In 2000, the celebrated Chinese astrology year of the Metal Dragon. That year the magazine Arts of the East's dedicated an article to retrace the symbolism and legend, edited by G. Xavier Lungrich-Stift. I hope to please ripropronendolo anyone who has not had a chance to read it. Good reading.
"When the dragon roars in the mountains tremble, when the wise man listens to the dragon whispers"
Chinese proverb "When a tiger roars, the storm winds blow, when a dragon
sings, clouds gather.
The direction of a hare or the braying of a donkey instead
not have any effect on the wind and the clouds. "
Nichiren (Japanese Buddhist Monaco, 1222-1282)
The powerful blow of the tail of a dragon, sweeping away the decrepit millennium, while his sharp eyes shining the light mists of the future. On February 5, 2000, China is iziato for the year of the dragon of metal, which will end January 24, 2001. This is a meaningful event for the Far East, to the supreme importance that the figure of the dragon plays in every aspect of Eastern culture. So much so that the dragons have the Oriental mythology recorded in the world. In reality. dragons live in the legends for thousands of years all over the earth, making it worthy of the mythological figures not only the greatest respect, but also of great interest. The dragon, archetypal figure of the world and its most imaginative creature, man.
Nature has endowed the human being of a nervous system that allows a rich elaboration of the perceived objective reality that he believes up to create an infinite inside ito parallel world of ghostly representations. The intellectuals have therefore been led to believe that myth rests on a basis of reality. And the dragon is a popular myth, with its constant features. Adstrati also testified that wide spread evenly, from the greek drakon - indicating philological significance with a snake - the Latin draco, dragon Old French, English medieval dragon (u) No But if popular opinion generally, in the East and West, is that the dragons are not real creatures, a large number of people does not preclude a life passed, perhaps even in forms zoologically more acceptable and less imaginative than those captured by the iconography. In this regard theories amateurish, like the childish fantasies that underlie them, may suggest a number of proposals. One of the most common is the identification with species of dinosaurs. In fact the current state of paleontological science informs us that went almost a hundred million years after the demise of the dinosaurs in the Cretaceous period of the Mesozoic era, the emergence of the first bipedal hominids, about seven million years ago. Or some dinosaurs survived the cataclysms that marked the earth in prehistoric times and that killed his companions? So, if derived from prehistoric dinosaurs you have to speak, would not be more realistic to assume that the ancients saw whole and well preserved skeletons of dinosaurs, which heavily influenced their imagination? Among other things, the Chinese word for dinosaur is kung lung, that is "frightening dragon." The imagination of modern man, moreover, following parallel paths, in the ease of comparing the figure of the dragon than the ancestors of reptiles, mammals or birds present, as iguanodons, Stegosaurus, Ankylosaurus, theropods and pterosaurs overtime. Similarly, even today there are few animals that can resemble a dragon, from iguanas, Komodo dragons, even the dragonflies, which, moreover, in the Jurassic were as large as medium-sized birds. Do not forget that according to an analysis of the myth would be more likely to think of the draconian dragons as small animals, including half a meter and three meters. Other hypotheses put vague theories developed in the field of matrix Darwinian evolutionism, explaining the mysterious creature as a dragon product of evolution of primitive reptiles, the same second that different branches of development gave rise to dinosaurs, mammals and other reptiles evolved. Or the dragon could be the next evolution of living matter, a mutation of transition between dinosaurs and mammals, such as reptiles that had really happened to some properties of mammals and can actually remember of dragons.
