Feilong (mythology)
Encyclopedia
Feilong is a winged legendary creature
Legendary creature
A legendary creature is a mythological or folkloric creature.-Origin:Some mythical creatures have their origin in traditional mythology and have been believed to be real creatures, for example the dragon, the unicorn, and griffin...

 that flies among clouds in Chinese mythology
Chinese mythology
Chinese mythology is a collection of cultural history, folktales, and religions that have been passed down in oral or written tradition. These include creation myths and legends and myths concerning the founding of Chinese culture and the Chinese state...

. The proper name
Proper name
"A proper name [is] a word that answers the purpose of showing what thing it is that we are talking about" writes John Stuart Mill in A System of Logic , "but not of telling anything about it"...

 Feilong applies to people, fictional characters, places, martial art techniques, military weapons, and a pterosaur.

Word

The Chinese dragon
Chinese dragon
Chinese dragons are legendary creatures in Chinese mythology and folklore, with mythic counterparts among Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Bhutanese, Western and Turkic dragons. In Chinese art, dragons are typically portrayed as long, scaled, serpentine creatures with four legs...

 name feilong combines fei 飛 or 飞 "fly; flying; hover; flutter" and long 龍 or 龙 "dragon". This loanword
Loanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...

 飛龍 is pronounced as Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

 hiryū, Korean
Korean language
Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...

 piyong 비용, and Vietnamese
Vietnamese language
Vietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...

 philong. The inverted Longfei 龍飛 was an era name (396-399 CE) during the Later Liang
Later Liang
The Later Liang was a state of the Sixteen Kingdoms during the Jin Dynasty in China. It was founded by the Lü family of the Di ethnicity.All rulers of the Later Liang proclaimed themselves "Heavenly Prince" ....

 Dynasty.

The (121 CE) Shuowen Jiezi
Shuowen Jiezi
The Shuōwén Jiězì was an early 2nd century CE Chinese dictionary from the Han Dynasty. Although not the first comprehensive Chinese character dictionary , it was still the first to analyze the structure of the characters and to give the rationale behind them , as well as the first to use the...

, the first Chinese character
Chinese character
Chinese characters are logograms used in the writing of Chinese and Japanese , less frequently Korean , formerly Vietnamese , or other languages...

 dictionary, uses feilong to define da 龖 (written with 2 龍 dragons) "flying dragon; appearance of a dragon in flight".

Early references

Chinese classic texts
Chinese classic texts
Chinese classic texts, or Chinese canonical texts, today often refer to the pre-Qin Chinese texts, especially the Neo-Confucian titles of Four Books and Five Classics , a selection of short books and chapters from the voluminous collection called the Thirteen Classics. All of these pre-Qin texts...

 frequently mention feilong 飛龍 "flying dragons". The examples below are roughly arranged in chronological order, although some heterogeneous texts are of uncertain dates.

Yijing

The (5th-3rd centuries BCE) Yijing "Book of Changes" first uses feilong to symbolize a daren 大人 "great person; accomplished person". Qian 乾 "The Creative", the first hexagram
Hexagram (I Ching)
The I Ching book consists of 64 hexagrams.A hexagram is a figure composed of six stacked horizontal lines , where each line is either Yang , or Yin . The hexagram lines are traditionally counted from the bottom up, so the lowest line is considered line 1 while the top line is line 6...

, says (tr. Wilhelm 1967:9), "Nine in the fifth place means: Flying dragons in the heavens. It furthers one to see the great man." The "Commentary on the Decision" (彖傳, tr. Wilhelm 1967:371) explains, "Because the holy man is clear as to the end and the beginning, as to the way in which each of the six stages completes itself in its own time, he mounts on them toward heaven as though on six dragons." And the "Commentary on the Images" (象傳, tr. Wilhelm 1967:371) says, "'Flying dragon in the heavens.' This shows the great man at work."

Many later texts, such as the Zuozhuan, Shiji, and Hanshu histories, quote this "Flying dragons in the heavens" from the Yijing.

Hanfeizi

The (3rd century BCE) Hanfeizi
Han Feizi (book)
The Han Feizi is a work written by Han Feizi at the end of the Warring States Period in China, detailing his political philosophy. It belongs to the Legalist school of thought....

