The Penguin Book of Dragons

by The Penguin Book of Dragons (retail) (epub)

  (B) THE NATURE OF THE DRAGON3

  And while Philip and Bartholomew and Mariamne were rejoicing, suddenly an earthquake and a clamor and a seething sounded from the place close by where there happened to be a great amount of broken stones. And from there voices were emerging in confusion and saying: “Depart from here from this point on, servants of the ineffable God. Attend to your business as we also attend to ours. How long will you be against us, wishing to obliterate the entire demonic nature? No one has ever passed by this place whom we have not destroyed; against you alone we have become powerless. We are fifty demons of one nature who have obtained this small place as our portion. But you servants of Christ after passing through every place under heaven have come for our destruction, and this Jesus with you, who is the son of God, though he is only one, has obliterated countless kinds of demons. And now look, we are abandoning this cave, being cast out by force. We acknowledge from this point on that we have been brought to nothing, for the one who was crucified in opposition to us has destroyed our ancient nature.”

  The apostle said: “I call on you by the crucified one that you display what your ancient nature is.” And the dragon who was among them answered: “My nature originates from the plotting in paradise, and there he cursed me, the one who now wishes to destroy me through you.4 For at that time, after I withdrew from the lush garden, I found an opportunity to lurk in Cain because of Abel.5 Then when I displayed feminine beauty for the angels, I threw them down from the heights. And the women gave birth to very large sons—they call all these the Watchers.6 And when these increased in number, they were devouring human beings like locusts. And after the flood wiped them out, they engendered the demonic and serpent-like nature when the rod of Moses exposed the nature of the Egyptian sages and magicians. For we are the fifty serpents that Moses’ large serpent devoured at that time.7 Anyway, you, Philip, have seized victory over us.”

  Then the apostle, slave of God, looked toward heaven and said: “Holy Jesus, abode of unshaded light, glory of the Father, power of the powerless, timeless Word in the Father who also appeared on earth as a human being, come now and grant me strength, because a multitude of demons is inflicting indignities on your creatures in this wilderness. Do not delay, Master, but make haste with your aid.” And as he was praying in this manner he cried out loudly and said: “I adjure you by the glorified name of the Father, of the only-begotten Son, of the Most High, show yourselves, you demons, of what sort you are, both your number and your form.” Immediately a very great screaming and disturbance came forth: “Take flight now, you descendants of darkness and bitterness, quickly on account of our inevitable and imminent destruction.”

  And when the demons, who had the appearance of reptiles, came out from the seething of the stone, fifty serpents having raised their heads ten feet high (for they were each more than sixty feet long), they were saying in one voice: “Approach, you who have commanded us to come out, for we are children of your nature.” Then there was such a tremendous earthquake that Bartholomew and Mariamne would have lost courage had not Philip strengthened them, saying: “Whoever you are, the one being called by the serpents, which are evil demons, come forth, you on account of whom the earthquake has happened, since already you have been defeated and all your stock has dried up.” Immediately, a great dragon stood in the midst of the serpents, about a hundred cubits long, covered with soot and spewing fire and pouring out much poison in a burning torrent. It had a twenty-foot-long beard and a head like the peak of a mound of iron, swaying backward and forward, and a body completely like fire.

  He raised himself to a great height and said to Philip: “Philip, son of thunder, what is this great authority that you possess so as to pass through this place against us? Why have you worked so hard to destroy me also, like the dragon in the wilderness? I implore you by the one who has granted you this authority, do not destroy us or obliterate us in the thunder of your anger. Send us into the mountain of the Labyrinth that we might lurk there and transform ourselves. And by our demonic power, in the same way as we served our lord Solomon the Just in Jerusalem—for it was with our assistance that he built the sanctuary of God—so now also let us serve you. And in six days let us prepare for you in this place a building, and it shall be called the church of the living God. And I will even permit seven immortal springs because of the name of the crucified one, only do not destroy us.”

