Unity of Myth | Act I: Rise of the Dragon, page 1
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Topic started on 1-12-2009 @ 06:45 AM by serbsta
Exordium - Unity of Myth: A Series of Investigations Into Underlying Similarities Between Legends

The following is neither fiction nor fact, myth nor truth, tale nor lie, legend nor lore. It is neither of these, because it is all of them at once. It is an adventure through myth and legend using an experimental structure. You could say that it is a tale of myths, a story of legends. It is not the structure alone that makes the following what it is, but the fusion that embodies its very core. The fusion of lore and legend from every corner of the globe into a single tale, an attempt at a unified story, an attempt to create something that already exists; but lacks strings, lacks foundation and lacks hope in accepting what is in reality, a fragmented unison. Perhaps that is all it will ever be...

Download PDF version of Act I

Exordium - Act I

The story of the dragon is literally as old as any tale of Creation, any tale of God’s or the tales that spoke of great chaos. But the dragon was not the simple minded winged beast that is believed by the majority today. In fact, you could say that the dragon underwent an evolution through human history and recorded folklore, both spiritual and physical transformations have occurred as the dragon has ventured to every corner of the globe. One would tend to question how the dragon appears in every ancient civilization and its mythologies even when there was no contact between the lands and the people of them. It’s name has been uttered in every dialect, it’s presence recorded in every language, it’s power venerated in every land and it’s legend espoused by humanity as a whole. So what is the truth behind this enigmatic creature? The following is a brief investigation in order to trace the path of the legend, to draw the line from kin to kin.

The beast awakes.

Act I: Rise of the Dragon



“And Babylon shall become heaps, a dwelling place for dragons, an astonishment, and an hissing, without an inhabitant.”
-Jeremiah 51:37



Dragon’s were creators, they spawned life, erected land and provided security for mankind. Many creation stories incorporate dragons, and hence, this is where the beast first flew, through the legends of creation. When chaos became order.



Along with the origins of many other myths, the tale of the dragon originates within Mesopotamia, with the Babylonians. Tiamat was the original dragon, the embodiment of the priomordial mound in a monstrous form. She was the first beast that existed and gave birth to the God’s. Although Tiamat is never depicted as a dragon, it is said that she gave birth to serpents of the sea which is where the association probably originated. Further, since no depictions exist of Tiamat she is usually given the dragon form due to its chaotic characteristics. This is the result of the nature of her existence as the goddess who was, before all else was. She was all the chaos that existed before there was order, her monstrosity as a dragon is a reflection of this transformation, as after she was slain by Marduk, her body became the Heaven and the Earth, her death ended the chaos that was, and initiated order. What is significant here is not only Marduk becoming the first dragon-slayer, a trend in legend which will continue for millennium, but the death of the first dragon.
POM (Probable Origin of Myth): No later than 21st Century B.C.E. Although the tablets could be a lot older.

Our dragon friend heads now to the north-east from Mesopotamia, to the lands of the Orient.



Before the infamous Yellow Emperor of China came the Three Sovereigns. The Three Sovereigns were Fuxi, Nuwa and Shennong. Fuxi and Nuwa were brother and sister, husband and wife, who bred after a global disaster and gave birth to humans. Shennong was a mysterious person who taught the people the knowledge of agriculture, he is not depicted as a dragon, although oddly some of his ‘children’ were said to have been dragons who became Emperors. Fuxi (female) had a human head and a serpent’s body and although at times the serpent and the dragon are interchangeable, the distinction is apparently of importance, as it was Nuwa who had the head of a human and the body of a scaly dragon. It is an accepted view that both Fuxi and Nuwa were the first dragons, as the Chinese creator of the Universe, Pangu, is disputed as being a dragon and never really hinted as being one, we are left with Fuxi and Nuwa (creators of mankind) as the first. Fuxi is said to have lived for 197 years, interestingly enough the tomb of Fuxi, the first dragon of the Orient can still be found in Huaiyang country, it has been a symbol of worship for thousands of years.
POM: No later than 2800B.C.E.

We head down to the Australis land where the indigenous Aboriginals speak of similar tales.



