Dragons and Ancient Cultures

This was brought up in one of Zorgons posts about grafitti, some one said that dragons appeared ancient cultures, what I want to do here is explore what they meant in each culture and how did these come about all around the same time.

Wikipedia, Dragons

So far, this is what I am digging through, quite interesting, especially once you get into the idividual stories of each dragon and thier role in a particular area.

From what I have read though, dragons have run the gammut from being signs of good luck, to the devil themselves. Whats interesting is for each culture, a dragon meant something different.

Chinese Dragon: Ruler of weather and water, sysmbol of Imerpial authority

Japanese Dragon: Nothing points to a specific meaning, but in most cases in the Japanese culture, they were benevolent

Korean Dragon: The Yeoiju was a race of wise dragon with 4 claws, one being a thumb to carry a "dragon orb". These orbs were said to hold omnipotence and creation at will for those powerful enough to weild them. The other race was known as the Imugi and seeing one of these is associated with good luck. There was also the Korean Cockatrice, or Kye-ryong which literally translated to chicken dragon. They were seen as chariot pulling beasts for Imoprtant legendary figures and their parents. One legend has the Princess of Silla being born out of a Cockatrice egg.

One thing I will bring up here is that for each culture the dragons had specific appearances in reguards to claws, wings, beards and the like. I'm trying to keep this somewhat short and sweet for room constraints.

Scandinavia: There is legend of the Lindworm there, kind of like a princess and the toad tale of sorts.


Thats just 4 cultures and I haven't even gotten to 1/10 of the ones listed there. But I think this is a great start.

Remember, I'm not doing this thread to prove dragons existed, i want to do this thread to see how they were symbolized in different cultures.

I think this question could best be answered by exploring the origins of the myths and the original basis of the creature's creation.
Dragon Origins
This is a good site that gives history and reference to many cultures and their stories of dragons, their symbolic meaning, and how they came about. Early paleantologists were struck by interesting finds when locating fossilized remains in the earth. Several principles were then established on the origins on what they thought were "dragon" remains.
Dragon Priciples

I'm very interested in hearing the legend of the Lindworm. I live in Norway and haven't heard of any Scandinavian dragons.

Originally posted by EdenKaia
I think this question could best be answered by exploring the origins of the myths and the original basis of the creature's creation.
Dragon Origins
This is a good site that gives history and reference to many cultures and their stories of dragons, their symbolic meaning, and how they came about. Early paleantologists were struck by interesting finds when locating fossilized remains in the earth. Several principles were then established on the origins on what they thought were "dragon" remains.
Dragon Priciples

Very Interesting sites Eden, I didn't know about the toe losing/gaining thing of the Asian dragons. That in it's self is very interesting and hence, the dragons beginning in Korea.

"The Koreans tell a similar story of the dragon. They of course know that the dragon began with them. Probably just like they know that karate began in Korea. The Korean dragon has always had four toes. When the dragon travels East or North, it loses toes. When it travels South or West it gains toes. This explains why the Japanese dragon has three toes and the Chinese dragon has five toes. It also explains why the dragon never made it to Europe or the Americas. As it traveled West to Europe, it grew so many toes that it could no longer walk. As it traveled East to the Americas, it lost all of its toes and could no longer walk."

I didn't know about the Pearls that the Chinese dragons would carry. I did, however read about the Korean dragons and the "Dragon Orb" they would carry.


"Very occasionally a dragon might may be depicted as carrying a dragon orb known as the Yeoiju (여의주) in one or more of its claws. It was said that whoever could wield the Yeoiju was blessed with the abilities of omnipotence and creation at will and that only four-toed dragons (those which had thumbs to hold the orbs) were both wise and powerful enough to wield these orbs (as opposed to the lesser, three-toed dragons)."

Originally posted by Rattus Norvegicus
I'm very interested in hearing the legend of the Lindworm. I live in Norway and haven't heard of any Scandinavian dragons.

Lets start this off with Fafnir, he was the son of the dwarf king Hreidmar and brother of Regin and Otr. He was also a dwarf blessed with a powerful arm and a fearless soul. He wore the Helm of Aegis and guarded his fathers tresure. Well Otr was killed by Loki and his father recieved cursed Gold of Andvari's as repayment for the loss of his son. Fafnir and Regin killed off dad, this made Fafnir want all the gold, and in his greed he turned into a dragon. Regin sent is foster son to kill him, and he did it by trapping the trail that Fafnir walked on and driving his sword into his heart. Regin was also corrupted but the gold and now wanted to kill his step son, but regins step son ate part of Fafnirs heart and was warned by the birds of Regind attack and ended up killing him.

