Dragons from the Game of Thrones Exhibit

We all have the bug….Yes; many of us, regardless of age, creed or gender, love dragons. This despite the fact that some have done their best to portray these celestial beings in literary or in visual form as fierce, horrifying and deadly monsters that swoop from the sky to tear apart and incinerate all in their path.  Modern times have been kinder to Dragons however and the lover of dragons, or dare I call us the Dragonets, have multiplied in numbers.  We are enthralled with the episodes containing a dragon or dragons such as those in the Merlin series.  Now a popular series satiates our dragon craving as it ventures to its third season on HBO and also starts on Showcase for the wider viewing audience.
For one week from March 11th to the 15th The Game of Thrones was featured in an exhibit at the Design Exchange on Bay St. in Toronto. One of the best parts of the show was getting up close to the Dragons of Westeros.

Dragons eggs presented to Daenerys Targaryen by Illyrio at her wedding to Khal Drogo.

There was one egg, the green one, missing from the exhibit. It had been presented to George RR Martin after the filming as a memento. Here is the scene from the wedding:

The Dragons hatched from the eggs after being burned in the funeral pyre of Khal Drogo, a fire that Daenerys walked into and magically survived. This earned her the title of Mother of Dragons.

Daenerys and the baby Dragon

You can see this scene here, but be warned: it is not safe for underage viewing or viewing at work. I am not going to put it up in this blog because of that.

The young dragons grow rapidly.

And soon are quite fearsome:

Under the guidance of their mother Daenerys they begin to show the inklings of the formidable weapons they will become when they are full grown.

Later shows will no doubt show more of the three dragons Viserion, Rhaegal and Drogon. Keep watching on HBO.

You can see more pictues from The Game of Thrones Event in Toronto at BoSt Notable Inklings blog post:
The Game of Thrones Exhibit


Here's a collection of the Dragon scenes in Game of Thrones from Season 1-4

In Season 5 Episode 9- We see Drogon all grown up and coming to the rescue of his mother.

"Drogon." Relive the moment. (WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD)
Posted by Game of Thrones on Wednesday, 10 June 2015

Urban Dragons

Dragons in Urban Settings

Dragons are usually thought of as existing in the dark past or in fantasy worlds totally separate from our everyday lives. Have we ever thought about what life would be like if Dragons walked among us? Right here, right now.

Oh, It's You Again

Imagine if, for some reason, a baby dragon had imprinted on you after hatching. So cute when it's young, but when it gets older it may get to be a bother. A full-grown Dragon is not really something you can take into the country and drop off.

High Noon for Dragons

Not all Dragons will be easily domesticated. They are, after all, wild  creatures whose intelligence ranges from the level of Chimpanzees to that of Dolphins; some species even approach Human intelligence levels.
Still, there will be territorial problems among them, and the last place you would want to find yourself is between two Dragons vying for a piece of turf.

The Lurker

Those who try to raise Dragons as pets will find any number of merchants ready to sell them unhatched eggs and there will be that proportion who takes shortcuts in breeding their Dragons, going for the purer species, the fashionable traits and ignoring the genetics of the animal. They will be operating secret breeding facilities away from the public eye.
This will still pose its own set of dangers. Sometimes Mother Dragon may object when her eggs are stolen and stored away before their time, and woe to those who rouse her anger.

Background Noise

Not all Urban animals live lives of quiet domesticity. The alleyways are ripe with feral cats, stray dogs and even some of the more exotic species that some people like to keep as pets. If Dragons lived among us as just another one of the many species on Earth then the alleyways of our cities would have a new apex species. The human predators who deal in the backstreets will have to keep a sharp ear out for any sudden changes in the background noise when they are on their cellphones.

The Story of Darkness

The Story of Darkness

Many cultures have a creation myths, it so happens that Chinese culture has incorporated the dragons in their creation myths.

How wonderful is that?

