Breath of fire
Or stream of ice?
Steam and fumes
Fierce or nice?
What is a dragon?
A friend or foe
Mythological
How can we know?
Genetic reboot
Turn into something new.
Evil or good?
What could be true?
Breathing fire?
Tag: Mythology
Draco
Draco, the dragon constellation and Ursa minor. Draco writhes up the northern night sky from the constellation Hercules up to Lyra. It sits near the north pole of the ecliptic. It was first identified by Ptolomey in the 2nd century. It remains one of 88 modern constellations.
I’ve found out a lot as I’ve written my college report. Eastern dragons are wise and benign, western ones evil and dangerous. They have lots of different appearances that vary depending on where they are were from or the time they were imagined. No legs, two legs, four legs, winged. Dragons seem to have evolved through time and now a more standardised anatomy seems to have emerged. I wonder how dragons will change in the future?
Writing about dragons
My college project is about dragons. I have to write a report and I’m getting bogged down with all the information I’m trying to put together. From dinosaur fossils that could have been mistaken for dragons. To their ancient mythological history. Then I looked at Bestiaries and the bible. It’s surprising how many places they appear. There is a dragon or group of dragons for every continent. So much so that I cannot talk about all of them. They seem to split between benign and protective beasts or evil and sly. Then I look at the symbology of them. I tried to include some semiology within the report. Finally I’m looking at modern imagery, novels and children’s stories. I’ve also started to write a children’s book and I’m using my illustrations for it. I hope to finish writing soon but each time I think I have finished I find more to put in and more to edit out. I think I have too many quotes and I need to put more in my own words.
Dragon illustrations
For my final college report I’m looking at the history of the depictions of dragons (OK very niche). I’m trying to understand how they were illustrated and how they change across the world. I’ve found out Korean dragons have five toes, Chinese four or five and Japanese three toes. They have different shapes. They go from serpentine to with two or four legs. No wings or wings. Some are fire-breathing. They may be mythical but they seem to evolve.
Yeti Alert
Drawing of a Yeti. I thought I could write a children’s book about one, but I don’t really know what it would be about, I just liked the idea. Then I saw Terry Pratchett had written a story about a baby yeti. It’s due out on Christmas day on the BBC. I’m looking forward to it… Whatever my Yeti story is I hope its funny enough.
Found, a dragon eye
I found this in my previous images on WordPress. It’s a tiny picture of a dragons eye that I painted a couple of years ago. Since I’m researching dragons for college and it seems to be something I’ve looked at over several years. This was a miniature piece about 1 1/2 by 2 inches. I was going to do some more but got sidetracked into doing other paintings. Like many of my mythological paintings it’s entirely imagined.
The gargoyle.
He sits quietly in a laurel bush, watching, seeing who enters the garden. The stone gargoyle. Winged, large ears turned to listen. How did he get there? Did he climb or fly? How does he stay there, no nails or glue support him. Does he protect or reject visitors to His garden? Stone carved and muscular. Is he hiding from gargoyle hunters, who stalk the suburbs and smash his unsuspecting siblings?
What are you, fiend from a nightmare or friend from a mediaeval church? Like an escaped pigeon, sitting in the laurel bush, waiting for his lost love.
Dragons
Found these three cuties in a shop in Llandudno. Well the red dragon is the symbol for Wales. 🏴. And the country is full of mountains and valleys where they could be lurking, strangely England’s patron Saint is St George, although he was Turkish as far as I know. By the way, Scotland has Nessie (the Loch Ness monster) that could be of dragon like proportions. I’m not sure about Northern Ireland, perhaps they have their own myth. Although snakes never made it to Ireland and dragons seem to be a distant relation to snakes and lizards.
Being mythological doesn’t mean they may never exist. Maybe a bit of gene slicing could bring about something similar to fire lizards described wonderfully by the fantasy and sci-fi author Anne McCaffrey. She is a splendid author and I would recommend her books. Hopefully though they would not include breathing fire!
Mallaband-Brown 