1 00:00:00,360 --> 00:00:06,120 One of the great things that modern scholars are perplexed by is why does everyone 2 00:00:06,160 --> 00:00:10,599 have a dragon? Like there's not a single human culture anywhere in the world 3 00:00:10,759 --> 00:00:14,439 that doesn't have a dragon, including people who live in places that don't have 4 00:00:14,480 --> 00:00:41,840 snakes. This is Jonathan Pegel, Welcome to the Symbolic World. So hello 5 00:00:41,880 --> 00:00:46,880 everyone. We are back with Richard Rowland for another Universal History episode, and 6 00:00:47,159 --> 00:00:51,119 this week we are going to talk about dragons, which I'm sure is going 7 00:00:51,200 --> 00:00:55,439 to be of interest to everybody that I know around the Symbolic World. So 8 00:00:55,600 --> 00:00:58,520 Richard, go ahead. So many people have been asking for this for so 9 00:00:58,640 --> 00:01:02,119 long, that's right, And we already had a little bit of the dragon 10 00:01:02,200 --> 00:01:06,400 discussion in the Beywolf course that we've talked about quite a bit, and so 11 00:01:06,480 --> 00:01:11,000 you can check that out for sure. But so when Jonathan says a little 12 00:01:11,000 --> 00:01:12,760 bit, what he means is that we actually talked about dragons for about seven 13 00:01:12,799 --> 00:01:22,120 hours. So I just really want to make sure that I want to properly 14 00:01:22,239 --> 00:01:26,439 sell you on the beoolf class if you haven't already signed up for that bought 15 00:01:26,480 --> 00:01:30,959 that. I know it's a little pricey, but it's literally like twenty something 16 00:01:32,040 --> 00:01:34,560 hours of Jonathan and I talking about Beowolf like total, you know, and 17 00:01:36,200 --> 00:01:40,680 along with handouts and everything else. And we literally spent at least seven hours 18 00:01:40,719 --> 00:01:44,760 talking about the dragon between the last two classes, right, And if you 19 00:01:44,840 --> 00:01:49,760 want to know the secret connection between the dragon and the grendel Kin, for 20 00:01:49,799 --> 00:01:53,239 instance, it's not what Neil Gayman thinks it is. But if you want 21 00:01:53,239 --> 00:01:57,680 to know what it is and there is a secret connection, then sign up 22 00:01:57,719 --> 00:02:00,760 for that class. And a lot of the things that we're going to say 23 00:02:00,760 --> 00:02:07,239 about dragons today we cover in significantly more depth in the class. So what 24 00:02:07,280 --> 00:02:09,759 I really want to happen over the course of the next few years is to 25 00:02:09,759 --> 00:02:14,759 do some more of these kinds of classes where I get to go really deep 26 00:02:14,800 --> 00:02:17,360 on things that I'm trying to summarize in forty five minutes. And you know, 27 00:02:17,360 --> 00:02:21,960 the really frustrating thing about making these videos, Jonathan, is that we'll 28 00:02:22,000 --> 00:02:24,000 record something and then later on I'll think, oh, I said that wrong, 29 00:02:24,080 --> 00:02:27,560 I need to go back. And you know, so like when we 30 00:02:27,599 --> 00:02:30,639 do the coursework, not only do we get to go deeper and you know, 31 00:02:30,719 --> 00:02:34,960 we got eighteen to twenty hours instead of one hour, right for a 32 00:02:35,000 --> 00:02:38,919 subject, but also I get to like do a lot more in the in 33 00:02:38,000 --> 00:02:42,520 terms of like research, footnotes, editing, and also you get all of 34 00:02:42,560 --> 00:02:46,960 my presentation like slides and notes and stuff like that for those classes. So 35 00:02:46,199 --> 00:02:49,599 the bail class was the first one. I hope we have some more to 36 00:02:49,719 --> 00:02:53,000 introduce next year. Oh yeah, for sure. Dante the Comedy is going 37 00:02:53,039 --> 00:02:57,159 to probably be the next one we're going to do, because I'm excited about 38 00:02:57,199 --> 00:02:59,879 doing that as well. So I think that that will be the next one, 39 00:02:59,879 --> 00:03:01,199 and then we'll see from there on. So, Richard, how are 40 00:03:01,240 --> 00:03:04,360 you going to start us off with dragons? Like? We don't even know 41 00:03:04,360 --> 00:03:07,680 where to start. So I should have expected this, given that they're dragon, 42 00:03:08,000 --> 00:03:13,800 you know, but they turned out to be very difficult to pin down, 43 00:03:13,879 --> 00:03:20,280 as it were. One of my there's this great line from a scholar 44 00:03:20,400 --> 00:03:25,240 that I was reading on the subject of dragons in like ancient the ancient Near 45 00:03:25,280 --> 00:03:30,599 East and ancient into European legends, which is probably where we'll start, and 46 00:03:30,960 --> 00:03:34,639 she says that you're expecting it to be like, oh, it's a it's 47 00:03:34,680 --> 00:03:36,879 a thread, and I'll start pulling this thread and I'll just be able to 48 00:03:36,960 --> 00:03:38,039 chase it from beginning to the end. But it's not like that. It's 49 00:03:38,039 --> 00:03:42,439 like a spider web and you're looking at all of the threads and you're like, 50 00:03:42,479 --> 00:03:44,639 well, did this come from this? Or did this come from this? 51 00:03:44,719 --> 00:03:47,960 And did this come from this? And it's very difficult to sort of 52 00:03:49,000 --> 00:03:53,120 trace, like even nail down what a dragon is because there are certain general 53 00:03:53,159 --> 00:03:55,719 things and that's where we're going to start in a second. There's certain general 54 00:03:55,759 --> 00:04:02,400 things you could say are true about dragons, but then there are always exceptions 55 00:04:02,479 --> 00:04:05,360 to that. So like you could say, you know, if there's ten 56 00:04:05,360 --> 00:04:09,120 things that make a dragon, like all dragons have seven out of ten of 57 00:04:09,159 --> 00:04:12,800 these things, right, different seven out of ten, But then but then 58 00:04:12,840 --> 00:04:15,439 there are various dragons that are like little weird exceptions to these rules. And 59 00:04:15,879 --> 00:04:19,279 I think that this is going to go a lot towards the way that we 60 00:04:19,319 --> 00:04:24,920 think about the dragon as as a monster, right, as a monster as 61 00:04:25,000 --> 00:04:28,959 very often something of a shape shifter, right, something that's got the ability 62 00:04:29,160 --> 00:04:31,839 capacity to kind of change its shape and actually takes on different roles in different 63 00:04:31,920 --> 00:04:35,240 societies. And then maybe what that means for us again, you know, 64 00:04:35,279 --> 00:04:43,120 as always, I'm coming at this from the perspective of a Christian who you 65 00:04:43,160 --> 00:04:46,199 know, and and and so for us as Christians. The idea of a 66 00:04:46,240 --> 00:04:51,399 serpent or a dragon means something in particular, although it also means other things 67 00:04:51,439 --> 00:04:55,639 that maybe most people haven't thought about. So we'll get into that now. 68 00:04:55,759 --> 00:04:58,199 For sure, That's been the way that I would approach it mostly, you 69 00:04:58,279 --> 00:05:00,959 know, for those who have read I've read few articles about it. Is. 70 00:05:00,959 --> 00:05:04,560 I wrote an article called The Dragons That Almost Exist, where I discussed 71 00:05:04,560 --> 00:05:08,879 the relations to between the dragon and the monster, and that it seems to 72 00:05:08,879 --> 00:05:13,480 be the key in in in you know, the idea of something which is 73 00:05:13,560 --> 00:05:16,839 not fully identified is exactly what a dragon is, and so because of that, 74 00:05:16,920 --> 00:05:21,240 it has that shape shifting quality. Yeah. Yeah, So the let 75 00:05:21,240 --> 00:05:26,160 me just go over some things that all dragons or lets most dragons seem to 76 00:05:26,160 --> 00:05:29,800 have in common. Right. The first is that a dragon is a serpent. 77 00:05:30,480 --> 00:05:32,560 Now, when I say a dragon is a serpent, I mean the 78 00:05:32,560 --> 00:05:39,279 the word dragon itself probably comes from a very old, like early Latin word 79 00:05:39,879 --> 00:05:44,000 which means just a serpent, right or sorry, from a Greek word that 80 00:05:44,040 --> 00:05:48,600 means just a serpent, and it's got it's from a proto Indo European root 81 00:05:48,639 --> 00:05:55,360 word which has to do with the glance, right, like the like the 82 00:05:55,399 --> 00:05:58,600 idea of like a piercing glance or a deadly glance. Right, that's the 83 00:05:58,920 --> 00:06:01,800 that's the root of that word. And and of course there are there even 84 00:06:01,839 --> 00:06:06,040 to this day, there are plenty of dragon like creatures, right, dragons 85 00:06:06,079 --> 00:06:10,720 or dragon like creatures whose gaze is one of the most deadly things about them, 86 00:06:10,759 --> 00:06:14,040 right, the basilisk for instance, and so on. Now, something 87 00:06:14,079 --> 00:06:17,600 to say here is that we have to be really careful about when we're going 88 00:06:17,600 --> 00:06:24,720 back and looking at dragons for our purposes. We're not going to really we're 89 00:06:24,759 --> 00:06:27,600 not. You have to be really careful about not treating them as like different 90 00:06:27,600 --> 00:06:30,920 species. Right. There's a kind of like a modern tendency that has its 91 00:06:31,000 --> 00:06:34,720 you know, as it's apog like the the D and D Monster Manual, 92 00:06:34,839 --> 00:06:39,120 right, where it's like you've got all these different kinds of dragons and then 93 00:06:39,160 --> 00:06:42,959 these other kinds of like dragon like creatures, and they're all sort of different, 94 00:06:43,199 --> 00:06:46,560 a different species with a different stat block and a different you know, 95 00:06:46,279 --> 00:06:50,079 and so that sometimes if you if you come at this stuff from that modern 96 00:06:50,120 --> 00:06:55,959 perspective, you end up getting a little tripped up on things that really would 97 00:06:56,040 --> 00:06:59,000 just not have been a difficult thing for somebody in the ancient world. So, 98 00:06:59,040 --> 00:07:02,319 for instance, if you look at and I'll will have some images to 99 00:07:02,319 --> 00:07:09,480 put up on the screen. Here, if you look at a a Persian 100 00:07:10,000 --> 00:07:13,639 dragon, right, if you look at artwork of a Persian dragon, it 101 00:07:13,720 --> 00:07:18,399 looks exactly like a Chinese dragon. Yeah. Now, if you're coming out 102 00:07:18,399 --> 00:07:23,120 this from a modern perspective, you'd say, well that Persians had one word 103 00:07:23,480 --> 00:07:26,759 for dragons and the Chinese have this other word that we translate as dragon, 104 00:07:26,759 --> 00:07:29,360 and so are they really the same creature? But you can just look at 105 00:07:29,399 --> 00:07:32,439 the artwork like contemporary Persian Chinese artwork can say yeah, it's definitely the same 106 00:07:32,720 --> 00:07:38,319 same creature. Like no Chinese person traveling in Persia, which is a thing 107 00:07:38,360 --> 00:07:42,279 that happened, by the way, no Chinese person traveling in Persia in the 108 00:07:42,319 --> 00:07:45,839 Iron Age would have looked at a picture of it of a Persian dragon and 109 00:07:45,920 --> 00:07:46,959 said, oh, I don't know what that is, and then it just 110 00:07:47,240 --> 00:07:53,560 that it's not how it goes. So most dragons seem to be composite creatures. 111 00:07:53,920 --> 00:07:56,680 Now I said that all dragons are serpents, right, or at least 112 00:07:56,680 --> 00:07:59,959 most dragons are serpent. Actually, most dragons seem to be composite creature, 113 00:08:00,319 --> 00:08:05,199 but what the main ingredient is always serpent to put it that way. Yeah, 114 00:08:05,240 --> 00:08:07,600 well that's because, by the way, that's important to state, because 115 00:08:09,120 --> 00:08:11,360 first of all, that's what makes it a monster, right. A monster 116 00:08:11,439 --> 00:08:15,959 is a hybrid because it doesn't have a category attributed only to itself. So 117 00:08:16,000 --> 00:08:18,040 when you look at a hybrid or when you look at a monster, what 118 00:08:18,120 --> 00:08:24,879 you're seeing is things that in your estimation don't have are taken from other places 119 00:08:24,120 --> 00:08:28,319 and are stuck together into one thing. That's actually an experience of hybridity in 120 00:08:28,399 --> 00:08:33,080 general. It's not just related to monsters. It can help us understand what 121 00:08:33,159 --> 00:08:35,679 monsters are, but that is also what its snake is. A snake is 122 00:08:35,720 --> 00:08:39,360 a being that can be in two places at once. It's one of the 123 00:08:39,360 --> 00:08:43,519 only ones, right because it does this. Yeah, it's and it's it's 124 00:08:43,559 --> 00:08:50,399 a being that also transforms itself by shedding its outer appearance and kind of reconstituting 125 00:08:50,519 --> 00:08:52,559 its its outer appearance. So the idea of the of the snake that sheds 126 00:08:52,600 --> 00:08:58,240 its skin means that there's a relationship between hybridity, monstrosity, and change, 127 00:08:58,600 --> 00:09:05,200 because change is exactly when something loses its identity, especially transformational change, loses 128 00:09:05,240 --> 00:09:09,679 its identity and then is in the process of becoming something else. And in 129 00:09:09,720 --> 00:09:13,240 that middle space between what it used to be and what it's becoming now, 130 00:09:13,480 --> 00:09:18,399 there's a kind of fluidity that appears. And that is what accounts for monsters. 131 00:09:18,480 --> 00:09:22,080 That's why we used to say that the word monster means a sign, 132 00:09:22,360 --> 00:09:26,879 right, It's a sign that something that's happing, Yeah, something's happening like 133 00:09:26,120 --> 00:09:28,360 that, that things are not going to be the same anymore. And that's 134 00:09:28,360 --> 00:09:33,200 what the sign of hybridity reveals to us. And this is precisely why it's 135 00:09:33,200 --> 00:09:48,440 so difficult to talk about a dragon or even to trace like In twenty twenty 136 00:09:48,440 --> 00:09:50,679 one, my brother mets you and I, with the help of Poor Nielsen 137 00:09:50,840 --> 00:09:56,240 A Philip Carton, introduced all of you to a new vision of storytelling. 