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Heya Everybody, I Just Wanted To Again, Thank EveryBody For Joining, and I would like to ask You People for Some Input on Who You Would like me and The group to Invite to our Group. I Have Personally Invited A Lot Of You Ladies, Because, Ladies Bring the Standard of Enjoyment Up, In the Groups That They are In. I have also Invited Some Gentlemen Also. I was Wondering if I Could Go Off Our Members Friends List. ? . Also, If You Ladies Know a Gentleman you want invited to our Group, just let me know.. If any of you would like to be an admin and do invites once a week , that would also be Greatly Appreciated.. Thank You all Ahead Of Time...

Tuesday March 27th, 7:30 AM Pacific: European Championships r7 live coverage w/ GM Bojkov and participants plat+diam Wednesday March 28th, 7:30 AM Pacific: European Championships r8 live coverage w/ GM Bojkov and participants plat+diam Wednesday, March 28th, 11:00 AM Pacific: The BIG Show w/ IM Daniel Rensch ALL MEMBERS!!! Thursday March 29th, 7:30 AM Pacific: European Championships r9 live coverage w/ GM Bojkov and participants plat+diam Thursday March 29th, 11:00 AM Pacific: Pardon Our Blunders w/ IMs Rensch and Pruess plat+diam Friday March 30th, 7:30 AM Pacific: European Championships r10 live coverage w/ GM Bojkov and participants ALL MEMBERS!!! Saturday March 31st, 5:30 AM Pacific: European Championships final round live coverage w/ GM Bojkov and participants plat+diam Saturday, March 31st, 11:00 AM Pacific: 3rd Chess.com Blitz Chess Death Match: Shankland vs Hess -- Pregame SHOW! w/ IMs Rensch and Pruess ALL MEMBERS!!! Saturday, March 31st, 11:30 AM Pacific: 3rd Chess.com Blitz Chess Death Match: Shankland vs Hess w/ IMs Rensch and Pruess ALL MEMBERS!!!

This is A Forum For Poetry, Wit, Quotes, and Phrases. Feel Free To Add Your Own Originals, or Somebody Elses.

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The Origin of Chess Western Chess Chronicle Vol. 1 July, 1936 No. 9 Chess, as the world knows it today, has an ancestry clearly definable and easily established. The student of the game's history, indeed, can find a wealth of corroborative evidence to further his efforts in tracing its ancestry, in philology. "A Number of the mediaeval European chess terms," writes H.J.R. Murray in his voluminous work, A History of Chess, "can be traced back by way of Arabic to Middle Persian." For his authority Mr. Murray has utilized an elaborate compilation of data from chess literature both in printed and manuscript forms dating as far back as the Egyptian Dynasties. He continues: "The name of the game in most of the European languages (e.g. English, 'chess'; French, 'echecs'; Italian, 'scacchi') can be traced back, through the Latin plural 'scaci' ('scachi', scacci', meaning 'chessmen'), to the Arabic and Persian name of the chess King, 'shah'." We may find confirmation of this evidence in the fact that the name, "chess", in modern Spanish or Castilian is "ajedrez", and in Portuguese it is "xadrez". Further, we find these two forms in more ancient Castilian as "acedrix", which is nothing more than the Arabic "ash-shatranj", or the "shatranj" in European costume. To proceed one step further back we find "shatranj" to be an "Arabicized form of the Middle Persian 'shatrang'," which in turn is an adaptation of the Sanskrit "chaturanga". "All these terms are in their respective languages the ordinary names for the game of chess." To substantiate this process of derivations Mr. Murray makes a most interesting assertion: "This philological evidence derives some support from the documentary evidence. The earliest works which make mention of chess date from about the beginning of the 7th century A. D., and are associated with the northwest India, Persia, and Islam. It is difficult to assign exact dates, but the oldest of a number of nearly contemporary references is generally assumed to be a mention of chess in a Middle Persian romance --the 'Karnamak'-- which is ascribed with some hesitation to the reign of Khusraw II Parwiz, the Sasanian king of Persia, 590-628 A. D. The others belong to northwest India." Our game today, as the western world plays it, is one of the two main branches in which it may historically be divided. Our game is known as European chess, or Occidental chess. The second branch is known as Asiatic chess and includes those forms familiar to China and Japan. "Shon-gi" is the Japanese form of chess; "I-go, Wei-Ki" is the ancient Chinese game of chess. In 1904 a Japanese philosopher, Cho-Yo, wrote regarding these games: "The Chinese have been for many centuries acquainted with chess under a form not very unlike the Occidental branch of the Chessological game. Yet the rules for playing are very different from those of the Hindostanese and its descendants' modified offsprings, so that it gives us a strong suggestion to let it be a quite, though only apparently, independent origin on account of the peculiar feature of a central space or strip called 'The Sacred Barrier or River'. "The origin of the Chinese Chessological game is also of very great antiquity, and the reputation of the inventor of the game for the sake of getting clear riddance of brutal, bloodthirsty struggle….is generally yet fabulously attributed to the great