Dragon king

“ With this speech he winked at Prince Marvel, turned soberly around and crawled from the room. One of the keepers got too near and the Dragon's breath set fire to his robe, the flames being with difficulty extinguished; and the gold ball on the end of the Dragon's tail struck a giant upon his shins and made him dance and howl in pain.
But, aside from these slight accidents, the monster managed to leave the throne-room without undue confusion, and every one, including the king, seemed glad to be rid of him. ”

“ The dragon was asleep, which was the reason the fisherboy brought the pearl to the surface without being harmed. The treasure which the daughter of the Dragon-King has in charge is made up of thousands and millions of such jewels. Several thousands of small dragons watch over them in her service. Dragons have the peculiarity of fighting shy of wax. But they are fond of beautiful jade-stones, and of kung-tsing, the hollowgreen wood, and like to eat swallows. If one were to send a messenger with a letter, it would be possible to obtain precious pearls. ”

“ The Dragon King and his family were all very sorry to have him leave so soon, but since he would go they begged him to accept a few small presents (so they said) in token of their gratitude to him for delivering them forever from their horrible enemy the centipede.
As the warrior stood in the porch taking leave, a train of fish was suddenly transformed into a retinue of men, all wearing ceremonial robes and dragon’s crowns on their heads to show that they were servants of the great Dragon King. ”

“ Temples and shrines to Lung Wang, the Dragon-king, can be seen in or near many villages, sometimes adjoining the shrine of the T'u Ti, and also on many headlands along the coast. The Dragon-king's mother is a favourite object of worship as well as the Dragon-king himself, and her image often occupies a neighbouring shrine. The dragon, as is well known, figures prominently in Chinese myth and legend and in Chinese art-conceptions. It is regarded as a kind of symbol of empire and of things imperial: the "dragon-body" is the emperor's person ”

“ It is always difficult to kill Dragons. They are by nature thick-skinned and tough, as doubtless every one has heard. Besides, you must not forget that this was a Purple Dragon, and all scientists who have studied deeply the character of Dragons say those of a purple color at the most disagreeable to fight with. So all the King's cutting and slashing had no effect upon the monster other than to make him angry. Forgetful of the respect due to a crowned King, the wicked Dragon presently opening wide its jaws and bit his Majesty's head clean off his body. ”

“ Then made he answer:
"'Some win their spurs and earn the royal accolade because the blood of dragons stains their hands. From mighty combat with these terrors they come victorious to their king's reward. And some there be sore scarred with conquest of the giants that ever prey upon the borders of our fair domain. Some, who have gone on far crusades to alien lands, and there with heart of gold and iron hand have proved their fealty to the Crown.'
"Then Ederyn sighed, for well he knew his stripling form could never wage fierce combat with a dragon. ”

“ When the dragon-king returned, the queen began to caress him and to pleasantly converse; at length she said: “How I admire your fine horse! Certainly he is of no ordinary breed! Where did you find such a swift courser?” And the dragon-king replied: “Ah! his like is not to be got by every one! In a certain mountain lives an old woman, who has in her stables twelve wondrous horses; none could easily tell which is the finest! But in a corner stands one that is apparently leprous; he is, in fact, the best of the stable, and whoever [276] becomes his master, may ride even higher than the clouds. ”

“ She must be left on the seashore over beyond the cliffs you see yonder, for him to devour her; and unless this is done, the dragon will ravage the whole country.”
“But is there no one strong enough and brave enough to destroy this dragon?” asked the Prince.
“There is no one. Many have come hither to try it, for the King has promised that if any one will do battle with the dragon and destroy him, he shall have the hand of the Princess in marriage, and she is so beautiful, that any man might well risk death to gain her. ”

“ But the legend of the dragon is much more ancient. The evidence has been given in full by de Visser. [160]
He tells us that the earliest reference is found in the Yih King, and shows that the dragon was "a water animal akin to the snake, which [used] to sleep in pools during winter and arises in the spring." "It is the god of thunder, who brings good crops when he appears in the rice fields (as rain) or in the sky (as dark and yellow clouds) , in other words when he makes the rain fertilize the ground" (p. 38) . ”

“ The dragon soon appeared. The maiden was afraid to wake Asphurtzela, and she wept more than ever. One of her tears fell on Asphurtzela’s cheek, and he woke. When he saw the dragon he rose up, shot an arrow, and cut it in pieces.9 The maiden, overjoyed, immediately hastened home to her father, and said: ‘Thus and thus has it come to pass, the dragon is dead.’ The king at first would not believe this, but when others put faith in the story, he sent to seek the youth. He wished him to marry the princess, and decided to give him half of the kingdom. ”

