Talk:Dragon

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• Talk:Dragon/Archive 1 - Archive of talk from creation - end of 2006.
• Talk:Dragon/Archive 2 - Archive from end of 2006 - mid 2007
• Talk:Dragon/Archive 3 - Archive from mid 2007 - late 2009.

Dragons are mythical creatures that appear in many different cultures and time periods. Dragons have been described as monsters, serpents, reptiles, or beasts. There is something magical about dragons that has kept our intrigue over many centuries.

Origin and etymology

Should "Origin and etymology" and "Overview" articles be merged?Babassu (talk) 20:27, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Serpents are generally considered reptiles. The first sentence, "A dragon is a legendary creature, typically with serpentine or reptilian traits, that feature in the myths of many cultures." could be reworded.

Two Legs

Following discovery of how pterosaurs walked on the ground, some dragons have been portrayed without front legs and using the wings as front legs pterosaur-fashion when on the ground, as in the movie Reign of Fire."

'Saint fart and the Dragon' painted about 1470, by Paolo Uccello features a two-legged dragon long before pterosaurs were known about. Link to British National Gallery.

Suggest this should simply therefore read:

Some dragons have been portrayed without front legs, some using the wings as front legs pterosaur-fashion when on the ground, as in the movie Reign of Fire —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.12.237.236 (talk) 19:45, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

'Saint fart and the Dragon' = 'Saint George and the Dragon': St George pierces a two-legged dragon in the head with his lance while an anorexic Maid stands helpless.--Felix folio secundus 23:26, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

• But were 2-legged dragons shown or described as using their wings as front legs before pterosaurs were discovered? (2-legged dragons were correctly called wyverns.) Anthony Appleyard (talk) 17:16, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

European dragons has a long history of depiction. Ancient Greek paintings show a "bearded snake". The Roman dragon too was snakelike, with no limbs. Early medieval dragons often had wings, but no legs (a "wyrm", or front legs only. In the early Renaissance dragons was usually given four legs as well as wings. Modern depictions, drawing freely from all historical sources, vari quite a bit. Petter Bøckman (talk) 09:56, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Where the Myth of Dragons Came from According to the History Channel

According to the History Channel, it happened like this.

Since our Australopithecine ancestors were about half our size, it was that much easier for crocodiles or anacondas to eat them. Back then, there were also hawk-like birds large enough to carry away an animal half what is now the size of a human.

As cultural memories of these predators passed from Australopithecines to humans, they melted together over the millions of years. This resulted in a mythical animal with the head of a crocodile, the neck of a snake, and the wings and claws of a large predatory bird. (If the History Channel holds any water at all, this makes dragons by far the oldest mythical monsters.) Since they were combined in the mind to be perfect predators, dragons are large enough to swallow humans whole, and in a fair number of stories that include them as characters, they do so.

As humans spread from Africa to inhabit most of the world, it came to pass that basically every culture has some type of dragon in its mythology.

I say we should include this tale in a section on "Origins of the myth." The Mysterious El Willstro (talk) 03:55, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

It's not a reliable source, to say the least. Sounds like mere television twit speculation, of the unsupported kind whose peer or better will be found among any batch of college freshmen in late-night dorm gabfests. --Orange Mike | Talk 18:58, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Not only is it not a reliable source, the science behind this is a bit shaky. Th eterm "genetic memory" is entirely unscientific. One might argue for instincts, but for instance the "giant hawk" mentioned lived in Argentina, and would not have bothered Australopithecus. Petter Bøckman (talk) 10:00, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

The Dragons of Probability

Do we really need this section. It seems to be a rant about a certain book rather than any true scientific research. It does seem to strech completley off topic similar to having an entire section devoted to a dragon such as Smaug. It really adds little to the article and even if we wanted to keep it in could be made not into an entire section but a couple sentences claiming that in some books Dragons are statistical creature that live outside of reality. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.23.69.184 (talk) 18:26, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Maybe merge it or reduce it?173.8.11.157 (talk) 20:36, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

unicode pictographs

When 6.0 goes final, we might want to mention 🐉 and 🐲. ⇔ ChristTrekker 18:45, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

creationists

the article seems to imply that creationists believe in dragons as a distinct species of dinosaur. rather they believe that dinosaurs are dragons, both essentially being large reptiles, and that ancient depictions of dragons are based on dinosaurs. 67.176.160.47 (talk) 21:38, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

