Dragons!

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many_angled_one

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I always thought it was amazing the number of people who have told me that they also used to believe as children that dragons slept under mountains and hills and recently watching the film, Reign of Fire, has remined me of this.

It is a known fact that children see things that adults don't (witness the stage magician if you will trying to misdirect people, works on adults but its harder with children) and some say they know things we dont. Racial memory perhaps?

Is it possible that dragons do sleep under mountains? In the story of Merlin the welsh and English dragons were buried/sleeping underground and there have always been tales of ancient creatures, giants and monsters lurking beneath mountains and hills.

HP Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos owes it's success in part to this oddly believable feeling that old creatures lurk under mountians and in the inaccessible and forgotten places of the world.

So.... what do you think?
 
fire breathing is always going to be a problem. If you take the methane production route for fuel, creating a spark to ignite it is going to be tough.

however if you lived in olden times near a mountain / hill and were up there in a gale getting buffetted, or sitting in your hut listening to the wind howl around, it wouldnt be too hard to conjure a mythical flying beast.

if you dont believe there is SOMETHING strange about mountains, go up to Glencoe one time. Theres something there that pre-dates the Campbell MacDonald spat.
 
And the dragons in "Ivor the Engine" lived in a mountain! Idris and ... the other one whose name I can never remember.

There is a hill near where I grew up that looks like it is being pushed up from underneath by a point - it stretches out flat from the crest that it's on and then there's a short section going down at an angle of about forty-five degrees. It's a modern human construct of some kind, maybe a water tank or something, but as a child I always thought that there was a giant triceratops under there, its front horn pushing the ground up like a finger pushing up a piece of cloth.

So maybe the kids are right, only the dragons are fossilised dinosaurs.
 
Feng-shui, if I recall correctly, is largely based on seeing the dragon in the land.

Is reign of fire any good, btw?
 
Feng-Shui as practiced by the Chinese is indeed based upon seeing the dragon in the land and finding the most auspicious place on its body to build.

as some sort of earth spirit I think the dragon concept works. And I think I'm right in saying Year of the Dragon is the only Chinese horroscope house to be based on a mythical animal?

Californian Feng-Shui (where you align your toilet to the most auspicious angle) was invented in the '70's by a couple of hippies who came out a couple of years ago and said "We just made that shit up. We never expected to be taken seriously".

only to be confronted by the wrath of the multi million dollar industry that had grown up on the back of their joke.

or the back of their dragon?
 
Reign of Fire is pretty good actually! It's far from the independance day look a like the posters imply. It's far more like a bbc drama production than a hollywood blockbuster but with better special effects, and I mean that in the very best way possible (the earthy realism feel). It deals more with the aftermath of the dragon attacks than the beginning when they emerge.

Anybody seen the animated film Flight of Dragons will remember it's theory that dragons eat certainr ocks which react int heir stomachs to produce hydrogen gases, causing lift and enabling them to flame.

Indeed the chinese equivaent of the ley line is called the dragon line (or similar).

There are some really oddly eerily shaped hills out there that is for sure!

If dragons were to hibernate they sure as hell would want to bury down into the hills and mountains and collapse their tunnels behind them so that they can sleep in safety.
 
Feasibility of Dragons

I remember some years ago on schools programme a sci-fi writer(light-heartedly) explaining how some aspects of Dragons could be explained: eg very strong stomach acid reacting with ingested metals to produce hydrogen for lift and flammability, etc - wish I could remember more. Also the excess acid explained lack of dragon bones: they all get dissolved.

Very good it was too: if only I could remember who it was....
 
Anne McCaffrey had dragons that worked like that, if I recall correctly, so it may be her.

Terry Pratchett also has scientifically witnessed dragon in his (non-discworld) novel "Strata" but I believe his have something like a nuclear reactor in their stomach and fly fast by bending their heads under their bodies and breathing fire in the style of a rocket engine. It is a while since I read that, so I don't know if I have recalled correctly.
 
Pratchett is keen on Dragons and the beasts run through his Discworld series. He has them eating coal.

as for a creature turning its head to use exhaust gas as propulsion, wouldnt it keep flying into things?

if we are to assume the creature makes gas due to some ballistic stomache reaction I can think of a far more practical form of jet propulsion.

but this is a serious forum so in the interests of good taste, lets not go there
 
I have a reprint of an 1884 book called Mythical Monsters by the
Australian author Charles Gould.

The book is far too detailed to summarize quickly - and it is ages since
I read it - but Gould's basic premise is that mythical monsters were
real human memories of dinosaurs and other extinct animals. It involves a great
deal of adjustment to the Darwinian timescale which was then
becoming standard.