The Rainbow Serpent, through description, is probably one of the biggest dragons to have ever existed alongside Tiamat. It was a huge python-like creature which controlled the water and gave life to mountains. It’s appearance varies from area to area, from tribe to tribe. It was said to have horns while its color is disputed. Some say it was a sky blue, others that it was yellow with red stripes, while some speak of it as being multi-colored, hence, rainbow. The Rainbow Serpent is not unique to Australia and the Aboriginals, but we will continue with that quest later. The creature is said to have resided in large permanent water areas, during wet seasons it is that it would fly and glitter in the sky, for all the people to see. It carved river beds as it flew over the lands and was kind towards humans, unless disturbed, in which case it would cause chaos such as massive floods. Therefore it was both a symbol of life and death. The similarities between the Rainbow Serpent and that of the Chinese Dragons are uncanny. Further, the Rainbow Serpent was seen as a link between the Heaven and Earth, almost like Tiamat, who once destroyed, established the boundary.
POM: Unknown, due to oral nature of the myth.

The adventure continues now, with one of the first of the European beasts.



The Lernean Hydra was an ancient, multi-headed water serpent. It was said to have poisonous breath and its presence could turn the onlooker to stone. In Greek mythology, this beast was the guardian of the Underworld, the city of the dead. Unlike the other dragon creators, the Hydra was an evil beast, perhaps one of the first serpent like creatures to carry negative connotations of evil and death. The hydra was first mentioned in the tale of Hercules, where after a massive fight with the beast, he managed to slay it. However though, the Hydra is mentioned in African mythology aswell, the multi-headed serpent creature was said to block the rivers from flowing, starving villages. Further, the multi-headed dragon is also mentioned in Revelations. But the first mutli-headed dragon clearly originated in Greece.
POM: Recorded in the ‘Twelve Labors of Hercules’, written by Peisander, roughly 600B.C.E.

CONTINUED


reply posted on 1-12-2009 @ 06:45 AM by serbsta
CONTINUED

The first dragons were still appearing in Europe though, in the lands of the Norse.



Jormungandr, the Midgard serpent, sometimes called the World Serpent, was in Norse mythology, considered the child of Loki. Loki apparently threw Jormungandr into a giant lake which encircled Midgard. He grew so big that he encircled all the lands of Earth and could bite his own tail, possibly one of the first European Uroboros. Jormungandr is said to dribble poison and blood, a conflicting perspective of the dragon compared to Asian descriptions, further this serpent could not fly. We will still stick with Norse mythology, as another famous dragon arose during these times. Fafnir was the son of a dwarf king. Now, unlike most Western dragons, this dragon has no wings, but retains a scaly and tough exterior according to descriptions. He was said to be greedy and guard treasures, a trend which stuck with many Western dragons. Perhaps this is where the negative connotations originated with Western dragons as opposed to Eastern dragons, who even though were guardians of treasure, helped humanity.
POM: Manuscripts such as the Volsung saga and the Poetic Edda date between the 11th and 15th centuries, A.D.

Traveling down to Egypt is a must as we examine the original dragons from all over the globe.



Apep was, unknowingly to some, the original sun God. Apep, or ‘Apophis’ in Greek was the enemy of Ra, the new sun God. This serpent was said to reside in the Nun, the celestial waters. He is considered as an evil demon and symbolized chaos and disorder. He was seen as a giant serpent creature, and later as a dragon. Much like some European dragons, Apep was said to have a powerful gaze which he used against Ra and his armies during their battles. He would also choke them with his powerful coils. When a solar eclipse occurred it was said that Apep had managed to swallow Ra and that Ra would always eventually make his way out and defeat Apep again. Other disasters also occurred when Apep got the upper hand over Ra, such as thunderstorms and floods. He is mainly depicted as a rather large water serpent than a small one, he had no wings therefore he probably could not fly.
POM: 5th to 7th century B.C.E., worshipped during the Middle Kingdom.

Only a few hundred centuries later, the first dragon to breath fire would be spoken of, in the Bible.



Our trip takes us to Israel, where in the writing of the Old Testament, specifically in the Book of Job (smaller references in Psalms and Isaiah), there is a reference to a demonic creature. There is strong evidence that the dragon that is the Leviathan as described in the Old Testament set the template for all Western dragons. The following references to the creature that is the Leviathan are prime examples: “his teeth are terrible”, “His scales are his pride... They are joined one to another, they stick together, that they cannot be sundered”, “By his neesings a light doth shine, and his eyes are like the eyelids of the morning”, “Out of his mouth go burning lamps, and sparks of fire leap out”, “Out of his nostrils goeth smoke, as out of a seething pot or cauldron. His breath kindleth coals, and a flame goeth out of his mouth”, “The flakes of his flesh are joined together: they are firm in themselves”, “When he raiseth up himself, the mighty are afraid”, “even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.” Extracts from Job 41: 1-34 & Isaiah 27:1.
POM: The original Old Testament.

Our final stop in the exploration of the original dragons takes us to the land of the Aztec.