“ But if the physiological functions of the dragon of the Far East can thus be assimilated to those of the Indian Nâga and the Babylonian and Egyptian Water God, who is also the king, anatomically he is usually represented in a form which can only be regarded as the Babylonian composite monster, as a rule stripped of his wings, though not of his avian feet.
In America we find preserved in the legends of the Indians an accurate and unmistakable description of the Japanese dragon (which is mainly Chinese in origin) . ”

“ The prince thereupon went into the palace, into which crowds of people were streaming. The king was just leading the Red Knight to his daughter, and said, "Here, my daughter, this is the hero who killed the dragon, and only the hoe and the spade will separate him from you from this day." "My royal father," said the princess, "that isn't the man that killed the dragon, and therefore I cannot be his wife." "He did kill him," shouted the king, "and, in proof of it, he brought the dragon's seven heads with him, and therefore you have to be his wife, according to my promise." ”

“ In the East, at the present day, the dragon is the national symbol of China and the badge of the imperial family, and as such it plays a large part in Chinese art. Chinese and Japanese dragons, though regarded as powers of the air, are wingless. They are among the deified forces of nature of the Taoist religion, and the shrines of the dragon-kings, who dwell partly in water and partly on land, are set along the banks of rivers. ”

“ Partly hidden in clouds or water, he seems ever in motion. There are also four dragon-kings, who have their palaces in the world under the sea, one ruling in the northern, one in the eastern, one in the southern, and one in the western sea. The ministers and messengers of these four monarchs are the terrible dragons whose battles in the air and in the deep are the causes of the commotion of the elements. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It cost the stranger no more effort to achieve this feat of a giant's strength than for one of the young maidens to touch her sister's rosy cheek with a flower.
"Do you not believe," said he, looking at the damsels with a smile, "that such a blow would have crushed one of the dragon's hundred heads?"
Then he sat down on the grass, and told them the story of his life, or as much of it as he could remember, from the day when he was first cradled in a warrior's brazen shield. While he lay there, two immense serpents came gliding over the floor, and opened their hideous jaws to devour him ”

“ The sandy, burning, treeless, waterless tongue of land, with its scanty footholds for the English and its sheltered pits for the enemy that from over their heads in the heights poured fire and death on them, to him seemed like some hideous dragon—a dragon fifty-seven miles long, carrying on back and in belly every weapon of destruction known to man and nature. ”

“ 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." ”

“ He seems to incarnate all the attributes and forces of animal life—vigor, rapidity of motion, endurance, power of offence in horn, hoof, claw, tooth, nail, scale and fiery breath. Being the embodiment of all force the dragon is especially symbolical of the emperor. Usually associated with malevolence, one sees, besides the conventional art and {21} literature of civilization, the primitive animistic idea of men to whose mind this mysterious universe had no unity, who believed in myriad discordant spirits but knew not of "one Law-giver, who is able both to save and to destroy." ”

“ He wakes, sees the dragon arise out of the waves, apparently, to come ashore and go back to the cavern or mound wherein the treasure lay. His scales are too hard to pierce; he is terribly strong, lashing trees down with his tail, and wearing a deep path through the wood and over the stones with his huge and perpetual bulk; but the hero, covered with hide-wrapped shield against the poison, gets down into the hollow path, and pierces the monster from below, afterward rifling its underground store and carrying off its treasure. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He does not have to be asked twice, and in a minute there is just as lively a fight as you ever saw. The dragon tries to breathe fire upon the hero and scorch him up to a black cinder, but he does not want to be a cinder and he runs around to the dragon's side. Then the dragon tries to catch him with its long slimy tail, so that it may crush him to a jelly, but he does not want to be a jelly either, so as soon as the tail comes near enough he gives it a terrible wound with his sword, and then runs back in front of the dragon. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The dragon has now lost his place in heaven. He cannot rule the world, as thence, as the prince and god of it: but he comes as a woe and judgment from God, upon those whose end is to be destruction, and so has unlimited power over them ”

“ In China and Japan the Indra-episode plays a much less prominent part, for the dragon is, like the Indian Nâga, a beneficent creature, which approximates more nearly to the Babylonian Ea or the Egyptian Osiris. It is not only the controller of water, but the impersonation of water and its life-giving powers: it is identified with the emperor, with his standard, with the sky, and with all the powers that give, maintain, and prolong life and guard against all kinds of danger to life. In other words, it is the bringer of good luck, the rejuvenator of mankind, the giver of immortality. ”