Symbolism of the Alchemical Dragon

This fire breathing Dragon is Hermes’ little bird, flying from the North. It is a Celestial Creation, consisting of Fire and Air. Its fire-breathing mouth, therefore, has the power to:

1) warm the cold chaotic water,
2) transmute it into a Virgin Earth,
3) transmute it into a fire-resistant liquid-wax Stone, which is why the Stone is called a Tincture.

The Dragon wings have 7 indentations, to indicate the seven steps Eleazer said are needed to chop off its wings. The first three steps involve progressing the Dragon gently and without corrosion through the 3 worlds in turn: the Mundane (solid), the Paradisiacal (liquid), and the Celestial (gaseous). The fourth step represents passing through frequent barriers in the distant islands of the philosophers where the Dragon eats himself so full of Earth, that he can no longer fly, as if he wanted to melt everything solid into liquid. In the fifth stage he becomes a prisoner of Saturn’s scythe. In the sixth stage, everything turns around, liquid becoming solid again.