La queue d'un dragon

Photo prise au Royal Pavilion à Brighton. Comme tout est décoré à la chinoise, ou en tout cas à la pseudo-chinoise, avec des dragons partout, il y a une exhibition sur les dragons. On trouve aussi dans le pavillons deux dragons espiègles (je ne me rappelle plus des noms), un rouge et un vert, qui se promènent partout et font parfois du saccage. J'ai pu prendre une photo de la queue d'un d'entre eux, qui montait une cheminée. Vous voyez les traces de ses pattes sur la dalle de pierre.

Chinese Dragons in Brighton

I took this picture in Brighton, at the Royal Pavilion. To make a long story short, because back in the days, they were really into exotism, more specifically Chinese exotism, they drew heavily on Chinese culture, or at least its stereotypes, to decorate the place. Among other things, Chinese dragons. They were not really genuine (many have wings, for instance), but they are everywhere. Anyway, this dragon is obviously a modern addition, part of a special exhibition. All the same, it's a cool dragon and I wanted to share it here. Life is always better with dragons.

Un dragon noir à la Tour de Londres

Photo prise dans la boutique de souvenirs de la Tour de Londres. C'est le deuxième dragon que j'ai pris en photo cette journée-là. Ce dragon-ci était un dragon toutou énorme et il était là pour faire beau, il n'était hélas pas à vendre. Pas que j'aurais pû le transporter, mais petit loup aurait beaucoup aimé le rajouter à sa ménagerie.

George and the Dragon

Happy Saint George's Day everyone! Saint George is of course patron saint of England, even though he was not English and never set foot here. He is also and especially famous for slaying a dragon, which makes it all the more interesting for those, like me, who love old legends and monsters. Anyway, him being patron saint of England means that a lot of pubs here are named George and Dragon. It gave them a nice name, if nothing else. I took this picture in one, the George and Dragon in Marlow. I could make it a yearly tradition: put a picture of a pub called George and Dragon every 23rd of April. Preferably a different pub every time. This is a nice image, the dragon looks bat-like and demomic, interestingly enough.

Un dragon dans la Tour

 J'ai pris cette photo à la Tour de Londres. Un dragon fait de métal, sur des barils de poudre. Je n'ai pas eu le temps de m'attarder, étant occupé à suivre un jeune garçon hyper dont l'attention passait d'une chose à une autre. Je crois que le dragon est plus ou moins lié à Guy Fawkes, mais je n'en suis pas certain. Dans tous les cas, toute représentation d'un dragon m'intéresse et mérite une photo. J'ai donc pris celle-ci. Et ce n'est pas le seul dragon que j'ai vu dans la Tour de Londres, mais c'est le plus original et de loin le plus imposant.

Saint George's Day

I almost forgot: it is Saint George's Day today. So happy Saint George's Day everyone. Nobody notices it or cares about it in England, ironically enough, not even my son, who is a proud Englishman. I used to celebrate it a bit more, at least on this blog. But I have come to neglect it too. Which is sad: we talk about a patron saint who is associated with a fight and a victory against a dragon. It always appealed to me, because I love folklore, myths and legends and, well, dragons. I should really make something about it on Vraie Fiction, a real blogging event.

Mysterious Chinese Dragon

 Last weekend, when we went to the school camping activity with Wolfie, I saw this thing floating on top of a pole. And I was wondering what the heck was that. I mean I could tell it was a dragon, and a Chinese dragon at that, but still, I was not sure. So I took a picture and checked online. A quick Google Image search made me discover that it was a Traditional Chinese Fire Dragon Windsock. Well, I got the Chinese dragon part right. But what it was doing there, why it was there and who had the idea to bring a Chinese dragon on a camping site, I have no idea. It remains a complete mystery. All the same, it looks kinda cool.

Wolfism about Saint George's Day

 Happy Saint George's Day everyone! I nearly forgot about it. Which is a pretty English thing to do. Nobody cares here about the country's patron saint. Even Wolfie does not care much, if at all, and Saint George's Day. He told me this morning, in a disdainful tone: "Daddy, what's special about Saint George's Day? Why do people celebrate it?" This is a new Wolfism and, while not the Englishest he said, it is pretty close. Because it seems that no true Englishman cares about Saint George's Day.

A Dragon in a Teacup

I know I am very late in the news, but I wanted to share this image taken from the Facebook page of David's Tea. It was publishedduring the Chinese new year. Even though it is most likely AI generated, I found it so cool that I wanted to share it here. If there is one thing I love about Chinese culture, is that they brought us tea. Like the proper stuff, strong yet delicate. That and their dragons. And there is actually some association with Chinese dragons and tea, read this post from 2016 to know more about it. So yes, I love this image.

GrailQuest (The Den of Dragons)

A couple of weeks ago, I paid myself another trip down nostalgia lane and it only cost me £0.99. You may remember on this blog a few mentions about  J.H. Brennan, a writer of, among other things, gamebooks. I was quite fond of his work when I was a child. Well, I found on a charity shop the second bok of his GrailQuest series. I bought it on the spot. As the name indicates, it is freely inspired by the Arthurian legend, although the tone is mostly parodic. You play a young man transported magically by Merlin into the reign of Arthur through a spell, the book being a sort of "portal", as well as into the body of a young knight named Pip. It is pretty smart in a meta way. The medievalist specialised in the Arthurian legend will probably recoiled at the amount of silliness (you use a sword called Excalibur Junior, or EJ), but I do remember Brennan being capable of adding pretty dark touches here and there, as well as a few gory moments. I'm looking forward to revisiting the book in any case.