138 00:09:56,840 --> 00:10:01,840 We launched a God's Dog Monster graphic novel through crowdfund, introducing the dog headed 139 00:10:01,879 --> 00:10:07,399 Saint Christopher the dragon slang Saint George to full view as a new epic story 140 00:10:07,639 --> 00:10:13,360 began. The response was astounded, reaching over two hundred and fifty thousand dollars 141 00:10:13,559 --> 00:10:18,159 and ultimately selling out our first print of the book, now book two of 142 00:10:18,200 --> 00:10:22,320 five. In this series, God's Dog Warrior moves into the meat of this 143 00:10:22,440 --> 00:10:26,200 epic story where our dog headed stranger must be integrated, must be trained, 144 00:10:26,240 --> 00:10:31,000 and must fight. The cosmic stakes behind the story become clear, the characters 145 00:10:31,080 --> 00:10:37,399 shine, and heart wrenching choices must be made. Book two will surprise you 146 00:10:37,639 --> 00:10:43,360 more monsters, more giants, and a deeper exploration the mythology underlying it all. 147 00:10:43,440 --> 00:10:48,480 Since Book one of God's Dog, I've also started a publishing company called 148 00:10:48,559 --> 00:10:54,559 Symbolic World Press with some amazing partners to deal with the timely production, printing, 149 00:10:54,879 --> 00:11:00,120 and shipping of all future books. We've already successfully published Snow White and 150 00:11:00,200 --> 00:11:05,720 The Widow Queen and will expand our activities rapidly. The money we raise is 151 00:11:05,759 --> 00:11:09,440 to build this whole project and even move towards other media. We now have 152 00:11:09,639 --> 00:11:16,399 three full time people working with us, plus nine artists six writers collaborating towards 153 00:11:16,399 --> 00:11:20,399 at least fourteen upcoming books, and all of this without any outside funding, 154 00:11:20,879 --> 00:11:26,600 no outside control. It's all of you making this possible. This is why 155 00:11:26,679 --> 00:11:31,960 crowdfunding is so powerful. It's on this crowdfunding We've partnered with professional comic artists 156 00:11:31,960 --> 00:11:37,279 Matt Shean Jesse White to the Cartan and Martin Kratz to bring together God's Dog 157 00:11:37,360 --> 00:11:43,240 Warrior. But on top of that, I'm also introducing an entirely new comic 158 00:11:43,240 --> 00:11:46,559 book series called The Garments of Skin, which will explore the lore, the 159 00:11:46,679 --> 00:11:52,360 mythology around God's Dog, bring the story into the contemporary world where new heroes 160 00:11:52,639 --> 00:11:58,440 try to resist the global system of control. We are at a turning point 161 00:11:58,480 --> 00:12:03,519 in culture, a turning point in storytelling, and I know I can count 162 00:12:03,559 --> 00:12:07,399 on all of you to make it possible. We have to take back the 163 00:12:07,480 --> 00:12:13,039 rains of storytelling, move past the gatekeepers, and I thank all of you 164 00:12:13,159 --> 00:12:18,279 for trusting us to play a part in that. Thank you for backing Godzog 165 00:12:18,320 --> 00:12:31,120 Warrior on Kickstarter today. One of the great things that modern scholars are perplexed 166 00:12:31,120 --> 00:12:35,000 by is why does everyone have a dragon? Like there's not a single human 167 00:12:35,039 --> 00:12:41,360 culture anywhere in the world that has a that doesn't have a dragon, including 168 00:12:41,799 --> 00:12:46,759 people who live in places that don't have snakes, right, And so it's 169 00:12:46,799 --> 00:12:52,120 one of these things where you know, people are always trying to sort of 170 00:12:52,159 --> 00:12:54,480 answer the question like why does everybody have a dragon? And yeah, the 171 00:12:54,559 --> 00:12:56,399 dragons they're all a little bit different depending on where you live. If you 172 00:12:56,480 --> 00:13:01,039 live near the water, maybe it's a sea serpent see dragon kind of a 173 00:13:01,080 --> 00:13:03,080 thing, right, But you know, if you live you know, so 174 00:13:03,399 --> 00:13:07,960 what's going on there? And so modern scholars have these a bunch of fun 175 00:13:07,960 --> 00:13:11,600 different theories for this, say, oh, well it's dinosaur bones. Now. 176 00:13:13,399 --> 00:13:16,440 To be completely fair, every time before the nineteenth century, anybody ever 177 00:13:16,519 --> 00:13:20,320 dug up dinosaur bones, which happened all the time. For instance, lots 178 00:13:20,360 --> 00:13:26,039 of dinosaur bones in China. When people dug up dinosaur bones in China, 179 00:13:26,120 --> 00:13:28,639 what did they call them? They said, these are dragon bones. And 180 00:13:28,679 --> 00:13:33,360 in fact that dragon bone, like powdered dragon bone, is an important element 181 00:13:33,799 --> 00:13:39,519 ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine. You know, it's just like fossilized dinosaur bones, 182 00:13:39,600 --> 00:13:43,519 right, dragon bones, and same thing, same thing in the British 183 00:13:43,559 --> 00:13:48,840 Isles, same thing in anywhere that somebody's dug up dragon dinosaur bones. They've 184 00:13:48,840 --> 00:13:52,919 said, oh, these objects. I know, I know, I'm trying 185 00:13:52,919 --> 00:13:56,759 to I'm trying to bring people along with us, Jonathan trying to commentate the 186 00:13:56,759 --> 00:13:58,759 moden world. I understand, Yeah, I'm trying to bring people along with 187 00:13:58,840 --> 00:14:03,559 us. It's actually it's much easier just to say the dragon bones. Right. 188 00:14:03,679 --> 00:14:09,240 So and actually what's really fun is that all of these, like some 189 00:14:09,279 --> 00:14:15,799 of the more recent reconstructions of what these various different dinosaurs might have actually looked 190 00:14:15,879 --> 00:14:16,919 like. They're like, well, maybe they had feathers, and maybe they 191 00:14:16,960 --> 00:14:20,559 had this, maybe they had this, and they start they keep looking more 192 00:14:20,600 --> 00:14:24,720 and more like dragon and I'm like just waiting. I'm just waiting for somebody 193 00:14:24,759 --> 00:14:26,759 to notice, you know, that's right, that is actually I noted that 194 00:14:26,799 --> 00:14:30,440 too. I thought, you know, they used to make fun of the 195 00:14:30,519 --> 00:14:33,159 Medievals for their dragon category, and now you look at a medieval manuscript and 196 00:14:33,200 --> 00:14:37,600 you look at modern reconstructions and they're like, eh, they got it better 197 00:14:37,639 --> 00:14:41,960 than a lot of the you know, early twentieth century gray like those gray 198 00:14:41,000 --> 00:14:46,720 lizards. They yeah, that they did. Yeah, okay. So anyway, 199 00:14:46,759 --> 00:14:48,799 all this to say, I just want to say one thing about the 200 00:14:48,840 --> 00:14:52,600 dragon bones. Actually, so this is important. This is important that are 201 00:14:52,639 --> 00:14:56,559 sending in a meta way, is that the fact that the dragon manifests itself 202 00:14:56,600 --> 00:15:03,120 as a residue of something which is forgotten is also part of what a dragon 203 00:15:03,519 --> 00:15:07,840 is manifesting, like an ancient world that we no longer have access to. 204 00:15:07,360 --> 00:15:11,559 And that is and it's kind of manifesting itself as a kind of chaos, 205 00:15:11,600 --> 00:15:16,120 broken residue, remainder of an ancient world. These are all the types of 206 00:15:16,159 --> 00:15:20,639 symbolism that we need to gather together when we think of what a dragon is. 207 00:15:20,519 --> 00:15:28,679 There's a one of my other favorite theories from modern scholars about this, 208 00:15:28,080 --> 00:15:33,000 you know, people who like to think of things in predominantly like evolutionary terms. 209 00:15:33,080 --> 00:15:37,600 This is the Jordan Peterston strategy. Is the idea that the idea that 210 00:15:37,639 --> 00:15:39,759 well, maybe it's because we're descended from monkeys, and the monkeys we're afraid 211 00:15:39,759 --> 00:15:43,360 of snakes, and so now we're afraid of like I don't know, just 212 00:15:43,399 --> 00:15:48,440 like goofy goofy stuff. This is really Jans Jordan's theory. Like is that 213 00:15:48,200 --> 00:15:54,000 that that is that it's a in some ways, our fear of snakes is 214 00:15:54,320 --> 00:15:58,720 a predetermined thing, Like it's not something learned, it's actually biologically inscribed in 215 00:15:58,840 --> 00:16:03,519 us and so and so that's why we have a mythological image of a snake 216 00:16:03,600 --> 00:16:07,279 that keeps manifesting itself. So the big challenge to this is is that of 217 00:16:07,279 --> 00:16:11,960 course many people are not afraid of snakes, a lot of people like them, 218 00:16:11,600 --> 00:16:15,720 but also like not every like not everybody is afraid of dragons either, 219 00:16:15,840 --> 00:16:18,799 Like, well, we'll get to that, right, Different cultures have kind 220 00:16:18,840 --> 00:16:22,120 of different ways of encountering or dealing with dragons. So like, I don't 221 00:16:22,159 --> 00:16:27,200 know, Yeah, I'm not totally I'm not totally satisfied by that theory for 222 00:16:27,279 --> 00:16:30,840 lots of reasons, I guess. But let me let me give the devil 223 00:16:30,879 --> 00:16:34,759 it's due as Jordan himself. Yeah, is that he said that the relationship 224 00:16:34,759 --> 00:16:38,759 between the snake is not just the fear. It's fear and fascination. It 225 00:16:38,799 --> 00:16:44,639 has to be both because when the ape sees the snake, it will be 226 00:16:44,720 --> 00:16:47,360 afraid of it, but it will stare at it, like it will start 227 00:16:47,440 --> 00:16:51,279 it for like hours because it's trying to figure out what's going on. And 228 00:16:51,320 --> 00:16:55,879 so this relationship between fear and fascination is one that that he talks about. 229 00:16:55,919 --> 00:17:00,519 But the thing is that, let's say, how can I say this The 230 00:17:00,559 --> 00:17:04,240 best description of a dragon, Like the best a discussion about dragon has to 231 00:17:04,279 --> 00:17:11,319 do with our experience of the category rather than the mechanical description of how it 232 00:17:11,839 --> 00:17:15,279 mechanically came about. Whatever. That is, Like, we're not aches and 233 00:17:15,319 --> 00:17:18,720 we don't have to deal with we don't live in trees and we don't have 234 00:17:18,759 --> 00:17:21,279 to deal with snakes, and so the idea that you would tell me that 235 00:17:21,279 --> 00:17:25,079 that's the origin of this, it's like, that doesn't mean anything. It 236 00:17:25,119 --> 00:17:27,720 doesn't, it doesn't it doesn't enter into my category is a meaning. It 237 00:17:27,759 --> 00:17:33,799 doesn't enter into the fact that that you know, a child will will will 238 00:17:33,920 --> 00:17:37,759 draw a snake like that, that's something there's something primordial about and that it 239 00:17:37,799 --> 00:17:41,759 happens in every culture like that's there are better ways to approach that, and 240 00:17:41,839 --> 00:17:45,559 I think the universal history approach is a better one that to make sense of 241 00:17:45,599 --> 00:17:48,319 it. So yeah, there you go. Yeah, that was good, 242 00:17:48,359 --> 00:17:52,119 and I appreciate you explaining that side of things to me a little more because 243 00:17:52,640 --> 00:17:56,359 actually, I don't know if you've ever seen like a weasel or a ferret 244 00:17:56,440 --> 00:18:00,839 hunt a rabbit or some kind of a rodent, but theyally do like sort 245 00:18:00,839 --> 00:18:04,640 of like a little dance that hypnotizes the the rabbit where the rabbits like fascinated, 246 00:18:04,680 --> 00:18:07,640 can't look away, and then the weasel kills it. So anyway, 247 00:18:07,920 --> 00:18:11,559 so it's like Mowgli the snake in Mowgli. That was a great Yeah, 248 00:18:11,680 --> 00:18:15,200 yeah it yeah, that was that was a wonderful insight because it's not in 249 00:18:15,240 --> 00:18:18,119 the book, but it's like a wonderful it is. Well, it is 250 00:18:18,119 --> 00:18:21,599 in the book. Is that Kai Kai the rock python in the in the 251 00:18:21,599 --> 00:18:26,200 book is is Mowgli's friend. Yeah, and so actually in the in the 252 00:18:26,240 --> 00:18:30,920 book, he's in the like the city of the band alog the monkeys, 253 00:18:32,000 --> 00:18:34,680 right, and this the snake is the one that saves him from the monkeys. 254 00:18:34,720 --> 00:18:40,160 But he saves him from the monkeys by basically hypnotizing the monkeys until they 255 00:18:40,279 --> 00:18:44,480 basically walk into his jaws. But he's Mowgli's friend in the friend in the 256 00:18:44,480 --> 00:18:47,759 books. So that's the that's the big difference. But anyway, I love 257 00:18:47,839 --> 00:18:52,599 rodgerd Kipling. Okay, so let's give it to dragons. So dragons are 258 00:18:52,599 --> 00:18:55,680 serpents. This is the first thing we can say about them, but that 259 00:18:55,720 --> 00:18:59,440 they have this element of hybridity. So dragons are very rarely I won't say 260 00:18:59,480 --> 00:19:03,039 never, but they're very rarely just a serpent. And in fact, if 261 00:19:03,039 --> 00:19:06,319 you go and look at mythological carbons, we'll talk about some of these these 262 00:19:06,400 --> 00:19:10,519 dragons that are killed by thunder gods in Indo European and then later in Semitic 263 00:19:10,880 --> 00:19:15,960 mythologies and Shineeri's mythologies. But if you go look at iconographic depictions of the 264 00:19:15,000 --> 00:19:22,960 serpent, the serpent is almost never actually shown. Almost so Ritra the serpent 265 00:19:22,440 --> 00:19:26,839 in the in the rig Veda, right, who is killed by Indra. 