sage Wei Wang, in 1120 B.C. "Japanese chess, or 'Shon-gi', is of a very great antiquity, and is a descendant of that which originated at least 5000 years ago." Referring again to Mr. Murray's writings, we read: "It is interesting to note that early Persian and Arabic tradition is unanimous in ascribing the game of chess to India. The details naturally vary in different works and the names in the tradition are manifestly apocryphal. "Chess is usually associated with the decimal numerals as an Indian invention, and its introduction into Persia is persistently connected with the introduction of the book 'Kalila wa Dimna' (the Fables of Pilpay), in the reign of the Sasanian monarch, Khusraw I Nushirwan, 531 A.D., and European scholars of Sanskrit and Persian generally accept the traditional date of the introduction of this book as established. The so-called Arabic numerals are well-known to be really Indian. "Finally, a comparison of the arrangement and method of the European game of the 11th and 13th centuries A.D. with the Indian game as existing today and as described in the earlier records supports the same conclusion…. "We must accordingly conclude that our European chess is a direct descendant of an Indian game played in the 7th century with substantially the same arrangement and method as in Europe five centuries later, the game having been adopted first by the Persians, then handed on by the Persians to the Muslim world, and finally borrowed from Islam by Christian Europe." To substantiate the assertions as to the origin of the Asiatic branch of chess, as quoted above from Cho-Yo, Mr. Murray has this to say: "Games of a similar nature exist today in other parts of Asia than India, The Burmese 'sittuyin', the Siamese 'makruk', the Annamese 'chhoen trang', the Malay 'chator', the Tibetan 'chandaraki', the Mongol 'shatara', the Chinese 'siang k'i', the Corean 'tjyang keui', and the Japanese 'sho-gi', are all war games exhibiting the same great diversity of pieces which is the most distinctive feature of chess. "There is naturally far less direct evidence respecting the ancestry of these games than in the case of European chess, but there can be no doubt that all these games are descended from the sam original Indian game. The names 'sittuyin'' (Burmese), 'chhoen trang' (Annamese), and 'chandaraki' (Tibetan) certainly, and the names 'chator' (Malay) and 'shatara' (Mongol) probably, reproduce the Sanskrit 'chaturanga'…." In respect to the arrangement of pieces and board in the Malay, Tibetan and Mongol games Mr. Murray points out that they are identified very closely with the Indian game, but he further comments that the relation of the Chinese, Corean, and Japanese games are "not so obvious." He leaves no doubt, however, that both the Corean and Japanese games are derivatives of the older form of the Chinese game. Mention is made of Chinese writings which refer to the introduction of modifications in their game about 1279 B.C. Such coincidental features as the Chariot with the move of the Rook occupying the corner squares, and the Horse with the characteristic move of the Knight occupying adjoining squares indicate, and not accidentally, that the Chinese games are of Indian origin. In summarizing, we find this salient and self-evident fact. To again use Mr. Murray's words: "The broad lines of the diffusion of chess from India are fairly clear. Its earliest advance was probably westwards to Persia; the eastward advance appears to have been rather later, and at least three lines of advance may be traced." The first group, we are able to clearly trace, carried the game by Kashmir to the far east via China, Korea, and Japan. The second line, and most probably the same by which Buddhism traveled, carried the game to Further India (where it took on dissimilar features to that of Indian chess). Somewhat later the game spread from the southeast coast of India to the Malay Peninsula. How the game may have reached Tibet and the northern tribes of Asia is yet in doubt. Very ancient Persian manuscripts have revealed that the Zoroastrians had meanwhile passed on chess to the Eastern Roman Empire, and, further documents also disclose that, resulting from the Mohammedan conquest of Persia, Islam acquainted herself with the game. Following this period the Muslims became the most prolific pioneers of chess, thus bringing into being the first concepts of the Occidental branch, and carrying their game as far west as Spain and as far east as India where they ascribed the Arabic nomenclature on the Northern and Central provinces of the peninsula. There is in existence pronounced evidence of the fact that Christian Europe took up the study of chess from the Moors as early as 1000 A.D. Upon gaining a foothold on the Mediterranean shores, it gradually spread northward over France and Germany to Great Britain, to Scandinavia, and to Iceland. Archeological discoveries have brought to light chess pieces and boards found in tombs as old as the pre-dynastic period which dates back to about 4000 B.C. At King's College, London, in July, 1909, there was on display at the annual exhibition of the Egypt Exploration Fund a clay gaming board, measuring 7 inches by 2 1/2 inches, with three rows of six squares and eleven conical pieces varying in height from one-half inch to one inch, taken from a pre-dynastic tomb at El-Mahasna, which lies eight miles north of Abydos. The tomb is presumed to have been the burial-place of a medicine man or magician. There have also been found in tombs of the Fifth Dynasty, about 3600-3400 B.C., paintings on which were depicted early inhabitants of Egypt playing at chess. Chess games are mentioned in the earliest Buddhist literature of India, which manuscripts date back to about 500 B.C. A wealth of archeological discoveries, and a vast collection of Sanskrit, Indian, and especially Persian literature conclusively prove that the origin of chess dates back to the beginning of civilization itself. -oOOOo-

