Red Dragon

“ Bathurst and Sayer, Vane and Millet of ours were all down by this time; many of our men had also fallen; and from the death-clutch or the relaxed fingers of more than one poor ensign had the tattered colour which bore the Red Dragon been taken, by those who were fated to fall under it in turn. I could see nothing of Caradoc; but I heard that three balls had struck the revolver in his belt. Poor Hugh Price fell near me, shot through the chest, and was afterwards found, like many others, with his brains dashed out. ”

“ The Green Dragon was of very frequent occurrence on the signboard. When Taylor, the water poet, wrote his “Travels through London,” there were not less than seven Green Dragons amongst the metropolitan taverns of that day. One of these is still in existence, the well-known Green Dragon in Bishopsgate Street, for nearly two centuries one of the most famous coach and carriers’ inns. At present it is simply a public-house. The Red Dragon is much less common, whilst the White Dragon occurs [112] on a trades token of Holborn, representing a dragon pierced with an arrow, evidently some family crest. ”

“ It is a great throbbing heart, and sends its warm tides of cleansing, comforting fluid all through the house. One could wish that this friendly dragon could be in some way moderated in his appetite for coal,—he does consume without mercy, it must be confessed,—but then, great is the work he has to do. At any hour of day or night in the most distant part of your house, you have but to turn a stop-cock and your red dragon sends you hot water for your needs; your washing-day becomes a mere play-day; your pantry has its ever-ready supply ”

“ This rapid promotion was consequent to the sad casualties of the Alma; and two days after, when the trench-guards were relieved, and I came off duty before daybreak, I crept back to my tent cold, miserable, and weary, to find my man Evans--brother of the gallant private of the same name who planted the Red Dragon on the great redoubt--busy preparing a breakfast for three, with the information that Caradoc and Gwynne, who had been on board the Hydaspes, an hospital ship for officers, had rejoined the night before, and had added their repast to mine for the sake of society. ”

“ One of the fancies of the most ancient Aryan or Hindoo stories was that there was a great dragon that was trying to devour the Sun, and to prevent him from shining upon the earth and filling it with brightness and life and beauty, and that Indra, the Sun-god, killed the dragon. Now, this is the meaning of Little Red Riding-Hood, as it is told in our nursery tales. Little Red Riding-Hood is the evening Sun, which is always described as red or golden; the old grandmother is the earth, to whom the rays of the Sun bring warmth and comfort. ”

“ The Red Knight was watching the whole fight from amongst the bulrushes, and, seeing that the prince was asleep, he crept to him and killed him, and quartered him, so that he might not revive, and, picking up the dragon's seven heads, went off towards the town. As soon as the Red Knight had gone the three dogs woke, and, seeing that their master had been murdered, began to howl in their sorrow. "If we only had a rope, so that we could tie him together. I know of a weed which would bring him to life again," said the wolf. ”

“ 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. ”

“ An ordinary-sized calling-card, perfectly blank except for a large blotch of red sealing wax in the center. And imprinted in the wax was an ensignia that could only have been made by the mate to the green dragon ring with the jade eyes, that reposed in my desk-drawer!
The sign of the dragon!
The words of my father came back to me as vividly as if he was at the moment speaking them again into my ear:
“ . . . that Brent or Burgess, whichever the case might be, would respond to the sign of the dragon and render assistance to the limit of his ability and power.” ”

“ The red earth as a surrogate of blood in the Egyptian story is here replaced by earth and blood.
But Marduk created not only men and animals but heaven and earth also. To do this he split asunder the carcase of the dragon which he had slain, the Great Mother Tiamat, the evil avatar of the Mother-Goddess whose mantle had fallen upon his own shoulders. In other words, he created the world out of the substance of the "giver of life" who was identified with the red earth, which was the elixir of life in the Egyptian story. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When the dragon came home, he asked his horse: "Where is my princess?"
The horse replied: "She has gone, and this time we shan't get her back. The horse from the Red Sea has come, and he will get the better of us all."
The dragon took no heed of that, but flew after them and caught them up just by the gate. He was going to snap the princess away, but this time he could not do it. For the horse from over the Red Sea kicked his nose with his hoof, so that the dragon fell down from his horse, and the other two horses fell upon him, and between them they killed the dragon. ”

