Green Dragon

“ The cause of this excitement appeared to be the banner which had just been unfurled in the royalist ranks.
"The red dragon! the red dragon!"
Leofric and Jack looked wonderingly at each other.
"What mean they by that? What is the red dragon?" they asked. And Amalric, looking over his shoulder with a stern, set face, made reply,—
"When the ensign of the red dragon is unfurled in the ranks of the King, it is the sign that no quarter is to be given. We are to be slaughtered like sheep in the shambles if it pleases Heaven to give our foes the victory." ”

“ It was one morning as they sat on the fence waiting for the Green Dragon, which was three and a quarter minutes late by Peter's Waterbury watch that he had had given him on his last birthday.
“The Green Dragon's going where Father is,” said Phyllis; “if it were a really real dragon, we could stop it and ask it to take our love to Father.”
“Dragons don't carry people's love,” said Peter; “they'd be above it.”
“Yes, they do, if you tame them thoroughly first. They fetch and carry like pet spaniels,” said Phyllis, “and feed out of your hand. ”

“ The Dragon in his own proper colour (whatever that may be) does not occur in the county; but we have four examples of the Green Dragon, situated respectively at Shenfield, Black Notley, *Saffron Walden, and Waltham Abbey. Sixty years ago there were also Green Dragons at *Colchester and elsewhere. It is very easy to account for the origin of the use of the Dragon as a sign, but it is not so easy to say why he should so often be green. The Green Dragon, however, has been a common sign for over two centuries. ”

“ The instant the animals caught sight of the lake lying before them, they trotted off as fast as their legs would go to the green meadows lying round it. The prince did not try to stop them; he only placed his hawk on the branch of a tree, laid his pipes on the grass, and bade the greyhounds sit still; then, rolling up his sleeves and trousers, he waded into the water crying as he did so: “Dragon! dragon! if you are not a coward, come out and fight with me!” ”

“ MISERIES OF HIGH LIFE.
March 1, 1808. The Green Dragon. Rowlandson del. Published by R. Ackermann, 101 Strand.—A clerical-looking and corpulent reprobate is receiving the upbraidings of his infuriated spouse, to whom the artist has playfully given some resemblance to a veritable dragon, with teeth, claws, and venom. The position of affairs is further explained by a spirited representation of 'Socrates and Zantippe,' which hangs on the wall. ”

“ Even the grown people believed in this dreadful monster, and no one of them would have been found on the other side of the valley after sunset.
One very aged man always declared that he had seen the Dragon when he was young, and that he had had green and gold scales all over his body; that he breathed fire and smoke, and that he flew by like a streak of lightning. Most persons were sure that they had heard him bellowing on stormy winter nights.
But no one took so much interest in the Dragon as Cherry-Bloom. ”

“ We consider ourselves very beautiful in appearance, for mother has told us so, and she knows. And we are of an excellent family and have a pedigree that I challenge any humans to equal, as it extends back about twenty thousand years, to the time of the famous Green Dragon of Atlantis, who lived in a time when humans had not yet been created. ”

“ Rudolph, watching this tropic miracle, could make out the white figure of the captain, asleep near by, under the faint semicircle of the deck-house; and across from him, Miss Drake, still sitting upright, as though waiting, with Flounce at her side. Landward, against the last sage-green vapor of daylight, ran the dim range of the hills, in long undulations broken by sharper crests, like the finny back of leviathan basking. ”

“ It had a great, double row of gleaming white teeth, red lips, a red tongue that worked out and in, immense saucer-like eyes and winged ears, while a "scary" looking spine started from the top of its nose and arched high over its neck. The balance of the trunk was filled with a long, thin, sack-like arrangement which was painted green and red and yellow, and which was to represent the dragon's body. ”

“ Of dragons there are many kinds, but the most respectable of them all is, as in China, the yellow one, which is as represented on the Chinese flags. Next to the yellow one in popularity comes the green one. In shape, as the natives picture it, the dragon is not unlike a huge lizard, with long-nailed claws, and a flat long head like the elongated head of a neighing horse, possessed, however, of horns, and a long mane of fire, or lightning. ”

