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Dragon (page 2)
Dragons have appeared in mythology and legend
for thousands of years in almost every country around the world. And the
fact that the creature was truly regarded as an actual monster rather than a
myth can be demonstrated in several writings of the day.
Edward Topsell, writing
in his
Historie of Serpents (1608),
commented that among all the kinds of serpents, there is none comparable to the
Dragon, or that afforded and yielded so much plentiful matter in history for
the ample discovery of the nature thereof.
Could it be that the Western dragon
developed from a memory in the collective unconscious of modern man, a
memory of other, widespread, fierce and fearsome animals, survivors from
the age of dinosaurs
a memory passed down from our primitive ancestors, who lived in terror
of such creatures? In the 19th century, fossil evidence of the existence
of the pterodactyl, an extinct winged reptile, led to speculation that dragons,
far from being purely mythical, may at one time have been real monsters that had
survived from the age of the dinosaurs. A few scientists today regard the theory that a number of
dinosaurs could have survived into the Age of Man. Pick up any book on
dinosaurs and it is obvious that a
Tyrannosaurus Rex
would have made a terrific dragon in anyones legend. Such a huge reptile
thudding about the countryside of early Europe or Asia could certainly fit even
the most extraordinary descriptions of a dragon.
A more acceptable theory is that ancient
historians were in reality describing huge snakes such as the python, which
often reaches a length of more than 30 feet. Still, this does not account
for descriptions of the dragons feet or its ability to walk on all fours. A
more believable theory is that large ancient bones discovered in those times such as dinosaur fossils, giant
cave bear skulls, mammoths and woolly rhinoceros skeletons could have been
mistaken for dragon remains, fueling all manner of stories and folklore.
In the book
Mythical Monsters (1886) New Zealand geologist
Charles Gould declared:
"We may infer that it (the dragon) was a long terrestrial lizard,
hibernating and carnivorous... possibly furnished with wing-like
expansions...."
A discovery that took place in 1912 gave some
support to Gould's theory. A Dutch pilot who crash-landed on the island of
Komodo in Indonesia reported seeing huge, grotesque-looking, carnivorous
creatures resembling dragons. Investigations confirmed the airman's story. The
animal he had seen was a giant monitor lizard, now known as the
Komodo dragon. The creature grows
to 12 feet in length, has a long powerful tail, feeds on carrion, and sometimes
attacks and kills people. From New Guinea, too, have come unconfirmed reports of
lizards that are even larger than the Komodo dragon. It is, however, difficult
to understand how these particular giant lizards, isolated in a part of the
world remote from Europe, could have played any part in the development of the
Western legend of the dragon.
Nevertheless, people in
Durham
(England) still sing of the 'worm'
Old English for 'dragon'
which terrorized the county in the Middle Ages. It all began when the
young heir to
Lambton Castle went fishing on a Sunday. He caught an
eel-like creature, which he threw down a well. In the well the worm grew
to an enormous size, and when the young knight went off on a
crusade, it
broke out and devoured men and beasts. Every night it would sleep while
wound three times around
Lambton Hill, now called
Worm Hill. Young
Lambton managed to slay the dragon on his return from the crusade, but
only by promising a witch
he would kill the first creature he met after his victory.
Unfortunately, it was his father who was first on the scene. Young Lambton
refused to kill him, and, because of this, the Lambton family was put under the
witch's curse a
curse said to be effective still.
See
Basilisk,
Chupacabra,
Casting Black Magic Spells,
Commanding Spirits,
The Tarot Store,
The Chakra Store and
Divination & Scrying Tools and
Supplies.
Sources: (1)
Dictionary of the
Occult, Caxton
Publishing; (2)
Spence, Lewis,
An Encyclopedia of
Occultism, Carol Publishing Group;
(3)
Mysterious Creatures,
from the collection
Mysteries
of the Unknown,
Time-Life Books;
(4) Steiger, Brad and Sherry Hansen,
The Gale Encyclopedia of
the Unusual and Unexplained,
Thomson Gale.
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