1/20/2024 0 Comments Legends abot dream monsters![]() ![]() You're one of the 12 animals of the zodiac and one of the four creatures of the constellations. China might just be the best place in the world to be a dragon: you symbolize strength and bring blessings, you have all kinds of powers over the natural world, and there are pictures of you everywhere. Head east and you'll find a very different story. ![]() That's why the capital Ljubljana has a dragon on its coat of arms. Incidentally, some legends say that on his way back to Greece, Jason ran into and slew another dragon, in what's now Slovenia. The creature never slept or even closed its eyes, but the sorceress Medea helped Jason to steal the treasure by bewitching the dragon unconscious. (Cadmus killed it and planted its teeth in the ground, where they turned into fearsome warriors who would help him found the city of Thebes.) Then there was the dragon at Colchis that watched over the magical Golden Fleece. Or the Ismenian dragon, son of the god of war, who guarded a sacred spring. (Perseus swooped in with his flying sandals and killed it, and the gods memorialized the story in the stars.) (Hercules worked out he could stop the heads sprouting by sealing each stump with fire.) Or Cetus, the sea monster that Poseidon sent to eat the princess Andromeda after her mother boasted that she was more beautiful than any sea nymph. Take Hydra, for instance, the gigantic sea serpent that breathed and bled poison, and would grow two more heads for each one cut off. They were pretty much everything you'd want from a good dragon, i.e., horrifying and nigh impossible to slay - unless you just happen to be a hero with the gods on your side. And their specimens certainly lived up to it. ![]() It's thanks to the Ancient Greeks that dragons are dragons: it was their word drakon("serpent") that gave us the name we use today. Almost anywhere in the world you look, in fact, there be dragons. ![]()
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