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Show THE DRAGON IN TRADITION. When the dragon myth was carried to the shores of Greece, and embodied on classic literature, it received many new developments and was presented in several different forms. But the central idea was the monster engendered in the darkness and slime of the marshes the Python slain by Apollo, and the struggle between Bellerophon and Chimera, Hercules and the ?? Hydra, ?? and the Sphinx, are but versions of the same story. The fable of the dragon whose ravenous appetite could be appeased only by the periodical sacrifice of a beautiful maiden, which is told in the story of Perseus and Andromeda, has since been many times reproduced, and, in the more general form of a damsel delivered from the keeping of a monster, was a frequent theme in mediaeval romance. In the former case it will invariably be found that the hero arrives just in time to deliver the King's daughter from the terrible fate which otherwise awaits her, and, as in the classic story is generally rewarded with the lady's band. As the classic gods and heroes are found in the mythologies of the north under different names and in different circumstances, so the dragon is still preserved as the opponent of all that is good and virtuous. In the older Edda, which he longs to the ninth century, but was collected by Secmund in the eleventh or twelfth, it is Sigurd, the popular Scandinavian hero, who slays the dragon Fafnir, by whom the earth has been robbed of its treasure. He descends to the infernal regions to recover this, and here stabs the monster, who addresses to him the following serious words. "Youth and youth of what youth are thou born, of what men art thou the man? When thou didst ?? red in Fafnir that bright blade of thine, in my heart stood the sword," at the same time foretelling that the recovered treasure will prove to be his ruin. Sigurd then takes the monster's heart, which he roasts, and through touching it to see if it is done enough, burns his finger. With the familiar action which has since been immortalized by Charles Lamb, in his "Dissertation on Roast Pig," the hero then puts the injured member to his lips and is immediately enabled to understand the language of the birds. He thus learns that he must slay Regian, the dragon's brother, who otherwise would ?? him of the recovered wealth. This singular story is slightly varied in the Teutonic version in the "Xibelungen Lied" in which Siefried, after slaying the dragon and obtaining his board, bathes in the monster's blood and is rendered invulnerable. There is an evident connection between these stories of treasure-keeping dragons and those of the sleepless dragon of the garden of the Hesperides, and that which kept watch over the golden fleece. It was doubtless from this Teutonic source that the dragon found its way into English literature. In Beowulf, the earliest poem of our Saxon ancestors which has been preserved to us, the hero's father is a dragon slayer. "To Sigemund spring-after the death's day-glory no little-since battle hardy-he the worm slew-the hoard's guardian," and Beowulf himself destroys a monster, the keeper of treasure; as in the tales of Sigurd and Siegfried. Among the English people, with whom the grotesque and romantic found alwasy a ready acceptance, stories of dragons had a wide popularity, and, no doubt were often told on winter nights in huts of swineherds and huntsmen, or were the theme of stirring songs in the rude halls of thanes and franklins. Sitting by his log fire, or looking out from his cottage door as the shades of night drew on, the Saxon peasant peopled with elves the forests and morasses around him, and gave to the dragon myth of past ages and distant climes a distinct and local application. Hence it is that the stories of "worms," which may still be heard in many parts of the north of England, obtained their place in popular lore.-All The Year Round. |