Here be dragons! Or not?

[stormbind]

Primary source evidence; you cannot argue with that

 

[Esckey]

People in ancient/medieval times found dinosaur bones and made up the rest up themselves. That's my theory, anyway.

I figured this would be the right answer, practically every carnivorous dinosaur's skull looks alot like a dragon's head.

I've always wondered why the difference in dragons though. Some have just hind legs(Wryvens) others all four legs, and there's the myriad chinese dragons

 

[CenturionV]

Wow nice threadjacking Cent

Hey steph started it, he could have just accepted what I said about my belief that real live dinosaurs were the cause of dragon lore.....but no, he had to challenge my beliefs. What did you expect me to do, I can't just let him bash what I had just said with some outlandish idea.

Lets just keep on topic about dragons k?

 

[The Person]

@Esckey
A lot of people, a lot of conceptions. Naturally what people think about dragons will change from place to place, especially what they look like.

 

[test_specimen]

imo it's just one of the more appalling stories that got repeated in every epic (because to write a good epic you have to have the damsel in distress, the hero and the dragon. dwarves do no harm, gods influencing the humans and river nymphs aren't bad either).

Why hasn't the Chimera appeared in more stories? Or the Sphinx? Or the Hydra? All kinds of monsters appear in stories and paintings or were made into statues. Dragons are just the one creature that got accepted by christians because of their dragon-slaying saints.

My explanation for the Chinese dragon is, that there exist giant water snakes (you can see them at most natural history museums) of about 10 metres length. After one of them was washed ashore it could have gone right into popular culture.

 

[Steph]

I have silenced the great creationist expert CenturionV

Don't forget something important: Symbol.

You don't always have to search exact correspondance between things appearing in the various mythology and real world things.

Men had a strong tendency, when science was not very developped, to give surnatural explanation to things he didn't understand.

Firebreathing dragon can be a symbol for a natural disaster : volcano erruption, great fire, etc.

In the middle ages, in Europe, dragons became the symbol of evil. Saint Michael or Saint George defeating the dragon are symbolism of man trying to fight his own evil.

 

[Dann]

For the Chinese, dragons are anything but evil. They're considered auspicious, along with the phoenix.

 

[Steph]

That's why I said "In Europe". The good creature in Europe is more the Unicorn

 

[stormbind]

That's why I said "In Europe". The good creature in Europe is more the Unicorn

According to the legend, the Unicorn was a wild beast that could only be captured by offering a virgin as sacrificial bait. You have a strange idea of what is good in France

Unicorns evolved into Narwhals, thus proving that the Theory of Evolution is true!

 

[Dann]

I know. No argument there, Steph.

The Qi-lin ("unicorn") is another good luck mythological creature here, although portrayed less often. It looks totally different from the European unicorn however.

Funny but I can't seem to think of any decidedly "evil" Chinese mythological creature. The "bad guys" in mythology seem to always be a hybrid between animals and humans - usually animals who have through their own efforts (usually taking thousands of years) gained special powers that made them become pseudo-human.

 

[Steph]

According to the legend, the Unicorn was a wild beast that could only be captured by offering a virgin as sacrificial bait. You have a strange idea of what is good in France

No, the legend says only a virgin can approach a Unicorn. If in UK you interprate this a "let's sacrify a virgin as a bait", it's you own evil tweasted mind. But what could we hope from people who drive the wrong side of the road

 

[stormbind]

No, the legend says only a virgin can approach a Unicorn. If in UK you interprate this a "let's sacrify a virgin as a bait", it's you own evil tweasted mind. But what could we hope from people who drive the wrong side of the road

Ah, wise maneuvre

The British travelled on the left-side of the road since medieval times and probably earlier, because that way, their strongest arm is facing the unknown person coming the opposite way. Is that so illogical?

There is still good logic to driving that way in Britain: Racing is always performed clockwise, and having the steering wheel on the right-hand side is advantageous; assuming you don't want to ban the public from racing.

This is why Italian cars (Farrari, Lamborghini, etc.) traditionally have the steering wheel on the right-hand side, even though the public drive on the right-hand side of the road. So, it's not the UK that lacks logic

Drifting back on-topic: I took that Unicorn detail from Wikipedia. I think it's what the Vikings believed. The Unicorn came from northern Europe anyway, so we cannot expect the Frenchies, who never even saw a Unicorn, to get the stories right

 

[Steph]

Ah, wise maneuvre
so we cannot expect the Frenchies, who never even saw a Unicorn, to get the stories right

And of course, the English sight Unicorn on a day to day basis?

