Work Text:
Humanities 212
Guren – with help from Yūkimaru
Dragons: As Complex as Crystal
Dragon: a benevolent creature that shares its vast wisdom and grants good fortune to those it deems worthy.
Does that definition not fit correctly?
How about this one…
Dragon: a ferocious, fire breathing creature that captures young princesses and hoards gold and treasure because of its greedy nature.
Does neither of those make complete sense?
Perhaps a “dragon” is actually to be presented as…. Dragon: the creator of earth and all that is on it, the one who is the rain-maker, the wind-blower and also the fire-bringer.
All of these “definitions” are descriptions of how these three different cultures and times have viewed the word “dragon.” The first one is found in many eastern cultures, especially Chinese culture. The second view is the kind of dragon that is perceived in most western stories which have been heavily influenced by Christianity. The third one is a Mesoamerican god known as Quetzalcoatl or Kukulkan which was worshipped as the “Great Feathered Serpent.”
Now here is the question, “which one of these definitions is what a dragon really is?”
All these beliefs cannot be real, for they are so different from each other that they are almost opposites, right?
Yet, looking deeper, that’s not true at all. That was a trick question. There isn’t a true or false in belief. None of these definitions of “dragon” are truer than the others. They’ve all been believed.
Dragons have been viewed and believed in throughout the majority of cultures around the world, and this belief has been expressed in many unique ways. According to “Llewellyn’s Little Book of Dragons” there is a term used for the most renowned dragon types, called the “True Dragon Trio.”
The “Dragon Trio” consists of Eastern, Western, and Feathered types, which are the dragons previously explained.
One interpretation of “dragon” may be more vastly accepted than others. However, that doesn’t make the less known or the completely different ideas any less “true.” As no one has any physical evidence of dragon’s actual existence, humans have to rely on the stories, histories, and arts that have any mention of the fantastical creatures.
Not only are humans sifting through the past to discover “what a dragon really is,” they are looking forward with new innovations and ideas on dragons and their anonymity. Some research is focused primarily on the actual existence of dragons either in the past or in with evolution in the future. But despite all this research and studying, dragons still remain an unsolved mystery that glides through different cultures, times, and stories. People who research the “dragon” aim to find its meaning, its truth, and why humans can be so obsessed with it.
In the words of Earnest Ingersoll:
“We have seen that the notion embodied in the word “dragon” goes back to the beginning of recorded human thoughts about the mysteries of the thinker and his world. It is connected with the powers and doings of the earliest gods, and like them is vague, changeable and contradictory in its attributes, maintaining from first to last only one definable characteristic- association with and control of water.”
We will examine the many correlations, different interpretations, beliefs, and theories that revolve around this unique creature. First, we will explore the cultures’ perspectives on dragons.
Egypt, Babylon, and much of the Mesopotamian Regions but specifically Assyria’s, definition of the word ‘dragon’ dates back to the first recorded human ideas.
Theories suggest that if we were to delve further into the past, before any recorded time, the ideas of dragons would still be there to influence the humans.
Supposedly, Egypt has the first primitive kept stories of dragons, where a dragon is pulling the chariot of Horus. Egyptian’s believed that the weather and all acts of nature were caused by supernatural beings. For example, rain that helped crops grow were created by good Gods, contrary wise droughts and storms were caused by malevolent Gods.
The intriguing thing is that the characters of these ancient stories constantly change sides of good and evil, sometimes even changing species. Throughout these stories dragons are seen as both Gods and demons. Depending on the time and place, you may get a different interpretation of the same story.
You can even see a period in history where the dragon was seen as primarily “bad.” For a long amount of time the people of Assyria viewed dragons as evil. The royal family had their crest made into that of two dragon horns representing how they conquered the dragon. Not to say that dragons were all bad. An instance where dragons were on the side of light is Aker. Aker represented the earth and would bind and chain the underworld whenever Ra would pass through it, in order to protect the world from any underworldian escapees.
Eastern is a very broad category.
I will break it down further within this section.
First, I will name the characteristics different types of Eastern Dragons share. In the book “Dragons and Dragon Lore Cryptozoology and Mythology” it explains the true impact dragons have in Eastern culture.
