Talk:European dragon

Old conversation

Shouldn't this article be renamed "European dragon" ?

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203.109.254.54 wrote: Changed to 'European'. 'Western' to describe European dragons, especially Slavic dragons, doesn't make sense.

(I reverted and moved to preserve the history of the page) -- sannse 15:22 Mar 9, 2003 (UTC)

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Recently anonymously added:

"Jormungand, a form of cobra so big that the earth-disc can be encircled by it..."

In what sense is Jormungand a dragon? Am I missing something? -- Jmabel 21:37, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)

A good point, since this sea-snake lay with its tail in its mouth, an old serpent symbol of encircling unity not related to dragons at all. "Cobra" is as anomalous as "boa constrictor" would be. Perhaps a brief reference explaining how Jorumgand was not a dragon? Descriptive dragon-quotes from Beowulf would certainly be welcome! Wetman 21:47, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I have removed "cobra" and replaced it with "serpent". Old Scandinavian terminology was vague in these matters and did not distinguish between enourmous snakes and dragons. The "lindorm" for instance was a common form of dragon and can also be translated as "serpent".--Wiglaf 09:24, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

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Dayrave's edit dropped out too much information. I reverted the text. This is the good edit by Dayrave. Can we put back some of the lost info and use this? Wetman 00:35, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC):

The English word dragon was borrowed from Latin draco, which in turn was taken from Greek drakon, and ultimately derives from the Indo-European verbal root derk- meaning 'to see' (< 'monster with the evil eye'). In English and Germanic mythology, the image of a dragon as a winged fire-breathing serpent whose daytime abode is a barrow or burial-mound is clearly a very ancient one, well established by the time Beowulf was written, perhaps as early as the first or second quarter of the 8th century AD.

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As I understand it, there are arguments on both sides of whether Grendel is a dragon (see for example [1]). Instead of an edit war, or something like, could we maybe get Grendel in here as a "see also" and discuss the question of evidence on both sides of the question in the article there? -- Jmabel 00:53, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

"Dragons in fantasy fiction" section seems to be turning into a trivia list rather than illustrative, well-known examples. Maybe factor out to a "list of" article, reference here, and cut this down to major writers? -- Jmabel 06:19, Jul 29, 2004 (UTC)

Brilliant! Done! Wetman 08:02, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Great, now hopefully someone will fill out the section in this article to actually say something about the evolution of fantasy-fiction dragons, how they vary, who influenced whom, etc. -- Jmabel 20:18, Jul 29, 2004 (UTC)

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Can't we find a picture of a Dragon that _dosen't_ have some human killing it? Youknow, a nice picture, portraying dragons as the majestic creatures they are, or at the very least, as a creature in it's own right instead of just somthing to kill?

I definatly agree, there has to be some out of copyright pictures around that can be put up here. By all means include st.gorge as a mention, but definatly put up a better picture to represent the species.. --ElectraFlarefire 14:47, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

It does represent the classic view of the dragon as a monster however. The fluffy view of the dragon is quite recent.--RLent 16:58, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

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Wyrm or Dragon?

Why does the word 'Wyrm' lead here. A Wyrm is not a dragon - it has only two legs whereas a dragon has four.

^That isn't my comment, the previous person just didn't sign their message. Wyrm has no legs, if it has two legs it's a wyvern. But the writer of that comment is correct, wyrm is not a synonym for dragon and shouldn't redirect to this page, unless someone creates a new paragraph with all the sub species listed. BlueBanana (talk) 21:43, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

Celtic "dragon lines"

"The celts also believed that areas frequently visited by dragons gained speacial powers and paths used by dragons could become ley lines - hence the phrase 'the ley of the land'. It doesn't mean the way the land lies i.e. the shape of the hills, but the ley lines present in that particular area of land. This is a similar idea to that of Chinese Feng Shui dragons." No: modern fantasy-gaming nonsense, perhaps influenced by the feng-shui fad of 1999. I haven't reverted it, but considering our subject is Dragons, we've had quite a sensible entry. Wetman 16:12, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I fixed the spelling and grammar. Does anyone have a citation either confirming or refuting this? I myself have no idea. -- Jmabel|Talk 19:43, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)

References that I've found (ley line, leyhunter.com) indicate that the term "ley line" originated with Alfred Watkins in the 1920s. So, I don't think this quote belongs in this article. Removing. Gwimpey 02:20, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)

I first heard the term in the animation Outlaw Star, where "Galactic leyline" was the translation of Japanese Ginga no ryūmyaku (銀河の龍脈, lit. "galaxy's dragon-vein").