The symbol of the dragon
Ultimately, reality is whatever the origin of the myth of the dragon, the more will no doubt be more realistic to say that the myth is always based on human instance, a need for production of the mind . It goes without saying, therefore, that the myth-making is a vehicle of choice - and this is part of his fascinating - for the study and understanding of man himself. And because the symbolism of the dragon has permission to make up more than one instance of a human being, the dragon is made by means of human knowledge. At a symbolic level, even more than in the physical and legendary, there is a gross division between the two major families of dragons, that East and West. Increasingly, not so much in the symbolism, as in the way of man to relate to it in two different cultural areas. The symbolism of the dragon itself has in fact many important traits in common between the two hemispheres: the dragons were everywhere primitively associated with the mastery of powerful elemental forces of the "Great Mother Earth," which they could be playing as both creators and destroyers, holders of control over the destiny of humanity. Chaotic energies out of control - even when not understanding - man, who sees the present with a huge sense of wonder and awe very often. An example is the almost ubiquitous attribution dragons to control the violent forces of water in its various forms. Not only the Far East but also Africa and Europe have laws under this sign, among the most famous names in the river Tyrol III, which was personified by a dragon and the river Rhone in Provence, where the female lived Tarasque The dragon, who was slain by St. Martin with a cross and holy water. Nor is it a case that dragons, like other creatures of the fantastic features, the populace still inaccessible places - that is not easily explored by humans and so mysterious - like the bottom of seas or lakes, the sky, or remote mountain caves. I get them home the fears of men, place unknown. The mystery is Here, as elsewhere, a ch iave to understand the links between various myths and ideas mythopoeic fees. But here we can recognize the emergence of a customary approach to the same symbol difference between East and West: the man in the East chose to reconcile, integrate, and even submit, adoration, to the aforementioned wild cosmic powers, and then these are the rites and customs to please the dragon, that is, ultimately, the nature of the events and to stimulate profits, banning those that are harmful. In the West, however, rose to their ruler and controller: the man who had ruled the cosmos anthropocentric remedy the original chaos. It follows that in the West the dragon is seen mostly in the negative; events in the East may cause both benign and malignant, which are not designed with these attributes, but only as different aspects of nature, ethical judgments.
Anyway, the dragon - symbolic or carnal creature - is associated in most cases innate fears and prepared. The fact that the Western nell'aneddotica would kill a young dragon as a rite of initiation can perhaps be seen as overcoming the fears of a child or a human being in training to become a strong adult, with the example of brave men of the caliber Beowulf and through the admirable feat, the recognition of the value you get relevant, necessary social acceptance with the respect and admiration of the group. The dragon as individual and social rite of passage into adulthood, then. Also, because the dragon is a creature of great power, often the only affrontabi another mythical creature, like a giant or hero, turns into an important and sought-after icon to highlight the extraordinary skill at least as a man. So the dragon becomes a test for Western heroes and supreme award, then a receptacle for aggression. That's become the dragons in many cultures - including those of Indian, Greek and Middle Eastern - malicious and cruel. In parallel we find in those same cultures the myth of the knight and the hero who slays the dragon, so that even the legend of Saint George, Martyr Catholic who becomes the model best-known Western myth of the dragon refers to it, allowing an ideal link between East and West. In fact we think that the saint lived in the third century aLydda died in Palestine (now the Israeli city of Lod), and according to his biography told in 1265 by Jacopo da Voragine in his Legenda Aurea, George saved the daughter of a Libyan king by a dragon. Well, the story of St George emerging interesting references to the greek myth of Perseus saving Andromeda from a sea monster near Lydda own. In turn, the story of Perseus, like those of many other knights who rescue damsels from the jaws of dragons, has a canvas spread. In the West, therefore, is a long tradition he sees the dragon as being identified with evil and evil forces. And if you do not have the invention of Christianity to his death - but rather to a misreading of earlier animistic cults - is true that this tradition, like other myths and symbols of previous beliefs, Christianity appropriated in a massive and efficient.
