Talk:Ka-Riu
Fire Dragon[edit]
Okay, I've been chasing down the original cite through Google Books-- most of the recentish mentions of a "Ka Riu" seem based on Ingersoll (1928), in which the Griffiths quote "The fire-dragon is only seven feet long, but its body is of flame" is clearly an alternate translation of the Joly quote "Ka Riu-scarlet; fiery; only seven feet long."
The Joly source appears to be this book (1908), in which "KA RYU is a fiery dragon of scarlet hue, only seven feet long" (p. cxxxviii) is further attributed to Bakin via Mayers. And finally(?), this magazine (1888) retranslates the same passage from Bakin on page 96 as "The fire dragon is only seven feet long, but its body is of flame".
Without further hunting down the original Japanese text by Bakin at this point, I think we can safely say that Sir Edward's "Ka Riu" is intended to mean "fire dragon" or "flame dragon", which would've been written as 火龍 (with the original kanji for "dragon") or 火竜 (with a simplied "dragon" kanji). A more standardized modern romanization would change the spelling to ka(-)ryuu or ka(-)ryū, depending on arbitrary hyphenation/separation and long vowel notation.--Wombat1138 00:28, 26 September 2010 (PDT)
