As rational beings, the human race somehow cannot resist its fascination for certain cultural symbols that have been around since Antiquity. The fascination for the mythological creature of the dragon is an unquestionable example. The dragon appears in the mythology of many cultures. It is interesting to note that dragons are described as having wings, four legs, horns, and able to spit fire in Western mythology, while the dragons of Eastern cultures are described as wingless, also with four legs, serpentine and possessing above average intelligence. The earliest dragons are found in Middle Eastern mythology, and they appear in the art and literature of ancient Mesopotamia. The dragons of ancient civilizations had names like mushussu in Mesopotamia, Apep in Egypt. In the mythologies of the West, dragons are described as monsters to vanquish, to be dominated by a hero, or a saint, like the dragon of St. George. This image of the dragon as a monster persists in the fantasy literature of the West today, as in the books of J.R.R Tolkien, and the books in the series on Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling, and the series " A Song of Ice and Fire " by George R.R. Martin. In Chinese mythology, dragons are associated with rain, and many of the gods and demi - gods have dragons as their companions or mounts. In China, dragons were also associated with the emperor, and later on in the imperial history of China, only the emperor was allowed to have the emblem of the dragon in his places, on his robes and his personal affects. The word dragon is derived form the Greek word drakon, that means snake, or giant sea fish. The research community is not in agreement when it comes to the origin of the idea of the dragon, and one theory presented in 2000 by Adrienne Mayor is that possibly the stories about dragons can be explained by the discovery of ancient fossil bones of large ancient animals, like those of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals, like for example the fossils of Samotherium, a species of ancient giraffe, that was common in the region of the Mediterranean, and that could explain the images in ancient Greek art of the monster of Troy. This is just one possible explanation, because in the mythologies of the North of Europe, there are hardly any large fossils to be found. Also, many ancient civilizations had no idea about the existence of fossils, so the persistence and ubiquity of dragons in world mythology remains an enigma not yet solved.
In Mesopotamia, during the Akkadian period between c. 2334 to 2154 B.C. there are representations of a creature similar to a dragon, with the front feet of a lion, and the hind legs, tail and wings of a bird, an image that can be found up to the neo - Babylonian period from 626 B.C to 539 B.C. In Ancient Babylonia, there is the goddess Tiamat, who is described as having horns, a tail and skin that is impenetrable to all weapons, all traits that suggest that she was considered as a kind of dragon. In the mythology of ancient Egypt, Apep is a giant serpent that inhabits Duat, the world of life after death. It was thought that the thunder storms and earthquakes were caused by Apep 's roars, and that solar eclipses were caused by the attacks of Apep on the sun god Ra. The giant snake Nehebkau is described as being so enormous that the entire earth would rest on his back when he was coiled up. The Ancient Pyramid Texts from c. 2400 - 2300 B.C. are the oldest ancient texts of the ancient Egyptian civilization, and are carved into the underground walls and the sarcophagi of the pyramids at Saqqara. These texts speak of Denwen, who has its body made of fire, and who almost wiped out all the gods of the ancient Egyptian pantheon. Denwen was conquered by the Pharaoh, which confirmed this way the Pharaoh's divine right to govern. The ouroboros is an ancient Egyptian symbol of a serpent who swallows its own tail, and its antecedent was the serpent with the five heads, who according to Amduat, the most ancient Egyptian book on life after death, was coiled around the body of the sun god Ra, in a gesture of protection, and the first images of the ouroboros were put in with the tomb of the pharaoh Tutankhamen.The symbol of the serpent - dragon that bites its won tail was an insignia on the books of alchemy of the Middle Ages. The water dragon, Leviathan, is vanquished by the god Yahweh, the national god of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, during the creation of the world. The Book of the Apocalypse talks of a big red dragon with seven heads, ten horns, seven crowns and an enormous tail.
In Greek literature, the first time a dragon appears is in the Iliad, in a description of the king Agamemnon, who is described by Homer as having the insignia of a blue dragon on his sword's belt, and the emblem of a dragon with three heads on his breastplate. According to a collection of books by Claudius Aelianus ( 175 A.D. - 235 A. D. ), Ethiopia was inhabited by a species of dragons that hunted elephants, and these dragons were rumoured to attain a length of 55 meters and to live longer than the strongest of animals.
In Norse mythology in the ancient poem Grimnismal, the dragon Niohoggr is described as munching on the roots of Yggdrasil, the tree of the world. The ancient Beowulf, written between 975 A.D. and 1025 A. D. is considered one of the oldest and most important works of English literature. The author was an anonymous Anglo - Saxon poet, called by the experts simply as " the author of Beowulf ". The epic of Beowulf takes place in Scandinavia, where the hero Beowulf helps the king of the Danes, Hrothgar, whose palace in Heorot is attacked by a monster troll, Grendel, who eats many of Hrothgar's men during their sleep. Beowulf kills the monster, that had an impenetrable skin, by ripping off its arm at the level of the shoulder, and afterward, the mother of Grendel, enraged by the death of her son, also attacks the king , and she too, is vanquished. Beowulf returns home to Sweden.
