Dragon's blood

“ The wise-men all before the king 25
This answer fram'd incontinent;
The dragon none to death might bring
By any means they could invent:
His skin more hard than brass was found,
That sword nor spear could pierce nor wound. 30
When this the people understood,
They cryed out most piteouslye,
The dragon's breath infects their blood,
That every day in heaps they dye:
Among them such a plague it bred, 35
The living scarce could bury the dead. ”

“ An inferior kind of dragon's blood is made up into large masses, which contain the membranous parts of the fruit and other impurities. When this substance is tolerably pure, it breaks smooth, and appears internally of a dark red colour; melts readily, and easily catches fire. Its principal use is in medicine.
The stem of the rotang furnishes the inhabitants of the countries where it grows with shafts for pikes or spears; and the inner part of the young shoots is boiled or roasted for food. ”

“ The finest dragon’s blood, called jernang or djernang in the East Indies, is obtained by beating or shaking the gathered fruits, sifting out impurities, and melting by exposure to the heat of the sun or by placing in boiling water; the resin thus purified is then usually moulded into sticks or quills, and after being wrapped in reeds or palm-leaves, is ready for market. An impurer and inferior kind, sold in lumps of considerable size, is extracted from the fruits by boiling. ”

“ You must die, even had you seven souls!" roared the dragon, but instead of an answer the prince threw his mace at him, with such force that it smashed one of his heads on the spot, thereupon he attacked him with his sword, and also set his dogs at him, and while he cut the dragon's heads off one by one, his servants bit him to pieces, and thus killed the dragon, whose blood formed a brook seven miles long. After this he drew a tooth out of each head of the dragon and put them into his sabretache, and, as he was very tired, he lay down amongst the bulrushes and went fast asleep with his dogs. ”

“ There are various conventionalised types of the Dragon, but through them all one feature is constant,—the idealised serpent. Its presence is the demonic or supernatural sign. The heroic dragon-slayer must not be supposed to have wrestled with mere flesh and blood, in whatever powerful form. The combat which immortalises him is waged with all the pains and terrors of earth and heaven concentrated and combined in one fearful form. ”

“ The dragon of the passage is great and red: "great" because of the power which he possesses; "red," the colour of blood, because of the ferocity with which he destroys men: "He was a murderer from the beginning;" "Cain was of the evil one, and slew his brother;" "And I saw the woman" (that is, the woman who rode upon the scarlet-coloured beast) "drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus." [294] The dragon has further seven heads,—seven, the number of completeness, so that he possesses everything to enable him to execute his plans ”

“ Light drab. For 56 lbs. 4 lbs. of fustic, 13⁄4 lb. of alum, 4 ounces of madder, 4 ounces of tartar, 31⁄2 ounces of cudbear. Work as for dark drab.
DRACONINE. Syn. Dra′cine, Red resin of dragon’s blood. A peculiar vegetable principle discovered by M. Melandre in dragon’s blood.
Prep. Dragon’s blood is dissolved in alcohol, the solution filtered, concentrated, and precipitated with cold water; the red, spongy precipitate is well washed, neutralised with dilute sulphuric acid, again liberated by means of an alkali, and well washed with water. ”

“ It is friable, breaks with a shining fracture, and has a sp. gr. not higher than 1·196 or 1·197. When pure, it readily dissolves in alcohol, ether, and oils, yielding rich red, transparent solutions. Adulterated and factitious dragon’s blood is only partly soluble, and lacks the rich colour of the genuine article. Dragon’s blood is chiefly used to tinge varnishes and lacquers.
Dragon’s Blood, Factitious. Prep. 1. Shell-lac, 4 lbs.; melt, remove from the fire, and add, Canada balsam, 6 oz., and gum benzoin, 2 oz.;583 mix well, stir in red sanders wood, 11⁄2 lb., and Venetian red, 3⁄4 lb. ”