I guess the "path of the dragon" mentioned by the witch girl Schierke in Berserk (manga) is the same thing.--Kiyoweap (talk) 00:43, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Animal Planet

I cut the following recent anon addition, which was added to the lead paragraph.

Strangely, the European Dragon was called the Mountain Dragon in Animal Planet's documentary Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real.

As I am only vaguely familiar with Animal Planet, I have no idea whether this is important enough to belong somewhere in the article, but it is certainly not important enough to belong in the lead. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:59, Mar 31, 2005 (UTC)

Down at the bottom. How about this text? (Wetman 22:17, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC))

The "Animal Planet" TV channel applied the computer technology that created Walking with Dinosaurs to treat a "natural history" of dragons first aired in March 2005 [2].

This should probably be the main Dragon article

It seems to me that this article should probably be at Dragon and the lists on that article be split off into a disambig page, especially since the link to the actual informative article on the topic (i.e. this one) is pretty well hidden there). DreamGuy 16:01, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

I thought so too, but what about Chinese dragon? -- another creature altogether. They should have their present complementary titles. The Dragon (disambiguation) is a redirect to Dragon, the actual disambiguation. It needs to be clearer and bolder, with appropriate Main page:... headings. --Wetman 23:07, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Introduction

"Though a winged creature, the dragon is generally to be found in its underground lair, a cave that identifies it as an ancient creature of earth, like the mythic serpent, that was a source of knowledge even in Eden: knowledge is the temptation. "

No. What does the statement 'knowledge is the temptation' have to do with this article? Nothing at all. This sentence runs on far too long and needs pruning. Noble Kale 00:20, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Confusing sentence

The following sentence is confusing, and appears to have formed from two separate incomplete sentences, but I don't know enough about the topic to make an appropriate correction.

From Babylon, the "Dragon of Marduk" in molded glazed terracotta bricks that was part of the 6th century Gate of Ishtar has come to rest at John's Book of Revelation — Greek literature, not Roman — describes Satan as "a great dragon, flaming red, with seven heads and ten horns"

Ordinary Person 09:09, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

That whole Roman section seems a bit oddly worded in places. I've made it a bit more understandable (I hope). I edited a few other issues with that section too. I changed Persia for the Near East, as it stated Persia then went on to discuss Babylon (which isn't in Persia). I also removed the European dragons coming from Roman dragons bit. That claim isn't logical if Roman dragons came from Greek and Near East ones, as it would mean European dragons come from Greek/Near Eastern dragons. Possibly the author meant the Roman Empire helped to spread the idea across Europe? But I don't know if there are sources to prove that, so I didn't try to add it. Polenth 05:03, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

The "Dragon of Marduk" in molded glazed terracotta bricks that was part of the 6th century Gate of Ishtar" is simply deleted. --Wetman 09:18, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

The information is elsewhere rather than gone. The musrussu is the 'dragon of Marduk'. The article about it has full details on where it was found. I felt it was a tangeant to discuss Near Eastern dragons in depth in the Roman section, but there's nothing stopping someone who disagrees readding those details. Polenth 16:33, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Dragons In Pop Culture (Dominance over Eastern Dragon)

In almost all popular culture such as RuneScape, other online games, and stories. Eastern Dragons are known as chinese dragons and are almost serpent like. So shouldn't we add something distinguishing them. I would also say how the dominate pop culture.

Redskunk 04:03, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Second paragraph

Despite this being an article about European dragons, the second paragraph is almost entirely about the appearance of Eastern dragons. Perhaps a rewrite would be in order? 213.126.132.70 (talk) 08:55, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

About Catalan dragons

This section should be edited or erased. If all the links are followed, there are no content about them: there are no legends nor facts about (fe)male dragons in Catalan culture.