(難勢, tr. Ames 1983:74) quotes Shen Dao
Shen Dao
Shen Dao was an itinerant Chinese philosopher from Zhao, who was a scholar at the Jixia Academy in Qi. He is usually referred to as Shenzi 慎子.-Overview:...

 contrasting feilong 飛龍 with tengshe 螣蛇 "ascending/floating snake" to explain the Legalist
Legalism (Chinese philosophy)
In Chinese history, Legalism was one of the main philosophic currents during the Warring States Period, although the term itself was invented in the Han Dynasty and thus does not refer to an organized 'school' of thought....

 concept of shi 勢 "political power; strategic advantage".
Shen Tzu said: "The flying dragon mounts the clouds and the t'eng snake wanders in the mists. But when the clouds dissipate and the mists clear, the dragon and the snake become the same as the earthworm and the large-winged black ant because they have lost that on which they ride. Where men of superior character are subjugated by inferior men, it is because their authority is lacking and their position is low. Where the inferior are subjugated by the superior, it is because the authority of the latter is considerable and their position is high.

Ames notes this Shen Dao quotation "is very close both in wording and in substance to" the Shenzi (威德) fragment, and "indeed, it could conceivably be an expansion and elaboration on it."

Lüshi Chunqiu

The (ca. 3rd century BCE) encyclopedic Lüshi Chunqiu
Lüshi Chunqiu
The Lüshi Chunqiu is an encyclopedic Chinese classic text compiled around 239 BCE under the patronage of the Qin Dynasty Chancellor Lü Buwei...

(古樂 "Music of the Ancients", tr. Knoblock and Riegel 2000:148) uses Feilong 飛龍 "Flying Dragon" as the name of a music master for the legendary ruler Zhuanxu
Zhuanxu
Zhuanxu , also known as Gaoyang is a mythological monarch of ancient China.A grandson of the Yellow Emperor, Zhuanxu led the Shi clan in an eastward migration to present-day Shandong, where intermarriages with the Dongyi clan enlarged and augmented their tribal influences...


The Sovereign Zhuanxu was born at Ruo River and lived at Kongsang. Then he ascended to become a Sovereign who was truly a match for Heaven. When the winds true to the eight directions circulated, they made sounds like hya-hya, tsied-tsied, and tsyang-tsyang. The Sovereign Zhuanxu, being fond of these sounds, ordered Feilong to compose music in imitation of the Eight Winds, naming them "Supporting the Clouds" and using them in the worship of the Supreme Sovereign. He then ordered the [鼉] water-lizard to lead them as singing master, so the water-lizard reclined and, using his tail to beat his belly, made the sound bung-bung.

Zhuangzi

The (3rd-2nd cents. BC) Daoist Zhuangzi
Zhuangzi
Zhuangzi was an influential Chinese philosopher who lived around the 4th century BCE during the Warring States Period, a period corresponding to the philosophical summit of Chinese thought — the Hundred Schools of Thought, and is credited with writing—in part or in whole—a work known by his name,...

(1, Watson 1968:33) describes a shenren 神人 "holy person" riding a feilong
He said that there is a Holy Man living on faraway Ku-she Mountain, with skin like ice or snow, and gentle and shy like a young girl. He doesn't eat the five grains, but sucks the wind, drinks the dew, climbs up on the clouds and mist, rides a flying dragon, and wanders beyond the four seas. By concentrating his spirit, he can protect creatures from sickness and plague and make the harvest plentiful.

Chuci

The (3rd-2nd centuries BCE) Chuci uses feilong in two poems. The Li Sao
Li Sao
Li Sao is a Chinese poem dating from the Warring States Period, largely written by Qu Yuan of the Kingdom of Chu. One of the most famous poems of pre-Qin China, it is a representative work of the Chu Ci form of poetry.-Title:The title's meaning has been debated about even in historical times...

離騷 "On Encountering Trouble" (tr. Hawkes 1985:77) says,
Harness winged dragons to be my coursers; Let my chariot be of fine work of jade and ivory! How can I live with men whose hearts are strangers to me? I am going a far journey to be away from them.

The "Goddess of the Xiang" 湘君 (tr. Hawkes 1985:107) mentions feilong twice.
North I go, drawn by my flying dragon, Steering my course to the Dong-ting lake: My sail is of fig-leaves, melilotus my rigging, An iris my flag-pole, my banner of orchids. Gazing at the distant Cen-yang mooring, I waft my magic across the Great River. … The stream runs fast through the stony shallow, And my flying dragon wings swiftly above it. The pain is more lasting if loving is faithless: She broke her tryst; she told me she had not time.

Huainanzi

The (2nd century BCE) Huainanzi
Huainanzi
The Huáinánzǐ is a 2nd century BCE Chinese philosophical classic from the Han dynasty that blends Daoist, Confucianist, and Legalist concepts, including theories such as Yin-Yang and the Five Phases. It was written under the patronage of Liu An, Prince of Huainan, a legendarily prodigious author...

uses feilong in two chapters.

