Solar Eclipse - Image Source: Flickr
Jawzahr the Comet Dragon
It was a hot summer day in my twelfth year when I first heard the story of the treacherous Jawzahr. I remember the way that the sky began to grow dark at midday, a solar eclipse. Though my friends and siblings were afraid, the adults appeared to be without fear. As the darkness crawled through the sky, we gathered in the town center to hear the storyteller share the tale of Jawzahr the comet dragon. Though she was old and hunched, her voice rang clear through the crowd.
"Many years ago, when the gods roamed the earth alongside men, there was a foul beast named Jawzahr. He was a dragon in every sense, from the tips of his horns to the end of his tail. His wings were mighty, and his greatest strength was his ability to use magic like the gods.
"Now this dragon aspired to be like the gods in every way, and resented his mortality. One day at dawn, when both the sun and moon sat in the sky, he transformed himself into the form of a god and entered the garden of the gods. In it, he found the potion of immortality that had guaranteed eternal power to the gods. Lifting it to his lips, he drank the entire thing. As immortality descended upon him, Jawzahr returned to his draconic form and took again to the skies.
"Unbeknownst to Jawzahr, the sun and moon had witnessed his unforgivable theft. They immediately ran to the gods and told them of the crime of the dragon. They met and together agreed a punishment for the terrible beast and his treason. Though he was immortal and would forever roam the skies, they decided that one amongst themselves must sever his mighty head from his body, thus limiting his power. The strongest among them offered to complete the task and set out to find him.
"During the hasty return to the highest point of the heavens, Jawzahr found that ice had begun to cling to his scaly hide in a thick sheet, and he shook himself to remove it from his shoulders. The ice shards fell in a sparkling stream of light as he flew through the darkened sky, forming a trail which made him clearly visible against the backdrop of the velvety night. The god who had volunteered to punish Jawzahr saw the trail and threw his discus with all of his might. The discus struck Jawzahr and severed his mighty head, just as had been predicted. The head fell and Jawzahr blindly followed it, collapsing to the earth.
"Jawzahr was furious and perplexed. The gods could not have known of his crime simply by his appearance, as it was exactly as it had been before. In every respect, he looked his old, fearsome self, and they could not know that he had drunk the potion. As the days passed and he grew accustomed to his new form, he realized that there must have been a witness to his rebellion, and that that being must have informed the gods. Realizing it could only be the sun and moon who had done so, he resolved to enact his revenge upon them and swallow them whole.
"Tucking his head under an armored forearm, Jawzahr again sought the skies and his prey. Chasing first the fleeing sun, he grew nearer and eventually caught the blazing orb between his jagged teeth. He swallowed him in one gulp, and the sky became dark. Yet after only a few moments, the sun escaped through the hole in Jawzahr's throat, returning light to the midday sky.
"Ever since, Jawzahr the comet dragon with his trail of ice has chased the sun and moon through the heavens. Every so often, he catches up to one and manages again to swallow it whole, but thanks to the intervention of the gods, they pair are always able to escape. So the next time you see the sky grow dark when there should be light, recall the mighty Jawzahr and the greater gods who look over us in order to offer their protection."
As she finished her tale, I noticed that light had begun to return to the sky. The sun again reached for the heavens, and as he returned to his rightful place at the top of the sky, I looked just in time to see a comet, the ice trail of the immortal dragon Jawzahr, flee the light of the day.
Author's Note:
I came across the tale of Jawzahr when I was researching the connection between dragons and the sky. Credited with swallowing the sun and moon, thus causing eclipses, he comes originally from the folklore of India, where his head and body are known by the names Rahu and Ketu. Later variations on the story cropped up in Persia, which is modern day Iran. In the original Indian story, Rahu and Ketu were punished for attempting to drink amrita, the nectar of immortality. Their crime was witnessed by Surya and Chandra, the sun and moon, and he was punished by the goddess Vishnu, who beheaded him with her weapon of Chakra. Later variations of this tale crop up in Persian folklore, although many of the sources I found describing this were questionable at best. Because the two stories were so very similar, I decided to take only the aspects of Jawzahr's dragonhood and comet-like appearance from the Persian retelling and otherwise base this story on the original Indian tale. I felt that the explanation for why Jawzahr was punished seemed to take backstage, and the writers didn't really explain what happened to him after his head was cut off. He seemed to just continue living his life. In my retelling, I wanted to make his punishment a bit more clear, both why he was being punished and how the punishment affected him down the road. Also, in the original, the sun and moon simply managed to escape his jaws every time, but I thought it would be a bit more interesting if the reason they escaped was because there was a hole in his neck, as the beheading would imply. Lastly, because it was a historical myth and early "scientific" explanation of eclipses, I wanted to create the feel of an early historian's perspective without it feeling too clean cut. To do this, I took the basic story outline and retold it from the perspective of a boy hearing it from the town storyteller.
Persian Story Sources: Dragons: Fearsome Monsters from Myth and Fiction by Gerrie McCall and supplemented by Jawzahr, the Comet Dragon, written by user NaWDorky.
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