“ Notwithstanding this rustic breeding it was Georgos' noble blood that urged him to seek adventures, and sent him to Gloriana's court, whence he sallied forth on his present quest.
After another brief sojourn in the house of Religion, the Red Cross Knight and Una again set forth, and passing through another wilderness reach a land ravaged and befouled by the dragon which holds Una's parents in durance vile. The lady is just pointing out her distant home to the Red Cross Knight, when she hears the dragon coming, and, bidding her champion fight him bravely, takes refuge in a cave near by. ”

“ ROSE OF EVENING
ON the fifth day of the fifth month the festival of the Dragon Junk is held along the Yangtze-kiang. A dragon is hollowed out of wood, painted with an armor of scales, and adorned with gold and bright colors. A carved red railing surrounds this ship, and its sails and flags are made of silks and brocade. The after part of the vessel is called the dragon’s tail. It rises ten feet above the water, and a board which floats in the water is tied to it by means of a cloth. Upon this board sit boys who turn somersaults, stand on their heads, and perform all sorts of tricks. ”

“ The white dragon shall rise again, and invite over a daughter of Germany. Our gardens shall be again replenished with foreign seed, and the red one shall pine away at the end of the pond. After that shall the German worm be crowned, and the brazen prince buried." Merlin's red and white dragons are intended directly to personify the British and Saxon races of men, as the red and white roses in after time served as emblems of the houses of Lancaster and York; but the origin of the mythic form of expression is very apparent. ”

“ The brethren eat heart and liver of the gold bird and thereby get infinite riches, are schemed against by a goldsmith, who would have kept the gold bird for himself, seek their fortunes throughout the world accompanied by helping beasts, part at crossways, leaving a life token to tell each one how the other fares; the one delivers a princess from a dragon, is cheated of the fruit of the exploit by the Red Knight, whom after a year he confounds, wins the princess, and, after a while, hunting a magic hind, falls victim to a witch. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Of mythic beasts, the most important by far is that noble creature the Dragon,—Chinese by origin, but thoroughly naturalised in Japan. [2] His affinities are with the watery element that rules in clouds and tempests. Sometimes he will ascend Fuji, borne thither on a cloud; at others he hides himself in the waters of some river or deep secluded lake, and will cause terrific commotion in heaven and earth if disturbed. The palace of the King of the Dragons is a marvellously rich abode lying far away, many leagues beneath the ocean waves. ”

“ 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 ”

“ This is merely a general description and does not apply to all dragons, some of which have heads of so extraordinary a kind that they cannot be compared with anything in the animal kingdom. The breath of the Dragon changes into clouds from which come either rain or fire. It is able to expand or contract its body, and in addition it [Pg 363] has the power of transformation and invisibility. In both Chinese and Japanese mythology the watery principle is associated with the Dragon, as we have already seen in the story of Urashima, the Empress Jingo, and the adventures of Hoori, &c. ”

“ At first the people of Rotundia were quite pleased with the dragon, who lived by the pillar and fed himself from the bun trees, but by-and-by he began to wander. He would creep into the burrows made by the great rabbits; and excursionists, sporting on the downs, would see his long, tight, whiplike tail wriggling down a burrow and out of sight, and before they had time to say, "There he goes," his ugly purple head would come poking out from another rabbit-hole—perhaps just behind them—or laugh softly to itself just in their ears. And the dragon's laugh was not a merry one. ”

“ Nothing could hunt it, because its whole body was covered with scales, which were harder than stone or metal; its two great eyes shone by night, and even by day, like the brightest lamps, and anyone who had the ill luck to look into those eyes became as it were bewitched, and was obliged to rush of his own accord into the monster’s jaws. In this way the Dragon was able to feed upon both men and beasts without the least trouble to itself, as it needed not to move from the spot where it was lying. ”

“ There is no denying the importance and significance of that pearl.
A male dragon can be distinguished from a female one by its undulating horn, which is thickest in the upper part. A female dragon’s nose is straight. A horned dragon is called kʼiu-lung and a hornless one chʼi-lung. Some dragons have wings. In addition there are horse-dragons, snake-dragons, cow-dragons, toad-dragons, dog-dragons, fish-dragons, &c., in China and Japan. Indeed, all hairy, feathered, and scaled animals are more or less associated with what may be called the “Orthodox Dragon”. ”