator).
Legend of the Chinese Lung - The Chinese "Dragon" - Dr. Ong Hean-Tatt.
Psychological Types - C. G. Jung.
Psychology and Alchemy - C. G. Jung.
Jung on Active Imagination - C. G. Jung (Joan Chodorow - Editor).
Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts - Herbert Silberer.
Dragons, The Modern Infestation - Pamela Wharton Blanpied.
The Footprints of Dragons by Charles Johnson
By Lourella Rouster;
reprinted through permission from Revolution Against Evolution (www.rae.org).
Originally published in 1978, Creation Social Sciences & Humanities Quarterly (no longer being published);
Revised 1997.
Almost all our early ancestors believed the earth was inhabited, especially in unknown regions, by dragons. Where did they get such an idea? Did it stem from a universal human imagination? An inherited need or instinct? An inherited subconscious memory of dinosaurs? All these suggestions have been made, and taken seriously by groups of people. I believe dragons are the reflection, sometimes embellished through retelling but mostly historical, of actual physical encounters of human beings with dinosaurs.
Francis Schaeffer, philosopher-theologian, has written, "I am not at all convinced it has been proven that the dinosaurs became extinct prior to the advent of man. I believe there is much evidence, ancient and modern, to indicate that dinosaurs and humankind existed on earth contemporaneously, and that human beings, while they probably lived in different regions than dinosaurs for the most part, did on many occasions encounter the sometimes huge and fearsome creatures. The memories of these encounters were so vivid and deep that they were passed down in a multitude of cultures as legends, painted on cave walls, represented in pottery, and written of in literature.
Etymology of "dragon"
The word "dragon," according to the Oxford English Dictionary (1966), is derived from the Old French, which in turn was derived from the Latin dracon (serpent), which in turn was derived from the Greek Spakov (serpent), from the Greek aorist verb, Spakelv (to see clearly). It is related to many other ancient words related to sight, such as Sanskrit darc (see), Avestic darstis (sight), Old Irish derc (eye), Old English torht, Old Saxon torht and Old High German zoraht, all meaning clear, or bright. The roots of the word can be traced, then, back to most early Indo-european tongues. This may indicate that it is possible the immediate ancestor of the word was a part of the original hypothetical Indo-european tongue, which may have been a part of the vocabulary of Japheth's descendants, soon after the Flood and the dispersion from Babel.
The Oxford English Dictionary points out that Spakelv is derived from the Greek stem Spak meaning strong. The connection with dragons is obvious. According to the OED, the word was first used in English about 1220 A.D. It was used in English versions of the Bible from 1340 on.
Also
c.1220, from O.Fr. dragon, from L. draconem (nom. draco) "serpent, dragon," from Gk. drakon (gen. drakontos) "serpent, seafish," from drak-, strong aorist stem of derkesthai "to see clearly." But perhaps the lit. sense is "the one with the (deadly) glance." The young are dragonets (14c.). Obsolete drake "dragon" is an older borrowing of the same word. Used in the Bible to translate Heb. tannin "a great sea-monster," and tan, a desert mammal now believed to be the jackal. Dragonfly is from 1626
The key word is Derkesthai, to see clearly. I want you to understand that the the word Dragon, the symbology of the word means to See Clearly. If you proclaim yourself to be a Dragon, you are saying that you see clearly.
Many people and… Orders and Secret societies would like to claim different, pronounce their… bloodline as being of Dragon and that they are special. Know that just because your ancestors may have…. Seen clearly does not mean you do. That is like saying "Oh, I never went to med school, but my father was a surgeon so I can cut on you."
Derkesthai is a Greek word and is often, or was, referred also to the Scythian People.
So, you do have two types of Dragons, those of Scythian Bloodline and those that see clearly.
Original, even to the Scythian Culture, a Dragon was a special class of people that… saw clearly. They where the priests, witches, healers, wizards, Wise ones of the community.
Today, other then what many say, there are very few of the Scythian people left. Scythia was a race of people that go back to the 8th century BC and lasted to the 2cond century BC. Thousands of years have lapsed since this race was conquered and I assure you, anyone saying that they are of pure blood of the Derkesthai Race are delusional. This race was a very long time ago and has been well, mixed into the many conquering races that followed. There are many that do have the genetic material of this race within them. However, it is so minimal that, to claim you see clearly based solely on the fact that you, like myself, are of this culture is ridiculous and delusional. To see clearly, takes more then just DNA.
So, are the Dragon People based solely on the fact you have a residual DNA strand saying you are my relative. No. Those that claim to be a Dragon People must recognize the symbological nature of the term and its relationship to Enlightenment.
Today, is a new age, a new era, a new world. Today, the word Dragon has been represented by many definitions however the etymology of the word, To see Clearly, must be considered first. So, in keeping with the word and its original meaning, a Dragon is someone that sees clearly.
What doea it mean to see clearly.
To see clearly means to look at one self with eyes that where not given them. Everything in life was given you. Well, at least most of you. You where born with a body given you by your mother growing you and your father passing the DNA juice to mom. (Interesting fact: You contain the living DNA cells that your ancestors had in their bodies 15 generations back.) You where given a name, a culture, a race, an education, a socially engineered society belief. Your very thoughts, where given and programmed by others for you. So what does it mean to see clearly. To drop all that you have been given and come to the quintessence of who you are. From that nothingness, you see clearly. So all of you, brothers and sisters that are of my genetic family, claiming to be clear sighted because of your ancestry, hmmmm!!!!! You are looking at life from eyes that where given you and you still have not found your eyes.
Know, that anyone can be a Dragon, in the symbological term. No not anyone can be a Dragon by race… but then again even if your great ancestry 33 and more generations ago was a Scythian, that really does not mean crap. You have been mixed up with so many other races. In the words of Roger…. "PPPPPPPPlease Jessica." Your ancestral DNA may give you advantages here, and there however, in reality… your ancestors can not do your evolutionary work for you. Only you can.
So if you desire to step upon the path of the Dragon, seer, or one that sees clearly. That path is not subjected by your ancestral qualification and those that try to tell you other wise… well they do not see clearly.
By Lourella Rouster;
reprinted through permission from Revolution Against Evolution (www.rae.org).
Originally published in 1978, Creation Social Sciences & Humanities Quarterly (no longer being published);
Revised 1997.
Almost all our early ancestors believed the earth was inhabited, especially in unknown regions, by dragons. Where did they get such an idea? Did it stem from a universal human imagination? An inherited need or instinct? An inherited subconscious memory of dinosaurs? All these suggestions have been made, and taken seriously by groups of people. I believe dragons are the reflection, sometimes embellished through retelling but mostly historical, of actual physical encounters of human beings with dinosaurs.
Francis Schaeffer, philosopher-theologian, has written, "I am not at all convinced it has been proven that the dinosaurs became extinct prior to the advent of man. I believe there is much evidence, ancient and modern, to indicate that dinosaurs and humankind existed on earth contemporaneously, and that human beings, while they probably lived in different regions than dinosaurs for the most part, did on many occasions encounter the sometimes huge and fearsome creatures. The memories of these encounters were so vivid and deep that they were passed down in a multitude of cultures as legends, painted on cave walls, represented in pottery, and written of in literature.
Etymology of "dragon"
The word "dragon," according to the Oxford English Dictionary (1966), is derived from the Old French, which in turn was derived from the Latin dracon (serpent), which in turn was derived from the Greek Spakov (serpent), from the Greek aorist verb, Spakelv (to see clearly). It is related to many other ancient words related to sight, such as Sanskrit darc (see), Avestic darstis (sight), Old Irish derc (eye), Old English torht, Old Saxon torht and Old High German zoraht, all meaning clear, or bright. The roots of the word can be traced, then, back to most early Indo-european tongues. This may indicate that it is possible the immediate ancestor of the word was a part of the original hypothetical Indo-european tongue, which may have been a part of the vocabulary of Japheth's descendants, soon after the Flood and the dispersion from Babel.
The Oxford English Dictionary points out that Spakelv is derived from the Greek stem Spak meaning strong. The connection with dragons is obvious. According to the OED, the word was first used in English about 1220 A.D. It was used in English versions of the Bible from 1340 on.
Also
c.1220, from O.Fr. dragon, from L. draconem (nom. draco) "serpent, dragon," from Gk. drakon (gen. drakontos) "serpent, seafish," from drak-, strong aorist stem of derkesthai "to see clearly." But perhaps the lit. sense is "the one with the (deadly) glance." The young are dragonets (14c.). Obsolete drake "dragon" is an older borrowing of the same word. Used in the Bible to translate Heb. tannin "a great sea-monster," and tan, a desert mammal now believed to be the jackal. Dragonfly is from 1626
The key word is Derkesthai, to see clearly. I want you to understand that the the word Dragon, the symbology of the word means to See Clearly. If you proclaim yourself to be a Dragon, you are saying that you see clearly.
Many people and… Orders and Secret societies would like to claim different, pronounce their… bloodline as being of Dragon and that they are special. Know that just because your ancestors may have…. Seen clearly does not mean you do. That is like saying "Oh, I never went to med school, but my father was a surgeon so I can cut on you."
Derkesthai is a Greek word and is often, or was, referred also to the Scythian People.
So, you do have two types of Dragons, those of Scythian Bloodline and those that see clearly.
Original, even to the Scythian Culture, a Dragon was a special class of people that… saw clearly. They where the priests, witches, healers, wizards, Wise ones of the community.
Today, other then what many say, there are very few of the Scythian people left. Scythia was a race of people that go back to the 8th century BC and lasted to the 2cond century BC. Thousands of years have lapsed since this race was conquered and I assure you, anyone saying that they are of pure blood of the Derkesthai Race are delusional. This race was a very long time ago and has been well, mixed into the many conquering races that followed. There are many that do have the genetic material of this race within them. However, it is so minimal that, to claim you see clearly based solely on the fact that you, like myself, are of this culture is ridiculous and delusional. To see clearly, takes more then just DNA.
So, are the Dragon People based solely on the fact you have a residual DNA strand saying you are my relative. No. Those that claim to be a Dragon People must recognize the symbological nature of the term and its relationship to Enlightenment.
Today, is a new age, a new era, a new world. Today, the word Dragon has been represented by many definitions however the etymology of the word, To see Clearly, must be considered first. So, in keeping with the word and its original meaning, a Dragon is someone that sees clearly.
What doea it mean to see clearly.
