Unity of Myth: A Series of Investigations Into Underlying Similarities Between Legends

Exordium -
The following is neither fiction nor fact, myth nor truth, tale nor lie, legend nor lore. It is neither of these, because it is all of them at once. It is an adventure through myth and legend using an experimental structure. You could say that it is a tale of myths, a story of legends. It is not the structure alone that makes the following what it is, but the fusion that embodies its very core. The fusion of lore and legend from every corner of the globe into a single tale, an attempt at a unified story, an attempt to create something that already exists; but lacks strings, lacks foundation and lacks hope in accepting what is in reality, a fragmented unison. Perhaps that is all it will ever be...
Exordium - Act I
The story of the dragon is literally as old as any tale of Creation, any tale of God’s or the tales that spoke of great chaos. But the dragon was not the simple minded winged beast that is believed by the majority today. In fact, you could say that the dragon underwent an evolution through human history and recorded folklore, both spiritual and physical transformations have occurred as the dragon has ventured to every corner of the globe. One would tend to question how the dragon appears in every ancient civilization and its mythologies even when there was no contact between the lands and the people of them. It’s name has been uttered in every dialect, it’s presence recorded in every language, it’s power venerated in every land and it’s legend espoused by humanity as a whole. So what is the truth behind this enigmatic creature? The following is a brief investigation in order to trace the path of the legend, to draw the line from kin to kin.
The beast awakes.

Act I: Rise of the Dragon

“And Babylon shall become heaps, a dwelling place for dragons, an astonishment, and an hissing, without an inhabitant.”
-Jeremiah 51:37

Dragon’s were creators, they spawned life, erected land and provided security for mankind. Many creation stories incorporate dragons, and hence, this is where the beast first flew, through the legends of creation. When chaos became order.

Along with the origins of many other myths, the tale of the dragon originates within Mesopotamia, with the Babylonians. Tiamat was the original dragon, the embodiment of the priomordial mound in a monstrous form. She was the first beast that existed and gave birth to the God’s. Although Tiamat is never depicted as a dragon, it is said that she gave birth to serpents of the sea which is where the association probably originated. Further, since no depictions exist of Tiamat she is usually given the dragon form due to its chaotic characteristics. This is the result of the nature of her existence as the goddess who was, before all else was. She was all the chaos that existed before there was order, her monstrosity as a dragon is a reflection of this transformation, as after she was slain by Marduk, her body became the Heaven and the Earth, her death ended the chaos that was, and initiated order. What is significant here is not only Marduk becoming the first dragon-slayer, a trend in legend which will continue for millennium, but the death of the first dragon.
POM (Probable Origin of Myth): No later than 21st Century B.C.E. Although the tablets could be a lot older.
Our dragon friend heads now to the north-east from Mesopotamia, to the lands of the Orient.

Before the infamous Yellow Emperor of China came the Three Sovereigns. The Three Sovereigns were Fuxi, Nuwa and Shennong. Fuxi and Nuwa were brother and sister, husband and wife, who bred after a global disaster and gave birth to humans. Shennong was a mysterious person who taught the people the knowledge of agriculture, he is not depicted as a dragon, although oddly some of his ‘children’ were said to have been dragons who became Emperors. Fuxi (female) had a human head and a serpent’s body and although at times the serpent and the dragon are interchangeable, the distinction is apparently of importance, as it was Nuwa who had the head of a human and the body of a scaly dragon. It is an accepted view that both Fuxi and Nuwa were the first dragons, as the Chinese creator of the Universe, Pangu, is disputed as being a dragon and never really hinted as being one, we are left with Fuxi and Nuwa (creators of mankind) as the first. Fuxi is said to have lived for 197 years, interestingly enough the tomb of Fuxi, the first dragon of the Orient can still be found in Huaiyang country, it has been a symbol of worship for thousands of years.
POM: No later than 2800B.C.E.
We head down to the Australis land where the indigenous Aboriginals speak of similar tales.

