Dragon books give-a-way winner, with Shawn MacKenzie

Tags

Archimedes' Notebook, Dragons, Dragons for Beginners, Llewellyn, Month of the Dragon, Science, Shawn MacKenzie, Sue Heavenrich, The Dragon Keeper’s Handbook

And we have a winner! Congrats, Sue Heavenrich! Thank you, Karen, for your labors and everyone who dropped by and took a chance for Dragons.

Karen R. Sanderson's Blog

The winner of last week’s Dragon books give-a-way…

Sue Heavenrich

Congratulations, Sue!

Shawn MacKenzie will contact you to arrange delivery of

Dragons for Beginners and The Dragon Keeper’s Handbook.

Sue’s blog

You might like some of Sue’s science posts on her blog Archimedes’ Notebook – “hands-on science exploration for children and their parents.”

From Sue’s blog…

Things to Do in Fall

plant daffodils and lilies

watch maples turn red

collect acorns

pick apples

find glow-in-the-dark mushrooms

plant garlic

follow woolly bear caterpillars

map monarch migration

star gaze

make leaf prints

hunt for insect galls

do bark rubbings

walk like a fox

make a nature wreath

collect flower seeds

make a compost pile

rake leaves into a pile and jump in

collect every color of leaf

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Dragons, Books, Thanks…

Tags

Book Giveaway, Books, Dragon Keeper's Handbook, Dragons, Dragons for Beginners, Editing, Writing

A big “Thank You!” to Karen Sanderson – Word Shark par excellence – for so generously doing a Dragon Books giveaway via her blog. If you haven’t checked out The Word Shark, I urge you to do so, asap.

And a big “Thank You!” to everyone who dropped by and left a comment! The lucky winner will be announced on the 15th. (With proper draconic fanfare, of course!)

I will keep you posted!

All Hallows and Book Givings…

Tags

Book Giveaway, Dragon Keeper's Handbook, Dragons, Dragons for Beginners, Month of the Dragon, Vote, WAFDE, Winners

It’s a wrap for another Month of the Dragon.

As we nurse Halloween tummy aches and struggle to get our sugar-high Dragons down off the ceiling, I want to thank everyone who participated in this year’s celebrations. Dragonfire streaked the October skies and Dragonsong rang out across the continents.

Now it is All Hallows Day and I have the pleasure to announce this year’s winner of the MotD Book Giveaway!

Congratulations to Karen Sanderson! Your copies of  Dragons for Beginners and The Dragon Keeper’s Handbook will be on their way tout de suite!

             

 

Now, it may be November but do keep the Dragon spirit alive. I hope to see you all back here for MotD 2015!

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And next week, those of you in the States…

Don’t forget to VOTE!

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Samhain – When Dragons Fly….

Tags

Book Giveaway, Dragon Keeper's Handbook, Dragons for Beginners, Enchantments, Eternal Dragon, Lake Baikal, Month of the Dragon, Samhain, WAFDE, Weyrs

It’s Samhain – Halloween – and Month of the Dragon 2014 is at an end. I want to thank everyone who has joined in with words and pictures and an abundance of draconic energy. MotD gets better – spreads the appreciation of Dragons further – every year, which warms the cockles of all of us here at WAFDE. And I hope between now and midnight you’ll drop by, leave a comment, and insure that your name is in the hat for signed copies of Dragons for Beginners and The Dragon Keeper’s Handbook.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For Dragons, sidhe, and all other creatures who cavort with the strange or go bump in the night, Samhain is as close to a holy day as it gets.

Of course, at WAFDE, October 31 is a time for tricks and treats and baelfires blazing against the coming winter darkness.

But it is also a day for looking fore and back, for embracing both the future and the past. With the barrier between this life and the next paper-thin, on this one night even those disposed to disbelief find themselves surprised by Dragons at every turn. Thus another generation of dracophiles is born.

While welcoming new-opened eyes, we also look into the darkness and celebrate the lives of Dragons past, of those who have gone before.

