So, this is a bit of a departure from the pieces I normally put up here. It’s a bit of curious exploration behind the life of dragons, and the cultural impact they have. Because of my background, most of these tales will be drawn from Europe.<\/p>\n
Dragons are a universal constant. They exist in stories from Wales to China, and all the countries in between. In the Western world, whenever you open a fantasy story, bets are it will have dragons. The most famous roleplaying game of all time is called Dungeons & Dragons. The Hobbit has a dragon. Whole series are based around the premise of dragons (Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern). And yet the myths and legends that tell of the first dragons are ancient, far enough back that some of them are lost to the mists of time.<\/p>\n
Grendel, from the old Germanic tale of Beowulf, is one of the early examples of a creature that has fallen under the title of dragon. Then there is King Arthur, and the tales of slaying a dragon. Or St. George and the Dragon. The Welsh flag is Y Ddraig Goch<\/em>, “The Red Dragon”. Stories abound in Wales about dragons.<\/p>\n What I am curious about is where does this universal constant come from? Why are dragons so old that they disappear back before recorded time in European and Asian history? What about these giant lizards makes them so mythical and special? Is it their alien size and immense power, their wisdom, their magic? All of those are constants across cultural boundaries, but something must give dragons the special place they hold in the hearts of humanity. I’m hoping you can answer the question in the comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So, this is a bit of a departure from the pieces I normally put up here. It’s a bit of curious exploration behind the life of dragons, and the cultural impact they have. Because of my background, most of these tales will be drawn from Europe. Dragons are a universal constant. They exist in stories […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[4],"tags":[18],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pRIK4-50","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":468,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=468","url_meta":{"origin":310,"position":0},"title":"The Shadow War of the Night Dragons, Book One: The Dead City","date":"April 5, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The Shadow War of the Night Dragons, Book One: The Dead City. If you aren't cracking up by the end of the first sentence, something is wrong. Yes, it's an April Fools joke, but if there was a novel, I'd be buying it in an instant.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":667,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=667","url_meta":{"origin":310,"position":1},"title":"Creating a Fantasy Race, Part 4","date":"March 22, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Part 1\u00a0-\u00a0Part 2\u00a0-\u00a0Part 3\u00a0-\u00a0Part 4 Following on from last week's post, I'm going to wrap up the Creating a Fantasy Race series with a look at the capabilities of a race. Choice #4: Capabilities \u2013 What are the natural characteristics of a given fantasy race, and what can they actually\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Tips"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":485,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=485","url_meta":{"origin":310,"position":2},"title":"Creating a Fantasy Race, Part 1","date":"May 5, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 Races form the background to a fantasy setting, giving it a depth and a texture that would otherwise be missing. They bind themselves to the environment, to the geography, in a way that few other genres can match, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Tips"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":440,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=440","url_meta":{"origin":310,"position":3},"title":"Creating a Magic System, Part 1","date":"February 12, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 In my eyes, what sets fantasy apart from any other setting is magic. How it is handled, the strength, the interactions, but mostly its very existence. Magic is the glue that holds a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Tips"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}