266 00:19:26,000 --> 00:19:30,359 That the sort of the great hero of the epic. He's almost never depicted 267 00:19:30,400 --> 00:19:33,279 as just a serpent. He's usually like a some kind of a serpent human 268 00:19:33,319 --> 00:19:36,559 hybrid, and that's pretty normal. Like the farther back you go, the 269 00:19:36,640 --> 00:19:41,000 oldest dragon myths are usually actually depicting some kind of a serpent human hybrid. 270 00:19:41,079 --> 00:19:45,519 There's a Persian variant of this where he has it's a man, but he 271 00:19:45,559 --> 00:19:51,240 has three heads and two of the heads are serpent heads, and you know, 272 00:19:51,880 --> 00:19:55,480 and then of course you're various like you know, human upper body, 273 00:19:55,599 --> 00:19:57,480 serpentine lower half or vice versa. Right, you have that, as you 274 00:19:57,519 --> 00:20:00,279 have that as well. So yeah, everyone, But it's important to understand, 275 00:20:00,359 --> 00:20:06,799 though that this manifestation has to be extended, for example, into the 276 00:20:06,839 --> 00:20:11,079 serpent in the garden, because a serpent that speaks is already a serpent that's 277 00:20:11,119 --> 00:20:15,799 not quite a serpent, is already something that is human. Like you could 278 00:20:15,799 --> 00:20:21,039 say right, even if though it doesn't necessarily physically appear that way. Yeah, 279 00:20:21,079 --> 00:20:25,279 And so a lot of times you'll have various dragons or dragon like creatures 280 00:20:25,319 --> 00:20:27,319 which we're just going to call dragons for purposes of what we're doing today, 281 00:20:27,599 --> 00:20:33,279 that will have serpentine features. But then they also have features from a lion 282 00:20:33,759 --> 00:20:41,319 or very commonly in Chinese dragons, which I'm going to blow everybody's mind about 283 00:20:41,319 --> 00:20:44,400 in a moment, So just stay tuned for that, people, But Chinese 284 00:20:44,440 --> 00:20:49,480 dragons often have the almost always have antlers like a deers, feet like a 285 00:20:49,519 --> 00:20:53,839 lion, and all these other parts. And actually there's a lot of traditional 286 00:20:53,880 --> 00:21:00,160 accounts and depictions of Chinese and other Asian dragons, far Eastern dragons. There's 287 00:21:00,160 --> 00:21:04,000 a lot of symbolism that's you know that they read a lot of symbolism into 288 00:21:04,599 --> 00:21:08,160 the numbers of the scales or the numbers of the dots on the back of 289 00:21:08,359 --> 00:21:11,400 you know, and so on. So like, all of these features are 290 00:21:11,440 --> 00:21:17,079 actually very important for understanding those creatures and that the dragons in those cultures. 291 00:21:17,119 --> 00:21:21,960 But so the second thing we could say about dragons is that dragons are almost 292 00:21:22,000 --> 00:21:27,000 always a guardian of some kind, and the things that dragons traditionally guard or 293 00:21:27,200 --> 00:21:33,920 you could say hoarde, because hoarding is like the dark side of guarding something. 294 00:21:36,279 --> 00:21:40,359 But the things that dragons almost are always guarding or hoarding is water in 295 00:21:40,440 --> 00:21:45,880 almost every culture, and then everything else that you have a dragon hoarding later 296 00:21:45,920 --> 00:21:49,359 on. I'm famously in Western Europe dragons sit on treasure, right, but 297 00:21:49,519 --> 00:21:53,039 that's that's because of certain developments a little bit later on, which we'll talk 298 00:21:53,039 --> 00:21:56,079 about. Yeah, they also kidnap women, yes, yeah, you know 299 00:21:56,160 --> 00:22:00,559 they say yorde story, so you have to think of it as a kind 300 00:22:00,559 --> 00:22:03,039 of hoarding where he takes the virgin and keeps her and then if she has 301 00:22:03,079 --> 00:22:07,759 to be freed well, and but also the keeping of the woman is associated 302 00:22:07,799 --> 00:22:11,160 with so this is the thing they guard water. But if you really think 303 00:22:11,200 --> 00:22:17,160 about the significance of guarding water, it actually goes back to this idea of 304 00:22:17,200 --> 00:22:22,960 the serpent as the guardian of paradise. So if people want to get more 305 00:22:22,000 --> 00:22:26,079 into this side of things, you can go listen to the Lord of Spirits 306 00:22:26,079 --> 00:22:29,920 episode on the Serpent and the Devil and all that stuff. One of the 307 00:22:29,960 --> 00:22:33,880 things they talk about is the relationship of the serpent in Genesis to the idea 308 00:22:33,880 --> 00:22:37,200 of the seraf, the seraf which is, you know, a winged, 309 00:22:37,279 --> 00:22:42,480 fiery serpent, also a category of angel. Right, But the fiery, 310 00:22:44,279 --> 00:22:47,200 the fiery, it is a really old word, I think it. Well, 311 00:22:47,240 --> 00:22:49,160 it's a really old word. And the fiery originally has to do with 312 00:22:49,279 --> 00:22:53,359 like the the sting, like the poison, the venom, the venom of 313 00:22:53,400 --> 00:22:59,519 the of the serpent. But this idea that this idea that the serpent, 314 00:23:00,359 --> 00:23:03,480 you know, was supposed to be sort of the guardian of paradise, and 315 00:23:03,480 --> 00:23:11,680 then that becomes obviously corrupted. But some other places that this manifest just for 316 00:23:11,680 --> 00:23:15,920 instance, is well, okay, so the thing to say about paradise is 317 00:23:15,920 --> 00:23:18,160 that paradise is a place where water comes from. Right. Actually, the 318 00:23:18,240 --> 00:23:22,559 first and foremost is the first thing that we know about Eden is that it 319 00:23:22,599 --> 00:23:25,759 has four rivers coming out of it, right. And so if you think 320 00:23:25,799 --> 00:23:27,599 about, well, how do you have four rivers coming out of it in 321 00:23:27,640 --> 00:23:30,279 four different cardinal directions, Well, the only way you can do that is 322 00:23:30,319 --> 00:23:33,319 if you're at elevation and there's a spring, and then the water's flowing in 323 00:23:33,359 --> 00:23:38,000 each direction from the spring. Right. So that's what that's what paradise is. 324 00:23:38,079 --> 00:23:41,960 Right. There's a place where water flows from. Right, And so 325 00:23:41,400 --> 00:23:48,160 the idea of kind of like guarding paradise or is related to this idea of 326 00:23:48,240 --> 00:23:53,000 up guarding the water or hoarding the water. And so this this shows up 327 00:23:53,119 --> 00:23:59,599 in most most famously, for instance, all the Greek dragons are are water 328 00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:07,119 guardians. So the the the python that Apollo kills, uh, the the 329 00:24:07,799 --> 00:24:11,240 the Nimian hydra, I mean, I mean hydra itself. Like, it's 330 00:24:11,319 --> 00:24:15,240 just means water, right, So a hydra if you're looking at things, 331 00:24:15,279 --> 00:24:18,160 they're like a modern again I hate to rag on D and D here, 332 00:24:18,200 --> 00:24:19,000 but like through that modern D and D lens, you're like, oh, 333 00:24:19,079 --> 00:24:22,079 a hydra that's a different creature than a dragon. No, it's it's just 334 00:24:22,079 --> 00:24:27,680 a dragon, right, But this particular dragon has multiple heads and but reguards 335 00:24:27,759 --> 00:24:33,319 this particular body of water, right. And uh, but yes, all 336 00:24:33,319 --> 00:24:38,759 the all the all the biggest uh Greek culture heroes, starting with Apollo and 337 00:24:38,920 --> 00:24:47,000 Orpheus are famous for killing monsters. But but the like the original monster, 338 00:24:47,240 --> 00:24:49,960 you know, starting with Apollo and Orpheus, is this dragon or the serpent 339 00:24:51,039 --> 00:24:53,880 that guards a body of water. Right, And we can think about the 340 00:24:53,920 --> 00:24:56,880 importance of water in the ancient world, and actually it's still its importance in 341 00:24:56,920 --> 00:25:00,960 our world today. It's easy to take for granted because I turn on the 342 00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:03,200 tap and the water comes out, although actually they had the water shut off 343 00:25:03,799 --> 00:25:08,519 for us to our street earlier this week because they were doing some some repairs 344 00:25:08,559 --> 00:25:14,599 to a pipe down the road, and that that sense of like turning on 345 00:25:14,640 --> 00:25:18,400 the tap and the water doesn't come out, and that just like moment of 346 00:25:19,000 --> 00:25:22,279 like really primordial panic that sets in. It's like, wait, why don't 347 00:25:22,279 --> 00:25:25,759 we want of water? Why don't we have water? You know? And 348 00:25:25,799 --> 00:25:29,119 it was all fine, it was good, and but it's one of those 349 00:25:29,119 --> 00:25:33,519 things where water is so essential, it's so completely essential to life, right, 350 00:25:34,079 --> 00:25:37,039 and that you know, again, that's the most important feature. We 351 00:25:37,039 --> 00:25:40,599 always think of like the garden of the fruit and the trees and everything for 352 00:25:40,599 --> 00:25:44,240 all these reasons, but the most important, you know, feature of Paradise 353 00:25:45,119 --> 00:25:47,720 is the fact that this is a source of water. This is where the 354 00:25:47,759 --> 00:25:49,960 water comes from, and this is why the whole the whole idea the water 355 00:25:51,039 --> 00:25:53,599 coming from the throne of God in the apocalypse, right, That's that's what 356 00:25:53,640 --> 00:25:56,160 that's about it. And in sant Ephraim and in a lot of the medieval 357 00:25:56,279 --> 00:26:02,359 cosmology, the idea was in some ways that all the water came from Eden, 358 00:26:02,559 --> 00:26:07,279 you know, like that the four rivers basically watered the entire world until 359 00:26:07,279 --> 00:26:10,200 they ran into the ocean. So yeah, for people who don't know stint 360 00:26:10,240 --> 00:26:14,440 Afrom who is a fourth century church Father, Syrian poet, definitely one of 361 00:26:14,519 --> 00:26:19,839 my favorite church fathers. But he's very clear and his hymns on Paradise and 362 00:26:19,839 --> 00:26:26,359 his commentary and Genesis, he's very very clear that he doesn't believe that Eden 363 00:26:26,559 --> 00:26:29,559 is like a terrestrial site. It's not on Earth, that's sort of above 364 00:26:29,640 --> 00:26:32,240 the earth, and you have all the waters of the world. I mean, 365 00:26:32,240 --> 00:26:36,359 those four rivers mentioned in Genesis, as most people probably know, are 366 00:26:36,480 --> 00:26:41,039 are the four great rivers of ancient civilization. That's that's what's significant about them, 367 00:26:41,119 --> 00:26:44,799 is like those those four rivers in the in the understanding of the ancient 368 00:26:44,799 --> 00:26:48,680 eies like Mesopotamia and the Levant, those four rivers are the source of life 369 00:26:48,680 --> 00:26:52,440 and civilization in the ancient world. So you've got those four rivers kind of 370 00:26:52,440 --> 00:26:59,119 flowing down from Paradise into the terrestrial world. Yeah. So yeah, so 371 00:26:59,200 --> 00:27:03,759 dragons usually guard watch over protect bodies of water, and they can either do 372 00:27:03,839 --> 00:27:10,160 this in a friendly, helpful way. So there are such things as I'm 373 00:27:10,160 --> 00:27:15,480 not gonna say safe dragons, but sometimes helpful or friendly dragons. Right, 374 00:27:15,680 --> 00:27:18,920 Sometimes you can actually get what you want from a dragon under certain circumstances. 375 00:27:19,640 --> 00:27:26,119 But and and then other cases they hoard all of the waters so that nobody 376 00:27:26,200 --> 00:27:32,000 gets them. So then the third thing that we could say about dragons is 377 00:27:32,039 --> 00:27:37,319 that they and there are This is where we start getting into some more exceptions. 378 00:27:37,559 --> 00:27:42,200 But typically speaking, the dragon has an enemy, and the original enemy, 379 00:27:42,240 --> 00:27:48,279 the sort of primordial enemy of the dragon is the bull, the bull 380 00:27:48,400 --> 00:27:51,519 or really the thunder god, right, who's usually associated with a bull. 381 00:27:52,759 --> 00:27:55,960 And I'll give some examples of this. At this point, it is probably 382 00:27:56,039 --> 00:28:00,119 a good chance to go into them in the oldest And one of the things 383 00:28:00,160 --> 00:28:07,000 that we talked about in the Bewolf class is that there are there are scholars 384 00:28:07,079 --> 00:28:11,920 who believe so for instance, there is a there's a book by Calvert Watkins 385 00:28:11,920 --> 00:28:17,200 called How to Kill a Dragon, which is a really deep study in Indo 386 00:28:17,240 --> 00:28:19,240 European poetics. We read from some of it in the Beowolf class. And 387 00:28:19,240 --> 00:28:22,640 I would just say, if anybody out there wants to understand what philology is 388 00:28:22,799 --> 00:28:26,680 and how it works in which you would use it for, and the way 389 00:28:26,720 --> 00:28:30,640 that you kind of follow formulas and words as they develop and get reused again 390 00:28:30,720 --> 00:28:34,119 over and over again in stories over a really long period of time. That 391 00:28:34,160 --> 00:28:38,599 book is a really good it's a really good introduction to the subject. But 392 00:28:38,720 --> 00:28:42,640 basically what he argues in there is that the is that the original story, 393 00:28:42,720 --> 00:28:48,480 at least for Indo European languages, the original story is hero slay serpent. 