ls the
same as that of the South and East. He is a power of evil, guardian of
hoards, the greedy withholder of good things from men; and the slaying
of a dragon is the crowning achievement of heroes--of Siegmund, of
Beowulf, of Sigurd, of Arthur, of Tristam--even of Lancelot, the _beau
ideal_ of mediaeval chivalry" (_Encyclopaedia Britannica_, vol. viii., p.
467). But if in the West the dragon is usually a "power of evil," in the
far East he is equally emphatically a symbol of beneficence. He is
identified with emperors and kings; he is the son of heaven the bestower
of all bounties, not merely to mankind directly, but also to the earth
as well.

Even in our country his symbolism is not always wholly malevolent,
otherwise--if for the moment we shut our eyes to the history of the
development of heraldic ornament--dragons would hardly figure as the
supporters of the arms of the City of London, and as the symbol of many
of our aristocratic families, among which the Royal House of Tudor is
included. It is only a few years since the Red Dragon of Cadwallader was
added as an additional badge to the achievement of the Prince of Wales.
But, "though a common ensign in war, both in the East and the West, as
an ecclesiastical emblem his opposite qualities have remained
consistently until the present day. Whenever the dragon is represented,
it symbolizes the power of evil, the devil and his works. Hell in
mediaeval art is a dragon with gaping jaws, belching fire."

And in the East the dragon's reputation is not always blameless. For it
figures in some disreputable incidents and does not escape the sort of
punishment that tradition metes out to his European cousins.

[130: An elaboration of a Lecture delivered in the John Rylands Library
on 8 November, 1916.]

[131: In his lecture, "Dreams and Primitive Culture," delivered at the
John Rylands Library on 10 April, 1918, Dr. Rivers has expounded the
principles of dream-development.]

[132: _Vide infra_, p. 109 _et seq._]

[133: Hence soldiers killed in battle and women dying in childbirth
receive special consideration in the exclusive heaven of (Osiris's)
Horus's Indian and American representatives, Indra and Tlaloc.]

[134: M. W. de Visser, "The Dragon in China and Japan," _Verhandelingen
der Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen te Amsterdam_, Afdeeling
Letterkunde, Deel XIII, No. 2, 1913, p. 70.]

[135: E. A. Wallis Budge, "The Gods of the Egyptians," 1904, vol. i,
p.