Dragon World

Dragon World is all about dragons. There are books, games, and movies, on dragons. This world will talk about them all. people can send in pictures or story on dragons. Please do.

Created By HopeDragon

The Dragon Prince

In the Middle Ages, the most rewowned tournaments of poetry in all of France were held at the court of Eleanor of Aquitaine. Celebrated troubadours gathered there to demonstrate their art, and once a year the winner of this poetic joust was announced.

On one occasion, the winner was an unknown and very handsome young man, who refuse to give his name or say where he came from, despite the entreaties of Eleanor herself. The aura of mystery surrounding the anonymous troubadour, together with his kindness and beauty, soon made him one of the favorites among the ladies of the court. Griselda, a young and wistful maiden, the youngest daughter of the lord of Foix, fell passionately in love with the knight and declared fer love for him. Moved by the maiden's entreaties, the troubadour agreed to marry her in secret and take her to his home, but on condition that Griselda should never try to see him other than when he chose, and that she should never try to discover his secret.

The lovesick lady promised to comply with this strange condition. It seemed little to ask in exchange for being able to remain with her loved one.

One night, the young Griselda had fallen asleep in the arms of her lover in the castle of Eleanor of Aquitaine where she lived, and on opening her eyes she found herself in an unfamiliar room. It was luxurious place, adorned with silk and precious stones, and beside her lay her husband smiling benignly at her.

'You are in my house, which belongs to you', said the troubadour. 'You may give orders to my servants and do whatever you please. There are stables with horses at your disposal, huntsmen and hawks for hunting, and you may go as you wish. You are my lady, and all that is mine is yours. There are maidens ready to serve you and to carry out your every whim, dancers and musicians to entertain you, jewels and silks to adorn you. If you need anything, tell me and I will give it to you.'

'I wish only for the love of my lord', replied the young woman, bewildered.

'That is good, my love, but do not forget your promise.'

Griselda, full of happiness, demonstrated her compliance by flinging herself into the arms of her beloved husband.

For a while the lady kept her promise and believed she was in paradise. The troubadour knight, who was kind and passionate, spent most of his time with his wife. Occasionally he would disapear into a locked room, and she, faithful to her promise, did not ask him any questions. However, curiosity gradually got the better of her. One day she decided to find out the secret of her knight. She crept up to the door of the forbidden room, which he had left ajar, and spied through the chink. Horrified, she watched as the troubadour turned into a huge dragon with green scales and powerful wings. She could not prevent a cry of horror escaping her lips. The dragon prince wheeled round, and saw his terrified wife in the doorway. Deeply hurt by this betrayal, the knight bade his servants remove Griselda immediatly to the court of Aquitaine, and never again did he turn to see her.

The lady could not forget her beloved, and not a day went by without her recalling the months of happiness beside the gentle dragon. Full of repentance and sadness, she wrote down her adventure; that is how the famous story of the dragon prince has found its way to us.

The Cooper and the two Dragons

In Switzerland lived a man, cooper was his state, which one day climbs the soft inclined side of the surrounding mountain to a forest of oaks and birches to seek wood there. It was the autumn and the ground was covered with a thick carpet of dead leafs. Our man deviated soon from the path, in search of some good low branch which he can cut and charge on his mule.

At the falling night, he noted that he had been mislaid. He scanned the darkness in the hope to see the campfire of some hunter or the hut of a coalman. The branches lacerated his face while he advanced in the obscure forest, and sudden it seemed to him that the ground was falling under his steps. He released the leading-rein of his mule, tried to advance, lost foot and fell at the bottom from a ravine, bringing in his fall several roots and stones. At the bottom, the ground was covered with mud and the air impregnated of a strong odor of manure and burned foliage. Exhausted, the cooper shrivelled in a corner and fell asleep.