The Rainbow Serpent, through description, is probably one of the biggest dragons to have ever existed alongside Tiamat. It was a huge python-like creature which controlled the water and gave life to mountains. It’s appearance varies from area to area, from tribe to tribe. It was said to have horns while its color is disputed. Some say it was a sky blue, others that it was yellow with red stripes, while some speak of it as being multi-colored, hence, rainbow. The Rainbow Serpent is not unique to Australia and the Aboriginals, but we will continue with that quest later. The creature is said to have resided in large permanent water areas, during wet seasons it is that it would fly and glitter in the sky, for all the people to see. It carved river beds as it flew over the lands and was kind towards humans, unless disturbed, in which case it would cause chaos such as massive floods. Therefore it was both a symbol of life and death. The similarities between the Rainbow Serpent and that of the Chinese Dragons are uncanny. Further, the Rainbow Serpent was seen as a link between the Heaven and Earth, almost like Tiamat, who once destroyed, established the boundary.
POM: Unknown, due to oral nature of the myth.
The adventure continues now, with one of the first of the European beasts.

The Lernean Hydra was an ancient, multi-headed water serpent. It was said to have poisonous breath and its presence could turn the onlooker to stone. In Greek mythology, this beast was the guardian of the Underworld, the city of the dead. Unlike the other dragon creators, the Hydra was an evil beast, perhaps one of the first serpent like creatures to carry negative connotations of evil and death. The hydra was first mentioned in the tale of Hercules, where after a massive fight with the beast, he managed to slay it. However though, the Hydra is mentioned in African mythology aswell, the multi-headed serpent creature was said to block the rivers from flowing, starving villages. Further, the multi-headed dragon is also mentioned in Revelations. But the first mutli-headed dragon clearly originated in Greece.
POM: Recorded in the ‘Twelve Labors of Hercules’, written by Peisander, roughly 600B.C.E.

The first dragons were still appearing in Europe though, in the lands of the Norse.

Jormungandr, the Midgard serpent, sometimes called the World Serpent, was in Norse mythology, considered the child of Loki. Loki apparently threw Jormungandr into a giant lake which encircled Midgard. He grew so big that he encircled all the lands of Earth and could bite his own tail, possibly one of the first European Uroboros. Jormungandr is said to dribble poison and blood, a conflicting perspective of the dragon compared to Asian descriptions, further this serpent could not fly. We will still stick with Norse mythology, as another famous dragon arose during these times. Fafnir was the son of a dwarf king. Now, unlike most Western dragons, this dragon has no wings, but retains a scaly and tough exterior according to descriptions. He was said to be greedy and guard treasures, a trend which stuck with many Western dragons. Perhaps this is where the negative connotations originated with Western dragons as opposed to Eastern dragons, who even though were guardians of treasure, helped humanity.
POM: Manuscripts such as the Volsung saga and the Poetic Edda date between the 11th and 15th centuries, A.D.
Traveling down to Egypt is a must as we examine the original dragons from all over the globe.

Apep was, unknowingly to some, the original sun God. Apep, or ‘Apophis’ in Greek was the enemy of Ra, the new sun God. This serpent was said to reside in the Nun, the celestial waters. He is considered as an evil demon and symbolized chaos and disorder. He was seen as a giant serpent creature, and later as a dragon. Much like some European dragons, Apep was said to have a powerful gaze which he used against Ra and his armies during their battles. He would also choke them with his powerful coils. When a solar eclipse occurred it was said that Apep had managed to swallow Ra and that Ra would always eventually make his way out and defeat Apep again. Other disasters also occurred when Apep got the upper hand over Ra, such as thunderstorms and floods. He is mainly depicted as a rather large water serpent than a small one, he had no wings therefore he probably could not fly.
POM: 5th to 7th century B.C.E., worshipped during the Middle Kingdom.
Only a few hundred centuries later, the first dragon to breath fire would be spoken of, in the Bible.

