Those who attempt to derive the dragon from such living creatures as lizards like Draco volans or Moloch horridus[136] ignore the evidence of the composite and unnatural features of the monsters.
"Whatever be the origin of the Northern dragon, the myths, when they first became articulate for us, show him to be in all essentials the same as that of the South and East. He is a power of evil, guardian of hoards, the greedy withholder of good things from men; and the slaying of a dragon is the crowning achievement of heroes—of Siegmund, of Beowulf, of Sigurd, of Arthur, of Tristam—even of Lancelot, the beau ideal of mediæval chivalry" (Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. viii., p. 467). But if in the West the dragon is usually a "power of evil," in the far East he is equally emphatically a symbol of beneficence. He is identified with emperors and kings; he is the son of heaven the bestower of all bounties, not merely to mankind directly, but also to the earth as well.
Even in our country his symbolism is not always wholly malevolent, otherwise—if for the moment we shut our eyes to the history of the development of heraldic ornament—dragons would hardly figure as the supporters of the arms of the City of London, and as the symbol of many of our aristocratic families, among which the Royal House of Tudor is included. It is only a few years since the Red Dragon of Cadwallader was added as an additional badge to the achievement of the Prince of Wales. But, "though a common ensign in war, both in the East and the West, as an ecclesiastical emblem his opposite qualities have remained consistently until the present day. Whenever the dragon is represented, it symbolizes the power of evil, the devil and his works. Hell in mediæval art is a dragon with gaping jaws, belching fire."
And in the East the dragon's reputation is not always blameless. For it figures in some disreputable incidents and does not escape the sort of punishment that tradition metes out to his European cousins.
[130] An elaboration of a Lecture delivered in the John Rylands Library on 8 November, 1916.
[131] In his lecture, "Dreams and Primitive Culture," delivered at the John Rylands Library on 10 April, 1918, Dr. Rivers has expounded the principles of dream-development.
[132] Vide infra, p. 109 et seq.
[133] Hence soldiers killed in battle and women dying in childbirth receive special consideration in the exclusive heaven of (Osiris's) Horus's Indian and American representatives, Indra and Tlaloc.
[134] M. W. de Visser, "The Dragon in China and Japan," Verhandelingen der Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen te Amsterdam, Afdeeling Letterkunde, Deel XIII, No. 2, 1913, p. 70.
[135] E. A. Wallis Budge, "The Gods of the Egyptians," 1904, vol. i, p. 11