Ceuta, city of dragons
Dragons watch us from the sky. Numerous dragons live in Ceuta. Nobody knows how many there are, but most people talk about dragons.
Four dragons have their lair in the «House of Dragons», a building located in the centre of the city. Others live in the streetlights of the «Gran Vía», illuminating the sidewalk with their lights. And the smallest ones are in the main facade of the Palace of the Assembly of Ceuta.
House of the dragons
The dragons did not always live here, they arrived in Ceuta around 1900 when the Cerni brothers, who belonged to the Masonic lodge of Ceuta, decided to build a house in Ceuta and put dragons on the roof.
Francisco Cerni was the mayor of Ceuta from 1897 to 1903 and perhaps it was him who placed two small dragons at the Town Hall.
Dragons are a symbol of purification and self-control for Masonic, because they represent the four elements of our inner nature («prakriti»), we have to control: «earth» by the claws, «fire» by the flames that they spit through the mouth, «water» by the tail, and «air» by the wings.
Dragons of the Palace
In Africa Square, on the facade of the Municipal Palace, on both sides of the main door of the Palace, two dragons are placed holding in their hands a three-armed candelabra with three luminaries.
Dragon on the facade of the Municipal Palace.
Dragon on the facade of the Municipal Palace.
Dragons of the lampposts
Sixteen two-meter high dragons, with long tails and long tongues, appear on the streetlights of Gran Vía, holding in their hands a lamp that illuminates the sidewalk.
Dragon of the lampposts on the Gran Vía in Ceuta.
Gossipers say that on moonless nights, some dragons fly over Ceuta. Is it, perhaps, a hoax? I don't know, but the truth is that the dragons are watching us from the sky. Ceuta is a city of dragons.