Our trip takes us to Israel, where in the writing of the Old Testament, specifically in the Book of Job (smaller references in Psalms and Isaiah), there is a reference to a demonic creature. There is strong evidence that the dragon that is the Leviathan as described in the Old Testament set the template for all Western dragons. The following references to the creature that is the Leviathan are prime examples: “his teeth are terrible”, “His scales are his pride... They are joined one to another, they stick together, that they cannot be sundered”, “By his neesings a light doth shine, and his eyes are like the eyelids of the morning”, “Out of his mouth go burning lamps, and sparks of fire leap out”, “Out of his nostrils goeth smoke, as out of a seething pot or cauldron. His breath kindleth coals, and a flame goeth out of his mouth”, “The flakes of his flesh are joined together: they are firm in themselves”, “When he raiseth up himself, the mighty are afraid”, “even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.” Extracts from Job 41: 1-34 & Isaiah 27:1.
POM: The original Old Testament.
Our final stop in the exploration of the original dragons takes us to the land of the Aztec.

It was called Kukulcan by the Maya, Quetzacoatl was the feathered serpent God in Aztec and Toltec mythology. Interestingly enough it was their only God which did not require human sacrifice. Besides being the creator God, this dragon was a god of many other things, such as being able to make it rain (further dragon association with water), and also the maker of the calendar that has now become so famous. He is said to have often taken flights through the skies, creating rainbows, blocking out the sun, etc, he could even take the form of a man (Quetzacoatl and his human form deserve a separate investigation all together). It was apparent that Quetzacoatl was not friendly with the God of war, Tezcatlipoca who wanted human sacrifices. Quetzacoatl had a hard time convincing the people that this was wrong, and so he left. The legend goes that Quetzacoatl left on a raft upheld by serpents and promised to return one day to those that were loyal to him. The reason why Quetzacoatl is depicted as a dragon is unclear, some suggest that is due to his sudden appearance from a distant land with godlike knowledge. The tale of Quetzacoatl honestly does deserve its own investigation as there are some familiar human candidates who may very well have been the original human version who spread knowledge to the Aztec. Jesus Christ is by the far the most interesting candidate and the evidence that exists is not to be underestimated. Of course we should steer clear of this for now as for this thread we will focus on the feathered serpent dragon form.
POM: No later than 1000B.C.E during Olmec era.
This is where our journey ends with the ancient dragons. In my research i have identified just over 550 differing dragon like creatures from all over the globe through mythological tales and more modern recounts from the Dark Ages onwards, but there is too much for one thread. I would love to explore the Naga’s of Hindu texts, but they can be excluded in this piece as they have no association to the rest of the story. One thing is clear from the above, there was a common belief, a common fear among peoples of all countries and all ages. But how could such a noble (in most cases) and helpful (in most cases) creature go from being venerated, to being hunted, despised and abhorred by all civilization?

Have you ever wondered where all the tales about dragon’s living in caves originated? Our ancient recounts of the flying serpents speak of the freedom and power they had, they roamed the skies and had magical powers which they freely used to their advantage. But many modern renditions and in fact, some first-hand recounts speak differently of this supposedly never-to-have-existed species. It’s clear though, that winged-serpent like creatures still seem to fascinate us.
Before we continue one must pose the question, how likely is it really that a certain species of dinosaur could have existed, even if in it’s dying stages, as a living creature up until at least the 1700’s? Before one mocks the above statement as mere fantasy, one must first examine certain sightings/events that may or may not alter their point of view.

Frank H. Mellard was the Magistrate for the Kasempa District of Northern Rhodesia from 1911 to 1922. He was a very respectable British explorer and anthropologist. His most famous publications include Through the Heart of Africa (1919) and In Witch-Bound Africa(1923). Mellard was probably the first to question the kongamato, which was called the batman of swamps. But before we continue with Mellard, we will switch to the works of David H. Childress and his Lost Cities & Ancient Mysteries of Africa and Arabia (1989) where he goes on to question a Rhodesian man about the supposed creature, to whom he replied: “The kongamato is some sort of flying lizard, with wide wings and sharp teeth. It overturns boats and attacks people. The natives up there in the swaps are so afraid of it, they believe they will die if they just see it. This bloke wrote a book about it back in the twenties (this is the work of Mellard). Talked all about it. Its true, swear to God!”

