CHINESE DRAGONS

in history and military rank.

The earliest stories of Chinese dragons are from 500 BCE in the Annals of the Bamboo Books. The lazy emporer Kong Jia was sent a pair from heaven. A braggart by the name of Liu Lei, talked himself into the job of caring for them. He failed and one of them died. After turning it into pickle and feeding it to the emporer, Liu Lei disappeared, lest he be executed.

Dragons feature at all levels of Chinese culture. The night sky is divided into four astrological sections. One of these is the Azure Dragon of the East. Chinese dragon art is everywhere, from buildings to armour. They were an important part of ancient Chinese medicine. For reasons as simple as flatulence and nightmares, dragon bones were ground into medicine. It is quite possible they were actually using dinosaur bones.

The dragons of China are flying creatures with elongated bodies, four legs and no wings. They were often depicted holding a large pearl to depict immortality, wisdom and good fortune. These dragons had hairy manes, long whiskers and tufts of hair on their upper legs. They were benevolent and thought to be responsible for rain. They live in waterways and eat swallows.

The first dragons depicted in Chinese art had only three claws. This increased to four during the Song Dynasty. In the Yuan Dynasty, emporers first began to claim the five clawed dragon as their unique property and it was against the law for anyone else to use this art. A whole ranking system had developed by the Qing Dynasty, including detailed dragon symbolism for the higher military ranks. This is why we find them on military weapons and armour so frequently.

Much of the information for this page has been adapted from The Dragon Companion by Carole Wilkinson. There are lots of good Chinese dragon stories in
this excellent book.