| Everybody knows what a dragon is: an enormous, fierce, bloodthirsty creature appearing in fairy tales and legends as an accessory whose main function is to set off the bravery of the knight challenging him. The dragon is an obscure, mysterious character, described only in broad terms, and is little more than a foil to enhance the hero's valour.
But the dragon is something else...
He is an admirable, intelligent and educated creature, who leads a most interesting life. He has some fascinating characteristics in addition to those occasional glimpses we are given through fairy tales and legends.
The aim of the "Book of the Dragon," written after long years of studying ancient manuscripts and patiently following the dragon's trail throughout the world, is to dispel the mystery surrounding these creatures, and draw the reader into a world which seems both within our grasp and beyond it. You will find descriptions of the dragon's habits, customs and tastes, a catalogue of the different types of dragon, together with his physical attributes and patters of existence. However, this book does not clam to be an encyclopedia of dragons or an exhaustive treaty on Dragon Science, for such a work would fill volumes.
The writer is trying purely to enter the secret world of the draon, which is why this will be a useful book for everyone who admires and is interested in these beautiful beasts, while those who are not acquainted with their charms and qualitites can discover and learn to appreciate them.
The dragon has always been slandered and misjudged, persecuted and hounded by man, simply because he is different. Like so many other living beings, he has experienced death and persecution in the name of the so-called superiority of civilized man.
Perhaps, in the future, man will learn that with the death of a single animal or plant species an irreplaceable asset - something more precious than all the wealth in the world - is lost. Only then will the Earth continue to be a brilliant blue jewel in the universe, for in its heart will be locked the priceless treasure of the diversity of the species, and man will have recognized his duty to cherish every single one.
Psychological Characteristics
The adult dragon is astute and powerful and sure of his strength. His cunning helps him elude the ingenious traps laid by man with a s p i r i t that could be described as sporting. He is usually avaricious and fairly insolent, which is only to be expected given his power and considerable physical strength.
Dragons are very fond of jewels and precious stones, and they hoard treasure greedily. Perfect connoisseurs, they are discerning in their appreciation of gems, and it is not easy to deceive them as to a stone's value. They are lovers of conundrums, and often promise to set their victims free on condition that they find the answer to a riddle.
They are usually very proud and have an acute sense of ridicule. Nothing infuriates them more than being made fun of by humans. This is something we have to bear in mind when dealing with a dragon. If we embarrass him, he will refuse to have anything to do with us. But if we speak to him circumspectly, and show that we are able of keeping his secrets, we will gain his confidence and achieve great influence over him.
The dragon is very well-versed in magic and knows the power associated with names. So important are they that the surest way to defeat and subdue him is to discover his name, which he keeps a closely-guarded secret.
The true name of a dragon is a synthesis of his personality and his history. It expersses his origin - and also by all that the dragon has achieved during his life, his aspirations, his knowledge and his level of mastery of magic. His name is usually conferred on him by his father at birth, but it is modified throughout his life. The secret is guarded so jealously that a dragon's real name is known only to the dragon himself and the Dragon Father.
The dragon also has one or several assumed names by which he is known. We would like to emphasize that out of respect for dragon practice, all the names used here are assumed names. For easy reference, we have grouped the dragons into three large families: Earth Dragons, Water Dragons, Fire Dragons
General Comments and Physiology
The dragon (Drago drago) is a homoiothermic reptile. In other words, he is a warm-blooded creature and his body is controlled internally. This characteristic enables him to adapt to the different climates of his very extensive habitat and to maintain his activities both day and night throughout the year, as he is not dependent on the warmth from the sun like the other reptiles. The dragon generally has wings, and his bones are hollow, for lightness. There are dragons, usually ancient survivors from the distant past, with stumpy legs and no wings. These rare survivors of a remote era are intelligent and fairly aggressive, and belong to a single species on the verge of extinction. This creature lives for a very long time. There are records of dragons who have lived for five hundred and even a thousand years, but there are no known cases of dragons who have died from old age. On the other hand, they die from accidents, certain diseases, or as a result of the actions of their most relentless enemy: MAN.
They are susceptible to few illnesses, and the most serious threats vary from one family to another. In the case of the Fire Dragon, the worst disease is 'scale corrosion', which can be fatal. 'Senile dementia' is more common among Earth Dragons, while acute gastritis non virginae affects mainly the Water Dragon, who has an extremely delicate stomach.
Despite his strength, the dragon loses some of his agility with age, easily falling prey to the singular and terrible dragon-killer, the armour-plated Ichneumon. This swamp dweller, which Pliny describes in his Historia Naturalis as a spindle-shaped mud fish with a sharp snout, covered with tough plates, is the dragon's mortal enemy. The Ichneumon burrows between the dragon's scales and, using its sharp snout, tunnels through the tender flesh until it reaches the entrails, which it devours, killing its victim.