Fifty years later, Beowulf kills a dragon, who was enraged at the theft of a golden goblet at the hands of a slave who had invaded his cave, but this time Beowulf is gravely wounded during his battle with the dragon and dies. A tower is erected on a hill in his memory. In 1731, the Beowulf manuscript is badly damaged during a fire at the Ashburnham House in London. At this moment, the epic is housed at the British Library, the largest library in the world, which has between 150 and 200 million books and manuscripts from all over the world. The events of Beowulf occur during the VI th century, the period after the ancient English, so the Anglo - Saxons, had started their migration towards England, a time in which the Anglo - Saxons were still in close proximity with their fellow countrymen of Northern Germany and the South of Scandinavia. It is believed its was possible that the poem Beowulf was transported to England by persons of Swedish origin, and that the royal family of the Wulfingas were descendants of the Swedish Wulfings. Excavations done in Uppsala in 1874, Sweden, prove the veracity of the epic Beowulf. The palaces of which the text speaks were part of the halls discovered during the 1874 excavations, three halls ere found, each of about 50 meters. The excavation discovered also the tomb of the king Eadgils, who was buried on a bear skin with two dogs and expensive funeral offerings. This epic is centered around a hero who is capable of killing a monster in his youth, and who then also kills a dragon 50 years later. Beowulf is a hero who travels great distances under difficult circumstances to fight against beasts possessed by supernatural powers. The epic starts with the funeral of the hero and king Shield Sheafson and it ends with the funeral for Beowulf. The epic of Beowulf has been translated into at least 23 languages.
In Europe, the interest in dragon mythology reaches its culmination between the XI th and XIII th centuries, with the legend of the red and the white dragon, told in the Historia Britannicae by the Welsh monk Geoffrey of Monmouth. The legend tells the story of the child prophet Merlin who explains to a military leader that the reason his tower keeps getting swallowed up by the earth is that there is a pond underneath it with two sleeping dragons. Merlin predicts that the white dragon will win, which was a symbol for the fact that England, who ran under a white standard, would defeat the Welsh. This legend remained popular until the XV th century. Russian and Ukrainian folklore has the dragon Zmey Gorynych, a dragon with three heads, each of them with horns of a goat. This dragon too, like the dragon Apep of the ancient Egyptians, was believed to be responsible for solar eclipses when he swallowed the sun. The dragon Zmey Gorynych was under the spell of the sorcerer Nemal Chelovek, who had the tzar's daughter imprisoned in his castle in the Ural mountains. The hero Ivan Tsarevich manages to rescue the princess with his magic sword, when the force of the blade cuts the three heads of the dragon.
In India, the dragon Vrtra represents drought that the god of thunder must overcome. In China, there is already evidence of dragon lore in the Neolithic period that goes back 12000 years and that has its origins in the Middle East. The idea of the domestication of dragons goes back to Chinese mythology, and according to their mythology the appearance to the cultural hero Fu Hsi of a dragon with dots on its back is responsible for the origin of Chinese writing. The dragon Zhulong is a Chinese god who created the universe with his body. The black dragon Li, who was said to have been born into a poor family of humans in Shandong, and who reigned as a god of the River of the Black Dragon is still venerated today as a god of rain. In many Chinese villages, there are still rituals in existence to bring rain, and it is believed that the rain god Naga, of Buddhist mythology, is at the origin of the popularity of this ritual. In the religion of Tao, a custom was started to invent a dragon king for each river, and every dragon king had his talents, which led to the abundance of temples along rivers to honour these dragon kings. Many Chinese festivals have as a theme the importance of the dragon, and large dragons images are made out of bamboo and paper mache, for the festival of spring, and the festival of lanterns, and there are also boats built in the shape of dragons, for dragon boat races, in an effort to avoid bad luck, and I remember being present at one of these races several years ago here in Olympia sponsored by the Chinese community in collaboration with the local martial arts schools here, where my husband and I were in training for our black belts.
In Japan, the mythology of the dragon is strongly influenced by Chinese, Korean and Indian mythology.
This way we have made a tour of the world, to return to the universal perspective of the photo of Lotfi Bouslah of Lolo Pics. The photo has as an introduction these words by the artist :
" Head of a wolf or a dragon. Below, in front of my signature, one can see what looks like the head of a dead person. Impressive nature. " It is a photo as if escaped from an ancient tale. Nature photographer Lotfi Bouslah brings us in really close to this wood sculpture nature has left us so that is might reach its proper place in our imagination through his camera's perspective. Framed by bright green grass, I see the head of a dragon that has all the beauty and dignity and fascination of an archaeological treasure, and that reminds me of the ancient buildings with their motifs in stone of flying serpent heads of the ruins of the Mayan temples I saw at Chitzen Itza in Mexico. The dragon of Lotfi Bouslah has its eyes and maw wide open, and is covered in a layer of silky soft moss, creating the magnificent illusion that the dragon's head is covered in ancient polished glass cloisonne. The head of the dragon hides a death mask, or the head of a dead person, which is a very appropriate symbol when it comes to the mythology of certain dragons in the East, where dragons were considered capable of conquering evil , even death. The mythology of the West prefers to celebrate the victory over malevolent dragons, but I prefer the mythology of the Near East and of China, and of certain dragons in ancient Egyptian mythology, where dragons were seen as protectors of benevolent gods, like the sun god Ra. This photo taken in the heart of Kabylie, by a Berber nature photographer, who is astute and highly attentive when it comes to his art, profoundly touched my heart. The Berber spirit has had to fight since the ancient times of King Masinissa for its freedom, its dignity, its pride, its culture, its nature. I hope with all my heart that the dragon in the photo will win the sometimes so fierce battle in Kabylie against the forces of evil, and that the death mask under the head of the fierce and furious dragon is a happy symbol of the day that darkness will be defeated once and for all, so that the dragon of freedom and happiness can reign for thousands of years over the mountains of this beautiful, courageous, tireless and powerful rebel that is the Berber spirit in Algeria.
Trudi Ralston
The research on the history of the mythology of the world of the dragon, courtesy of Wikipedia.
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