Welsh Dragon Lore

[Merlyn]

Greetings!  :D
 In many ways we have found that our Druid Lore spans many oracles and methods which are linked to our ancestry, experience and love of Welsh Lore.

 One of these ways which is deep in Welsh Druid lore is the use of the elemental Dragons. For some time now others and I have been working to grow this amazing path of Dragon Lore in druidry and examine and share how we experience and relate to Dragons.

 If you are interested in this fantastic path please post to this thread or PM me and I will be happy to set anyone who is interested in Dragon Lore up in the "Circle of The Four Dragons" seed group forum.

 This is a cyber seed group, which may well become a grove soon. (Also there is soon to be a rune study group added to this forum.) Good reading ideas, ritual and personal experience with dragons can be discussed and shared in the Circle of the Four Dragons.

In light,
Merlyn /|\

[pomona]

Hello Merlyn, I was interested in this because there is quite a lot of folk lore about dragons flying about where I live in North Devon and Exmoor.
Blessings Pomona

[Merlyn]

Hi pomona,
 We would love to hear about dragon folk lore.
Welcome to the Circle of the four Dragons  :shake:

click here to enter the Dragon circle  :hiya:

[Kernos]

Hello Merlyn, I was interested in this because there is quite a lot of folk lore about dragons flying about where I live in North Devon and Exmoor.
Blessings Pomona

Would it not be wonderful for someone to collect such local lore and write them up in interesting ways for the OBOD web site?

[Merlyn]

Yes it would, and we have plans to do so.
  We hope to offer some of this to touchStone as well.

[chimera]

Zeus saw a dragon when he flung Echidna Kelto viper-woman dragon into Mount Etna volcano in Sicily, and then chucked in Typhon snake-man her partner. Kelto was mother of Keltos. and she created Chimera yale war-goddess to rival Athena war-goddess, formed from the mind of Zeus. That provoked Zeus to rage - it was not a pretty sight when the dear old wyvern Echidna got cooked.  It humiliates Celts, and the Greek god revival in Greece is ominous for Cymri.  Stand with your dragon! Shame on Diodorus Siculus and Alcman of Sparta for writing about this crime!
Chimera

[Kernos]

Chimera - this intrigues me...

Could you expand on this - praps with some specific refs...

[chimera]

(warning: this is my obsessive hobby). In "Python. etc..", J.Fontenrose. U.Cal.Cam. 1959. pp.97-9 , relates Greek texts on Echidna ("exe.id.na" producing. person. matriarch?) phaiper/viper/guivre/ wyvern. She was a viper-woman, daughter of Brettanos of Gaul, and mother of Keltos by Herakles, and of Chimera by Typhon / or by virgin-birth. She created Chimera in the latter version to rival Zeus and Athena. Chimera goat-lion is from "chimaira" goat, and has the form of Beaufort-Lancaster yale goats and the yale with lion hindquarters carved upon Windsor. "Yale" is from Assyrian "W`L" meaning "to ascend" and is the sacred ibex-goat, also "yale" in Tocharian (European steppe-tribe west China), in Midian, Akkadian and Ethiopic where it is a royal sculpture on a palace wall. Hindi "yali" is goat-lion with swivelling horns, where the rear replaces the forward if lost in battle, as a unicorn. The Arms of Kings of Scots has this supporter goat-lion, gifted to James 1 by Jane Beaufort 1424. Lancastrian Regent John flew it in France 1422, so it preceded Henry VII's yale and dragon flags of 1487. The dragon was on Tudor Royal Arms until replaced by the "equal" unicorn on UK Arms. George keeps his dragon in the chapel below the chimera yale on Windsor's roof. That yale  was resculpted after World War II, when Britain occupied Greece to prove that Zeus was mistaken in saying that Echidna dragon and Chimera war-goddess were  dead.
The father Brettanos of Gaul was probably named from IE bher "to breathe. speak", breithanos "judge" of Brehon Law, vergoBRET "elected chief druid". Vergo "rod-staff" became "verger" with rod, possibly Black Rod of Parliament. Thus in Celtic culture, the Druids were "father" to the dagon-mother of the "king" Keltos. They saw themselves as above both king and mother-land people. By comparison, Brahmins taught that murder of themselves was the worst possible crime. At Windsor, the bishop in chimere/chimera robe presides over the dragon who summons the monarch to climb the steps. Zeus was dead wrong.
chimera
Partheneion Alcman 30. Etymologicon Magnum 502. Diodorus Siculus 2.43 5.24   Chapter Office, Windsor. McBain Gaelic Dictionary.