It was called Kukulcan by the Maya, Quetzacoatl was the feathered serpent God in Aztec and Toltec mythology. Interestingly enough it was their only God which did not require human sacrifice. Besides being the creator God, this dragon was a god of many other things, such as being able to make it rain (further dragon association with water), and also the maker of the calendar that has now become so famous. He is said to have often taken flights through the skies, creating rainbows, blocking out the sun, etc, he could even take the form of a man (Quetzacoatl and his human form deserve a separate investigation all together). It was apparent that Quetzacoatl was not friendly with the God of war, Tezcatlipoca who wanted human sacrifices. Quetzacoatl had a hard time convincing the people that this was wrong, and so he left. The legend goes that Quetzacoatl left on a raft upheld by serpents and promised to return one day to those that were loyal to him. The reason why Quetzacoatl is depicted as a dragon is unclear, some suggest that is due to his sudden appearance from a distant land with godlike knowledge. The tale of Quetzacoatl honestly does deserve its own investigation as there are some familiar human candidates who may very well have been the original human version who spread knowledge to the Aztec. Jesus Christ is by the far the most interesting candidate and the evidence that exists is not to be underestimated. Of course we should steer clear of this for now as for this thread we will focus on the feathered serpent dragon form.
POM: No later than 1000B.C.E during Olmec era.

This is where our journey ends with the ancient dragons. In my research i have identified just over 550 differing dragon like creatures from all over the globe through mythological tales and more modern recounts from the Dark Ages onwards, but there is too much for one thread. I would love to explore the Naga’s of Hindu texts, but they can be excluded in this piece as they have no association to the rest of the story. One thing is clear from the above, there was a common belief, a common fear among peoples of all countries and all ages. But how could such a noble (in most cases) and helpful (in most cases) creature go from being venerated, to being hunted, despised and abhorred by all civilization?



Have you ever wondered where all the tales about dragon’s living in caves originated? Our ancient recounts of the flying serpents speak of the freedom and power they had, they roamed the skies and had magical powers which they freely used to their advantage. But many modern renditions and in fact, some first-hand recounts speak differently of this supposedly never-to-have-existed species. It’s clear though, that winged-serpent like creatures still seem to fascinate us.

Before we continue one must pose the question, how likely is it really that a certain species of dinosaur could have existed, even if in it’s dying stages, as a living creature up until at least the 1700’s? Before one mocks the above statement as mere fantasy, one must first examine certain sightings/events that may or may not alter their point of view.

CONTINUED


reply posted on 1-12-2009 @ 06:45 AM by serbsta
CONTINUED

Frank H. Mellard was the Magistrate for the Kasempa District of Northern Rhodesia from 1911 to 1922. He was a very respectable British explorer and anthropologist. His most famous publications include Through the Heart of Africa (1919) and In Witch-Bound Africa(1923). Mellard was probably the first to question the kongamato, which was called the batman of swamps. But before we continue with Mellard, we will switch to the works of David H. Childress and his Lost Cities & Ancient Mysteries of Africa and Arabia (1989) where he goes on to question a Rhodesian man about the supposed creature, to whom he replied: “The kongamato is some sort of flying lizard, with wide wings and sharp teeth. It overturns boats and attacks people. The natives up there in the swaps are so afraid of it, they believe they will die if they just see it. This bloke wrote a book about it back in the twenties (this is the work of Mellard). Talked all about it. Its true, swear to God!”


*One depiction of the kongomato.

When Mellard asked the Koande natives of the Jiundu Swamps in north-west Zambia what a kongamato was, they told him; “... it isn’t a bird really, its more like a lizard with membranous wings like a bat... the wing-spread was from 4 to 7 feet across... the general color was red... no feathers but only skin on its body”. The natives say that the beast had teeth within in its beak. So Mellard got an idea, he sent for two books with pictures of pterodactyls, Mellard states that, “every native present immediately and unhesitatingly picked it out and identified it as a kongamato”.

Mellard’s claims are not isolated. Colonel C.R.S. Pitman stated in his 1942 classic, A Game Warden Takes Stock;

“When in Northern Rhodesia i heard of a mythical beast which intrigued me considerably. It was said to haunt formerly, and perhaps still to haunt, a dense, swampy forest region in the neighborhood of the Angola and Congo borders. To look upon it is death. But the most amazing feature of this mystery beast is its suggested identity with a creature bad-bird-like in form on a gigantic scale strangely reminiscent of the prehistoric pterodactyl. From where does the primitive African derive such a fanciful idea?”

