The Dragon Stone

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Location:
China

Description:
The general name for a Chinese dragon (of one of the main types) is lung or long. This applies to the main types of Chinese dragons. Some of the lesser types and dragon offspring are not considered to be lung.

Some sources claim there are nine types of lung, as nine is a significant number in China. This does not appear to be true when looking at wider range of Chinese sources. Scholars seem to differ in how they classify the types and how many there are. There may be nine, but there may be less or more. This difference is probably due to regional and time based changes in the beliefs, as commonly happens to many myths. It might also stem from the nine lung motif, a design showing nine different lungs.

The types of lung are complicated by some other issues. Some lung may fit into more than one category as different systems use different traits to classify them. Also some Chinese scholars consider some lung to be a progression, potentially able to grow from one sort into another. An example of this is that according to the Yuen Kien Lei Han, dragons gain horns after 500 years and wings after 1000 years. The presence of horns and wings would change the type of lung.

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