In the book it states that:
“It is the embodiment of all the significance of national history and ancient philosophy the natural and supreme symbol of their race and culture.”
Specifically in China, Tibet, and Korea dragons are physical beings, deities who have abundant wisdom and control over the water of the land, rain in particular. Even so, these physical beings were treated like Gods.
The physical appearance of the Eastern dragons is a combination of nine other entities. They have the head of a camel, eyes of a demon, ears of a cow, horns of a stag, neck of a snake, belly of a clam, the feet soles of a tiger, claws of an eagle, and finally 117 scales of a carp. The carp scales greatly impact a dragon’s behavior 81 of the scales are benevolent (yang) and 36 of them are malevolent (yin).
This is the reason why most dragons were seen as “good” yet there were still “bad” ones as well.
It was like a percentage system.
Dracontologist Dr. Karl Shuker describes dragons’ voices as “ambivalent: likened to the jingling of copper pans, it is neither mellifluous nor cacophonous.”
The correlation between dragons and yin and yang does not end here. Going back to the time between 2853 and 2738 B.C., sage Fu His was in the Province of Honan when he happened upon a yellow dragon-horse. The dragon-horse’s mane was in the shapes of the mysterious Trigrams found in the Yi King, which is the Bible of the Taoist.
The Trigrams were said to be a prehistoric divination practice based on mathematics.
Trigrams are the literal attempt at “graphic demonstration of the mystical principle at the heart of Chinese philosophy expressed in the terms ‘yang’ and its antithesis ‘yin’.”-Ernest Ingersoll.
This was the time when dragons became so embedded in Taoist beliefs that they started the spread of dragons quicker through the Asian continent.
One of the most interesting differences between Chinese dragons and other Eastern dragons is how they grow.
Most other Eastern dragons grow much like that of a lizard. When they hatch from an egg they simply are a smaller version of their future self.
The Chinese dragons work much more closely to amphibians with actual physical transformations similar to that of a frog and tadpole. They have six different stages over the span of 3,000 years to go through before they reach full maturity. When you think of a Chinese dragon, most people think of a wingless, yet still somehow flying dragon. However, a wingless dragon that can fly in Chinese culture is actually at the stage before full maturity.
The final stage of maturity grants the dragon’s wings.
The Chinese dragons could fly before the gain of wings though because of its chi’ih muh. The chi’ih muh is a ‘poof’ of the forehead that expands and detracts like that of a bladder making it possible for the dragon to fly.
The Japanese dragons have small variations over the many islands of Japan, but most of the variations are very similar. Japan’s dragons are mostly benevolent creatures yet their stories focus on sadder and emotional aspects.
Such stories include one “Hai Riyo; the Drgaon Bird”. The ones who hear the howl of Hai Riyo the bird dragon, will be met with famine and plague.
The Japanese Dragons are also known for their connections to the sea instead of the rain and the dragons’ three toes on each foot instead of more.
We now move on to a dragon that is seen abundantly in today’s pop culture, the Western’s dragon.
The western dragon image is the first to be seen as inherently evil. Western interpretations are very story oriented with the stories’ goal to be the slaying of the dragon.
This symbolizes the slaying of evil itself.
Dragons could be the epitome of evil, explained as demon-like creatures.
It was believed humans who were cruel and selfish could even turn into dragons. Fafnir is an example of human turned dragon. Fafnir killed his father and stole all the family’s treasure therefore was transformed into a dragon.
A demon quality of the dragons was how they could become gates to the underworld. They could breathe fire because their mouths were the portals to the underworld and being eaten meant being trapped there.
Some dragons were just seen as completely evil beings with no redeeming qualities. The common thread between Western dragons is that they all relate to religions one way or another as a villain character.
This category has to be separated differently than how the others were divided by country or region.
Western has to be divided by religion and beliefs; Medieval Christian, Norse, and Mythology.
The idea of the medieval dragon sprouted from Christianity.
The dragon terrorizing a kingdom, a captured princess, a knight rescuing her; all of these classic tropes came from the first Christian story about a dragon, “Saint George and the Dragon”.