No, we’re not even close to done. South African professor J.L.B Smith stated in Old Fourlegs: The Story of the Coelocanth (1956);

“The descendants of missionary who had lived near Mount Kilamanjaro wrote from Germany giving a good deal of information about flying dragons they beleived still to live in those parts. The family had repeatedly heard of them from the natives, and one man had actually seen such a creature at night. I did not and do not dispute the possibility that some such creature may still exist.”

A Game Warden on Safari (1928) is one of the more famous recounts of this creature. A. Blayney Percival states on page 241;

“The Kitui Wakamba tell of a huge flying beast which comes down from Mount Kenya by night; they only see it against the sky, but they have seen its tracks; more, they have shown these to a white man, who told me about them, saying, he could make nothing of the spoor, which betrayed two feed, and an, apparently, heavy tail.”

How unlikely is it really that a dragon like creature (Pterodactyl) could be living in the swamp barrens of Zambia?

A rather strange story emerged from a book entitled ‘Searching for Hidden Animals’ by Roy Mackal. There is a section investigating the supposed ‘flying lizard’ of Namibia with one almost unbelievable recount. The story goes that a boy was resting under a tree when he was interrupted by a massive reptilian creature which flew up from behind the mountain. The boy said that the creature landed in a huge cloud of dust and he tried his hardest to escape. Further, he said that the creature gave off a smell of ‘burned brass’ and made demonic noises. Farmers who lived close by also said they had seen the same creature, so the police were called in to investigate. One of the farmers told the police that he saw the beast slip into a crack in a mountain; dynamite was used by the police on the side of the mountain in an attempt to kill the creature. Several witnesses to the detonation swore they heard low moaning sounds coming from the rubble for a few seconds before the silence. It is not known if the rubble was ever cleared away.

Illustrated London News, February 9, 1856, page 166, held a story of a tunnel that was being dug in France to unite the St. Dizier and Nancy railways where a rock had to be blasted open during mining. The story goes that a beast exactly like the pterodactyl emerged from the rock, walking with the aid of its wings, emerged into the light and died after releasing a frightening moan.

Childress has more accounts, this time from the Americas. He goes on to say;

“The Haida natives of Queen Charlotte Islands of British Columbia believe that some Thunderbirds were so large that they could literally pick up small whales from the sea. Much of their art and woodcarving depicts such a capture by a Thunderbird. Some South American Indians believed that the bird was constantly at war with the powers living beneath the sea, particularly a horned serpent and that it tore up large trees in search of giant grubs which were its favourite food. The clapping of these giants’ wings created thunder, so they were known as ‘Thunderbirds’…”

Childress recounts another strange encounter in the years of 1975 and 1976. In the town of Raymondville, Texas on December 24th, a man by the name of Joe Suarez would be awoken to find that his goat had been mutilated and only partly devoured. He found no tracks leading from the carcass. Police were called in but they found nothing to identify any possible assailants. Nothing happened for 21 days, until the night of January 14th 1976, in the same town, a man by the name of Armanda Grimaldo was sitting in his backyard when he was suddenly attacked by what he called ‘a strange winged creature’. He told Raymondville press that as he was running along the side of his house he felt claws grasp at his back, but was too scared to turn around fully and only got a glimpse of the creature. He said that he had to hide under a bush and the creature hovered over him for a few seconds, then flew away as if exhausted. Grimaldo later described his attacker as being 6 feet tall, blackish-brown leathery skin, a wingspan of 12 feet and it had big red eyes. More reports came in 1976, close by, from San Antontio. On the night of February 24th three school teachers were driving home from work and observed a creature which had massive leathery wings, what they described as being about 15 to 20 feet in length. It was apparently circling their car and was gliding, not flying, but gliding over the whole road as they watched in horror from within their car. As they researched what they saw later that night, they identified it with a Pterodon.

CONTINUED


reply posted on 1-12-2009 @ 06:45 AM by serbsta
CONTINUED

Certainly some of these recounts can at least raise eyebrows, as the uniformity of the testimonies adds a lot to their authenticity. We must conclude our investigation of the dragon as the length will deteriorate from the message of the thread for some. Oh silly me, we cannot leave just yet. There is but one thing left to examine.

In the year of 1691 a dragon was said to be living in the wetlands close to Rome. The beast was living in a cave and was terrorizing the locals. The legend goes that the locals managed to kill the beast, and a sketch survived of the beast which seems to be depicting it in a semi-deteriorating state, half muscle, half skeletal (Fig .1). Ingegniero Cornelio Meyer was said to be in possession of the original sketch. The sketch seems to depict a Pterosaur, oddly enough.


