What is a dragon?

Brother MacLaren said:
The snake strikes quickly, so an exaggeration of that is flight (or, looking at it another way, a snake is fortunately landbound, but imagine how much worse it would be if it could fly).

Many think this is also due to the footprint origins. The fossilized footprints would end and so the dragon must have flown away.
 

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Roman said:
Interesting theories - it certainly makes sense that dinosaur bones would contribute to dragon legends and it is plausible that a combination and exaggeration of human fears would contribute to shaping dragon myths. Nevertheless, the 'dragons' in the various legends of the world seem rather dissimilar. What is it that unites them that we call them all dragons?

An Occidental or Scandinavian dragon is almost universally a creature of an older age, one which has gone extinct or is in decline. That is the binding motif for the West.

Orientals, on the other hand, tend to be seen as spiritual entities (demigods). The thing that binds them to the Occidental, in my opinion, is their chimeric nature.

I can't think of anything that really binds Scandinavians to Orientals.
 

Merkuri said:
2) Reptilian and/or feline. Dragons usually combine snake-like features with the grace and power of a big cat.

While there are a very wide variety of dragon types, I can't think of one that has been described as feline (though Orientals had parts of a tiger, this was just the paws). I thought the feline aspect was a modern idea created by Tolkien. Do you have a reference?

3) Flight. Dragons usually (but not always) fly, though they do not always have wings.

The Occidentals rarely flew (they were often more depicted as sea creatures), and the Scandinavians were about split down the middle. The Orientals always flew, but often required some sort of magical device to do so.

4) Breath weapon. A dragon can usually (but not always) "breathe" something, whether it's fire, steam, or something else.

This is an Occidental thing generally. Orientals don't breath anything to my knowledge. Our D&D dragon probably mostly came from Wales.
 

reanjr said:
Dinosaur bones, on the other hand, are the source of many giant legends.

Somewhat related, but I remember hearing the origin of the cyclops (one-eyed giants) was primitive explorers finding wooly mammoth skulls. The trunk-hole looked like one huge eye.

I think that dragon special on the History channel I mentioend also talked about how there are some places where "dragon footprints" appear on the side of a cliff. It appeared that the dragon had to have been walking sideways up on a cliff. Surely that means it could fly? Of course, what really happened was that earthquakes and tectonic plate movements and such eventually unearthed fossilized dinosaur footprints and turned them sideways over thousands of years.
 

reanjr said:
While there are a very wide variety of dragon types, I can't think of one that has been described as feline (though Orientals had parts of a tiger, this was just the paws). I thought the feline aspect was a modern idea created by Tolkien. Do you have a reference?
Other than that TV special, no. Don't most western dragons have cat-like teeth (rather than reptilian teeth, which is what they should have if they're lizards)? I haven't actually done any research here, just the one TV show and a report on dragons I did in high school, so I could be wrong. ;)

reanjr said:
This is an Occidental thing generally. Orientals don't breath anything to my knowledge. Our D&D dragon probably mostly came from Wales.
I was under the impression that oriental dragons often breathed steam, but I have no research to prove it.
 

Merkuri said:
Other than that TV special, no. Don't most western dragons have cat-like teeth (rather than reptilian teeth, which is what they should have if they're lizards)?

I'm not sure. I can't remember specific reference to their teeth, but it's possible. Like I said, I think feline aspects came from Tolkien. Whether one wants to include Tolkien in mythological "history" is up for grabs. I generally do not as he was conscious that what he was writing was fiction. But I can see the argument for including Tolkien in scholarly mythological reference.

I was under the impression that oriental dragons often breathed steam, but I have no research to prove it.

I'm not a big fan of the Oriental dragons, so I don't know a whole lot about them. It's quite possible. I do know that Romanian and Welsh dragons breathed fire. Some other dragons left streaks of fire in the sky as they flew, but I don't know if this is related to breath or not. Some scholars believe this is from comet sightings, interpreted as the only large flying creature people knew about.
 



reanjr said:
Like I said, I think feline aspects came from Tolkien. Whether one wants to include Tolkien in mythological "history" is up for grabs.
I'd probably include Tolkien when talking about "modern" dragons. While he's an important reference for D&D players and other people interested in "modern" mythology, what he wrote was based on myth and not actually myth itself (because no one ever thought it was real, they knew it was just a story). I think the OP was talking about ancient dragons.

Thanks for pointing out my mistake, though. It's easy to get Tolkien-esque mythology mixed up with real-world mythology because most of what we see today is based on his works, rather than based on what his works were based on.

To answer the OP's question, I think really all that is similar to dragons is their "aura". They were generally powerful creatures that embodied something humankind had no control over. Fighting a dragon was akin to fighting a tornado or a mountain. Certain heroes could do it, but it was far beyond the reach of normal men. Dragons were forces of nature, to be revered, respected, worshipped, feared, and sometimes fought.

Remember that we in modern times have named all of these things "dragon". How they're actually connected to our concept of "dragon" may vary.

Here is Webster.com's definition of "dragon":
Webster.com said:
1 (archaic) : a huge serpent
2 : a mythical animal usually represented as a monstrous winged and scaly serpent or saurian with a crested head and enormous claws
3 : a violent, combative, or very strict person
4 (capitalized) : DRACO
5 : something or someone formidable or baneful
Basically, I think the only thing we can agree on is that dragons are creatures that aren't real and something that, were it real, you wouldn't want to walk up to and punch in the nose unless you had a WIS score of 6 or less. ;)
 


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