Saint George's Day

Happy Saint George's Day everyone! Especially to all my English readers. I never know how to celebrate. Not many places do in england, ironically enough. It is a shame, as a patron saint reknown for fighting a dragon should be inspiring for a national day. I can only dream of the things I'd do with it if I had the time, the know-how and the money. I might watch a few YouTube movies about Saint George or something. Maybe read the legend to Wolfie. But in any case, happy Saint George's Day again and beware fire breathing lizards.

Say it with a dragon

It was recently the birthday of Wolfie. He turned six. Time goestoo fast. My parents could not be here this year, so they sent him money, to be spent on something useful, and a card. This card. They bought it months ago, because when they saw it they knew it was going to be the birthday card for Wolfie. Their grandson insisted on unwrapping it in the morning, as he knew it was going to be a special one. He loved the dragon. I must say, I loved it too and it just made sense that our son had a friendly dragon on a birthday card. A cheeky one too, or at least he looks cheeky.

Saint George's Day

 Happy Saint George's Day everyone! It is a day seldom rarely celebrated here, which is ironic because: 1)Saint George of Lydda is the Patron Saint of England and 2) as a dragonslayer, he is one very cool saint. We try to do something about it every year, or at least I to do something to commemorate. That said, this year I'm not sure whatwe will do, if we do anything. There are no special events we know of being organised nearby, so we might not even go anywhere. Which is kind of sad. But if anything happens, I will of course blog about it in the coming days or hours.

Saint George's Day (and a pub)

Happy Saint George's Day everyone!Saint George, who is of course the most famous dragon killer and the patron saint of England. I usually share a picture to go with the post, but I have none that is new, so this post will have to do by itself. Fun fact: like in many English townsor villages, we have a local pub called... George and the Dragon. This is where I would normally go to celebrate. That said: 1)since it changed ownership circa 2008, it became a pretty rubbish pub, looking kind of beige and with the poorest service among all the pubs here and 2)until the situation gets better, I'd rather avoid pubs altogether. So I will spend no time at this George and Dragon. Maybe one Saint George's Day I will celebrate in one aptly named pub, although I doubt it ill be this particular aptly named pub.

Sauroctones (mot du jour)

Mon frère PJ m'a récemment fait découvrir le terme sauroctone, que je ne connaissais pas avant, malgré des années à les étudier, directement ou indirectement. Les saurochtones sont des personnes ayant tué, asservi, chassé ou dompté des dragons ou des monstres quelconques. Ils sont souvent des chevaliers ou des saints. Je n'ai rien d'autre à dire sinon que c'est un terme vraiment cool et que j'aurais aimé le savoirdu temps de mes études universitaires supérieures, ça aurait paru beau dans une dissertation ou un essai, sinon une thèse.

The Welsh Flag and me

Today is the first of March and it is also the Feast of Saint David, also the patron saint of Wales. It is therefore Wales' National Day. I took this picture while visiting Cardiff Castle. That was back in 2017. I have a bit of history with Wales and the Welsh people, which dates back to my first year at uni and I have detailed in this post. That same year, I asked one of my Welsh friends to buy a Welsh flag for me next time she went home, because I thought it looked really cool with the dragon on it (you don't see it so well on this pic) and its call back to the Arthurian legend. Back then, it was not something I would have done over the internet. Anyway, she bought it and the flag is still in my parents' place somewhere. I wonder if dad takes it out to fly it. I guess the neighbours would think it weird, but among all the flags of the world, I think the Welsh one might be the coolest. And today, I wish I could fly it here, even though I am not Welsh.

Dragons, imagination and RPGs

I took this picture at Sundown Adventureland, a theme park for children and maybe some adults too. It had a lot of displays, including a dragon guarding a treasure that you could wake up. I took a few snapshots, including this one. Watching it so lifelike, I wished we had something like this where I was when we grew up. But my brothers and I had our imagination and this was enough for us. I was thinking about this recently, and before we played Dungeons & Dragons when we reached teenage, a lot of our childhood make belief games were basically medieval fantasy games: we played knights, wizards, rogues and we fought all sorts of critters like this one, hoarded treasures and visited many places. Of course, dangerous forests or sinister swamps were our home's back garden (or or friend's) and the taverns and castles were our front porch. We needed little else to create fantastic worlds, except the odd piece of fiction (this movie and these books). Our D&Dr campaign is a direct product of these games and a lot of the elements we had in these old pseudo medieval games were transformed in our campaign setting.

Chinese Dragon

I took this picture in our friend's home in Derbyshire. I don't know if they got it in China. They have lots of stuff they bought in the different places in the world they have visited (they are quite wealthy), so it is possible. I really loved it, so I took a picture, just for the heck of it.

Saint George against the Dragon

Happy Saint George's Day everyone! The patron saint of England and English people, even though he never set foot here. To celebrate and pay homage to him, here is a picture of a statue representing the famous combat against the dragon, the part of his legend that made him famous. My father took it in Berlin. Very dramatic, as you can see. As if we were witnessing it.

Saint George (or saint Michael?) and the Dragon

My dad recently sent me this picture. He took it at the Roskilde Cathedral in Denmark, which we visited thirty years ago or so. This is a 800 year old clock, still working. Or at least it was working when we visited it. I barely remembered seeing this ancient clock. You can see on it a depiction of Saint George or Saint Michael killing the Dragon. We are not sure: researches we made gave us contradictory information. My money is on saint George as I think you can see a princess somewhere and he's on horseback. If I am right, then we saw in Denmark a dramatic representation on a clock of the single most famous exploit of the patron saint of Englishmen. I thought about sharing the picture for Saint George's Day, but I could not wait. I want to know if it is Saint George or Saint Michael, for one and thought I would ask it here. I also thought that either way, a 800 year old clock with a dramatic depiction of a fight against a dragon is just too cool not to share as soon as possible. So here it is.