*One depiction of the kongomato.
When Mellard asked the Koande natives of the Jiundu Swamps in north-west Zambia what a kongamato was, they told him; “... it isn’t a bird really, its more like a lizard with membranous wings like a bat... the wing-spread was from 4 to 7 feet across... the general color was red... no feathers but only skin on its body”. The natives say that the beast had teeth within in its beak. So Mellard got an idea, he sent for two books with pictures of pterodactyls, Mellard states that, “every native present immediately and unhesitatingly picked it out and identified it as a kongamato”.
Mellard’s claims are not isolated. Colonel C.R.S. Pitman stated in his 1942 classic, A Game Warden Takes Stock;
“When in Northern Rhodesia i heard of a mythical beast which intrigued me considerably. It was said to haunt formerly, and perhaps still to haunt, a dense, swampy forest region in the neighborhood of the Angola and Congo borders. To look upon it is death. But the most amazing feature of this mystery beast is its suggested identity with a creature bad-bird-like in form on a gigantic scale strangely reminiscent of the prehistoric pterodactyl. From where does the primitive African derive such a fanciful idea?”
No, we’re not even close to done. South African professor J.L.B Smith stated in Old Fourlegs: The Story of the Coelocanth (1956);
“The descendants of missionary who had lived near Mount Kilamanjaro wrote from Germany giving a good deal of information about flying dragons they beleived still to live in those parts. The family had repeatedly heard of them from the natives, and one man had actually seen such a creature at night. I did not and do not dispute the possibility that some such creature may still exist.”
A Game Warden on Safari (1928) is one of the more famous recounts of this creature. A. Blayney Percival states on page 241;
“The Kitui Wakamba tell of a huge flying beast which comes down from Mount Kenya by night; they only see it against the sky, but they have seen its tracks; more, they have shown these to a white man, who told me about them, saying, he could make nothing of the spoor, which betrayed two feed, and an, apparently, heavy tail.”
How unlikely is it really that a dragon like creature (Pterodactyl) could be living in the swamp barrens of Zambia?
A rather strange story emerged from a book entitled ‘Searching for Hidden Animals’ by Roy Mackal. There is a section investigating the supposed ‘flying lizard’ of Namibia with one almost unbelievable recount. The story goes that a boy was resting under a tree when he was interrupted by a massive reptilian creature which flew up from behind the mountain. The boy said that the creature landed in a huge cloud of dust and he tried his hardest to escape. Further, he said that the creature gave off a smell of ‘burned brass’ and made demonic noises. Farmers who lived close by also said they had seen the same creature, so the police were called in to investigate. One of the farmers told the police that he saw the beast slip into a crack in a mountain; dynamite was used by the police on the side of the mountain in an attempt to kill the creature. Several witnesses to the detonation swore they heard low moaning sounds coming from the rubble for a few seconds before the silence. It is not known if the rubble was ever cleared away.
Illustrated London News, February 9, 1856, page 166, held a story of a tunnel that was being dug in France to unite the St. Dizier and Nancy railways where a rock had to be blasted open during mining. The story goes that a beast exactly like the pterodactyl emerged from the rock, walking with the aid of its wings, emerged into the light and died after releasing a frightening moan.
Childress has more accounts, this time from the Americas. He goes on to say;
“The Haida natives of Queen Charlotte Islands of British Columbia believe that some Thunderbirds were so large that they could literally pick up small whales from the sea. Much of their art and woodcarving depicts such a capture by a Thunderbird. Some South American Indians believed that the bird was constantly at war with the powers living beneath the sea, particularly a horned serpent and that it tore up large trees in search of giant grubs which were its favourite food. The clapping of these giants’ wings created thunder, so they were known as ‘Thunderbirds’…”
Childress recounts another strange encounter in the years of 1975 and 1976. In the town of Raymondville, Texas on December 24th, a man by the name of Joe Suarez would be awoken to find that his goat had been mutilated and only partly devoured. He found no tracks leading from the carcass. Police were called in but they found nothing to identify any possible assailants. Nothing happened for 21 days, until the night of January 14th 1976, in the same town, a man by the name of Armanda Grimaldo was sitting in his backyard when he was suddenly attacked by what he called ‘a strange winged creature’. He told Raymondville press that as he was running along the side of his house he felt claws grasp at his back, but was too scared to turn around fully and only got a glimpse of the creature. He said that he had to hide under a bush and the creature hovered over him for a few seconds, then flew away as if exhausted. Grimaldo later described his attacker as being 6 feet tall, blackish-brown leathery skin, a wingspan of 12 feet and it had big red eyes. More reports came in 1976, close by, from San Antontio. On the night of February 24th three school teachers were driving home from work and observed a creature which had massive leathery wings, what they described as being about 15 to 20 feet in length. It was apparently circling their car and was gliding, not flying, but gliding over the whole road as they watched in horror from within their car. As they researched what they saw later that night, they identified it with a Pterodon.
Certainly some of these recounts can at least raise eyebrows, as the uniformity of the testimonies adds a lot to their authenticity. We must conclude our investigation of the dragon as the length will deteriorate from the message of the thread for some. Oh silly me, we cannot leave just yet. There is but one thing left to examine.
In the year of 1691 a dragon was said to be living in the wetlands close to Rome. The beast was living in a cave and was terrorizing the locals. The legend goes that the locals managed to kill the beast, and a sketch survived of the beast which seems to be depicting it in a semi-deteriorating state, half muscle, half skeletal (Fig .1). Ingegniero Cornelio Meyer was said to be in possession of the original sketch. The sketch seems to depict a Pterosaur, oddly enough.