To see clearly means to look at one self with eyes that where not given them. Everything in life was given you. Well, at least most of you. You where born with a body given you by your mother growing you and your father passing the DNA juice to mom. (Interesting fact: You contain the living DNA cells that your ancestors had in their bodies 15 generations back.) You where given a name, a culture, a race, an education, a socially engineered society belief. Your very thoughts, where given and programmed by others for you. So what does it mean to see clearly. To drop all that you have been given and come to the quintessence of who you are. From that nothingness, you see clearly. So all of you, brothers and sisters that are of my genetic family, claiming to be clear sighted because of your ancestry, hmmmm!!!!! You are looking at life from eyes that where given you and you still have not found your eyes.
Know, that anyone can be a Dragon, in the symbological term. No not anyone can be a Dragon by race… but then again even if your great ancestry 33 and more generations ago was a Scythian, that really does not mean crap. You have been mixed up with so many other races. In the words of Roger…. "PPPPPPPPlease Jessica." Your ancestral DNA may give you advantages here, and there however, in reality… your ancestors can not do your evolutionary work for you. Only you can.
So if you desire to step upon the path of the Dragon, seer, or one that sees clearly. That path is not subjected by your ancestral qualification and those that try to tell you other wise… well they do not see clearly.
Dragon Lore
The dragon is a
mythical creature typically depicted as a large and powerful serpent or other
reptile with magical or spiritual qualities. Mythological creatures possessing
some or most of the characteristics typically associated with dragons are common
throughout the world's cultures. It is well known that there is a negative image
in the western world of the dragon, but in East Asia, especially in China, the
dragon has a positive image and is a benevolent god.
Although dragons (or dragon-like creatures) occur commonly in legends around the world, different cultures have perceived them differently. Chinese dragons and Eastern dragons generally, are usually seen as benevolent, whereas European dragons are usually malevolent (there are of course exceptions to these rules). Malevolent dragons also occur in Persian mythology (see Azhi Dahaka) and other cultures.
Dragons are particularly popular in China. Along with the phoenix, the dragon was a symbol of the Chinese emperors. Dragon costumes manipulated by several people are a common sight at Chinese festivals.
Dragons are often held to have major spiritual significance in various religions and cultures around the world. In many Eastern and Native American cultures dragons were, and in some cultures still are, revered as representative of the primal forces of nature and the universe. They are associated with wisdom—often said to be wiser than humans—and longevity. They are commonly said to possess some form of magic or other supernormal power, and are often associated with wells, rain, and rivers. In some cultures, they are said to be capable of human speech. They are also said to be able to talk to all animals and converse with humans.
The term dragoon, for infantry that move around by horse, yet still fight as foot soldiers, is derived from their early firearm, the "dragon", a wide-bore musket that spat flame when it fired, and was thus named for the mythical beast.
Joseph Campbell in the The Power of Myth viewed the dragon as a symbol of divinity or transcendence because it represents the unity of Heaven and Earth by combining the serpent form (earthbound) with the bat/bird form (airborne).
Dragons embody both male and female traits as in the example from Aboriginal myth that raises baby humans to adulthood training them for survival in the world. Another contrast in the way dragons are portrayed is their ability to breathe fire but live in the ocean--water and fire together. And like in the quote from Joseph Campbell above, they also include the opposing elements of earth and sky. Dragons represent the joining of the opposing forces of the cosmos.
Yet another symbolic view of dragons is the Ouroborus, or the dragon encircling and eating its own tail. When shaped like this the dragon becomes a symbol of eternity, natural cycles, and completion.
The Latin word for a dragon, draco (genitive: draconis), actually means snake or serpent, emphasizing the European association of dragons with snakes, not lizards or dinosaurs as they are commonly associated with today. The Medieval Biblical interpretation of the Devil being associated with the serpent who tempted Adam and Eve, thus gave a snake-like dragon connotations of evil. Generally speaking, Biblical literature itself did not portray this association (save for the Book of Revelation, whose treatment of dragons is detailed below). The demonic opponents of God, Christ, or good Christians have commonly been portrayed as reptilian or chimeric.
In the Book of Job Chapter 41, there are references to a sea monster Leviathan, which has some dragon-like characteristics.
In Revelation 12:3, an enormous red beast with seven heads is described, whose tail sweeps one third of the stars from heaven down to earth (held to be symbolic of the fall of the angels, though not commonly held among biblical scholars). In most translations, the word "dragon" is used to describe the beast, since in the original Greek the word used is drakon.
In iconography, some Catholic saints are depicted in the act of killing a dragon. This is one of the common aspects of Saint George in Egyptian Coptic iconography, on the coat of arms of Moscow, and in English and Catalan legend. In Italy, Saint Mercurialis, first bishop of the city of Forlì, is also depicted slaying a dragon. Saint Julian of Le Mans, Saint Veran, Saint Crescentinus, Saint Margaret of Antioch, Saint Martha, and Saint Leonard of Noblac were also venerated as dragon-slayers.
However, some say that dragons were good, before they fell from grace, as humans did from the Garden of Eden after Adam and Eve's Original Sin was committed. Also contributing to the good dragon argument in Christianity is the fact that, if they did exist, they were created as were any other creature, as seen in Dragons In Our Midst, a contemporary Christian book series by author Bryan Davis.
Chinese Zodiac
The years 1916, 1928, 1940, 1952, 1964, 1976, 1988, 2000, 2012, 2024, 2036, 2048, 2060 etc. (every 12 years — 8 AD) are considered the Year of the Dragon in the Chinese zodiac.
The Chinese zodiac purports that people born in the Year of the Dragon are healthy, energetic, excitable, short-tempered, and stubborn. They are also supposedly honest, sensitive, brave, and inspire confidence and trust. The Chinese zodiac purports that people whose zodiac sign is the dragon are the most eccentric of any in the eastern zodiac. They supposedly neither borrow money nor make flowery speeches, but tend to be soft-hearted which sometimes gives others an advantage over them. They are purported to be compatible with people whose zodiac sign is of the rat, snake, monkey, and rooster.
Dragons are commonly symbols of good luck or health in some parts of Asia, and are also sometimes worshipped. Asian dragons are considered as mythical rulers of weather, specifically rain and water, and are usually depicted as the guardians of pearls.
In China, as well as in Japan and Korea, the Azure Dragon is one of the Four Symbols of the Chinese constellation, representing spring, the element of Wood and the east. Chinese dragons are often shown with large pearls in their grasp, though some say that it is really the dragon's egg. The Chinese believed that the dragons lived underwater most of the time, and would sometimes offer rice as a gift to the dragons. The dragons were not shown with wings like the European dragons because it was believed they could fly using magic.
A Yellow dragon (Huang long) with five claws on each foot, on the other hand, represents the change of seasons, the element of Earth (the Chinese 'fifth element') and the center. Furthermore, it symbolizes imperial authority in China, and indirectly the Chinese people as well. Chinese people often use the term "Descendants of the Dragon" as a sign of ethnic identity. The dragon is also the symbol of royalty in Bhutan (whose sovereign is known as Druk Gyalpo, or Dragon King).
A naga guarding the Temple of Wat Sisaket in Viang Chan, LaosIn Vietnam, the dragon is the most important and sacred symbol. According to the ancient creation myth of the Kinh people, all Vietnamese people are descended from dragons through L?c Long Quân, who married Âu Co, a fairy. The eldest of their 100 sons founded the first dynasty of Hùng Vuong Emperors.
The Naga - a minor deity taking the form of a serpent - is common within both the Hindu and Buddhist traditions. Technically, the naga is not a dragon, though it is often taken as such; the term is ambiguous, and refers both to a tribe of people known as 'Nagas', as well as to elephants and ordinary snakes. Within a mythological context, it refers to a deity assuming the form of a serpent with either one or many heads.
Occasionally the Buddha is depicted as sitting upon the coils of a serpent, with a fan of several serpent heads extending over his body. This is in reference to Mucalinda, a Naga that protected Sakyamuni Buddha from the elements during the time of his enlightenment. Separated from the contextualising effect of the Buddha story, people may see only the head and thus infer that Mucalinda is a dragon, rather than a deity in serpentine form. Stairway railings on Buddhist temples will occasionally be worked to resemble the body of a Naga with the head at the base of the railing. In Thailand, the head of Naga, in a more impressionistic form, can be seen at the corners of temple roofs, with Naga’s body forming the ornamentation on roofline eves up to the gables.
Where the original concept of a dragon came from is unknown, as there is no accepted scientific theory nor any evidence to support the past or present existence of dragons. While the concept of dragons may be true or false, the fact that dragons are a myth in so many places that had no contact with each other suggests that dragons are possibly extrapolations based upon some ordinary forms of creature coupled with common psychological tendencies amongst disparate groups of humanity.
Some believe that the dragon may have had a real-life counterpart from which the various legends arose — typically dinosaurs or other archosaurs are mentioned as a possibility — but there is no physical evidence to support this claim, only alleged sightings collected by cryptozoologists. In a common variation of this hypothesis, giant lizards such as Megalania are substituted for the living dinosaurs. All of these hypotheses are widely considered to be pseudoscience or myth.
Dinosaur fossils were once thought of as "dragon bones" — a discovery in 300 BC in Wucheng, Sichuan, China, was labeled as such by Chang Qu. It is unlikely, however, that these finds alone prompted the legends of flying monsters, but may have served to reinforce them.
Herodotus, often called the "father of history", visited Judea c.450 BC and wrote that he had heard of caged dragons in nearby Arabia, near Petra, Jordan. Curious, he travelled to the area and found many skeletal remains of serpents and mentioned reports of flying serpents flying from Arabia into Egypt but being fought off by Ibises Histories. Histories (Greek). Retrieved on 2006-06-14.
According to Marco Polo's journals, Polo was walking through Anatolia into Persia and came upon real live flying dragons that attacked his party caravan in the desert and he reported that they were very frightening beasts that almost killed him in an attack. Polo did not write his journals down — they were dictated to his cellmate in prison, and there is much dispute over whether this writer may have invented the dragon to embellish the tale.Polo was also the first western man to describe Chinese "dragon bones" with early writing on them. These bones were presumably either fossils (as described by Chang Qu) or the bones of other animals.
It has also been suggested by proponents of catastrophism that comets or meteor showers gave rise to legends about fiery serpents in the sky. In Old English, comets were sometimes called fyrene dracan or fiery dragons. Volcanic eruptions may have also been responsible for reinforcing the belief in dragons, although instances in Europe and Asian countries were rare.
In Hindu mythology, Manasa and Vasuki are serpent like creatures associated with the dragon. Indra, is the Hindu storm god who slays Vritra, a large serpent like creature on a mountain.
The Vietnamese dragon is the combined image of crocodile, snake, lizard and bird. Historically, Vietnamese people lived near rivers, so they venerated crocodiles as "Giao Long", the first kind of Vietnamese dragon. Then, many kinds of dragon were developed in architecture, painting, literature and Vietnamese consciousness.
