Talk:European dragon

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[edit] =Old conversation

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

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)

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)

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.

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)


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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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].

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)


[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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)