When the Dragon Whispers Back

“There are dragons ahead!”

Thus proclaimed our grandson, Asher, at supper last night. The statement came completely out of the blue. Asher is four and a half years old, and he tends to say things like that. He was calmly eating some French toast when he decided to mention dragons. I don’t know why. Maybe he didn’t either.

His comment made me think of the old medieval maps—drawn partly from fact and mostly from wishful thinking. The cartographers of that time charted the few areas of the world they knew, then filled in the blank spaces with imagination. A popular way of describing the unknown was to write, “There be dragons.”

Perhaps those old mapmakers were right.

After Asher mentioned dragons, my wife, Karin, brought up the old Peter, Paul, and Mary song “Puff, the Magic Dragon.” She tried to sing it for Asher but couldn’t remember the lyrics. I remembered most of them, but I didn’t want to sing. Something caught in my throat when I recalled the last verse of “Puff.” There was a pang of intense sadness.

After supper, I tried to find a recording of the song. If I were competent with technology, I would’ve just looked it up online. But I don’t have a smartphone. What I do have is a sound system with an old turntable I bought back in 1982—and a Peter, Paul, and Mary vinyl that includes the song. I dug out the album, pulled the record from its jacket, and played “Puff” for Asher. Some well-used records have that endearing (and sometimes infuriating) crackle and pop. This one did. Asher listened to the music, though he was mostly fascinated by how the phonograph worked.

The first two verses of the song tell a story about a boy’s adventure and his fantasy. The child, Little Jackie Paper, reminded me of Asher. I can easily imagine Asher having a dragon for a friend.

Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea
And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honah Lee,
Little Jackie Paper loved that rascal Puff,
And brought him strings and sealing wax and other fancy stuff. Oh…

The song reminded me of other dragon tales. Dragons appear in oral traditions and dreams. Though mythical, they are a universal part of human history. They do not fly through our skies, but they live on—within us.

Carl Sagan wrote a book about dragons, aptly titled The Dragons of Eden. He didn’t suggest dragons ever existed physically, but in his study of human evolution, he proposed that dragons are part of our innermost being. He says they slumber in the R-complex of the brain—an ancient part that contains “the aggressive and ritualistic reptilian component.” Sagan even asked, “Is it only an accident that the common human sounds commanding silence or attracting attention seem strangely imitative of the hissing of reptiles?” We don’t see dragons in the material world—we find them in our dreams.

In The Power of Myth, Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers also explore the idea of dragons. Moyers asks, “How do I slay the dragon in me?” Campbell responds that slaying the dragon means following one’s bliss and breaking internal barriers. “The ultimate dragon is within you,” he says. “It is your ego clamping you down.”

If the dragon is within each of us, then it’s also a part of humanity as a whole. Campbell adds, “The myth is a public dream, and the dream is a private myth.” The serpent in my subconscious is hissing within every human on earth.

The final verse of the song goes like this:

A dragon lives forever but not so little boys
Painted wings and giant rings make way for other toys.
One grey night it happened, Jackie Paper came no more
And Puff, that mighty dragon, he ceased his fearless roar…

This verse makes me want to weep. But for whom should I cry? For the little boy who must grow up? Or for the dragon who has forever lost a friend?

If the dragon is within us, can we ever truly leave it behind? Must we always try to slay it? Or is it possible to befriend the dragon, fearsome as it may be?

Can my dragon be like Puff?

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Frank (Francis) Pauc is a graduate of West Point, Class of 1980. He completed the Military Intelligence Basic Course at Fort Huachuca and then went to Flight School at Fort Rucker. Frank was stationed with the 3rd Armor Division in West Germany at Fliegerhorst Airfield from December 1981 to January 1985. He flew Hueys and Black Hawks and was next assigned to the 7th Infantry Division at Fort Ord, CA. He got the hell out of the Army in August 1986.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.