Christian theories began to regard the dragon as hell exacerbations, adding stories in which the devil appeared in the guise of a dragon (in the Slavic language linguistics root for the two words are the same) . On this wave, in Renaissance literature riders, followers of Saint George and representatives clarity, and courage kill the dragons, a symbol of evil. For these riders still in the game was a reward far more material: kill a dragon in Europe meant that it take possession of the immense treasures he had in his den. Even this, however, is liable to a metaphor, because in the West the treasure guarded by the dragon is gold soul, which lies in the chaos of the primordial energy, captured by the heroic effort that is also human endeavor to order the cosmos . Consequently, the Dragonslayer heroes are individuals with the courage and resources to try to redeem themselves in those psychological elements that prevent enlightenment. And the beloved damsel to be saved from the clutches of the dragon is the Jungian term 'soul': the female yin yang masculine mind of every sleeper .
Dragons European
The dragon at the dawn of science
diathesis A new, modern-style, would be interposed between East and West with the march of history, in times when Europe was produced in the slow conversion ancient relationship with nature mediated by the myth archetype in a filtered and refined by scientific analysis. The general mentality of the less technological cultures maintained instead of meaningful values \u200b\u200bof the symbolic and representative of the myths: the approach for their aphoristic, with no end of legends from the contents of truth and wisdom, remained valid and spotless. From the seventeenth century, European scientists - and in some ways anticipating the embryo powerful gust of anthropocentric rationalism and positivism of the Enlightenment, with its exalted the primacy of rational knowledge - began to question the existence of dragons, without excluding entirely that of extraordinary creatures. The only open to this possibility gave rise to indulge the fantasy of cheaters. In European countries did so fake dragons made their appearance with fragments of various animals such as mice, bats and snakes. Some of these fakes are still found in European museums, such as Tirol Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum of Heidelberg, which preserves a "tongue of a dragon" mounted in silver. It was brought to the monastery of Wilten a Crusader returning from the Holy Land, and is actually a Cretaceous swordfish. However, this is the continuation of medieval beliefs, the time when the idea was not uncommon that dragons really existed. On the other hand, medieval artists represented with a fantastic, arising from their imagination, but also real exotic animals, for whose portraits - it is not never been seen live - were based on the terms of the Bible and oral descriptions. Still, in the seventeenth century was not lacking those who continued to support hypothesis stamped later by scientists as fantastic. One of the most representative examples is the famous text, popular among his contemporaries, Eberhard Werner Happel, published between 1683 and 1691 under the title Relationes Curiosoe, it was precisely a collection of curiosities, which surged even testimonials about dragons. Among his most interesting are those statements about the origins of these creatures. Well, Happel, excluding that such creatures can arise from common animals, as cross, decided to look at a controversial theory that none of its geological age, the 'aura seminalis "or" seminal principle. " With the inspiration of concepts such as "plastic face" by Robert Plot and the "breeze seminal" Karl Nikolaus Lang, the greatest proponent of the "sperm theory" was Lhwyd Edward (1660 - 1709). According to this theory, male losperma of an animal could give birth to a creature, however imperfect, even women without a uterus, but penetrating the earth through the cracks and there finding the necessary food (salt moisture present hidden "). It is here that understands how to complete the Happel's rumination: the dragons live in remote places like the wounds deserted caves or cliffs, places that can be achieved only eagles and other birds of prey, here they bring their prey: birds , snakes, sheep, small mammals, dogs and even children. The remains of the victims are rotting in the ground, but their seeds remain viable assets and merge with each other and with those of birds of prey. The child born from this mixture, Happel through what he called "putrefaction fermentazionale", could have a unique appearance, which showed the characteristics of individual animals Parents: head and tail of a serpent, bird or bat wings, rabbit ears . But even before Eberhard Werner Happel European scientists took up the dragon: in 1608 the naturalist Edward Topsell regarded them as reptiles, the many similarities with snakes. And more recently, Peter van eslinga Karl, director of the last century dell'Hague Zoo, said he saw a dragon with his own eyes water, while in 1860 he was traveling in the Atlantic to collect marine species: "The color is light blue and silver .. large eyes and vertical pupils ... his head adorned with light blue and green crests .. , About seven meters long. " Even the contemporary period has a number of testimonies and passionate, whimsical scholars as Volodimir Kapusianyk, inventor of the "Draconologia" He - that today, at the age of ninety-eight, lives in a nursing home in Saskatchewan - says to have seen the last dragon existing train was in a zoo in Nebraska, was thin, barely two meters long and a half and died in 1911. Kapusianyk is part of a long series of descriptions about a supposed appearance of the dragons.
