The first gift was a watch that cost more than the rent. It arrived after an argument about missed dinners, unanswered messages, and the strange way one person could make another feel abandoned while technically remaining in the relationship. The box was lined with velvet, the face set with tiny diamonds, and the card said, For all the time I owe you.
That should have been funny. Instead, it worked.
After that, every disappointment came beautifully wrapped. Forgotten birthdays became weekend trips. Cruel remarks became jewelry. Infidelity became a car with heated seats and a ribbon stretched across the hood. Each apology had weight, polish, a receipt, and the reassuring smell of something newly purchased.
Eventually, the betrayed partner began measuring pain in retail value. A lie worth flowers barely counted. A serious betrayal required something custom-made. When the arguments grew worse, so did the quality of the gifts, until heartbreak acquired excellent craftsmanship.
Friends called the relationship toxic. The answer was always the same: nobody understood how generous love could be.
As the years passed, the apartment filled with objects too valuable to discard and too painful to enjoy. Watches slept in drawers. Designer clothes hung unworn. Crystal gathered dust beside framed photographs of vacations taken immediately after disasters.
Then came the diagnosis.
It was not fatal, but it was frightening enough to expose the machinery. There were appointments, sleepless nights, prescriptions, and long afternoons when companionship would have been useful.
Instead, a courier arrived carrying a small black box. Inside was a necklace. No note.
The patient held it for a long time before laughing.
When the giver finally came home, the necklace was waiting on the kitchen table beside every expensive apology collected over twenty years.
Nothing had been taken, nor had they been broken, or even been returned.
The expensive lesson was that the cheap trick had never worked.
Kenny read about it on a forum that specialized in things nobody should read about on forums: a loophole, allegedly, where a man could be declared legally dead, collect on a insurance policy he’d take out on himself under a shell company, wait the requisite period, resurface under a slightly different name, and live — as the forum kept putting it, in all caps, like volume was a substitute for accuracy — TAX FREE FOREVER.
His uncle Ray had always said it. Ya gotta die before you live, kid. Ray meant it about failure, about heartbreak, about the used Camaro he’d sunk a summer into before it taught him something about patience. Kenny had never once considered that Ray meant it as advice about actual, medically certifiable death, and to be fair to Ray, he hadn’t.
Kenny considered this a technicality.
The plan required, first, a boat. Specifically, a boat that could be found empty and adrift with Kenny’s phone, wallet, and a single deeply insincere note inside it. It required, second, a period of quiet living somewhere with a beach and no extradition treaty, which Kenny located, optimistically, using the same forum. It required, third, a new identity, which he built out of a library card, a gym membership, and enormous confidence.
It did not require, though Kenny discovered this too late, an actual understanding of maritime law, life insurance underwriting timelines, or the fact that his mother would report him missing within four hours and would, upon hearing the words “empty boat,” immediately and correctly assume the worst about her son’s judgment rather than his safety.
The insurance company sent an investigator before they sent a check. The investigator found Kenny in nine days, tan, badly sunburned, going by “Darren,” working a beach bar for cash and telling anyone who’d listen that he was between things.
At the hearing — because there was, in fact, a hearing, a whole undignified proceeding with a name plaque that said FRAUD, PARTIAL and a judge who looked at Kenny the way you’d look at a raccoon that had gotten into the attic and then, somehow, further into the attic — Kenny’s lawyer asked if he had anything to say for himself.
Kenny thought about Ray, about the Camaro, about the version of the plan that had made so much sense at two in the morning with a laptop and a forum full of strangers who’d never once been asked to defend it in daylight.
“My uncle always said you gotta die before you live,” Kenny told the court.
The judge considered this.
“Mr. Travares,” she said, “I don’t think this is what he meant.”
They were seven and nine when the school tested them, and after that, everyone had a shorthand. Del was the smart one. Josie was the other one — not stupid, exactly, nobody said that word in front of their mother, but the shape of it sat in every sentence that didn’t include her when the school called about the gifted program.
For a while it didn’t cost anything. Del got the extra worksheets; Josie got left alone with more time to build things out of whatever was in the garage, which she preferred anyway, or told herself she preferred.
It cost something at fifteen, when Del corrected her at dinner — gently, the way you’d correct a child, though they were the same distance from being children — and Josie stopped bringing things up at dinner at all, not out of hurt exactly, more like a room she’d quietly stopped entering because the last time she had, someone had rearranged the furniture without asking and called it help.
