dragon alchemy

ouroborous knot - Celtic

transformation:  from one form to another

alchemy: transmutation into gold, attainment of ultimate wisdom

Dragons have long been associated with alchemy and indeed, appear in many cultures on all continents. Typically, the dragon is biting its tail, creating an unbroken circle...this is known as the Ouroborous.

That the dragon has persisted throughout human history suggests that there is some element of truth behind the legend. The myths and stories paint the dragon in positive and negative light, but all stories have some message for the reader....

Eastern medicine believed that dragon bones and teeth could heal a person's spiritual (or psychological, in today's terms) problems. Such remedies found their way into European mythology as we see in the Norse story of Sigurd and the dragon.

...To kill Fafnir the dragon, Regin advises him to dig a pit, wait for Fafnir to walk over it, and then stab the dragon. Odin, posing as an old man, advises Sigurd to dig trenches also to drain the blood, and to bathe in it after killing the dragon; bathing in Fafnir's blood confers invulnerability. Sigurd does so and kills Fafnir; Sigurd then bathes in the dragon's blood, which touches all of his body except for one of his shoulders where a leaf was stuck. Regin then asked Sigurd to give him Fafnir's heart for himself. Sigurd drinks some of Fafnir's blood and gains the ability to understand the language of birds. Birds advise him to kill Regin, since Regin is plotting Sigurd's death. Sigurd beheads Regin, roasts Fafnir's heart and consumes part of it. This gives him the gift of "wisdom" (prophecy)...



So here we see the transformational powers of a dragon.....