The Legend of Johnny the Lion
The history of Ireland is steeped in legend and mystery. I'm sure you've heard of Irish legends such as the Banshee and the Loch Ness Monster.
As someone who has lived in Ireland all my life, I have heard many of these stories, passed down by my parents and grandparents. Some are well known, others not so much.
As a young lad, I was fascinated by creepy stories and ghost stories, especially stories from Ireland. Some of them gave me nightmares, some were just funny, but there is one legend my grandfather told me that really scared me as a kid and even scares me now.
The legend was a of a creature called Johnny the Lion. I know, it sounds silly, but this Lion was terrifying. Versions of the story go back all the way to the middle ages, according to my grandfather.
Johnny is a lion, but he wears a top hat, like a magician. He has the legs of a bull, kind of like some creature from the end times.
Johnny was always seen holding a rose, and would invite people to sniff it. One day, he invited a young woman named Erin to sniff the rose. Erin was an immortal fairy princess and she sniffed the Rose. But after she did the Lion kidnapped her and imprisoned her in his castle for about 800 years.
After 800 years, Erin was rescued by her male relatives, but her daughter remained imprisoned, and according to the legend she remains trapped in Johnny's castle to this day.
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This story has always stood out to me since I was a child, and I have always wondered about what the story could mean symbolically on a symbolic level.
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Actually I'm just kidding about that. The meaning of the story is patent to anyone with half a brain and a basic knowledge of history.
Alright, so for all you ignorant yanks out there who think the world revolves around your country and don't know anything about history, let me explain.
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Johnny the Lion represents everything cruel and evil about the ones who kept our beloved mother Ireland in chains and bondage for 800 years.
You know, as much as I resent them, I will at least give the English this: they at least would have enough smarts to recognize the obvious cues in Johnny the Lion to know it represents them. Americans on the other hand are always clueless because they know nothing about either of our countries.
But anyway, for all you daft folks, let me explain further.
"Johnny the Lion" inflicted an 800 year reign of terror upon our people.
From the Elizibithian mercenaries to the Redcoats to the Black and Tans, he kept us under his thumb and made us enrich him at the cost of our own bread and butter.
Look it up in the history books. The history of the blood-soaked crown in Ireland is one of uninterrupted pillage, subjugation, repression, forced starvation, and murder.
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Ireland was a glorified vassal slave state for 80 centuries, subject to the whims of a mercantile Protestant class of Germans that didn't care a fig for the affairs of the poor and oppressed.
One million people dead from the coerced starvation of what you Americans callously call "the Potato Famine".
Almost a hundred brave sons of Erin murdered in the streets of Dublin in the Easter Rising.
50 Thousand Irish warriors killed in the Irish Rebellion.
Thousands more killed or enslaved in the name of British Patriotism.
And that's just Ireland. Don't forget about all the other peoples John Bull has oppressed. The entire history of the British Empire is one of conquest, enslavement, and wars of aggression. Hey, remember when the British tried to get all of China addicted to opium and then declared war on them when their government wouldn't let them sell it anymore.
I could go on and on, but the moral of the story is, if a lion offers to let you sniff his rose, just say no.
Of course, maybe the English aren't all that bad. At least they wouldn't have elected Trump...
Written by HopelessNightOwl
Content is available under CC BY-SA
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