In Greek mythology there are many snake or dragon legends, usually in which a serpent or dragon guards some treasure. The first Pelasgian kings of Athens were said to be half human, half snake. The dragon Ladon guarded the Golden Apples of the Sun of the Hesperides. Another serpentine dragon guarded the Golden Fleece, protecting it from theft by Jason and the Argonauts. Similarly, Pythia and Python, a pair of serpents, guarded the temple of Gaia and the Oracular priestess, before the Delphic Oracle was seized by Apollo and the two serpents were draped around his winged caduceus, which he then gave to Hermes.
The Greek myths of Hercules and Ladon and others are believed to be based upon an earlier Canaanite myth in which Hadad overcame Lotan, and the Israelite god Yahweh overcame Leviathan. These stories too go back still further in history to the Hittite or Hurrian hero Kumarbi who had to overcome the dragon Illuyankas of the Sea.
In Australian Aboriginal mythology, the Rainbow Serpent was a culture hero in many parts of the country. Known by different names in different places, from the Waugal of the South Western Nyungar, to the Ganba of the North Central Deserts or the Wanambee of South Australia, the rainbow serpent, associated with the creation of waterholes and river courses, was to be feared and respected.
Also, some legends and myths of the dragon describe it as a thick-scaled, solitary creature, with a long snaking tongue, which ate various minerals, would occasionally walk bipedal, and described as having a fire or steam come from its mouth (possibly indicating a warm-blooded creatures tendency to breath out steam during colder weather.) These descriptions may also apply to the Pangolin Genus, which is found in Modern Africa and Asia, and once existed in Europe. To further support this idea, many African tribes and old chinese myths hold similar mythic properties for the Pangolin's scales as the dragon's. Although a counter-point to this is Pangolin does not have the wings that dragons have in so many myths, although the fact that some species of Pangolin live in trees may be partially responsible.
Indonesian dragon
Naga or Nogo Naga is a mythical animal from Indonesian mythology, and the myth encompasses almost all of the islands of Indonesia, especially those who were influenced heavily by Hindu culture. Like its Indian counterpart, it is considered as divine in nature, benevolent, and often associated with sacred mountains, forests, or certain parts of the sea.
In some parts of Indonesia, Dragon or Naga is depicted as a gigantic serpent with a golden crown on its forehead, and there is a persistent belief among certain peoples that Nagas are still alive in uncharted mountains, lakes and active volcanoes. In Java and Bali, dragons represent goodness, and gods send dragons to the earth in order to maintain the force of good and gave people prosperity. Some natives claimed sightings of this fabled beast, and considered as a good omen if someone happen to glimpse one of these animals, but misfortune if the dragons talked to them.
Chinese dragon Lóng (or Lung) Lóng have a long, scaled serpentine form combined with the attributes of other animals; most (but not all) are wingless, and has four claws on each foot (five for the imperial emblem). They are rulers of the weather and water, and a symbol of power. They also carried their eggs which were thought to have been huge pearls in their hands.
Japanese dragon Ryu Similar to Chinese and Korean dragons, with three claws instead of four. They are benevolent (with exceptions), associated with water, and may grant wishes; rare in Japanese mythology.
Vietnamese dragon R?ng or Long These dragons' bodies curve lithely, in sine shape, with 12 sections, symbolising 12 months in the year. They are able to change the weather, and are responsible for crops. On the dragon's back are little, uninterrupted, regular fins. The head has a long mane, beard, prominent eyes, crest on nose, but no horns. The jaw is large and opened, with a long, thin tongue; they always keep a châu (gem/jewel) in their mouths (a symbol of humanity, nobility and knowledge).
Korean dragon
Yong A sky dragon, essentially the same as the Chinese lóng. Like the lóng, yong and the other Korean dragons are associated with water and weather.
yo A hornless ocean dragon, sometimes equated with a sea serpent.
Siberian dragon
Yilbegan Related to European Turkic and Slavic dragons
Indian Dragon
Vyalee and Naga There is some debate as to whether or not Vyalee is considered a dragon. It is found in temples and is correlated with the goddess Parvati. Naga is the main dragon of Indian and Hindu mythology. Nagas are a race of magical serpents that live below water. Their king wears a golden crown atop his head. The Nagas are associated with Buddha and mainly with Lord Vishnu and his incarnations (Dasavataras). When Krishna was a child, he wrestled with a Naga that was obstructing a lake.
European dragons
Sardinian dragon scultone The dragon named "scultone" or "ascultone" belongs to the tradition of Sardinia, Italy from many millenniums. It had the power to kills the human beings by its gaze. It was a sort of basilisk, lived in the bush and was never killed.
Scandinavian & Germanic dragons lindworm Or the "Draco serpentalis" is a very large wingless serpent with two legs, the lindworm is really closer to a wyvern or to a knucker. They were believed to eat cattle and symbolized pestilence, but seeing one was considered good luck. The dragon Fafnir, killed by the legendary hero Sigurd, was called an ormr ('worm') in Old Norse and was in effect a giant snake; it neither flew nor breathed fire. The dragon killed by the Old English hero Beowulf, on the other hand, did fly and breathe fire and was actually a European dragon.
Welsh dragon
Y Ddraig Goch The red dragon is the traditional symbol of Wales and appears on the Welsh national flag.
Hungarian dragons (Sárkányok) zomok A great snake living in a swamp, which regularly kills pigs or sheep. A group of shepherds can easily kill them.
sárkánykígyó A giant winged snake, which in fact a full-grown zomok. It often serves as flying mount of the garabonciások (a kind of magician). The sárkánykígyó rules over storms and bad weather.
sárkány A dragon in human form. Most of them are giants with multiple heads. Their strength is held in their heads. They become gradually weaker as they lose their heads.
Slavic dragons
zmey, zmiy, or zmaj Similar to the conventional European dragon, but multi-headed. They breathe fire and/or leave fiery wakes as they fly. In Slavic and related tradition, dragons symbolize evil. Specific dragons are often given Turkic names (see Zilant, below), symbolizing the long-standing conflict between the Slavs and Turks.
Romanian dragons balaur Balaur are very similar to the Slavic zmey: very large, with fins and multiple heads.
Chuvash dragons Vere Celen Chuvash dragons represent the pre-Islamic mythology of the same region.
Asturian dragons Cuélebre In Asturian mythology the Cuélebres are giant winged serpents, which live in caves where they guard treasures and kidnapped xanas. They can live for centuries and, when they grow really old, they use their wings to fly. Their breath is poisonous and they often kill cattle to eat. Asturian term Cuelebre comes from Latin colubra, i.e. snake.
Tatar dragons
Zilant Really closer to a wyvern, the Zilant is the symbol of Kazan. Zilant itself is a Russian rendering of Tatar yilan, i.e. snake.
Basque dragons
Herensuge Basque for "dragon". One legend has St. Michael descending from Heaven to kill it, but only when God agreed to accompany him, so fearful it was.
Sugaar The male god of Basque mythology, also called Maju, was often associated to a serpent or snake, though he can adopt other forms.
American dragons
Meso-American dragon Amphitere Feathered serpent deity responsible for giving knowledge to mankind, and sometimes also a symbol of death and resurrection.
Inca dragon
Amaru A dragon (sometimes called a snake) on the Inca culture. The last Inca emperor Tupak Amaru's name means "Lord Dragon"
Brazilian dragon Boi-tata A dragon-like animal (sometimes like a snake) of the Brazilian Indian cultures.
Chilean dragon Caicaivilu and Tentenvilu Snake-type dragons, Caicaivilu was the sea god and Tentenvilu was the earth god, both from the Chilean island Chiloé.
African dragons
African dragon Amphisbaena Possibly originating in northern Africa (and later moving to Greece), this was a two-headed dragon (one at the front, and one on the end of its tail). The front head would hold the tail (or neck as the case may be) in its mouth, creating a circle that allowed it to roll.
Dragon-like creatures
Basilisk A basilisk is hatched by a cockerel from a serpent's egg. It is a lizard-like or snake-like creature that can supposedly kill by its gaze, its voice, or by touching its victim. Like Medusa, a basilisk may be destroyed by seeing itself in a mirror. It is also portayed in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as a large grey snake, with foot long fangs and yellow eyes. Anybody who looks into these eyes will be killed.
Leviathan In Hebrew mythology, a leviathan was a large creature with fierce teeth. Contemporary translations identify the leviathan with the crocodile, but in the Bible, the leviathan can breathe fire (Job 41:18-21), can fly (Job 41:5), and cannot be pierced with spears or harpoons (Job 41:7), his scales so close that there is no room between them (Job 41:15-16), his upright walk (Job 41:12), his teeth close together (Job 41:14), an underbelly that could cut a person (Job 41:30) so the identification does not precisely match. Over time, the term came to mean any large sea monster; in modern Hebrew, "leviathan" simply means whale. A sea serpent is also closely related to the dragon, though it is more snakelike and lives in the water.
Wyvern
Much more similar to a dragon than the other creatures listed here, a wyvern is a winged serpent with either two or no legs. The term wyvern is used in heraldry to distinguish two-legged from four-legged dragons. Also sometimes noted as the largest species of dragon.
zmeu Derived from the Slavic dragon, zmeu are humanoid figures that can fly and breathe fire.
cockatrice A bird-like reptile sometimes confused with a basilisk. In Gerald Durrell's book "The Talking Parcel", they attempt genocide against dragons by stealing the last dragon eggs
Quetzalcóatl A Central-American or Mexican creature with both scales and feathers is worshipped by the Toltecs and Aztecs.
Azhi Dahaka was a three-headed demon often characterized as dragon-like in Persian Zoroastrian mythology.
Similarly, Ugaritic myth describes a seven-headed sea serpent named Lotan.
The Hydra of Greek mythology is a water serpent with multiple heads with mystic powers. When one was chopped off, two would regrow in its place. This creature was vanquished by Heracles and his cousin.
Smok Wawelski was a Polish dragon who was supposed to have terrorized the hills around Kraków in the Middle Ages.
Y Ddraig Goch is now the symbol of Wales (see flag, above), originally appearing as the red dragon from the Mabinogion story Lludd and Llevelys.
Nidhogg, a dragon in Norse mythology, was said to live in the darkest part of the Underworld, awaiting Ragnarok. At that time he would be released to wreak destruction on the world.
Orochi, the eight-headed serpent slain by Susanoo in Japanese mythology
The Old English epic Beowulf ends with the hero battling a dragon.
