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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Yaarel" data-source="post: 7841689" data-attributes="member: 58172">Yeah.The reason for the variable head shapes of the medieval European dragon is because this dragon archetype specifically emerges, historically, in the context of a specific kind of military banner, called a Draco. This military banner is for a Roman cavalry unit.The cavalry banner is essentially a tubular wind-sock, that waves like a serpent in the wind and while galloping on the horse. Different cavalry units placed different heads on the sock tubes, to identify each unit respectively to coordinate military tactical maneuvers. Some sock-tube banners would have snake heads, some lion heads, some wolf heads, some boar heads, and so on. The colors of wind-socks also differed. A distinctive banner for each cavalry unity.<img src="https://i.pinimg.com/originals/8a/e5/eb/8ae5ebbe0049051245a02e3ccb677a00.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /><img src="https://i.pinimg.com/originals/5e/7e/d8/5e7ed8baf596f3d700d1089abab23f62.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /><img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/Dacian_Draco_Capitolini_Museum_IMG_6304.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /><img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Karolingische-reiterei-st-gallen-stiftsbibliothek_1-330x400.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />The Romans called this serpent-like military banner a ‘Draco’ in Latin.The Latin word Draco specifically is the Latin name for the African rock python. Greek references to this species of snake, is the original meaning that all of the European bestiaries are describing, under the entry name ‘Draco’. But since few Europeans have ever actually seen an African rock python, the term tended to mean any ‘serpent’ generally, especially a large snake that strangled its prey by wrapping around it before swallowing it.So, the Latin name for the cavalry wind-sock banner was something like the ‘serpent banner’, the Draco. This serpent featured numerous different kinds of heads, and different sock-tube bodies with different colors or patterns.Because the Draco is a real animal, mentioned in the bestiaries, Europeans guessed at what this kind of deadly snake that can kill an elephant might look like. The medieval European ‘popculture’ assumed that the Latin Draco military banners were intended to represent what the real python snake looked like, including the ability of this snake to possibly feature different kinds of heads.So, the bestiaries − which were intended to be serious scholarly encyclopedias of known animals − began to depict the ‘Draco’ entry as various kinds of large monstrous snakes with diversely shaped heads. Likewise, the bestiary entry often conflated other ‘popculture’ understandings about deadly serpents, including a New Testament reference of a vision of a ‘serpent’ ‘in the heavens’, thus the snake gained wings to fly in the air, or sometimes a barbed tail to pull down stars or angels, a barbed tongue (as opposed to a forked tongue) to hook, ‘deceive’ and ‘seduce’, targets by means of speech, and so on, mixing-and-matching various traditions about monstrous serpents. Including, of course, deadly venomous serpents.Note. The Welsh tradition describes ‘two dragons’, a white one and a red one, fighting each other. This prophetic vision is literally two armies fighting each other. The cavalry of each army has a different color wind-sock for its cavalry unit. One wind-sock is white, and one wind-sock is red. The Welsh army has the red Draco banner. The symbolic dreamlike vision depicted these banners as living serpents fighting each other to represent the respective armies in combat on the battlefield.Note. The Norse word for ‘dragon’ is Dreki. Its etymology is Non-Norse, being borrowed directly from the Latin word Draco, ‘python’ or ‘serpent’. The Norse encountered this Latin word, via trade routes with the Germanic tribes who served as mercenaries in the Roman military, including the Roman cavalries. For example, the Saxon and Frankish militaries continued to use Draco as a military standard. Rarely, but in significant contexts, the Norse sometimes used the Latin-borrowed word Dreki, for its own indigenous traditions about specific monstrous snakes. Such as, the monstrous snake that the Dvergar Fafnir shapeshifted into, and the monstrous snake Níðhǫggr that has wings, being a shapeshifted Jǫtunn. The Norse also used the word Dreki for its Viking ‘dragonship’, a kind of luxury war boat for chieftains and other officers, whose prow would feature various removable ornaments, including various animal heads as military standards. The Nordic Post-Viking Period 1100-1400, under Pan-European literary influence, came to increasingly depict its own Norse ‘Dreki’ with non-snake heads, such as a lion-like head or a wolf-like head.</blockquote>

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