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World Chess Championship From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia For the upcoming event, see World Chess Championship 2012 Current World Champion Viswanathan Anandof India. The World Chess Championship is played to determine the World Champion in the board game chess. Men and women of any age are eligible to contest this title. The official world championship is generally regarded to have begun in 1886, when the two leading players in Europe, Wilhelm Steinitz and Johann Zukertort, played a match. From 1886 to 1946, the champion set the terms, requiring any challenger to raise a sizable stake and defeat the champion in a match in order to become the new world champion. From 1948 to 1993, the championship was administered by FIDE, the world chess federation. In 1993, the reigning champion (Garry Kasparov) broke away from FIDE, leading to the creation of two rival championships. This situation remained until 2006, when the title was unified at the World Chess Championship 2006. The current world champion is Viswanathan Anand, who won the World Chess Championship 2007 and successfully defended his title against former world champion Vladimir Kramnik in the World Chess Championship 2008, and again against the challenger Veselin Topalov in theWorld Chess Championship 2010. He will defend his title against challenger Boris Gelfand in the World Chess Championship 2012. In addition, there is a separate event for women only, for the title of Women's World Champion, as well as separate competitions and titles forjuniors (under 20 years of age), seniors (60+ for men, 50+ for women), and computers. Computers are barred from competing for the open title. Contents [show] [edit]History Further information: Development of the World Chess Championship Undisputed champions Classical champions FIDE champions The concept of a world chess champion started to emerge in the first half of the nineteenth century, and the phrase "world champion" appeared in 1845. From this time onwards various players were acclaimed as world champions, but the first contest that was defined in advance as being for the world championship was the match between Steinitz and Zukertort in 1886. Until 1948 world championship contests were matches arranged privately between the players. As a result the players also had to arrange the funding, in the form of stakes provided by enthusiasts who wished to bet on one of the players. In the early twentieth century this was sometimes a barrier that prevented or delayed challenges for the title. Between 1888 and 1948 various difficulties that arose in match negotiations led players to try to define agreed rules for matches, including the frequency of matches, how much or how little say the champion had in the conditions for a title match and what the stakes and division of the purse should be. However these attempts were unsuccessful in practise, as the same issues continued to delay or prevent challenges. The first attempt by an external organization to manage the world championship was in 1887–1889, but this experiment was not repeated. A system for managing regular contests for the title went into operation in 1948, under the control of FIDE, and functioned quite smoothly until 1993. However in that year reigning champion Kasparov and challenger Short were so dissatisfied with FIDE's arrangements for their match that they set up a break-away organization. The split in the world championship continued until 2006, and the compromises required in order to achieve re-unification have had effects that will not disappear until 2012 due to the 2009 Challenger Matchconditions. [edit]Unofficial champions (pre-1886) La Bourdonnais, the world's strongest player from 1821 to his death in 1840. Paul Morphy (left) crushed all opposition in his brief chess career (1857–1858). The first match proclaimed by the players as for the world championship was the match that Wilhelm Steinitzwon against Johannes Zukertort in 1886. However, a line of players regarded as the strongest (or at least the most famous) in the world extends back hundreds of years beyond them, and these players are sometimes considered the world champions of their time. They include Ruy López de Segura around 1560, Paolo Boi andLeonardo da Cutri around 1575, Alessandro Salvio around 1600, and Gioachino Greco around 1620. