Dragons III
More recent dragons
So much for cosmic dragons, now a bit about earth dwelling
ones. Dragons in Western cultures tend to be cave dwellers. Sometimes, they can think and are able to understand and use human
speech, such as Fafnir. Dragons are
unique: you won't usually find a family of dragons. Some dragons do repose in caves
and guard gold, but other dragons ravage entire regions and their presence is a calamity.
Getting rid of a pesky dragon requires special help. A dragon cannot be slain by
normal men at arms, entire armies will fail to vanquish a dragon, only a god, hero,
or saint can conquer one. Even
for a hero, slaying a dragon requires the correct tool: a sword made by the
gods, a magic ring, a silver bow and arrow, or some such. In the case of Perseus, the
deadly stare of the severed head of another monster, Medusa, did the job.
Only rarely is a dragon slain by mundane means, but the nasty bits sometimes come
when it's dead. Then the hero lets down his guard and that's when the dragon has
its revenge - often from poison in its blood. But there are exceptions....
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Siegfried accidentally tasted burning dragon blood, but in this case he
could then understand the language of birds. Who gave some good advice.
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An archetype hero in the Middle Ages symbolizes the victory of good over evil.
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Byzantine
(copy) St George |
Saint George and the Dragon (Raphael) 1504. The horse seems more
impressed than the lady. |
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Master of
Saint Verdiana - Archangel Michael Slaying the Dragon - (1380) |
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(left)
Detail of Portal Relief from the Stave Church at Hyllestad, Norway
Detail showing Siegfried slaying the dragon Fafnir with the sword
Nothung.
(right) Same scene but at the Met in New York |
The Sack of Nargothrond
Glaurung
is introduced in J.R.R Tolkin's The Silmarillion as the first
of the Dragons. He is also the main antagonist in The Children of Hurin. He was known as The Deceiver, The Golden, The Great Worm and
the Worm of Greed. You can see another Tolkin dragon in The
Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug at your local movie house.
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CYMRU - The flag of Wales.
The oldest recorded use of the dragon
(Y Ddraig Goch)
to symbolize Wales is in the Historia Brittonum, written
around AD 829,
but it is popularly supposed to have been the battle standard of King
Arthur and other ancient Celtic leaders.
A recently
discovered baby dragon of Indonesia. Although dragons are very
rare and slow to mature, the locals are already growing concerned, as
well they should be: the Komodo dragon of Indonesia weighs over 200 lbs.
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