It was regarded as highly eccentric in its day. But it certainly demonstrates
that the genre of alternative ancient histories is not a recent fad. :rolleyes:
 
dragons

The rainbow serpent in aboriginal legends always reminded me of dragons!
 
Actually, most of Pratchett's dragons are "swamp-dragons" which fly most ineptly. Of the swamp-dragons only "Errol" in "Guards! Guards!" managed to use his exhaust gases to fly, and he vented them via his cloaca so that he looked as though he was sitting on a pillar of fire! :eek!!!!:

Sounds like a sensible arrangement to me! :p

(It'd be Hell on the piles though! :eek: )
 
There was a feature-length animated film called 'The Flight of Dragons' based on Peter Dickinson's book of the same name (incidentally, the first video I ever saw). In that, dragons eat limestone (or some other sort of rock) which mixes with their stomach acids to produce a flammable gas that also allows them to float. They use their vestigial wings to propel themselves about, and vent the gas using flames from their mouth, which is ignited by some sort of bio-electrical system.
 
Fire breathing and flight are often associated with mythological dragons, but not always. The dragon in the third part of the Beowulf story was the first in western mythology/fiction to be explicitly fire breathing.

One of the problems with looking at whether dragons could exist (could have existed) is that most people start off with an assumption about what a dragon is, and that assumption is largely coloured by modern fiction and film. Modern western fictional dragons breathe fire, fly, and often talk. Genuinely mythological dragons did not always do any or all of these things.

There is the obvious comparison with vampires and werewolves. Modern fiction and film has given these two mythical/folkloric creatures a conventional set of characteristics that were not there in the original folklore and myth.

Also, we have borrowed heavily from the mythology of other cultures and combined a lot of ideas to make a new hybrid dragon. Historically, western European dragons were giant worms or lizards which terrorised areas, and were there to be defeated by heroes. Chinese dragons had a more spiritual element to them and were more principles or ideals than living breathing creatures.
 
Mikefule said:
Fire breathing and flight are often associated with mythological dragons, but not always. The dragon in the third part of the Beowulf story was the first in western mythology/fiction to be explicitly fire breathing.

One of the problems with looking at whether dragons could exist (could have existed) is that most people start off with an assumption about what a dragon is, and that assumption is largely coloured by modern fiction and film. Modern western fictional dragons breathe fire, fly, and often talk. Genuinely mythological dragons did not always do any or all of these things.

There is the obvious comparison with vampires and werewolves. Modern fiction and film has given these two mythical/folkloric creatures a conventional set of characteristics that were not there in the original folklore and myth.

Also, we have borrowed heavily from the mythology of other cultures and combined a lot of ideas to make a new hybrid dragon. Historically, western European dragons were giant worms or lizards which terrorised areas, and were there to be defeated by heroes. Chinese dragons had a more spiritual element to them and were more principles or ideals than living breathing creatures.
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I couldn't agree more.

A few months back I was reading an article, I think in an old Nexus magazine, about how in Saxon times there was a smallish lizard like dragon that liked to live in wells and how even after the dragon was killed and removed, the well would stink and be poisoned for many years afterwards.
 
That
Mikefule said:
Fire breathing and flight are often associated with mythological dragons, but not always. The dragon in the third part of the Beowulf story was the first in western mythology/fiction to be explicitly fire breathing.

One of the problems with looking at whether dragons could exist (could have existed) is that most people start off with an assumption about what a dragon is, and that assumption is largely coloured by modern fiction and film. Modern western fictional dragons breathe fire, fly, and often talk. Genuinely mythological dragons did not always do any or all of these things.

There is the obvious comparison with vampires and werewolves. Modern fiction and film has given these two mythical/folkloric creatures a conventional set of characteristics that were not there in the original folklore and myth.

Also, we have borrowed heavily from the mythology of other cultures and combined a lot of ideas to make a new hybrid dragon. Historically, western European dragons were giant worms or lizards which terrorised areas, and were there to be defeated by heroes. Chinese dragons had a more spiritual element to them and were more principles or ideals than living breathing creatures.
Click to expand...
This stuff was also covered in the linked video.
 