The story explains how a kingdom with a foolish king was being coerced into feeding a dragon that emerged from their swamp. The dragon could produce a gas that could kill all their crops and even humans themselves. The villagers appeased the dragon by offering two sheep daily, but eventually they ran out of sheep. Well, the king thought it would be a good idea to start feeding the village children to the dragon, hoping that someone would come and save them.
Eventually all the children of the kingdom were dead besides one, the princess.
The king still offers her to the dragon and she is tied to a stake in the swamp, awaiting death. This is when St. George shows up and swaps life stories with the princess, explaining how he was once a Roman soldier, but he is now a Christian who only fights for God. He says how it is his duty to kill the dragon for it is completely evil.
The dragon is described how one would imagine a medieval dragon except there is one key difference; this dragon is peculiarly part zombie. The dragon is decaying away and smells like death. Eventually George injures the dragon and takes him and the princess back to the kingdom. He tells the king that he will kill the dragon so long as the whole kingdom converts to Christianity. The king agrees, and the village is saved.
Dragons in Greek mythology are actually many of the giants or titans in the mythos.
These titans were the ones ruling the world with Ophion the Great Snake as chief god. Ophion was a dragon-creature that was described as a huge human, but with the difference of having serpent tails instead of legs. It was the job of the new heroes to take the power from Ophion and become the rulers of earth. Ophion was overthrown by the son of a titan, named Cronus, and his wife Rhea helped.
Another famous dragon of Greek mythology was actually about one of the children of the titans; the Lernaean Hydra. Hydra’s parents were called Echidna and Typhon. Echidna was known as the “mother of monsters” and according to Greek Mythology Echidna’s body “comprised of a lower half of a serpent and the upper half of a beautiful nymph. Belying her beautiful upper body, Echidna was also known to have had a taste for human flesh,” while her husband Typhon, “was basically half-man and half-serpent, but he also had hands comprised of a hundred dragon heads.”
The hydra, the son of Echidna and Typhon, was simply another form of dragon. Its uniqueness being that it possessed no wings and had eight heads, and if any of the heads were lost they would grow back double. The hydra was the cause of the famed hero Hercules’s demise.
Greek Mythologies view of dragon is very chaotic.
Dragons were both the cause for destruction and salvation of everything.
A branch of Germanic religion is Norse.
The Vikings that practiced the Norse beliefs did not have a defined name for their religion, content to refer to it as the “old ways” opposed to the “new ways” or Christianity. Similar to Christianity, Norse dragons were considered malevolent.
Norse dragons were also similar to the depictions of Greek dragons. The Vikings believed that dragons were Gods, and the Godlike dragons tended to represent things, analogous to Greek Gods.
The most renowned Norse dragon is Nidhogg which literally means curse-striker or “He Who Strikes with Malice”. The Old Way believers thought that the Nine Realms were connected to each other through what was known as the Tree of Life. With villainous intent Nidhogg would eat the roots of the Tree of Life as it was said that if one were to disturb the roots it would send all the realms into chaos. Nidhogg presides over a portion of the Underworld, but this belief only procured after some of the Christian beliefs merged into Norse beliefs.
The Vikings who believed in the Old Ways did not willingly convert into Christianity as was demanded; instead they hid their beliefs. Because of the preservation of their beliefs there are still believers in this religion which now has holds a title, Asatro.
Feathered dragons are nearly always an Amphiptere type dragon.
These dragons have large wings, no forelimbs, and only occasionally possess small hind legs. This makes them look similar to a flying serpent or snake. Their most prominent quality is being completely covered in feathers. Most Amphipteres feathers are a variety of bright colors, but there are some exception dragons with dark and more neutral pigments. The Amphiptere dragons’ powers are reflected by their color.
The origins of feathered dragons are vastly different from the two previous “major” dragon types, for feathered dragons are seen through many different cultures. There are two cultures in particular that are the most prominent figures of the Feathered Dragon’s; Quetzalcoatl of Mesoamerica and The Amphiptere of North Africa.
Amphiptere dragons can also be referred to as Amphitheres or Amphiteres.