“ The all-absorbing dragon appears even as a vampire. A tiger-headed dragon with the body of a snake seizes human beings, covers them with saliva, and sucks blood from under their armpits. “No blood is left when they stop sucking.”42 In Japanese legends dragons as white [65] eels draw blood from the legs of horses that enter a river.43 Evil or sick dragons send bad rain.
The gods ride on dragons, and therefore emperors and holy men can also use them as vehicles. Yu, the founder of the Hea Dynasty, had a carriage drawn by two dragons. ”

“ But the enemy of Osiris became an evil dragon, and was identified with Set.
The dragon-myth, however, did not really begin to develop until an ageing king refused to be slain, and called upon the Great Mother, as the giver of life, to rejuvenate him. Her only elixir was human blood; and to obtain it she was compelled to make a human sacrifice. Her murderous act led to her being compared with and ultimately identified with a man-slaying lioness or a cobra. The story of the slaying of the dragon is a much distorted rumour of this incident ”

“ The cause why the dragon desireth his blood, is coldness of the elephant's blood, by the which the dragon desireth to cool himself. Jerome saith, that the dragon is a full thirsty beast, insomuch that unneth he may have water enough to quench his great thirst; and openeth his mouth therefore against the wind, to quench the burning of his thirst in that wise. Therefore when he seeth ships sail in the sea in great wind, he flieth against the sail to take their cold wind, and overthroweth the ship sometimes for greatness of body, and strong rese against the sail. ”

“ In the hot blood of [122] that dragon, he bathed himself, and so took on, as it were, an outer covering of new life, rendering himself sword-proof, save at a single point where a leaf of the linden-tree fell between his shoulders, and shielded the flesh from the life-imparting blood. [246] On this incident it is, that the main tragedy in the Nibelungen Lied pivots; where Siegfried’s wife, Kriemhild, tells the treacherous Hagan of her husband’s one vulnerable point ”

“ Men created from sown dragon's teeth. A2001. Insects from body of slain monster. B91.3. Horned snake. B163.1. Animal languages learned from eating dragon's heart. B498. Helpful dragon. C92.2. Tabu: killing sacred dragon. D199.2. Transformation: man to dragon. D419.1.1. Transformation: sea dragon to serpent. D429.1.1. Transformation: dragon king to gust of wind. D659.4.2. Sea dragon in serpent form to accompany hero. D812.7. Magic object received from dragon king. D1846.4. Invulnerability through bathing in dragon's blood. E263. Adulteress returns from dead as devastating dragon. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Suddenly rose before him the shadowy outline of a strange and monstrous shape, so dim in itself, and so faintly seen amid the gloomy twilight of the overarching trees, that he could hardly tell if it were a mighty serpent, or a long line of armed men marching in single file, till, all at once, a flash of fire sprang from what seemed to be the monster’s head, revealing in all its hideousness the form of a huge dragon, with the iron claws, vast shadowy wings, and flaming breath assigned to it by popular tradition. ”

“ The dreadful beast must be exterminated, the country-side must be freed from this pest, this terror, this destroying scourge. The fact that not even a hen roost was the worse for the dragon's arrival wasn't allowed to have anything to do with it. He was a dragon, and he couldn't deny it, and if he didn't choose to behave as such that was his own lookout. But in spite of much valiant talk no hero was found willing to take sword and spear and free the suffering village and win deathless fame ”

“ Since the middle of the seventeenth century, when by the reformation in Europe and the British Isles, the dragon was cast down from the symbolic heaven, he has been assailing in "great wrath" all ranks and degrees of men, not, as before, with fire and sword, with scaffolds, gibbets, thumb-screws,—torturing and destroying their mortal bodies, that he might reach their immortal souls: but by bringing them together in voluntary associations on principles of the covenant of works, subversive of the covenant of grace, and consequently aiming at the drowning of the mystic woman. ”

“ When the dragon has been killed, he thinks, the hero will be hot and tired, and then he will offer him something to drink. It will be poison, the hero will die, and then he, the poor dwarf, who has worked and waited all these years for this day, will have all the treasure, with the magic helmet and the ring. So he sets himself to brewing the poison by the very same fire that the young man is using to forge his sword. ”