In the spirit of these great creatures – and as a final story from the weyrs, I offer a tale of Dragon’s End from The Dragon Keeper’s Handbook.

There is an island in the middle of the Sacred Sea. On this island grows a Great Rowan Tree, its branches aching upwards, lost in the clouds. Round the tree, tails entwined, sleep six Dragon Guardians, one from each corner of the Dragon World. When a Dragon has reached her end of days, she makes her way to the Island of the Great Tree. With fire and fang and the roar of a thousand-thousand wings, the Guardians honor her centuries of passions lived and send her on her way, up through silvered boughs to the Kingdom of the Eternal Dragon.

Non-Dragon types insist this is just a pretty fiction, of course. And yet…

…Set in the crystal waters of Lake Baikal is the island of Olkhon. On the island grows an ancient rowan tree. ‘Round the tree dwell the six Enchantments of the Weyr of the Eternal Dragon.

There is always truth in Dragon lore.

When the day comes – as it will – that the well-worn nest long filled with a Mountain of Wonder lies empty, you will feel the earth sigh and know it is the poorer for her passing. Hold tight to the memories of shared years and blazing passions, to her spirit filled with the thunder of a million stars.

Imagine her soaring strong across the Sacred Sea.

Hear in your heart the roar of the thousand-thousand.

Then… let her go.

And come next Samhain, open your soul – welcome her spirit home.

 

A Dragon-Blessed Samhain to you all!

Kid-friendly Dragons and Their Tales….

Tags

Book Giveaway, Books, Cressida Cowell, Dragonology, Dragons, E Nesbit, Fantasy, How to Train Your Dragon, Jackie Morris, Kids Books, M.P.Robertson, Month of the Dragon, Storytelling

Over the years, I have spent delightful hours talking about Dragons, telling Dragon stories. There is no more receptive audience than children. Wide-eyed with wonder, they have an innate understanding that, not only are Dragons real, but that they are all around us, just waiting to be seen. Is it any wonder that there are a slew of marvelous Dragons in the annals of children’s literature? They crop up in Narnia and Middle Earth, in the faerie tales of the world that taught us such important lessons long ago.

And their number keep growing – some good, some bad – an ever present influence during our formative years. Teaching us to be brave and full of wonder, to believe in the seeming impossible and always treasure the rare and unusual.

Today I want to focus on just a few of my favorite Dragon books for kids – and their grown-ups, of course. They have both good stories and also wonderful conversations and pictures, for as Alice said, “What is the use of a book without pictures and conversation?” I hope you’ll share and enjoy.

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The Book of Dragons – E. Nesbit

I grew up with this book long ago before Kindle and computers – the free way to get it now. A collection of whimsical tales of Dragons and their people. All very British and rather mild by today’s standards, but worth a look.

Tell Me A Dragon – Jackie Morris

This is a stunning book. Jackie Morris’s inspirational illustrations will lead you to that dragon within, and get kids thinking about telling their very own Dragon.

Many Dragons by Jackie Morris

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How To Train Your Dragon – Cressida Cowell

If you’re only familiar with the film adaptations – which are wonderful – do go back and check out Cressida Cowell’s original work. See where it all started with Hiccup, Toothless and the Dragons of Berk.

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There’s No Such Thing as a Dragon – Jack Kent

Fun tale about little Billy Bixbee who wakes up one day and finds a dragon at the end of his bed. While the little scaly one grows fast and furious, Billy tries in vain to convince his mother there is a Dragon taking over their house. But, as some grown-ups will, she just keeps insisting, “There’s no such thing as a Dragon.”

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Dragonology – Dr. Ernest Drake

Ernest Drake and Candlewick Press have developed a wickedly lucrative franchise – including talk of an upcoming film – which does not mean they’re not fun and handsomely put together. The cryptoherpetologist in me has issues with some of Drakes facts, though the story-teller in me is fond of the Pocket Dragon Adventures.