[azureclaw]

Hi Merlyn
I am also very interested in Dragon Lore and would like to find out more regarding your Circle of The Four Dragons  seed group forum.
Many thanks
Azureclaw

[Merlyn]

Welcome to the Dragon Circle azureclaw,
 You should now be able to see the Circle of the Four Dragons Forum,

Enjoy  :D

Merlyn

[She8Art]

The Snowdonia Dragons/ Merlin's Dragons/ The Dragons of Dinas Emrys are one and the same as on my family crest...



Being a dragon myself (of curious nature)...I'd love to peek in if I may...

Love,
She.

[Ghostrider]

http://www.dragoncircle.30.forumer.com

[Dysgwr]

Hi Merlyn
I am also interested in Welsh Lore and would like to know more about this Dragon Lore. Could you add me to the group, please.

Bendithion
Panoramix

[Merlyn]

Greetings fellow dragon friends.
All are welcome to join us at our new message board.
After time we out-grew the forum offered to us on this board.

We expanded through many ways, and members into the dragon lore found in our many lands and cultures, and the discussions bring light to our own as well.
Follow this link to our grove board;

http://dragoncircle.30.forumer.com/

And bring any insights you have, and learn from ours.
It is a very deep side of the Druid path, one that grows and grows.
I was amazed at just how many Dragon riders there are, as I often felt I was very rare to have discovered this path.
Now I know I have many friends who know dragons, would like to find the dragon path, and relate to us from lands all across the globe.

In light,
Merlyn /|\

[Corvin]

Job 30:29 I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls.

Psalm 91:13 Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.

Isaiah 13:22 And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces: and her time is near to come, and her days shall not be prolonged.

Isaiah 34:13 And thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof: and it shall be an habitation of dragons, and a court for owls.

Isaiah 35:7 And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water: in the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes.

Isaiah 43:20 The beast of the field shall honour me, the dragons and the owls: because I give waters in the wilderness, [and] rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen.

Jeremiah 9:11 And I will make Jerusalem heaps, and a den of dragons; and I will make the cities of Judah desolate, without an inhabitant.

Jeremiah 10:22 Behold, the noise of the bruit is come, and a great commotion out of the north country, to make the cities of Judah desolate, and a den of dragons.

Jeremiah 49:33 And Hazor shall be a dwelling for dragons, and a desolation for ever: there shall no man abide there, nor any son of man dwell in it.

Jeremiah 51:34 Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon hath devoured me, he hath crushed me, he hath made me an empty vessel, he has swallowed me up like a dragon, he hath filled his belly with my delicates, he hath cast me out.

Jeremiah 51:37 And Babylon shall become heaps, a dwelling place for dragons, an astonishment, and an hissing, without an inhabitant.

Ezekiel 29:3 Speak, and say, thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, "My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself."

Micah 1:8 Therefore I will wail and howl, I will go stripped and naked: I will make a wailing like the dragons, and mourning as the owls.

Malachi 1:3 And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.

[Kernos]

I am curious... I wonder what words were used in the original source material. Most of those quotes were probably written in ancient or 'biblical' Hebrew.

I wonder what the word(s) translated as 'dragon' meant to the ancient Hebrews? Did they have a concept of a dragon as we do today?

[Merlyn]

And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water: in the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes.

Hi Kernos,
The quote above is much like my own earth dragon; The earth dragon lay lines. For the most part, dragons vary a bit depending on how they are "seen", but have more in common than they differ. Each culture considers different ways the dragons appear, but they all embody the elemental aspects. The biblical accounts of dragons represent the "sub-culture" or pagan ways. So I would expect that they were much like we think of them today.

Thanks for posting this Corvin.
I would like to have it posted in the Circle of the Four Dragons message board, if that's ok with you.

the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.

The Gryphon is another mythic form which appears in early Welsh lore and is represented in biblical ways. The Welsh dragon is often referred to as a gryphon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gryphons

Most (almost all) dragons predate Christ.

[Corvin]

Just check to make sure the translation is correct. Alter where appropriate.

[Dendrias]

Hi, Kernos.

My answers seems to be a little late, now, but I just bumped into this thread. You question about a half year before was, how the biblical context imagined dragons to be.
Well, I'd love to check the hebrew text, but I finished my studies on that language ten years from now, so I couldn't do it anymore. But I can tell You, that in the ancient Greek and Roman context, "dragon" is just a huge snake, sometimes with a cockscomb. Merlyn proposed that they were like we think of them today - but that depends on how we think of them today! When I myself think of dragons, they have at least feet, if not even wings. The Greek and Roman dragons didn't have, as far as I know.
I checked Corvins quotes, well, those of Jeremiah only, but this had an astonishing outcome: Half of the Jeremiah quotes translate (into German) not "dragon", but jackal! But it's only half of them, so I wonder why.

What do Your dragons look like?

[Merlyn]

Dragons come in may ways from many cultures.
In Japan they are very specific depending on the family.

Merlyn