  The apostle replied: “How will you be able to build since you have a creeping nature and in fact are serpents, inasmuch as every building is fabricated by human skill? Now by the power of Jesus I command you, that both you and these fifty serpents change your creeping kind and display a human form.” The dragon said: “Listen, Philip, our nature is shadowy and dark, and our father is called Darkness and our mother Blackness. And they have brought us into the world as dark and black, with small feet, crooked hair, without knees, legs like the wind, airborne, with sparkling eyes, pointed beards, pointed hair, odious beings, mad for women, a mix of male and female.” Then after sighing very deeply, the dragon said: “Philip, since you have become so strong, look upon our form.” And immediately when the dragon and the fifty serpents revealed themselves as they are, they flew up like winds and cried out: “Let us now produce the building!” There was an interval of not quite three hours and they conveyed through the air fifty high columns and said: “Establish this place, Philip, as you wish, and you will see the building and the seven springs and the consecration of the church on the sixth day.”

  After six days the church was completed and streams were flowing like rivers. And in a few more days men, three thousand in number, and many women and infants were gathering together and they were magnifying Christ. And the dragon, showing himself even darker than an Ethiopian, said: “We are departing, Philip, to a place where we will no longer be seen by you, lest even there you command us to build. It suffices for us; we have been defeated.”

  (C) THE CITY OF THE SERPENTS8

  Now the apostles were traveling toward the city . . . And when they reached the peak of the mountain, they looked down and saw lying on the slope the city to which the Lord had sent them. While they were looking down, they saw men before the city and said to one another: “Let us go to these men and ask the name of the city.” And as they proceeded, the men saw them and moved to encounter them. Now everyone in that region had a serpent on his shoulders, and they would receive signs from them. And they were asking the serpents: “Who are these people coming toward us?” This was how the sign worked for them. They would release the serpents upon the strangers, and if they were not bitten by them, they were shown to them as participating in the same abomination. But if they were bitten by the serpents, they were seen as their enemies and they did not permit them to enter into the city.

  When the apostles approached to speak to these men, who were seven in number, each of them let down his own serpent. And the serpents bowed their heads to the ground before the apostles and remained there, biting their own tongues. And the men concluded that they also worshipped the Viper. So Philip went on his way with the others . . . When they reached the city limits, behold, there were two large dragons in front of the city gate, one on the right and one on the left, keeping watch lest any stranger enter this city. For by breathing upon them they would blind their eyes. As the apostles were entering, the dragons raised their heads, and when they saw them at the gate they were roaring to one another. But when Philip looked toward them, they saw the ray of the light of the Monad shining in his eyes, and in that moment they turned their heads aside and they died.9

  THE DRAGON BECAME HER TOMB1

  The memory of Saint Marcellus, a fifth-century bishop of Paris, would have been lost to the ages were it not for the industry of Venantius Fortunatus (ca. 530–ca. 600), who wrote an account of his life in the 570s. Fortunatus organized his account of Marcellus’s life by the saint’s miracles, which increased exponentially in power as the holy man progressed from humble o
rigins to hold a position of leadership in the Christian church. The saint’s final miracle was a dramatic confrontation with a dragon that inhabited the tomb of an adulterous noblewoman, whose cadaver it slowly devoured to torment her in death for the sins she had committed while alive. In the presence of the assembled citizens of Paris, Marcellus rebuked the monster and drove it from the city. Owing to Fortunatus’s lively narrative, the memory of this dragon battle endured for centuries. In the later Middle Ages, Parisians marched in procession before the Feast of the Ascension (celebrated forty days after Easter) holding aloft dragon puppets made of wicker, while bystanders threw fruit and small cakes into the gaping mouths of these tamed monsters.

