5-N-Dime Plus More! Dragon Blog

Dragon...just the word causes a reaction.  The reaction can be one of fear awe, or both.  Dragons are usually depicted as mighty beasts usually in the form of a large scaled reptile with teeth and talons bared and ready for battle.  But, the can be as small as the modern day Bearded Dragon (which doesn't spit fire or have wings) 

2012 is the year of the Dragon. The year of the dragon is a Chinese tradition that comes every 12 years and begins with the Chinese New Year (January 23/2012 at midnight). This year is the year of the Water Dragon!

There are 5 different Chinese Dragon signs...the Metal Dragon, the Water Dragon, the Wood Dragon, the Fire Dragon and the Earth Dragon. Each has it's own individual characteristics.

The Chinese believe that those born in the year of the dragon will inherit certain characteristics of that particular dragon...the Water Dragon is one of calming spirits that enables the individual to direct their energies in a different path, one that they are able to make smart decisions and be able to communicate better with others.  

Not every nation saw them as something to fear, some worshiped them as gods, while others saw them as a great nuisance that needed to be eradicated, but no matter who you are or were, they cause a reaction!

Dragon myths are stories made up of a make believe animal, purely for our delight.  Dragon legends are stories that have been passed down from generation to generation because something happened that inspired them to tell or record an event or a dragon or dragon like animal.  

Dragon legends are found in all walks of life, in every nation and every group of people, it does not matter if you are religious or not, you have heard of dragons.  From the beginning of our record keeping there have been stories of dragons.  The very oldest artifact we have is an Egyptian slate which commemorates a king, on this slate are pictures of dragon like animals.

Now the story of the dragon could very well have been myth, because how could any animal breath fire?  There have been movies depicting how this could have happened along with some pretty good explanations in literature.  But no matter how you look at it, it is hard to believe that any animal could breath fire. 

In the Holy Bible the dragon is referred to  22 times.  Some of the new translations of the Hebrew word meaning 'dragon' is now rendered 'serpent', (get a 'Strong's Exhaustive Concordance', it has a Hebrew and Greek dictionary in it).  The dragon is referred to by the writer of the very oldest book in the Bible all the way through to the last book in the old testament. 

The Christians are not the only ones that have dragons in their history, everyone knows that the Chinese are crazy about their dragons.   The Chinese culture is rooted in their belief in the dragon.  Chinese mythology credits the dragon for making rain, controlling floods and for delivering their human counter parts to the celestial realms after their death. 

Even in modern times the Chinese believed it was a dragon swallowing the sun during an eclipse.  During the eclipse they fired their machine guns at the invisible dragon which they must have killed because the sun was restored.  (they actually injured several people with the bullets coming back down to earth).  The famous symbol Yin-Yang comes from the image of two dragons back to back, symbolizing eternity.

Dragons appeared in the earliest Chinese hieroglyphs, between the 16th and 11th century BC.  In these hieroglyphs you can easily see a reptile form with horns and  teeth with scales and paws.   In the Chinese legend of Dragons, they believed that the dragon came in all forms, from large to small, dark to light, long to short, they could dwell on land, fly in the sky or live under water, but they were always depicted as a scaled reptile.

There were no doubts by the ancient Chinese people of the existence of dragons.  The Chinese worshiped the dragon as a god, after all it carried the dead to their celestial realm, it controlled the rain fall...the list goes on. 

They stood in total awe and reverence of the dragon, with great respect to this mighty animal.  Out of their admiration for the dragon they came to believe that the Chinese people are descendents of the dragon, using the dragon as the symbol of their nation.  

As I stated in the beginning, there is something that started every myth and legend.  The myth might have been just our imaginations searching out a fantasy that will delight the listener or an exaggeration of a truth that over the years has become unbelievable.  But a myth would be isolated in its origins because it is a make believe story. 

A legend is a story passed down from generation to generation that depicts an event or animal that again might very well be exaggerated, but none the less it is a story passed down that had an event starting the story. 

In either case, when an event or animal is recognized and recorded in history in every nation and every group of people, it is fair to assume that these stories and pictures were inspired by real events and/or animals. 

The mention of the dragon in the Bible could be due to the lack of the word 'dinosaur'.  The word dinosaur did not come into existence until 1841.  Now, due to our insistence that man and dinosaurs did not dwell together, the translation is rendered serpent or jackal.

I believe that the writers of the bible knew what they were talking about when they called the animal a dragon.  After all, the Hebrew word that was translated to Dragon was the same word used by 9 different writers over a time period of nearly 1500 years. 

The dragon legend was possibly born from our coexistence with the dinosaur.  The record of the coexistence of these mighty animals are recorded in every nation and every group of people.  Get the documentary: Dragons or Dinosaurs?, it is well worth watching if you want to see another possible explanation for the mighty dragon.

Of course there are still Dragon alive and living today...The Komodo Dragon, one that no sane person would want to own.  There is also the bearded dragon, who can make himself appear larger and more fearful than he really is and more intimidating than his smaller counterparts.