Dragons Legends in Wales
Overview:
This subject of dragons, which in a tale has always possessed such an attraction for children, is not without interest for adults . Some type of dragon is found in almost every country, and under conditions which invariably lead to the same original idea . Investigators will find that the dragon, in his wandering through centuries of history, will have, for them, much of that fascination which his relative the basilisk is supposed to have exerted over birds. He holds a really important place in the study of comparative religion and cognate subjects, the decorative and pictorial arts , literature, archæology, and heraldrytaking each in the widest sense ; and he will be traced through gorgeous temples in the East, where he symbolizes the spirit of evil , to the fiercest of early battles in the West , where he figures on the royal standard as " The Dragon of the great Pendragonship. "* He is found portrayed in the writings of respected ancient philosophers, trodden under the feet of saints in mediæval art , and rampant in the most bewitching legends of every nation.​
Source: Spurrier, Hartnell. Dragons,The Red Dragon, Vol.XI, 1887, pp.565-571
 

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kesavaross said:
In the article I read about (post 17) dragons poisoning wells it also mentioned that touching the skin with bare hands produced a burning sensation.
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It is a very interesting fact and it suggests to me some type of chemical substance like the ones that caterpillars have in their spikes and that cause the same burning sensation.
For example, Lonomiatoxin, which in addition to the burning sensation in the area of contact, causes serious kidney damage.
 
Dragons Poison Wells

1719182368260.png


1719182686226.png

Source: Burne, Charlotte Sophia (Editor) . Shropshire Folklore, London, 1885, Note 2, p.349​
 
Fabio Picasso said:
It is a very interesting fact and it suggests to me some type of chemical substance like the ones that caterpillars have in their spikes and that cause the same burning sensation.
For example, Lonomiatoxin, which in addition to the burning sensation in the area of contact, causes serious kidney damage.
Click to expand...
A few years back a local park was cordoned off because of a vast numbers of a caterpillars whose hairs when touched would cause a burning sensation. The council sprayed all the trees and bushes with a 'kill anything small and alive' insecticide. Well done the council. That was a brilliant solution. The caterpillar stage lasted just 3 to 4 weeks.

Your post above is interesting. A lot of the references given by the author of the article I read, some of which I found on line and were from 'books' or documents, church records, etc, written anything up to 800 or 900 years ago, seem to view the dragons/lizards in Saxon times as more of a nuisance than a threat to people.

The main way to remove one of these dragon from a well was to shoot the creature with quite a few broad headed arrows with cord attached and drag the creature up by the cords and then by using the same cords carry it to a distance from the village and burn it's body on a pyre. Once the pyre had been lit the arrows and the cords would be thrown on and those involved would retreat some distance because even the smoke had a strong 'sulphuric' smell to it which would burn the throat. When the dragon had been burnt to ashes the area would be marked and villagers would stay clear of it.

I can't see any reason for lies and deceptions as it was seen in those times just part of village life that sometimes happened and it was no big deal.
 
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kesavaross said:
A few years back a local park was cordoned off because of a vast numbers of a caterpillars whose hairs when touched would cause a burning sensation. The council sprayed all the trees and bushes with a 'kill anything small and alive' insecticide. Well done the council. That was a brilliant solution. The caterpillar stage lasted just 3 to 4 weeks.

Your post above is interesting. A lot of the references given by the author of the article I read, some of which I found on line and were from 'books' or documents, church records, etc, written anything up to 800 or 900 years ago, seem to view the dragons/lizards in Saxon times as more of a nuisance than a threat to people.

The main way to remove one of these dragon from a well was to shoot the creature with quite a few broad headed arrows with cord attached and drag the creature up by the cords and then by using the same cords carry it to a distance from the village and burn it's body on a pyre. Once the pyre had been lit the arrows and the cords would be thrown on and those involved would retreat some distance because even the smoke had a strong 'sulphuric' smell to it which would burn the throat. When the dragon had been burnt to ashes the area would be marked and villagers would stay clear of it.

I can't see any reason for lies and deceptions as it was seen in those times just part of village life that sometimes happened and it was no big deal.
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Following what you say, @kesavaross it would be very useful to be able to trace the ancient sources of information cited by Brand. It is a very exciting job.
 
I no longer have the magazine. A friend gave me a lot of old back issues of Nexus which when I had read them then went for recycling otherwise my flat would fill up with magazines. Sorry.

Generally, I read for myself and not so as I can post about such matters on here although it is nice to be able to add some input to discussions.

Yet another intriguing old newspaper article posted by you above. Do you have a date for it?
 
Peas as a Method to Poison Water Used by Dragons

1719186081182.png

Source: Kelly, Walter K. Curiosities of Indo-european Tradition and Folklore, London, 1863, p.299
 
kesavaross said:
I no longer have the magazine. A friend gave me a lot of old back issues of Nexus which when I had read them then went for recycling otherwise my flat would fill up with magazines. Sorry.

Generally, I read for myself and not so as I can post about such matters on here although it is nice to be able to add some input to discussions.

Yet another intriguing old newspaper article posted by you above. Do you have a date for it?
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I have a lot of nexus numbers, so I'm going to look through them to try to find the article you mention. Everything I have posted has an edition date. What item do you mean.
 
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