Origin of Chinese Dragon Myths
There is a story about how the Chinese began their myths of the dragon. ... When they had defeated their enemies the snake they had started with was no longer a snake but a dragon. Another story has the first dragon appear during the birth of a new emperor. Either way, the dragon has a large and complicated mythos in Chinese culture. The concept of the Chinese dragon is markedly different from that of the European dragon. This can be demonstrated in two archetypical myths. Saint George and the Dragon is the blueprint of all historical Western dragon myths while Four Dragons exemplifies the character of Chinese dragons. In short, Saint George and the Dragon is about a marauding dragon. A fire-breathing dragon was threatening a village and the villagers sacrificed livestock to keep it fed. ... Eventually a princess was to be fed to the dragon at the same time Saint George was riding through the town. He recognizes the dragon as a son of Satan and gives battle. He cannot kill it with a sword because the dragon has no heart but is animated by evil. He disables the dragon and wraps its head with a cloth from the dress of the princess. Since the princess is the typical pure maiden, the cloth strangles the fire and evil of the dragon leaving it tame and harmless. Starkly contrasting with the demonic killer are the dragons in the Chinese myth Four Dragons. ... There are named the Long Dragon, the Yellow Dragon, the Black Dragon and the Pearl Dragon.