Blessed Night, Loves 😊

I Pray All Is Well With Everyone…And Your Hearts And Minds Are Full Of Love, Joy, And Compassion…For Yourselves And Everyone Else…All Around The World. And If That Sincere Love Shines Forth From Within You…Know That Is The Light Of The Living God…Activated; and That Loving Activation Is All That Matters In The Universe – And Is Our Purpose To Fulfill…On This Earth! Sweat Not Tho, If You Feel That Your Purpose Has Yet To Be Activated; Simply Remove Your Focus From The Outer Darkness And Illusion That Surrounds Us; And Reposition It On The Love And Light Of Your Very Own “Mighty I AM Presence”; That Part Of Life…Which Is Eternal! Amen…

Give Thanks And Praises For Love And Life…

And Y’all Be Love…

“The term dragon is applied by the translators of the Scriptures to some monsters of which we have no knowledge. The word is used by ecclesiastics of the Middle Ages as the symbol of sin in general, and paganism in particular, though ofttimes heresy is denoted. The metaphor is derived from Revelation 12:9, where Satan is termed the Great Dragon; in Psalm 91:13, it is said “the saints shall trample the dragon under their feet.”

…As a Christian emblem the dragon may be taken to symbolize the supreme spirit of evil, a veritable devil whom it was the special mission of militant saints to slay, as it had been the glory of the heroes of the pagan mythology to conquer. “In pictures of sacred and legendary subjects”, says a late writer, “the dragon usually formed an important feature. The evil thing was invariably depicted writhing under the foot of the saint, or transfixed with his triumphant spear…”

…The prostrate attitude usually signifies the triumph of Christianity over Paganism, as in pictures of St. George and St. Sylvester; or over heresy and schism, as when it was adopted as the emblem of the Knights of the Order of the Dragon, in Hungary, which was instituted for the purpose of contending against the adherents of John Huss and Jerome of Prague.

…The dragon in Christian Art is often very variously represented, sometimes as a serpent, at other times as a dragon or wyvern, or again in the symbolic figure partly human, under which form we find the “old serpent” (the Devil), often represented, as in the conflict of St. Michael the Archangel. The numerous legends of saints who have fought and overcome dragons prove the symbolic light in which the impersonation of evil was generally viewed.

…”In many a church his form is seen, with sword, and shield, and helmet sheen: Ye know him by his steed of pride, and by the dragon, at his side.” Christian Schmid.

St. George, the patron saint of England, in his legendary combat with the monster, is a subject which occurs frequently in English sculpture and painting and enters largely into the language and literature of the nation. St. George appears to have been selected as the patron saint of England not long after the Norman conquest. We find the anniversary of his martyrdom (April 23), was ordered to be observed as a festival by the National Synod of Oxford in 1222 A.D. The “Golden Legend”, printed by Pynson in 1507, thus refers to “Saint George”.

…The emblems commonly given to St. George, martyr, and patron saint of England are a dragon, a shield bearing a red cross on a white field, and a spear. He is usually represented on horseback in the act of spearing the monster which is vomiting fire; or as standing with the slain dragon at his feet.

…The dragon slain by St. George is simply a common allegory to express the triumph of the Christian hero over evil, which St. John the Evangelist beheld under the figure of a dragon. Similarly, St. Michael, St. Margaret, St. Sylvester, and St. Martha, are all depicted as slaying dragons; the Saviour and the Virgin as treading them under foot; and St. John the Evangelist as charming a winged dragon from a poisoned chalice given him to drink. Even John Bunyan avails himself of the same figure, when he makes Christian encounter Apollyon and prevail against him.

A learned Frenchman, M. Clermont Ganneau, in a treatise lately published, traces the legend of St. George and the dragon to a very remote antiquity. In the Louvre at Paris, he found an Egyptian bas-relief, which he identified as the combat of Horus against Set, or Typhon, in the well-known Egyptian legend. It represents a man on horseback in Roman armour slaying a crocodile with a spear; but for the fact that the rider has a hawk’s head, the group might easily be mistaken for the traditional combat of St. George and the dragon.

Extending his investigations, M. Ganneau has brought to light some most startling proofs of the connection between the eastern and western mythologies. We have therefore, he considers, evidence as clear and convincing as evidence from deduction can be, that the Egyptian “Horus and Typhon”; the Greek “Perseus and Andromeda”; the “Bel and Dragon” of the Apocrypha; the Archangel Michael of Christian legend who also slays the old dragon, are all one and the same story with that of our own St. George. We pass over the intermediate steps by which he reconciles the divergent names and qualities of the personages identified, and also the ingenious arguments as to the real meaning of the symbolism in the worship of Dagon, the Fish-god.