“ On turning back he was much surprised to see that the monster dragon had entirely disappeared and in its place was a strange-looking man, who was bowing most ceremoniously to the ground. His red hair streamed over his shoulders and was surmounted by a crown in the shape of a dragon's head, and his sea-green dress was patterned with shells. ”

“ It is no joke to kiss a dragon. But Elsie did it—somewhere on the hard green wrinkles of its forehead.
‘Oh, thank you,’ said the dragon, brushing away its tears with the tip of its tail. ‘That breaks the charm. I can move now. And I’ve got back all my lost wisdom. Come along—I do want my tea!’
So, to the waiting crowd at the gate came Elsie and the dragon side by side. And at sight of the dragon, tamed, a great shout went up from the crowd; and at that shout each one in the crowd turned quickly to the next one—for it was the shout of men, and not of crows. ”

“ But the dragon held on tight, and he flew and flew and flew until at last, when the children were quite giddy, he settled down, with a rattling of all his scales, on the top of a mountain. And he lay there on his great green scaly side, panting, and very much out of breath, because he had come such a long way. But his claws were fast in Effie's sash and the little point at the back of Harry's Eton jacket. ”

“ The Indians used to boil the berries for food. The farinaceous root (corm) they likewise boiled or dried to extract the stinging, blistering juice, leaving an edible little "turnip," however insipid and starchy.
The GREEN DRAGON, or DRAGON-ROOT (A. Dracontium) , to which Jack is brother, is found in similar situations or beside streams in wet, shady ground, and sends up a narrow greenish or whitish tapering spathe, one or two inches long, enwrapping a slender, pointed spadix, that projects sometimes seven inches beyond its tip. ”

“ A low muttering, mingled with snorts, now made itself heard; rising to a bellowing roar that seemed to fill the plain. Then a cloud of smoke obscured the mouth of the cave, and out of the midst of it the dragon himself, shining, sea-blue, magnificent, pranced splendidly forth; and everybody said, “Oo-oo-oo!” as if he had been a mighty rocket! His scales were glittering, his long spiky tail lashed his sides, his claws tore up the turf and sent it flying high over his back, and smoke and fire incessantly jetted from his angry nostrils. “Oh, well done, dragon!” cried the Boy, excitedly. ”

“ If you were not afraid to look out of the window about midnight, you could see the sky begin to look red in the quarter from which he was approaching, just as it glares when some distant house is on fire. But you must shut the window and hide before he came over the hill; for very few that had looked upon the Dragon ever lived to that day twelvemonth. This monster devoured the substance of the tenantry and yeomen. When their fields of grain were golden for the harvest, in a single night he cut them down and left their acres blasted by his deadly fire. ”

“ There's no hurry at all. I think we'll all go down to the village first, and have some refreshment, and then I'll give him a good talking-to, and you'll find he'll be a very different dragon!”
At that magic word refreshment the whole crowd formed up in procession and silently awaited the signal to start. The time for talking and cheering and betting was past, the hour for action had arrived. St. George, hauling on his spear with both hands, released the dragon, who rose and shook himself and ran his eye over his spikes and scales and things, to see that they were all in order. ”

“ So we set off into the wide snow-clad world, hand in hand, our hearts big with expectation,—complacently confident that by a few smudgy traces in the snow we were in a fair way to capture a half-grown specimen of a fabulous beast.
We ran the monster across the paddock and along the hedge of the next field, and then he took to the road like any tame civilised tax-payer. Here his tracks became blended with and lost among more ordinary footprints, but imagination and a fixed idea will do a great deal, and we were sure we knew the direction a dragon would naturally take. ”

“ Some of the younger ones disport themselves in the stream ejected from the great grim dragon's mouth, laughing and without fear, although the monster face, with red dripping jaws, seems to be reaching out to devour their delicate bronze limbs. Their garments lie about, bright splashes of colour on the cool damp grass, the falling water bubbles and gurgles, little rills percolate from all sources, and the happy babbling song of the stream is heard dreamily issuing from everywhere. ”

