The Dragon and the Dragonslayer
Order, Chaos, and the Equilibrating Struggle

By Robin Artisson
Copyright © 2008



Nearly everyone knows about the historical motif of the Dragonslayer. Most have seen the many varieties of image depicting some Christian figure, such as the Archangel Michael slaying a dragon, or (more popularly) St. George. A good sample image of this type- Michael slaying the Dragon, can be found above the title of this essay.

These images crop up with alarming regularity in the Christian world, and like all symbolic images, they represent many things to many people. To Christians, and most exoterically, they represent the triumph of light over darkness, of God's servants over the Devil, represented by the Dragon. The Devil is often associated with serpents and dragons in Christian iconography- in the Book of Revelation, he is called "That old serpent" and he appears as the apocalyptic "seven headed dragon", and furthermore, he is called "Father of Lies", "who forever deceiveth the world".

These medieval and modern images we have are the last in a long line of archetypal images of the triumph of figures of light and order over darkness and chaos. In Pagan myths, Odhinn and his brothers defeat the forces of darkness embodied by the Giants, and from the body of the king of Giants, they create the world; safe order is created from the chaotic "titanic" or gigantic elements of old. Thor, the son of Odhinn, is depicted as the "monster-slaying" God of the thundering sky, and his traditional "chief enemy" is the Midgard Serpent- the massive dragon-serpent that surrounds the world, and whom Thor eventually dies fighting at the end of the age. In Vedic lore, Indra, the chief masculine sky God who wields the thunder-weapon also defeats a massive serpent-monster, to free the waters needed by the world.

Tiamat, the great serpent-dragon Goddess who was the original holder of the "Tablets of Fate" in Babylonian Myth is slain by Marduk, a Babylonian hero-God of light, and her body is used to create the heavens and the earth.

These sorts of mythical motifs are worldwide; several Native American myths recount the slaying of giant monsters, even serpent-like monsters, whose remains become the earth itself, or are to be found embedded in the earth. In Siouan myths, for instance, the "Unktehi" monsters are destroyed (interestingly) by the Thunder-powers, the Wakinyan, who appear in their more well-known form as the "Thunder birds". The massive skeletal remains of the Unktehi- who were "water monsters"- are believed to make up the Black Hills and the Badlands of North America.


Now, I'd like to take a second look at these motifs and the mythical impulses behind them. The clear idea emerges of order overcoming chaos; the "Ordo Ab Chao" concept which informs many other strains of social and occult thinking in our world, in surprising ways. But there is more to these myths and the image of the dragonslayer than just the nobility of order being forced onto dangerous, primordial chaos.

Perhaps originally, among Pre-Christian people, the idea of the heavenly forces of light and thunder overcoming the dangerous powers of chaos was a positive notion- but what most of the myths imply (and some outright state) is that the "dark forces" that are defeated are not banished or obliterated; they persist in a new form, a sublimated or controlled form from which goodness for sentient life can flow.

The Fomorians of ancient Ireland are defeated by the Gods, but not destroyed, for the Fomorians control the fertility of the ground and earth, and their continued existence is necessary for the good of the world. The Gods of the Teutonic peoples also did not exterminate the giants; giant maidens were often courted and married by the Gods, to produce heroes and other Gods- Thor the Giant-slayer himself was the son of Odhinn the God and the giantess who happened to be the Earth.

It is clear that these previously-defeated and banished forces are still valuable; the giants were seen as dangerous, but some were also wise and powerful in their own special manner, and were in control of fertility in the earth. The Unktehi monsters were still magically potent, and their bones- stones and mountains- were likewise full of power.

There is a clear message here that Pagan peoples worldwide understood; the conflict between "light and dark" is not a contest of genocide for one side or the other; it is an eternal "hostile negotiation" and contest between two sides, neither of whom can maintain the dominant position or upper-hand permanently. For the good of things, both sides must have their powers expressed. This balance is needed, and even these ancient enemies need one another. It is their struggle, not their victories, that supplies the needful conditions for the world. The best poetic explanation I have heard for this is the simple comparison of summer and winter- an eternal summer would burn the world up, while an eternal winter would freeze it to death. Their alternation allows for life's growth and flourishing, and for needful removal of outworn lifeforms.

These understandings of the necessity of opposition have no equivalent in Christianity or Islam- in these religions, a "God" reigns supreme, and his "opposition" has no real power against him- the devil only works and is allowed to exist because of God's supposed commitment to the rather flimsy philosophical notion of "free will". But the clear message is simple: evil exists now, but at the end of time, all evil will be destroyed utterly; it will be quite literally erased from existence, or destroyed in such a manner that never again will it emerge. There is no cosmological necessity that God and the Devil struggle; there is only a cosmological mistake, a sin, a fall from a "Good" perfect state and a renegade evil that will one day be vanquished once and for all.

