DRAGON

(Yunanca köken — orijinale bakınız.) in Fabulous History, one of the most famous mythological creations of antiquity and the middle ages. The position which this being occupies in fabulous history presents one of the most singular phenomena of the human mind, as its existence was firmly lited among the ancients of almost every nation, botli In the eastern and western regions of the earth. It occurs in the sacred allegories of the Jews, and in the legends of the Chinese and Japanese; and the pages of the cla ic of Greece and Rome teem with representations of the dragon. Thus the dark retreats of their gods and their I groves were defended by dragons: the chariot of Ceres wis drawn by them; and a dragon kept the garden of the Kesperides. In Scand in avian mysteries, the dragon was the minister of vengeance under their vindictive gods it's Deutsche My tho logie); and the ancient Brienslaved in the trammels of Druidic superstition, envil a similar notion of its nature. (Rees's Cyclo pail i a.) 'f to allegory of the Dragon has even found a place among many nations who have embraced Christianity. In '.10k of Revelations (chap. 20,) the angel is represent- / • bold on tin: dragon, that old serpent, which d.'vil;" and hence in painting and statuary, the triumph of Christianity over infidelity and heathenism i a some by a dragon pierced or trampled under tout. This representation forms also the attribute of differ- 363 [s. 377]