It cost more at twenty-six, when their mother got sick, and everyone assumed Del would manage the doctors and the paperwork, and Del did, competently, exhaustedly, alone, because nobody thought to ask Josie, and Josie didn’t offer, because by then “helping” felt like walking into a test she’d already been told the results of.
They didn’t stop loving each other. That was the strange, stubborn part. They just built two entirely separate systems for being loved — Del’s built on being needed, competent, correct; Josie’s built on being easy, undemanding, no trouble — and the systems worked, mostly, as long as nobody asked either of them to be something else.
It was Josie, in the end, who fixed the roof.
Not metaphorically — the actual roof, on the actual house, the summer their mother died and left it to both of them and Del was three states away being needed by someone else’s problem. Josie climbed up with a book she’d bought years ago and never mentioned to anyone, because mentioning things she’d taught herself had started to feel like an argument she didn’t want to have, and she fixed it, alone, and stood on the ladder afterward not knowing who to tell.
She called Del anyway.
“I fixed the roof,” she said, and there was a silence on the line that had thirty years in it — every worksheet, every dinner, every quiet withdrawal from every room — and then Del said, “I didn’t know you could do that,” and Josie said, “Neither did I,” which wasn’t quite true, and neither of them corrected it.
That was as close as they got, that year, to starting over. It was enough. It had to be. They were fifty-one and forty-nine, and there wasn’t a version of them left that had time to be anything but careful with what remained.
MiMaw Gertrude always said the family had been lucky since before anyone could remember, and she said it the way you’d mention weather — as a fact, not a mystery, or something owed.
The luck was specific. Wells that didn’t run dry when the neighbors’ did. A son who came home from every war her family sent one to, three wars running, unmarked. Crops that split the difference between drought years and flood years and came in fine regardless, like the land itself had made an exception.
Gertrude died at ninety-one, in her sleep, on dry ground, in a year when everyone else’s basement flooded.
It was her granddaughter, Gladys, going through the estate, who found the ledger — not a ledger exactly, older than that, goat-leather and stitched wrong by modern binding standards, written in a hand that got less careful further back, as though whoever kept it had once had all the time in the world and had learned, slowly, that they didn’t.
The first entries were names Gladys didn’t know. Then names she did, going back generations, each with a single line beside it. Well did not fail. Son returned. House stood. No explanation of why. Just an account being kept, favor by favor, the way you’d track a debt you intended, eventually, to collect.
The last entry, in Gertrude’s own careful hand, added only weeks before she died: Still here. Still owed.
Gladys understood then what her grandmother had never said outright, what none of them had ever said outright, because saying it would have made it a bargain instead of a blessing. Somewhere back before the names, before the wells, someone in her line had been kept when the water came for everyone else — kept by something that wasn’t supposed to survive the flood at all, something the flood had been for, specifically, a debt God himself had tried to settle in one clean stroke and hadn’t quite finished collecting.
The giants weren’t supposed to have descendants. That had been the point.
But mercy, once given, doesn’t always ask permission to keep being given. It just keeps a ledger, and waits, patient as geology, for someone to notice the account was never closed.
Gladys thought about the wells that never failed. The son who always came home. The dry ground under her grandmother’s house in a year of floods.
She thought: someone will have to pay this eventually. Every ledger closes.
Then she thought: not today, though.
She turned the page, looking for her own name, and found the space beside it empty — waiting, she understood now, for her to decide what she’d let it say.
Marla said “good morning” to the bread vendor for eleven years, and on the twelfth, she made herself say something else.
“Cold one today,” she said instead, and the vendor blinked at her like she’d spoken a language he almost remembered, and handed over the loaf, and neither of them noticed the sidewalk hold its breath and let it go again.
This was how you survived. You varied. You never said the same sentence twice in one week if you could help it. You took different streets home even when the different street was longer, colder, worse. You changed the order you buttoned your coat.
The people who didn’t understand this were the ones who called it superstition, or nerves, or — the word she hated most — quirky. They said it gently, the way you’d talk about someone’s fear of birds. They never watched what happened to Dorwin.
Dorwin liked routines. He said routines were comforting, said the world was chaotic enough without borrowing more of it, and every morning for six weeks he ran the same three miles, past the same maple, past the same cracked mailbox shaped like a barn.