394 00:28:48,920 --> 00:28:52,200 Right, the hero slays a serpent, and the hero in these really old 395 00:28:52,240 --> 00:28:57,160 stories is almost always a either a thunder god or the son of a thunder 396 00:28:57,200 --> 00:29:07,200 god. Now as as dragon slang stories kind of reproduce themselves, they don't 397 00:29:07,200 --> 00:29:10,000 know how it's to say it, you know, then eventually, eventually, 398 00:29:10,200 --> 00:29:12,880 you know, the thunder god part will kind of will kind of drop out. 399 00:29:14,000 --> 00:29:17,799 But even then, the idea of like a father and son pair or 400 00:29:17,839 --> 00:29:22,960 an uncle nephew pair sometimes being involved in the slaying of the dragon is still 401 00:29:22,079 --> 00:29:26,759 kind of the typical yeah, the typical k don't know the story so yeah, 402 00:29:26,759 --> 00:29:29,839 which gets carried by the way all that, which gets carried all the 403 00:29:29,839 --> 00:29:33,160 way into the story of Saint Michael killing the dragon in a kind of transformed 404 00:29:33,160 --> 00:29:37,039 way. But this idea that you know, some principality from heaven, like 405 00:29:37,079 --> 00:29:41,599 a kind of war principality from heaven, will it will be the one to 406 00:29:41,680 --> 00:29:45,319 finally slay the big dragon. Yeah. Yeah, So let me give some 407 00:29:45,359 --> 00:29:48,960 examples real quick from some really old Indo European stories. So for people who 408 00:29:48,960 --> 00:29:57,079 don't know, into European languages are the languages of with some exceptions, some 409 00:29:57,079 --> 00:30:00,000 some some things like that we could ask her is that are not into European 410 00:30:00,079 --> 00:30:07,279 languages. But almost every language that you find in India and in what is 411 00:30:07,319 --> 00:30:11,440 now Iran, like the sort of the Iranian step, and then in Europe 412 00:30:11,640 --> 00:30:15,519 are into European languages. That is, they are descended from the same group, 413 00:30:15,920 --> 00:30:18,480 the same family of languages that go kind of go all the way back. 414 00:30:18,519 --> 00:30:25,319 And there are certain elements of Indo European society which in places as far 415 00:30:25,400 --> 00:30:30,519 apart as Ireland and India develop in the same way because they have the same 416 00:30:30,599 --> 00:30:32,960 roots, right and that and that's why, so there is kind of a 417 00:30:33,000 --> 00:30:38,000 common uh language group and and and then because of that a common culture. 418 00:30:38,079 --> 00:30:44,880 So one of the earliest Indo European dragons or serpents that we have is uh 419 00:30:45,640 --> 00:30:48,160 I mentioned a moment ago Ritra. Vritra is a dragon or a demon in 420 00:30:48,160 --> 00:30:53,200 the form of a dragon who in the rig Veda takes all of the waters 421 00:30:53,319 --> 00:30:57,240 of all the rivers in the world and hoards them under a mountain. Right, 422 00:30:57,720 --> 00:31:02,119 so this is of course does ASTs for the world. There's no fresh 423 00:31:02,160 --> 00:31:06,039 water, no fertile river valleys. And this means that the ancient hero Indra, 424 00:31:06,160 --> 00:31:10,759 who are sorry, this means that ancient aggraeent societies of the Indian subcontinent 425 00:31:10,799 --> 00:31:14,359 would be would have completely collapsed. Right. Without water, you don't have 426 00:31:14,400 --> 00:31:18,359 anythings. So he's slain by the hero Indra, who slays him with a 427 00:31:18,400 --> 00:31:25,079 thunderbolt crafted for him by the craft god to vashtrie I think, and that 428 00:31:25,160 --> 00:31:29,920 that name to vashtrie Is has a lot of permutations. It shows up in 429 00:31:30,000 --> 00:31:33,799 like Hittite stuff for instance, also an Indo European language, but in every 430 00:31:33,880 --> 00:31:38,759 kind of permutation that he's the guy usually that makes the thunderbolt. Not always, 431 00:31:38,759 --> 00:31:42,319 but in most cases. Let's say, is that the weapon you see 432 00:31:42,319 --> 00:31:45,359 in Indian culture, like the double trident kind of weapons. Yeah, so 433 00:31:45,480 --> 00:31:51,680 I should explain that a trident is a thunderbolt. Yeah, I don't know 434 00:31:51,720 --> 00:31:55,960 how people how many people know this sort of thought about this, And I 435 00:31:55,960 --> 00:32:00,599 think that it's because thanks to Disney and other things, we like, we 436 00:32:00,640 --> 00:32:04,680 associallycily a trident with the sidon, you know, and the sea. But 437 00:32:04,720 --> 00:32:07,559 a trident is a it's it's lightning, right, that forest branches, right. 438 00:32:07,599 --> 00:32:12,519 That's so a trident is a thunderbolt, and and the typical weapon of 439 00:32:12,559 --> 00:32:16,640 the storm god is a trident slash thunderbolt. Yeah, so that's what Zeus 440 00:32:16,759 --> 00:32:22,319 used. The Greek version of this is when Zeus kills Typhon, who's the 441 00:32:22,319 --> 00:32:25,799 Greek titan, who is a serpent, monster, father, monsters, et 442 00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:30,720 cetera, it uses the thunderbolt. But the thunderbolt is really a trident. 443 00:32:30,839 --> 00:32:32,880 Like if you're imagining, you know, Poseidon has a trident, and then 444 00:32:32,960 --> 00:32:37,000 Zeus has like this jagged thing, you know that looks like a piece of 445 00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:40,240 cartoon lightning. That's not actually that's not actually how they depicted it. So 446 00:32:40,480 --> 00:32:49,400 anyway, so, uh so he kills uh, he kills uh Ritra, 447 00:32:50,160 --> 00:32:55,039 and this, you know, and this is the this is the basic pattern 448 00:32:55,160 --> 00:33:00,640 of the myth and uh it shows up in the myth, the Hittite story 449 00:33:00,680 --> 00:33:05,119 actually is probably the oldest recorded version that we have of this particular myth is 450 00:33:05,160 --> 00:33:13,160 the myth of the Hittite god Iliyanka. And it's a little tenuous. Like 451 00:33:13,200 --> 00:33:16,079 I said, when you try to trace dragon stories and how they develop over 452 00:33:16,119 --> 00:33:19,680 time, you think it's going to be like I'll just start pulling this thread 453 00:33:19,680 --> 00:33:22,480 and see where it goes. But it's the spider web. But we just 454 00:33:22,480 --> 00:33:30,000 say that the oldest dragon slanging stories that we have are found in kuneo form, 455 00:33:30,240 --> 00:33:34,240 that they're they're written in Hittite or in Luian, which would have been 456 00:33:34,240 --> 00:33:37,799 like the language probably spoken by the Trojans. Right, the Trojans were essentially 457 00:33:37,880 --> 00:33:44,039 Hittites and who had a very who had a vast empire, and some of 458 00:33:44,079 --> 00:33:47,200 these these stories go back to I think the earliest ones that we have we 459 00:33:47,240 --> 00:33:52,160 can relively date to something like a sixteenth be a century BC, something like 460 00:33:52,160 --> 00:33:54,680 that, like really old, or maybe a little bit older than that. 461 00:33:55,240 --> 00:34:04,319 And they seem to have made their way era via kind of contact with the 462 00:34:04,319 --> 00:34:07,920 north of the Levant. They seem to have made their way eventually into Mesopotamia. 463 00:34:07,360 --> 00:34:15,440 So in Mesopotamia legend you have enema Elish, which is the Mesopotamian creation 464 00:34:15,679 --> 00:34:20,000 myth, and it famously of course, you've got you know, sue Marian 465 00:34:20,000 --> 00:34:23,639 and Aikadian versions of it, but more recent research has those as being maybe 466 00:34:23,840 --> 00:34:30,320 slightly younger by a couple of hundred years than the Hitti version. So some 467 00:34:30,360 --> 00:34:34,960 people will say that it's originally a Semitic myth that travels west and nor like 468 00:34:35,039 --> 00:34:38,079 Northwest, and then other people say it's actually into European myth that originally traveled 469 00:34:38,159 --> 00:34:45,239 into the Near East somehow. It's probably impossible to say definitively, and that 470 00:34:45,360 --> 00:34:47,320 doesn't really matter. But a lot of these stories have in common, not 471 00:34:47,400 --> 00:34:51,320 all of them. But what a lot of these stories have in common is 472 00:34:51,320 --> 00:34:55,360 this idea of that it is tying it somehow into the idea of creation, 473 00:34:55,519 --> 00:34:59,559 right, so that the storm god, when he kills the chaos serpent, 474 00:35:00,079 --> 00:35:04,079 right, he's able to separate the land from the sea, right, separate 475 00:35:04,119 --> 00:35:09,079 the land from the sea. So this has this manifests a lot later on 476 00:35:09,280 --> 00:35:14,800 in basically every other dragon slaying myth that you find that you'll encounter in either 477 00:35:14,840 --> 00:35:20,440 the ancient Near East or Europe. And so, for instance, the most 478 00:35:20,639 --> 00:35:24,039 famous Norse dragon is Fathnir. Fathnir is actually a dwarf. He's a son 479 00:35:24,079 --> 00:35:29,760 of a powerful sorcerer, and after essentially after his family comes into the possession 480 00:35:29,800 --> 00:35:32,559 of a horde of cursed gold, Fathnir drives his brother off, turns himself 481 00:35:32,599 --> 00:35:37,840 into a dragon, and guards the horde himself right, and eventually along comes 482 00:35:38,079 --> 00:35:42,159 a guy named Sigurd the Volsung, or in the earlier versions of the story, 483 00:35:42,199 --> 00:35:45,320 his father Siemund. So there's that father son pair that's or sometimes uncle 484 00:35:45,360 --> 00:35:50,480 nephew pair that's really important in these kinds of stories. He slays the dragon 485 00:35:50,559 --> 00:35:52,119 with some help, usually from a son or from a nephew, or from 486 00:35:52,159 --> 00:35:55,960 somebody who's both a son and a nephew in the case of in the case 487 00:35:57,000 --> 00:36:02,039 of incest and uh. He kills the dragon the way that the dragon is 488 00:36:02,039 --> 00:36:07,559 almost always killed in the Western European version, which is, instead of being 489 00:36:07,599 --> 00:36:10,039 struck by a thunderbolt from above, he is stabbed from below, right, 490 00:36:10,079 --> 00:36:14,639 So that's how Fafnir is killed. That's how Beowolf's Bane. Although if you 491 00:36:14,639 --> 00:36:17,480 want to know the the name of Beowolf's Baine, like the name of the 492 00:36:17,519 --> 00:36:21,079 dragon and be Wolf, you can you can go but listen to the classes. 493 00:36:21,079 --> 00:36:27,159 But but yeah, that dragon. Uh. It's so this seems to 494 00:36:27,239 --> 00:36:30,800 be kind of like a theme in in the sort of like the western Northwestern 495 00:36:30,880 --> 00:36:32,400 European version of the story. Is that the way that you kill a dragon 496 00:36:32,440 --> 00:36:38,079 as you stab it from below. Yeah, And the significance of faft near 497 00:36:38,159 --> 00:36:45,199 hoarding gold instead of waters is actually pretty simple to understand. It's that it's 498 00:36:45,239 --> 00:36:51,480 that the the the culture of the Iron Age Germanic North was not a grariant. 499 00:36:51,599 --> 00:36:55,039 It was essentially what what I've described elsewhere in the Bao wolf class as 500 00:36:55,079 --> 00:36:59,920 a pirate economy. Right, So it works on it works by going in 501 00:37:00,119 --> 00:37:02,760 raiding somebody, taking their gold, and then using that goal, that's a 502 00:37:02,800 --> 00:37:07,159 pirate gift economy, using that goal to give gifts to your retainers, which 503 00:37:07,239 --> 00:37:09,079 is not the same thing as paying them. It's a it's a there's a 504 00:37:09,079 --> 00:37:13,000 difference. But you use it to give gifts to your retainers, who then 505 00:37:13,480 --> 00:37:17,400 give you service. Right, So there's this reciprocity reciprocble generosity. But you're 506 00:37:17,519 --> 00:37:21,320 you have to have gold to be generous with, and there are no gold 507 00:37:21,360 --> 00:37:23,800 mines in in uh in Norway, right, so you've got to go get 508 00:37:24,199 --> 00:37:27,800 some other way, right, so you go raid, you know, you 509 00:37:27,840 --> 00:37:30,880 go do your Christmas shopping at Linda's far and then you that's it. That's 510 00:37:30,880 --> 00:37:36,639 a joke. Yeah, you're the horrible joke. I know. I'm really 511 00:37:36,679 --> 00:37:43,000 sorry. I'm really sorry. I'm really sorry. Yeah. See, I 512 00:37:43,039 --> 00:37:46,880 see your northern roots are coming out. Trying really hard to hide all of 513 00:37:46,880 --> 00:37:50,360 that. But yeah, so you go, you go raid England, or 514 00:37:50,360 --> 00:37:54,599 you go raid like northern France before the Normans set, who were essentially Vikings 515 00:37:54,639 --> 00:37:58,840 right before they settled there. Right, you go, you raid somebody civilized 516 00:37:58,880 --> 00:38:00,920 and then you get their gold and then use that gold to keep your economy 517 00:38:00,960 --> 00:38:05,280 going. So this is why Beowulf. We talk about this in the class, 518 00:38:05,280 --> 00:38:08,480 but there's this huge focus on Beowolf on generosity, the king's role as 519 00:38:08,599 --> 00:38:14,239 ring giver and hero mode. Who's the worst king, right, He's the 520 00:38:14,320 --> 00:38:17,519 archetypical evil man, evil king. Right. The example that gets brought up 521 00:38:17,599 --> 00:38:23,039 over and over again in the poem. His whole deal is that he's stingy 522 00:38:23,199 --> 00:38:25,800 because he's like afraid of what's going to happen in the future, Like if 523 00:38:25,800 --> 00:38:28,840 I give us a way that I won't have it for later kind of thing, 524 00:38:29,199 --> 00:38:30,719 right, And so because of that, his kingdom collapses, right. 