With the pale gleam of the dawn, he woke up, sored all over, and contemplated the thin band of sky which cut out between the walls of the ravine, so high and abrupt that he could not think of climbing them, and he sank in a deep despair. Then he heard the sigh of a drowsy animal, so near and so powerful that he felt his hair to straigt up on his head. This breath was hot like the breath of a furnace and passably sulfurous. It seemed to emanate on the side opposite of the ravine and the cooper leaned ahead and scanned the darkness. In a jump, he stand erected. Not far from him, their folded up rings and their massive forms cutting out vaguely in the dim light, their heavy half closed eyelids because the winter torpor, two enormous dragons were rested.

Our man fell to knees to beg the sky. At this time there, one of the dragons emerged from its torpor. The wings folded up like a fan, it came out of the cave in a great unfolding of scaly rings, carried by four short clawed legs. It agitated the tail in direction of the cooper and it was rolled up around him. The dragon looked a few moments at the prisoner with glaucous eyes, then released him and re-entered in its den, leaving poor man with his knees trembling of terror, but unharmed.

Knowing his rescue improbable and his escape impossible, the cooper spent the winter in the ravine, accompanied by the drowsy dragons. He nourished from mushrooms growing on the wet walls, heated by the breath of the dragons, and was refreshed by collecting the dew in his hands. As he was left in peace, he lost his fear and, one night when the snowflakes fell thick and where cold bit him, he slipped into the cave and settled himself well at the heat from the hollow of the rings. One of the dragons turned the head but, accepting the intrusion, it took again its position and left him quiet.

The cooper thus spent the night and all those which followed and, with the return of spring, when the melting made waters cascade in the ravine, the dragons saved his life. One morning, he woke up alone and frozen in the smoked den. By the opening penetrated the noise of a large beat of wings. He precipitated outside and saw one of the dragons spreading largely its membranous wings and, whipping the air from its tail, rising in the sky. The other dragons was also on the point of flying away in the bright light of the morning and, crouch in mud, it slowly unfolded its wings, such insect hardly released of its cocoon. The cooper seizes it by the tail and he hanged of all his forces while the animal flapped the air to rise from the ground.

Arrived at the edge of the ravine, the man opened the arms and fell gently on the ground. He looked for a moment the rise of the dragons in the luminous sky. Then it was put in search of the path from which he had deviated the preceding autumn and followed it until he reach his home. There, he told his adventure to his friends and relative amazed which held him for dead since his mule had returned alone, several months before.

Jilocasin

During the reign of Charlemagne, there lived in the region of Gascony a very old and wise dragon called Jilocasin, who was a poet. Every so often, Jilocasin would abandon his confortable and spacious dwelling and take a human form to visit the King's court. There he was a well-known and respected troubadour, and he made the most of these brief sejourns to sing his verses and listen to the creations of the other poets. Then he would return to his home in Gascony, where he could compose in peace and lead a peaceful life far from the world.

One day, he was travelling through the forest of Gascony disguised as a troubadour, when he heard a desperate cry of help. Without losing a moment he ran in the direction of the screams and came across a poor woman who was trying to defend herself against some bandits. Jilocasin changed back into a dragon and with two blows he finished off the ruffians. The woman had fainted from her injuries, and the dragon lifted her onto his back and flew speedily back to his dwelling.

Jilocasin's servants took care of the lady, whose clothes, although they were torn and dirty, were those of a lady of high rank.

On undoing the bundle which the woman clasped to her breast, they found a baby only few weeks old slumbering peacefully, oblivious to everything.

Thanks to the care and solicitude of the servants, the woman soon came to, and Jilocasin took on his human shape to visit his protegée. The lady expressed her gratitude and told him her story. She had been widowed within two years of marriage, and her family had forced her to marry her cousin, an unscruppulous man who was interested only in inheriting the title and wealth of her deceased husband.

The wedding was celebrated in haste, before the mourning period prescribed by law had been observed.

'But I wass pregnant by my first husband, something which my cousin did not knows', explained the woman, weeping. 'When the baby was born, six month after the forced wedding, my husband tried to seize the baby to prevent him threatening his inheritance. Fearing for the life of my son, I ran away, but the villain pursued me with his henchmen, and he almost succeeded in killing the child.

