Saturday, June 17, 2017

Recipe for a dragon

Recipe for a dragon.
Mostly based on the description of the Taraskon dragon of Provence, France and Spain
-- plus some guess work...  Please Do Not Try This Recipe, it might kill a person, or cause cancer, or cause a severe mental health episode.

I do not yet know how these ingredients were used.  But I'm guessing that in the right amount, this mixture might work something like ayahuasca.

Ingredients for a Taraskon:
  Dandelion latex, Taraxacum officinales - works like opium
  Bumble Bee sting, Apitoxin
  European yellow-tailed scorpion venom, works like Viagra
  essential oil of tarragon, Artemesia dracunculus
  Saint John's Wort, Hypericum perforatum
  (and maybe ergot?  maybe with or without alcohol?)

Edit:  I had the wrong scorpion in the recipe.  I believe it may have been a species of Buthus not Escorpious.  Other ingredients may have included snake venom and dragonflies but I can't do the bio-chemistry to sort them out.  Also curious about Gum Tragacanth which was once used in dragon water...

Thursday, June 15, 2017

Taraskon Ayahuasca

here is a list of things I'm thinking about that relate to the Taraskon dragon of Spain and Provence.
some are true, some are guesses

1.  I think the Taraskon is a recipe for a drug mixture.
  So, when I look at a picture of a Taraskon, I see the head of a lion or old man: shaman and dandelion  opium...  body of a bull - future scrying by inspecting the insides of an animal cooked for a feast...  shell of a turtle suggests a cave mouth where the scorpion lives...  pointed spikes on the shell suggest an arrow poison...  six furry legs - what has 6 furry legs other than the bumble bee, so maybe bee sting is an ingredient?  And the Taraskon has the tail of a scorpion, so I ask, What would happen if I combined opium and scorpion sting?  Please don't try this at home!  It may be possible to find out without getting stung nor poisoned.

2.  I think that dragon fire is the same thing as shaman barf.
I recall that when a shaman uses ayahuasca, it's necessary for the shaman to throw up.  I wonder if the barf could be collected and dried, with the powerful chemicals still intact?  Horrible or bio-active?

3.  Taraskon might be a flood dragon.  I ask, what did the Taraskon do in the years before Saint Martha came to town?  Maybe sometimes the dragon would make terrible floods, while other times there would be years of abundant crops.  I notice that in some versions, the dragon has breasts (milk) and carries grain (bread.)

4.  Two cities are named for this dragon, Tarasque in France and Teragona in Spain.  The Ancient Romans named a large region of Spain, Taragona.  I believe these are places where dandelions grow especially well, and the dandelion opium was easiest to obtain.  For comparison, there is a city in Turkiye named Afyon - literally "opium."

5.  If I am correct about the dragon, these ideas may explain other things.  Here are some other things:  *. dandelion opium maybe a part of the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
*. chicory opium may be the Blue Flower of German literature
*. chicory opium might explain some of the designs found in Isnik tiles.  There's a tile with poppies and chicory in a Berehynia design.  I'll get you a picture sometime later.
*. Saint George and the dragon might actually be Jarillo, the god of wine fighting opium.
*. It's my guess that an explanation for the Tarantella dance may come into this also, but I don't have anything yet.  I think dancing and drumming keep your shaman alive when poisoned.  The dance was named after a spider but I think it was really about scorpion stings.  And I have no proof.