525 00:38:31,039 --> 00:38:37,440 And so if you're not generous, then society collapses. So a way to 526 00:38:37,440 --> 00:38:43,320 think about what a dragon is is that it, at least in some permutations, 527 00:38:43,400 --> 00:38:51,559 it hoards whatever is necessary for you to exist as a society. Now, 528 00:38:53,079 --> 00:38:57,880 this is where we get to the kind of like the boat what abouts, 529 00:38:58,039 --> 00:39:00,559 right? And so one of the things that you can say definitively is 530 00:39:00,599 --> 00:39:05,679 that all the oldest versions of dragon stories, in all the oldest versions of 531 00:39:05,760 --> 00:39:08,599 dragon stories, dragon the dragon has an enemy. The enemy is usually a 532 00:39:08,639 --> 00:39:14,880 thunder god or somebody that's associated in some way with the thunder god. Obviously, 533 00:39:15,519 --> 00:39:19,920 all of this eventually shows up much later from the perspective like the Hittite 534 00:39:19,960 --> 00:39:22,800 stories shows up much later in like the bail cycle and so on. And 535 00:39:22,840 --> 00:39:30,800 I will just I will hear inveigh against modern scholars of the ancient Near East. 536 00:39:30,880 --> 00:39:36,239 So I hope you're listening, folks. Sometimes when you read accounts of 537 00:39:36,239 --> 00:39:37,760 this and you're reading about all these thunder gods and the dragons they killed and 538 00:39:37,800 --> 00:39:44,400 everything, you'll get something like so these six lines of canea form allow us 539 00:39:44,400 --> 00:39:50,440 to say all of these things with great certainty about the ancient Louian storm God. 540 00:39:51,440 --> 00:39:54,039 But then there's this guy in this god in the Southern Levant Yahweh, 541 00:39:54,119 --> 00:39:58,280 and we just don't know anything about him. He's so perplexing. But he 542 00:39:58,320 --> 00:40:00,920 seems to have been some kind of a bold deity, you know, but 543 00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:06,119 unfortunately nothing helpful has ever been written about Yahweh, you know, like nothing 544 00:40:06,119 --> 00:40:07,559 that we can rely on. It's just very aggravating. It's like you get 545 00:40:07,559 --> 00:40:10,760 six lines of caneo form, you say all these things with absolute certainty, 546 00:40:12,000 --> 00:40:14,599 but when it comes to the God of the Bible, well, obviously we 547 00:40:14,599 --> 00:40:17,920 can't trust the Bible, so we got to go to non biblical sources for 548 00:40:19,519 --> 00:40:22,320 Yeah, we need to find some line of cuneiform and a broken tablet somewhere 549 00:40:22,400 --> 00:40:25,519 that we don't know what the context is, right, Yeah, So anyway, 550 00:40:25,679 --> 00:40:30,840 that's my that's my deep frustration, which I was feeling as I was 551 00:40:30,880 --> 00:40:32,880 putting together the notes for our conversation. But yeah, but it's anyway, 552 00:40:34,159 --> 00:40:37,079 and by the way, it's important for Christians. At some point we've understood 553 00:40:37,079 --> 00:40:40,519 that it's like that for everything Christian. It's like, you know, every 554 00:40:40,559 --> 00:40:45,280 everything Christian has this. Well, the people who told you this is the 555 00:40:45,320 --> 00:40:50,079 story, must be lying because they knew him. Yeah, okay, how 556 00:40:50,119 --> 00:40:52,400 the hell, Like, how the hell didn't we get the story. It's 557 00:40:52,400 --> 00:40:53,440 like, so the people who wrote it, because they're close to it, 558 00:40:53,440 --> 00:40:55,840 they must be lying. Be good, they're trying to make it look good 559 00:40:55,960 --> 00:41:00,440 and so anyways, yeah, so but this brings up an important point because 560 00:41:00,480 --> 00:41:05,920 the main thing that we've been doing in universal history from the very start is 561 00:41:05,960 --> 00:41:08,039 actually trying to look at these things like through the eyes of the people who 562 00:41:08,199 --> 00:41:13,400 wrote them, Like yeah, take those people seriously, right, And I 563 00:41:13,400 --> 00:41:16,880 mean to go back to our last video about Christmas. One of the things 564 00:41:16,920 --> 00:41:22,199 we we kind of mentioned a little bit and then probably didn't elaborate on enough 565 00:41:22,239 --> 00:41:25,719 for some people is talking about the date of Christmas. Right, So this 566 00:41:25,880 --> 00:41:30,159 you know, so if you look at if you look at a lot of 567 00:41:30,199 --> 00:41:36,639 early like third century on Christian authors, right who are putting together chronologies, 568 00:41:36,639 --> 00:41:39,039 December the twenty fifth is the date that they signed to the birth of Christ. 569 00:41:39,119 --> 00:41:44,000 Right And this is even before we have reliable dates for like some of 570 00:41:44,039 --> 00:41:47,280 those pagan winter celebrations. Yeah, like like soul in victors and things like 571 00:41:47,320 --> 00:41:52,360 that. So, so if we just look at it from the perspective of 572 00:41:52,400 --> 00:41:54,480 the early Church. This is when everybody believed Chris, Chris was born right. 573 00:41:54,519 --> 00:41:58,000 And so the only reason to reject that, as we said, is 574 00:41:58,079 --> 00:42:00,679 this idea that it just makes too much sense, right, or this idea, 575 00:42:00,719 --> 00:42:04,000 and this is really what it comes down to, is this idea that 576 00:42:04,000 --> 00:42:08,599 if you find something in Christianity that is similar to something in some other religions, 577 00:42:08,880 --> 00:42:12,679 other religions, has to always have been the source. That's right, 578 00:42:13,199 --> 00:42:15,079 right, It can never it could never have happened the other way. Yeah, 579 00:42:15,079 --> 00:42:20,440 because you see the same with the Northern uh, you know, with 580 00:42:20,480 --> 00:42:24,840 the with the Scandinavian stories, which is that if there's a resemblance between Christianity, 581 00:42:24,920 --> 00:42:29,679 even though Christians wrote this down, if there's a resemblance between Christianity and 582 00:42:29,719 --> 00:42:32,400 these stories, it must be the Day influenced Christianity, which is just so 583 00:42:32,480 --> 00:42:38,440 hilarious. I once had somebody really argue, very sincerely with me that that 584 00:42:38,519 --> 00:42:43,000 the story of christ Crucifixion had never happened. It was just based on the 585 00:42:43,159 --> 00:42:45,519 myths of myth of Othan hanging himself on the world tree. I know, 586 00:42:45,639 --> 00:42:50,440 okay, but that myth. Nobody even came up with that story, like 587 00:42:50,840 --> 00:42:52,599 no one had even heard of Othen in the first century a d Like he's 588 00:42:52,599 --> 00:42:57,480 a late god, you know, like he's a very late god in the 589 00:42:57,519 --> 00:43:01,159 Norse pantheon. Like like there's no way that could be the case. And 590 00:43:01,519 --> 00:43:07,760 it was literally written a thousand years later, but by Christians, right, 591 00:43:07,880 --> 00:43:12,639 by Christians. But but this this person just could not accept the idea that 592 00:43:12,719 --> 00:43:16,599 if there was a similarity, that Christianity might have been like the original the 593 00:43:16,639 --> 00:43:20,639 origin of it. So anyway, all of us to say, all of 594 00:43:20,719 --> 00:43:23,440 us to say, what were we talking, We need to get back to 595 00:43:23,519 --> 00:43:29,159 dragons. I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. But uh so all of 596 00:43:29,199 --> 00:43:31,480 us to say it is it is really important to actually point out that if 597 00:43:31,519 --> 00:43:37,480 you read the Bible, you will find that there's a lot of Yahweh killing 598 00:43:37,519 --> 00:43:40,480 the dragon kind of stuff going on in the Old Testament, and by the 599 00:43:40,519 --> 00:43:45,559 way, also in the New Testament. Right, and and this is really 600 00:43:45,599 --> 00:43:50,239 deliberate, This is really really deliberate, right, because so many of those 601 00:43:50,280 --> 00:43:52,039 passages in the Psalms, or for instance, in the Book of Isaiah, 602 00:43:52,079 --> 00:43:59,559 which talks about Christ, talks about Yahweh killing lo Tan or Leviathan. Right, 603 00:44:00,559 --> 00:44:07,199 all of those passages. They they're a they have a sort of polemical 604 00:44:07,840 --> 00:44:09,800 point they're trying to make, which is that all these things that you think 605 00:44:09,840 --> 00:44:16,280 about Bail, right or Bail hate at in particular, right, who who's 606 00:44:16,320 --> 00:44:21,880 like sort of the storm god, and that in that cycle, all these 607 00:44:21,880 --> 00:44:24,079 things that you think are true about him or his sister or whoever is supposed 608 00:44:24,079 --> 00:44:27,880 to kill Leviathan, and the different versions of that story or that you think 609 00:44:27,920 --> 00:44:30,599 are true about Marduk if it's the Babylonian version or whatever, like, all 610 00:44:30,639 --> 00:44:35,920 those things are actually true about the God of Israel, but they're more true 611 00:44:35,920 --> 00:44:37,599 about the God of Israel, right, because bail is swallowed by death. 612 00:44:38,119 --> 00:44:43,719 But you know, but but our God will swallow up death. That that 613 00:44:43,800 --> 00:44:45,559 kind of a thing, right, And so when you come across this this 614 00:44:47,639 --> 00:44:52,280 you could say, like really cosmological, I don't know the right word for 615 00:44:52,360 --> 00:44:59,039 it, imagery of Yahweh sort of you know, writing the clouds and scattering 616 00:44:59,800 --> 00:45:01,840 the light lightning like his arrows and all this different stuff in the Psalms, 617 00:45:02,039 --> 00:45:07,599 which is incredibly cool. There's no need to be alarmed as that at that 618 00:45:07,719 --> 00:45:09,519 as a Christian, right, there's no need to be alarmed at it because 619 00:45:09,519 --> 00:45:14,239 of course, this is his world, this is the world that he made. 620 00:45:14,280 --> 00:45:16,760 These things belonged to him, and those particular passages they do have a 621 00:45:16,760 --> 00:45:20,039 certain purpose, right, they had a purpose, then they also have a 622 00:45:20,039 --> 00:45:23,920 purpose now, right in sort of showing his dominant, his supremacy over creation, 623 00:45:24,079 --> 00:45:30,119 over the waters. And many of Christ's miracles are actually aimed at in 624 00:45:30,159 --> 00:45:32,719 his own lifetime. I think that we talked, you and I talked recently 625 00:45:32,760 --> 00:45:36,199 about this, not in a record of conversation with him, but we were 626 00:45:36,199 --> 00:45:39,400 talking about some new miracles and talking about something like walking on water, right, 627 00:45:39,719 --> 00:45:44,400 And we think of that as like kind of in English, when when 628 00:45:44,440 --> 00:45:46,320 you say so and so could walk on water, we're saying, is that 629 00:45:46,400 --> 00:45:50,880 person is so holy? They're just like usually it's a way of like it's 630 00:45:50,920 --> 00:45:54,440 a little pejorative. It's like saying they're kind of a goody goody two shoes 631 00:45:54,519 --> 00:45:58,519 kind of a thing. But the whole idea of walking on waters is that 632 00:45:58,920 --> 00:46:01,480 is that chaos itself is under his feet. Right. You know that the 633 00:46:02,119 --> 00:46:06,719 Lord who established the earth upon the waters, as it says in the Psalms, 634 00:46:07,199 --> 00:46:09,599 right, it has total dominance over the waves, His total dominance over 635 00:46:09,719 --> 00:46:13,639 the elements, right, these these things that are the abode of death and 636 00:46:13,719 --> 00:46:15,360 chaos, and the serpent, all these different things, all those things are 637 00:46:15,400 --> 00:46:20,079 under Christ's feet. And this is the idea in the icon of Theophany where 638 00:46:20,079 --> 00:46:22,760 we show him crushing the head of the serpent in the waters. This is 639 00:46:23,000 --> 00:46:27,880 in the liturgy in the Orthodox Church. I mean, if you want dragons 640 00:46:27,920 --> 00:46:32,079 in church, like go to baptism and or or like the Great Blessing of 641 00:46:32,079 --> 00:46:36,400 the waters right in Theophany. Right, and here just listen to the prayers 642 00:46:36,840 --> 00:46:39,840 talking about asking asking God, right, the God of Israel, Jesus Christ, 643 00:46:39,840 --> 00:46:44,320 to come down and crush the heads of the serpents in the waters, 644 00:46:44,440 --> 00:46:47,599 right and in any dragon, any unclean spirit, any of those things that 645 00:46:47,639 --> 00:46:52,239 are lurking in water as the sort of like primordial source of chaos and instead 646 00:46:53,360 --> 00:46:58,760 reveal that the creative potential, like the good, the good site, the 647 00:46:58,760 --> 00:47:01,480 good potential of water to create and give life and cleanse. Yeah. Yeah, 648 00:47:01,519 --> 00:47:05,639 there's so many images of Christ with if you understand the relationship between the 649 00:47:05,719 --> 00:47:08,679 dragon and water, and you know, you can see it obviously has Orthodox 650 00:47:08,760 --> 00:47:10,920 it's easier to see because it's all there and the prayers is there in the 651 00:47:12,079 --> 00:47:14,639 icon and he kind of get it. But once you understand that, then 652 00:47:14,639 --> 00:47:20,119 you'll understand some of the images. For example, that Christ always has these 653 00:47:20,119 --> 00:47:23,800 two aspects to him. On the one hand, he is dominating over chaos 654 00:47:24,199 --> 00:47:27,559 and on that's on one hand, and on the other hand, he is 655 00:47:27,599 --> 00:47:31,719 also, let's say, giving himself to the chaos to dominate it in the 656 00:47:31,760 --> 00:47:36,320 surprise. Right, So when in the story where Christ goes and sleeps in 657 00:47:36,360 --> 00:47:39,719 the boat h and then comes out to master the waters, like all of 658 00:47:39,719 --> 00:47:43,800 that is relating to Jonah, it's relating to all these imagery, and it's 659 00:47:43,800 --> 00:47:46,320 obviously, you know, showing what's going to happen in terms of the death 660 00:47:46,360 --> 00:47:51,599 and resurrection. That he can descend into the he can go into the dragon's 661 00:47:51,639 --> 00:47:53,719 mouth, basically enter into the dragon. You know that image that we have 662 00:47:53,800 --> 00:47:59,039 of the warrior that sacrifices himself and goes into the beast and then cuts it 663 00:47:59,119 --> 00:48:06,119 up from the inside. You see that in the iconography of Saint Margaret. 