Dragon
What this is
A winged dragon with a coiling tail, set at the head of the twenty-third folio. It is the emblem of the guardian and the adversary in one, the old power that keeps a hoard and must be met before the treasure is won.
What it governs
Presides over trials of strength and nerve: the great obstacle, and the power hidden in it. Folio 23.
Its properties
Its colour is fire-red and green-gold; its number twenty-three. The quality is courage roused and power mastered; its shadow is the hoard kept for its own sake, strength turned to greed.
Where else it appears
The same note is the dragon that guards the golden apples and the golden fleece, the serpent the hero must pass, the alchemists' dragon that devours its own tail, the dragon on the standard of kings. One coil, many treasures guarded.
Where you meet it on the Oracle
On the Oracle it heads the Folio of the Day on the daily Book of Fate surface, and it heads the folio your own five rows of strokes lead to when you consult the Book. The words you are given are the Book's own Answer on that folio, the one that stands beside your Sign; the Hieroglyph marks the page and does not choose the words. As a frame for the day, meet the hard thing squarely; what it guards may be what you need.
Why it matters
The Book gives its Hieroglyphs no order but their folios, and no meaning but the Answers that stand under them. In the Table a Question meets this one wherever the number of the Question and the number of the Sign together make twenty-four or fifty-six.
Correspondences
Where this comes from
- H. Kirchenhoffer, The Book of Fate, the fourth edition (London, 1823)