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Mythical Monsters

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Keira Kensington
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« Reply #795 on: March 27, 2010, 06:22:58 pm »

been carried with them westward in their migration from the common Aryan centre.

The Teutonic tribes who invaded and settled in England bore the effigies of dragons on their shields and banners, and these were also depicted on the ensigns of various German tribes. * We also find that Thor himself was a slayer of dragons, † and both Siegfried and Beowulf were similarly engaged in the Niebelungen-lied and the epic
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Keira Kensington
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« Reply #796 on: March 27, 2010, 06:23:08 pm »

bearing the name of the latter. ‡ The Berserkers not only named their boats after the dragon, but also had the prow ornamented with a dragon figure-head; a fashion which obtains to the present day among the Chinese, who have an annual dragon-boat festival, in which long snaky boats with a ferocious dragon prow run races for prizes, and paddle in processions.
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Keira Kensington
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« Reply #797 on: March 27, 2010, 06:23:23 pm »

So deeply associated was the dragon with the popular legends, that we find stories of encounters with it passing down into the literature of the Middle Ages; and, like the heroes of old, the Christian saints won their principal renown by dragon achievements. Thus among the dragon-slayers § we find that—

1. St. Phillip the Apostle destroyed a huge dragon at Hierapolis in Phrygia.
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Keira Kensington
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« Reply #798 on: March 27, 2010, 06:23:35 pm »

2. St. Martha killed the terrible dragon called Tarasque at Aix (la Chapelle).

3. St. Florent killed a similar dragon which haunted the Loire.

4. St. Cado, St. Maudet, and St. Paul did similar feats in Brittany.

p. 199

5. St. Keyne of Cornwall slew a dragon.
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Keira Kensington
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« Reply #799 on: March 27, 2010, 06:23:56 pm »

6. St. Michael, St. George, St. Margaret, Pope Sylvester, St. Samson, Archbishop of Dol, Donatus (fourth century), St. Clement of Metz, killed dragons.

7. St. Romain of Rouen destroyed the huge dragon called La Gargouille, which ravaged the Seine.

Moreover, the fossil remains of animals discovered from time to time, and now relegated to their true position in the zoological series, were supposed to be the genuine remains of either dragons or giants, according to the bent of the mind of the individual who stumbled on them: much as in the present day large fossil bones of extinct animals of all kinds are in China ascribed to dragons, and form an important item in the Chinese pharmacopoeia. (Vide extract on
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Keira Kensington
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« Reply #800 on: March 27, 2010, 06:24:22 pm »



FIG. 38.—SKELETON OF AN IGUANODON.

p. 200
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Keira Kensington
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« Reply #801 on: March 27, 2010, 06:24:38 pm »

 Dragon bones from the Pen-tsaou-kang-mu, given on pp. 244-246.)

The annexed wood-cut of the skeleton of an Iguanodon, found in a coal-mine at Bernissant, exactly illustrates the semi-erect position which the dragon of fable is reported to have assumed.
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« Reply #802 on: March 27, 2010, 06:24:49 pm »

Among the latest surviving beliefs of this nature may be cited the dragon of Wantley (Wharncliffe, Yorkshire), who was slain by More of More Hall. He procured a suit of armour studded with spikes, and, proceeding to the well where the dragon had his lair, kicked him in the mouth, where alone he was vulnerable. The Lambton worm is another instance.
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« Reply #803 on: March 27, 2010, 06:24:57 pm »

The explanations of these legends attempted by mythologists, based on the supposition that the dragons which are their subjects are simply symbolic of natural phenomena, are ingenious, and perhaps in many instances sufficient, but do not affect, as I have before remarked, the primitive and conserved belief in their previous existence as a reality.
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« Reply #804 on: March 27, 2010, 06:25:08 pm »

Thus, the author of British Goblins suggests that for the prototype of the red dragon, which haunted caverns and guarded treasures in Wales, we must look in the lightning caverns of old Aryan fable, and deduces the fire-darting dragons of modern lore from the shining hammer of Thor, and the lightning spear of Odin.
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« Reply #805 on: March 27, 2010, 06:25:21 pm »

The stories of ladies guarded by dragons are explained on the supposition * that the ladies were kept in the secured part of the feudal castles, round which the walls wound, and that an adventurer had to scale the walls to gain access to the ladies; when there were two walls, the authors of romance said that the assaulter overcame two dragons, and so on. St. Romain, when he delivered the city of Rouen from a dragon which lived in the river Seine, simply protected

p. 201
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« Reply #806 on: March 27, 2010, 06:25:34 pm »

the city from an overflow, just as Apollo (the sun) is symbolically said to have destroyed the serpent Python, or, in other words, dried up an overflow. And the dragon of Wantley is supposed by Dr. Percy to have been an overgrown rascally attorney, who cheated some children of their estates, but was compelled to disgorge by a gentleman named More, who went against him armed with the "spikes of the law," whereupon the attorney died of vexation.
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« Reply #807 on: March 27, 2010, 06:25:44 pm »

Furthermore, our dragoons were so denominated because they were armed with dragons, that is, with short muskets, which spouted fire like dragons, and had the head of a dragon wrought upon their muzzle.
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« Reply #808 on: March 27, 2010, 06:25:55 pm »

This fanciful device occurs also among the Chinese, for a Jesuit, who accompanied the Emperor of China on a journey into Western Tartary in 1683, says, This was the reason of his coming into their country with so great an army, and such vast military preparations; he having commanded several pieces of cannon to be brought, in order for them to be discharged from time to time in the valleys; purposely that the noise and fire, issuing from the mouths of the dragons, with which they were adorned, might spread terror around."
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« Reply #809 on: March 27, 2010, 06:26:10 pm »

Though dragons have completely dropped out of all modern works on natural history, they were still retained and regarded as quite orthodox until a little before the time of Cuvier; specimens, doubtless fabricated like the ingeniously constructed mermaid of Mr. Barnum, were exhibited in the museums; and voyagers occasionally brought back, as authentic stories of their existence, fables which had percolated through time and nations until they had found a home in people so remote from their starting point as to cause a complete obliteration of their passage and origin.
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