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, French players dominated, with Legall de Kermeur (1730–1747), François-André Philidor (1747–1795), Alexandre Deschapelles (around 1800–1821) and Louis-Charles Mahé de La Bourdonnais (1821–1840) all widely regarded as the strongest players of their time. Something resembling a world championship match was the La Bourdonnais - McDonnell chess matches in 1834, in which La Bourdonnais played a series of six matches – and 85 games – against the Irishman Alexander McDonnell. The idea of a world champion goes back at least to 1840, when a columnist in Fraser's Magazine wrote, "To whom is destined the marshal's baton when La Bourdonnais throws it down, and what country will furnish his successor? ... At present de La Bourdonnais, like Alexander the Great, is without heir, and there is room to fear the empire may be divided eventually under a number of petty kings."[1][2] The Englishman Howard Staunton's match victory over another Frenchman, Pierre Charles Fournier de Saint-Amant, in 1843 is considered to have established him as the world's strongest player,[3] with a letter quoted in The Times on 16 November 1843, but probably written before that, described the second Staunton vs Saint-Amant match, played in Paris in November–December 1843, as being for "the golden sceptre of Philidor."[1] The earliest recorded use of the term "World Champion" was in 1845, when Howard Staunton was described as "the Chess Champion of England, or ... the Champion of the World".[4] The first known proposal that a contest should be defined in advance as being for recognition as the world's best player was by Ludwig Bledow in a letter to von der Lasa, written in 1846 and published in the Deutsche Schachzeitung in 1848: "... the winner of the battle in Paris should not be overly proud of his special position, since it is in Trier that the crown will first be awarded" (Bledow died in 1846 and the proposed tournament did not take place).[1] In 1850 to 1851 the forthcoming 1851 London International Tournament was explicitly described as being for the world championship by three commentators: a letter from "a member of the Calcutta Chess Club" (dated 1 August 1850) and another from Captain Hugh Alexander Kennedy (dated October 1850) in the 1850 volume of the Chess Player's Chronicle; and the Liberty Weekly Tribune in Missouri (20 June 1851).[5] Although Kennedy was a member of the organizing committee for the tournament, there is no evidence that crowning a world champion was an official aim of the tournament.[6] Adolf Anderssen This tournament was won by the German Adolf Anderssen, establishing Anderssen as the leading player in the world.[7] Anderssen has been described as the first modern chess master.[8] However there is no evidence that this victory led to his being widely acclaimed at the time as the world champion, although Henry Birdretrospectively awarded the title to Anderssen for his victory in 1893.[9] Paul Morphy Anderssen was himself decisively defeated in an 1858 match against the American Paul Morphy, after which Morphy was toasted across the chess-playing world as the world chess champion. Morphy played matches against several leading players, crushing them all.[10][11] Harper's Weekly (25 September 1858) and The American Union (9 October 1858) hailed him as the world champion, but another article in Harper's Weekly (9 October 1858; by C.H. Stanley) was uncertain about whether to describe the Morphy-Harrwitzmatch as being for the world championship.[5] Soon after, he offered pawn and move odds to anyone who played him. Finding no takers, Morphy abruptly retired from chess the following year, but many considered him the world champion until his death in 1884. His sudden withdrawal from chess at his peak and subsequent mental illness led to his being known as "the pride and sorrow of chess". This left Anderssen again as possibly the world's strongest active player, a reputation he reinforced by winning the strong London 1862 chess tournament. Wilhelm Steinitz narrowly defeated Anderssen in an 1866 match, which some commentators consider the first "official" world championship match.[12] The match was not declared to be a world championship at the time, and it was only after Morphy's death in 1884 that such a match was declared, a testament to Morphy's dominance of the game (even though he had not played publicly for 25 years).[13] The use of the term "World Chess Champion" in this era is varied, but it appears that Steinitz, at least in later life, dated his reign from this 1866 match.[14] In 1883, Johannes Zukertort won a major international tournament in London, ahead of nearly every leading player in the world, including Steinitz.[15][16] This tournament established Steinitz and Zukertort as the best two players in the world, and led to the inaugural World Championship match between these two, the World Chess Championship 1886.