  We have now arrived at that triumphal miracle, which, even though it is the last in order, we place it first with respect to its power. A certain wife of an honorable man, who was noble in lineage but had a worthless reputation, dimmed with an evil crime the brightness that shone from her birthright. After she had finished the final days of her fleeting life in diminished light, she went forth to her tomb accompanied by a procession that did her no good. Once she was buried, I am loath to relate what happened after her funeral, because the dead woman’s corpse experienced a twofold lamentation. For a serpent of immense size began to frequent her tomb to devour her corpse and, to be more precise, as the beast devoured the limbs of this woman, the dragon itself became her tomb. Thus, a reptilian pallbearer oversaw her ill-fated funeral with the result that her body could not rest after death. Life’s end should have allowed her to lie in one place, but she was always on the move in her punishment. Oh, what a detestable and very frightening misfortune! The woman who had not preserved the integrity of her wedding bed in this world did not merit to lie untouched in her tomb, for the serpent who lured her into sin while she was alive even now ravaged her corpse in death. Then, members of her family who were nearby heard the sound and rushing up together they saw the giant monster leaving the tomb with its sinuous coils, its enormous body slithering along, its tail lashing back and forth. Terrified by what they had seen, they returned to their own homes. When this was made known, blessed Marcellus knew that he had to triumph over the bloodstained enemy. Having gathered together the people from the city, he proceeded to the tomb. With the citizens remaining at a distance but within sight, Marcellus advanced alone to the place with Christ as his guide. He was ready to fight. And when the dragon returned to the tomb from the forest, they approached each other. Blessed Marcellus offered a prayer, while the serpent asked for pardon with a bowed head and a fawning tail. Then blessed Marcellus struck its head three times with his staff, wrapped his stole around the neck of the serpent, and displayed his victory before the eyes of the citizens. Thus, in a spiritual arena he fought the dragon alone while the people watched. In relief, the citizens ran toward their bishop with the desire to see his enemy in captivity. Then, with the bishop leading the way, everyone—nearly three thousand people—marched in procession after the beast, rendering thanks to the Lord and abandoning any funerary pomp for their enemy. Finally, blessed Marcellus rebuked the dragon, saying: “From this day forth, either stay in the desert or plunge into the sea.” Soon after the beast was sent away, no trace of it was ever seen again. Behold, the defense of the fatherland amounted to a single priest, who vanquished his enemy more effectively with his fragile staff than if ballistae had struck the dragon, for an arrow could well have rebounded from it, if a miracle did not lay it low. O holiest of men, whose light staff displayed the weight of strength, whose soft fingers became the serpent’s chains! Thus, private weapons overcame a public enemy and a general victory applauded the capture of a single foe. If the merits of holy men are compared by their deeds, Gaul marvels at Marcellus just as Rome marvels at Sylvester, but they stand apart in their accomplishments, because Sylvester only set his seal upon a serpent while Marcellus banished a dragon completely.2

  COILED COURIERS OF THE DAMNED1

  In his widely read Dialogues on the Miracles of the Italian Fathers (written ca. 593–94), Pope Gregory the Great valorized the virtues of the saints of Italy for the edification of his young interlocutor Peter. Among these exemplary tales were warnings about the otherworldly doom awaiting monks who did not follow the rules of conduct expected in their cloistered life. In three such stories, negligent brothers experienced visions of dragons coiling around their bodies in anticipation of snatching their souls at the moment of death and carrying them away to infernal punishment. While the offenses of restlessness, anger, and gluttony seem mild to modern sensibilities, Gregory’s message to his monastic audience was clear: the life of a monk was strict and any misbehavior could have eternal consequences for the delinquent’s soul. Widely read for centuries throughout medieval Europe, the Dialogues popularized the image of dragons as couriers of the damned to Hell and may have inspired the iconography of the Hellmouth as the gaping jaws of a gigantic beast.