Fig .1
Expert opinion on the matter states; “The creature clearly displays a head crest complete with a dual piece of skin attached to it which is characteristic of the species, five digits are visible on each foot and are anatomically correct for the Scaphognathus Pterosaur inasmuch as each digit is of the proper length, the first one appearing slightly shorter and offset to the rest. The femur is correctly displayed as a single bone and the twin lower leg bones (the tibia and fibula), are also quite visible. A small wing claw can be seen on the far wing where it curves forward, and the wings themselves are depicted membranous and are correctly positioned forward of the legs on the vertebrae which also matches existing fossil records.”
It certainly bears resemblance to the modern day classic image of a dragon that we have known to love through movies. Even if one does not take it as a legit artifact, one must admire the attention to detail that has been undertaken.
Verdict- Dragons most probably are not real, never existed and may never exist in all likely hood. But their presence within philosophy from the literal emergence of recorded human civilization is what has kept this legend alive to this very day. It is a symbol of chaos and of life, of power and of greed, of love and courage, of bravery and tyranny. The dragon is a symbol of mankind because it can never be defined, never contained, never dismissed, but most importantly, never destroyed.
___________________________________________________________________________________________
We think, sometimes, there's not a dragon left. Not one brave knight, not a single princess gliding through secret forests, enchanting deer and butterflies with her smile.
What a pleasure to be wrong. Princesses, knights, enchantments and dragons, mystery and adventure ...not only are they here-and-now, they're all that ever lived on earth!
Our century, they've changed clothes, of course. Dragons wear government-costumes, today, and failure-suits and disaster-outfits. Society's demons screech, whirl down on us should we lift our eyes from the ground, dare we turn right at corners we've been told to turn left.
So crafty have appearances become that princesses and knights can be hidden from each other, can be hidden from themselves.
-Richard Bach, The Bridge Across Forever, preface, 1984
END - UNITY OF MYTH ACT I
FURTHER READING
*Not including the books mentioned within the above.
-Giants, Monsters, and Dragons: An Encyclopedia of Folklore, Legend, and Myth by Carol Rose
-Dragons: More than a Myth by Richard Alan Freeman
-Dragons: Truth, Myth and Legend by David Passes and Wayne Anderson

First off Fafnir is a dwarve (lets not get into if dwarves are real or not) and changing into a dragon, is seen as allegory, because he killed his father over gold. I think in most cultures dragon/serpent/demon is symbol of evil but not meant literally.
As far as I remember Jormung and did not dribble poison, because it would have ended earth, it was only at Ragnarok that he did:
(paraphrase) 'And thus he vomit forth venom, defiling all the earth and the sky, so that no man may drink or breathe'
and I have heard a theory he (as well as Fenrir) are comets, which could make sense, I meant it pass by/hit earth and it will poison the air/water!
Then you have the 'real' (not mythological) ones, which were said to be demonic (sons of Loki). The lindorms and the sea serpents and the lake serpents.
See this picture by Magnus Olaus:

They were seen as 'normal' as in every day, but not like regular creatures (as in the deer, fish).
I highly think you read this link:
They tried to kill the sea serpents
And this will intrigue you:
Lindorms sighted in 1800s
Not a list but partial proof. I do not have better on hand to show but I highly think there is something to it.

Published 1978, Creation Social Sciences & Humanities Quarterly, no longer being published, Revised 1997

Almost all our early ancestors believed the earth was inhabited, especially in unknown regions, by dragons. Where did they get such an idea? Did it stem from a universal human imagination? An inherited need or instinct? An inherited subconscious memory of dinosaurs? All these suggestions have been made, and taken seriously by groups of people. I believe dragons are the reflection, sometimes embellished through retelling but mostly historical, of actual physical encouters of human beings with dinosaurs.

Francis Schaeffer, philosopher-theologian, has written, "I am not at all convinced it has been proven that the dinosaurs became extinct prior to the advent of man. I believe there is much evidence, ancient and modern, to indicate that dinosaurs and humankind existed on earth contemporaneously, and that human beings, while they probably lived in different regions than dinosaurs for the most part, did on many occasions encounter the sometimes huge and fearsome creatures. The memories of these encounters were so vivid and deep that they were passed down in a multitude of cultures as legends, painted on cave walls, represented in pottery, and written of in literature.

Etymology of "dragon"

The word "dragon," according to the Oxford English Dictionary (1966), is derived from the Old French, which in turn was derived from the Latin dracon (serpent), which in turn was derived from the Greek Spakov (serpent), from the Greek aorist verb, Spakelv (to see clearly). It is related to many other ancient words related to sight, such as Sanskrit darc (see), Avestic darstis (sight), Old Irish derc (eye), Old English torht, Old Saxon torht and Old High German zoraht, all meaning clear, or bright. The roots of the word can be traced, then, back to most early Indo-European tongues. This may indicate that it is possible the immediate ancestor of the word was a part of the original hypothetical Indo-European tongue which may have been a part of the vocabulary of Japheth's descendants, soon after the Flood and the dispersion from Babel.

The Oxford English Dictionary points out that Spakelv is derived from the Greek stem Spak meaning strong. The connection with dragons is obvious. According to the OED, the word was first used in English about 1220 A.D. It was used in English versions of the Bible from 1340 on.

Ubiquitous dragons

A modern book, The Greatest Monsters in the World, (1975), contains a chapter called "Dragons Everywhere." This title is accurate, because ancient belief in dragons appears to have been nearly universal, as far as we can determine from prehistoric art, legend, and the world's most ancient writings.

Dragons in Ancient Art

In art, dragons are a motif used in ancient pottery. The motif appears as bowl decorations in China as late as 202 A.D.

In Anne Ross's book, Pagan Celtic Britain, is a picture of a pot motif from the ancient Urnfield culture which blossomed in Europe prior to 500 B.C. The Bali portray a dragon in their animal mask of Barong, a good spirit which is central in their ritual dramatic presentations.

Perhaps the earliest evidence, however, is found in a prehistoric cave at La Baume, Latrone, France. Discovered in 1940 by Siegfried Giedion, some scientists have dated the cave at 20,000 years ago (I do not accept such ancient dates). Peter Costello writes, "dominating the whole scene is a serpent over three metres in length." As Costello notes, this picture of a dragon-like creature "appeared at the very dawn of art," whatever its exact date.

At Lydney Park on the banks of Severn in Gloucestershire, England, a mosaic floor of Romano-Celtic origin has been excavated. It appears to be a temple associated with the river cult of Nodens, "the cloud maker." Prominent in the mosaic are sea monsters that may well be considered dragons.