A Brief History:

The Book “Epic of Darkness”, compiled in primeval China, is a collection of folklore and legend relayed in epic poetry. Preserved by the inhabitants of the Shennongjia mountain area in Hubei Province, it includes accounts from the birth of Pangu till the historical era.
On August 1982 an old local farmer submitted a rare songbook to Hu Chongjun. The booklet (leaflet), written in brush and ink with about 3,000 lines of seven Chinese characters each, was split into four sections. These sections were: a) The beginnings of the Universe; b) The Birth of Pangu; c) The Great Flood; d) The birth of mankind up until the beginnings of the Three Sovereigns and The Five Emperors. Believing “The Epic of Darkness” to be finest written representation of the oral Han creation myth, Hu went on to study and compile more manuscripts as well as the oral accounts from the elderly living in Shennongjia. It took him 9 years to eventually finish the documentation. Hu had to sort through more than 30, 000 lines of collected manuscript to compile a 5,500 line summary.

Here’s a brief retelling (with some liberties taken) of the Han Chinese creation myth:

In the beginning of time, all that was manifest was a cloud of gas, chaos and darkness. A Deity called Jiang Ku, after expending vast effort, created the first drop of water. Another God, Lang Da Zi, swallowed that drop of water and expired. Immediately his body was split into the five elements: Metal, Wood, Water, Fire and Earth. From these elements Pan Gu came into being.

The Legend of Pan Gu:

In the primeval Universe there was nothing but a vast formless chaos which, after 18,000 years, merged to form a giant cosmic egg. Inside the egg, the perfectly opposed principles of Yin and Yang eventually balanced and Pan Gu formed as a primitive, horned, hairy giant, clad in furs. As soon as he emerged from the egg Pan Gu set about the task of creating the world. With a swing of his giant axe, he separated the Yin from the Yang and created the Earth (murky Yin) and the Sky (clear Yang). In order to maintain this separation, Pan Gu stood between them and pushed up the Sky. This task took another 18,000 years; as each day the sky grew ten feet (three meters) higher, the Earth ten feet wider and Pan Gu ten feet taller. Pan Gu was aided in this task by the four most prominent beasts: the Turtle, the Qilin, the Phoenix, and of course, the Dragon. After the 18,000 years it took to separate earth and sky Pan Gu passed away. His breath then became the wind; his voice became thunder, his left eye transformed into Sun, his right eye transformed into the Moon and his facial hair turned into brilliant stars and the Milky Way.
His body, his four limbs turned into the mountains and other of the extremities that marked the four corners of the world. (This account bears a strange similarity to Norse myth of the Giant Ymir, and also of the Babylonian tale of Tiamat.) His fur turned into bushes and forests; his blood formed the rivers; his muscles turned into fertile lands; his teeth and nails became metals; his bones became rocks and valuable minerals while his bone marrow transformed into sacred diamonds. Mankind was yet to be created at this point. His sweat fell as rain and the fleas on his fur carried by the wind became the fish and animals throughout the land.
From the five elements and animals were born demons and gods who fought each other until a great flood overcame the land.From this great flood, emerged two mighty dragons, one black and one yellow, which fought a mighty battle. A goddess, the Sacred Mother Wu Tien, helped the yellow dragon defeat the black dragon. In gratitude, the yellow dragon laid three eggs which the Sacred Mother swallowed and gave birth to three gods: Heaven, Earth and Hell.

Later still, five dragons emerged from the flood and they discovered a gourd across the Eastern Sea. Wu Tien opened the Gourd and found two humans within. Fuxi and Nuwa, who were ordered by Wu Tien to copulate and thus the human race came into being after the flood waters receded.

In a different version it states, “A brother and sister became the only survivors of the prehistoric Deluge by crouching in a gourd that floated on water. The two got married afterwards, and a mass of flesh in shape of a whetstone was born. They chopped it and the pieces turned into large crowds of people, who began to reproduce again. The couple were named “Pan” and “Gou” in the Zhuang ethnic language which stands for whetstone and gourd respectively.”In another version Nuwa, the Goddess, supposedly had used the mud of the water bed to form the shape of humans. These humans were very smart since they were individually crafted. Nuwa then became bored of individually making every human so she started putting a rope in the water bed and letting the drops of mud that fell from it become new humans. These small drops became new humans, not as smart at the first.
Another interesting note: When the earth had thus been shaped from the body of Pan Gu, we are told that the three great rivers formed from his blood successively governed the world: as first the celestial, then the terrestrial, and finally the human sovereign. They were followed by Yung-Ch’eng and Sui-Jen (fire-man) who brought the fire down from heaven and taught man its various uses. The Prometheus myth, which by the way is not indigenous to Greece but also known in Mesopotamia and India, is another expression of this theme. There is a slight possibility therefore that the figure Sui-Jen has been derived from the same archetype as the Greek Prometheus.

