From: kellmer@milton.u.washington.edu (Brent Kellmer)
Subject: Dinosaurs and Dragons
Reply-To: kellmer@u.washington.edu
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 20:48:51 GMT

Well, I hate to burst anyone's bubble on this, but there are some specific
reasons why there appears to be a near Universal concept of dragons.  I say
"appears" to be, because in reality, there isn't, not a cohesive one atleast.

The traditional dragon form that we all seem to know and love, and that has  
been adopted by every fantasy writer from the middle ages to Tolkein and
beyond is a variation on the Chinese dragons.  These dragons represented 
spirits, especially of places such as rivers, I believe, as well as allusive
things such as mist.  The exact specs I'm not sure of, and someone who is
more versed in Chinese mythology should probably take over from me here.  One
thing, though, as far as I know, Chinese dragons as a whole didn't breathe
fire, a traditional draconian trait that everyone's familiar with.

This fire-breathing is purely Western European.  What it somes from, as well
as the idea that dragons live in caves, and are great hoarders of treasure,
is, in fact, the burial practices of Northern Europe, especially Scandanavia
and the rest of the north.  In many of these places, early (bronze age to
early Viking period) burials were often dug in the ground like this:

                         /         /
                         /         /
                         /         /
                         /         /
                         /         /
                         /         /////////
                         /           tomb  /
                         ///////////////////

The problem with burials like this is that the hard, often frozen ground
that is in these countries doesn't permit the body to decompose properly.
What happens when the body decomposes is that it produces methane (or      
swamp gas, or something like it -- I'm an archaeologist, not a chemist), and
this methane is unable to escape because of the way the tomb is constructed.
If it was straight up, everything would be okay, and the gas would seep out
through the rubble that fills in the hole.  The tomb, of course, contains
the burial regalia, often including a tidy sum of gold, etc.  When someone
comes to rob the poor blighter, as is all too often the case, they dig out
the hole, and try to get into the tomb.  But because of the way the tomb
is constructed, it's impossible to see into without some light.  A torch.
Combined with the methane, we have the idea that a fire breathing dragon
lives in the tomb, often eating the body, and hoarding the treasure.  An
example, more or less, can be seen at the end of _Beowulf_.  Probably the
idea of a snake was used because it is a handy creature who lives in the
ground and tends to dislike two footed creatures.  Possibly, it was imported
from the east, or perhaps is Indo-European in origin.

The specific shape of modern dragons, is then, merely traded from the  
Chinese at a very early time, definately pre-medieval period, possibly
even before the birth of Christ.

Sorry guys -- the idea of thunder lizards being the basis of dragons is
nice, but it doesn't wash that well.

Brent Kellmer
kellmer@u.washington.edu


Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.science