Problem

From the article: "Perhaps the distinctions between dragons of western origin and Chinese dragons (q.v.) are arbitrary".

Where does this come from? As far as I know, most sources (An Instinct for Dragons aside) think that the myths are completely unrelated, and it's simply a case of the British applying the term "dragon" to the lung they saw in Chinese art, because both mythical creatures are snake-like reptiles with legs. Vultur (talk) 20:28, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Deletions

This article has eroded significantly since May 2008: see this diff. Is anyone interested in repairing it? --Wetman (talk) 05:12, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

No one's interested, so I have cleaned up this degraded and eroded text. I have also added some references. This page needs closer adult supervision.--Wetman (talk) 02:26, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Wurm

In German, Wurm just means worm, not dragon. The ancient German word is Lindwurm meaning literally Snake-worm, which probably resembles somehow the shape of the creature. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.189.239.217 (talk) 20:23, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Poetical modern German Wurm or Middle and Old High German wurm can certainly mean "serpent, dragon, wyrm".

Cf. this etymological dictionary.[3] and [4]

The word is congnate with ON ormr meaning "serpent, dragon". --Kiyoweap (talk) 12:16, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Worm??

In old norse language, the word for Dragon is dreki, not ormr, ormr means adder or snake. Rkarlsba (talk) 12:54, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

ormr might be glossed as "serpent" but there's no clear distinction between fabulous "serpents" and "dragons".

Fáfnir is described as an ormr but customarily called a "dragon", just as Sigurðr is referred to as "dragon slayer".

In the Thidrekssaga, Fafnir is replaced by Regin the linnormr, which has been glossed as "dragon".[5]

Ragnar Lodbrok also slew an ormr "serpent" according to the saga,[6] which you can probably find referred to as "dragon" by other commentators. --Kiyoweap (talk) 12:44, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Portugese Dragon

Someone PLEASE edit this! it's botched and choppy and just awful. There's also no mention of the coca in this manner in the base article. I did what i could but it needs work. It doesn't make a lot of sense, ("saint coca"?!...) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.12.166.210 (talk) 05:27, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

the entire article is choppy and awful. It might be better to start over with a well-written stub than trying to build something worthwhile from this jumble. --dab (𒁳) 06:59, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Origins of the myths

Aren't dragon myths connected with the instances where ancient peoples encountered bones of dinosaurs? How could so many different peoples develop a similar mythology without being hinted by the anscient skeletons?--MathFacts (talk) 07:05, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Dragons in Celtic and Anglo-Saxon mythology

At the end of the second paragraph of this section is the sentence: "The legendary house of Pendragon and Celtic Britain in general have become associated with the Welsh dragon standard after the fact."

This is just plain wrong. According to the Wikipedia article on Wales: "During the Iron Age and early medieval period, Wales was inhabited by the Celtic Britons." That directly contradicts the idea that Celtic Britain became associated with the welsh dragon standard "after the fact".

Every serious attempt to identify the historical king(s) whose exploits were the basis for the Arthurian legend focuses primarily on kings in or bordering on the region that is today called Wales. Don't forget that the Arthurian legend predates the Norman invasion by several hundred years, or that the Norman versions of the legend changed the original story in various ways. CDNRopemaster (talk) 00:44, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

"with evil eye" or "sees with clarity"?

I've seen elsewhere the origin of the word meaning "sees with clarity", which i interpret is related to the ideas they were wise and knowledgeable. Which is it? --TiagoTiago (talk) 14:44, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

JK Rowling's dragons "sympathetic"?

