The story of twelve Zodiac animals—Dragon
It is said that in ancient times the Dragon had no horns. At that time he lived on Earth and
could fly and swim. He wanted to be one of the Chinese Zodiac animals and to take the
place of the Tiger as the king of the animals. So he started a fight against the Tiger. The
Emperor of Heaven asked them to come to the Heavenly Palace to see who was a better
candidate. The Dragon thought that although he was tall and strong, he was not as
powerful as the Tiger. So his friend the Centipede said: “The Rooster has a pair of
beautiful horns, you might borrow them.”
The Rooster heard that the Dragon wanted to borrow his horns but he refused this
request no matter what he promised. Then the Centipede stood aside and guaranteed:
“If the Dragon doesn’t return your horns, you can eat me.” With his word, the Rooster
lent his horns to the Dragon.
When the Dragon and the Tiger arrived at the Heavenly Palace, the Emperor of Heaven
noticed that they both were very powerful animals, so he made the decision that both of
them would be kings lf all the animals, of which the Tiger would rule all the animals on
the land, while the Dragon would be the king of aquatic animals. Since the Tiger was
one of the Chinese Zodiac animals, the Dragon could also became one and was
arranged only one place after the Tiger.
When the Dragon returned back to earth, he thought that if horns went back to the
Rooster, the aquatic animals wouldn’t obey his orders when they saw his ugly
appearance. So he decided not to return the horns to the Rooster.
The Rooster’s face turned red with anger when he heard that the Dragon would not
return his horns. And the Centipede was so scared that he wormed its way into the
crack in the stone. Till today we can still see that when a Rooster sees a centipede,
it will try to eat it immediately.