On the forty-third day, the street noticed him.
It didn’t come as a monster. That was the thing nobody believed until they’d seen it — there was no shape to point to, no teeth. The air just got thick near the maple, thick like it was concentrating, like it had finally located the thread of him running through it for the forty-third time and started, gently, to pull. He didn’t scream. He didn’t have time to. He was just there and then he was a shape the street remembered better than it remembered him, and the next morning the maple was gone too, replaced by a maple-shaped absence that the neighborhood adjusted to within a week, the way you adjust to any story you tell yourself enough times that it stops sounding like a story.
Marla told this to no one twice.
She’d learned that part hardest of all — that even warnings were repetition, that the story of Dorwin was itself a thread, and if she told it the same way to the same person more than once, she risked teaching the air his name.
So she varied that too. Some days she said he moved away. Some days she said she never knew a Dorwin at all.
Only once, to a stranger on a train who’d never hear it again, did she tell it straight through — every detail, the maple, the mailbox, the way the air had learned to want him — because some things deserved, once, to be said exactly true.
Then she got off at the next stop, and took the long way home, and did not look back at the tracks to see if anything had noticed her sitting in that same seat, telling that same story, twice now, if you counted the first time she’d told herself.
A note on method: Specimens were observed in their natural habitat — desks, kitchen tables, the fifteen minutes before a deadline stretched to feel like fifteen years. Field notes follow.
The Reorganizer (Procrastinatus domesticus)
Cannot begin the task until the desk is clean. Cannot clean the desk until the drawer is sorted. Cannot sort the drawer until every object in it has been considered, once, thoroughly, as though it might explain something. It will not. Continue anyway.
The Researcher (Procrastinatus academicus)
Requires “just one more source” before writing a single word. Has forty-one tabs open. Believes, sincerely, that the forty-second will be the one that makes starting unnecessary — that if it just reads enough, the work will have already been done by someone else, somewhere, and it can go back to bed.
The Reply-Guy (Procrastinatus socialis)
Will answer every message in every inbox before answering the one thing that actually needs answering. Prized by friends for availability. Mysterious to itself for the same reason.
The Waiter (Procrastinatus temporis)
Believes conditions will improve. Is waiting for better light, a clearer head, a Tuesday instead of a Monday. Has been waiting since March.
Note: if you’ve read this far without doing the thing you’re avoiding, congratulations, you’re a specimen.
I know because I catalogued you the way I catalogue myself — from a safe, Latin-flavored distance, like naming the thing makes it a different thing, something that happens to a type and not to a person. Not to me, specifically, at 11:40 p.m., writing entries about other people’s rooms instead of opening the file with my name on it.
The truth is there’s a fifth entry I left out.
The Guide-Writer (Procrastinatus scribens)
Studies the species so thoroughly it forgets to stop being one. Finds real comfort in the taxonomy — in believing that if it can just describe the avoidance precisely enough, categorize it, give it a habitat and a call, it will have done something. It has not.
It is, however, very good at writing field guides.
“—and the second time,” Marisol said, “he came back through the floor.”
Nobody laughed, because nobody was supposed to.
They did this every year. Four women, one fire, the kind of stories other people told to feel a manageable kind of scared. These women told them to remember they were still here.
Dee went next, voice flat as a knife. “Mine never had a face. Just kept walking the same speed no matter how fast I ran. Like it knew I’d get tired eventually.” She turned a marshmallow over the flame, watched it blacken. “I did.”
“But you’re here,” said Priya.
“I’m here,” Dee agreed, like it surprised her too.
Brenda hadn’t spoken yet. She was the newest, found them only eight months ago, still had the look — flinching at branches snapping, sleeping with a light on. The others had stopped flinching years ago. Mostly.
“You don’t have to,” Priya told her.
“I want to.” Brenda stared into the fire like it might tell her how to start. “Mine’s not finished.”
The fire popped. Not one of them moved.
“What do you mean, not finished?” Marisol asked.
“I mean I never found out how it ends.” Brenda looked up, and for the first time all night, she wasn’t the youngest, or the newest — she was just tired, in the specific way all of them were tired. “It’s still out there. I checked, before I came here. It’s still out there.”
Dee stopped turning her marshmallow.
In the treeline, something that might have been wind moved through branches that didn’t sway with it.
Nobody looked. They’d learned that part already — the not-looking. It never helped, but they’d learned it anyway.