"Evolution of Animals and Plants" (墬形訓, tr. Major 1993:209, cf. Visser 1913:65) mentions feilong with yujia 羽嘉 "winged excellence", fenghuang
Fenghuang
Fenghuang are mythological birds of East Asia that reign over all other birds. The males are called Feng and the females Huang. In modern times, however, such a distinction of gender is often no longer made and the Feng and Huang are blurred into a single feminine entity so that the bird can be...

鳳皇 "phoenix", and luan 鸞 "a legendary phoenix-like bird; simurgh".
Winged Excellence gave birth to Flying Dragon. Flying Dragon gave birth to the phoenix (fenghuang). The phoenix gave birth to the simurgh (luan). The simurgh gave birth to ordinary birds. Feathered creatures in general are born from ordinary birds.

Edward H. Schafer
Edward H. Schafer
Edward Hetzel Schafer, was a leading historian of Tang Dynasty China. He wrote ground-breaking works such as The Golden Peaches of Samarkand: A study of Tang exotics and The Vermilion Bird: T'ang images of the South. Schafer wrote his Ph.D...

 (1963:38, 288) first translated luan as simurgh
Simurgh
Simurgh , also spelled simorgh, simurg, simoorg or simourv, also known as Angha , is the modern Persian name for a benevolent, mythical flying creature...

 "a giant winged creature in Persian mythology
Persian mythology
Persian mythology are traditional tales and stories of ancient origin, some involving extraordinary or supernatural beings. Drawn from the legendary past of the Iranian cultural continent which especially consists of the state of Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Central Asia, they reflect the...

".

"Generalship and the Prevention of Anarchy" (兵略訓, tr. Morgan 1933:196) describes Daoist movement with the animal metaphors of luan, qilin
Qilin
The Qilin is a mythical hooved Chinese chimerical creature known throughout various East Asian cultures, and is said to appear with the imminent arrival or passing of a wise sage or an illustrious ruler. It is a good omen that brings rui . It is often depicted with what looks like fire all over...

(instead of yujia), fenghuang, and feilong.
The movements of the Tao-inspired are like a spirit's emergence and a demon's action, unexpected and sudden, like the sudden shining of the stars and their sinking into darkness again; like the rising of the fabulous bird Luan, and the excitation of the Lin, like the flight of the phoenix or the ascension of the dragon.

Baopuzi

The (ca. 320 CE) Daoist Baopuzi
Baopuzi
The Baopuzi , written by the Jin Dynasty scholar Ge Hong 葛洪 , is divided into esoteric Neipian 內篇 "Inner Chapters" and exoteric Waipian 外篇 "Outer Chapters". The Daoist Inner Chapters discuss topics such as techniques for xian 仙 "immortality; transcendence", Chinese alchemy, elixirs, and demonology...

by Ge Hong
Ge Hong
Ge Hong , courtesy name Zhichuan , was a minor southern official during the Jìn Dynasty of China, best known for his interest in Daoism, alchemy, and techniques of longevity...

 mentions Feilong 飛龍 "flying dragon" and uses it as a graphic variant for the draconic mountain spirit Feifei 飛飛 "fly fly" (see Eberhard 1968:58).

Feilong occurs describing a Daoist xian
Xian (Taoism)
Xian is a Chinese word for an enlightened person, translatable in English as:*"spiritually immortal; transcendent; super-human; celestial being"...

仙 "transcendent; immortal" (6, tr. Ware 1966:111), "When my eyes have square pupils and my ears grow from the top of my head; when, driving a flying dragon and riding a cloud of good fortune, I shall mount above the darted lightning and reach Lighted-from-below, how will you be able to interrogate me? If you see me, you will then cry out that it is a heaven or an earth deity, or a strange sort of man. It will never occur to you to say that I am something produced by mere study!"

Feifei occurs with kui
Kui (Chinese mythology)
Kui is a polysemous figure in ancient Chinese mythology. Classic texts use this name for the legendary musician Kui who invented music and dancing; for the one-legged mountain demon or rain-god Kui variously said to resemble a Chinese dragon, a drum, or a monkey with a human face; and for the...

夔 "a one-legged demon" in a list of shanxiao 山魈 "mountain spirits" (l7, tr. Ware 1966:287), "Another is like a dragon, variegated in color and with red horns, the name being Fei-fei. Whenever one of these appears, shout its name, and it will not dare harm you."