[17][18][19] This match, won by Steinitz, though not held under the aegis of any official body, is generally recognized as the first official World Chess Championship match, with Steinitz the game's first official World Champion. Graham Burgess lists Philidor, de la Bourdonnais, Staunton, and Morphy as players who were acclaimed as the greatest players of their time (Burgess 2000:495). [edit]Official champions before FIDE (1886–1946) The championship was conducted on a fairly informal basis through the remainder of the nineteenth century and in the first half of the twentieth: if a player thought he was strong enough, he (or his friends) would find financial backing for a match purse and challenge the reigning world champion. If he won, he would become the new champion. There was no formal system of qualification. However, it is generally regarded that the system did on the whole produce champions who were the strongest players of their day. The players who held the title up until World War II were Steinitz, Emanuel Lasker, José Raúl Capablanca, Alexander Alekhine, and Max Euwe, each of them defeating the previous incumbent in a match. [edit]The reign of Wilhelm Steinitz Wilhelm Steinitz dominated chess from 1866 to 1894, and his reign raised most of the issues that have since affected the world championship. Wilhelm Steinitz' reign is notable for: the first recorded suggestion that a world champion could forfeit the title by declining a credible challenge or by prolonged absence from competition; the first recorded instance of a disputed world championship; the first actual contest that was defined in advance as being for the world championship (Bledow's 1846 proposal came to nothing); the first attempt to regulate contests for the world championship; debates about whether the championship should be decided by a match or a tournament; and differences between commentators about when his reign began, which persist right down to the present day.[5][20] There is no evidence that Steinitz claimed the title for himself immediately after winning a match against Adolf Anderssen in 1866, although in his International Chess Magazine (September 1887 and April 1888) he claimed to have been the champion since 1866.[5] It has been suggested that Steinitz could not make such a claim while Paul Morphy was alive.[21] Morphy had defeated Anderssen by a far wider margin in 1858, but retired from chess competition soon after he returned to the USA in 1859, and died in 1884.[22] The earliest known reference to Steinitz as world champion was in the Chess Player's Chronicle (October 1872), after he beatJohannes Zukertort in their first match.[5] But the New York Times (11 March 1894),[23] British Chess Magazine (April 1894) and Emanuel Lasker (Lasker's Chess Magazine, May 1908) dated his reign from 1866,[5] and in the early 1950s Reuben Fine followed their example.[22] On the other hand many recent commentators divide Steinitz' reign into an "unofficial" one before he beat Zukertort again in 1886 and the first "official" world championship from that time onwards;[24][25][26][27] Steinitz had insisted that the contract for the 1886 match must specify that the match was "for the Championship of the World" (Chess Monthly, January 1886).[5] The Irish Times (6 March 1879) argued that Steinitz had forfeited the title by prolonged absence from competitive chess and therefore Zukertort should be regarded as champion. The Chess Player's Chronicle (18 July 1883) made a more complex argument: other commentators had suggested that Zukertort should be regarded as champion because he had won a major tournament (London 1883, 3 points ahead of Steinitz[28]); the Chronicle thought tournaments were an unreliable way of deciding the championship and Steinitz' victories in matches gave him the better claim; but, if Zukertort were the champion, he should forfeit the title if he declined a challenge, especially from a challenger with Steinitz' credentials, and in that case the title should revert to Steinitz.[5] In 1887 the American Chess Congress started work on drawing up regulations for the future conduct of world championship contests. Steinitz supported this endeavor, as he thought he was becoming too old to remain world champion. The proposal evolved through many forms (as Steinitz pointed out, such a project had never been undertaken before), and resulted in the New York 1889 tournament to select a challenger for Steinitz, rather like the more recent Candidates Tournaments. The tournament was duly played, but the outcome was not quite as planned: Mikhail Chigorin and Max Weiss tied for first place; their play-off resulted in four draws; and neither wanted to play a match against Steinitz – Chigorin had just lost to him and Weiss wanted to get back to his work for the Rothschild Bank. The third prize-winner Isidore Gunsberg was prepared to play Steinitz for the title in New York, and Steinitz won their match in 1890–1891.[20][29][30] This experiment was not repeated and the 1894 match in which Steinitz lost his title was a private arrangement between the players.