I see in this story the dragon symbolized Greed, it is said that Fafnir became a dragon to better guard the corrupted gold, and being a dragon almost assured that it would never leave.

The is also the tale of "Prince Lindworm". In this tale a Lindworn is born as one of the twins born to a Queen. The other twin is perfect. Well the time came for them to get married, the perfect twin had no problem finding a wife, but the lindworm, lets just say he didn't have the best luck in the world with the ladies. They find a shepard girl that will love him unconditionally, so she shows up with everything she owns on her person. The Lindworm see this and tell her to remove a layer, she agreed only if he sheds a layer of skin for each layer of clothes. He does and they both proceeded to strip/shed. In the end, when the final layer was taken off, he was found to be as perfect as his brother

Lindworm

Fafnir

Ok There are the links for the above post, I ran out of room LOL, only had 11 chars. left LOL

Thanks for the links, very interesting read there. I didn't know there was a limit to how much you could write!

[edit on 19/7/2006 by Rattus Norvegicus]

?Anything new about?

THIS AMAZING FIND

Originally posted by hudef
?Anything new about?

THIS AMAZING FIND

Its a 'viral marketing campaign' from sony for their "Colossus" video games. IOW, fake.

Originally posted by Nygdan
Its a 'viral marketing campaign' from sony for their "Colossus" video games. IOW, fake.

WOW, but when ya got the cash, a stunt like this is a drop in the bucket.

Tonight, after work, I'll be posting some more culters and how dragons were percieved.

what about this dragon....

I didnt follow any of the links, but hold a lot of interest in dragons. If I rememeber correctly, Dragons in chinese lore were often what was used to describe comets. And comets often times were used as signs of impending hard times, such as plagues. I'm sure they also became used in other ways too. Modern day dragons are in most cultures, I am particularly interested in Dragon art, such as the pictures from Dragonlance etc. I have a friend who is into dragon majick, which is a form of spell casting and some sort of wiccan offshoot. (not sure if that is entirely correct) I know he says he has a familiar that is a dragon.
As for me personally, when I first began to experience heavy meduimship abilities, I had a dream where I was on what almost appeared to be an asteriod with an entire clan of dragons, with one leader, and every dragon represented an ability of different psychic "gifts" and each dragon sat on a symbol which almost resembled the mortal combat symbol from the games. I was lead around to each dragon, and in the dream "inspected" before I was brought in front of the head of the dragons and was told I was passing from a lvl1 medium to a lvl 2 medium. After this dream, my own abilities began to become much more intense, and went from simple card readings to full blown psychic impressions and contact with spirits. Not to say that this could have been just a dream, but, I believe there are dragons, real dragons, and that they exist out there somewhere.



[edit on 20-7-2006 by Darkblade71]

Originally posted by Heratix
what about this dragon....

that would be Y Ddraig Goch from the Welsh flag, and he has an interesting story. He fights with an invading white dragon, from his fighting and his wounds his shreiks of pain was thought to make women miscarry and animals and plants to become barren. The fighting goes on for a very long time, tearing up the countryside. Well the King of Britain goes to his brother, the king of France and explains the situation. His brother tells him to dig a deep pit in the middle of Britain and fill it with mead, after he does this to cover it with a cloth. Well the dragons fight over to the pit, fall in, drink the mead and fall asleep, no more fighting, yeay. Well the next story has these two asleep for centuries. The king of the time decided he want to build a castle where the dragons fell asleep at, but all constrution efforts crumble by unseen forces overnight. The king seeing this gets counsel on the matter and is told to sacrafice a boy with no natural father, who in some tellings becomes Merlin. Well the king finds him and and Merlin tells him of the 2 dragons. The king excavates the hill and lo and behold round 2 starts with Y Ddraig Goch finally becoming victorius over the white dragon.