Dragons remain fixtures in fantasy books, though portrayals of their nature differ. For example, Smaug, from The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien, who is a classic, European-type dragon; deeply magical, he hoards treasure and burns innocent towns. Contrary to most old folklore and literature J. R. R. Tolkien's dragons are very intelligent and can cast spells over mortals.
A common theme in literature concerning dragons is the partnership between humans and dragons. This is evident in Dragon Rider and the Inheritance Trilogy. Most notably it is featured in Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern series. Dragons in Pern (genetically modified fire-lizards, which were Pernese natives) are ridden by dragonriders to protect the planet from a deadly threat, the Thread.
In Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea series, the portrayal of dragons undergoes significant changes from book to book. In the original, they resemble Smaug, with unbounded greed for hoards of precious Jewlery; later, they grow in stature and nobility, to become virtual demi-gods who speak "the "Language of Creation" as their mother tongue; later still, it is revealed that they share an ancestry with humanity, and that some rare humans (always women) can change into dragons at will (or they may be considered as dragons who can take human form at will).
Some stories give accounts of dragons in human form, notably the fourteenth-century French story "Voeux du Paon" tells the story of Melusine, a beautiful woman who seemed faithful but refused to take communion in church. When confronted, she turned into a dragon and fled. She has been depicted in Russian art of the 18th century as a woman's head on a dragon's body. The Earthsea cycle relates of Tehanu and Orm Irian, each of whom was a dragon in human form who acted as a diplomat between her races.
The dragon is the emblem of Ljubljana, Slovenia. The city has a dragon bridge which is embellished with four dragon depictions. The city's basketball club is nicknamed the "Green Dragons". License plates on cars from the city also feature a dragon depiction.
Y Ddraig Goch (Welsh for the red dragon) appears on the national Flag of Wales (the flag itself is also called the "Draig Goch"), and is the most famous dragon in Britain. There are many legends about y Ddraig Goch.
Although dragons (or dragon-like creatures) occur commonly in legends around the world, different cultures have perceived them differently. Chinese dragons and Eastern dragons generally, are usually seen as benevolent, whereas European dragons are usually malevolent (there are of course exceptions to these rules). Malevolent dragons also occur in Persian mythology (see Azhi Dahaka) and other cultures.
Dragons are particularly popular in China. Along with the phoenix, the dragon was a symbol of the Chinese emperors. Dragon costumes manipulated by several people are a common sight at Chinese festivals.
Dragons are often held to have major spiritual significance in various religions and cultures around the world. In many Eastern and Native American cultures dragons were, and in some cultures still are, revered as representative of the primal forces of nature and the universe. They are associated with wisdom—often said to be wiser than humans—and longevity. They are commonly said to possess some form of magic or other supernormal power, and are often associated with wells, rain, and rivers. In some cultures, they are said to be capable of human speech. They are also said to be able to talk to all animals and converse with humans.
The term dragoon, for infantry that move around by horse, yet still fight as foot soldiers, is derived from their early firearm, the "dragon", a wide-bore musket that spat flame when it fired, and was thus named for the mythical beast.
Joseph Campbell in the The Power of Myth viewed the dragon as a symbol of divinity or transcendence because it represents the unity of Heaven and Earth by combining the serpent form (earthbound) with the bat/bird form (airborne).
Dragons embody both male and female traits as in the example from Aboriginal myth that raises baby humans to adulthood training them for survival in the world. Another contrast in the way dragons are portrayed is their ability to breathe fire but live in the ocean--water and fire together. And like in the quote from Joseph Campbell above, they also include the opposing elements of earth and sky. Dragons represent the joining of the opposing forces of the cosmos.
Yet another symbolic view of dragons is the Ouroborus, or the dragon encircling and eating its own tail. When shaped like this the dragon becomes a symbol of eternity, natural cycles, and completion.
The Latin word for a dragon, draco (genitive: draconis), actually means snake or serpent, emphasizing the European association of dragons with snakes, not lizards or dinosaurs as they are commonly associated with today. The Medieval Biblical interpretation of the Devil being associated with the serpent who tempted Adam and Eve, thus gave a snake-like dragon connotations of evil. Generally speaking, Biblical literature itself did not portray this association (save for the Book of Revelation, whose treatment of dragons is detailed below). The demonic opponents of God, Christ, or good Christians have commonly been portrayed as reptilian or chimeric.
In the Book of Job Chapter 41, there are references to a sea monster Leviathan, which has some dragon-like characteristics.
In Revelation 12:3, an enormous red beast with seven heads is described, whose tail sweeps one third of the stars from heaven down to earth (held to be symbolic of the fall of the angels, though not commonly held among biblical scholars). In most translations, the word "dragon" is used to describe the beast, since in the original Greek the word used is drakon.
In iconography, some Catholic saints are depicted in the act of killing a dragon. This is one of the common aspects of Saint George in Egyptian Coptic iconography, on the coat of arms of Moscow, and in English and Catalan legend. In Italy, Saint Mercurialis, first bishop of the city of Forlì, is also depicted slaying a dragon. Saint Julian of Le Mans, Saint Veran, Saint Crescentinus, Saint Margaret of Antioch, Saint Martha, and Saint Leonard of Noblac were also venerated as dragon-slayers.
However, some say that dragons were good, before they fell from grace, as humans did from the Garden of Eden after Adam and Eve's Original Sin was committed. Also contributing to the good dragon argument in Christianity is the fact that, if they did exist, they were created as were any other creature, as seen in Dragons In Our Midst, a contemporary Christian book series by author Bryan Davis.
Chinese Zodiac
The years 1916, 1928, 1940, 1952, 1964, 1976, 1988, 2000, 2012, 2024, 2036, 2048, 2060 etc. (every 12 years — 8 AD) are considered the Year of the Dragon in the Chinese zodiac.
The Chinese zodiac purports that people born in the Year of the Dragon are healthy, energetic, excitable, short-tempered, and stubborn. They are also supposedly honest, sensitive, brave, and inspire confidence and trust. The Chinese zodiac purports that people whose zodiac sign is the dragon are the most eccentric of any in the eastern zodiac. They supposedly neither borrow money nor make flowery speeches, but tend to be soft-hearted which sometimes gives others an advantage over them. They are purported to be compatible with people whose zodiac sign is of the rat, snake, monkey, and rooster.
Dragons are commonly symbols of good luck or health in some parts of Asia, and are also sometimes worshipped. Asian dragons are considered as mythical rulers of weather, specifically rain and water, and are usually depicted as the guardians of pearls.
In China, as well as in Japan and Korea, the Azure Dragon is one of the Four Symbols of the Chinese constellation, representing spring, the element of Wood and the east. Chinese dragons are often shown with large pearls in their grasp, though some say that it is really the dragon's egg. The Chinese believed that the dragons lived underwater most of the time, and would sometimes offer rice as a gift to the dragons. The dragons were not shown with wings like the European dragons because it was believed they could fly using magic.
A Yellow dragon (Huang long) with five claws on each foot, on the other hand, represents the change of seasons, the element of Earth (the Chinese 'fifth element') and the center. Furthermore, it symbolizes imperial authority in China, and indirectly the Chinese people as well. Chinese people often use the term "Descendants of the Dragon" as a sign of ethnic identity. The dragon is also the symbol of royalty in Bhutan (whose sovereign is known as Druk Gyalpo, or Dragon King).
A naga guarding the Temple of Wat Sisaket in Viang Chan, LaosIn Vietnam, the dragon is the most important and sacred symbol. According to the ancient creation myth of the Kinh people, all Vietnamese people are descended from dragons through L?c Long Quân, who married Âu Co, a fairy. The eldest of their 100 sons founded the first dynasty of Hùng Vuong Emperors.
The Naga - a minor deity taking the form of a serpent - is common within both the Hindu and Buddhist traditions. Technically, the naga is not a dragon, though it is often taken as such; the term is ambiguous, and refers both to a tribe of people known as 'Nagas', as well as to elephants and ordinary snakes. Within a mythological context, it refers to a deity assuming the form of a serpent with either one or many heads.
Occasionally the Buddha is depicted as sitting upon the coils of a serpent, with a fan of several serpent heads extending over his body. This is in reference to Mucalinda, a Naga that protected Sakyamuni Buddha from the elements during the time of his enlightenment. Separated from the contextualising effect of the Buddha story, people may see only the head and thus infer that Mucalinda is a dragon, rather than a deity in serpentine form. Stairway railings on Buddhist temples will occasionally be worked to resemble the body of a Naga with the head at the base of the railing. In Thailand, the head of Naga, in a more impressionistic form, can be seen at the corners of temple roofs, with Naga’s body forming the ornamentation on roofline eves up to the gables.
Where the original concept of a dragon came from is unknown, as there is no accepted scientific theory nor any evidence to support the past or present existence of dragons. While the concept of dragons may be true or false, the fact that dragons are a myth in so many places that had no contact with each other suggests that dragons are possibly extrapolations based upon some ordinary forms of creature coupled with common psychological tendencies amongst disparate groups of humanity.
Some believe that the dragon may have had a real-life counterpart from which the various legends arose — typically dinosaurs or other archosaurs are mentioned as a possibility — but there is no physical evidence to support this claim, only alleged sightings collected by cryptozoologists. In a common variation of this hypothesis, giant lizards such as Megalania are substituted for the living dinosaurs. All of these hypotheses are widely considered to be pseudoscience or myth.
Dinosaur fossils were once thought of as "dragon bones" — a discovery in 300 BC in Wucheng, Sichuan, China, was labeled as such by Chang Qu. It is unlikely, however, that these finds alone prompted the legends of flying monsters, but may have served to reinforce them.
Herodotus, often called the "father of history", visited Judea c.450 BC and wrote that he had heard of caged dragons in nearby Arabia, near Petra, Jordan. Curious, he travelled to the area and found many skeletal remains of serpents and mentioned reports of flying serpents flying from Arabia into Egypt but being fought off by Ibises Histories. Histories (Greek). Retrieved on 2006-06-14.
According to Marco Polo's journals, Polo was walking through Anatolia into Persia and came upon real live flying dragons that attacked his party caravan in the desert and he reported that they were very frightening beasts that almost killed him in an attack. Polo did not write his journals down — they were dictated to his cellmate in prison, and there is much dispute over whether this writer may have invented the dragon to embellish the tale.Polo was also the first western man to describe Chinese "dragon bones" with early writing on them. These bones were presumably either fossils (as described by Chang Qu) or the bones of other animals.
It has also been suggested by proponents of catastrophism that comets or meteor showers gave rise to legends about fiery serpents in the sky. In Old English, comets were sometimes called fyrene dracan or fiery dragons. Volcanic eruptions may have also been responsible for reinforcing the belief in dragons, although instances in Europe and Asian countries were rare.
