Tea at Trianon: More on Dragons

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, September 5, 2022

More on Dragons

I posted on dragons a while back, HERE. From TOR:

Dragons are everywhere. Just about everyone has a version. Many are based on the Western dragon: scaled, winged, breathes fire. Some incline toward the Eastern variety: sinuous, often wingless, allied with air and water. They’re magical, mystical, and immensely powerful.

They are ancient. Apep/Apophis of Egypt, Tiamat of Mesopotamia, Typhon and the Hydra of the Greeks, the dragon that guarded the Golden Fleece, were all some form of serpent monster, often with multiple heads—the Greeks especially had a fondness for that. The dragons of China go back millennia, and have been allied with and symbolic of imperial power since the first emperor.

In the West, dragons have generally been agents of evil. They bring death and destruction, and it’s heroes’ duty and destiny to destroy them. Marduk casts down Tiamat and saves the world. St. George, like Perseus before him, slays the dragon and saves the maiden.

In the East by contrast, dragons are wise and benevolent. They are protectors of the land, bringers of rain, with power over the wind and the sea. Their presence brings good luck.

Modern fantasy has embraced the full range of draconic possibilities. Smaug is far from the only dragon in Tolkien’s legendarium. As terrible as he is, he’s the last and least of an ancient and evil lineage.

He comes out of the Western medieval and far northern tradition: the winged Wyrm who amasses a hoard of treasure and defends it against all comers. Tolkien knew, none better, the dragon that Beowulf fought in the Anglo-Saxon epic. (Read more.)