The Queen Dragon Ech-i-DNA

EchidnaThese are the secrets that we keep. The monsters of the deep, and their mother, Echidna. She is a drakaina (feminine form of drakon), a fearful female bloodthirsty dragon with the face and torso of a beautiful woman who has dark black eyes, and the hideous body of a coiling serpent.

Homer calls her home in a cave, “Arima, couch of Typhoeus.” Typhoeus being another name for Echidna’s consort, the Father of All Monsters, Typhon. A name that means to smoke.

Hesiod describes her as:

“The divine Echidna, stubborn-hearted: half a fair-cheeked nymph of glancing eyes, and half a monstrous serpent terrible and great, spotted, ravenous, beneath the coverts of the holy earth. And there is her cave beneath, under a hollow rock, afar from deathless gods and mortal men, where the gods appointed her a glorious habitation wherein to dwell: and under earth she hath Einarima in her keeping—dread Echidna, a nymph deathless and ageless for evermore.” (more…)

The Sicilian Phoenix Serpents

“Thou dost shelter a serpent in thy bosom, that shall sting thee to the death ! Let not thy soul cleave 5to yon stripling, in whom abides the spirit of his fierce kinsman. Cast him from thee, that it may be well with thee, and with the kingdom; for wo unto the land, if he inherit the throne of thy fathers.” – Joan of Naples (Sicily)

Once upon a time, old Sicily was one of the homes to the greatest sea merchants and warriors known as the ancient Phoenicians who had come from Crete around the 11th century BC. In the bible they are known by the various names such as the Semitic Canaanites, Sidonians, Philistines, and the lying Cretans. (more…)