Other texts

Feilong occurs in many additional contexts. Carr (1990:115) cites two examples. The Xijingfu 西京賦 "Western Metropolis Rhapsody", by Zhang Heng
Zhang Heng
Zhang Heng was a Chinese astronomer, mathematician, inventor, geographer, cartographer, artist, poet, statesman, and literary scholar from Nanyang, Henan. He lived during the Eastern Han Dynasty of China. He was educated in the capital cities of Luoyang and Chang'an, and began his career as a...

 (78-139 CE), used feilong as an alternate name for the mythical bird called longque 龍雀 "dragon sparrow". Bicheng 筆乘 "Collection of Notes", by Jiao Hong 焦竑 (1540-1620 CE), described the feilong as having "a dragon's head, phoenix's tail, and multicolored patterns", and equated it with the wind god
Wind god
There are many different gods of wind in different religions:*Aeolus, the ruler of the winds in Greek mythology*Amun, Egyptian god of creation and the wind*Anemoi, the Greek wind gods Boreas, Notus, Eurus, and Zephyrus...

 Feilian 飛廉.

Proper names

Feilong, Hiryū, and Flying Dragon commonly occur in names.

Chinese Feilong Flying Dragon is used to name.
  • Feilong
    Feilong
    A Feilong is a jumping kick where two kicks are executed. It is quite common in multiple martial arts disciplines as well as tricking. Because it is not as advanced as other tricks, it is considered by some to be a basic trick...

    , a jumping kick
    Kick
    In combat sports and hand-to-hand combat, a kick is a physical strike using the foot, leg, or knee . This type of attack is used frequently, especially in stand-up fighting...

     in martial arts
    Martial arts
    Martial arts are extensive systems of codified practices and traditions of combat, practiced for a variety of reasons, including self-defense, competition, physical health and fitness, as well as mental and spiritual development....

  • Feilong, a British-built gunboat in the Guangdong Fleet
    Guangdong Fleet
    The Guangdong Fleet was the smallest of China's four regional fleets during the second half of the nineteenth century. The fleet played virtually no part in the Sino-French War , but several of its ships saw action in the Sino-Japanese War .- Leadership :In the summer of 1882, when China began to...

  • Fei Long (FL), a family of Silkworm missile
    Silkworm missile
    The Shang Yo or SY-series , and the Hai Ying or HY-series were early Chinese anti-ship missiles. They were derived from the Soviet P-15 Termit missile.The HY-1 and HY-2 received the NATO reporting name Silkworm...

    s (e.g., the C-101
    C-101
    The C-101 is a supersonic anti-ship missile that can be launched from air, ship, and shore. Alternatively, the air launched version is also called YJ-1 by Chinese, with YJ short for Ying Ji , meaning Eagle Strike...

    )
  • Fei-Long, a video game character
    Player character
    A player character or playable character is a character in a video game or role playing game who is controlled or controllable by a player, and is typically a protagonist of the story told in the course of the game. A player character is a persona of the player who controls it. Player characters...

     in the Street Fighter (series)
  • Fei Long, a tribe in Survivor: China
    Survivor: China
    Survivor: China is the fifteenth season of the American CBS competitive reality television series Survivor. The premiere aired September 20, 2007. Host Jeff Probst claimed the show was the first full American TV series to be filmed entirely within China...

     television series
  • FEILONG, call sign of China Flying Dragon Aviation
    China Flying Dragon Aviation
    China Flying Dragon Aviation is an airline based in Harbin, Heilongjiang, People's Republic of China. It operates short-haul passenger and cargo charter flights, as well as maritime surveillance, aerial photography and forestry protection services. Its main base is Harbin Taiping International...

  • Fei lung maang jeung 飛龍猛将 or Dragons Forever
    Dragons Forever
    Dragons Forever is a 1988 Hong Kong martial arts action comedy film directed by Sammo Hung. Film stars Hung, Jackie Chan and Yuen Biao. The three actors, known colloquially as the Three Brothers, had attended the famous China Drama Academy together, and became members of the Seven Little Fortunes...

    , a Hong Kong action cinema
    Hong Kong action cinema
    Hong Kong action cinema is the principal source of the Hong Kong film industry's global fame. It combines elements from the action film, as codified by Hollywood, with Chinese storytelling and aesthetic traditions, to create a culturally distinctive form that nevertheless has a wide transcultural...

  • Yang Feilong 楊飛龍, a 3rd-century ruler of Chouchi
    Chouchi
    Chouchi is a Chinese local regime of the Di ethnicity in modern-day Gansu Province during the Sixteen Kingdoms and Southern and Northern Dynasties.-History:...

  • Fu Feilong 苻飛龍, a 4th-century deputy of Fu Pi
    Fu Pi
    Fu Pi , courtesy name Yongshu , formally Emperor Aiping of Qin , was an emperor of the Chinese/Di state Former Qin...

