When you have iron hard scales, sleeping in a bed of nice soft lose gold just can’t be beat. Like some other large predators, dragons sleep most of the time.
or loose gold even
Its because dragons are too risk adverse to venture into other markets. You’ll never, ever see a dragon in the futures market.
LMAO. Where is this from?
Everybody knows that an enormous pile of loose soft metal, particularly gold, is the most comfortable bed around. Even better than that new-fangled Tempura mattress they keep touting on tv.
Sorry, God, I should have cited. It’s Stan Frebergs’s [url=] ‘ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGONET’ (1953) , but it really has to be heard to be appreciated.
Check out Limyaael’s Fantasy Rants for her take on the dragon hoarding thing.
Her dragon rant doesn’t seem to be on the site yet; to read it, go here.
Smaug was consumed by greed. Other dragons could be motivated by other things. Love, Respect, Death, Glory, etc. They are not above human emotions, but consumed by them.
No, it says that the mean and nasty ones went west.
It’s been too long since I’ve read Barbara Hambly’s Dragonsbane, but the reason HER dragons hoarded gold was because the dragons each had a melody for a name, and the gold would “sing” the dragon’s name back to it. Any gold that a dragon had possessed would keep “singing”, and thus be considered haunted.
I highly recommend the book.
One might suppose that Smaug and the rest were corrupted, much like dwarves were.
Well, even Glaurung (the first Tolkien dragon, who didn’t even have wings) hoarded the gold of Nargothrond. So it seems to be something innate in dragonkind, and that predates the Great Rings that Sauron gave to dwarves later.
In the movie The Flight of Dragons, they said that they sleep on gold because it’s soft, and anything else is flammable.
I don’t remember the exact reasons, but in AD&D the dragons “bonded” with their hoard. They were incapable of parting with it. Anyone remember why?
Oh yeah, and I’m sure greed had something to do with it as well.
pravnik knows too much and must be eliminated or bribed with gold to keep quiet.
I am a collector so it’s obvious to me that dragon’s are collectors too. Collectors have basically a obsessive/compusive personallity. Some collectors collect nearly anything, others specialize in one or two types of thing. Dragons just happen to like gold and virgins. BTW don’t be too sure that the dragons don’t “do” anything with the virgins. 
How can I start collecting virgins?
How does the Dragon carry the gold back to its lair? In its mouth? I dont think they have opposible thumbs. Besides they have useless little front arms
In AD&D the idea has been presented that for a dragon to grow to the next size, he needs to shed his skin like a snake, and magically consume so much gold, to incorporate into his self. Hence the massive hoards.
I personally believe Dragons do it for a combination of reasons, including simple asthetics (sp?), and the durability of gold. One sneeze, and most the other treasure is gone. But gold slag is still gold.
Many Dragons have opposable thumbs, or simi-opposable thumbs. Those who do not, are often intimidating enough to conscript temperary slave labor.
So I can take it!
Although some ninnies think that because gold has a low melting point, it’s pretty easy for all them flame-breathing lizards to make a bed out of gold that gives them lots of support. You don’t want to be a chiropractor for a dragon that’s got an aching back.
The Dragons of Pern (and their Riders) apparently are not materialistic at all…quite different from the Western Dragons of Earth, which hoard valuables for the pleasure of having stuff.
Dragons are Epicurian, Hedonistic, Vain, and Greedy, but they have Taste, Class, and Elegance.