The Penguin Book of Dragons

by The Penguin Book of Dragons (retail) (epub)

  The messengers lost no time. They hurried off to the governor of the town and ordered him in the King’s name to send Merlin and his mother to Vortigern. When the governor knew the object of their errand, he immediately sent Merlin and his mother to Vortigern, so that the King could do what he wanted with them. When they were brought into his presence, the King received the mother with due courtesy, for he knew that she came of a noble family. Then he began to ask her by what man she had conceived the lad. “By my living soul, Lord King,” she said, “and by your living soul, too, I did not have relations with any man to make me bear this child. I know only this: that, when I was in our private apartments with my sister nuns, someone used to come to me in the form of a handsome young man. He would often hold me tightly in his arms and kiss me. When he had been some little time with me he would disappear, so that I could no longer see him. Many times, too, when I was sitting alone, he would talk with me, without becoming visible; and when he came to see me in this way he would often make love with me, as a man would do, and in that way he made me pregnant. You must decide in your wisdom, my Lord, who was the father of this lad, for apart from what I have told, I have never had relations with a man.”

  The King was amazed by what he heard. He ordered a certain Maugantius to be summoned to him, so that this man could tell whether or not what the woman said was possible. Maugantius was brought in and listened to the whole story, point by point. “In the books written by our sages,” he said to Vortigern, “and in many historical narratives, I have discovered that quite a number of men have been born in this way. As Apuleius asserts in the De deo Socratis, between the moon and the earth live spirits which we call incubus demons.2 These have partly the nature of men and partly that of angels, and when they wish they assume mortal shapes and have intercourse with women. It is possible that one of these appeared to this woman and begot the lad in her.”

  When he had listened to all this, Merlin went up to the King and asked: “Why have my mother and I been brought into your presence?” “My magicians have advised me,” answered Vortigern, “that I should look for a fatherless man, so that my building can be sprinkled with his blood and thus stand firm.” “Tell your magicians to appear in front of me,” answered Merlin, “and I will prove that they have lied.”

  The King was amazed at what Merlin said. He ordered his magicians to come immediately and sit down in front of Merlin. “Just because you do not know what is obstructing the foundations of the tower which men have begun,” said Merlin to the magicians, “you have recommended that my blood should be sprinkled on the mortar to make the building stand firm. Tell me, then, what lies hidden under the foundation. There is certainly something there which is preventing it from holding firm.”

  The magicians, who were terrified, said nothing. Merlin, who was also called Ambrosius, then went on: “My Lord King, summon your workmen. Order them to dig in the earth, and, underneath, you will find a pool. That is what is preventing the tower from standing.” This was done. A pool was duly found beneath the earth, and it was this which made the ground unsteady.

  Ambrosius Merlin went up to the magicians a second time and said: “Tell me, now, you lying flatterers. What lies beneath the pool?” They remained silent, unable to utter a single sound. “Order the pool to be drained,” said Merlin, “and at the bottom you will observe two hollow stones. Inside the stones you will see two Dragons which are sleeping.”

  The King believed what Merlin said, for he had told the truth about the pool. He ordered the pool to be drained. He was more astounded by Merlin than he had ever been by anything. All those present were equally amazed by his knowledge, and they realized that there was something supernatural about him.

  * * *

  —

  While Vortigern, King of the Britons, was still sitting on the bank of the pool which had been drained of its water, there emerged two Dragons, one white, one red. As soon as they were near enough to each other, they fought bitterly, breathing out fire as they panted. The White Dragon began to have the upper hand and to force the Red One back to the edge of the pool. The Red Dragon bewailed the fact that it was being driven out and then turned upon the White One and forced it backward in its turn. As they struggled on in this way, the King ordered Ambrosius Merlin to explain just what this battle of the Dragons meant. Merlin immediately burst into tears. He went into a prophetic trance and then spoke as follows:

  “Alas for the Red Dragon, for its end is near. Its cavernous dens shall be occupied by the White Dragon, which stands for the Saxons whom you have invited over. The Red Dragon represents the people of Britain, who will be overrun by the White One: for Britain’s mountains and valleys shall be leveled, and the streams in its valleys shall run with blood.”

  THE DEVIL IS THE LARGEST SERPENT1

  Based on late antique models and reaching a height of popularity in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, medieval bestiaries were collections of pithy stories about the nature of animals (and often plants and stones as well) that explained their symbolic meaning in a medieval Christian worldview. Some of these animals were common, like dogs and horses; others were exotic, like elephants and panthers; while others still were legendary, like unicorns and the hydra. Medieval bestiaries varied in content, containing anywhere between fifty and one hundred anecdotes, but they all served the same purpose: to educate and entertain medieval readers with stories about manifestations of Christian truth in God’s creation. The dragon featured prominently in the medieval bestiary tradition as an avatar of the Devil, who entangled the unwary in the bonds of sin in the same way that the dragon snared the legs of the elephant in its dark coils and thereby brought about its death.

