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Dragons are awesome.

Rodafina

Hopefully Human
Staff member
V.I.P Member
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I like to draw dragons, read about them, hear about them, and wonder about them. I also wonder what our collective knowledge is on dragon lore.

Shall we create the dragon database together?

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Don’t Slay Your Dragons

A haiku | Upen Singh

Beautiful dragons
await to unite with you.
Don't slay them you fool!
 
I always loved dragons. I love stories about dragons but I don't often find pictures that match my own imagination. A series that really captured my imagination was The Dragon Riders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey.

It also fascinates me about the way that a fictitious creature has captured the minds of so many cultures for so many centuries.

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I’ve just been reading up on different dragon myths and came across a few curious coincidences. The modern western word Dragon descends from the greek word Dakonus, which is a snake.

In asian mythology dragons are serpents, no wings, some have legs and some don’t. In asian mythologies dragons are associated with wealth and prosperity.

Then I thought about the Australian Aboriginal myths of the Rainbow Serpent. There are many different and sometimes conflicting stories about the Rainbow Serpent but that is to be expected, before white man came there were more than 2500 different tribes of people each with their own languages and cultures, but there’s some common threads to all of them.

The Rainbow Serpent is a deity of creation. Where it travelled over the ground it’s tracks became rivers, where it burrowed under the ground to sleep it raised mountains. It is responsible for the coming of the rains and is associated with fertility and times of plenty.

It can also cause great destruction if disturbed in it’s rest. This became part of the basis of the protests against the Jabiluka uranium mine back in the 80s, I still remember those protests. To the Mirrar people that lived near Jabiluka this was one of their most sacred sites, the resting place of the Rainbow Serpent. They believed that if he was disturbed in his rest it would bring about the destruction of the world.
 
Posted by @IWannaGoHome in a different thread:

dragon symbolizes harmony and power. dragon in Chinese history is a creature that's the king of the animals. Some what similar to god in western culture. It has tight links to imperialism during monarchy period. As the king associates himself with the dragon - that his decision is for the people and he will guide the people.

In modern Chinese history, dragons normally appear when ones trying to identify themselves as the 'offspring of the dragon' as by history - Chinese people are created by the dragon.

Dragon symbolizes power and wealth. And the fact that it is the dragon who created China, who is controlling China(the king), it implies China is the center of the world, the best country in the world. In fact the Chinese name for China is 'Zhong guo' which directly translates to 'a country in the centre of the earth'.

The dragon culture and mindset does have significant impact on Chinese history. When China was prosperous during the Tang dynasty the king decided to connect with nearby countries and improve their lives as well (i.e Japanese culture is heavily influenced by China during that period).

So in contrast to the Portuguese who invaded the U.S during their peak, and welp British conquer the whole world. Due to the influence of the dragon the Chinese never invaded any country during any dynasty that is controlled by Han Chinese(the type of Chinese who believe in the dragon, Genghis Khan period is a whole different story).
 
Dragons are known around the world from times past when the different areas of the world didn't even have communication with each other.
Quetzalcoatl is an exception. Mesoamerican.
And they all sound similar. They are all described equally as similar. A flying serpent with fire and smoke.

I've often wondered if there was really such a creature back in the pre-historic days.
Or maybe Ancient Aliens is correct and our early ancestors were seeing space craft?
Whatever the case may be, we still have a fascination with them to this day.
How many have wanted or gotten dragon tattoos?
I always wanted one on my thigh.

They are always lored as creators, royal, and powerful.

Here is a fun test to see what type of Dragon you are.
Pick as you go and add the points up for each question.
I got 190 and it IS the Dragon I like.

 
Yeah, Dragons are awesome. While not a box office success, the 1996 fantasy film DragonHeart (starring the late Sean Connery) and the 2002 post-apocalyptic film Reign of Fire are two of my all-time favourite movies:

DragonHeart Trailer

(Since the Reign of Fire trailer is pretty misleading, I'll show this clip from the film after the first Dragon is awakened)
Reign of Fire - "The Dragons Take Over"

When it comes to stories and mythology, there's two in particular that spring to mind.
The first is a story from Northumberland, England called The Dragon of Mordiford (also known as Maud and the Wyvern) - which was a story about a poor girl named Maud finding a baby Wyvern; a type of Dragon which has four limbs, with its arms/front legs and wings been connected together rather than separate like the classic European Dragon.
Despite been told by her parents to get rid of it, she takes it to the forest and feeds it milk every day; helping the little dragon grow into an adult and with the dragon imprinting on her - seeing Maud as its mother. Sadly, it grows too big for Maud's milk to satisfy its hunger and it begins to attack livestock and other human beings, with the story having a sad ending as a knight ends up killing the dragon - much to Maud's dismay.
This story got adapted as part of the film Dragons 3D (also known as Dragons: Real Myths and Unreal Creatures), which covered several Dragon stories from mythology:


The second is the tale of the Welsh Red Dragon (Y Ddraig Goch) - which is told in two stories; the first been the story "Lludd and Llefelys" from the Mabinogion and later been followed up with another story in the Historia Brittonum.
In the first part of the story, the Red Dragon is a native creature to Britain that battles against a foreign White Dragon that invades the land. Ultimately, neither dragon is able to prevail over the other and - due to Dragons in Celtic mythology been highly attuned to the "Ley of the Land" (and to the supernatural energies that flowed through them) - every time the Red Dragon was badly hurt in the fight, its pained cries would negatively affect it's surroundings; causing the land to become barren, with crops failing and the animals fleeing in fear. Humans too were affected by the Red Dragon's pained cries - becoming consumed with fear, with men losing their hue and strength while pregnant women would suffer miscarriages.
Needing advice for how to deal with this (along with two other "plagues"), King Lludd went to his brother Llefeys in Gaul for advice. His brother's advice involved him digging a deep pit and filling it with mead - with the weakened Dragons turning into pigs and drinking the mead before falling asleep. They were then wrapped up in a satin covering and buried under a hillock in Wales.

The second part of the story takes place years later, when King Vortigern - fleeing to Wales to escape the Anglo-Saxon invaders - attempts multiple times to build a castle on the same hillock; only for it to be shaken to pieces each night. At the request of his wise men, Vortigern calls for a fatherless boy to be found and brought to him so he can be killed and his blood spread across the area; the wise men believing this will "lift the curse".
However, the young boy in question (implied in some version of the story to be Myrddin Emrys, or "Merlin" for those of you who've read some King Arthur stories) reveals the truth about why the castle is falling down; stating the best thing to do is to dig down, release the dragons and let them finish what they started.
This is done and the freed Dragons resume their battle, with the White Dragon bringing the Red Dragon down three times but with the Red Dragon refusing to give up. Eventually, the Red Dragon wins the fight - with the White Dragon (depending on the version you read) either fleeing or been killed; the Red Dragon either flying away or returning to the hillock to recover from its wounds.

Merlin then explains to Vortigern that the White Dragon represents the invading Saxons while the Red Dragon represents him and his people; stating that Vortigern will eventually prevail over the Saxons but he'll need to build his castle elsewhere.
Vortigern would put his wise men to death for their failure and the hillock was renamed "Dinas Emrys". The Red Dragon itself would not only be seen as a symbol of the Welsh People, but Welsh cleric Geoffrey of Monmouth would - in his book Historia regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain) - use the Dragon as a prophecy for the coming of King Arthur.
As an extra bit of fun, the story of the Dragon's fight is told in the song "Tale of Two Dragons" by Calan:

The last thing Dragon-related that sticks up is the docufiction Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real - which speculates on how Dragons might have evolved if they had ever truly existed:
 
The vikings had something called Dragonships, those ships had dragon figureheads. Some had snake figureheads, inspired by the Midgard Serpent, a sea snake so big it encircles the entire planet. But they also had dragon figureheads. They used them to show the chieftains status and scare people.

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How many have wanted or gotten dragon tattoos?
Me.
Here is a fun test to see what type of Dragon you are.
My test dragon is a red Drake, they took the drawing from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (second edition) monsters manual. I owned it and loved to read and daydream about dragons and other creatures. Roleplaying was my special interest when I was a teen.

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It has bring me good memories. Its not a very accurate test since I would be a black gravity dragon. =D
 
Made an error on my last comment. The Maud and the Dragon story happened in Herefordshire, not Northumberland.
The reason I was thinking of Northumberland is because that's where the majority of the plot for the film Reign of Fire takes place. Apologies for that.
 
There is a dragon that lives near Berne.

St Beatus Caves:

The dragon is mean and fierce and doesn‘t like monks intruding in his cave. In response to the monk, the dragon ran down the cliff and threw himself into Lake Thun and this, caused the clear water to rise and boil. But you can still see the dragon in the caves. He smokes fire from his nostrils.=) — I haven’t been there in years. but its got a cool cave system, a museum and its a nice hike. Plus the food is good. And Lake Thun is really nice too! =D

I really love dragons. Robin Hobb has a lot of dragons in her books, and obviously there’s the games that make up Dragon Age. Used to read Dragonlance too (still have it somewhere). I also really love How to Train your Dragon. I currently have 2 squish mallow dragons. I used to collect dragon statues (I still have them somewhere…maybe). I also used to love Eragon as a kid but got really nasty comments from people who were trying to persuade me that it was bad etc. Even got told to kill myself. So that was nice. I ended up not reading the rest of the books. It would have been nice to be able to come to the conclusion that certain works are bad in my own opinion and not be influenced but alas….

Dragons both in mythology and in the historical archaeological record (come on, they‘re dinosaurs) are my favorite things. =D
 

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