Dragons.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

So what about these things called dragons? No not your mother in law but the legendary creatures which appear in one form or another in practically every culture around the globe.

There are African dragons, Indonesian dragons, Indian dragons, Chinese dragons, Japanese dragons, Philippine dragons, Korean dragons, Vietnamese dragons, Siberian dragons, Catalan dragons, French dragons, Sardinian dragons, Scandinavian dragons, Germanic dragons, English dragons, Welsh dragons, Hungarian dragons, Slavic dragons, Romanian dragons, Portuguese dragons, Greek dragons, Turkish dragons, Lithuanian dragons and many other dragons.

The most famous legend of Saint George is of him slaying a dragon. In the Middle Ages the dragon was commonly used to represent the Devil. The slaying of the dragon by St George was first credited to him in the twelfth century, long after his death.

And what about the Welsh dragon? It took until 1959 for the Welsh national flag to be officially unfurled for the first time. The significance of the dragon in Welsh culture is believed to date back to Arthurian legend when Merlin had a vision of a red dragon (representing native Britons) fighting a white dragon (the Saxon invaders). The red dragon won the battle, just in case you were wondering.

Why do they feature in countries that far apart? European and Oriental dragons are very similar and in most cases are able to fly and breathe fire. Some people say that dragons may be mental representations of human fears of snakes but jeeze even an anaconda isn’t as big as a dragon. Perhaps they represented something the ancients hadn’t encountered before. I mean the indigenous peoples of the United States referred to a steam locomotive as an “iron horse.”

No, I’m not going along the “spaceship thingee” again. I mean I painted myself into a corner by saying that the bible was a work of fiction. Even so dragons are mentioned in this book. Dragons are also a work of fiction so I guess then I can quote from the bible.

Revelation 12:3-4

“And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child he might devour it.”

And hand on your heart and without Googling, who knows what popular song about a dragon released in 1962 was incorrectly thought to be about smoking weed?

What could the dragon have been and why were the ancients so fascinated by them?

2

It’s actually a pretty commonly-known urban legend here in the U.S.; I’d heard about that interpretation of the song since I was a teenager.

Puff, the Magic Dragon, of course. :slight_smile:

3

Dragons aren’t common to all myths. Different cultures have different mythological beasts. But cultures don’t typically have words for other cultures’ beasts, so they get translated as something that’s sort of vaguely similar. And when it comes to Draco and Lung, the similarities are very vague indeed.

4

MPSIMS: My mother-in-law is awesome. Many of the things I love most about my wife are things that she channels directly from her mom. :slight_smile:

Dragons are cool, though.

5

Anyone digging a hole might come across some unfamiliar, scary-looking bones; for pre-science societies, it doesn’t seem surprising that legends and myths might crop up as explanations for these strange, huge bones that were sometimes discovered in the ground.

6

Nope.
As for dragons on flags, check out Bhutan.

7

Anyone else reminded of our dearly departed Dude Roberts? Who would win in a fight? An m1a1 Abrams or a dragon. A REAL dragon though so only minimal magic.

8

But, what about dragons? :smiley:

I like the “it’s an explanation for dinosaur bones” theory, myself. Why did the idea stick around? They’re just so damn cool, that’s why! Giant lizards that maybe fly, maybe breathe fire, maybe are intelligent, maybe use magic! What’s not to love? They can be a perfect villain (Smaug) an ultimate weapon (Drogon, Viserion, & Rhaegal) mighty forces of nature (the ones from the Dragon Age series) or even wise mentors (I can’t think one right now). Not to mention an endless source of nerdy nerdy discussion for nerds like Shad, up there, and myself.

Hell, maybe that’s the explanation; they’re so damn cool that as soon as someone hits on the idea it’ll stick with the culture forever. And since people have been making up stories for as long as there have been people it’s possible, maybe even likely, that different cultures might hit on the same idea at some point. Add cultural exchange (which has also been going on as long there have been people, albeit at slower rates/over smaller distances than today) and BOOM dragons everywhere! Not literally, of course, the real world isn’t that cool.

Dragons… so cool…