  A certain monk of Benedict’s community had made up his mind to leave, for he had no desire to stay in the monastery. Even though the man of God corrected him over and over and admonished him frequently, this monk would not agree to remain in the community and with inappropriate entreaties he longed to be released. One day the venerable father Benedict, overcome with weariness by the repetition of his complaint, lost his temper and ordered him to go. As soon as the monk left the monastery, he discovered that there was a dragon coming toward him on the road, its mouth opened wide. When the dragon who had appeared before him sought to devour him, trembling and shaking the monk began to shout in a loud voice, “Run! Run! This dragon wants to eat me!” Running to his aid, his brethren did not see the dragon at all, but they led the monk trembling and shaking back to the monastery. He immediately promised never to leave the community again and from that time onward he remained true to his promise. In fact, by the prayers of the holy man, the monk could now see the dragon that approached him, whom he had followed previously without being able to see him.

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  During this plague, which had recently ravaged the majority of the people of Rome, a monk named Theodore, having been struck in the abdomen, was delivered to death’s door. When he was about to give up the ghost, his brethren gathered around to protect the departure of his soul with prayer. His limbs were already dead; only in his chest did a life-giving warmth still allow him to draw breath. All of his brethren began to pray for him most fervently in pace with his rapid departure from the world, when suddenly he began to shout at the monks assisting him and interrupted their prayers, saying: “Retreat! Retreat! Behold, I have been given to a dragon to be eaten, but he cannot yet devour me because of your presence. My head has already been placed in its mouth! Give it room so that it may torture me no longer, but let it do what it is going to do. If I have been given to a dragon to be devoured, why should I suffer any more delay because of you?” Then the brothers began to speak to him: “What is this that you are saying, brother? Make the sign of the holy cross to help you.” This man responded with loud shouts, saying: “I want to make the sign, but I cannot because I am weighed down by this dragon’s scales.” When the brethren heard this, they fell prostrate on the ground and began to pray vehemently with tears for his release. And behold, suddenly the sick man improved and began to cry out in a loud voice, saying: “Thank God, behold the dragon who wanted to devour me has fled, for he could not withstand your prayers. Now intercede for the sake of my sins, because I am ready to be converted and to abandon completely my former worldly life.”

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  There now dwells among us a presbyter named Athanasius of Isauria, who told us about a terrible event that took place during his time in Iconium.2 For, as he says, there was a certain monastery there called Ton Galaton, in which there lived a monk of great character. This monk was perceived to be someone with good habits and deliberate in all of his actions, but as it became clear in the end, he was not at all what he appeared to be. For when he made a
show of fasting with the brethren, he was in the habit of eating secretly, a fault concerning which his brethren were entirely in the dark. But when his body was overcome by an illness, he came to the end of his life. When death approached, he made all of the brethren who were in the monastery gather by his side, leading those monks to believe, as they thought, that they would hear high-minded and agreeable words of wisdom while the man lay dying. On the contrary, sick and trembling, this man was compelled to relate to them that he would be handed over to the Devil upon his death. For he said: “When you thought that I was fasting with you, I was eating in secret, and behold, now I have been given to a dragon to be devoured. It has already coiled around my knees and feet with its tail. Indeed, its head is right next to my mouth and it gulps down my spirit.” Once he had uttered these words, he immediately died, so it was not expected that he could be freed by penance from the dragon he had seen.

  THE MONSTER OF THE RIVER NESS1

  The habitat of the early Christian dragon extended as far north as the shrouded hills and chilly waterways of modern Scotland. Unconquered by the Romans, the lands of Caledonia remained an untamed wilderness in the early Middle Ages. According to the account of the life of the Irish saint Columba (521–97) written in the late seventh century by his disciple Adomnán of Iona, the holy man preached the tenets of Christianity among the Picts in the vicinity of Loch Ness. There he encountered an aggressive aquatic creature of enormous size. Columba banished the monster of the river Ness with the sign of the cross, thereby impressing the pagans who witnessed the miracle and encouraging them to embrace the Christian faith. Such was the potency of Columba’s rebuke that the monster of the river Ness was not observed again until the nineteenth century.