Lord of the Rings: The Animated Musical | Folklore: Dragons & Volcanoes
During his conversation with Frodo during “Chapter 2, The Shadow of the Past”, Gandalf mentioned that the fire of dragons was never hot enough to destroy the One Ring. Only the fire where the Ring was created could melt it down. Folklore throughout the Real World has featured dragons and volcanoes, ranging from cute beasts and fiery love stories to dangerous evildoers and insulted saints. In this essay, I cover the full range of legends and include a note about how modern scientists have discovered the benefits behind the destruction.
Dragons
These enormous winged beasts have already frequently appeared in this essay series. According to Carolyne Larrington, who teaches medieval European literature at St. John’s College in University of Oxford, the mythology of Sigurth or Siegfried who killed the dragon Fafnir and the dragon of Beowulf likely inspired Tolkien to create characters like Frum son of Frumgar who slew the dragon Scatha, and the massive dragon Ancalagon the Black. Dragons also appeared in whimsical forms, such as the name of the Green Dragon Inn located in Bywater, The Shire.
Dragon-slaying saints appear throughout hagiography, or holy writings about the lives of saints. While this word sounds ancient, it was only coined in 1821, although the phrase “hagiographical book” dates from the 1580s. Among the most famous of these saints is St. George, a knight who slayed a dragon and rescued a princess. His story is often conflated with that of Saint Theodore Teron or Tiron, depicted as early as the 8th century on woodcuts and Byzantine broaches as slaying a multi-headed dragon blocking the road, not unlike the Greco-Roman hero Herakles/Hercules killing a hydra. Theodore never had the chance to help out a princess. His main event was treated as traffic control.
Many other saints encountered dragons to varied results. St. Margaret of Antioch, who may have lived during the 3rd or 4th century, was attacked or even swallowed by a dragon but made the sign of the cross so its stomach split open. St. Silvester was unaffected by the “foul breath” of a dragon while St. Philip told a dragon to go away and stop hurting people.
Dragons were routinely slaughtered in European folklore, but their cousins in Asia fared better. A Chinese dragon or loong in Mandarin might either give blessings during Chinese New Year or be evil, depending on the story. (As an aside, the Chinese-American CNN reporter covering this legend, Chris Lau, cited Smaug as “the most fearsome” Western dragon, apparently having never heard of Ancalagon.) In Japan, a dragon has been known historically as a tasu and may have a long mustache. The Tibetan Buddhist thunder dragon or dug appears on the country’s flag and is a common visual motif for decorating hats. In Vietnam, dragon statues were carved for the Thang Long Imperial Citadel around the 11th century and became a contributing factor to its listing as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2010. People from all around the world seem to both love and fear dragons.
Volcanoes
I have discussed volcanoes at several points in this essay series, whether comparing Sauron to the Greco-Roman god Hephaestus/Hephaistos, recalling the power of the Hawai'ian goddess Pele, or describing the massive volcano Thangorodrim created by Morgoth, which had the same destructive power of erupting Mount Vesuvius covering Pompeii and Herculaneum in 79 AD. In modern Jungian psychology, volcanoes appearing in dreams symbolized a step in a journey. Additionally, I have described the science of volcanoes, noting that the temperature of volcano lava was indeed hot enough to melt a cursed ring made of an unknown metal.
Like dragons, volcanoes have their fair share of gods, saints, and other supernatural beliefs. In Mexico, the legend of Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl is a tragic love story of a couple who became a pair of volcanoes in death when they could finally be together. In Java, an island country in the Indian Ocean, volcanoes like the UNESCO World Heritage site Mt. Merapi were historically understood to be “an admonition from the supernatural world”. In early Christian Europe, volcanoes were said to stop erupting when showed the remains or relics of saints, such as Saint Januarius who had lived near Mount Vesuvius in Italy around AD 300.
Conversely, saints could cause volcanic destruction. In Sicily, an island now part of Italy, St. Agatha of Catania was associated with a local volcano beginning during the 11th and 12th centuries. St. Agatha was martyred in the 3rd century and widely recognized by the 9th century. The region was known for volcanoes, earthquakes, and fires. On February 4 or 5, 1169, one of these events destroyed most of the city during St. Agatha’s feast day. The small Christian community interpreted this as a punishment for sin. While recorded in hagiographies such as The Golden Legend by Jacobus de Vorgaine during the 13th century and the Acta Sanctorum by the Société des Bollandistes during the 17th century, it is not clear if this event really happened.
In the scientific world, volcanoes are recognized for their destructive power and as bringers of life. Extensive volcanic research has been conducted in countries that are part of the “Ring of Fire” around the edge of the Pacific Ocean, including Indonesia, New Zealand, Australia, and Japan. Studies of Indonesian soil revealed that tephra or volcanic ash captures CO2 from the atmosphere and can include fertile soil for crops known as andisols or andosols in English and shokudo in Japan. While the most aggressive volcanic eruptions happened in the distant past, with Australian volcanoes like Mount Gambrier and Mount Schank last erupting around 5000 years ago, countries such as Iceland still experience regular eruptions. As a result, new andisols are regularly created, and modern scientists have new opportunities to learn how crops can benefit from this special soil. Even something as scary and destructive as a volcano has a positive outcome.