Fig .1

Expert opinion on the matter states; “The creature clearly displays a head crest complete with a dual piece of skin attached to it which is characteristic of the species, five digits are visible on each foot and are anatomically correct for the Scaphognathus Pterosaur inasmuch as each digit is of the proper length, the first one appearing slightly shorter and offset to the rest. The femur is correctly displayed as a single bone and the twin lower leg bones (the tibia and fibula), are also quite visible. A small wing claw can be seen on the far wing where it curves forward, and the wings themselves are depicted membranous and are correctly positioned forward of the legs on the vertebrae which also matches existing fossil records.”

It certainly bears resemblance to the modern day classic image of a dragon that we have known to love through movies. Even if one does not take it as a legit artifact, one must admire the attention to detail that has been undertaken.

Verdict- Dragons most probably are not real, never existed and may never exist in all likely hood. But their presence within philosophy from the literal emergence of recorded human civilization is what has kept this legend alive to this very day. It is a symbol of chaos and of life, of power and of greed, of love and courage, of bravery and tyranny. The dragon is a symbol of mankind because it can never be defined, never contained, never dismissed, but most importantly, never destroyed.

___________________________________________________________________________________________

We think, sometimes, there's not a dragon left. Not one brave knight, not a single princess gliding through secret forests, enchanting deer and butterflies with her smile.

What a pleasure to be wrong. Princesses, knights, enchantments and dragons, mystery and adventure ...not only are they here-and-now, they're all that ever lived on earth!

Our century, they've changed clothes, of course. Dragons wear government-costumes, today, and failure-suits and disaster-outfits. Society's demons screech, whirl down on us should we lift our eyes from the ground, dare we turn right at corners we've been told to turn left.

So crafty have appearances become that princesses and knights can be hidden from each other, can be hidden from themselves.
-Richard Bach, The Bridge Across Forever, preface, 1984

END - UNITY OF MYTH ACT I

FURTHER READING
*Not including the books mentioned within the above.

-Giants, Monsters, and Dragons: An Encyclopedia of Folklore, Legend, and Myth by Carol Rose

-Dragons: More than a Myth by Richard Alan Freeman

-Dragons: Truth, Myth and Legend by David Passes and Wayne Anderson

Please comment, dispute, question anything written above. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as i have enjoyed researching and writing it up.

[edit on 1/12/2009 by serbsta]


reply posted on 1-12-2009 @ 09:58 AM by wylee
Howdy,

I have spent some time exploring the dragon myth. For some reason, I don't find them evil. They are a bit scary, but it's more like a prolonged depression or apathy. I think they're just lonely. But I have a lot of faith in the universe.

The dragon, a culmination of bird, serpent, and mammal is the part of us that is connected to all life and since we have run away from our creativity, it becomes frustrated and chaotic, unharmonized to it's surroundings and therefore something to fear. Yet it is our own creational power that we are afraid of. You've heard of kundalini, the twin serpents that rise up your spine as you evolve. I think this is a metaphor for accessing that creational power.

After reading The Cosmic Serpent by Jeremy Narby, I have come to think the dragon is the metaphor for DNA in our subconcious. It is our connection to life. Yet being a very grounded energy, it deals with very strong elemental forces that we as a culture and individually have a hard time dealing with, aka the present world.

These are the chaotic forces in our lives that think we have no control over. Hence slaying your dragon, but I like my dragon. I decided to become friends with mine which for me was an exploration into unconditional love, for myself mostly and a whole lot of patience with not-knowing.

Here is another theory on dragons. It's documentary on the parallels between certian electric phenomenon made by planetary alignments in conjuction with the sun and much of the artwork made by pre-historic man.

www.abovetopsecret.com...


reply posted on 1-12-2009 @ 06:03 PM by serbsta
reply to post by Ridhya


The comets theory is interesting, thanks for the insight sir.

reply to post by wylee


Well not all of them are evil, the Chinese dragon is a symbol of the complete opposite.


reply posted on 1-12-2009 @ 07:58 PM by thomas_
reply to post by serbsta


Great thread!

S&F

By the way anyone knows anything about that Dragon that was allegedly found by accident by tourists while skiing?

I can't remember the exact place (country wise) where it was found but I do remember seeing something about it on Discovery Channel or The History Channel a couple of years ago and then nothing else was spoken.

It's huge body from what was shown was pretty much intact because it was frozen inside a cave on the mountains.


reply posted on 1-12-2009 @ 08:58 PM by wylee
reply to post by serbsta


Sweet someone's interested.

Long Gu in Chinese or Os Draconis in Latin otherwise known as Dragon Bone. It's actually any fossilized bone, but Dragon works for me.

In Chinese Medicine it is used for calming the liver and the mind(shen).
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