The idea of this type of dragon is said to have actually been brought to the Americas and Europe through the slave trade. The stories of the Amphipteres branch out over North Africa and Madagascar as well.
The story of dragon’s in Madagascar sprouted from another legend, the legend of the Fandrefiala dragon.
This dragon was a tricky and clever creature. They would hide in the trees, awaiting the arrival of unsuspecting humans. The Fandrefiala would plunge from the trees with their tails pointed downward in imitation of spears, skewering their victims. Both the hunter and the hunted would die on impact. The Fandrefiala’s lack of fear in regards to death increased the islander’s fear of the snake-like dragon.
If the Fandrefiala was not scared of death, how would the villagers keep the terrorizing dragons away?
The snake’s attacks occurred during the night, shrouding the creatures in darkness. Depictions of the Fandrefiala showed them to look like a snake that could fly with intricate patterns covering it, especially patterns on its face.
This legend is what is believed to be the start of the Amphiptere type Feathered Dragons.
Quetzalcoatl was a God in Mesoamerican culture also known as the “Great Feathered Serpent.”
Quetzalcoatl is defined as “a mythological fusion of a serpent and a real – but exceptionally spectacular – bird, the quetzal.”
The quetzal is colored in dazzling green feathers with a red underbelly. The males possess four tail feathers that are up to two feet long. So whenever this bird takes flight the tail feathers drag behind them making it appear to be a flying snake.
Another astounding fact of the Quetzalcoatl is that whenever he touches the ground he can shape shift into an insanely beautiful human still sporting many of his other forms attributes.
Quetzalcoatl had a twin, each of their powers being the opposite of the others. Quetz’s powers were wind, wisdom, life, and creation of life.
His brother, Tezcatlipoca is a dragon of neutral dark colors, the opposite of his brother’s bright greens and reds. His powers were trickery, darkness, and a form of seeing into the future.
Quetz is pretty gullible when it comes to his twin and falls for every trap he sets.
There are many stories revolving around this fact and ironically Quetz dies in many of them, but is completely fine and alive later on, posing the question of if he has an ability to come back to life.
The Aztecs, Toltecs, and the Mayans believe that the brightest star in the sky is Quetz’s heart that he cast there himself after Tez got him so drunk that he slept with his sister, Quetzalpetlatl. Tez banished him from their realm for a long time after that.
The people of Mesoamerica also believed that solar eclipses were evil. Quetz was seen as the literal sun so when the moon covered him they believed it was him being swallowed by the Earth Serpent. Quetz however did not want a sacrifice to help him in his dilemma because he did not agree with those practices. So the people would wait with bated breath to see if their God could defeat the Earth Serpent and shine brightly once again.
Now that we have discussed the many different types of dragons throughout the world and history, I will speak of the existence of dragons in today’s society.
Dragons still appear in many religions and beliefs in the twentieth century. Examples include the old Nordic religion in Denmark now known as Asatro with at least 1,000 followers, along with the dragon symbols still used in China.
One religion that has passed down and evolved their religion through time takes place in the Ryukyu Islands. The dragon in their culture is largely related to Chinese and other East Asian interpretations of dragons. Dragons are seen as powerful Gods of the sea, similar to the Japanese relation to dragons and water. Their dragons though all live together in an undersea kingdom of magnificence. The religion teaches ancestor worship or "ancestor respect” and the respecting of relationships between the living, the dead, the Gods, and spirits of the natural world.
They also heavily believe in the powers of Shamens, priest/priestesses, and the Kaminchu which is a woman with high spiritual power. Most often the people who possessed this magic were women which followed the island belief Onarigami which literally meant that women had more magic within them than men.
One tale describes how the island’s priestess predicted the dragon’s worst fear and carved it into a wooden necklace. She presented it to the king and told him to stand before the dragon and bear it like a shield. The carving was of a Shisa-Dog which is part lion part dog. As she foretold the dragons panicked releasing a roar that caused a boulder to fall on the dragon thereby killing him.
Dragons are seen in more than just religious beliefs today. They have also taken popular culture by storm.
