Originally published 1 June 2008. To be updated once the last pages from the old website have been transferred.
The Korean Dragon is called a yong, and there are three main types:
· Yong is the most powerful and protects the sky.
· Yo is hornless and lives in the ocean.
· Kyo dwells in the mountains on Earth.
The Korean dragon’s features are slightly different from the Oriental dragons. They have the eyes of a rabbit, the belly of a frog and 81 scales lining their backs. And four claws.
The Koreans believed the Eastern dragons originated from Korea. There is a legend of a yong travelling to the West or South and growing an extra claw — thus, Chinese dragons have five claws. As it travels to the East or North it loses a claw, thus dragons from Japan would have three claws.
This explains why it [and all Eastern dragons] never made it to Europe or the Americas for by the time it travelled that far, all its toes had been lost and it could no longer walk.
There is another legend of a poor fisherman who once caught a gigantic carp. However it begged him for mercy so out of his compassion, he set it free. Later the carp turned out to be the son of the Dragon-King, and the fisherman was richly rewarded.
Learn more about Asian Dragons in our series:
Chinese | Japanese | > Korean | Vietnamese
Jess Chua has been webmistress of Dragonsinn since 1999.
She works in the online writing/editing field. She enjoys art books, taking care of her pets and plants, and playing Diablo III.
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