The Purple Dragon
by Karl
Schmidt (C)1984
Once
upon a time, in a land far far a way, lived a grand purple dragon. He
spent his days in his cave on an island of sea guarding his family
jewels (as that is what dragons do).
One day, he
started to
itch in the middle of his back in that place where you can't quite
reach. The itch got worse and worse until he started to
sweat!
Now sweating is very a bad thing for dragons, for if they start to
sweat, their
scales will fall off and dragons need their scales!
The
purple dragon knew he would have to get help,
so he went out of his cave and jumped into the air and began to fly. He
flew a long time over the ocean all the time itching so bad that he was
really beginning to sweat now!
Finally, he saw
land ahead, and
he flew over and saw a little girl standing
in a corn field that looked just like you! He went down and
landed, bowed to the girl and told her that he needed her help.
"You
see I have an itch in the middle of my back in that place where you
can't quite reach. Can you help me scratch it?"
The
little girl was a little scared, as she had never seen a Purple dragon
before (actually she had never seen any dragons before)! She told the
Dragon with a bit of a waver in her voice,
"I will
try, but I am so small I don't think I can quite reach."
At
that point, a farmer saw the dragon and was very afraid - so he called
his friends and they came towards the dragon swinging their shovels,
rakes, and pitchforks. The dragon backed slightly and took a deep breath and
blew
out a great ball of fire. The farmers ran away, dropping
their
rakes and shovels, but the ball of fire hit the corn in the field, and
because it was a field of popping corn, it popped (and made a lot of
noise!) - so much popped that
there was now a small hill of freshly popped popping corn.
Then
the little girl, who looks just like you, had an idea. She grabbed one
of the rakes and climbed up the hill of freshly popped popping corn and
called to the
dragon to come next to the hill. Now she could just reach with the rake
and scratch the dragon in the middle of his back in that place where
you can't quite reach.
The
dragon was so relieved now
that the itch was gone. He bowed again to the girl, who really looked
just like you, and politely thanked her. He told her he would always be
her friend and the girl smiled from ear to ear. Then the
dragon
said he must get back to his cave and the
girl asked if he really must leave so soon. He told her that he must,
for
the farmers would come back and he really didn't want to hurt them,
besides he had to guard his jewels. He said he only had time to give
her a short ride if she liked. So she climbed up the hill of freshly
popped pop corn and got on the dragons back and the dragon ran a few
steps and off they flew as she held on tight.
The
girl squealed with delight as she looked down and waved at the people
that looked like ants from up so high. The dragon came
back and the girl climbed back onto the hill of freshly popped pop corn
and waved good by as the dragon took to the sky and returned to his
island in the sea.
Now at night, the little girl
dreams of riding on the back of her friend, the purple dragon.
The
end.
Some notes
on the purple subspecies of Asian dragons:
There are five species of Asian dragons known:
Draconis rubeus (the Red dragon), Draconis aurum (the gold dragon), Draconis thalassinus (the green dragon), Draconis sapphirus
(the blue dragon) and Draconis purpura
(the purple dragon).
Dragons are related to cephalopods, giant squids in particular.Like
most molluscs, cephalopods use hemocyanin, a copper-containing protein,
rather than hemoglobin to transport oxygen. At some point there was a
mutation that gave dragons a much more effective red blood with a
very similar molecule to hemoglobin that is thought to be why they
were able to develop such high intelligence.
While some biologists disagree, the rare
purple dragon breed is
thought to be result of a hybrid cross between the red and the rare blue Asian
dragons
species that were bred to protect castles. The winged European dragons, Draconis alaruos
are thought to have
descended from the Asian blue dragons. The Asian blue dragon, has
recently been shown by
DNA evidence to have been bred from the red during the early Ming
dynasty putting an end to a long and ugly controversy by past dragon
paleontologists over thoughts that it had come from the diminutive
green dragons genes. A breeding back to the original red dragon is
thought to be the source of the largest and most intelligent of the
dragons, the rare purple dragons. (By the way, the very dangerous
gold dragon was almost as long, but lacks any hint of the purple
dragons advanced intelligence.)
Why the European dragons lost their levocorpus or had non
functional ones is highly controversial, some think it had to do with
the
different diet available on the European continent, while others insist
that it was due to the evolution of much larger wing buds - the Asian
dragons don't always even have this structure. Still others insist the
winged dragons are a completely different species descended from giant bats.
Little
is know
about the purple dragons other than their incredible length, their
amazing intelligence and speech
ability. We also know that they had the largest known of the fire
producing
organs (called the incendio gland) of any dragon, . Non
winged, the
purple
dragon had the most well developed levocorpus of any dragon which
extended over 180 degrees so that most of the sides could also produce
lift. This is thought to explain the highly maneuverable body.
The
purple dragons hybrid vigor and intelligence was coupled with a rather
low fertility rate which is thought to have limited the species along
with the violent and sometimes lethal mating courtship. The purple
dragons mated for a lifetime - now thought to be over 800 years!
While
the purple dragon mostly believed to be extinct like the other dragons,
occasional sitings are still reported and it is possible that this
elusive dragon my still be with us. The extinction of dragons during
the middle ages is thought to be from over hunting. The hide of
dragons produced better armor than leather, but unfounded myths of the
properties of 'heart stings' caused countless dragons to be slaughtered
only to find inside their bodies a heart not unlike those in
cephalopods.
(C)
Copyright 1984-2007