In Hindu mythology, Manasa and Vasuki are serpent like creatures associated with the dragon. Indra, is the Hindu storm god who slays Vritra, a large serpent like creature on a mountain.
The Vietnamese dragon is the combined image of crocodile, snake, lizard and bird. Historically, Vietnamese people lived near rivers, so they venerated crocodiles as "Giao Long", the first kind of Vietnamese dragon. Then, many kinds of dragon were developed in architecture, painting, literature and Vietnamese consciousness.
In Greek mythology there are many snake or dragon legends, usually in which a serpent or dragon guards some treasure. The first Pelasgian kings of Athens were said to be half human, half snake. The dragon Ladon guarded the Golden Apples of the Sun of the Hesperides. Another serpentine dragon guarded the Golden Fleece, protecting it from theft by Jason and the Argonauts. Similarly, Pythia and Python, a pair of serpents, guarded the temple of Gaia and the Oracular priestess, before the Delphic Oracle was seized by Apollo and the two serpents were draped around his winged caduceus, which he then gave to Hermes.
The Greek myths of Hercules and Ladon and others are believed to be based upon an earlier Canaanite myth in which Hadad overcame Lotan, and the Israelite god Yahweh overcame Leviathan. These stories too go back still further in history to the Hittite or Hurrian hero Kumarbi who had to overcome the dragon Illuyankas of the Sea.
In Australian Aboriginal mythology, the Rainbow Serpent was a culture hero in many parts of the country. Known by different names in different places, from the Waugal of the South Western Nyungar, to the Ganba of the North Central Deserts or the Wanambee of South Australia, the rainbow serpent, associated with the creation of waterholes and river courses, was to be feared and respected.
Also, some legends and myths of the dragon describe it as a thick-scaled, solitary creature, with a long snaking tongue, which ate various minerals, would occasionally walk bipedal, and described as having a fire or steam come from its mouth (possibly indicating a warm-blooded creatures tendency to breath out steam during colder weather.) These descriptions may also apply to the Pangolin Genus, which is found in Modern Africa and Asia, and once existed in Europe. To further support this idea, many African tribes and old chinese myths hold similar mythic properties for the Pangolin's scales as the dragon's. Although a counter-point to this is Pangolin does not have the wings that dragons have in so many myths, although the fact that some species of Pangolin live in trees may be partially responsible.
Indonesian dragon
Naga or Nogo Naga is a mythical animal from Indonesian mythology, and the myth encompasses almost all of the islands of Indonesia, especially those who were influenced heavily by Hindu culture. Like its Indian counterpart, it is considered as divine in nature, benevolent, and often associated with sacred mountains, forests, or certain parts of the sea.
In some parts of Indonesia, Dragon or Naga is depicted as a gigantic serpent with a golden crown on its forehead, and there is a persistent belief among certain peoples that Nagas are still alive in uncharted mountains, lakes and active volcanoes. In Java and Bali, dragons represent goodness, and gods send dragons to the earth in order to maintain the force of good and gave people prosperity. Some natives claimed sightings of this fabled beast, and considered as a good omen if someone happen to glimpse one of these animals, but misfortune if the dragons talked to them.
Chinese dragon Lóng (or Lung) Lóng have a long, scaled serpentine form combined with the attributes of other animals; most (but not all) are wingless, and has four claws on each foot (five for the imperial emblem). They are rulers of the weather and water, and a symbol of power. They also carried their eggs which were thought to have been huge pearls in their hands.
Japanese dragon Ryu Similar to Chinese and Korean dragons, with three claws instead of four. They are benevolent (with exceptions), associated with water, and may grant wishes; rare in Japanese mythology.
Vietnamese dragon R?ng or Long These dragons' bodies curve lithely, in sine shape, with 12 sections, symbolising 12 months in the year. They are able to change the weather, and are responsible for crops. On the dragon's back are little, uninterrupted, regular fins. The head has a long mane, beard, prominent eyes, crest on nose, but no horns. The jaw is large and opened, with a long, thin tongue; they always keep a châu (gem/jewel) in their mouths (a symbol of humanity, nobility and knowledge).
Korean dragon
Yong A sky dragon, essentially the same as the Chinese lóng. Like the lóng, yong and the other Korean dragons are associated with water and weather.
yo A hornless ocean dragon, sometimes equated with a sea serpent.
Siberian dragon
Yilbegan Related to European Turkic and Slavic dragons
Indian Dragon
Vyalee and Naga There is some debate as to whether or not Vyalee is considered a dragon. It is found in temples and is correlated with the goddess Parvati. Naga is the main dragon of Indian and Hindu mythology. Nagas are a race of magical serpents that live below water. Their king wears a golden crown atop his head. The Nagas are associated with Buddha and mainly with Lord Vishnu and his incarnations (Dasavataras). When Krishna was a child, he wrestled with a Naga that was obstructing a lake.
European dragons
Sardinian dragon scultone The dragon named "scultone" or "ascultone" belongs to the tradition of Sardinia, Italy from many millenniums. It had the power to kills the human beings by its gaze. It was a sort of basilisk, lived in the bush and was never killed.
Scandinavian & Germanic dragons lindworm Or the "Draco serpentalis" is a very large wingless serpent with two legs, the lindworm is really closer to a wyvern or to a knucker. They were believed to eat cattle and symbolized pestilence, but seeing one was considered good luck. The dragon Fafnir, killed by the legendary hero Sigurd, was called an ormr ('worm') in Old Norse and was in effect a giant snake; it neither flew nor breathed fire. The dragon killed by the Old English hero Beowulf, on the other hand, did fly and breathe fire and was actually a European dragon.
Welsh dragon
Y Ddraig Goch The red dragon is the traditional symbol of Wales and appears on the Welsh national flag.
Hungarian dragons (Sárkányok) zomok A great snake living in a swamp, which regularly kills pigs or sheep. A group of shepherds can easily kill them.
sárkánykígyó A giant winged snake, which in fact a full-grown zomok. It often serves as flying mount of the garabonciások (a kind of magician). The sárkánykígyó rules over storms and bad weather.
sárkány A dragon in human form. Most of them are giants with multiple heads. Their strength is held in their heads. They become gradually weaker as they lose their heads.
Slavic dragons
zmey, zmiy, or zmaj Similar to the conventional European dragon, but multi-headed. They breathe fire and/or leave fiery wakes as they fly. In Slavic and related tradition, dragons symbolize evil. Specific dragons are often given Turkic names (see Zilant, below), symbolizing the long-standing conflict between the Slavs and Turks.
Romanian dragons balaur Balaur are very similar to the Slavic zmey: very large, with fins and multiple heads.
Chuvash dragons Vere Celen Chuvash dragons represent the pre-Islamic mythology of the same region.
Asturian dragons Cuélebre In Asturian mythology the Cuélebres are giant winged serpents, which live in caves where they guard treasures and kidnapped xanas. They can live for centuries and, when they grow really old, they use their wings to fly. Their breath is poisonous and they often kill cattle to eat. Asturian term Cuelebre comes from Latin colubra, i.e. snake.
Tatar dragons
Zilant Really closer to a wyvern, the Zilant is the symbol of Kazan. Zilant itself is a Russian rendering of Tatar yilan, i.e. snake.
Basque dragons
Herensuge Basque for "dragon". One legend has St. Michael descending from Heaven to kill it, but only when God agreed to accompany him, so fearful it was.
Sugaar The male god of Basque mythology, also called Maju, was often associated to a serpent or snake, though he can adopt other forms.
American dragons
Meso-American dragon Amphitere Feathered serpent deity responsible for giving knowledge to mankind, and sometimes also a symbol of death and resurrection.
Inca dragon
Amaru A dragon (sometimes called a snake) on the Inca culture. The last Inca emperor Tupak Amaru's name means "Lord Dragon"
Brazilian dragon Boi-tata A dragon-like animal (sometimes like a snake) of the Brazilian Indian cultures.
Chilean dragon Caicaivilu and Tentenvilu Snake-type dragons, Caicaivilu was the sea god and Tentenvilu was the earth god, both from the Chilean island Chiloé.
African dragons
African dragon Amphisbaena Possibly originating in northern Africa (and later moving to Greece), this was a two-headed dragon (one at the front, and one on the end of its tail). The front head would hold the tail (or neck as the case may be) in its mouth, creating a circle that allowed it to roll.
Dragon-like creatures
Basilisk A basilisk is hatched by a cockerel from a serpent's egg. It is a lizard-like or snake-like creature that can supposedly kill by its gaze, its voice, or by touching its victim. Like Medusa, a basilisk may be destroyed by seeing itself in a mirror. It is also portayed in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as a large grey snake, with foot long fangs and yellow eyes. Anybody who looks into these eyes will be killed.
Leviathan In Hebrew mythology, a leviathan was a large creature with fierce teeth. Contemporary translations identify the leviathan with the crocodile, but in the Bible, the leviathan can breathe fire (Job 41:18-21), can fly (Job 41:5), and cannot be pierced with spears or harpoons (Job 41:7), his scales so close that there is no room between them (Job 41:15-16), his upright walk (Job 41:12), his teeth close together (Job 41:14), an underbelly that could cut a person (Job 41:30) so the identification does not precisely match. Over time, the term came to mean any large sea monster; in modern Hebrew, "leviathan" simply means whale. A sea serpent is also closely related to the dragon, though it is more snakelike and lives in the water.
Wyvern
Much more similar to a dragon than the other creatures listed here, a wyvern is a winged serpent with either two or no legs. The term wyvern is used in heraldry to distinguish two-legged from four-legged dragons. Also sometimes noted as the largest species of dragon.
zmeu Derived from the Slavic dragon, zmeu are humanoid figures that can fly and breathe fire.
cockatrice A bird-like reptile sometimes confused with a basilisk. In Gerald Durrell's book "The Talking Parcel", they attempt genocide against dragons by stealing the last dragon eggs
Quetzalcóatl A Central-American or Mexican creature with both scales and feathers is worshipped by the Toltecs and Aztecs.
Azhi Dahaka was a three-headed demon often characterized as dragon-like in Persian Zoroastrian mythology.
Similarly, Ugaritic myth describes a seven-headed sea serpent named Lotan.
The Hydra of Greek mythology is a water serpent with multiple heads with mystic powers. When one was chopped off, two would regrow in its place. This creature was vanquished by Heracles and his cousin.
Smok Wawelski was a Polish dragon who was supposed to have terrorized the hills around Kraków in the Middle Ages.