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Tanin

I think that what wich is wrroten in this article that the biblic meaning of the word "Tanin" (תנין) is a dragon is not write; usually men explain this term in the story about Moses as "a snake"18:22, 27 September 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by עברית (talk • contribs)

'May' have separate origins?

"The two traditions may have evolved separately" -- as far as I know there is no serious doubt that they did evolve entirely independently. 165.91.166.236 (talk) 19:40, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Indeed! --Orange Mike | Talk 23:16, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Dragons in the Bible

References to Dragons appears at least 34 times in the Bible:

Jeremiah 51:37 Job 30:29 Revelation 12:7 Deuteronomy 32:33 Psalm 148:7 Malahi 1:3 Revelation 20:2 Psalm 44:19 Psalm 74:13 Psalm 91:13 Isaiah 13:22 Isaiah 34:13 Isaiah 35:7 Isaiah 43:20 Jeremiah 9:11 Jeremiah 10:22 Jeremiah 14:6 Jeremiah 49:33 Micah 1:8 Revelation 12:3 Revelation 12:13 Revelation 12:16 Revelation 12:17 Revelation 13:4 Revelation 13:11 Revelation 16:13 Nehemiah 2:13 Isaiah 27:1 Isaiah 51:9 Revelation 12:4 Revelation 12:9 Revelation 13:2 Jeremiah 51:34 Ezekiel 29:3 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.89.210.151 (talk) 03:08, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

It should be noted that the English word "dinosaur" was not coined until 1842 which was after the major translation of the Bible into English. Prior to 1842 the word "dragon" used instead of "dinosaur". Therefore, the use of the word "dragon" in the Bible should not be used to authenticate dragons as being something distinct from dinosaurs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.65.82.66 (talk) 16:29, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

But there is no reason to believe any of these are dinosaurs. For one thing, NO ONE in Biblical times would use any of the words translated dragon (tanniyn, drakon) to mean the dinosaur-like winged quadruped we mean by 'dragon'; that image/concept did not exist until the Middle Ages, and even then the 'dragon = huge snake' identification was more common for most of the Middle Ages [and anyway its resemblance to real dinosaurs is superficial - having six limbs!]. More specifically: OT tanniyn is very vague, it can be sea monster (in the older sense of 'any big sea creature', not necessarily an unknown creature or freak -- whales etc. would be included), serpent (or 'dragon' in the ancient sense of 'huge serpent') etc. -- some translations even say 'jackals' or 'wild beasts'. NT drakon, as in Revelation is more specific -- but does not include anything dinosaur-like in antiquity; drakon (as Latin draco) is a huge snake, serpent. Furthermore, the Revelation dragon (a) has seven heads, unlike any dinosaur (or any other animal!); and (b) anyway is explicitly identified as "the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan" (Rev 20:2, NIV) -- not a dinosaur. Revelation is vague enough without discarding the few explicit identifications we get! Vultur (talk) 08:41, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Oh yeah well how can you prove that the dragon portrayed in revelation as the "devil/satan" is not like the greek hydra and how are you so sure that the biblical word drakon can not be interpreted Dragon! Nordikrage (talk) 19:03, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, it IS 'like the Greek hydra' in that it's a many-headed serpent, I suppose; but it's explicitly Satan.

How can I be sure that drakon can't mean dragon (in the modern sense)? Because that concept didn't exist until the later Middle Ages. There's a definite relationship between the ancient classical drakones and the modern dragon, however. Vultur (talk) 04:59, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

"Traditional mainstream explanation"?