[23] [edit]Lasker (1894–1920) Lasker was the first champion after Steinitz; although he did not defend his title in 1897–1906 or 1911–1920, he did string together an impressive run of tournament victories and dominated his opponents. His success was largely due to the fact that he was an excellent practical player. In difficult or objectively lost positions he would complicate matters and use his extraordinary tactical abilities to save the game. He held the title from 1894 to 1921, the longest reign (27 years) of any champion. In that period he defended the title successfully in one-sided matches against Steinitz, Frank Marshall, Siegbert Tarrasch and Dawid Janowski, and was only seriously threatened in a tied 1910 match against Carl Schlechter. Although Emanuel Lasker defended his title more frequently than Steinitz had, his negotiations for title matches from 1911 onwards were extremely controversial. In 1911 he received a challenge for a world title match against José Raúl Capablanca and, in addition to making severe financial demands, proposed some novel conditions: the match should be considered drawn if neither player finished with a two-game lead; and it should have a maximum of 30 games, but finish if either player won six games and had a two-game lead (previous matches had been won by the first to win a certain number of games, usually 10; in theory such a match might go on for ever). Capablanca objected to the two-game lead clause; Lasker took offence at the terms in which Capablanca criticized the two-game lead condition and broke off negotiations.[31] Further controversy arose when, in 1912, Lasker's terms for a proposed match with Akiba Rubinstein included a clause that, if Lasker should resign the title after a date had been set for the match, Rubinstein should become world champion (American Chess Bulletin, October 1913).[32] When he resumed negotiations with Capablanca after World War I, Lasker insisted on a similar clause that if Lasker should resign the title after a date had been set for the match, Capablanca should become world champion.[31] On 27 June 1920 Lasker abdicated in favor of Capablanca because of public criticisms of the terms for the match, naming Capablanca as his successor (American Chess Bulletin, July August 1920). Some commentators questioned Lasker's right to name his successor (British Chess Magazine, August 1920; Rochester Democrat and Chronicle); Amos Burn raised the same objection but welcomed Lasker's resignation of the title (The Field, 3 July 1920). Capablanca argued that, if the champion abdicated, the title must go to the challenger as any other arrangement would be unfair to the challenger (British Chess Magazine, October 1922). Lasker also announced that, if he won his match against Capablanca, he would resign the title so that younger masters could compete for it ("Dr Lasker and the Championship" in American Chess Bulletin, September–October 1920).[32] In the event Capablanca won their 1921 match easily.[22] [edit]Capablanca, Alekhine and Euwe (1921–46)

Hello. An important thing in a team are & invite of players and producing teamgames & Vote chess. When there are players that gladly help. with these things as admin. We gladly welcome you. Send one message.. ore leave one message here.. thanks and to greet the admin team.

Dragon From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This article is about the legendary creature. For other uses, see Dragon (disambiguation). The "Ljubljana Dragon" in Ljubljana,Slovenia Stone carving of Chinese dragons at a temple in Fuzhou, China Carved imperial dragons at Nine-Dragon Wall, Beihai Park, Beijing A dragon is a legendary creature, typically with serpentine or reptilian traits, that feature in themyths of many cultures. There are two distinct cultural traditions of dragons: the European dragon, derived from European folk traditions and ultimately related to Greek and Middle Eastern mythologies, and the Chinese dragon, with counterparts in Japan, Korea and other East Asian countries. The two traditions may have evolved separately, but have influenced each to a certain extent, particularly with the cross-cultural contact of recent centuries. The English word "dragon" derives from Greek δράκων (drákōn), "dragon, serpent of huge size, water-snake", which probably comes from the verb δρακεῖν (drakeîn) "to see clearly".[1] In the New Testament, the Devil takes the form of a red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, in his battle against Archangel Michael. Contents [show] Overview An illustration of an Eastern dragon. Dragons are usually shown in modern times with a body like a huge lizard, or a snake with two pairs of lizard-type legs, and able to emit fire from their mouths. The European dragon has bat-type wings growing from its back. A dragon-like creature with no front legs is known as a wyvern. Following discovery of how pterosaurs walked on the ground, some dragons have been portrayed without front legs and using the wings as front legs pterosaur-fashion when on the ground. Although dragons occur in many legends around the world, different cultures have varying stories about monsters that have been grouped together under the dragon label. Some dragons are said to breathe fire or to be poisonous, such as in the Old English poem Beowulf.[2] They are commonly portrayed as serpentine or reptilian, hatching from eggs and possessing typically scaly or feathered bodies. They are sometimes portrayed as having especially large eyes or watching treasure very diligently, a feature that is the origin of the word dragon (Greek drakeîn meaning "to see clearly").