Y Ddraig Goch is now the symbol of Wales (see flag, above), originally appearing as the red dragon from the Mabinogion story Lludd and Llevelys.
Nidhogg, a dragon in Norse mythology, was said to live in the darkest part of the Underworld, awaiting Ragnarok. At that time he would be released to wreak destruction on the world.
Orochi, the eight-headed serpent slain by Susanoo in Japanese mythology
The Old English epic Beowulf ends with the hero battling a dragon.
Dragons remain fixtures in fantasy books, though portrayals of their nature differ. For example, Smaug, from The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien, who is a classic, European-type dragon; deeply magical, he hoards treasure and burns innocent towns. Contrary to most old folklore and literature J. R. R. Tolkien's dragons are very intelligent and can cast spells over mortals.
A common theme in literature concerning dragons is the partnership between humans and dragons. This is evident in Dragon Rider and the Inheritance Trilogy. Most notably it is featured in Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern series. Dragons in Pern (genetically modified fire-lizards, which were Pernese natives) are ridden by dragonriders to protect the planet from a deadly threat, the Thread.
In Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea series, the portrayal of dragons undergoes significant changes from book to book. In the original, they resemble Smaug, with unbounded greed for hoards of precious Jewlery; later, they grow in stature and nobility, to become virtual demi-gods who speak "the "Language of Creation" as their mother tongue; later still, it is revealed that they share an ancestry with humanity, and that some rare humans (always women) can change into dragons at will (or they may be considered as dragons who can take human form at will).
Some stories give accounts of dragons in human form, notably the fourteenth-century French story "Voeux du Paon" tells the story of Melusine, a beautiful woman who seemed faithful but refused to take communion in church. When confronted, she turned into a dragon and fled. She has been depicted in Russian art of the 18th century as a woman's head on a dragon's body. The Earthsea cycle relates of Tehanu and Orm Irian, each of whom was a dragon in human form who acted as a diplomat between her races.
The dragon is the emblem of Ljubljana, Slovenia. The city has a dragon bridge which is embellished with four dragon depictions. The city's basketball club is nicknamed the "Green Dragons". License plates on cars from the city also feature a dragon depiction.
Y Ddraig Goch (Welsh for the red dragon) appears on the national Flag of Wales (the flag itself is also called the "Draig Goch"), and is the most famous dragon in Britain. There are many legends about y Ddraig Goch.
Roman dragons
(Random Dragons) The Dacian Draco. Roman dragons evolved from serpentine Greek ones, combined with the dragons of the Near East, in the mix that characterized the hybrid Greek/Eastern Hellenistic culture. From Babylon, the muš-ḫuššu was a classic representation of a Near Eastern dragon. John's Book of Revelation—Greek literature, not Roman—describes Satan as "a great dragon, flaming red, with seven heads and ten horns". Much of John's literary inspiration is late Hebrew and Greek, but John's dragon is more likely to have come originally through the Near East.[1] Perhaps the distinctions between dragons of western origin and Chinese dragons are arbitrary, since the later Roman dragon was certainly of Iranian origin: in the Roman Empire, where each military cohort had a particular identifying signum, (military standard), after the Parthian and Dacian Wars of Trajan in the east, the Dacian Draco military standard entered the Legion with the Cohors Sarmatarum and Cohors Dacorum (Sarmatian and Daciancohorts)--a large dragon fixed to the end of a lance, with large gaping jaws of silver and with the rest of the body formed of colored silk. With the jaws facing into the wind, the silken body inflated and rippled, resembling a windsock.[2] This signum is described in the surviving epitome of VegetiusDe Re Militari 379 CE—"The first sign of the entire legion is the eagle, which the eagle-bearer carries. In addition, dragons are carried into battle by each cohort, by the 'dragoneers'"[3]—and in Ammianus Marcellinus, xvi. 10, 7.[4]Parthia lies athwart the Silk Road, the cultural thread between East and West:[5] it is hard to deny all connection between this Romanized Parthian dragon and distant Chinese origins.
Several vague incarnations of evil in the Old Testament were given the translation draco in Jerome's Vulgate, to undergo changes in meaning and become broad embodiments of evil.
Dragons in Germanic mythology The most famous dragons in Norse and Germanic mythology are:Remove
Of these, J.R.R. Tolkien wrote:
And dragons, real dragons, essential both to the machinery and the ideas of a poem or tale, are actually rare. In northern literature there are only two that are significant. If we omit from consideration the vast and vague Encircler of the World, Miðgarðsormr, the doom of the great gods and no matter for heroes, we have but the dragon of the Völsungs, Fáfnir, and Beowulf's bane. Many European stories of dragons have them guarding a treasure hoard. Both Fafnir and Beowulf's dragon guarded earthen mounds full of ancient treasure. The treasure was cursed and brought ill to those who later possessed it.
English "dragon" derives (via Middle English, Old French, and Latin) from Greek dracon, "serpent, dragon"; the Greek word derives from Indo-European *derk-, "to see", and may originally have meant something like "monster with the evil eye." Notwithstanding their folkloric associations, there is no etymological connection between dragons and the ghoulish figures known as draugar in Old Norse, who haunt rich burial mounds.
The emblem books popular from late medieval times through the 17th century often represent the dragon as an emblem of greed. The prevalence of dragons in European heraldry demonstrates that there is more to the dragon than greed.
The poem Beowulf describes a draca (= dragon) also as wyrm (= worm, or serpent) and its movements by the Anglo-Saxon verb bugan = "to bend", and says that it has a venomous bite; all of these indicate a snake-like form and movement rather than with a lizard-like or dinosaur-like body as in later belief (though the dragon of Beowulf does show several features that would later become popularized with dragons; namely, it breathes fire, lives underground, and collects treasure).
Dragons in Celtic and Anglo-Saxon mythology The Welsh flag, showing a red dragon passant In Great Britain, to this day, a rampant red dragon (clutching a mace) is the heraldic symbol of the County of Somerset. The county once formed part of the early-medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex in western England, which too bore a dragon or wyvern (a two-legged as opposed to a four-legged dragon) as a symbol. The Wessex beast is usually colored gold in illustrations.
Now, however, the dragon is more commonly associated with Wales, as its national flag features a red dragon (Y Ddraig Goch). This may originate in Arthurian Legend where Myrddin, employed by Gwrtheyrn, had a vision of the red dragon[8] (representing the Britons) and the white dragon (representing the invading Saxons) fighting beneath Dinas Emrys. This particular legend also features in the Mabinogion in the story of Lludd and Llefelys.[9] The legendary house of Pendragon and Celtic Britain in general have become associated with the Welsh dragon standard after the fact.
According to the writer on heraldry Arthur Charles Fox-Davies, the red dragon of Wales originated with the standard of the 7th century king Cadwaladr, and was used as a supporter by the Tudor dynasty (who were of Welsh origin).[10] Queen Elizabeth, however, preferring gold, changed the royal mantle and the dragon supporter from red to gold, and some Welsh scholars still hold that the dragon of Wales is properly ruddy gold rather than gules.[10] There may be some doubt of the Welsh origin of the dragon supporter of the Royal arms, but it certainly was used by King Henry III.[10] It has also been speculated that the red dragon of Wales may have even earlier origins in the Sarmatian-influenced Draco standards carried by Late Roman cavalry, who would have been the primary defence against the Saxons.
The Welsh flag is parti per fess Argent and Vert; a dragon Gules passant. Welsh rugby teams include the Newport Gwent Dragons and the Cardiff City Blue Dragons.
The Merthyr Synagogue in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, features a dragon on the front gable.
Dragons in Slavic mythology Zmey Gorynych, by Victor Vasnetsov Main article: Slavic dragon Dragons of Slavic mythology hold mixed temperaments towards humans. For example, dragons (дракон, змей, ламя, (х)ала) in Bulgarian mythology are either male or female, each gender having a different view of mankind. The female dragon and male dragon, often seen as sister and brother, represent different forces of agriculture. The female dragon represents harsh weather and is the destroyer of crops, the hater of mankind, and is locked in a never ending battle with her brother. The male dragon protects the humans' crops from destruction and is generally loving to humanity. Fire and water play major roles in Bulgarian dragon lore; the female has water characteristics, whilst the male is usually a fiery creature. In Bulgarian legend, dragons are three headed, winged beings with snake's bodies.
In Bulgarian, Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian and Serbian lore, a dragon, or "змей" (Bulgarian: Змей), zmey (Russian: Змей), smok (Belarusian: Цмок), zmiy Ukrainian: Змій), zmaj (Serbian: Змај) is generally an evil, four-legged beast with few if any redeeming qualities. Zmeys are intelligent, but not very highly so; they often place tribute on villages or small towns, demanding maidens for food, or gold. Their number of heads ranges from one to seven or sometimes even more, with three- and seven-headed dragons being most common. The heads also regrow if cut off, unless the neck is "treated" with fire (similar to the hydra in Greek mythology). Dragon blood is so poisonous that Earth itself will refuse to absorb it. In Bulgarian mythology these dragons are sometimes good, opposing the evil Lamya /ламя/, a beast that shares a likeness with the zmey.
The most famous Polish dragon (Polish: Smok) is the Wawel Dragon or Smok Wawelski, the Dragon of Wawel Hill. It supposedly terrorized ancient Kraków and lived in caves on the Vistula river bank below the Wawel castle. According to lore based on the Book of Daniel, it was killed by a boy who offered it a sheepskin filled with sulphur and tar. After devouring it, the dragon became so thirsty that it finally exploded after drinking too much water. A metal sculpture of the Wawel Dragon is a well-known tourist sight in Kraków. It is very stylised but, to the amusement of children, noisily breathes fire every few minutes. The Wawel dragon also features on many items of Kraków tourist merchandise. Dragon is the coat of arms of the Polish princes- Piastów of czersk.
Other dragon-like creatures in Polish folklore include the basilisk, living in cellars of Warsaw, and the Snake King from folk legends.
Dragons in Iberian mythology Dragons in Asturian and Cantabrian mythology Main article: Cuélebre The Cuélebre, or Culebre, is a giant winged serpent in the mythology of Asturias and Cantabria, in the north of Spain. It usually lives in a cave, guards treasures and keeps nymph-like beings called xanas or anjanas as prisoners. They are immortal, but grow old. They can be tricked in particular ways, especially on certain days.
Dragons in Aragonese mythology There is a legend that a dragon dwelled in the Peña Uruel mountain near Jaca. It says that it could mesmerize people with his glance, so the young man who decided to kill the beast equipped himself with a shiny shield, so that the dragon's glance would be reflected. So, when the young man arrived the cave where the dragon lived, he could kill it easily because the dragon mesmerized itself. This legend is very similar to the Greek myth of Medusa.
