Here is my vision of the Tarasque of Provence, the six-legged dragon:

His sensitive face is crowned by a red glowing mane of hair. His eyes shine an impossible pearlescent silver reflecting all who dare approach. He winks a lot. The sunlight makes his eyes, like his mane, seem on fire. His face is human and is in total constrast with his body. He's uncomfortable. He knows he's a monster. He used to like being just that. He made terrible roars and destroyed everything he could sink his claws into. But that was before he met Martha. They were right in thinking she was the very Saint Martha of biblical legend. Only someone saintly can tame the dragon, but her goodness was not enough to calm the angry mob. The Tarasque of Provence's body clearly marks him as evil. He has six bear-like legs, hairy and heavy, tipped with talons that rival the Grizzly. His back is armoured like a turtle's, but is more like a rocky boulder that, when posed near a river (his favorite damp place to be) he appears to be a man peeking from beyond a large rock. On closer inspection,  his hard outer shell seems carved out of water, intricately detailed with swirls and ridges, so beautiful under the waves of the river but so dark and ugly in muddy reality. The strangest thing about his body, and the one thing that greatly displays him as dangerous, is his long scorpion-like tail. Curved into a stinger dripping with poison, he can move this weapon with dexterous ease. But worse than his tail, there is his breath. He breathes fire. His throat is a furnance. Water boils at his touch. Steam growls out of him, especially when he is lonely and sad. Despair ages him. When joy finally chases away the murky clouds of his steam-filled growls, his face becomes youthful again. You would fall in love with him when he's happy. But if only you could see his face -- when he's at his most beautiful -- and see past his body, look past the scales, the hardness of him, the tail about poised to sting, the talons clawing impatiently at the earth, maybe, just maybe you'd see the romance of him. Like Martha. Just like Martha did while clutching her crucifix and holy water. So long ago. In Provence.  But how could people forget the harm he did before he was given peace?  I tell you, I believe the creature knew he was going to be killed.  He gave in to the people's need for revenege.  As soon as he became Martha's pet, he gave up the monster.  Isn't that just like every Catholic legend?  The pagan monster is led, defeated, to church to die.  Poor Tarasque.  Pray for it.

Here is the legend of the monster and the saint as described by the Tarascon Village website: A swampy area of the Rhone, was once called niger focus, or "heart of darkness" and this was the Tarasque's home. A later reference called it id est niger locus, or Nerluc. When the Romans arrived, they called the small collection of habitations here Ernaginum, probably from the habitants' ur-naga, reflecting the worship of a primeval serpent or dragon.  Described in 12th-century writings, the Tarasque was of a half-serpent half-lion monster from Gallicia, the ofspring of the ancient-world serpents Leviathan and Onacho.  From out of the bowels of the sea, the Tarasque terrorized the region in the best traditions of unfriendly dragons. Local heroes, including the King of Nerluc and his knights, fought the Tarasque, and perished. Others tied animals along a trail into a deep swamp, near Avignon, with a reputation for being impossible to escape from. But the swamp belonged to the realm of the devil and the Tarasque was a creature of the devil. So when the Tarasque followed the trail of delicious animals into the swamp, it was warned in time to escape the trap.  The Tarasque, however, was not prepared to meet a saint.  Martha (Saint Martha of Bethany) was in Nerluc one market day, to spread the word of her Christian God to the pagan people, where everyone was talking about the dragon. The townspeople challenged her to prove the strength of her religion by subduing the dragon. Martha set out, bare-foot, in her white dress, to find the dragon, with no other weapon than a jar of holy water, and with the whole town following her. At the dragon's lair, Martha held up two sticks as a cross and stopped the dragon as if pierced by a sword. (It's also said she used hymns and prayers to charm the beast.) She sprinkled holy water on the dragon to quench its fire, then used his sharp tooth to cut off her braids and make a bridle to lead the now-tamed Tarasque back to town. The people, still terrified by the monster, attacked it and killed it with a shower of stones. Martha forgave the wretched town's peope, and converted many of them to Christianity. One source has it that Martha's feat with the dragon caused the entire province to converted to Christianity. The citizens errected a new church in honor of Saint Martha and changed the name of the town from Nerluc to Tarascon. The Tarasque is now featured on the town's coat of arms.

But what if there is another story behind this legend of old Provence? What if the Tarasque wasn't the big monster of legend? What if the Martha who tamed him wasn't the Saint Martha but just a nice girl who liked to play with dragons?  Something tells me that the Tarasque is more than what he seems.  And I believe his story should be told. 

One thing's for sure, I now know what the story is behind that six-legged dragon pin I wear each day on my coat. The Tarasque has become my companion. I feel like Martha, but in a more neo-pagan sense. I want to take the dragon back to his swamp, reclaim the land for the Gods. Or something like that. The Tarasque inspires me. Thank you, little dragon, for your fire.