Priya reached over and put another log on the fire.
“Then we wait,” she said. “No splitting up, drinking, drugs, or sex, this time.”
Although the rough draft was completed last year, I finally put the spit and polish touches on the official first draft of my latest horror screenplay, “Greets The Lightning, Fears The Thunder.” And while the screenplay might be new, the story isn’t. “Greets” first saw life as a short story written for a long-forgotten vanity press, Writerarium, way back in the Fall of 1988. It was loosely based on actual events involving my then girlfriend who suffered from a severe case of astraphobia and night terrors.
There’s a strange sense of satisfaction in breathing new life into old work that I wish I experienced more often, Most times, old stories lose their malleability, having found contentment in their original form. This work fought me a little as well, but in the end we were able to come to a suitable compromise.
— Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys
UPDATE: The first draft of “Greets” went up for review on the Trigger Street Labs site on May 15th and the first review was:
“This is an action packed, intense thriller!
I’d love to see this made into a movie. I feel like your dialogue and script feels well developed. I feel like maybe more comic relief would break up the intense moments. But overall really well written.
Your opening scene really sucked me in and I couldn’t stop reading. I couldn’t tell if it was a dream she was having or real at the beginning.
i liked the flashback scenes to Africa – so you get the background story. I feel like this was a perfect way to get the information you needed about Leyna.
The ending was awesome, gives you the notion that there was more to the elements than we knew. That maybe Gordon is now a catalyst of the bird… I loved the ending.”
UPDATE: “Greets” got the screenplay review treatment on June 3rd by the New York City Screenwriters Collective.
UPDATE: “Greets” was subjected to a third round of script review, this time in Los Angeles on February 2nd courtesy of Write Club.
UPDATE: “Greets” was subjected to a fourth round of script review, this time in Los Angeles on April 1 courtesy of the Malibu Screenwriting Group.
UPDATE: “Greets” was subjected to a fifth round of script review, this time in Los Angeles on April 20 courtesy of the Inktank Screenwriting Group.
Despite the language of the name given them, dragons inhabit the myth and legends of most ancient and modern cultures and have been portrayed throughout history as magical creatures possessing raw power and mystical might. This is the allure of the dragon tattoo design. No other tattoo art or tattoo design makes as distinctive and commanding an individual statement than a dragon tattoo.
Dragon tattoos also have the added advantage of being so fluid that they can conform to and flatter the contours of any part of the body. Many hardcore tattoo addicts have even gotten dragon designs whose tail begins at one ankle and winds its way up the leg and torso with the dragon’s head finally resting on the chest. Dragons can even coil themselves into intricate full and half sleeve tattoos, and a dragon in flight with its wings spread makes an excellent lower back tattoo.
Origin of the Word “Dragon”
The origin of the word “dragon” has been traced to a Greek word, “derkein,” meaning “sharp-sighted one,” which appears to describe a snake, so when it was converted to Latin, the word became “draco,” or “giant snake.”
The Popularity of Dragons
Dragons have always been the topic of fascination and mystery, as well as being a source of wonder, a symbol of hope and purity, and sometimes…jealousy, miserliness, maleficence and fierce rage.
Dragons have also been known to be notorious riddle-masters, sentinels of sacred shrines, and hoarders of treasures beyond imagining. It is even said that great philosophers would climb the highest mountains peaks or venture into the lowest caverns to seek the sage advice of dragons in secret.
When not out to slay dragons for immortality, like Sigfried, or for the golden apples of great happiness, like Hercules, we lowly mortals live under the ever-vigilant gaze of dragons. Sometimes we reside in the sphere of a dragon’s good fortune. And there are those lucky few who actually get to live under the wing of a dragon’s protection.
Dragons have even crossed over into the real world. Vikings carved dragon figureheads on the prow of their ships because they believed the dragons would endow keen sight and cunning to the Viking warriors. And in China, emperors think they are the real dragons and the sons of the heaven. They sleep on dragon beds, sit on thrones called the dragon seat, and their ceremonial dress is known as dragon robes.
Nowadays it’s quite common to hear parents tell their children bedtime stories about good and kindly dragons. For a fee you can hire the services of a dragon specialist who will tell you the name of your own personal guardian dragon and for an additional sum you may even obtain a sketch of your appointed guardian. There are even group therapy sessions that help you release the inner dragon that lies dormant in all of us.