Fortunately, you saved us, and now my life belongs to you.'

Touched by the grief and beauty of the woman, Jilocasin offered her support and shelter in his house.

Time passed, and the dragon-troubadour and the lady became inseparable. The beautiful fugitive was aware of Jilocasin's true identity, but she was so taken by his kindness and amiability that it did not affect her love for him. Meanwhile, the dragon found in her the understanding and friendship he always sought. Jilocasin and the lady would go for a long walks together, and sometimes the dragon would carry her on his back and they would visit far-off lands. Together they rode, loved, and sang the verses which the dragon-poet composed. They spent three happy years in this way. To complete her happiness, the woman became pregnant. They were both looking forward to the birth of their son, but the lady died in childbirth. Jilocasin was inconsolable. He had lost an irreplaceable companion, the only woman who loved him as he was.

Faithful to her memory, the dragon cared for the two boys without making any distinction between his adoptive son and his own son. He taught them the highest principles and, after a while, present them at court to be armed knights.

The two brothers, who chose to be called the Knights of the Dragon, were famous for their nobility and honour, and they finally avenged their mother's memory by capturing the castle which their villainous uncle had stolen from them.

Maud and the Wyvern

It appears as the emblem of envy, insignia of war, personification of pestilence, representation of non-transmuted matter in alchemy, disguise of the devil and as a prevalent device in heraldry. Rarely, however, does it elicit emotions of friendship or love - which is why the medieval legend of the Mordiford wyvern is so unexpectedly poignant.

Maud's parents had little objection to their young daughter owning a cat or dog - but they were more than a little perturbed by the creature that stood before them, small and colourful though it might be. Earlier that day, Maud had been walking through the woods near her home at Mordiford, in English county of Herefordshire, when she came upon a strange little animal looking forlorn and dejected. It was poking its snout listlessly a clumb of flowers, and was quite evidently lost.

The creature looked like a baby dragon: its body was no bigger than a cucumber and its bright green scales - sparkling like a shining peridots in the sunlight - made it appear even more like one as it squatted upon its single pair of legs. Every so often, it would open its fragile, membranous wings and flutter them hopefully, but it was clearly far too young to fly. As soon as it saw Maud, however, its sadness evaporated, and it began chasing merrily around her, frolicking with joy that it was no longer alone.

Maud was throughly enchanted by her unexpected playmate, and happily took it back home with her, convinced that her parent would share her delight in the tiny creature. But they recognized it as a wyvern (albeit a very young one), and their reaction was very different. In word that brooked no opposition, they insisted that she should take it back to where she had found it and leave it there. Steeling themselves to ignore her tearful protestations, they closed the cottage door behind her and wathched, sadly but with great relief, as their daughter walked slowly back to the woods, followed by her strange little companion.

Once out of sight, howerver, Maud turned away from the main woodland path and ran instead toward her secret hidding place - a little nook known only to her, where she spent many happy hours concealed from the rest of the world. Here she placed her new-found pet, and here would remain, where she could visit it, play with it, and feed it every day, safe from the prying eyes of her parents and the other Mordiford folk.

As the months went by, howerver, Maud's pet grew even larger, and at a quite alarming rate. The cucumberlike youngster was maturing into an impressive adult wyvern, whose soft green scales had hardened into razorsharp discs of a deep viridescent tone, whose gossamer wings had become leathery and bat-like, and whose curly tail bore at its tip a deadly sting.

The saucers of milk brought to it everyday by the ever-faithful Maud, which had once satisfied its juvenile appetite, were no longer able to dispel her pet's pangs of ravenous hunger. And so it began to seek sustenance elsewhere. The local farming community soon suffered great losses of livestock, and it was not long before the culprit was unmasked. Maud's dragon had acquired a liking for the flesh of sheep and cows. But worse was to come. When some of the bolder farmers attempted to deal with the monster, it ably defended itself, and in so doing discovered another taste much to its liking - humans!