664 00:48:06,360 --> 00:48:07,960 You know, that's it, Like, that's the image of Christianity. But 665 00:48:08,000 --> 00:48:12,920 it is related to the waters and the dragon all comes together and death, 666 00:48:12,960 --> 00:48:15,360 all these images come together. That's also the ending of shark Nado. By 667 00:48:15,400 --> 00:48:20,039 the way, Oh, I haven't seen Charlot. I'm really sorry to even 668 00:48:20,039 --> 00:48:22,639 bring this up. But there's this movie that came out many years ago. 669 00:48:23,960 --> 00:48:27,320 I think it was like two houses ago or something. For us, so 670 00:48:27,639 --> 00:48:30,519 a long time ago. I had way fewer children, But this movie came 671 00:48:30,519 --> 00:48:34,239 out, and it was like the idea was like just mash up to nineties, 672 00:48:34,840 --> 00:48:37,559 you know, like mash up Jaws with Knight of the Twisters or something 673 00:48:37,639 --> 00:48:39,679 like that kind of a thing. And so like there's this big tornado and 674 00:48:39,719 --> 00:48:43,920 it starts dumping sharks everywhere, and the sharks are eating everybody. It's a 675 00:48:44,000 --> 00:48:46,559 terrible movie. It's really dumb, really bad, but it was funny, 676 00:48:46,599 --> 00:48:50,320 how like in the end. So I sat down with my brother in law 677 00:48:50,400 --> 00:48:52,239 to watch it as like kind of like a Mystery Science Theater three thousand, 678 00:48:52,280 --> 00:48:58,159 like like mockt kind of thing, and it was really interesting. Like at 679 00:48:58,199 --> 00:49:00,559 the end of the movie, the main character gets swallowed by a shark and 680 00:49:00,559 --> 00:49:04,199 then he chainsaws his way out. And I even remember at the time thinking 681 00:49:04,440 --> 00:49:07,360 like, man, you know, even making a goofy movie. That's that 682 00:49:07,360 --> 00:49:10,880 that was that was not made with any intention of it being good. They 683 00:49:12,000 --> 00:49:14,559 just made this to make a dumb movie just for the memes. But you 684 00:49:14,599 --> 00:49:16,280 know, even even at the end, like they couldn't get away from the 685 00:49:16,360 --> 00:49:20,559 Christian symbolism, right, like cutting your way out of the monster. So 686 00:49:20,760 --> 00:49:22,719 yeah, yeah, really sorry everybody. I didn't know I was going to 687 00:49:22,800 --> 00:49:30,880 talk about that today. But I mean, actually, I mean the movie 688 00:49:30,960 --> 00:49:36,079 Jaws, right, is a great example of really what is the dragon story? 689 00:49:36,039 --> 00:49:38,039 Yeah? Right? The idea of like the dragon lurking in the depths. 690 00:49:38,079 --> 00:49:43,679 Now, you could say that, well, a shark isn't a dragon, 691 00:49:43,719 --> 00:49:45,880 thighteven a reptile, you know, what are you going on about, 692 00:49:45,880 --> 00:49:49,159 et cetera, et cetera. Right, But but it's functioning. It's functioning 693 00:49:49,199 --> 00:49:52,000 in that story. It's functioning as a dragon. Yeah. Well, we 694 00:49:52,000 --> 00:49:57,639 can see like that the representation of the mantra that swallowed up Jonah in in 695 00:49:57,719 --> 00:50:00,039 tradition, even from like the second century image we have one of the earliest 696 00:50:00,039 --> 00:50:04,840 images in Christianity we have is of Jonah being swallowed by that that uh, 697 00:50:05,039 --> 00:50:07,320 that fish. But it's a basically a sea monster. It's a dragon. 698 00:50:07,400 --> 00:50:12,800 Really, it's a sea dragon. Man. There's some crazy stuff about the 699 00:50:13,400 --> 00:50:15,800 about Jonah in the services of the Orthodox Church as well, Like if you 700 00:50:15,800 --> 00:50:20,599 go to Mattins, one of the cannons at Mattens like always says the theme 701 00:50:20,639 --> 00:50:22,800 of Jonah. Yeah, Jonah matt cannon like every morning. If you're at 702 00:50:22,800 --> 00:50:25,599 a place where they're doing Mattens every day, right, or you know, 703 00:50:25,639 --> 00:50:28,840 at least every Sunday at your church, right, there will be at least 704 00:50:28,880 --> 00:50:31,400 one verse or set of verses that on the theme of the feast. But 705 00:50:31,400 --> 00:50:35,920 but it will work Jonah in there's some somehow and you know this idea of 706 00:50:35,920 --> 00:50:38,760 of you know, the sea monster spewing out Jonah like a babe from the 707 00:50:38,800 --> 00:50:45,960 womb ryea Christ like as from as from a bridal chamber like stuff like that 708 00:50:46,119 --> 00:50:52,639 is is wild stuff crazy? Yeah so so yeah. Uh. The the 709 00:50:52,719 --> 00:50:55,880 other thing that I want to say, though, is that there is a 710 00:50:57,920 --> 00:51:01,000 there is a positive aspect to drag ends, or at least this idea that 711 00:51:01,079 --> 00:51:06,440 you can take some of the aspects of the dragon. It's it's so like 712 00:51:06,519 --> 00:51:12,119 to go back to the hybrid. Right. Hybrids are dangerous, right because 713 00:51:12,119 --> 00:51:16,360 of for various different reasons, Right, But they're also hybrids have a certain 714 00:51:16,440 --> 00:51:22,320 like resilience to them, right, And in fact, in animal husband dry 715 00:51:22,400 --> 00:51:24,519 and things like that, or this is the whole horticulture. The whole idea 716 00:51:24,559 --> 00:51:29,679 of like hybrid resilience is like if you get a strain, like a species 717 00:51:29,760 --> 00:51:34,199 or a breed that's like too pure bread. This happened with fruit trees. 718 00:51:35,400 --> 00:51:37,480 It also happens with like modern like dog breeds. You know, if you 719 00:51:37,519 --> 00:51:40,320 look at what a German shepherd looks like now as opposed to what would look 720 00:51:40,320 --> 00:51:45,280 like even one hundred years ago, you know, it's really dramatic difference where 721 00:51:45,360 --> 00:51:51,920 you selectively breed too long for these very specific features, right, and then 722 00:51:52,000 --> 00:51:55,360 what you lose as a result is everything that made the breed strong and actually 723 00:51:55,400 --> 00:51:59,400 capable of doing work right. And so then the question of well, how 724 00:51:59,400 --> 00:52:02,079 do I get take one of these? You know, you probably can't take 725 00:52:02,079 --> 00:52:05,920 your cocker spaniel hunting, for instance, right, even though he's a bird 726 00:52:05,920 --> 00:52:10,000 dog, right, probably not gonna probably not gonna work out because he's too 727 00:52:10,000 --> 00:52:15,360 fragile. My parents own mini cocker Spaniels when I was a kid, and 728 00:52:15,400 --> 00:52:17,079 I could just tell you they're very fragile, very neurotic animals, right, 729 00:52:17,159 --> 00:52:22,679 But it wasn't always so, and so, you know, so there is 730 00:52:22,679 --> 00:52:25,800 a kind of like a strength and a resilience to the idea of the hybrid. 731 00:52:27,559 --> 00:52:31,599 Also the dragon's capacity as a guardian, right, if you're guarding something, 732 00:52:34,239 --> 00:52:36,639 you're only a threat to what's on the outside. But if you're on 733 00:52:36,679 --> 00:52:39,000 the inside, then you actually want that, right. And so, lots 734 00:52:39,000 --> 00:52:42,480 and lots of cultures, and I mean lots and lots of cultures. Pretty 735 00:52:42,519 --> 00:52:45,159 much every drag culture that has a dragon story, which is all of them, 736 00:52:45,599 --> 00:52:52,199 will use dragons in this kind of apotrophaic way. Welsh culture is a 737 00:52:52,239 --> 00:52:54,159 great example. It's my favorite example because of course, you know it's right 738 00:52:54,199 --> 00:52:57,639 on the flag, it's right on the coat of arms. It goes back 739 00:52:57,679 --> 00:53:00,400 to like the oldest art stuff. I mean our himself, right, penn 740 00:53:00,519 --> 00:53:07,639 dragon right, head of a dragon, right, like like he's Arthur himself 741 00:53:07,719 --> 00:53:13,000 is associated with dragon imagery over and against right the Saxons, right, and 742 00:53:13,039 --> 00:53:16,079 that that's that that early story like generation or two before Arthur, right of 743 00:53:16,519 --> 00:53:20,760 you know, the the white dragon the red dragon fighting right, you know, 744 00:53:20,800 --> 00:53:23,360 beneath the castle, and eventually the red dragon is, which is the 745 00:53:23,960 --> 00:53:27,440 Welsh or the Brythonic dragon, is going to win the fight, right. 746 00:53:28,000 --> 00:53:35,039 And so, but also lots of lots of dragon stuff going on in uh 747 00:53:35,280 --> 00:53:39,800 Germanic iron Age culture, Old English, Old Norse, et cetera. Very 748 00:53:39,800 --> 00:53:45,039 common to to put dragons on things like the crest of a helmet or the 749 00:53:45,079 --> 00:53:49,960 face of a shield, or the prow of a ship. Right, And 750 00:53:49,960 --> 00:53:52,639 this is stuff that just sort of like came naturally to people, like if 751 00:53:52,639 --> 00:53:53,840 I want this to be scary to my enemies, what would I put on 752 00:53:53,880 --> 00:53:57,960 it? The scariest thing that anybody could imagine? Yeah? Right? Which 753 00:53:58,000 --> 00:54:00,119 which is a dragon? Right? And he's playing with very this is playing 754 00:54:00,119 --> 00:54:05,480 a very very deep symbolism that ends up in the medical symbolism as well, 755 00:54:05,599 --> 00:54:08,119 you know, the idea of you know, I think I might have mentioned 756 00:54:08,159 --> 00:54:14,159 this before, the in the the symbol of the serpent on the on the 757 00:54:14,239 --> 00:54:20,239 rod, the what's his name, what's the name of the god? No, 758 00:54:20,280 --> 00:54:24,039 it's not the Cadusius, It's I'm going to think about it later. 759 00:54:24,079 --> 00:54:28,639 It's going to come to me anyways. So the Roman god of the basically 760 00:54:28,679 --> 00:54:32,239 the Roman god of healing. He the story is that he he kills the 761 00:54:32,280 --> 00:54:37,960 gorgon, which is this dragon kind of see serpent monster, and and he 762 00:54:38,079 --> 00:54:45,079 takes the blood from the right side of the serpent and makes it's it's it's 763 00:54:45,079 --> 00:54:49,920 hermes, but it's it's called the cadus that it's not. No, this 764 00:54:50,039 --> 00:54:52,159 is it's not the same. This is this is a different this is the 765 00:54:52,320 --> 00:54:58,360 different healing god with Yes it is. I'm sorry. I don't know why. 766 00:54:58,440 --> 00:55:00,920 I I don't know why. I don't know why his name has been 767 00:55:00,960 --> 00:55:02,639 coming to me. I usually I've written about this and it doesn't matter. 768 00:55:05,159 --> 00:55:07,960 Uh. And so he takes the blood from the right side of the serpent 769 00:55:07,360 --> 00:55:10,760 to make healing. But then the idea is that the blood from the left 770 00:55:10,760 --> 00:55:15,119 side of the serpent basically is the poison. And so this idea of this 771 00:55:15,320 --> 00:55:21,039 apotropic function of poison, right as that which kills you that which saves you, 772 00:55:21,719 --> 00:55:23,920 is that is the very symbolism of of medicine itself. Right, it's 773 00:55:23,920 --> 00:55:28,800 a it's a it's using the poison to create a cure out of the poison. 774 00:55:28,920 --> 00:55:31,400 Right, This idea of of of trampling death by death, basically, 775 00:55:31,480 --> 00:55:37,760 of using death against itself, it's always been weird to me. As the 776 00:55:37,840 --> 00:55:43,719 side how if you look at a lot of ancient abstract imagery of the Cadusius 777 00:55:43,840 --> 00:55:49,920 or you know, Anyway, the rod you're talking about that it has a 778 00:55:49,960 --> 00:55:53,960 lot It's the rod of Asclepius. Okay, such an idiot. I'm like, 779 00:55:54,000 --> 00:55:58,760 it's going to come. Just send the Google search on come to it's 780 00:55:58,760 --> 00:56:01,920 all right, so uh uh yeah, buffering, yes. But but when 781 00:56:01,960 --> 00:56:07,880 you look at when you look at abstract versions of it, you find in 782 00:56:07,880 --> 00:56:10,480 like Sumerian imagery, because it's there, and it's in India as well, 783 00:56:10,599 --> 00:56:15,599 right that a lot of times abstract it looks like it looks like a DNA 784 00:56:15,599 --> 00:56:17,960 helix. Yeah, which I've always thought is a very interesting That's a good 785 00:56:19,000 --> 00:56:23,400 way to represent it, Like the Sclepian the rod of the Cadusian rod is 786 00:56:23,400 --> 00:56:27,719 a good way to represent it. Instead of just one you have two snakes. 787 00:56:27,760 --> 00:56:30,719 Basically that's a right snake and a left snake. One that two are 788 00:56:30,719 --> 00:56:35,599 facing each other, like in in conflict. Uh and in the in the 789 00:56:35,639 --> 00:56:38,000 case of Hermes, it really has to do with the bridge. It has 790 00:56:38,039 --> 00:56:43,239 to do with it in between space that is a double sided space, right, 791 00:56:43,719 --> 00:56:46,639 This is the Yeah, the problems Esclippias has the one snake, the 792 00:56:46,960 --> 00:56:50,480 Cadusius has the two. Yeah, guys, you're watching us, just like 793 00:56:50,519 --> 00:56:53,360 figure this out, figuring it out, but escape its is directly related there 794 00:56:53,440 --> 00:57:00,000 to healings in Roman mythology because hermis is is in someone seen as this mess 795 00:57:00,079 --> 00:57:04,000 in your figure. It's related because the messenger or the in between or the 796 00:57:04,719 --> 00:57:07,880 bridge or the this is the problem of the hybrid. Right, It's like 797 00:57:07,920 --> 00:57:12,519 this between space that goes both ways. It's like it can either uh, 798 00:57:12,719 --> 00:57:15,960 it can either be a guardian or you're right, it can either be something 799 00:57:15,960 --> 00:57:19,760 which is defining or something which is going to bring bring chaos. Right, 800 00:57:19,760 --> 00:57:23,480 that's the beau is also associated with rhetoric, was also associated with like rhetoric. 