In all the old romances dealing with feats of chivalry and knight-errantry, the dragon plays an essential if not a leading part; and a romance without some dragon or monster was as rare as one without a valiant knight or a beautiful lady. But of all the malignant creatures dreaded of gods and men, the most hateful and wicked is that prime dragon personified by Spenser under the type of the “blatant beast”, and which confronts his hero, the Red Cross Knight, at every turn. “A dreadful fiend, of gods and men ydrad”, who has a thousand tongues, speaks things most shameful, most unrighteous, most untrue, and with his sting, steeps them in poison.

As an example of the inception and development of a dragon legend from slender materials, the following is related in Figuer’s “World before the Deluge “: In the city of Klagenfurth, in Carinthia, is a fountain on which is sculptured a monstrous dragon with six feet, and a head armed with a stout horn. According to popular tradition, this dragon lived in a cave, whence it issued from time to time to ravage the country. A bold and venturous knight at last kills the monster, paying with his life the forfeit of his rashness. The head of the pretended dragon is preserved in the Hotel de Ville, and this head has furnished the sculptor for a model of the dragon on the fountain.

A learned professor of Vienna on a visit to the city recognized it at a glance as the cranium of the fossil rhinoceros. Its discovery in some cave had probably originated the fable of the knight and the dragon, and all similar legends are capable of some such explanation, when we trace them back to their sources and reason the circumstances on which they are founded. The famous bird, the roc, which played so important a part in the myths of the people of Asia, is also believed to have originated in the discovery of some gigantic bones.

Chief among Dragon-slayers of Christian legend we find the following: Saint Philip the Apostle is said to have destroyed a huge dragon at Hierapolis, in Phrygia. St. Michael, St. George, St. Margaret, Pope Sylvester, St. Samson, Archbishop of Dol; Donatus (fourth century), St. Clement of Metz, all killed dragons, if we may trust old legends. St. Keyne of Cornwall slew a dragon. St. Florent killed a terrible dragon who haunted the Loire. St. Cado, St. Maudet and St. Paul did similar feats in Brittany.

The town of Worms (famous as the place at which the Diet of Worms was held before which the reformer Luther was summoned), owes its name to the “Lind-wurm” or dragon there, conquered by the hero Siegfried as related in the “Nibelungen Lied.” Drachenfels, on the Rhine (Dragon Rocks), is so called from the same monster; and at Arles and Rouen legends are preserved of victories gained by saints over the Tarasque and Gargouille, both local names for the dragon.

St. Martha conquered the fabulous Tarasque of the city of Languedoc, which bears the name of “Tarascon.” Gargouille (waterspout), was the great dragon that lived in the Seine, ravaged Rouen, and was slain by St. Romanus, Bishop of Rouen, in the seventh century. The latter name has come down to us in the term “gargoyle”, applied to the monstrous heads which often decorate the waterspouts of old churches.

…Another survival of the dragon myth exists in the name given to some of our fighting men on the introduction of firearms. A kind of blunderbus gave to the troops who used it the name of “dragoniers”, whence is derived the well-known term dragoons. They used to be armed with dragons, i.e., short muskets, which spouted fire like the fabulous beast so named. The head of a dragon was wrought on the muzzles of these muskets.

We have all heard of the Dragonades, a series of persecutions by Louis XIV., which drove many thousands of Protestants out of France, and out of the world. Their object was to root out “heresy.” A bishop, with certain ecclesiastics, was sent to see if the heretics would recant; if not they were left to the tender mercies of the Dragonniers, who followed these “ministers of peace and good will to men.” The same game of conversion was practiced by the Reformed Church upon the Presbyterians of Scotland, with its accompaniment of “dragons let loose”, in which Claverhouse took a leading part.

“In mediæval alchemy the dragon seems to have been the emblem of Mercury; hence the dragon became one of the ‘properties’ of the chemist and apothecary, was painted upon his drug pots, hung up as his sign, and some dusty stuffed crocodile hanging from the ceiling in the laboratory had to do service for the monster, and inspire the vulgar with a profound awe, of the mighty man who had conquered the vicious reptile.””

Fictitious and Symbolic Creatures in Art, by John Vinycomb, 1909

Still Standing – Anno Domini Beats