The Phylogeny of the Drygand

First, there was the primordial Serpent, a power-animal of fierce numinosity, representing the great, wild forces of the whole of Nature.

Then came the chimaeric creatures of civilizations around the world, the mightiest of which was the serpentile Dragon.  It took various forms, notably as the destructive, treasure-hoarding Western monsters, as the Hindu were-snake Nagas, strangely similar to the aristocratic Celtic Faeries in their splendid underground courts, and as the Chinese Lungs, fabulous divine Nature-beings of the clouds, the rains, and the waters.

Finally comes the ecological Drygand, the ultimate evolution from Serpent and Dragon forebears; a quintessential synthesis from them; a revolutionary mutation induced by the crisis of the human-engineered Extinction Event; archetype of the modern Idea of ecology; heroic, transformative noumenon; and, finally, the heraldic icon of the new ecological civilization.