Anyway, the creature of my home place is the Dahu.

Link to French article

Here is a translation of the first part (done by me)

The dahu (or dahut) is a brown-gray animal whose main characteristic (beside having 4 legs) is that two of his legs are shorter than the other two legs (it could be right or left legs). Thus, there are two different species : the "turnleft" and "turnrigh" [I don't know how to translate lévogyre and dextrogyre]. They very seldom hybrid in nature (only a few rare case of acrobatic coupling have been observed). This stunning adaptatin to the natural environment of this animal (here the mountain) allow it to be always perfectly stable when walking along the slope of moutains.
However, as the cunniest of you have probably already noticed, this asset also has a drawback : hunters have designed a terrific hunting method.
The hunter hides in a bush, and wait for the Dahu to pass nearby. The secret lies in patience : you must wait for the Dahu to move far enough. When it is almost out of sight, you must whistle, using your upper lip, lower lip and tongue (several technics are used to produce the whistle). The Dahu, trapped by his legendary curiosity, turn around. And then, as the other would say, it's the drame. Without his stable balance on the mountain slope, and being completly out of balance, he falls for the greater joy of the abovementionned hunter..."

Here is a small drawing (sorry for the quality, I made it myself) to explain the Dahu hunt.

 

[Steph]

There is a massive difference between adaption on a small scale, and evolution into totally new and distinct groups, adaption does NOTHING to prove evolution.

I suppose you are aware that the base of evolution is that creature adapt on a small case, progressively, under a long period of time?
You can try to rename evolution into adaptation if you think it can be more acceptable to your belief... It won't change much.

The difference between lions and tigers are really minimal, there behavior is probably the main one, which I think any creationist knows can change due to long or short term circumstances. The only other major difference is there coat, which has adapted to allow them to live in different enviroments..

And that's the base of evolution... You just discovered it by yourself. Welcome in the real world.

 

[stormbind]

That's very good, Steph. French ideas never cease to amaze me

The en.wikipedia.com needs fixing. So, what do Dahu taste like?

A third of all American visitors to Scotland believe haggis is an animal.

Researchers have found almost one in four of those questioned said they had come to Scotland under the belief they could hunt it.

Does the French Dahu, and Scottish Haggis, have some common history?

Edit: Research has ruined that for me

Spoiler :

There is something here about the Wild Haggis (and here) that I never heard of before.

Click here to learn about the real Haggis.

 

[Steph]

Dahu taste horrible. That's why we don't hunt them for ourselves, but only to entertain tourists. The jokie is to make them eat it afterward

The Dahu is not exactly French, it's origin is more Savoy in the Alps, it has no common history with the Scottish Haggis.

It reminds mor of an old story. A famous writter went to Scotland and had to taste Haggis. At the end of the meal, he said : "When I saw it the first time, I thought it was s**t, but after tasting it, I regret it wasn't".

 

[Hitro]

Funny but I can't seem to think of any decidedly "evil" Chinese mythological creature. The "bad guys" in mythology seem to always be a hybrid between animals and humans - usually animals who have through their own efforts (usually taking thousands of years) gained special powers that made them become pseudo-human.

I guess it's just a bit more realistic...

 

[thestonesfan]

What, ancient people couldn't get creative?

Some guy many, many years ago looked at a lizard or snake, and thought, "Yikes! That's ugly! I'm sure glad that thing isn't 30 feet long...hey, that might make a good story to scare the children with!"

The idea of dragons coming from dinosaur bones is equally plausible, though.

The unicorn myth probably came from rhinos. Sure, a rhino may not be as graceful as a horse, but no one is going to mistake a manatee for a beautiful mermaid, either.

@Stormbind - That picture doesn't tell us anything. It's a well known fact that dragons can't be photographed.

 

[Steph]

No, it's vampire who can't be photographed!

 

[thestonesfan]

No, it's vampire who can't be photographed!

But Dragons, Vampires, the Loch Ness Monster, and Bigfoot all share a common, unphotographable ancestor.