[3] Some myths portray them with a row of dorsal spines. European dragons are more often winged, while Chinese dragons resemble large snakes. Dragons can have a variable number of legs: none, two, four, or more when it comes to early European literature. Dragons are often held to have major spiritual significance in various religions and cultures around the world. In many Asian cultures dragons were, and in some cultures still are, revered as representative of the primal forces of nature, religion and the universe. They are associated withwisdom—often said to be wiser than humans—and longevity. They are commonly said to possess some form of magic or other supernatural power, and are often associated with wells, rain, and rivers. In some cultures, they are also said to be capable of human speech. In some traditions dragons are said to have taught humans to talk. The term dragoon, for infantry that moved around on horseback yet still fought as foot soldiers, is derived from their early firearm, the "dragon", a wide-bore musket that spat flame when it fired, and was thus named for the mythical creature. Origin and etymology Dragon head on a roof of a temple inTaiwan Origin and etymology The word dragon entered the English language in the early 13th century from Old French dragon, which in turn comes from Latin draconem (nominative draco) meaning "huge serpent, dragon," from the Greek word δράκων, drakon (genitive drakontos, δράκοντος) "serpent, giant seafish", which is believed to have come from an earlier stem drak-, a stem of derkesthai, "to see clearly," from Proto-Indo-European derk- "to see" or "the one with the (deadly) glance." The Greek and Latin term referred to any great serpent, not necessarily mythological, and this usage was also current in English up to the 18th century. The association of the serpent with a monstrous opponent overcome by a heroic deity has its roots in the mythology of the Ancient Near East, including Canaanite (Hebrew, Ugaritic), Hittiteand Mesopotamian. The Chaoskampf motif entered Greek mythology and ultimately Christianmythology, although the serpent motif may already be part of prehistoric Indo-European mythologyas well, based on comparative evidence of Indic and Germanic material. It has been speculated that accounts of spitting cobras may be the origin of the myths of fire-breathing dragons.[4] Oriental dragon In China, depiction of the dragon (traditional:龍;simplified:龙) can be found in artifacts from the Shang and Zhou dynasties with examples dating back to the 16th century BC.[5] Archaeologist Zhōu Chong-Fa believes that the Chinese word for dragon is an onomatopoeia of the sound thunder makes.[6] The Chinese name for dragon is pronounced "lóng" in Mandarin Chinese[5] or "lùhng" in the Cantonese.[7] Sometime after the 9th century AD, Japan adopted the Chinese dragon through the spread of Buddhism.[5] Although the indigenous name for a dragon in Japanese is tatsu (たつ?), a few of the Japanese words for dragon stem from the Chinese word for dragon, namely, "ryū" (りゅう?) or "ryō" (りょう?) (traditional:龍;simplified:竜).[5] The Vietnamese word for dragon is "rồng" (hán tự:龍) and the Korean word for dragon is "ryong" (hangul:용) (hanja:龍). Animals that may have inspired dragons Nile crocodiles, today very restricted in range, were in ancient times occasionally found in Southern Europe, having swum across theMediterranean. Such wayward crocodiles may have inspired dragon myths.[8] Skeletons of whales, as well as dinosaur and mammalian fossils were occasionally mistaken for the bones of dragons and other mythological creatures; for example, a discovery in 300 BC inWucheng[disambiguation needed ], Sichuan, China, was labeled as such by Chang Qu.[8][9] Adrienne Mayor has written on the subject of fossils as the inspiration for myths in her book The First Fossil Hunters, and in an entry in the Encyclopedia of Geology she wrote: "Fossil remains generated a variety of geomyths speculating on the creatures' identity and cause of their destruction. Many ancient cultures, from China and India to Greece, America, and Australia, told tales of dragons, monsters, and giant heroes.."[10] In Australia, stories of such creatures may have referred to the land crocodiles, Quinkana sp., a terrestrial crocodile which grew to 5 to possibly 7 metres long, or the 4 tonne monitor lizard Varanus priscus (formerly Megalania prisca) a giant carnivorous goanna that might have grown to 7 metres, and weighed up to 1,940 kilograms, or rainbow serpents (possibly Wonambi naracoortensis) that were part of the extinct megafauna of Australia.[11] Today the Komodo monitor lizard Varanus komodoensis is known in English as the Komodo dragon. In the book An Instinct for Dragons[12] anthropologist David E. Jones suggests a hypothesis that humans just like monkeys have inherited instinctive reactions to snakes, large cats and birds of prey. Dragons have features that are combinations of these three. An instinctive fear for these three would explain why dragons with similar features occur in stories from independent cultures on all continents. Other authors have suggested that especially under the influence of drugs or in dreams, this instinct may give rise to fantasies about dragons, snakes, spiders, etc., which would explain why these symbols are popular in drug culture. The traditional mainstream explanation to the folklore dragons does however not rely on human instinct, but on the assumption that fossil remains of dinosaurs gave rise to similar speculations all over the world. By region Greek mythology Main article: Dragons in Greek mythology In Ancient Greece the first mention of a "dragon" is derived from the Iliad where Agamemnon is described as having a blue dragon motif on his sword belt and an emblem of a three-headed dragon on his breast plate.