 

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The Egg – M.P.Robertson

The first of four tales about young George and his Dragon naturally starts out with an egg – a giant golden egg George finds in his mom’s henhouse. When a dragon hatchling emerges, their lessons and adventures begin.

Followed by:
The Great Dragon Rescue

The Dragon Snatcher

The Dragon and the Gruesome Twosome

Occasionally slight on the storytelling, but Robertson’s illustrations are great.

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What were your favorite Dragon stories as a kid? Any new ones that strike your fancy, make your heart soar on Dragon wings? Please, tell us your Dragons!

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**In the tradition of Month of the Dragon, everyone who leaves a comment here at Dragon’s Nest has their name go into a hat. At the end of the month, a name will be drawn and the winner will receive signed copies of my books, The Dragon Keeper’s Handbook and Dragons for Beginners (both from Llewellyn Worldwide). Hope everyone is feeling lucky!

Dancing Dragon Day….

Tags

Book Giveaway, Dance, Dancing Dragons, Dragon Keeper's Handbook, Dragons, Month of the Dragon, WAFDE

From whisker to tail spade, Dragons understand the essential joy of dance. They embrace the rhythm of Earth and season, the ebb and flow of life, tapping talons and flapping wings in exuberant glee.

Weyrs in autumn are particularly suited to terpsichorean fun. Late August to the Autumnal Equinox is the time for courtship and mating. Bonds are made and celebrated in anticipation of hatchlings to come. By October, paired Dragons are settling in. They spend their time hunting (mom is eating for between 2 and 7), building nests, and lighting up the night sky with expectant fandangos.

Dancing Dragons – Linda Cole

With wonder and abandon, they are the truth at the heart of Rumi’s words:

When Lovers of Life get ready to Dance,
the Earth shakes and the Sky trembles.

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**In the tradition of Month of the Dragon, everyone who leaves a comment here at Dragon’s Nest has their name go into a hat. At the end of the month, a name will be drawn and the winner will receive signed copies of my books, The Dragon Keeper’s Handbook and Dragons for Beginners (both from Llewellyn Worldwide). Hope everyone is feeling lucky!

Dragon Shopping at St Audrey’s Fair

Tags

baubles, Book Giveaway, Dancing Dragons, Dragons, fesitvals, St Audrey Fair, WAFDE

It’s time again for St Audrey’s Fair – October 15 – 17. This year the festivities overlap Dancing Dragon Day and end on Gaudy Bauble Day.

Sparklies – Pantherwitch

In short, draconic fun abounds!
For today, a look back at MotD’s past with a repost from Dragon’s Nest MotD, 2012.

Enjoy.

Hearken back to the grit and grimy days of England in the 7th century. Towns were few and far between and wolves and Dragons still ruled the wilds with fang and claw. Fun Anglo-Saxon times.

Detail from Vortigern, Merlin & the Dragons. St.Alban’s Chronicle

This was the age of deep superstition and early conflict between the budding Christian church and old-time Paganism. Of strict class structure and more rights for cattle than women. It was into this world that Princess Æthelthryth (Etheldreda to those more Roman and Anglo-Saxon) was born of a most saintly lineage – according to the Venerable Bede, she, her brother, and three sisters were all canonized. She was a comely aristocrat with a fondness for beads and trinkets and more interest in heaven than earth. In the way of Medieval women, she was also a pawn in politics and religion for much of her short life (636-679 CE). Still, she was blessed to be a woman of wealth and property and so had leverage most women lacked.

After numerous exploits including two marriages (tricky propositions when one vows to remain a virgin), minor miracles, Æthelthryth founded an abbey in 673 at the Isle of Ely, an historic district in Fenlands she’d received as a dower gift from her first husband, King Tondbercht. She remained there as Abbess until her death from an unsightly tumor on her neck she attributed to divine judgement on her youthful liking of necklaces, gewgaws, and baubles. 