“ It is, in reality, very easy to kill a dragon, but it is impossible to keep him dead. The reason for this is that the Five Essential Constituents of fire, water, earth, wood and metal are blended in our bodies in the Sublime or Indivisible proportion. ”

“ While the dragon was coming down from the hills, to make his evening meal of a pretty girl, or to swish her off to his cave, he was careful to sniff the air on every side, lest some brave men in hiding should rush out at him, and put his eye out with an arrow, or push a spear down his throat, or throw fire or poison into his mouth. The dragon could easily swallow up a man, but he feared missiles shot or slung at him, whether arrows, sling stones or catapult balls. ”

“ Then said the Knight to Una: “The hour is come; stand aside on yonder hill where you may watch the battle and be safe yourself.”
65
Meanwhile the dragon came on, half flying and half on foot, such haste did he make. Never was seen upon the earth so terrible a beast. He looked like to a mountain as he came, so much of the earth did he cover, so high did he rear himself in air, so broad a shadow did he cast. He was covered all over with scales as of brass or iron, fitting so close together that neither edge of sword nor point of spear could pierce them. ”

“ Suddenly the men heard a frightful hissing, and as they looked around they saw the dragon’s bluish head emerging from the cavern. They dropped their buckets. Their faces grew deadly pale and their limbs trembled. In the meantime the dragon coiled its scaly body and arched itself over the men so that they could not fly. Not one of them escaped. The monster tore some with its teeth, killed some by strangling them in its coils, and the rest were killed by the poisonous breath from its throat. ”

“ But the dragon is so big and fierce and fiery and poisonous, that nobody could ever hope to kill him except the very greatest of heroes, and one who simply did not know what fear meant. Even such a hero might have a good deal of trouble about it, if he did not have a sword that was just as keen and strong, just as sharp and firm and true as himself. So, that he may not want for such a good blade, the Father of the Gods has made a magic sword. No one but a god could make a sword like this, and he has driven it up to the hilt into the great tree in the robber's house. ”

“ And he assured him that the water would poison the race of the Coranians, but that it would not slay or harm those of his own race.
"And the second plague," said he, "that is in thy dominion, behold it is a dragon. And another dragon of foreign race is fighting with it, and striving to overcome it. And therefore does your dragon make a fearful outcry. And on this wise mayest thou come to know this. ”

“ The dragon, defending his own ground as confidently and angrily as if the empire of evil were really a rightful one wherever sanctioned by antiquity of possession, dashes his ponderous jaws at the reckless agitator, opened wide enough to swallow him, with all his weapons and armor at a gulp; but he manages to elude the clumsy wrath, and, nothing daunted and nothing doubting, deals his blows with energy in the ratio of the rage they rouse. Curiously, but conformably enough, at every stroke another ring of the monster’s tail unrolls. ”

“ Exploring its recesses, he observed a stone in which a richly ornamented sword was firmly embedded, but as he attempted to grasp this the air was rent by the bellowings of a frightful dragon, which descended upon him with such velocity that ere he could prepare himself for its onset it had coiled its enormous folds round his body in an effort to break through the plates of his armour and crush him to death. ”

“ He is summoned by a damsel, who tells him of the Dragon King, lord of a heathen folk dwelling in mid-sea, possessor of a shield whereon is painted a dragon that belches forth flame. Perceval sets forth to attack him, resists the devil who dwells in the dragon head, thanks to his miraculous shield whereon the cross is painted, and forces him to flee; continues the fight against the Dragon Knight without his shield, and slays him, but not till he has repented him of his sins. ”

“ Each knew the hate and deadly power of the other.
The mighty Prince, firm and watchful, stood guarded by his shield. The dragon, crouching as in ambush, awaited him.
Then suddenly like a flaming arch the dragon bent and towered, and dashed upon the Lord of the Goths. Up swung the arm of the hero, and dealt a mighty blow to the grisly, many-colored beast. But the famous sword was all too weak against such a foe. The edge turned and bit less strongly than its great king had need, for he was sore pressed. His shield, too, proved no strong shelter from the wrathful dragon. ”