The Legend of Wen Shi (Long Mu)

The Legend of Wen Shi (Long Mu)
My Version of the Story: Wen Shi -The Mother of the Dragons

During the Qin Dynasty, in the Teng District of Guangdong Province a second girl child, named Wen Shi, was born to Wen Tianrui and Liang Shi. Wen Shi often frequented the banks of the nearby Xi River to catch fish or do the laundry.  On one such errand she chanced upon a large, smooth, white stone along the banks of the river, partially hidden by a cluster of rushes. Drawn to it at once, she picked it up and admired it for a long while before placing it in her apron’s pocket.

When she concluded her chores she returned home for supper.  As she was getting ready for bed, her hand chanced upon the stone in her pocket. Elatedly she showed this beautiful new find to her siblings but her sisters weren’t at all interested and, as in the past, they laughed and teased her endlessly for liking such odd things.  She didn’t care, for the more she handled it, the more things she found to like about it. For one, it possessed a nacreous depth and a unique hint of luminosity, it grew warmer with prolonged touch and it offered her unending comfort. You can imagine her thrill when she discovered weeks later that it was actually an egg; an egg from which hatched five baby snakes. Her sisters wanted nothing to do with these slithering creatures and again teased her incessantly for her odd attraction to them.  She pleaded with her parents to be allowed to keep them, promising to bear the sole responsibility of feeding them, caring for them and keeping them out of trouble. Although they were a poor family Wen Shi saved the best portions of her own food and diligently fed these morsels by hand to the baby snakes. She carried them with her always, even when doing her chores. Soon the snakes grew up under her good care, and loving her in return, they assisted her whenever they could with her chores.  These unusually intelligent snakes were quite adept in the water and excellent swimmers; therefore, they used their ability to help Wen Shi catch bountiful loads of fish in the Xi River.
Then a time came when another wonder manifested; the snakes matured into five magnificent and most powerful dragons. By then her parents had departed this world and her sisters had been happily married off and lived elsewhere. She therefore dwelled in her parent’s home alone. In Chinese culture, dragons are deemed spirits of water and have the power to control the weather. When a bad drought plagued her village and caused untold hardships for many families living within that region, Wen Shi gathered her dragon children to her and asked for their help.  The dragons instinctively knew what to do and they set to work in summoning the rain.  Soon the downpours drenched the parched land, renewing life of vegetation and crops. The grateful villagers from that time on overcame their innate fear of the dragons and named Wen Shi “Mother of Dragons” or “Divine Human”.
 Visitors spread the word far and wide of this miracle and the benevolent dragons that had saved the villagers from certain ruin. Before long it reached the ear of the Emperor of the Qin Dynasty, Qin Shihuang.  Immediately Wen Shi was summoned to Court for a private audience with the Empreor in the Imperial City, Xianyang, far to the north near the Yellow River.  Wen was declared a Benevolent Being and was also endowed with gifts of gold and jade.

By the time of this summons she was an elderly woman in rather frail health and her dragons feared for her well being and safety. They tried to deter her from the gruelling trip but she was a loyal subject and would not hear of it. Soon she boarded the boat to begin her journey to the Imperial City.  Unbeknownst to her, however, her concerned dragons had hidden themselves under the boat and pulled it backward; no matter how hard the rowers struggled, the boat failed to pass Guilin. Eventually the frustrated Imperial officials aborted their mission with great reluctance and allowed Wen Shi to return to the safety of her home.
Finally after many years, Wen Shi passed away and the grief-stricken dragons buried her with due reverence on the northern side of Zhu Mountain.  Then they forsook their dragon forms and permanently assumed human shapes. In time they became known as the Five Scholars.
 
The End