What can this possibly have to do with Dragons, you ask? Was she personally familiar with our fierce friends? The strong anti-Dragon stance of the church would have made this highly unlikely. No, the connection comes posthumously, when, in honour of the saintly Æthelthryth – Audrey to those who knew her well – the people of Ely got together to celebrate her life with an annual fair. St. Audrey’s Fair. At these gatherings, in remembrance of Audrey’s jewelry obsession, simple, inexpensive trinkets were bought and sold. (The word ‘tawdry’ even comes from a bastardization of Audrey’s name.) Where better to pick up a little something for one’s Dragon without incurring a mountain of debt or the suspicions of the local constabulary?

 

St. Audrey Fairs are still held around the UK, and there is a growing effort among certain Dragon aficionados to spread the festivities to other corners of the world. Dates vary, from June 23 (Audrey’s Saints Day) to the more MotD-friendly time, October 16-17, Gaudy Bauble Day. Those who don’t have a proper St. Audrey’s Fair near by often substitute the experience with an afternoon of October tag-saling.

Hectic personal lives not to mention the advent of e-bay and other on-line vending venues have made actual ‘fairing’ more than a casual undertaking. Still, it’s autumn! The foliage is gorgeous and the air spiced with apples and woolly-bears. When better to go out with your Dragon and mingle with others of our kind among bins of dazzlers and sparklies.

It’s a great time to get a leg-up on your draconic Yule shopping ,too.

Cosmic Dragons – The Stuff the Universe is Made Of…

Tags

Book Giveaway, Chaos, Cosmic Dragons, Creation, Dragons, WAFDE

“We are starstuff. We are the Universe made manifest,
trying to figure itself out.”  … Babylon 5

In the beginning there were Dragons. They stirred the Universe with beat of their wings and annealed it with their callid breath. These are the Cosmic Dragons about whom you’ve heard so much. It seems only fitting to kick off the Month of the Dragon by touching on these wondrous beings. To that end, I offer a few words on Cosmic Dragons from my book, The Dragon Keeper’s Handbook.

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From time immemorial, Dragons have played decisive roles in cosmologies across six continents. They bound the world together with their scaly coils and drank the waters of the planet dry. They brought the rains, raised the mountains, and blocked out the sun

They aided Creators, were slain by Creators.

And they were themselves Creators.[1]

Leo – Sixthleafclover

Tiamat, Aido Hwedo, Degei, Alklha, Vritra, Shen Lung, Quetzalcoatl, Ophion, the Fire Dragon…such elaborate myths, every one – and totally logical given that Dragons are old and large and we are young and very small. But these tales are human, not draconic, illuminating the people who told them rather than the actual Dragons at their core. Still, they serve as steles of remembrance, marking the first Dragon/human encounters and laying the groundwork for how we of the world would ultimately treat our Dragons.

What sparked the veneration of Cosmic Dragons? Curiosity being hardwired somewhere deep in our DNA, we have a need to explain the inexplicable: birth, death, the sun, the moon, mountains, and seas. Or, as Douglas Adams put it, to answer “the Great Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.”[2]

Our early efforts at this monumental undertaking led us to look around and elevate the known to the unknowable. We stomped smooth the dancing ground of the gods, imbuing vast creative – and conversely, destructive – powers in heaven and earth, beasts, birds, and elementals with sacred worth. From whatever was at hand, we fashioned the gods who fashioned our world.

And who could possibly be more deserving of deification than a Dragon?

Of course, these are no ordinary Dragons – if there even is such a thing as an ordinary Dragon. They are larger, fiercer, wiser, more magical than their less-than-divine kin. Manifestations of strength, grace, courage, virtual immortality – all the attributes to which we aspire – they also juggle light and dark, good and evil, within themselves, in an almost human way. In culture after culture, the presence of Cosmic Dragons signifies those places in time and space where all our nascent fear, wonder, and desire run headlong into the transcendent forces of Nature. Wildness and Other, they speak to our need to revere something greater than ourselves.