The dragon can talk, and his natural language is Latin, a tongue which is innate in the dragon species, but he has no difficulty in learning and expressing himself correctly in the vernacular of the region in which he lives.
A lover of woodlands and fresh air, the dragon cannot bear environmental pollution or the tumult of civilization. The only edxception to this rule is a race of dragons, Dracos flamula, which we will come to later. Today, the dragon survives only in those rare places that have escaped pollution, small isolated pockets of the Old World, which is why the future of the dragon seems precarious.
the skeleton
The dragon is the largest known f l y i ng creature. To maintain his enormous bulk in the air, his physical structure has had to be different from that of other reptiles.
His wing bones fit on to broad shoulders which support the powerful wing muscles; these require an extraordinary articulatory system unknown in other species. There are some dragons, experts in black magic, who are employed in the service of Evil. They use their powers to bewitch dragon servants who, even after the dragon's death, guard the dragon's abundant hoard of treasure. These terrible creatures practise black magic and are very difficult to thwart without the help of a very learned wizard.
The Scales
The dragon's body is completely covered with tough, shiny scales. The only exception is the Earth Dragon, or common dragon, who does not have this scaly armour on the neck or stomach, possibly due to his habit of burrowing underground. To protect his soft abdomen, this species often wears a jewelled breastplate. Using his saliva, which has powerful adhesive properties, and which he secretes on an empty stomach, the common dragon sticks precious stones on to his neck and stomach, for protection as well as adornment.
The scales are pentagonal, and shaped like a teardrop, with two long sides and two shorter ones, and a very short fifth side attached to the skin. The dragon can make them stand on end whenever he likes, to preen them. Remember, the dragon is a very clean creature and takes great care always to keep his skin and scales clean and immaculate.
In their normal position, the scales overlap very neatly and, thanks to a tiny cavity in the surface, they fit into each other to allow perfect freedom of movement.
If we study a scale closely, we observe the following characteristic: the innermost part is composed of a compact hairy formation firmly rooted in the epidermis (top layer of skin). On the hair follicle there are some tiny glands which secrete a substance that adheres firmly to the skin.
This substance is rich in minerals, which determine the hardness and the colour of the dragon's scales. The external surface has a horny, translucent texture which gives the scales their habitual lustre.
The dragon does not need to slough off his skin like most other reptiles, as the scales grow and are renewed automatically, like human nails and hair. They are not shed from the body, except in cases of illness.
The mercenary warrior who hired himself out to towns and sovereigns to slay dragons usually wore a suit of armour made from dragon scales. This garment gave him enormous prestige and prclaimed to all and sundry that he had slain one of these fearsome beasts. Incidentally, the scales on his armour are very small, a clear indication that the dragon he killed was a young one wo had barely reached puberty, and hence much easier to vanquish than an adult.
colouring
It is impossible to list the enormous variety of hues that make up the dragon's brilliant colouring, but they can be divided into three broad colour groupings:
Blues, ranging from dark blue to silver and mother-of-pearl. Reds, ranging from copper-red to dark red and reddish-black. Greens, which include every imaginable shade of green and yellow and even dark brown, emerald green and burnished gold.
Although these three principle colour groups are not usually mixed, a dragon's colouring is rarely uniform. In general his scales are several hues from one of the main colour categories, with a metallic lustre which is hard to define. When the scales have a pale, opaque appearance it is a sure sign of ill health.
Many dragons are known b the predominant colour of their scales, such as Ancalagon the Black, Smaug the Golden and Spars the Green
Dragons and Magic
The dragon is very well-versed in the art of magic, but not the dreaded black magic; he works with so-called brown or earth magic, green or plant magic and blue or water magic.
He knows how and to what extent he can manipulate nature for his own purposes without disturbing the ecological balance, for which he has always shown the utmost respect. He is able to invoke the power of the elements and can create illusions. He can invent disguises and maintain them for a long time, enabling him to escape his persecutors by appearing to be part of the landscape or by masquerading as a young child. There are countless legends in which human beings are transformed into monsters, evidence that originally they were young dragons who had not completely mastered their magic powers and were unable to maintain their illusory forms.
Enormous powers of concentration are required to maintain a disguise for a long time and young dragons often lack the necessary application. Adult males, however, are able to preserve their chosen disguise for many days at a time, although they do need to rest at night, while the great dragon wizards are able to maintain an illusory form for months on end with only brief rest periods.
These dragon wizards hate the clumsy human wizards who, with no respect for the laws of nature, alter and often corrupt the life forces of the planet. The animosity is mutual. Human apprentices of magic envy the dragon his superiority in the occult sciences.
