Vietnamese Dragon Myths

 

VIETNAMESE DRAGON KING: In the Vietnamese fairy tale, 'The Little Talking Animal and the Shining Blue Fish', a dragon king appears.

A man named Slowcoach befriends a little animal, called Cibet. Slowcoach's brother killed Cibet. The tree on Cibet's grave rained silver on Slowcoach whenever he went to pray there, but when the brother prayed, he was covered in mud. In anger, the brother cut down the tree. Slowcoach made a pig's trough from the tree, which was also destroyed by his brother, and then finally a fish hook. When he touched the hook to the water, the lake flooded and almost killed him. His rod and hook disappeared.

A beautiful maiden appeared. She was the daughter of the dragon king who had the hook caught in his mouth, and wanted it removed. When Slowcoach agreed to help, the maiden turned him into a bubble and carried him to her father. Slowcoach removed the hook, and was given a jug containing a blue fish. In the time after receiving the jug, he noticed that whenever he left his cottage, it was cleaned. One day pretending to leave, he saw the little blue fish turn into the dragon king's daughter. He came in and smashed the jug so that she would have to stay, but first she told him that he had to make her some bones, which he did. The dragon king's daughter then became his wife. The nasty brother also wanted a wife, so dived into the lake, and the dragon king turned him into a fish.

This is only a brief summery of the story. The full version can be found in 'Around the World Fairy Tales'
(ISBN 0 86178 062 0).

The COAT of ARMS representing Vietnam traditionally consisted of a shield having the stylistic representation of a dragon . . . a legendary and totemic animal of multiple symbolic significance. Also included on the Coat of Arms were the unicorn, tortoise and phoenix. They make up a quartet of traditional motifs and emblems of Vietnam.

The Dragon ("Long") in Vietnamese mythology is represented with the head of a camel, horns of a deer, eyes of a fish, ears of a buffalo, body and neck of a snake, scales of a carp, claws of an eagle, and feet of a tiger. A long barb hangs on each side of its mouth, and a precious stone shines brilliantly on its tongue. The summit of its head is decorated with a protuberance which is a sign of great intelligence. Finally, it has a crest of 81 scales running the entire length of its backbone.

A dragon breathes a smoke which can be transformed at will into fire or water. It lives with equal ease in the sky, in the water, or underground. Immortal, it does not reproduce, because the number of dragons always increases with the metamorphosis of the "Giao Long", which are fabulous reptiles 'half lizard and half snake' that automatically become dragons after ten centuries of existence.

The dragon does not incarnate the spirit of evil, Vietnamese consider the dragon a symbol of power and nobility, as the special symbol of emperors. The emperor was considered to be the son of Heaven. The dragon with five claws was found on the official dress of the emperor, and the dragon with four claws decorated the official dress of high dignitaries of the Royal Court.