Physiology Dragon
Among philological studies, pseudo-scientific hypotheses and flights of fancy, leaving a European, multi-faceted portrait of the dragon. There are in fact different races of Western dragons, each with its own traits, but with common characteristics. In many books about the dragon is described as a reptile omeotermo. Others say, the dragons - because homeobox - are not reptiles, mammals do not hatch because they do not produce eggs and milk, and not the birds because they have scales and the arts. So that there would continue to abide by the coexistence of the Dragon features of all these species. The Western dragon has a large head, long neck, slender legs, tail massive and very broad wings. These, in fact, be larger than the body because a dragon can have the strength to lift and fly. Also to facilitate the flight of the animal bones are hard, but hollow, which - as in birds - a sense of lightness to the body. The dragon's body is covered with small scales pentagonal hard and shiny, thanks to keratin and minerals (especially iron) in the animal's body is rich. The main function of these horny growths is the protection of the body, but the fact remains that they are well articulated with each other to facilitate movement runs. As vain, the dragon is a creature very clean and may authorize the flakes to clean, to look bigger and instill fear or to cool the body temperature. The colors of dragons are extremely diverse and not uniform, with a predominance of shades of blue, red and green. In some breeds, due to emotional states, the scales can change color due to a variety of chromatin. But when the chips themselves take on a semblance pale, opaque, show a clear sign of illness. The dragons have the same meaning men, only much more developed. Great are their intelligence and memory, especially in females, so much so that some of them were able to speak and even to engage in discussions sophistical, According to other accounts, the acts defined magical dragons know that they are actually uses of nature supernormal, permitted by their understanding of how high acting elements of nature. So they can do wonders how to change size and shape, become invisible and create force shields to protect the treasures and hallucinatory effects induced in the dragon slayers. However, the two main weapons are the claws of the dragons of Europe and especially fire, ice or acid emitted from his throat. In the dragons 'fire-breathing' flame tremendous results from a chemical reaction between the methane gas created by the digestion of food and a small amount of phosphorus. In the Dragons' sputaghiaccio, however, give rise to a food waste gases like nitrogen, which is compressed and collected in the lungs and then, through a sudden decompression, expelled from the mouth at low temperatures, some dragons have finally a particular organ that produces a highly corrosive acid, delivered by the dragon with a powerful exhalation.
Society of dragons
Dragons are monogamous and mate with the same partner for life. Against their will, in some traditions the event often gives rise to violent weather phenomena such as rainfall and flooding. Incubation of dragon eggs can last thousands of years (although some minor species are sufficient for a few years) and also the time needed to become reproductive adults and is very long, a factor that makes the dragons even more susceptible to extinction. The dragons, however, rarely die of old age rather than illness, accident or enemy action, including The first is the man. Another important adversary of dragons is the centipede, which dates from the nostrils of the animal up to the encephalon, killing him. These animals tend to be solitary by nature, but do not hesitate to live, if necessary, as a group. Their nests are placed in natural caves of stone, or are dug into the earth. For reasons of confidentiality and security, is the ideal location in the mountains, among the most inaccessible peaks, even at the cost of making long journeys and to obtain food. Moreover, the food needs of the European dragons are limited to a hearty meal - cattle, sheep and even humans - per month. In the lair of the dragon are whole treasure of gems, which serve as bed and draws energy from the magnetic properties. For this reason, it loves the art and precious - surcharges ll gold, silver, pearls and stones like diamonds, coral and jade. According to some traditions the dragon is also a skilled carver, jewelry, much to adorn or build entire buildings on the seabed.
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