Indeed, the superior wisdom and tremendous power of the dragon aroused the hatred of medieval necromancers and priests, who taught people that dragons were the incarnation of evil and the devil. In medieval bestiaries, the figure of the dragon represented depravity and the diabolical, thus the dragon was often represented as a gargoyle
A Captivating Voice
Music is one of the dragon's favourite pastimes, and he generally has a strong sense of thythm. He also has a marvellous singing voice, and when he adopts a human guise, he is a virtuoso string instrumentalist. His voice, a rich bass or baritone, expresses great passion, arousing profound emotions in his audience. It is well known that the sound of a dragon's voice has a bewitching effect on humans, and when he speaks, those reckless enough to pause and listen to him remain spellbound. Contrary to common belief, the dragon does not use this as a means of seducing his victims, but his beautiful, mellifluous voice and his impeccable diction are captivating, and anybody who speaks to the Dragon without taking precautions can fall under his spell and forget that they are in the presence of a terrible predator.
Although it is highly dangerous to talk to a dragon, he does not usually go in for surprise attacks or treacher, but even so, we are dealing with a depraved creature dedicated to the cause of Evil.
Dragons and Poetry
Dragons are passable poets and were probably the authors of many of the anonymous poems prior to the twelfth century that have survived until now through oral tradition. After conducting exhaustive investigations and rejecting dubious works of dragon troubadour poetry, we have managed to retrieve an example of dragon poetry:
VENI DULCIS AMICA MEA
CUM QUA IOCARI ET SUAVIARI
ET TENERAS DELICAS SUMERE
ET IN AMORE FINIRE
Come my sweet friend
and play and kiss
and enjoy those sweet delights
and die in love.
These lines come under the heading of courtly love poetry. This poem has come down to us signed by the knight Ambrosius de Jilocasin. He was the human form adopted by the earth dragon Jilocasin, the legendary adoptive father of two knights, who distinguished themselves during the reign of Charlemagne.
Although we do not know who wrote the following poem, its subject is reminiscent of the story of the dragon prince and one of Eleanor of Aquitaine's ladies. The poem vividly evokes the heartbroken lover's tragic farewell. The unhappy dragon prince could well have parted from his lover with these very words.
DULCIS AMICA VALE, SINE TE
PROCUL HINC HABITATUS
ANXIUS ABSCEDO, QUI NON
CITO REDIAM
NON DISCEDO TAMEN TOTUS
REMANETQUI TECUM
COGITAMEN MEUM. DISCEDO
VIX EGO MECUM.
Farewell sweet friend, I must journey far
from here without you,
I depart in sorrow for I shall not return
for many a year
but I shall not be gone completely for
my thoughts remain with you.
With heavy heart I take my leave.
One of these, the mysterious Cercamon, was indisputably a dragon, and for a while he was a very close friend of the famous Marcabru, the brilliant troubadour from Gascony. Cercamon's style, which was greatly influenced by his friend, is musical and gentle, as the following verse shows:
Quant l'aura doussa's amarzis
e l'fuelba chai de sul verjan
e l'auzelb chajan lor latis,
et ieu de sai sospir e chan
d'amour que.m te lassat e pres,
qu'ieu ane no l'agui en poder:
'When the gentle breeze becomes embittered
and the trees lose their foliage,
and the birds stop singing,
I too, sighing, sing of the love which
burns within me
for it is not within my power to appease it.'
There is also evidence of a woman troubadour of unknown origin, who became famous for her happy verses and sweet songs. This was most unusual at a time when women poets gave their verses to minstrels to sing, and her life remains shrouded in mystery.
She was called the Comtessa de Dia, and was in fact a young female dragon from the 'Draco splendens' family. She was so bold and conceited that she did not stop at writing poems - four of which have come down to us intact - she also became part of a band of wandering troubadours and even went so far as to make up he own life story.
Ab joi et ab jowen m'apais
e jois e jowens m'apaia,
car mos amies es lo plus gais
per qu'ieu sui coindet'e gaia;
e pois eu li sui veraia
be.is taing q'el me sia verais,
c'ane de lui amar no m'estrais
ni ai cor que m'en estraia.
He is young and happy
and I am young and happy,
my love is the handsomest,
for him I am beautiful and elegant;
since I am true to him,
he will always be true to me,
I will never betray his love,
and I know my love wll never
betray me.
Dragons and Mankind
Throughout history dragons and human beings have been unable to live peacefully side by side. As a result, mankind has not been able to benefit from ancient dragon knowledge.
Man's craving for power and religious beliefs have kept Europe engulfed in interminable and bloody struggles. The dragon lords could not understand the reasons for man's self-destructive behaviour, and kept well out of the way, retreating to reote hiding places far from all this confusion.
Shrouded in mystery, the dragon's trail remained lost in the obscurity of legend.
However, the dragons secretly pursued their quest for knowledge without completely excluding the human race, since they accepted and taught those few men who sought the essence of truth.
|