I'm confused by the reference to JK Rowling's dragons as sympathetic. Rowling is unusual in that she represents dragons as dumb animals, intelligent but not sentient. Her dragons are not "characters" in the usual sense of the word, and are neither evil nor benevolent. They are, however, aggressive and mostly hostile to the protagonist, so to describe them as "sympathetic" seems inappropriate. The fact that a dragon does help the protagonist in the final book does not change this, as it does so unintentionally. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.115.84.68 (talk) 18:59, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

I second this opinion. The Dragons in Harry Potter are never portrayed as sympathetic. The dragon that helped the protagonists was portrayed as a tormented animal, that had been blinded and tortured to force it into submission (which was the only way it could be tamed at all, if you could call it that). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.83.34.213 (talk) 14:26, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Article Originality

Much of this page is boilerplate, copied and pasted from http://en.goldenmap.com/European_dragon — Preceding unsigned comment added by Timothy Perseus Wordsworthe (talk • contribs) 23:14, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Looking at the page history, there is a clear slow progression in forming the article and no large addition which indicates copying another website. Due to the fact that that website uses Wikipedia templates, it seems far more likely that it is the one that is the boilerplate of Wikipedia. --SnorlaxMonster 13:35, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

"Fantasy literature and modern pop culture" section is not as great as it could be.

The end of this singular section doesn't seem well researched or well thought out. I take most issue with the various movies and "multimedia" (is saying video games so hard?) that are all relatively recent and some don't even have to do with dragons much, such as Shrek and Warcraft (now if you but down World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, that would make more sense) , where dragons are just featured but not pivotal, I think Dark Souls also doesn't feature dragons pivotally.

What's the problem with featuring movies that are from the '80s? Such as Dragonslayer or Dragon Heart? These movies are centrally about dragons, but instead we have Shrek on here? "Pop culture" is from the present all the way back before the 1900s people, so i'm sure the 1980s still probably qualify. AWC3117 (talk) 10:42, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Dragons from the Balaur article

Here is some material on dragons from the Balaur that may be more appropriate for this article.

Dragon in the European culture and mythology
Stories of dragons have been previously mentioned in ancient Mesopotamia, ancient Egypt, the Greeks and later the Romans. Some people connect dragons to prehistoric animals (dinosaurs) whose bones were unearthed with a high probability in the ancient world. Later these mythological figures have been used for political and religious purposes by priests of antiquity.

The etymology of the name
The Greek etymology for the word (drakon: "who sets up his eyes") is defined as an imaginary being or a combination of a snake, crocodile and lion or a creature with one or more heads that spits fire.

Physical features
Dragons are of different kinds. Some are monstrous, have from 2 to 9 heads each with a tongue of fire, with long and strong claws and a tail as their monstrosity and sometimes even wings. Some of them had a whole different look. After all their body is similar to that of the snake. Their body is covered with red,green and yellow scales. After other stories dragons were half human, half snake with fish scales. In Apuseni Mountains it is believed to have a horse's head and a snake's body, and in other Romanian regions, has the head of a bull.

The appearance of the dragons
Niculita-Voronca Romanian people believe that the dragon is made from a snake, provided for 7–12 years it has not been seen by anyone and hasn't bitten anyone. Then he is endowed with legs and wings. When out of the forest, the trees give way and the dragon rises in the sky. It has the ability to swallow a child and has fish scales the size of a palm.

The legend of Saint George and the dragon
In many Christian icons of Saint George he is often depicted riding, thrusting his spear into a dragon, sometimes a young woman makes her appearance as she follows the battle. In the usual interpretation it is said that the dragon is the representation of both Satan and the Roman Empire, the woman in the background is none other than Alexandra, wife of Emperor Diocletian. It is said that this legend would have been brought by the European crusaders. The earliest representation of this scene is an icon in Cappadocia, from the beginning of the 11th century and the oldest document attesting this confrontation occurs in an 11th-century Georgian text.

None of this has any references.--DThomsen8 (talk) 12:18, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Owain Glyndwr Siegel 2.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 21:38, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Word-for-word duplicated sentence

The sentence "Though a winged creature, the dragon is generally to be found in its underground lair, a cave that identifies it as an ancient creature of earth" appears twice in the article, and some of the content before the second case of it also appears to very closely resemble what it already said earlier.

I'm not sure if this is something editors would choose to keep, and if not, which one would be removed or reworded, so I thought someone else would hopefully know.

ShortTimeNoSee — Message ⸻ 21:12, 11 June 2022 (UTC)