801 00:57:23,519 --> 00:57:27,480 It was the symbol of rhetoric in the ancient world, I think for 802 00:57:27,519 --> 00:57:30,559 the same for the same reason, right, you know, the capacity of 803 00:57:30,599 --> 00:57:35,360 rhetorics to sort of hal or hurt you know. Yeah, yeah, so 804 00:57:37,360 --> 00:57:42,440 dragging, Yes, integrating, I'm sorry, guys, it's hard because dragons 805 00:57:42,519 --> 00:57:45,000 will bring you all over the place, That's exactly what they do. Because 806 00:57:45,000 --> 00:57:49,239 the very the symbolm is quite is quite big. So so when are we're 807 00:57:49,239 --> 00:57:52,039 talking about like integrating the aspects of the serpent or integrating the aspects of the 808 00:57:52,119 --> 00:57:58,280 dragon. Right, this is where this is why basically everybody that I've ever 809 00:57:58,320 --> 00:58:00,880 talked to about doing this video the we're doing right now, we'll say something 810 00:58:00,920 --> 00:58:05,159 like, oh, I'm really looking forward to your Symbolic World video on and 811 00:58:05,199 --> 00:58:07,159 I've had like ten people say this to me, really looking forward to the 812 00:58:07,199 --> 00:58:12,199 Symbolic World video on dragons, because I don't understand what's going on with Asian 813 00:58:12,280 --> 00:58:15,920 dragons and why they're different, you know, because they're obviously they're very different, 814 00:58:15,920 --> 00:58:17,880 because they're like good luck and all these different things. Well, folks, 815 00:58:19,000 --> 00:58:22,559 here it is. They're the same. That's it. They're the same 816 00:58:22,719 --> 00:58:30,920 thing. If you go back and look at really early like Bronze Age Chinese 817 00:58:30,000 --> 00:58:36,119 dragons, they're usually sometimes called pig dragons or pig headed dragons because basically it's 818 00:58:36,159 --> 00:58:37,880 like a serpent, usually kind of curled up in a sort of a fetal 819 00:58:37,880 --> 00:58:40,880 position, but it's a serpent with the head of a pig. And then 820 00:58:40,920 --> 00:58:52,480 it seems like contact with the with the like the Persian world via the Silk 821 00:58:52,599 --> 00:58:57,679 Road. Right, So, anytime we're talking about anything actually from this period, 822 00:58:57,679 --> 00:59:00,760 you have to understand there there was a very very heavily used trade route 823 00:59:01,079 --> 00:59:07,239 between China and Baghdad, you know, and and uh, you know, 824 00:59:07,000 --> 00:59:12,440 even before Baghdad was Baghdad like very heavily used trade route between the ancient Near 825 00:59:12,480 --> 00:59:16,280 East and and therefore eventually the Roman world when that comes to developed. But 826 00:59:16,320 --> 00:59:20,480 anyway, very very well used trade route between the ancient Near East and the 827 00:59:20,519 --> 00:59:24,800 Far East. And what this means is that if if if you think of 828 00:59:24,840 --> 00:59:30,360 these things to be like totally different worlds, it's not totally accurate. They 829 00:59:30,639 --> 00:59:34,519 are in some ways, but but but they actually share a lot more than 830 00:59:34,519 --> 00:59:37,920 you would think. So it seems like because of by the Iron Age, 831 00:59:37,920 --> 00:59:45,039 because of contact with dragon imagery and Persia and elsewhere, that eventually the the 832 00:59:45,039 --> 00:59:51,440 the Chinese version of the dragon comes into much greater alignment with That's why I 833 00:59:51,480 --> 00:59:53,719 was saying earlier. If you look at a picture of a Persian dragon, 834 00:59:53,760 --> 00:59:57,800 which we'll put up here on this screen, it looks just like a Chinese 835 00:59:57,840 --> 01:00:00,119 dragon essentially, right, And so then whatever actually happens in China's that you 836 01:00:00,119 --> 01:00:04,840 get two forms. They have two different names, but basically the main difference 837 01:00:04,880 --> 01:00:07,559 is one has wings and the other one doesn't. And then eventually the wingless 838 01:00:07,639 --> 01:00:12,239 version it becomes predominant. But if you go back and you look at the 839 01:00:12,320 --> 01:00:15,440 very earliest Chinese dragon stories which we have recorded, and we have some very 840 01:00:15,480 --> 01:00:21,360 old ones because they were an incredibly literate society even from you very early time. 841 01:00:22,480 --> 01:00:28,559 Their water, they're their guardian. There they are. They are serpentine 842 01:00:28,599 --> 01:00:32,599 spirits or deities or beings who guard bodies of water, and and then sometimes 843 01:00:32,719 --> 01:00:37,000 this is what's interesting to make also control the rainfall. Mm hmm. So 844 01:00:37,119 --> 01:00:39,760 normally, like in the what you do have in the West, and like 845 01:00:39,800 --> 01:00:46,559 the Indo European version of the story is that the the main enemy of the 846 01:00:46,639 --> 01:00:52,039 dragon is often the thunder god who controls the rainfall, and in China it's 847 01:00:52,239 --> 01:00:54,719 that the sort of like the dragon is the thunder god sometimes ye, but 848 01:00:54,840 --> 01:01:00,639 yeah, is a is a serpentine deity or spirit or being or monster that's 849 01:01:00,639 --> 01:01:05,679 a hybrid of all these different kinds of animals and controls these various bodies of 850 01:01:05,840 --> 01:01:08,519 water. And a lot of the early stories have to do with not trying 851 01:01:08,519 --> 01:01:13,119 to slay the dragon, although there is one that I've one or two that 852 01:01:13,159 --> 01:01:15,920 I found, Although a lot of the dragon slaying the stories actually seem to 853 01:01:15,960 --> 01:01:23,079 have come from Buddhism, who probably probably got them from India or maybe from 854 01:01:24,039 --> 01:01:28,639 the Christian Near East something like that. And then so in some like later 855 01:01:28,679 --> 01:01:34,559 Buddhist mythology, dragons do become representative of these demons that represent the passions and 856 01:01:34,559 --> 01:01:38,880 etc. But in the earliest stuff, for the most part, instead of 857 01:01:39,280 --> 01:01:43,639 trying to slay the dragon to get the water, you're trying to appease the 858 01:01:43,760 --> 01:01:46,159 dragon in some way the gift of some kind trying to appease the dragon to 859 01:01:46,159 --> 01:01:51,280 get the water. What eventually happens, and this is really important for a 860 01:01:51,760 --> 01:01:58,920 Chinese cultural identity all the way up to the revolution, really is that the 861 01:01:59,000 --> 01:02:05,480 dragon becomes associated specifically with the emperor, to the point that it becomes illegal 862 01:02:05,840 --> 01:02:10,400 to for anybody that's not part of the imperial family to even use a dragon 863 01:02:10,440 --> 01:02:15,519 as a symbol on anything. M And there are there's whole different kinds of 864 01:02:15,559 --> 01:02:19,800 things about I mentioned earlier. There's a lot of symbolism for different different kinds 865 01:02:19,800 --> 01:02:22,079 of dragon, like certain numbers of features and scales and spots and things like 866 01:02:22,119 --> 01:02:27,039 this. So there's like one dragon that you would use if you were the 867 01:02:27,039 --> 01:02:30,719 emperor, and but then if you were some member of the imperial family but 868 01:02:30,760 --> 01:02:32,320 not the Emperor yourself, there was another dragon that you would get to use, 869 01:02:32,360 --> 01:02:36,440 but it wouldn't be like it wouldn't have quite all the same features. 870 01:02:36,480 --> 01:02:40,639 And so but basically the dragon became synonymous with imperial power, right, and 871 01:02:40,719 --> 01:02:45,719 so in that same way that you can take the aspect of the dragon and 872 01:02:45,760 --> 01:02:51,840 then kind of harness it. Right. But then also there's also with that, 873 01:02:51,920 --> 01:02:57,480 there's always this this there's always an aspect to a dragon of its potential 874 01:02:57,519 --> 01:03:01,559 to hoard or oppress. Yeah, you could imagine that. The connection is 875 01:03:01,599 --> 01:03:07,840 that if you see the dragon as a guardian of water, you could understand 876 01:03:07,840 --> 01:03:12,360 that as a guardian of blessings like you could you could that could easily go 877 01:03:12,440 --> 01:03:15,719 into that direction. And so once you see that, then you can understand 878 01:03:15,800 --> 01:03:20,320 why the guardian, the guardian of the blessing, the guardian of waters could 879 01:03:20,360 --> 01:03:22,280 be like a sign of good luck in that sense. Right. It's right 880 01:03:22,360 --> 01:03:25,760 then said, if I make the dragon happy, then I then it opens 881 01:03:25,840 --> 01:03:30,559 up the door so that this stuff will come down on me. And you 882 01:03:30,559 --> 01:03:34,840 can understand why that would then end up being that could be related to the 883 01:03:34,840 --> 01:03:37,280 emperor or to some person of authority. Right, it are the guardians of 884 01:03:37,320 --> 01:03:43,480 blessing, the guardian of blessings, the other really interesting thing is if you 885 01:03:43,559 --> 01:03:45,719 read a lot of old stuff about dragons and Chinese and this is still the 886 01:03:45,760 --> 01:03:50,920 case, by the way, in modern like Asian organized crime. It's this 887 01:03:51,000 --> 01:03:52,719 idea that if you put the image of the dragon on something, but you're 888 01:03:52,760 --> 01:03:55,599 not worthy of it. Uh. Actually you find the same kind of thing 889 01:03:55,639 --> 01:04:00,360 in Scandinavia and uh mythology and stuff. But if you if you put the 890 01:04:00,480 --> 01:04:02,079 if you put the image of the dragon on something, but you are not 891 01:04:02,559 --> 01:04:06,880 sufficiently dragon like yourself, then it's not good luck. It's actually quite the 892 01:04:06,880 --> 01:04:11,159 opposite, like the dragon will consume you. Like if you if you take 893 01:04:11,199 --> 01:04:15,920 the symbol of the dragon for yourself, but you're not strong and lucky and 894 01:04:16,519 --> 01:04:19,239 you know all these things that a dragon is, right, if you're not 895 01:04:19,320 --> 01:04:24,079 those things enough, then actually you'll get the wrong kind of attention from the 896 01:04:24,159 --> 01:04:28,519 dragon, which is which I think is the case of like apotrophic imagery in 897 01:04:28,599 --> 01:04:30,760 general. Right. Yeah, the idea that that you want to make sure 898 01:04:30,760 --> 01:04:35,239 it's outward facing and if but if you're not like yourself strong, then try 899 01:04:35,280 --> 01:04:39,599 to put yourself behind this thing and sort of hide yourself behind it, it'll 900 01:04:39,639 --> 01:04:42,440 end up turning in on you and kind of consuming it and eating right. 901 01:04:42,440 --> 01:04:45,519 And you can understand that as the you know, if you think of Cerberus 902 01:04:45,639 --> 01:04:50,639 or these kind of marginal figures that are in between spaces that guard the guard 903 01:04:50,679 --> 01:04:54,400 the world of death, for example, and they kind of act, they 904 01:04:54,519 --> 01:04:57,960 kind of act both ways. They'll stop, they stop things from the outside 905 01:04:58,000 --> 01:05:00,679 to come in, but they can also prevent you from going out out if 906 01:05:00,719 --> 01:05:08,159 you're not if you're not careful. And the similarity between medieval iconography, Western 907 01:05:08,199 --> 01:05:14,639 medieval iconography of demons and Western medieval iconography of gargoyles is exactly that in some 908 01:05:14,679 --> 01:05:17,480 ways they very similar in nature, and one is facing out and the other 909 01:05:17,639 --> 01:05:23,000 is coming towards you, but it can always That's why there's even an ambiguous 910 01:05:23,239 --> 01:05:28,960 in modern kind of popular culture, there is an ambiguous uh relationship to things 911 01:05:29,079 --> 01:05:32,079 like gargoyles, let's say, you know, where they're seen almost as ominous 912 01:05:32,079 --> 01:05:35,840 and evil because they're on that they're on that edge, you know, and 913 01:05:35,880 --> 01:05:39,559 so something to say is maybe just like kind of a final note to this 914 01:05:39,920 --> 01:05:45,840 is that there are plenty of examples in Christian iconography of of you would you 915 01:05:45,880 --> 01:05:48,360 would think we would just always be anti dragon all the time, but there 916 01:05:48,360 --> 01:05:55,039 are plenty of examples of dragons, again, Cherubim and Seraphim being a really 917 01:05:55,079 --> 01:05:59,280 easy example, right, but there are sort of like monsters that are on 918 01:05:59,280 --> 01:06:01,719 our side, or the idea of the monster guarding paradise. I've been to 919 01:06:01,920 --> 01:06:06,280 lots of the Orthodox churches in more than one country where on the on the 920 01:06:06,280 --> 01:06:10,840 holy doors, right, the holy doors in front of the altar, there 921 01:06:10,880 --> 01:06:15,360 would be like sort of either border patterns of dragons, right, oh yeah, 922 01:06:15,639 --> 01:06:18,000 and the same thing in the Middle Aged the doors of churches later on 923 01:06:18,119 --> 01:06:21,760 when pews come in, even like carving some of the outside of pews and 924 01:06:21,760 --> 01:06:25,719 things like that, right. So, so this is this is actually and 925 01:06:25,760 --> 01:06:29,639 of course lots of Christian countries, lots of Christian countries use dragons as part 926 01:06:29,639 --> 01:06:32,000 of their Now they're massive dragons on man athos, uh, you know, 927 01:06:32,440 --> 01:06:38,559 on the aiconistoces, and usually they are akin to the symbolism of the bishop's 928 01:06:38,599 --> 01:06:42,880 staff, which is that you'll usually have two dragons under the cross kind of 929 01:06:42,880 --> 01:06:45,719 facing the cross on the akonistasis if you have across at the top of it, 930 01:06:47,000 --> 01:06:49,280 you know, and it I think it is related to this. But 931 01:06:49,360 --> 01:06:56,239 the deepest and most mysterious aspect of the symbolism is the fact that Christ takes 932 01:06:56,280 --> 01:06:59,440 the shape of a serpent on the cross. That is, that's and that's 933 01:06:59,440 --> 01:07:02,079 where I wanted to end. Was was and it starts with Moses lifting up 934 01:07:02,119 --> 01:07:05,440 the serpent in the wilderness. So he takes the pole and puts the serpent 935 01:07:05,480 --> 01:07:10,880 on it, and of course going back to the rod of Asclepius or the 936 01:07:10,960 --> 01:07:14,800 Cadusius. Right, you've got, uh, this idea of like a serpent 937 01:07:14,800 --> 01:07:16,559 on a pole as a source of healing, as a source of life. 938 01:07:17,239 --> 01:07:23,239 Right, But that's in that's an exodus, yea. Or numbers anyway, 939 01:07:23,679 --> 01:07:26,719 it's it's uh, yeah, it's in numbers. Yeah, it's in numbers. 