In light of these rather absurd and short-sighted notions, the Christian iconography of St. George slaying the dragon or Michael slaying the dragon take on a rather ominous new meaning- a meaning of one-sided imbalance. But these icons have another, even more pernicious layer of meaning: they represent the conquest of Pagan religions and earth-based spiritualities by the "heaven centered" Monotheisms. Furthermore, they represent the conquest of the heavenly masculine over and against the earthy feminine.

The serpent and the dragon are constant symbols of wisdom and power in all Pagan societies, from every continent. They are feminine symbols, largely, though at times the serpent can take on a masculine function as a giver of knowledge or gnosis, or an instructing figure. A literal mile-long list could be compiled, beginning with the titanic figure of Tiamat, and moving through Ireland with Brigid's association with the "serpent from the mound"- the earth and the serpent-power are always pledged and united powers, for few animals dwell as close to the earth as the serpent, who forever lies upon it, crawling on its belly across it. In Jungian psychology, the serpent reprises its role as a symbol of the Great Mother, but also of the sexual and erotic urges- further powers that were excoriated by Christians and Muslims.


What we have in the image of the angel or saint slaying the dragon is the symbol of the particular psychology of Christianity moving itself into a dominant position over the psychology of the earlier earth-centered faiths; a symbolic triumph of "reason" over "irrationality" and "civilization" over "savagery". In the image itself is the image of the virile, spear-wielding male plunging his spear into the wounded and submissive dragon, an image that one need not think too hard on when one considers the relationships between men and women in the monotheistic world.

This image is the very archetypal image of our modern abuse of nature. We have placed ourselves as nature's lords and masters, just as the Book of Genesis gave the early Christian movement permission to do. Far from an equal relationship with nature, from from an equilibrated relationship, we have a relationship of "power over", and the world bleeds in many ways because of it. The dragon and the dragonslayer are not meant to be iconographically frozen with the dragonslayer forever "on top"- they are meant to trade places in their struggle, and find an equilibrium of what they represent.

Instinct must inform intellect, and vice versa- for intellect to place itself "on top", with its boot on the neck of defeated instinct (a perfect image of the socialized psychic arrangement of the average westerner) is to condemn the human being to a life of "halfness", of being cut away from the resources and vital powers of the darker side of their own nature, and from the flexibility and wholeness it provides.

The very same thing can be said of the harmful and contrived "vertical relationship" that we see today between male and female, heaven and earth, conscious and subconscious, and so forth. We must occasionally acquiesce to our wildness, if we wish to keep our civilized selves healthy and strong. We must see into the darkness of the subconscious if we are to make sense of the many conscious forms that we entertain daily.

The wound in the world and in the psyche stems from the loss of wisdom- the wisdom that wholeness is a matter of dynamic struggle, and the contents of the mind are all vitally important, even the parts that we consider uncomfortable or wild. Wisdom is not about destroying what is considered "savage" or "dangerous"; it is not about banishing the darkness under the swords of beings of light- wholeness cannot be found that way.

Carl Jung once famously said "One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious." Consider for a moment the great alchemical power of this statement- the merging of the functions of conscious perception and the unconscious matrix from which it arises leads to enlightenment, the acceptance of the whole. Nothing else will suffice.

Wholeness is found in negotiation, exploration, insight, acceptance, union, transformation, and sublimation. Wholeness is found in balanced struggle guided by wisdom. No part of the human mind or of nature itself can be excluded from our work as human beings; the great commonwealth of powers within or without are one community. No natural power can be excluded if we wish to find our way to peace inside the "self" or peace in the world.


The icon of the Dragonslayer needs revision- an icon should be created in which the slayer and the dragon share halves of the field, with sword raised and with claw raised, locked in the equal struggle which ironically creates a dynamic wholeness. But before we can get there, stronger measures are needed; the Dragon must rise up and slay the slayer, restoring it's kingdom- the earth- to the wild riot of power that was there before the impetuous and unwise slayer rushed in and upset the very fabric of reality itself by thinking he could or should destroy the "other half" of things. "In wildness" it is said "is the preservation of the world".

Once new icons appear, icons of the Dragon triumphant over the slayer- symbolizing the re-emergence of Pagan gnosis and natural spiritual awareness to the world in our present age- then the "equilibrium icon" can be crafted and in its vision of wholeness, the world can continue on into the next phase of its exploratory journey. But no matter where that journey goes, the struggle between the dragon and the dragonslayer will be part of it- our last two millennium of struggle between monotheistic "heaven mind" religions and polytheistic/animistic "earth soul" religions is only the most recent face of a cosmic drama which has no discernible beginning or end.




All text is Copyright © 2008 by Robin Artisson
All Rights Reserved