Maud was devastated by the actions of her former playmate, and begged it to end its murderous assaults upon the townfolk, but to no avail. Not even gentle rearing by a loving child could suppress indefinely the irascible and predatory insticts of a true dragon. With the advent of maturity, these had inevitably been unleased in a violent torrent of uncontrollable, primeval force. Just one person remained safe from the marauding wyvern - Maud, its early playmate and friend.

Not for her the flame and the fear, only the love that ever the heart of the most terrible dragon contains, but which is so rarely ignited by human. She alone could walk safely beside it, stroke its ebony claws and gaze without trepidation into its eyes of blazing chrysolite. Such is the power of friendship and love.

Neither of these, howerver, was sufficient to change to inevitable course that events were about to take. The wyvern's tyranny had to be countered if Mordiford's habitants were to survive. And so it was that one morning, a tall figure encased in armour and mounted upon a magnificent steed rode into the woods, with a sturdy lance grasped firmly in his hand.

A member of Mordiford's most illustrious family, the Garstons, he dismounted and courageously sought out his dreadful quarry. Suddenly, from amid a tangled mass of foliage, a massive green monster lunged forward; it scaly covering had imitated so intimately the leafy vegetation that it had been completely invisible as it lay in wait for its opponent.

Instinctively raising his shield, Garston deflected the great blast of fire that roared from the wyvern's gaping jaws, and aimed his lance at its thoat, distended from the force of its expulsion of flame. The lance pierced the monster's flesh, and an explosion of dark blood burst forth, staining the grass. Garston also carried a sharp sword, and was about to plunge it into the stricken creature's head when a young girl, screaming not in fear but in hysterical rage, ran out of some bushes and starled hurling stones at him. His horse reared up in alarm, but far more starling to Garston was the extraordinary sight of this same child, kneeling on the blood-soaked grass and weeping uncontrollably, with her arms around the neck of the dying wyvern.

Unnerved, and oddly perturbed by his success in slaying the huge dragon that had terrorized Mordiford for so long, Garston rode away, back to the joyful villagers - leaving behind a dead monster with its only friend, a girl called Maud for whom the innocence of childhood had come to a sudden and savagely premature end.

The Cuelebre

In a hut in an Asturian village lived a very beautiful maiden, who was vain and forever daydreaming. She spent hours and hours combing her long flowing hair by a spring, and there was nothing she loved more than to admire her beautiful reflection in the limpid water of the pool. In vain her mother and grandmother warned her:

'It is dangerous to comb your hair by the spring. Be careful, because if a hair falls and ruffles the surface of the water, the spirit of the spring will bewitch you.'

'Old wives tales,' cried the girl, 'there are no spirit in the fountain.' But the girl was very wrong. In the pool lived a very powerful spirit, one of those nymphs of the streams and mountains which abound in the Asturian mythology. The spirit watched angrily as the girl spent the whole day combing her hair, never helping to spin the wool or knead the dough. She had not been able to do a thing about it, as the girl did not ruffle the water of the pool, but patiently the nymph waited for her chance.

Then one day, one of the girl's golden hairs fell into the water and the nymph, dressed in a cloak of green water, rose angrily out of the pool.

'Didn't your mother warn you not to ruffle the water?' she asked, in a very quiet voice.

'A hair as beautiful as this does not ruffle the water', replied the proud maiden.

'I am going to bewitch you to punish you for your pride', the spirit said icily. Barefoot, her long golden hair adorned with pearls and a crown made from the reflection of the moon, she alighted on the grass next to the pool. Frowning, she declared:'I am turning you into a cuelebre. You will only turn back into a maiden if you meet a knight who is so brave that he is not afraid of you and has a heart so pure that he finds you beautiful.

At once the girl's body grew to an enormous size and became covered with coloured scales. her golden hair turned into crests and two wings sprouted from her shoulders. With a howl of despair, the cuelebre slunk off weeping, and hid in a cave by the sea.

As all the youths who set eyes on the cuelebre are afraid, the proud girl who was bewitched by the spirit still lives in her little cave on the sea shore, waiting for the knight who will find her beautiful, so that she can become a maiden once more.