With the success of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings film trilogy, interest in dragons and the magical world created by J.R.R. Tolkien has renewed, just as it had back in 1973 when Gary Gygax of TSR, Inc. created a roleplaying game named Dungeons and Dragons (D&D).
D&D also goes into great length about dragon societies and the philosophy that revolves around the ancient Ceremony of Sublimation, where dragons aspire to reach a higher level of existence and possibly immortality unique to dragonkind.
And then there are the tattoos. Dragon tattoo designs come in many forms, Celtic dragon tattoos, tribal dragon tattoos, Asian dragon tattoos, and the list goes on. When it comes to body art, dragon tattoos are among the most popular tattoo designs.
What a Dragon Tattoo Represents on a Woman
A dragon tattoo on a woman usually acknowledges “woman as the creator.” Like the dragons of many mythologies, woman’s true body form is that of life, the world and the universe. It is this superior form that allows her to be without equal. Dragon body art also represents a flowing, fluid grace that conceals a reserve of power just beneath the cool surface. Studies have shown that women who get dragon tattoos become more self-confident and assertive.
What a Dragon Tattoo Represents on a Man
A dragon tattoo design on a man typically signifies raw power. Like dragons, men are the guardians of that which is sacred, such as women and objects of great wealth. But this must be tempered with wisdom, lest the greed of dragons overpower the man’s soul and turn him into a ravenous creature with an insatiable appetite. Men who get dragon tattoos view themselves as being revered for their wisdom but feared for their tremendous power.
Why All The Sudden Interest InDragon Tattoo Designs?
Actually, the interest isn’t all that sudden at all. Dragons have always been an archetypal choice for a traditional tattoo design. Far more popular than tribal, butterfly, Celtic, and even cross tattoos, beautifully rendered coiling dragon tattoo flash can adorn any part of both the male and female body. Not to mention that tattoo designers have begun to take traditional dragon tattoo illustration to the next level, giving the dragon body art a stylized edge that is sure to keep people staring at your personal dragon tattoo design in awe and appreciation.
But before you rush out to get your dragon tattoo, you should familiarize yourself with the history of dragons to determine which tattoo design best represents your characteristics and strengths and beliefs.
THE HISTORY OF DRAGONS
Some of the first recorded stories involving dragons date back to the Sumerian civilization, located between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in an area once called Mesopotamia, which later became Persia, and is now better know as Iraq and Iran.
Mesopotamian Dragons
The earliest written dragon myth was carved onto clay tablets and depicts the story of a dragon named Asag, who battled the hero-god, Ninurta. Even in these stories, dragons guarded treasures, held back floods, and imparted great knowledge.
Babylonian Dragons
In Babylonian myth, a dragon was believed to have aided in the creation of the world and the gods, and although some of the dragons served as the guardians of god’s treasure and nature, most were depicted as evil creatures, who all too often angered the gods. It is believed that Asag and Ninurta, from the Mesopotamian myth, are introduced by the Babylonians as Tiamet and Marduk, though this may not be totally accurate as the preserved records are in poor condition and incomplete.
A story that did survive is the epic tale of Gilgamesh, who set out to slay Humbab, the dragon guardian of the forest, who was thought to be a threat to the nearby town.
Babylonian history also tells in the “Book of Bel and the Dragon,” that the ruler Nebuchadnezzar, kept a dragon in the temple of the god Bel, where the dragon was worshipped. When the Hebrew prophet, Daniel, began denouncing idols, Nebuchadnezzar told him of the dragon and argued that the dragon was real and Daniel must worship it. Daniel asked why the people worshipped such a creature, and when faced by the dragon, slew it.
Sumerian Dragons
Sumerian myth depicts several dragons, chief among them, Zu, a cunning and devious dragon who stole the Tupsimati, the tablets of law, from the god Enlil, who wore the tablets on him. Another popular dragon is Gandareva, an immense creature who was the guardian of another dragons and preyed upon humans for food.
ASIAN DRAGONS
The Differences in Asian Dragons:
The Chinese boast that their dragons are the “true dragons” and the proof of this lies in the number of claws on the dragon’s foot. The true Chinese dragons have five claws. The Japanese dragons have four claws, and the Vietnamese dragons have only three.