940 01:07:26,800 --> 01:07:32,880 And and uh. And Christ says, my crucifixion is like this, 941 01:07:34,480 --> 01:07:39,519 you know. He says that it's one of the times that the Bible interprets 942 01:07:39,559 --> 01:07:42,480 the Bible for you, which is always handy. You know, like sometimes 943 01:07:42,519 --> 01:07:45,760 you can like sit around and like really think about these things and overthink them 944 01:07:45,760 --> 01:07:49,760 a little bit, but there are a precious few number of times where Jesus 945 01:07:49,840 --> 01:07:53,880 will just tell you, this is what this thing means. Right, And 946 01:07:53,920 --> 01:07:57,159 so he says, even as Moses lifted up the serpent, in the wilderness. 947 01:07:57,199 --> 01:08:00,199 Even so, the must must the son of Man be lifted up right. 948 01:08:00,239 --> 01:08:01,199 And if I am withd it up, when I am looked it up, 949 01:08:01,199 --> 01:08:05,000 I will draw all men to me. I said, we're going to 950 01:08:05,039 --> 01:08:09,039 stop here. But but I just want to say, like, yeah, 951 01:08:09,079 --> 01:08:13,079 to understand the mystery of Christ, you know, you have to understand it, 952 01:08:13,199 --> 01:08:15,159 or the mystery of the God of Israel and how he manifests himself in 953 01:08:15,199 --> 01:08:18,199 the world, you have to be able to see the three parts of this 954 01:08:18,319 --> 01:08:23,000 story, which is, on the one hand, Christ is swallowed by the 955 01:08:23,039 --> 01:08:25,880 snake. On the one end, he becomes the snake, and on the 956 01:08:26,039 --> 01:08:29,399 on the one hand, he kills the snake. And he does all three 957 01:08:29,760 --> 01:08:34,279 kind of simultaneously on the cross, which is very it's I mean, it's 958 01:08:34,359 --> 01:08:38,880 it's one of those instances where you know, there's no story to tell after 959 01:08:38,880 --> 01:08:42,159 that that it's pretty much reads the limit of what the symbolism of the snake 960 01:08:42,319 --> 01:08:45,479 is. There is this there is this kind of a strange thing with the 961 01:08:45,520 --> 01:08:49,319 image of the dragon, especially the winged dragon. So just talk about this 962 01:08:49,439 --> 01:08:55,039 variant for a moment. Not every dragon has weens. That's it's not like 963 01:08:55,079 --> 01:08:59,680 a universal but lots of dragons have wings, one can fly right, going 964 01:08:59,720 --> 01:09:01,760 back to like the Asian dragon that you know, they always they're always able 965 01:09:01,840 --> 01:09:05,359 to fly right, And this is why they can be associated with the terrestrial 966 01:09:05,359 --> 01:09:10,800 water and also the water that's from above. Yeah, there is this kind 967 01:09:10,800 --> 01:09:15,239 of weird thing with serpents and birds. So this is something that came up 968 01:09:15,239 --> 01:09:19,199 in the Bailolf class that I've just thought about a lot since. Is it 969 01:09:19,279 --> 01:09:24,119 talking about this idea that you have in some old stories, for instance the 970 01:09:24,920 --> 01:09:29,520 story of Faukner, who again is the sort of the archetypical old Norse dragon. 971 01:09:29,600 --> 01:09:33,000 This idea that if you eat the heart of a dragon, you can 972 01:09:33,119 --> 01:09:36,840 understand the speech of birds, right, to understand the speech of birds, 973 01:09:36,840 --> 01:09:41,960 and the idea of the speech of birds is always associated with let's say, 974 01:09:41,960 --> 01:09:45,800 like heavenly wisdom. So then like, what's what's going on there? What's 975 01:09:45,800 --> 01:09:50,520 the connection there? And and as we were talking about it, it occurred 976 01:09:50,640 --> 01:09:57,079 to me, you know Christ's command, right, be why is as serpents 977 01:09:57,239 --> 01:10:00,399 and armless as doves? Right? That this is connected? The this has 978 01:10:00,439 --> 01:10:02,319 to be that this is connected in some way, right, Yeah, that 979 01:10:02,399 --> 01:10:08,319 in some ways those two actually if you do them simultaneously. Yeah. Yeah, 980 01:10:08,479 --> 01:10:12,239 and and again that's like one of those things that I still have not 981 01:10:12,800 --> 01:10:16,279 like fully you know, I don't know. It's hard to talk about because 982 01:10:16,279 --> 01:10:18,920 it's one of those things like I have an intuition there, but it's not 983 01:10:18,960 --> 01:10:23,159 fully formed. Yeah, it's difficult because one of the things that makes it 984 01:10:23,199 --> 01:10:26,880 difficult is that in some ways, this symbolism of the wing serpent, for 985 01:10:26,920 --> 01:10:31,640 example, uh is one of the most is one of the oldest and kind 986 01:10:31,680 --> 01:10:36,640 of the most universal symbolism, Like you find these the symbolism in North America, 987 01:10:36,680 --> 01:10:43,119 in like South America, when the Spanish North America and Egypt. It's 988 01:10:43,159 --> 01:10:46,720 really everywhere, and so it is in some ways a you know, it 989 01:10:46,800 --> 01:10:51,039 is this union of heaven and Earth. Maybe it is this. It's kind 990 01:10:51,039 --> 01:10:57,600 of poking at certain imagery that's very difficult to fully grasp. And because of 991 01:10:57,640 --> 01:11:04,600 what the dragon represents can kind of understand how it can become a parasitical you 992 01:11:04,600 --> 01:11:09,960 know, if you understand it as a guardian, it can always be both 993 01:11:10,119 --> 01:11:16,000 affording and preventing, and it can always at the same time become how can 994 01:11:16,079 --> 01:11:20,199 I say this, just like the principalities in general, Let's say you imagine 995 01:11:20,199 --> 01:11:26,880 principalities above you how they can afford grace from above or they can actually make 996 01:11:27,119 --> 01:11:30,159 the grace stop from where they are. That seems to be one of the 997 01:11:30,600 --> 01:11:34,720 some of the symbolism that is being shaken up here. Okay, So in 998 01:11:34,760 --> 01:11:39,359 your recent conversation with Father Joseph Lucas, which was tremendous, by the way, 999 01:11:39,399 --> 01:11:42,199 people should go back and listen to it if they didn't listen, because 1000 01:11:42,399 --> 01:11:45,000 because it was really really good. But one of the curious things in there 1001 01:11:45,000 --> 01:11:48,960 Saint Cyril of Alexandria, when he's talking about the scapegoat, right, and 1002 01:11:49,000 --> 01:11:55,239 he says, Christ being the scapegoat being sent out into the wilderness is like 1003 01:11:55,319 --> 01:11:59,399 Christ's ascending to heaven. And I remember how weird that seemed. Right, 1004 01:12:00,279 --> 01:12:03,079 And this is one of the frustrating things about listening to your friends. You 1005 01:12:03,119 --> 01:12:04,920 know, and Father Joseph is a good friend of mine, and you're a 1006 01:12:04,960 --> 01:12:08,760 good friend of mine. The really difficult thing about listening to your friends have 1007 01:12:08,800 --> 01:12:12,119 a conversation but you're not actually there for keep what need to jump in? 1008 01:12:12,319 --> 01:12:15,319 I know, and what I wanted to say about that. Actually, so 1009 01:12:15,399 --> 01:12:16,880 this is me jumping in what I want to say about that actually is that 1010 01:12:16,880 --> 01:12:21,359 that's a very that's actually a relatively common Patristic interpretation. You find the same 1011 01:12:21,359 --> 01:12:25,479 thing in Saint Gregor with Palamas, who lived a lot longer, you know, 1012 01:12:26,039 --> 01:12:30,159 much later than Saint Cerial. And the reason the reason for this, 1013 01:12:30,000 --> 01:12:33,840 it goes back to this idea like we were used to like thinking of the 1014 01:12:33,840 --> 01:12:39,520 wilderness as the abode of the demons, but also the air is the abode 1015 01:12:39,520 --> 01:12:42,640 of the demons. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, the air is 1016 01:12:42,960 --> 01:12:45,479 the air is the abode of the demons. Right, And so you have 1017 01:12:45,520 --> 01:12:48,079 this idea saying Gregor talks about of Christ sort of like clearing a path for 1018 01:12:48,199 --> 01:12:51,239 us as he's ascending, right, clearing a path for us so that we 1019 01:12:51,239 --> 01:12:57,159 can pass sort of pass up unharmed. Even I know it's like people freak 1020 01:12:57,199 --> 01:12:59,399 out if you mentioned this, but even the idea of you know what I'm 1021 01:12:59,399 --> 01:13:01,159 gonna say, Yeah, we know what you'm talking about. Yeah, that's 1022 01:13:01,199 --> 01:13:05,239 what it's dealing with the spirits of the air in the toll houses that you 1023 01:13:05,319 --> 01:13:08,720 have to kind of encounter. Well, in Saint Paul, we're in the 1024 01:13:08,840 --> 01:13:12,319 set on Sunday's reading. You know, that's what it's. Yeah, it 1025 01:13:12,479 --> 01:13:16,039 talks about that exactly, so I just I just like so so, but 1026 01:13:16,119 --> 01:13:20,079 this is related to the idea of that the fiery the fiery flying serpent, 1027 01:13:20,279 --> 01:13:26,840 right, yea, This this idea that that there are these kind of that 1028 01:13:26,840 --> 01:13:30,359 there could be these like monstrous principalities that guard not just you know, that 1029 01:13:30,439 --> 01:13:32,600 guard access to paradise, like I don't know how to say it, you 1030 01:13:32,640 --> 01:13:40,000 know, yeah, and uh, And there's association with their capacity to fly, 1031 01:13:40,840 --> 01:13:43,560 right, and the sort of access to I mean, one of the 1032 01:13:44,039 --> 01:13:46,000 one of the tropes. It doesn't always come up, but it often comes 1033 01:13:46,079 --> 01:13:49,079 up with dragons and going back to the idea of eating the hearts, so 1034 01:13:49,079 --> 01:13:53,640 you can understand the language of birds is related to this. Is is a 1035 01:13:53,680 --> 01:13:59,000 lot of times dragons are considered to be very wise or have access to wisdom 1036 01:13:59,119 --> 01:14:02,920 or knowledge about things that humans don't have. Right. You find us in 1037 01:14:03,000 --> 01:14:08,680 some of like the Zoroastrian dragon stories as well, for instance. So this 1038 01:14:08,800 --> 01:14:13,840 idea that this idea that the dragon has access to this knowledge. Right, 1039 01:14:13,960 --> 01:14:18,920 But then of course sometimes sometimes sometimes knowledge is not good for you, right, 1040 01:14:18,960 --> 01:14:21,680 Sometimes that wisdom is not good for you. So it's got that kind 1041 01:14:21,680 --> 01:14:25,159 of ambiguity to it. Yeah, No, for sure, I mean, 1042 01:14:25,279 --> 01:14:29,279 we're not going to get out of the ambiguity in the symbolism of the dragons 1043 01:14:29,279 --> 01:14:31,880 because I'm thinking again now, like the way that the dragons represent in Revelation, 1044 01:14:32,560 --> 01:14:36,159 you know, as the great great dragon that pulls the stars, that 1045 01:14:36,279 --> 01:14:43,119 pulls the principalities and captures them basically under his rule. You know, it's 1046 01:14:43,119 --> 01:14:47,039 like, okay, there's another image of how he's hoarding he's hoarding these angels 1047 01:14:47,039 --> 01:14:51,640 in his grasp and now he's you know, kind of mastering them for his 1048 01:14:51,680 --> 01:14:57,119 own, for his own. Will you know, there's another image it's very 1049 01:14:57,199 --> 01:15:00,399 similar. But now the dragon is definitely represent and in all the Revelation, 1050 01:15:00,680 --> 01:15:04,600 the dragon is definitely the devil, like he's not. There's no question at 1051 01:15:04,640 --> 01:15:09,600 all, that's right. So so I think that it's it's really I think 1052 01:15:09,640 --> 01:15:13,159 we're still we're back at the beginning. Yeah, in the sense that you 1053 01:15:13,199 --> 01:15:16,920 know, if someone thought they would come here and get a dictionary definition of 1054 01:15:16,920 --> 01:15:20,079 what a dragon is going to happen. But here's here's the thing about dragons 1055 01:15:20,079 --> 01:15:25,520 though, if you see one, you know it's you know, it's one 1056 01:15:25,520 --> 01:15:29,000 of those things like very hard to nail down a definition across the board. 1057 01:15:29,560 --> 01:15:32,319 But I can look at a dragon in a Chinese image. Yeah, And 1058 01:15:32,399 --> 01:15:38,319 I can look at the carving of the Midguard serpent at the door of a 1059 01:15:38,399 --> 01:15:42,960 church in Norway, and I can look at, you know, a Persian 1060 01:15:43,000 --> 01:15:45,600 illumination of a dragon. And I can look at uh, you know, 1061 01:15:46,079 --> 01:15:48,840 something from South America, and I can look at all of those things and 1062 01:15:48,880 --> 01:15:54,479 say that's a dragon. Dragon. Yes, right, yeah, all right 1063 01:15:54,520 --> 01:15:59,079 everyone, Well that's our discussion on dragon. Thanks everybody for your attention and 1064 01:15:59,079 --> 01:16:01,199 and uh and I think that both of us, both Richard and I were 1065 01:16:01,239 --> 01:16:06,319 still still processing and still prossing the discussion, and so get involved in the 1066 01:16:06,359 --> 01:16:12,520 commentaries. This is the time, you know, tell us your insights about 1067 01:16:12,560 --> 01:16:15,119 dragon. So thanks everybody. I'll talk to you soon. Thanks everyone. 1068 01:16:16,720 --> 01:16:20,640 If you enjoyed these videos and podcasts, please go to the Symbolic World dot 1069 01:16:20,680 --> 01:16:25,520 com website and see how you can support what we're doing. There are multiple 1070 01:16:25,520 --> 01:16:29,680 subscriber tiers with perks. There are apparel and books to purchase, So go 1071 01:16:29,720 --> 01:16:31,720 to the Symbolic World dot com and thank you for your support.