“ A tall man in dove-gray silk with a high scarlet turban moved athwart the altar, chanting as he solemnly lifted one by one a row of symbols: a round wooden measure, heaped with something white, like rice, in which stuck a gay cluster of paper flags; a brown, polished abacus; a mace carved with a dragon, another carved with a phoenix; a rainbow robe, gleaming with the plumage of Siamese kingfishers. All these, and more, he displayed aloft and replaced among the candles.
When his chant ended, a brisk little man in yellow stepped forward into the lane. ”

“ So great and so strange an evil as the complete drying of a river must be the result of some one’s will, of some one’s temper. The Dragon is angry he wants a sacrifice. Again the river ponds into a lake, the lake tops the earth bank and rushes in a flood wasting as only a dragon can waste. For generations after so awful a proof of power all doubts regarding dragons are dead. (Compare Drew’s Cashmere and Jummoo, 414–421.) In India the Chinese dragon turns into a cobra. ”

“ Millions of moth voices answered, with laughter as soft as moth wings, "We should be a poor set of fellows if we couldn't over eat ourselves once in a while—to oblige a friend."
And off they all fluttered, and the white grouse flew off, and the sealskin dwarfs were all dead, and the fires went out, and George and Jane were left alone in the dark with the dragon!
"Oh, dear," said Jane, "this is the worst of all!"
"We've no friends left to help us," said George. He never thought that the dragon himself might help them—but then that was an idea that would never have occurred to any boy. ”

“ Crested at its summit, like a feudal helmet, with two colossal fishes of bronze lifting their curved bodies skyward from either angle of the roof, and bristling with horned gables and gargoyled eaves and tilted puzzles of tiled roofing at every story, the creation is a veritable architectural dragon, made up of magnificent monstrosities—a dragon, moreover, full of eyes set at all conceivable angles, above below, and on every side. From under the black scowl of the loftiest eaves, looking east and south, the whole city can be seen at a single glance, as in the vision of a soaring hawk ”

“ Then the east wind and the west wind came, and said they too had not seen it, but the south wind said, "I have seen the white dove—he has fled to the Red Sea, and is changed once more into a lion, for the seven years are passed away, and there he is fighting with a dragon; and the dragon is an enchanted princess, who seeks to separate him from you." Then the night-wind said, "I will give thee counsel. Go to the Red Sea; on the right shore stand many rods—count them, and when thou comest to the eleventh, break it off, and smite the dragon with it ”

“ When men interfere with the incense trees it is reported: "the demons of the place flew away with doleful cries in the shape of white serpents, and the intruders died soon afterwards".
[275] Vide supra, p. 38.
[276] In Western mythology the dragon guarding the fruit-bearing tree of life is also identified with the Mother of Mankind (Campbell, "Celtic Dragon Myth," pp. xli and 18) . Thus the tree and its defender are both surrogates of the Great Mother. When Eve ate the apple from the tree of Paradise she was committing an act of cannibalism, for the plant was only another form of herself. ”

“ The whole gamut of human strivings and emotions was drawn into the legend until it became the great epic of the human spirit and the main theme that has appealed to the interest of all mankind in every age.
An ancient Chinese philosopher, Wang Fu, writing in the time of the Han Dynasty, enumerates the "nine resemblances" of the dragon. "His horns resemble those of a stag, his head that of a camel, his eyes those of a demon, his neck that of a snake, his belly that of a clam, his scales those of a carp, his claws those of an eagle, his soles those of a tiger, his ears those of a cow." ”

“ The fact is, this is a good dragon.”
“Exactly,” said St. George, smiling pleasantly, “I quite understand. A good dragon. Believe me, I do not in the least regret that he is an adversary worthy of my steel, and no feeble specimen of his noxious tribe.”
“But he's not a noxious tribe,” cried the Boy distressedly. “Oh dear, oh dear, how stupid men are when they get an idea into their heads! I tell you he's a good dragon, and a friend of mine, and tells me the most beautiful stories you ever heard, all about old times and when he was little. ”