This is the third of a series inspired by The World Dragon Oracle, created by yours truly and featuring dragon artwork from the amazing Anne Stokes. If you missed the first two posts, go here: Why Create an Oracle? and/or here: Jormungandr, Norse World Dragon
Apep and Mehen
In Egypt, we have an active form of the world balance in the guise of two dragons: Apep and Mehen. Apep is the Enemy of Ra and is a dragon of chaos. Apep’s cyclic adversary is the dragon companion of Ra, Mehen.
These two dragons battle daily and through their struggle of push and pull, the world is kept in balance.
Apep is said to be always lurking just below the horizon, atop a mountain, or “just before the dawn”.[1] This dragon can be anywhere and everywhere, thus earning him the additional title of World Encircler.
[1] Amen, R. U. (1990). Metu Neter, Vol. 1: The Great Oracle of Tehuti and the Egyptian System of Spiritual Cultivation. New York: Kamit Publications.
Merlin’s Dragons
From the Arthuriana and the prophecies of Merlin, we have another pair of battling dragons. The ouroboros image for these dragons is two dragons deep inside a mountain, one red, the other bone white, slumbering peacefully beneath the smooth surface of a lake.
During the time of the youthful Merlin, the British King Vortigern was trying to build a fortress upon the mountain under which the dragons slept. Every night after the day’s work was done, every tower or battlement lay in a chaotic heap of rubble.
Vortigern’s counsellors tell him that there must be a sacrifice of a boy with no father, and then the fortress could be completed. The boy with no father is young Merlin.
Merlin quite plainly tells Vortigern, and his counsellors, that they have a dragon problem, not a sacrifice problem. There are the two dragons, young Merlin explained, that awakened every night and battled furiously.
The symbolic battle between these energies is a form of world balance as well. The image of the slumbering dragons is one of stillness and quiet. Intertwined, the red and white dragons are holding the tension as they sleep. When awakened, their furious battle is a symbolic struggle to return to a state of harmony. Like Apep and Mehen, these two dragons are vital components of balance.
Virginia Chandler 