Chinese Dragons
In Chinese culture, the dragons are considered the governors of rain, entrusted with the power to decide where and when the rain falls. Dragons also play a significant role in Chinese Festivals and the dragon dance has a long history that dates back past the Song Dynasty, circa 960-1279 AD. Chinese even consider themselves “the descendants of the dragon” and their culture is rich with the presence of dragons, which is considered to be a symbol of imperial power.
Japanese Dragons
Ryujin, a Japanese Dragon King, who lived in a palace under the sea, loved his wife and daughter so much that he spoiled them both, often sending out sea creatures such as octopus and jellyfish on errands to retrieve odd things. In one version, Ryujin’s daughter, Otohime, wanted to dine on monkey liver and a handsome and strong-boned jellyfish was dispatched to retrieve the liver but was outwitted by the monkey. In rage, the dragon king beat the jellyfish to a pulp, a shape that they hold to this very day.
Korean Dragons
Tales of Korean dragon are fewer in number than their Chinese and Japanese counterparts. The most popular myth involves a poor fisherman who caught a Carp, and the Carp begged for its life so that he may return to his family. The fisherman obliged, and the Carp turned out to be one of the sons of the Dragon King, so the fisherman was rewarded greatly.
Vietnamese Dragons
The story of Slowcoach, involves a kindly man who fashions a fishhook out of a piece of enchanted wood. When he puts the hook into the lake, the water rises and the fishing pole and line disappear into the turbulence and the waves almost drown him. Then a beautiful woman walks out of the water and tells Slowcoach that she is the daughter of the dragon king and his enchanted fishhook is caught in her father’s mouth. When Slowcoach agrees to remove the fishhook, she turns him into a bubble and takes him to the underwater dragon palace. The fishhook is removed and the dragon king rewards Slowcoach with a bottle containing a little blue fish, which later turns out to be the dragon king’s daughter.
Hindu Dragons
Vitra is the dragon that comes from the Indian subcontinent. Vitra absorbed the cosmic waters from the universe and coiled around a great mountain. Vitra is sometimes described as the personification of winter.
A more fascinating Indian Dragon myth involves the only dragon ever to be converted to a human religion. The Dragon, Apalala, lived in the Swat River and was converted by Buddha himself. Apalala then set out to teach it to other dragons, who drove him away but allowed him to continue teaching the humans.
EUROPEAN DRAGONS
European dragons hold the honorary title of the “kings of evil.” And although these chaotic creatures have plagued mankind since the earliest remembrances with their malicious intent and insatiable battle-lust, still humans feel a strange sense of awe and respect for them.
The tale of St. George’s dragon is perhaps the most famous of the European dragons, in which a dragon appears at the village of Cappadocia and threatens to destroy the region. In fear the villagers offer sacrifices to the dragon in the form of sheep and later the village maidens. Eventually the only maiden left is the princess, who is tied to a stake. Before the dragon can devour her however, George wanders by and slays the dragon.
Another dragon can be found in the epic Anglo-Saxon poem, Beowulf, which chronicled the three battles of the hero of the same name. In the first battle, Beowulf slew Grendel. In the second, Beowulf battled Grendel’s larger, more fearsome mother. In the third and final battle, Beowulf fought a fierce and fiery dragon, that he managed to vanquish, but suffered wounds so lethal that he himself perished.
Greek Dragons
Greeks mythology views dragons as terrifying dark creatures, remnants of an earlier age, that needed to be slaughtered by a hero. Dragons were guardians of underground sources of power, and often guarded springs, where the watery underworld burst to the surface.
Austrian Dragons
In the Vorarlbeg area of West Austria dragons were not considered supernatural but rather simply an unwanted part of nature like wolves, bears, and mountain cats. The annoying dragons occasionally took a horse, cow, or some sheep but were rather shy about confronting mankind and were thus never seriously feared or hunted.
French Dragons
Tarasque is a dragon of a different kind. Reputed to be the daughter of the giant serpent, Onachus, and the water dragon, Leviathan, Tarasque came from the sea up the river Rhone and decided to make her home in Southern France. She terrorized the region for many years, despite the attempt by many knights and heroes to slay her. That was until St. Martha faced the dragoness alone in a white dress and armed only with her faith and a jar of holy water. Apparently that was enough as she led Tarasque back to the town where the now docile and trusting creature was hacked to pieces.