[13] However, the Greek word used (δράκων drákōn, genitiveδράκοντοϛ drákontos) could also mean "snake". Δράκων drákōn is a form of the aorist participle active of Greek δέρκομαι dérkomai = "I see",derkeîn = "to see", and originally likely meant "that which sees", or "that which flashes or gleams" (perhaps referring to reflective scales). This is the origin of the word "dragon". (See also Hesiod's Theogony, 322.) In 217 A.D., Flavius Philostratus (Greek: Φλάβιος Φιλόστρατος)[14] discussed dragons (δράκων, drákōn) in India in The Life of Apollonius of Tyana (II,17 and III,6–8). The Loeb Classical Library translation (by F.C. Conybeare) mentions (III,7) that “In most respects the tusks resemble the largest swine’s, but they are slighter in build and twisted, and have a point as unabraded as sharks’ teeth.” According to a collection of books by Claudius Aelianus (Greek: Κλαύδιος Αιλιανός)[15] called On Animals, Ethiopia was inhabited by a species of dragon that hunted elephants. It could grow to a length of 180 feet and had a lifespan rivaling that of the most enduring of animals.[16] Dragon effigy, the Graoully, in Metz,France European Main articles: European dragon, Saint George and the Dragon, Margaret the Virgin, and Dacian Draco European dragons exist in folklore and mythology among the overlapping cultures of Europe. Dragons are generally depicted as living in rivers or having an underground lair or cave.[8] They are commonly described as having hard or armoured hide, and are rarely described as flying, despite often depicted with wings. European dragons are usually depicted as malevolent though there are exceptions (such as Y Ddraig Goch, the Red Dragon of Wales). Chinese Dragon sculpture on top of Longshan Temple, Taipei, Taiwan. Main article: Chinese dragon The Chinese dragon (simplified Chinese: 龙; traditional Chinese: 龍; pinyin: lóng) is the highest-ranking animal in the Chinese animal hierarchy, strongly associated at one time with the emperor and hence power and majesty (the mythical bird fenghuang was the symbol of the Chinese empress), still recognized and revered. Its origins are vague, but its "ancestors can be found on Neolithic pottery as well as Bronze Age ritual vessels."[17] Tradition has it composed of nine different animals, with nine sons, each with its own imagery and affiliations. It is the only mythological animal of the 12 animals that represent the Chinese calendar. 2012 is the Chinese year of the Water Dragon. Japanese Main article: Japanese dragon Japanese dragon myths amalgamate native legends with imported stories about dragons from China, Korea and India. Like these other Asian dragons, most Japanese ones are water deities associated with rainfall and bodies of water, and are typically depicted as large, wingless, serpentine creatures with clawed feet. Gould writes (1896:248),[18] the Japanese dragon is "invariably figured as possessing three claws". India In the early Vedic religion, Vritra (Sanskrit: वृत्र (Devanāgarī) or Vṛtra (IAST)) "the enveloper", was an Asura and also a "naga" (serpent) (Sanskrit: नाग)[19] or possibly dragon-like creature, the personification of drought and enemy of Indra. Vritra was also known in the Vedas asAhi ("snake") (Sanskrit: अहि),[20] and he is said to have had three heads. The Life of Apollonius of Tyana by Flavius Philostratus:[21] contains a long detailed description of India heavily infested with dragons, but this does not correspond with modern Indian belief, and likely not with Indian belief as it was in his time, whether Apollonius invented this story, or whether he believed someone else who told him it. Persian Aži Dahāka is the source of the modern Persian word azhdahā or ezhdehā اژده ها (Middle Persian azdahāg) meaning "dragon", often used of a dragon depicted upon a banner of war. The Persians believed that the baby of a dragon will be the same color as the mother's eyes. In Middle Persian he is called Dahāg or Bēvar-Asp, the latter meaning "[he who has] 10,000 horses." Several other dragons and dragon-like creatures, all of them malevolent, are mentioned in Zoroastrian scripture. (See Zahhāk). Slavic dragon Zmey Gorynych, the Russian three-headed dragon Main article: Slavic dragon In Slavic mythology, the words “zmey”, "zmiy" or "zmaj" are used to describe dragons. These words are masculine forms of the Slavic word for "snake", which are normally feminine (like Russian zmeya). In Romania, there is a similar figure, derived from the Slavic dragon and named zmeu. Exclusively in Polish and Belarusian folklore, as well as in the other Slavic folklores, a dragon is also called smok(смок, цмок, smok). In South Slavic folklores, the same thing is also called lamya (ламйа, ламjа, lamja). Although quite similar to other European dragons, Slavic dragons have their peculiarities. Russian dragons usually have heads in multiples of three. Some have heads that grow back if every single head isn't cut off. In Ukraine and Russia, a particular dragon-like creature, Zmey Gorynych, hasthree heads and spits fire. According to one bylina, Zmey Gorynych was killed by bogatyr Dobrynya Nikitich. Other Russian dragons (such as Tugarin Zmeyevich) have Turkic names, probably symbolizing the