  THE PANTHER

  There is an animal called the panther, varied in color, but exceptionally beautiful and very docile. The naturalist says that it is the dragon’s only enemy.2 For when it has eaten and sated itself from all of its hunts, it returns to its cave and lying down, it sleeps for three days. Rising from sleep, it suddenly emits a roar on high and at the same time it emits an odor of exquisite sweetness with its roar, the smell of which surpasses all aromas and pigments. When all of the beasts hear the panther’s voice, whether they are near or far, they assemble and follow its sweetness. But the dragon alone is struck with fear when he hears the panther’s voice and hides in his subterranean caves. There, unable to bear the power of the odor, the dragon curls up, numb and stiff, and remains immobile and lifeless, as though dead. In contrast, the other animals follow the odor wherever it goes. Thus our Lord Jesus Christ, the true panther, rescued the entire human race that was held captive by the Devil and vulnerable to death, drawing them to him through his incarnation and, leading captivity as a captive, he gave gifts to men.3

  THE DRAGON

  The dragon is the largest of all the serpents and all the animals on earth. The Greeks call it draconta, the Latins draco.4 Drawn forth from its caves, the dragon often takes flight. The air shines when the dragon disturbs it. The dragon is plumed with a small mouth and narrow windpipes, through which it draws breath and sticks out its tongue. Its strength lies not in its teeth, but in its tail and it kills by lashing rather than by biting. Moreover, the dragon is unharmed by venom, but it is not necessary for it to use venom to cause death because whatever it wraps itself around soon perishes. The elephant is not safe from it, even though its body is huge. For, lying in wait on the paths along which elephants habitually walk, the dragon grabs hold of their legs with knotted coils and kills them by suffocation. Dragons live in Ethiopia and in India where from the heat of the sun there is continual heat like summer. The Devil, who is the largest serpent, is similar to the dragon. He is often roused from his cave and takes to the air, which shines because of him, for from the beginning the Devil raised himself up and transfigured himself into an angel of light and deceived the foolish with the hope of false glory and human happiness. He is said to be plumed because he is the king of pride. He has venom
not in his teeth, but in his tongue because, having lost all of his power, he deceives with lies those whom he has drawn to himself. He lurks on the paths, along which the elephants walk, because the Devil always follows mighty men. He binds their legs with the coils of his tail and ensnares them, if he can, because he will hinder their way to heaven with the coils of sin, and he slays by suffocating because whoever dies entangled in the bond of sins will without doubt be damned in Hell.

  THE PERIDEXION TREE

  There is a tree in India whose branches hang down. Moreover, the fruit of this tree is altogether sweet and very delicious. The doves delight in the fruits of this tree and they reside in it, eating its fruit. The dragon, however, is an enemy to the doves, and it fears the tree and its shadow where the doves linger, and it is able to approach neither the tree nor its shadow. For if the tree’s shadow falls to the west, the dragon flees to the east, and vice versa. If, however, it should happen that a dove is found beyond the tree or its shadow, the dragon kills it. Consider that this tree is God the Father, the shadow is his son, just as Gabriel says to Mary: “The Holy Spirit will come over you, and the power of the Almighty will cast a shadow upon you.”  5 The fruit is the heavenly wisdom of the Lord, namely, the Holy Spirit. See, therefore, O man, that after you have received the Holy Spirit, that is, the spiritual dove, perceivable and hovering above you, that you do not forsake immortality by becoming a stranger to the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit, lest the dragon destroy you, that is, the Devil. For if you have the Holy Spirit, the dragon cannot approach you. Harken, therefore, O man, and remain in the Catholic faith. Take care as much as you can lest you find yourself outside the house and the dragon, that ancient serpent, catches you outdoors and devours you like Judas, who as soon as he left the house with his apostolic brothers was immediately devoured by a demon and perished.6

  HUNTING MONSTERS IN KARA-JANG1

  Toward the end of the thirteenth century, the Venetian merchant and explorer Marco Polo (1254–1324) visited the court of Kublai Khan, the ruler of the Mongol Empire. Polo lived in China for seventeen years in the service of the khan, traveling extensively throughout his vast territories on diplomatic missions to neighboring polities in southern Asia. Upon his return to Europe in the 1290s, Polo was imprisoned in Genoa, where he narrated the stories of his travels to his cellmate Rustichello da Pisa. Throughout his Travels, Polo provided eyewitness accounts of the cultures of many Asian peoples hitherto unknown to European readers. In the kingdom of Kara-jang (modern Yunnan Province, China), he described enormous serpents that resembled dragons. These were most likely Chinese alligators (the critically endangered Alligator sinensis), whose size and eating habits had been amplified in Polo’s imagination by time and distance. Free from the moralizing of the popular bestiary tradition (see pp. 106–108), Polo described in detail the ways in which local hunters killed these creatures not only for their meat but for the medicinal properties of their gall.