German Dragons
The village of Brand in Germany hosts a dragon who appeared and began eating cattle and tormenting the villagers. Every effort to destroy the dragon ended in failure, until a traveling scholar arrived and created a tempest that completely covered the valley in a landslide of rocks, trees, giant boulders, and mud. The dragon was never spotted again and the area became known as the “dragons grave.”
Norse Dragons
Nidhogger was a famous Norse dragon, who lived at the foot of Yggdrasil, the tree of life. Nidhogger was, in reality, Fafnir whose greed for the gold he horded slowly turned him into the great dragon.
English Dragons
In Sussex England there is a deep cleft in the ground named after the dragon who had resided there, Knucker, who in true dragon fashion caused the usual sort of mischief. This dragon, however, wasn’t slain by a knight. It was killed by a local farmer’s son, Jim Pulk, who put poison in a pie and offered it to Knucker as a meal.
Irish Dragons
Ollipeist is the most famous Irish dragon, who fled Ireland when St. Patrick started imprisoning dragons. It is said that he left a mark with his tail in what is now called the Shannon Valley.
Swiss Dragons
The historical figure St. Magnus (1698-1772), credited with founding several notable churches and monasteries, had his first encounter with a dragon at the city of Kempton, which was said to be empty of men and filled with dragons. He lured the dragons out by sleeping in the open and managed to slay the lead dragon, Boas, by calling on the power of his god.
Russian Dragons
Gorynytch, three-headed dragon with seven tails knew of the prophecy involving the hero, Dobrynja, who would slay him, but was still defeated despite having this information.
Did You Know?
Did you know that the name “Dracula” is linked with dragons” In 1410, the holy Roman Emperor, King Sigismund of Hungary, established a clandestine fraternal order of knights which he named the Order of the Dragon to advocate Christianity and protect the Empire against the Ottoman Turks. At Sigismund’s behest, an emblem was created depicting a dragon clutching a cross with its wings extended.
In 1431, Vlad Tepes II demonstrated great bravery in battling the Turks and as a result was inducted into the Order. His name became “Vlad Dracul” which translated to “Vlad the Dragon.” His son, Vlad Tepes III, inherited his father’s name as well as his lust for battle and was called “Vlad Dracula.” The Romanian word “ulea” translates as “son of the,” which means his name was meant to be “the son of the dragon,” however, “drac” has a second meaning, “devil,” which is one his enemies believed was more accurate.
OTHER DRAGONS OF NOTE
Borneo Dragons
From the Island of Borneo comes the myth of a dragon named Kinabalu, who lived at the summit of a mountain of the same name, and possessed a fabled pearl of immense size. The Emperor of China heard about the pearl and sent an army to get it for him but the dragon killed all but a few. These survivors return and told the emperor about the disaster and said he could not be overcome by strength of arms. So the emperor sent his two clever sons named Wee San and Wee Ping to get the pearl.
Hawaiian Dragons
Mo-O-Inanea is considered to be the mother of all dragons, but little is known about her since natives are very reluctant to talk about this dragon. Some speculate she may still exist and is being protected by the Hawaiians.
Australian & New Zealand Dragons
Dragons in this region are called “taniwha” and the most famous is a dragon named Hotu-puku, who is credited with the mysterious disappearances of travelers going between Rotorua and Taupo.
African Dragons
In West African mythology, it is said that the world was formed by the genderless one god, Nana-Buluku. Out of loneliness, Nana-Buluku created a rainbow dragon companion named Aido-Hwedo, whose dung created mountains across the flat surface of the Earth and nourished the land so that plants and life could grow. But soon, the planet became so congested with plants and animals and mountains that Nana-Buluku feared the earth would collapse.
In gratitude for being created, Aido-Hwedo offered to help remold the planet, so the great dragon traveled across the earth, its massive dragon tail writhed with so much force and fury that it created the rivers and valleys, until its body formed an immense circular ring with its tail in its mouth, and enfolding the world.
IN SUMMARY
Whether you’re attracted to the history, mythology or pure fantasy of these mysterious creatures, a dragon tattoo can reveal aspects of your true character or serve as a potential warning to those who cross you. Whether you choose a solid black tribal, Asian, Celtic or any of the many other dragon designs, your tattoo will make a powerful statement for the rest of your life.
Shhh, be quiet for a moment. Do you hear that sound” It’s the call of the dragon tattoo beckoning you to take that first step toward fulfilling your destiny.