Today, science provides many of the answers once relegated to the mystical. But the stories, the lure of genesis and our own “once upon a time” through which Cosmic Dragons fly, fascinate us still. They are the true testament of draconic sempiternity.

[1] Dragons as Creators likewise bolster the veracity of a draconic manifestation in the world. For reason dictates that if, as Judeo-Christians – and others – hold, God created people in His image, surely the Creator Dragons would have made Dragons in Their image. It keeps Them from being lonely.

[2] Unlike the Magrathean computer, Deep Thought, 42 is not the answer we came up with. Yet.

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In the tradition of Month of the Dragon, everyone who leaves a comment here at Dragon’s Nest has their name go into a hat. At the end of the month, a name will be drawn and the winner will receive a signed copies of my books, The Dragon Keeper’s Handbook and Dragons for Beginners (both from Llewellyn Worldwide). Hope everyone is feeling lucky!

Lorca Triumphs – Kitten Pool Comes to an End

Tags

Book Giveaway, cats, Cole Porter, Dragon, Harvest Moon, Kitten Pool, Lorca

Leave it to a glorious Harvest Moon to give Lorca the extra push/pull she needed to have her kittens! On the couch, surrounded by a passel of curious critters and her doting humans.

Last night, just after 8:00 p.m., the first of her tiny furry quartet popped into the world. With a yowl that woke all the other critters – and probably half the neighborhood – she gave birth to a little ginger kitten! Instincts kicking in, she cleaned him up and the tyke latched onto Mom for dear life and his first meal. (I say he/him/his for all of them, but it’s really too early to tell.)

Then Lorca relaxed, slept a bit, and, bingo, out came #2 around 8:30 – another ginger!

Mom did her thing and kicked back for a while – slept, had her belly rubbed, etc….10:00 p.m. and #3 arrives. At first we thought he was all black, but as he was cleaned and dried off, it became apparent that he’s a gorgeous black and silver tabby. Jennifer immediately claimed him as the one to stay, and named him Whitman.

Just after 11, the final kitten made his appearance, another ginger.

It was fast getting past my bedtime, but I wanted to stay up for a couple more hours, just to be sure all was well and no more bundles were on the way. By 1:00, we put her and the kids in their box on clean bedding and I left Jennifer – who stays up ’til dawn anyway – to watch them through the night.

Their first day in the world is going well. Everyone is hungry – nay, ravenous! Lorca is the sweetest mom, loves being the center of attention and doesn’t even mind Carter and Poe dropping by to visit. I think she may have been stung by a bee, though, as her right paw inexplicably swelled this morning and she’s favoring it. A call to the vet in the morning if it hasn’t improved over night (though I can’t imagine her wanting to leave her kids for even a moment).

Thanks to everyone who participated in the kitten pool. A special congrats to the winner, Nancy Adams! I will be contacting you about your prize shortly.

Now, I will try to relax. An early night, tonight, for all.

All Hallows Winners….

Tags

Books, Dragon Keeper's Handbook, Dragons, Dragons for Beginners, Month of the Dragon

The trick or treaters are all snug in their beds, sleeping off sugar tummies and late nights full of ghoulish tales.

2012’s Month of the Dragon is officially history.

Thanks to everyone who helped make this year such a resounding success. A special thanks to David St. Albans for his series Dragons – The Mystery and Meaning, the Dragon Master for sharing with us the insights of of her Dragon Journals, and Adriana Dragonwitch, for taking us deep into the Dragon’s eye….And to all the artists known and not who made this a vibrant visual experience. If I omitted any credits, please contact me and I will correct the oversight in the flick of a wyvern’s tail.

Now, for the moment I know you’ve all been waiting for:

The recipients of signed copies of my books are….

Dragons for Beginners goes to….Nellie Sabin!

The Dragon Keeper’s Handbook goes to…Ashivon!

Congratulations!

Keep the Dragon spirit alive, and I hope to see you all back for MotD 2013!

And next week, those of you in the States…Don’t forget to VOTE!