  In this province live huge snakes and serpents of such a size that no one could help being amazed even to hear of them. They are loathsome creatures to behold. Let me tell you just how big they are. You may take it for a fact that there are some of them ten paces in length that are as thick as a stout cask: for their girth runs to about ten palms. These are the biggest. They have two squat legs in front near the head, which have no feet but simply three claws, two small and one bigger, like the claws of a falcon or a lion. They have enormous heads and eyes so bulging that they are bigger than loaves. Their mouth is big enough to swallow a man at one gulp. Their teeth are huge. All in all, the monsters are of such inordinate bulk and ferocity that there is neither man nor beast but goes in fear of them. There are also smaller ones, not exceeding eight paces in length, or six or it may be five.

  Let me tell you how these monsters are trapped. You must know that by day they remain underground because of the great heat; at nightfall, they sally out to hunt and feed and seize whatever prey they can come by. They go down to drink at streams and lakes and springs. They are so bulky and heavy and of such a girth that when they pass through sand on their nightly search for food or drink they scoop out a furrow through the way sand that looks as if a butt full of wine had been rolled that way. Now the hunters who set out to catch them lay traps at various places in the trails that show which way the snakes are accustomed to go down the banks into the water. These are made by embedding in the earth a stout wooden stake to which is fixed a sharp steel tip like a razor-blade or lance-head, projecting about a palm’s breadth beyond the stake and slanting in the direction from which the serpents approach. This is covered with sand, so that nothing of the stake is visible. Traps of this sort are laid in great numbers. When the snake, or rather the serpent, comes down the trail to drink, he runs full-tilt into the steel, so that it pierces his chest and rips his belly right to the navel and he dies on the spot. The hunter knows that the serpent is dead by the cry of the birds, and then he ventures to approach his prey. Otherwise he dare not draw near.

  When the hunters have trapped a serpent by this means, they draw out the gall from the belly and sell it for a high price, for you must know that it makes a potent medicine. If a man is bitten by a mad dog, he is given a drop of it to drink—the weight of a halfpenny—and he is cured forthwith. And when a woman is in labor and cries aloud with the pangs of travail, she is given a drop of the serpent’s gall and as soon as she has drunk it she is delivered of her child forthwith. Its third use is when someone is afflicted by any sort of growth: he puts a drop of this gall on it and is cured in a day or two. For these reasons the gall of this serpent is highly prized in these provinces. The flesh also commands a good price, because it is very good to eat and is esteemed as a delicacy.

  Another thing about these serpents: they go to the dens where lions and bears and other beasts of prey have their cubs and gobble them up—parents as well as young—if they can get at them.

  DRACONIC DEMONS AND OGRES

  Dragons in Byzantium

  Long after the collapse of the imperial administration in western Europe in the fifth century CE, the legacy of Rome thrived in the eastern Mediterranean for another millennium until the fall of Constantinople to the armies of Sultan Mehmed II in 1453. During this period, the inhabitants of the eastern Roman Empire (now commonly known as Byzantium) pondered the mysteries of dragons in theological works and scientific treatises, while portraying them as frightful adversaries in saints’ lives and vernacular poetry. Situated between the cultures of western Europe and eastern Asia, Byzantine thinkers drew from ancient, Christian, and Islamic traditions for their information about dragons, but they also embroidered these traditions with new representations of these frightful creatures. While dragons appeared as giant reptiles in Byzantine literature, they were often demons in disguise. More surprisingly, they also took the form of humanoid monsters with a lust for women. The legacy of their depredations still resonates today, because these draconic ogres of the Middle Ages very likely informed the contemporary use of the word “dragon” in modern Greek (drakos) to describe violent serial rapists who stalk particular areas.

  A THEOLOGIAN CONTEMPLATES THE NATURE OF DRAGONS1

  John of Damascus (ca. 675–749) was one of the greatest theologians in the Byzantine Orthodox tradition and lived under Muslim Arab rule in Syria and Palestine. Among his voluminous works was preserved a short discussion of dragons followed by a shorter one on witches (succubae). Scholars have rejected the attribution of these works to John, so they are effectively anonymous. It was common for works to be attributed to famous authors so that they would be taken seriously. This discussion of dragons was recopied (with minor changes) by an eleventh-century author of practical maxims, Kekaumenos, and so we can date its composition to between the later eighth and the early eleventh century. It took the form of a response to those who tell fantastic tales about dragons and argued that they are, after all, only natural creatures.

  People sometimes imagine
that dragons take human form, or sometimes become small snakes while at other times they become very large snakes, gargantuan in bulk and bodily size. Sometimes, as mentioned, they become people and hold conversations with other people; they come along, seize women, and have sex with them.2 So we ask people who imagine these things, “How many rational kinds of creature did God make?” And if they do not know, we tell them, “The answer is two: angels and human beings. The Devil is one of the angelic powers, and he voluntarily separated himself from the light and walks in darkness. These are the two rational entities that God made. But as for dragons, since they speak with human beings, change their own shape and have intercourse with women, and are sometimes snakes and sometimes people, becoming one among the many, it is clear that they are rational creatures, even above human beings in honor. But this was never the case, nor will it ever be true.”