How many toes does your dragon have?
Did you know that the number of toes is very important in Dragon images/drawings?
Adding an extra toe to a Chinese dragon might be a fatal mistake in Ancient China because the five-toed dragon was a symbol of the imperial family. If anyone of lower status presumed to decorate his clothing or household with a five-toed dragon, he risked imperial punishment. Therefore, the use of four-toed dragons was more common in China. There are also some sources that make this situation even more complicated: The five-toed dragon symbolizes the monarch, the four-toed dragon the aristocracy, and the three-toed dragon the ministers and highest public officials.
However some sources say that imperial or not, all the Chinese dragons have five toes. They also belive that all the Eastern dragons originated from China. When the dragons fly away from China, they lose toes. The more distance they fly, the more toes they lose. That is because the Korean dragons have four toes, while the Japanese ones have three toes. In contrast with the belief of the Chinese, Japanese say that they are the hometown of the dragons. The more they move farther away from Japan, the more they lose their originality and gain toes.
What do you think?
- Dragons, Ghibli Wiki
- Chinese Dragons, dragonsinn.net
- Difference between Chinese and Japanese Dragons, classroom.synonym.com
- How Many Toes Does a Dragon Have?, Sudy & Co