Longma

Name

The Chinese word longma combines long 龍 "dragon" and ma 馬 "horse". Compare hema 河馬 (lit. "river horse") "hippopotamus" and haima 海馬 ("sea horse") "seahorse". In addition to naming the mythic creature, longma 龍馬 "dragon horse" can mean "an eminent person" and occurs in the four-character idiom longma jingshen 龍馬精神 "vigorous spirit in old age".

Longma interconnects traditional Chinese beliefs about dragons and horses. An early example comes from the Zhouli "Rites of Zhou" (夏官司馬), which differentiates names for horses of different heights, measured in the chi 尺 "Chinese foot" (historically around 23-33 centimeters, see Chinese units of measurement). Horses up to 8 feet tall are called long 龍 "dragon", those up to 7 feet are called lai 騋, and those up to 6 feet are called ma 馬 "horse". The Han Dynasty scholar Wang Fu (tr. Visser 1913:70) says, "The people paint the dragon's shape with a horse's head and a snake's tail."

Edward H. Schafer describes the horse's "tremendous importance" to Tang Dynasty rulers for military tactics, diplomatic policy, and aristocratic privilege.

Still, this patrician animal owed his unique status to more than his usefulness to the lords of the land. He was invested with sanctity by ancient tradition, endowed with prodigious qualities, and visibly stamped with the marks of his divine origin. A revered myth proclaimed him a relative of the dragon, akin to the mysterious powers of water. Indeed, all wonderful horses, such as the steed of the pious Hsüan-tsang which, in later legend, carried the sacred scriptures from India, were avatars of dragons, and in antiquity the tallest horse owned by the Chinese were called simply "dragons". (1963:59)

This "steed" refers to Xuanzang's famous bailongma 白龍馬 "white dragon horse".

The Japanese loanword ryūma or ryōma 龍馬 (simplified 竜馬) has several meanings. Ryūma refers to the legendary Chinese "dragon horse" and the name of a chess piece in shogi (translated "promoted bishop", also pronounced ryūme). Ryōma is commonly used as a Japanese name, for instance Sakamoto Ryōma. See Visser (1913:147-9) for details about the dragon-horse in Japan.

Comparative mythology

Longma or "dragon horse" connects with other creatures in Chinese folklore. While longma sometimes applies to the Qilin (Williams 1989:390), the closest relative is the legendary tianma 天馬 "heavenly horse" or the "Chinese Pegasus", which was metaphorically identified with the hanxiema 汗血馬 "blood-sweating horse" or Ferghana horse. A poem attributed to Emperor Wu of Han celebrates a 101 BCE victory over Western tribes.

The Heavenly Horses are coming, Coming from the Far West. They crossed the Flowing Sands, For the barbarians are conquered. … The Heavenly Horses are coming; Jupiter is in the Dragon. Should they choose to soar aloft, Who could keep pace with them? They will draw me up and carry me To the Holy Mountain of K'un-lun. The Heavenly Horses have come And the Dragon will follow in their wake. I shall reach the of Heaven, I shall see the Palace of God. (tr. Waley 1955:96-97)

In Chinese astrology, the Dragon and Horse are two of the twelve animals. A Zhuangzi (列禦寇) story mentions finding a "pearl worth a thousand pieces of gold" under the chin of a lilong 驪龍 "black-horse dragon".

Some mythic elements of the longma "dragon horse" are culturally widespread. Schafer elucidates.

The legend of water-born horses was known in various parts of Turkestan. In Kucha, for instance, when that city was visited by Hsüan-tsang in the seventh century, there was a lake of dragons in front of one of its temples. "The dragons, changing their form, couple with mares. The offspring is a wild species of horse (dragon-horse) difficult to tame and of a fierce nature. The breed of these dragon-horses became docile." This story must have had its origin farther west in Iranian lands, where winged horses were familiar in art and myth. Even the long-legged small-bellied horses of the "Tajik," that is, of the Arabs, were said to have been born of the conjunction of dragons with mares on the shores of the "Western Sea." (Schafer 1963:60)

The Chinese longma "dragon horse" is not culture specific. Mythological hybrid animals or chimeras are known worldwide, including combinations of dragons and horses. In Greek mythology, the Hippocamp or Hippocampus (lit. "horse sea-monster"), which supposedly has the head and front legs of a horse and the hindquarters of a dragon or fish, parallels the longma (Carr 1990:154). In Babylonian mythology, "dragon-horse" is a title of the goddess Tiamat (Massey 1907:274). Among the prehistoric hill figures in Oxfordshire, Dragon Hill is below the Uffington White Horse.