Curing the monster Some images of and considerations - Prof. Dr ...

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by a dragon, a tragedy which is depicted by the huge monument in the town
center).
From their historical evolution dragons can be classified into two main categories:
the cosmic and the mythological dragons; the latter are often then subdivided into
modern and psychic ones. Cosmic dragons cannot be regarded as animals in the
literal sense, they were incarnations of the chaos, they are direct descendents of
the Titanes who lived before time. Contrary to their predecessors the modern
mythodragons were natural creatures; they housed in caverns and canyons, curled
around mountains and ancient mounds, leaving behind them stink and slime; they
crawled through the woods and mixed with the ghosts of sources and rivers
(Redaktion ... 1985: 76). The psychic mythodragons, which seem to be the most
Figure 2: Matthäus Merina, sen., Merians Welt der Tiere, Nördlingen (Greno)
1985
interesting ones in the context of the symbolics of artifacts are inhabitants of the
human inner world. As they often cannot be acknowledged as such, they have to
be projected into objects of the outer world (Steffen 1984: 7). - It seems to me that
post-modern mythodragons can be neglected so far because they only are
allusions to certain elements deriving from ancient styles.
As dragons nowadays are becoming more and more rare the fact that SCOS has
chosen the dragon as its emblem can be regarded as akin to the panda of the
World Wildlife Fund. As for the panda the days of the dragons are numbered; as it
has no chance to survive in normal hunting-grounds it not only has to be protected,
but eventually will be bred in special zoological gardens. Perhaps one could even
gain the Queen's husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, as honorary president of
SCOS. As England has had St. George, who obviously was one of the
predominant instigators of dragon killing, as its national saint for so many
centuries, this could be an important act of reaparation.
3. How to cope with a dragon? Five pragmatic ways