In novels dragons have filled countless pages with characters such as Eragon from “The Inheritance Cycle” book series and Smaug from “Lord of the Rings” book series. Movies have been consumed by the idea of dragons as well examples include the Dream Works film “How to Train Your Dragon,” and “The Never Ending Story,” with the Good Luck Dragon. Recently the most popular dragons in American society are the three ‘children’ of Khaleesi, The Mother of Dragons from “Game of Thrones, Drogon, Rhaega, and Viserion. Game of Thrones actually spread its “dragon culture” through both the HBO television series and novel series of nine.
Another thing that is taking place in our society today is the apt study of dragons in evolution.
Many scientist have studied the “what ifs” of dragons previous existence with the theory of the mighty beasts still hibernating under the ocean today, but I will primarily be talking about the reverse.
Zoologist Josh Gabbatiss has studied many of the discoveries, cultures, and theories of mythical creatures throughout history. Gabbatiss takes this information and figures out the biological and environmental ways in which these animals could evolve in today’s society. Gabbatiss draws on the idea from anthropologist David E. Jones book, “Instinct for Dragons.” Jones believes that the human idea for “dragon” actually evolved from monkeys. Monkeys’ fears were brought upon by its three main predators.
He explains:
“The dragon is an amalgam of these basic primate fears. The sinuous scaliness of the snake, the wings of the eagle, and the jaws and claws of a big cat combine to form a fearsome memory in an ancient part of our brains.”
Back to Gabbatiss, he used this idea as a sort of spring board to start figuring out the animals that started the evolution of dragons. He believes that only two of these animals could be the base of the dragon with only attributes from the other. Gabbatiss speculates that the way the dragon would evolve depends on the culture from which you drew the information from.
If you were to take the dragons from East Asia then the dragons’ core animal would be that of a snake.
The Eagle would hold the core if we were to draw the ideas from the European countries.
A dragon would consist of one of these two cores with variations of the other two along with accordance to where the dragons’ environment was.
Finally we must broach what could be the dragon’s most notable feature; its fire breathing capabilities.
Gabbatiss has indeed incorporated this ability with help from the bombardier beetle.
As Gabbatiss describes it:
“These insects store hydroquinone and hydrogen peroxide in their abdomens. When provoked, they initiate a violent chemical reaction that ejects a near-boiling-hot stream of chemicals at the unfortunate attacker.”
These creatures actually exist today and are the final piece to our evolution of dragon puzzle.
Now, after examining dragons through the ages, places, cultures, and beliefs, it is now appropriate to finish defining what a “dragon” is.
Dragons are not just the fear that humans carry and are not just the salvation they seek.
The “dragon” is simply an explanation.
Through every story that was told, the dragons’ primary purpose was to explain a phenomenon or a moral that needed to be taught.
Chinese tales consisted of dragons with good intentions that would cause the rain to grow crops, while in places like Britain, dragons were basically the embodiment of all the evil humans possessed and therefore needed to be vanquished.
Dragons were a reason why things happened or needed to happen. For every unanswerable question they had, they could claim that its cause was some incredibly powerful being, the dragon.
They did not know why or what the sun was, so they decided for the sake of their peace of mind to create the dragon.
An invisible “something” had caused entire towns to grow ill and many had died and no one knew what it was or how to stop it. The people needed a common enemy, something to blame this horror on, an explanation to why it was happening. They decided that a dragon had cursed the land and the only way to appease it was by killing the already cursed.
Humans crave knowledge because they are afraid of the unknown.
When people do not know or cannot find the truth, they create one.
They explain away the problem or question.
Why a dragon in particular was decided to be the world’s explanation is still a mystery.
Maybe it was that fossils were discovered and claimed to belong to dragons.
Maybe people really did attain this fear from evolution.
Maybe dragons did exist as real creatures or as Gods.
It is not necessary to disprove dragon’s existence or provide all the answers to the origins of dragons.
What is important is to realize that humans have a need to “know” things or provide rationale for things in an effort to eliminate fear or worry.
Humans will come up with ways to prevent such feelings.
They will create explanations, rationales, and even stories to do so.
Maybe a simple definition of dragon is “scapegoat” of the unknown.