... Or floods of water suddenly
stream down from the hills and fountains are released. It is the hungry
dragon, rushing from his den in search of prey; the river-dragon. . . .
He rages among the mountains with such swiftness and impetuosity.
This is chiefly the poets' work, though the theologians have added one
or two embellishing touches. But in whatever shape he appears, whether
his eyes have borrowed a more baleful fire from heathen basilisks, or
traits of moral evil are instilled into his pernicious physique by
amalgamation with the apocalyptic Beast, he remains the vindictive enemy
of man and his ordered ways. Of late - like the Saurian tribe in
general - he has somewhat degenerated. So in modern Greece, by that
process of stultified anthropomorphism which results from grafting
Christianity upon an alien mythopoesis, he dons human attributes,
talking and acting as a man (H. F. Tozer). And here, in Calabria, he
lingers in children's fables, as "sdrago," a mockery of his former self.
To follow up his wondrous metamorphoses through medievalism would be a
pastime worthy of some leisured dilettante. How many noble shapes
acquired a tinge of absurdity in the Middle Ages! Switzerland alone,
with its mystery of untrodden crevices, used to be crammed with
dragons - particularly the calcareous (cavernous) province of Rhaetia.
Secondary dragons; for the good monks saw to it that no reminiscences of
the autochthonous beast survived. Modern scholars have devoted much
learning to the local Tazzelwurm and Bergstutz. But dragons of our
familiar kind were already well known to the chroniclers from whom old
Cysat extracted his twenty-fifth chapter (wherein, by the way, you will
learn something of Calabrian dragons); then came J. J. Wagner (1680);
then Scheuchzer, prince of dragon-finders, who informs us that multorum
draconum historta mendax.
But it is rather a far cry from Calabria to the asthmatic Scheuchzer,
wiping the perspiration off his brow as he clambers among the Alps to
record truthful dragon yarns and untruthful barometrical observations;
or to China, dragon-land par excellence; [Footnote: In Chinese
mythology the telluric element has remained untarnished. The dragon is
an earth-god, who controls the rain and thunder clouds.] or even to our
own Heralds' College, where these and other beasts have sought a refuge
from prying professors under such queer disguises that their own mothers
would hardly recognize them.
XV
BYZANTINISM
Exhausted with the morning's walk at Policoro, a railway journey and a
long drive up nearly a thousand feet to Rossano in the heat of midday, I
sought refuge, contrary to my usual custom, in the chief hotel,
intending to rest awhile and then seek other quarters. The establishment
was described as "ganz ordentlich" in Baedeker. But, alas! I found
little peace or content. The bed on which I had hoped to repose was
already occupied by several other inmates. Prompted by curiosity, I
counted up to fifty-two of them; after that, my interest in the matter
faded away.