"The traditional mainstream explanation to the folklore dragons does however not rely on human instinct, but on the assumption that fossil remains of dinosaurs gave rise to similar speculations all over the world." Is this REALLY the mainstream explanation? It is certainly not the explanation shown by evidence. The European dragon tradition originated with mythified snakes/serpents -- in classical times drakon (Greek) and draco (Latin) mean primarily 'huge snake' and are not necessarily mythic -- a python or other big constrictor for example would have been called drakon or draco. In classical Greek/Roman myth 'dragons' might have wings or multiple heads, but remained essentially serpents though winged (or multi-headed). The modern four legs/wings/bulky body dragon appears to have developed largely in art and heraldry, possibly through conflation with Chimera and griffins, and quite late. (Medieval bestiarists' tendency to 'decorate' snakes with legs and wings may play a part too -- in a 12th century bestiary translated by T. H. White the 'dragon' is described in the text as an enormous constricting snake, but in the art unaccountably has wings and legs; many of the snakes in the book have got wings in the pictures, though this is not suggested in the text!)Vultur (talk) 08:54, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from Bluntguy1234, 23 March 2011

{{edit semi-protected}} I would like to edit the section "Modern Depictions". There needs to be at least a sentence about "How To Train Your Dragon" by Cressidia Cowell and the film adaption.

-Request from Bluntguy 1234.

We also should have something about Eragon and eldest and brsinger Nordikrage (talk) 19:10, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Bluntguy1234 (talk) 16:09, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

 Not done: sorry, that whole section looks like a repository for useless junk right now. Adding another unsourced item that happens to have a dragon in it won't help. — Bility (talk) 17:25, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Edit request, 27 April 2011

The topic header "Creationists' assertions" ought to be properly capitalized (if not rebranded entirely). The title itself carries a negative connotation, pairing this with poor grammar may fuel an otherwise unnecessary irritant.

75.121.255.87 (talk) 04:00, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

 Not done: Thanks, but as described in this section of Wikipedia's manual of style, Wikipedia uses sentence case for article and section titles. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 10:28, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Christianity

I think there should be a section on dragons in Christianity. The European dragons overlap a bit, with the dragon and St. George and the dragon and St. Margaret the Virgin.. but dragons are also mentioned many times in the Bible.. They can be found in Daniel (Bel and the Dragon), Esther (Mordecai's Dream), Job, Revelation, Genesis, Deuteronomy, Exodus, Nehemiah, Psalms, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekial, Malachi, and Micah. Sometimes the dragon is used to describe Satan, but other times it is reffering to a type on animal or beast. Should there be a section included? --Willthacheerleader18 (talk) 13:14, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Remove "The Hobbit" spoiler

Yes, I know spoilers are allowed, but I believe the emphasized sentence in the following excerpt serves no encyclopedic purpose in this article:

In the 1937 fantasy novel The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien, the major antagonist is a dragon named Smaug. Smaug hoards a great treasure but is ultimately shot down with an arrow by an archer who was told about a soft patch in Smaug's underbelly armor.

I would like to remove it. Are there any objections? — Itai (talk) 19:37, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

I went ahead and edited the article - I hope no one objects. — Itai (talk) 20:54, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Clerical error

clerical error, general: no reference to Native American dragons, seem to have been completely overlooked. Would like to see a more comprehensive overview of such, as related and opposed to european and/or asian dragons. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.192.65.174 (talk) 19:43, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

The word "dragon" is European in origin and meaning. Any effort to bring Native American creatures such as the Uktena under this article would constitute a pretty blatant bit of cultural misappropriation. --Orange Mike | Talk 20:28, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

nile crocodiles was...

for some reason I can't edit this, but I feel the need to ask somebody to please correct that part, it should read "Nile crocodiles, today very restricted in range, were in ancient times occasionally found in Southern Europe..." thanks. I hope I don't come off as annoying... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.200.37.126 (talk) 21:48, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Done. Not at all annoying, cheers, Cold Season (talk) 22:22, 13 October 2011 (UTC)