The king of Peter IV of Aragon used a dragon on his helmet to show that he was the king of Aragon, as a heraldic pun (Rei d'Aragón, dragón).
Dragons in Basque mythology Herensuge is the name given to the dragon in Basque mythology, meaning apparently the "last serpent". The best known legend has St. Michael descending from Heaven to kill it but only once God agreed to accompany him in person.
Sugaar , the Basque male god, is often associated with the serpent or dragon but able to take other forms as well. His name can be read as "male serpent".
A. Xaho , a romantic myth creator of the 19th century, fused these myths in his own creation of Leherensuge, the first and last serpent, that in his newly coined legend would arise again some time in the future bringing the rebirth of the Basque nation.
Dragons in Catalan mythology Vibria in a parade in Reus (Catalonia) Dragons are well-known in Catalan myths and legends, in no small part because St. GeorgeSant Jordi) is the patron saint of Catalonia. Like most dragons, the Catalan dragon (Catalan drac) is an enormous serpent with two legs, or, rarely, four, and sometimes a pair of wings. 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 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.
The Catalans also distinguish a víbria or vibra (cognate with English viper and wyvern), a female dragon with two prominent breasts, two claws and an eagle's beak.
Dragons in Portuguese mythology In Portuguese mythology, coca is a female dragon that battles Saint George on the Corpus Christi holiday. The fighting has a symbolic meaning: when the coca defeats Saint George the crops will be bad and there will be famine and death. When Saint George defeats the coca he cuts off her tongue and ears; the crops will have a good year and it announces prosperity. Still, she is called "saint" coca just like George is called saint and the people cheer for her. Another dragon called drago is also represented in Portuguese mythology and used to take part in celebrations during the Middle Ages.
Dragons in Italian mythology Saint Margaret and the Dragon, alabaster with traces of gilding, Toulouse, ca 1475 (Metropolitan Museum of Art) The legend of Saint George and the dragon is well-known in Italy, but other Saints are depicted fighting a dragon. For instance, the first bishop of the city of Forlì, named Saint Mercurialis, was said to have killed a dragon and saved Forlì, so he often is depicted killing a dragon. Likewise, the first patron saint of Venice, Saint Theodore of Tyro, was a dragon-slayer, and a statue representing his slaying of the dragon still tops one of the two columns in St. Mark's square. St. Michael, the patron saint of paratroopers, is also frequently depicted slaying a dragon. Many dragons of the European Middle Ages were thought to be demonic or of evil status.
According to the Golden Legend, compiled by the Italian Jacobus de Voragine, Saint Margaret the Virgin was swallowed by Satan in the shape of a dragon, from which she escaped alive when the cross she carried irritated the dragon's innards. The Golden Legend, in an atypical moment of scepticism, describes this last incident as "apocryphal and not to be taken seriously" (trans. Ryan, 1.369) - which did not prevent the legend from being popuar and getting artistic treatments.
Thyrus, the dragon of Terni But many more are the legends about dragons in Italy, particularly in Umbria. One of the most famous dragons of Italian folklore is Thyrus, a wyvern that besieged Terni in the Middle Ages. One day, a young and brave knight, tired of witnessing the death of his fellow citizens and depopulation of Terni, faced the dragon and killed him. From that day, the town assumed the creature in its coat of arms. Also a Latin inscription supports this: "Thyrus et amnis dederunt signa Teramnis" that stands under the banner of the town of Terni.
"Saint Silvestro resurrects two magicians, and the Fornole dragon", Vernio Bardi Chapel, Santa Croce (Florence) Another poem tells of another dragon that yet lived near the village of Fornole, near Terni in the south of Umbria. Pope Saint Sylvester arrived in Umbria and freed the population of Fornole from the ferocity of the dragon, making him become mild. In gratitude, the population built, in the 13th century, a little church dedicated to the Saint on the top of the mountain, near the dragon's lair. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_dragon#Dragons_in_Aragonese_mythology
France
The Drac was a medieval monster associated with Beaucaire in the Gard. The story is that in 1250 he abducted a lavender seller and took her beneath the waters to raise his son. When she was released at the end of seven years, the young woman was endowed with the ability to recognise the Drac with one of her eyes. One day, she recognised him as he was going about the market in Beaucaire. Upon being identified, the Drac ripped the woman's eye out. The Drac was then supposed to have gone on to kill over three thousand people. The legend was perpetuated by Frédéric Mistral in his Poèmes du Rhône, in which he tells of a hybrid monster, dwelling in the river and coming out from time to time to feed on lavender-sellers, ferrymen or others who strayed to close to the water's edge.
The Tarasque is the emblem of Tarascon, in the Bouches-du-Rhône. The legend of this ancient creature, as described in 12th-century writings, was of a half-serpent half-lion monster from Gallicia, the offspring of the ancient-world serpents, Leviathan and Onacho. The Tarasque terrorised the region, breathing flames, destroying houses, and killing the people. The dragon destroyed the bridges and then devoured anyone who tried to cross. Many, including the King of Nerluc, the ancient name of Tarascon, fought the Tarasque, and perished. The city was saved by Martha, Saint Martha of Bethany, who was born sometime in the 1st century to a Syrian duke named Syro and his wife, Encharia of Magdalene, in Bethany, near Jerusalem. She is reputed to have lived with her brother, Lazarus and her sister, Mary Magdalene. Following the crucifixion, Martha, Lazarus, Mary Magdalene, and others were cast adrift in a small boat. They eventually landed safely at Marseille where Martha became a missionary, She was in Nerluc, one market day, when she heard about the dragon. The townspeople challenged her to prove the strength of her religion by subduing the dragon. Martha set out, bare-foot, to find the dragon, with no other weapon other than a jar of holy water, and with the whole town following her. At the dragon's lair, Martha held up two sticks as a cross and stopped the dragon as if pierced by a sword. She sprinkled holy water on it to quench its fire, then used his sharp tooth to cut off her braids and make a bridle to lead the Tarasque back to town. The people, still terrified by the monster, attacked it and killed it with a shower of stones. The citizens errected a new church in honor of Saint Martha and changed the name of the town from Nerluc to Tarascon.
(Random Dragons) The Dacian Draco. Roman dragons evolved from serpentine Greek ones, combined with the dragons of the Near East, in the mix that characterized the hybrid Greek/Eastern Hellenistic culture. From Babylon, the muš-ḫuššu was a classic representation of a Near Eastern dragon. John's Book of Revelation—Greek literature, not Roman—describes Satan as "a great dragon, flaming red, with seven heads and ten horns". Much of John's literary inspiration is late Hebrew and Greek, but John's dragon is more likely to have come originally through the Near East.[1] Perhaps the distinctions between dragons of western origin and Chinese dragons are arbitrary, since the later Roman dragon was certainly of Iranian origin: in the Roman Empire, where each military cohort had a particular identifying signum, (military standard), after the Parthian and Dacian Wars of Trajan in the east, the Dacian Draco military standard entered the Legion with the Cohors Sarmatarum and Cohors Dacorum (Sarmatian and Daciancohorts)--a large dragon fixed to the end of a lance, with large gaping jaws of silver and with the rest of the body formed of colored silk. With the jaws facing into the wind, the silken body inflated and rippled, resembling a windsock.[2] This signum is described in the surviving epitome of VegetiusDe Re Militari 379 CE—"The first sign of the entire legion is the eagle, which the eagle-bearer carries. In addition, dragons are carried into battle by each cohort, by the 'dragoneers'"[3]—and in Ammianus Marcellinus, xvi. 10, 7.[4]Parthia lies athwart the Silk Road, the cultural thread between East and West:[5] it is hard to deny all connection between this Romanized Parthian dragon and distant Chinese origins.
Several vague incarnations of evil in the Old Testament were given the translation draco in Jerome's Vulgate, to undergo changes in meaning and become broad embodiments of evil.
Dragons in Germanic mythology The most famous dragons in Norse and Germanic mythology are:Remove
- Níðhöggr who gnawed at the roots of Yggdrasil itself.
- Jörmungandr, midgårdsormen (Swedish and Danish), Midgardsormen (Norwegian), the giant sea serpent which surrounds Miðgarð the world of mortal men;
- The dragon encountered by Beowulf;
- Fafnir, who was killed by Sigurd. Fafnir had turned into a dragon because of his greed.
- Lindworms are monstrous serpents of Germanic myth and lore, often interchangeable with dragons.
- The landvættur dragon whom King Harald's servant met in Vopnafjörður according to Heimskringla. The dragon is now depicted on the Icelandic Coat of Arms.
Of these, J.R.R. Tolkien wrote:
And dragons, real dragons, essential both to the machinery and the ideas of a poem or tale, are actually rare. In northern literature there are only two that are significant. If we omit from consideration the vast and vague Encircler of the World, Miðgarðsormr, the doom of the great gods and no matter for heroes, we have but the dragon of the Völsungs, Fáfnir, and Beowulf's bane. Many European stories of dragons have them guarding a treasure hoard. Both Fafnir and Beowulf's dragon guarded earthen mounds full of ancient treasure. The treasure was cursed and brought ill to those who later possessed it.
English "dragon" derives (via Middle English, Old French, and Latin) from Greek dracon, "serpent, dragon"; the Greek word derives from Indo-European *derk-, "to see", and may originally have meant something like "monster with the evil eye." Notwithstanding their folkloric associations, there is no etymological connection between dragons and the ghoulish figures known as draugar in Old Norse, who haunt rich burial mounds.
The emblem books popular from late medieval times through the 17th century often represent the dragon as an emblem of greed. The prevalence of dragons in European heraldry demonstrates that there is more to the dragon than greed.
The poem Beowulf describes a draca (= dragon) also as wyrm (= worm, or serpent) and its movements by the Anglo-Saxon verb bugan = "to bend", and says that it has a venomous bite; all of these indicate a snake-like form and movement rather than with a lizard-like or dinosaur-like body as in later belief (though the dragon of Beowulf does show several features that would later become popularized with dragons; namely, it breathes fire, lives underground, and collects treasure).
Dragons in Celtic and Anglo-Saxon mythology The Welsh flag, showing a red dragon passant In Great Britain, to this day, a rampant red dragon (clutching a mace) is the heraldic symbol of the County of Somerset. The county once formed part of the early-medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex in western England, which too bore a dragon or wyvern (a two-legged as opposed to a four-legged dragon) as a symbol. The Wessex beast is usually colored gold in illustrations.
