The dragons of Portugal

The dragons of Portugal originally supported the royal coat of arms, but in fact it was as part of the designs on Portuguese playing cards that they survived the longest. In this capacity they accompanied 16th-century sailors on their vast, dangerous journeys to the East and West, and when the traders and sailors were ousted from their colonies, factories and trading centres, the cardboard dragons remained to be absorbed into a variety of local cultures. They lived on for centuries in Brazil, India, Java, Celebes and Japan. Today they remain only in Japan (in almost unrecognizable form) and are unknown even in native Portugal. This book traces the history of the cards with dragons, where they travelled, and shows the form they took, whether beautiful, exotic or grotesque, at all stages of their remarkable odyssey.