Dragons in Ancient Literature

In literature, dragons are certainly a virtually universal ancient motif. Dragons are found in the early literature of the English, Irish, Danish, Norse, Scandinavians, Germans, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians and Babylonians. Among the American Indians, legends of dragons flourished among the Crees, Algonquins, Onondagas, Ojibways, Hurons, Chinooks, Shoshones, and Alaskan Eskimos.

One of the most famous Danish dragon tales is from "Sigurd of the Volsungs" and concerns "The Slaying of Fafnir." Sigurd, the hero of the epic, is afraid of Fafnir the dragon because his tracks seem great. This surely would have been true of the large dinosaurs, whether the footprints themselves, or the sound of their approach were being considered. Sigurd hides in a pit, and when the dragon crawls to the water, he strikes up into its heart. Again, if a man were to slay a large dinosaur, this would be an intelligent way to do it, for one would be out of the way of the creature's powerful tail and sharp, meat-rending teeth. Probably the head, neck and heart were the only truly vulnerable areas on the huge body. Most dinosaurs were basically water creatures. Therefore, everything in this scene is totally realistic, and makes good dinosaur-hunting strategy.

Sigurd is afraid he will drown in the dragon's blood, which may be another indication as to the size of the creature. If the dragon had fallen over the mouth of the pit, Sigurd's drowning in its blood would have been a distinct possibility.

As the dragon approaches, it blows poison before it. The dragon talks to Sigurd. In the talking we undoubtedly have some embellishment, but this is not surprising in an early folk tale that was passed down for uncounted generations. Sigurd's friend, Regin, cuts out the dragon's heart, and asks Sigurd to roast it and serve it to him. When Regin touches the dragon's blood to his to his tongue, he understands the speech of birds. Here again we probably have an embellishment, perhaps associating dragons in a symbolic way with wisdom, a frequent association in early literature.

Both the dragon in this early Danish epic and the dragon in the Old English epic, Beowulf, guard a treasure. We can only speculate as to the origin of this idea. It's possible that a dinosaur did in fact make off with some loot, or it's possible that the abode of dinosaurs was so unapproachable that ancient peoples imagined their dens to be loaded with treasures. Did the two dragons come from the same early legend? We do not know.

The unnamed dragon in Beowulf also vomits flames. It is fifty feet long, as measured after its death. As with Fafnir, "earth dwellers much dread him." He is a night creature, associated with evil, and described as "smooth" and "hateful."

Dragons in Legend and Folklore

Greek heroes who are supposed to have slain dragons are Hercules, Apollo, and Perseus. Indeed, the World Book Encyclopedia (1973) says "every country had them in its mythology." In Norse mythology, a Great Ash Tree, Yggdrasil, which was thought to support the whole universe, had three immense roots. One extended into the region of death. Niflheim and the dragon Nidhogg perpetually gnawed at the root of the tree. This precarious situation, which seems to place the whole universe at Nidhogg's mercy, perhaps shows the conscious or subconscious deeply rooted fear of the proto-Norse for dinosaurs, those terrible lizards. If the fearsome creatures were threatening the ancestors of the Norse peoples, one can easily see how such a myth could have developed.

The Egyptians wrote of the dragon Apophis, enemy of the sun god Re. The Babylonians recorded their belief in the monster Tiamat. The Norse people wrote of Lindwurm, guardian of the treasure of Rheingold, who was killed by the hero Siegfried. The Chinese wrote of dragons in their ancient book, I Ching, associating the creatures with power, fertility, and well being. They also used dragons in early art, ancient pottery, folk pageantry and dances as a motif. The Aztecs' plumed serpent may have represented a hybrid in their thought between a dragon and another creature. The pottery of ancient Nazca culture of Peru shows a cannibal monster much like a dragon.

In British Columbia, Lake Sashwap is believed to be home to the dragon Ta Zam-A, and Lake Cowichan to Tshingquaw. In Ontario, Lake Meminisha is the reputed home of a fish-like serpent feared by the Cree Indians. Angoub is the legendary Huron dragon, Hiachuckaluck the dragon believed in by the Chinooks of British Columbia.

