Wow! A whole new thing that was completely forgotten about, for months, and here we are, updating. The topic for today that I just pulled out of my hat is something that has, and is interesting to me on a whole different level.
Mythology. I adore folk tales, fairy tales, stories, whatever you wish to call them. I love oral history traditions and how stories and histories are passed down, word of mouth. It still happens today, stories that are just 'known' without actually having ever been written down. On this vein of thought, I got to wondering, how is it that globally there are certain common 'themes' to the mythos, and that there are certain universal like 'creatures' that appear across all the stories, the fables and legends and so on. This has gotten me to thinking that well, maybe they're not so much legend and story and fiction as we would like to think. This months creature for pondering thought is the: Dragon.
In western and european cultures, dragons are gigantic fire-breathing flying lizards. They kidnap damsels (always virgins for some reason, and usually some princess or other) to tie them to a stake outside this cave that is their 'front door' and wait for Sir Hero-Of-The-Day to come along on his Valiant steed and stab this great foul beast in the heart and kill it, marry sweet damsel and life is all wonderful. Or, said beastie makes off with livestock, cows, sheep, burns down villages, jealously hoards treasure and is generally a bit of a pest to be exterminated. Scary, terrifying, and not too terribly intelligent -- if some meathead on a horse can get the upper hand of this thing, they can't be all -that- clever.
On the other hand, there are stories of smarter dragons, who answer questions, wise and old, can cast spells, powerful magicians, sorcerers, impervious to magical attacks or even any weapon unless it hits one specific part along their throat/chest/underside/organ of choice. This is when you look into the stories heading a little further east through europe. You hit Russia, and alas, I have yet to hear of anything relating to dragons from -that- area, of course, it could be all the snow. And rock. I don't know, if anyone knows of a story or stories -from- Russia portraying to dragons, please let me know.
Then you hit Asia. That is, Japan, China and so on. The Eastern dragon is considered to be something far different to the Western dragon. It has more akin to a snake than a lizard, can have four to eight legs, with three to five toes, I believe, but only the royal family had the five toed dragon, as it was considered to be the wisest and most powerful of all the dragons. These dragons were not chased off, but revered, pampered and worshipped as dieties due to the luck they could afford the family, and the knowledge they held. With power over the elements, not all breathed fire, most could fly, some even spent great lengths of time in the ocean and were worshipped for a bountiful harvest, placated with offerings of seashells and polished stones from the beach.
Back to the west, we have sea serpents, long, sinuous creatures that spell danger for ships and must be destroyed... I am sensing a trend here.
There are also legends of wyverns, a relative of the dragon, though without the jewels or power, or indeed prestige. Some have them as being long and snake-like with wings, and they gave off a toxic mist rather than fire, that made the lungs dry and humans sick with coughing. Others say they had only two legs, for landing, and great wings, like a bird. Multiple heads, one head, no head at all just a huge neckmouth lined with teeth....
Almost every culture, as far as I know, has it's own breed of dragon, it's own mythos relating to the creature, but what fascinates, and surprises me is that they are so universal. You speak of dragons in Eyre, Ireland? and They'll tell you of Saint George, you go to Wales and they'll tell you of the boats that they carved the dragons head on for victory in battle, you go to england and they'll tell you of brave knights who battled the beasts, China will tell you of the wise dragon who saved the princess from her folly, the fool who thought to trick a dragon, in japan there is a magical koi fish who granted wishes and spoke of a dragon to help the girl bring honour to her family and so on. I think Egypt doesn't have -dragons- as such because there was the crocodiles in the Nile River, why would there need to be something more impressive than a twelve meter water lizard that could snap a boat in half with a single mighty bite of its jaws?
How can such a concept, be -everywhere-? If, in history, man supposedly did not walk too much further than the equivalent of 50km in his lifetime, because it is just too far, and if they did, they were traders. Trading in silks, food, produce, items not easily found in the region, why would they carry one regions folk-tales to the next? And if they did, why would it be seen as anything other than an entertaining tale?
I would be muchly appreciative if you gave me food for thought in the comments.
~Take One Day at a Time.