Now, however, the dragon is more commonly associated with Wales, as its national flag features a red dragon (Y Ddraig Goch). This may originate in Arthurian Legend where Myrddin, employed by Gwrtheyrn, had a vision of the red dragon[8] (representing the Britons) and the white dragon (representing the invading Saxons) fighting beneath Dinas Emrys. This particular legend also features in the Mabinogion in the story of Lludd and Llefelys.[9] The legendary house of Pendragon and Celtic Britain in general have become associated with the Welsh dragon standard after the fact.
According to the writer on heraldry Arthur Charles Fox-Davies, the red dragon of Wales originated with the standard of the 7th century king Cadwaladr, and was used as a supporter by the Tudor dynasty (who were of Welsh origin).[10] Queen Elizabeth, however, preferring gold, changed the royal mantle and the dragon supporter from red to gold, and some Welsh scholars still hold that the dragon of Wales is properly ruddy gold rather than gules.[10] There may be some doubt of the Welsh origin of the dragon supporter of the Royal arms, but it certainly was used by King Henry III.[10] It has also been speculated that the red dragon of Wales may have even earlier origins in the Sarmatian-influenced Draco standards carried by Late Roman cavalry, who would have been the primary defence against the Saxons.
The Welsh flag is parti per fess Argent and Vert; a dragon Gules passant. Welsh rugby teams include the Newport Gwent Dragons and the Cardiff City Blue Dragons.
The Merthyr Synagogue in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, features a dragon on the front gable.
Dragons in Slavic mythology Zmey Gorynych, by Victor Vasnetsov Main article: Slavic dragon Dragons of Slavic mythology hold mixed temperaments towards humans. For example, dragons (дракон, змей, ламя, (х)ала) in Bulgarian mythology are either male or female, each gender having a different view of mankind. The female dragon and male dragon, often seen as sister and brother, represent different forces of agriculture. The female dragon represents harsh weather and is the destroyer of crops, the hater of mankind, and is locked in a never ending battle with her brother. The male dragon protects the humans' crops from destruction and is generally loving to humanity. Fire and water play major roles in Bulgarian dragon lore; the female has water characteristics, whilst the male is usually a fiery creature. In Bulgarian legend, dragons are three headed, winged beings with snake's bodies.
In Bulgarian, Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian and Serbian lore, a dragon, or "змей" (Bulgarian: Змей), zmey (Russian: Змей), smok (Belarusian: Цмок), zmiy Ukrainian: Змій), zmaj (Serbian: Змај) is generally an evil, four-legged beast with few if any redeeming qualities. Zmeys are intelligent, but not very highly so; they often place tribute on villages or small towns, demanding maidens for food, or gold. Their number of heads ranges from one to seven or sometimes even more, with three- and seven-headed dragons being most common. The heads also regrow if cut off, unless the neck is "treated" with fire (similar to the hydra in Greek mythology). Dragon blood is so poisonous that Earth itself will refuse to absorb it. In Bulgarian mythology these dragons are sometimes good, opposing the evil Lamya /ламя/, a beast that shares a likeness with the zmey.
The most famous Polish dragon (Polish: Smok) is the Wawel Dragon or Smok Wawelski, the Dragon of Wawel Hill. It supposedly terrorized ancient Kraków and lived in caves on the Vistula river bank below the Wawel castle. According to lore based on the Book of Daniel, it was killed by a boy who offered it a sheepskin filled with sulphur and tar. After devouring it, the dragon became so thirsty that it finally exploded after drinking too much water. A metal sculpture of the Wawel Dragon is a well-known tourist sight in Kraków. It is very stylised but, to the amusement of children, noisily breathes fire every few minutes. The Wawel dragon also features on many items of Kraków tourist merchandise. Dragon is the coat of arms of the Polish princes- Piastów of czersk.
Other dragon-like creatures in Polish folklore include the basilisk, living in cellars of Warsaw, and the Snake King from folk legends.
Dragons in Iberian mythology Dragons in Asturian and Cantabrian mythology Main article: Cuélebre The Cuélebre, or Culebre, is a giant winged serpent in the mythology of Asturias and Cantabria, in the north of Spain. It usually lives in a cave, guards treasures and keeps nymph-like beings called xanas or anjanas as prisoners. They are immortal, but grow old. They can be tricked in particular ways, especially on certain days.
Dragons in Aragonese mythology There is a legend that a dragon dwelled in the Peña Uruel mountain near Jaca. It says that it could mesmerize people with his glance, so the young man who decided to kill the beast equipped himself with a shiny shield, so that the dragon's glance would be reflected. So, when the young man arrived the cave where the dragon lived, he could kill it easily because the dragon mesmerized itself. This legend is very similar to the Greek myth of Medusa.
The king of Peter IV of Aragon used a dragon on his helmet to show that he was the king of Aragon, as a heraldic pun (Rei d'Aragón, dragón).
Dragons in Basque mythology Herensuge is the name given to the dragon in Basque mythology, meaning apparently the "last serpent". The best known legend has St. Michael descending from Heaven to kill it but only once God agreed to accompany him in person.
Sugaar , the Basque male god, is often associated with the serpent or dragon but able to take other forms as well. His name can be read as "male serpent".
A. Xaho , a romantic myth creator of the 19th century, fused these myths in his own creation of Leherensuge, the first and last serpent, that in his newly coined legend would arise again some time in the future bringing the rebirth of the Basque nation.
Dragons in Catalan mythology Vibria in a parade in Reus (Catalonia) Dragons are well-known in Catalan myths and legends, in no small part because St. GeorgeSant Jordi) is the patron saint of Catalonia. Like most dragons, the Catalan dragon (Catalan drac) is an enormous serpent with two legs, or, rarely, four, and sometimes a pair of wings. 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 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.
The Catalans also distinguish a víbria or vibra (cognate with English viper and wyvern), a female dragon with two prominent breasts, two claws and an eagle's beak.
Dragons in Portuguese mythology In Portuguese mythology, coca is a female dragon that battles Saint George on the Corpus Christi holiday. The fighting has a symbolic meaning: when the coca defeats Saint George the crops will be bad and there will be famine and death. When Saint George defeats the coca he cuts off her tongue and ears; the crops will have a good year and it announces prosperity. Still, she is called "saint" coca just like George is called saint and the people cheer for her. Another dragon called drago is also represented in Portuguese mythology and used to take part in celebrations during the Middle Ages.
Dragons in Italian mythology Saint Margaret and the Dragon, alabaster with traces of gilding, Toulouse, ca 1475 (Metropolitan Museum of Art) The legend of Saint George and the dragon is well-known in Italy, but other Saints are depicted fighting a dragon. For instance, the first bishop of the city of Forlì, named Saint Mercurialis, was said to have killed a dragon and saved Forlì, so he often is depicted killing a dragon. Likewise, the first patron saint of Venice, Saint Theodore of Tyro, was a dragon-slayer, and a statue representing his slaying of the dragon still tops one of the two columns in St. Mark's square. St. Michael, the patron saint of paratroopers, is also frequently depicted slaying a dragon. Many dragons of the European Middle Ages were thought to be demonic or of evil status.
According to the Golden Legend, compiled by the Italian Jacobus de Voragine, Saint Margaret the Virgin was swallowed by Satan in the shape of a dragon, from which she escaped alive when the cross she carried irritated the dragon's innards. The Golden Legend, in an atypical moment of scepticism, describes this last incident as "apocryphal and not to be taken seriously" (trans. Ryan, 1.369) - which did not prevent the legend from being popuar and getting artistic treatments.
Thyrus, the dragon of Terni But many more are the legends about dragons in Italy, particularly in Umbria. One of the most famous dragons of Italian folklore is Thyrus, a wyvern that besieged Terni in the Middle Ages. One day, a young and brave knight, tired of witnessing the death of his fellow citizens and depopulation of Terni, faced the dragon and killed him. From that day, the town assumed the creature in its coat of arms. Also a Latin inscription supports this: "Thyrus et amnis dederunt signa Teramnis" that stands under the banner of the town of Terni.
"Saint Silvestro resurrects two magicians, and the Fornole dragon", Vernio Bardi Chapel, Santa Croce (Florence) Another poem tells of another dragon that yet lived near the village of Fornole, near Terni in the south of Umbria. Pope Saint Sylvester arrived in Umbria and freed the population of Fornole from the ferocity of the dragon, making him become mild. In gratitude, the population built, in the 13th century, a little church dedicated to the Saint on the top of the mountain, near the dragon's lair. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_dragon#Dragons_in_Aragonese_mythology
France
The Drac was a medieval monster associated with Beaucaire in the Gard. The story is that in 1250 he abducted a lavender seller and took her beneath the waters to raise his son. When she was released at the end of seven years, the young woman was endowed with the ability to recognise the Drac with one of her eyes. One day, she recognised him as he was going about the market in Beaucaire. Upon being identified, the Drac ripped the woman's eye out. The Drac was then supposed to have gone on to kill over three thousand people. The legend was perpetuated by Frédéric Mistral in his Poèmes du Rhône, in which he tells of a hybrid monster, dwelling in the river and coming out from time to time to feed on lavender-sellers, ferrymen or others who strayed to close to the water's edge.
The Tarasque is the emblem of Tarascon, in the Bouches-du-Rhône. The legend of this ancient creature, as described in 12th-century writings, was of a half-serpent half-lion monster from Gallicia, the offspring of the ancient-world serpents, Leviathan and Onacho. The Tarasque terrorised the region, breathing flames, destroying houses, and killing the people. The dragon destroyed the bridges and then devoured anyone who tried to cross. Many, including the King of Nerluc, the ancient name of Tarascon, fought the Tarasque, and perished. The city was saved by Martha, Saint Martha of Bethany, who was born sometime in the 1st century to a Syrian duke named Syro and his wife, Encharia of Magdalene, in Bethany, near Jerusalem. She is reputed to have lived with her brother, Lazarus and her sister, Mary Magdalene. Following the crucifixion, Martha, Lazarus, Mary Magdalene, and others were cast adrift in a small boat. They eventually landed safely at Marseille where Martha became a missionary, She was in Nerluc, one market day, when she heard about the dragon. The townspeople challenged her to prove the strength of her religion by subduing the dragon. Martha set out, bare-foot, to find the dragon, with no other weapon other than a jar of holy water, and with the whole town following her. At the dragon's lair, Martha held up two sticks as a cross and stopped the dragon as if pierced by a sword. She sprinkled holy water on it to quench its fire, then used his sharp tooth to cut off her braids and make a bridle to lead the Tarasque back to town. The people, still terrified by the monster, attacked it and killed it with a shower of stones. The citizens errected a new church in honor of Saint Martha and changed the name of the town from Nerluc to Tarascon.