Y Ddraig Goch

Originally posted by Darkblade71
I didnt follow any of the links, but hold a lot of interest in dragons. If I rememeber correctly, Dragons in chinese lore were often what was used to describe comets. And comets often times were used as signs of impending hard times, such as plagues. I'm sure they also became used in other ways too. Modern day dragons are in most cultures, I am particularly interested in Dragon art, such as the pictures from Dragonlance etc. I have a friend who is into dragon majick, which is a form of spell casting and some sort of wiccan offshoot. (not sure if that is entirely correct) I know he says he has a familiar that is a dragon.
As for me personally, when I first began to experience heavy meduimship abilities, I had a dream where I was on what almost appeared to be an asteriod with an entire clan of dragons, with one leader, and every dragon represented an ability of different psychic "gifts" and each dragon sat on a symbol which almost resembled the mortal combat symbol from the games. I was lead around to each dragon, and in the dream "inspected" before I was brought in front of the head of the dragons and was told I was passing from a lvl1 medium to a lvl 2 medium. After this dream, my own abilities began to become much more intense, and went from simple card readings to full blown psychic impressions and contact with spirits. Not to say that this could have been just a dream, but, I believe there are dragons, real dragons, and that they exist out there somewhere.



[edit on 20-7-2006 by Darkblade71]

I can't really say that dragons were directly involved in your abilities, it's could of been a "prophetic dream" of sorts, your subconscious telling you that your abilities have gotten stronger. I like to think that some abilities get stronger the more you use them, kind of like a muscle. It would have been neat if they were involved though.

I can't really say that dragons were directly involved in your abilities, it's could of been a "prophetic dream" of sorts, your subconscious telling you that your abilities have gotten stronger. I like to think that some abilities get stronger the more you use them, kind of like a muscle. It would have been neat if they were involved though.

Yeah thats the way I look at it. I have a love for dragons, modern dragons, and it was a very cool dream!

Originally posted by Darkblade71

I can't really say that dragons were directly involved in your abilities, it's could of been a "prophetic dream" of sorts, your subconscious telling you that your abilities have gotten stronger. I like to think that some abilities get stronger the more you use them, kind of like a muscle. It would have been neat if they were involved though.

Yeah thats the way I look at it. I have a love for dragons, modern dragons, and it was a very cool dream!

Thats cool Dark, keep your eyes open, tonight, if it doesn't storm too hard, i'm going to add a couple more cultures in here. If not tonight, then definatley tomarrow night.

I'm starting tonight with the Slavic dragons. More specifically East Slavic and the dragon Zmey Gorynych. It was told that he has 3 heads, is green, walks on it 2 back paws, was small from paws, and spits fire, almost the typical dragon, still needs wings. And he was killed by Dobrynya Nikitich. Another one for this era was the one that St. George (symbolizing Christianity) killed (the dragon symbolized satan), that is now on the Moscow coat of arms. The Serpents wall, near Kiev, has also be accociated with dragons as well.

Of we go to the sunny South Slavic area to see what awaits us there. In the pre-christian folk tales there, it was belivewd that one could kill a dragon by tricking it into eating lyme. However not all dragons in this area are evil. A good example is the Ljubljana Dragon who protects a city of the same name and is presented in that city's coat of arms. Other dragons of the area were said to have up to 9 heads(sounds like a greek Hydra to me) and breathe fire.

I have very little on west Slavic territories, but this is the area that the Black dragon was belived to be in who was magically empowered. Some modern interprters veiw this as the god of magic or sorcery, but this is controversal.

In Romania, there is the Balaur. A large creature with fins, feet, and up to 9 serpent heads. This creature was found in many Romanian Fairy Tales and was almost always represented evil and be defeated by Fat-Frumos to realease the Princess.

Another Dragon for Romanian Folk Lore was Zmeu, this one was unique in the fact that it was humanoid and has legs and arms, had the ability to create artifacts to use as weapons, or the desire to marry young girls. Sometimes it comes out of the sky spitting fire, on others, there is a magical stone in his forehead that shines as bright as the sun. It would kidnap young women with the hopes of marrying them only to be thwarted by a daring prince or knight-errant. Zmeu was the manifestation of "pagan evil" and had many different abilities at his dissposal. Among those was he could fly, breathe fire, transform into other creatures, and had supernatural strength.

This is all I'm going to do for tonight, but I promise you, I'm going to keep on digging for anyone interested.