  • Ling Fei-long 嶺飛龍, a character in the Dragon Fist (manga)
  • Liu Fei Long 刘飛龍, a character in Target in the Finder
    Target in the Finder
    is a yaoi manga written and illustrated by Yamane Ayano. Originally serialized in Be x Boy GOLD and "B-Boy Zips" from 2001 through 2005, the individual chapters have been collected and published in three tankōbon volumes by Biblos from 2002 until 2005 when the company went out of business. Libre...

     manga


Japanese Hiryū Flying Dragon names.
  • Hiryū
    Japanese aircraft carrier Hiryu
    was a modified Sōryū-class aircraft carrier of the Imperial Japanese Navy. She was one of the carriers that began the Pacific War with the attack on Pearl Harbor...

    , a Japanese aircraft carrier
    Aircraft carrier
    An aircraft carrier is a warship designed with a primary mission of deploying and recovering aircraft, acting as a seagoing airbase. Aircraft carriers thus allow a naval force to project air power worldwide without having to depend on local bases for staging aircraft operations...

  • Hiryū, a type of Mitsubishi Ki-67
    Mitsubishi Ki-67
    The Mitsubishi Ki-67 Hiryū was a twin-engine medium bomber produced by Mitsubishi and used by the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force in World War II. Its Army designation was "Type 4 Heavy Bomber" .-Design:The Ki-67 was the result of a 1941 Japanese army specification for a successor to the Nakajima...

     medium bomber
    Medium bomber
    A medium bomber is a bomber aircraft designed to operate with medium bombloads over medium distances; the name serves to distinguish them from the larger heavy bombers and smaller light bombers...

  • Hiryū, a chess piece in Dai shogi
    Dai shogi
    Dai shōgi is a board game native to Japan. It is similar to standard shogi in its rules and game play. Dai shogi is only one of several large board shogi variants. Its name means large shogi, from a time when there were three sizes of shogi games...

  • Hiryū no ken 飛龍の拳 Flying Dragon
    Flying Dragon
    Flying Dragon, known in Japan as , is a fighting game with RPG elements. Released for the Nintendo 64 in 1998, it was developed and published in Japan by Culture Brain, while it was published in North America and Europe by Natsume. The game received relatively low scores on specialized reviews at...

    , a video game
  • Hiryū002, a train in The Galaxy Railways
    The Galaxy Railways
    is a 26 episode science fiction anime series about flying trains set in the far reaches of space. It is licensed by Funimation Production Ltd. and produced by Leiji Matsumoto. It debuted on American TV in a syndicated FUNimation Channel programming block airing on CoLours TV on Monday, June 19,...

     anime series


English has additional Feilong "Flying Dragon" names.
  • Feilongus
    Feilongus
    Feilongus is an extinct genus of ctenochasmatoid or ornithocheiroid pterodactyloid pterosaur from the Barremian-Aptian-age Lower Cretaceous Yixian Formation of Beipiao, Liaoning, China....

    , a genus of pterosaur
    Pterosaur
    Pterosaurs were flying reptiles of the clade or order Pterosauria. They existed from the late Triassic to the end of the Cretaceous Period . Pterosaurs are the earliest vertebrates known to have evolved powered flight...

    s
  • Feilongshania
    Feilongshania
    Feilongshania is an extinct genus from a well-known class of fossil marine arthropods, the trilobites. It lived during the later part of the Botomian stage, which lasted from approximately 524 to 518.5 million years ago. This faunal stage was part of the Cambrian Period....

    , a genus of trilobite
    Trilobite
    Trilobites are a well-known fossil group of extinct marine arthropods that form the class Trilobita. The first appearance of trilobites in the fossil record defines the base of the Atdabanian stage of the Early Cambrian period , and they flourished throughout the lower Paleozoic era before...

    s
  • Flying Dragon, Draco volans species of Agaminae
    Agaminae
    Agaminae is a subfamily of reptiles in the family Agamidae.-Genera:Listed alphabetically:*Genus Acanthocercus*Genus Acanthosaura – mountain horned dragons*Genus Agama*Genus Amphibolurus*Genus Aphaniotis*Genus Brachysaura...

     gliding lizards
  • Flying Dragon
    Flying Dragon (Calder)
    Flying Dragon is a sculpture by Alexander Calder in the Art Institute of Chicago North Stanley McCormick Memorial Court north of the Art Institute of Chicago Building in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois. It is a painted steel plate work of art created in 1975 measuring 365 x 579 x...

    , a sculpture by Alexander Calder
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