Walking with Dragons: Introduction
(N.B.: This book is written from the point of view of an inhabitant of the world in question.)
Of all the creatures we share this world with, the most impressive are the dragons. Even more than the great behemoth, or the enigmatic kraken, they inspire awe and wonder. While not as large as the former, or as cruelly sage as the latter, they combine great intelligence with great strength in a form that sings of grace.
Who here has not thrilled to see the old newsreel of the American red dragon raid on the Chinese city of Nanking? The raid that destroyed the Imperial Chinese atomic bomb program, and quite possibly saved the world from destruction. Or been to the Spring Equinox Festival near Billings, Montana to watch the blues as they dance among the towering thunder storms. Were it not for dragons the world would be a much duller place.
Dragons have been called many things. Among the western monotheists they were known as the "Spawn of Satan". Among the Chinese they are known as fonts of wisdom who inspired the mystical art of "Feng Shui" (To see the dragon), which is now used virtually world wide to aid with civil engineering projects and flood control among other endeavors.
However, there are many errors concerning dragons. While numerous books have been written about them, most are of dubious utility at best, and (on a number of occasions) have led to class action lawsuits by dragons against the author. The number of good books on dragons is small, and largely written for the academic community. (The lone exception is the BBC/Discovery Networks volume, Birth of a Dragon based on the documentary of the same name, and covering an infant copper dragon's first year of life.) It is this paucity of reliable data which led to this book.
Walking with Dragons is meant to be both an introduction to the subject of the great wyrms, and as a comprehensive guide to the lords of the sky. It is not an exhaustive work, for there is much of interest only to scientists and serious scholars of the beast called the dragon. For that I recommend Professor Jack Horner's multivolume treatise, Dragons in Paleontology and Biology. An ongoing work now at fourteen volumes, projected to reach twenty-six by the time the project is done.
In Walking with Dragons I hope you learn more about dragons than you knew before, come to understand the creatures in a way you never had before, and learn to better appreciate these animals. It is a long journey we'll be going on, now for the first step.
Alawn Chuillaugh, November 19th, 2002
(N.B.: This book is written from the point of view of an inhabitant of the world in question.)
Of all the creatures we share this world with, the most impressive are the dragons. Even more than the great behemoth, or the enigmatic kraken, they inspire awe and wonder. While not as large as the former, or as cruelly sage as the latter, they combine great intelligence with great strength in a form that sings of grace.
Who here has not thrilled to see the old newsreel of the American red dragon raid on the Chinese city of Nanking? The raid that destroyed the Imperial Chinese atomic bomb program, and quite possibly saved the world from destruction. Or been to the Spring Equinox Festival near Billings, Montana to watch the blues as they dance among the towering thunder storms. Were it not for dragons the world would be a much duller place.
Dragons have been called many things. Among the western monotheists they were known as the "Spawn of Satan". Among the Chinese they are known as fonts of wisdom who inspired the mystical art of "Feng Shui" (To see the dragon), which is now used virtually world wide to aid with civil engineering projects and flood control among other endeavors.
However, there are many errors concerning dragons. While numerous books have been written about them, most are of dubious utility at best, and (on a number of occasions) have led to class action lawsuits by dragons against the author. The number of good books on dragons is small, and largely written for the academic community. (The lone exception is the BBC/Discovery Networks volume, Birth of a Dragon based on the documentary of the same name, and covering an infant copper dragon's first year of life.) It is this paucity of reliable data which led to this book.
Walking with Dragons is meant to be both an introduction to the subject of the great wyrms, and as a comprehensive guide to the lords of the sky. It is not an exhaustive work, for there is much of interest only to scientists and serious scholars of the beast called the dragon. For that I recommend Professor Jack Horner's multivolume treatise, Dragons in Paleontology and Biology. An ongoing work now at fourteen volumes, projected to reach twenty-six by the time the project is done.
In Walking with Dragons I hope you learn more about dragons than you knew before, come to understand the creatures in a way you never had before, and learn to better appreciate these animals. It is a long journey we'll be going on, now for the first step.
Alawn Chuillaugh, November 19th, 2002
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In your first post he's all scholarly ("paucity of reliable data," "of dubious utility"), and in the second his IQ seems to have dropped a few notches ("them beasts is harder to move," "one from t'other"). What gives?