Dragons are so widely accepted a part of Irish folklore that Robert Lloyd Praeger, naturalist, says they are "an accepted part of Irish zoology." Dr. P.W. Joyce, historian, in his book on Irish place-names, says, "legends of aquatic monsters are very ancient among the Irish people" and shows that many Irish place names resulted from a belief in these dragons.

Interpretations

Many theories have been set forth proposing to explain the virtually universal belief in dragons among ancient peoples. Some have seen dragons as a product of the human imagination, resulting from fear of the unknown. It has been pointed out that as late as 1600 A.D., maps were decorated about the borders of unknown regions with drawings of dragon-like monsters. Yet it is hard to imagine how such widely separated people groups all imagined virtually the same thing, if that imagined entity had no basis in reality or in their experience.

In my undergraduate study of literature, one frequent interpretation of archetypes in lierature was that people had a universal need to believe in these things, that the human subconscious understood at some deep level the same set of symbols, perhaps gained through their common (supposed) evolutionary ancestry. The most frequent modern interpretation given to myths and archetypes is that they are subconsciously symbolic. One wonders, however, why it is only humankind that has left this constant, ancient record of dealings with dragons, and how such a memory could have lived through millions of years of evolution and changes into entirely different kinds of animals.

For these reasons, even many secular authors have come almost, but not quite, to the conclusion that early people encountered dinosaurs, and passed down the memory of these encounters in tales of dragons. Peter Costello, who researched Lake Monster legends and alleged sightings in considerable depth, wrote, "...as we go through the early accounts of Irish lake monsters we shall find that there is often only a superficial covering of fancy...real animals are clearly behind some of the stories."

The World Book Encyclopedia (1973) notes "the dragons of legend are strangely like actual creatures that have lived in the past. They are much like the giant reptiles which inhabited the earth long before man is supposed to have appeared on earth."

The writer's use of the phrase "is supposed to have appeared" shows that he recognized the problem. Man was not supposed to have appeared until much later, but it surely seems that man did in fact see dinosaurs, drawing pictures and writing about what he saw. How could he have written about something that lay buried deep within the earth, having died out millions of years earlier?

Peter Costello presents the same problem. "The plesiosaur theory," he writes, "which appeared early o n, still has many supporters....but again the difficulties, whether it could have survived for sixty million years undetected...are very great."

Daniel Cohen, author of The Greatest Monsters in the World, also says that there is a "sensational possiblity" that the dragon legend originated with the dinosaurs, observing that:

no creatures that ever lived looked more like dragons than dinosaurs...there is a problem with this theory. The problem is time. As far as we know, all the dinosaurs died out over 70 million years ago. That long ago, there were no people on earth. So who could remember the dinosaurs?

Cohen says that "some early discoverers of dinosaur bones called them 'dragon bones'." But apparently because the time and evolutionary development problems are so great in the minds of those who have accepted this model of origins, Cohen boldly asserts that "scientists today no longer identify dinosaurs with dragons."

The obvious conclusion is that except for their devotion to evolutionary theory, identification of dinosaurs with dragons would be the logical interpretation of the evidence.

Only two years after the publication of Greatest Monsters, however, Carl Sagan, a renowned astronomer and popularizer of the atheistic evolutionary interpretation of science, published The Dragons of Eden, which in spite of the time and evolutionary development problems asks, "Could there have been man-like creatures who actually encountered Tyrannosaurus Rex?" Sagan asserts, "One way or another, there were dragons in Eden." Outspokenly an evolutionist, Sagan's book is subtitled, "Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence." He does not, of course, view Eden in the classical Christian or Biblical sense of the word. By "Eden," he means an emerging humanity's dawning awareness of their existence. And he doesn't say human beings encountered Rex, but "man-like creatures." But this is still quite a step in the thinking of those tied to their evolutionary time scale.

Dragons in the Bible

For the Bible-believing creationist, of course, no time or evolutionary problems exist, and the facts of ancient literature and prehistoric art square very nicely with the Scriptural account. According to Genesis 1:21-23, water animals were created on the fifth day; according to Genesis 1:24-25, land animals, as well as man and woman, were created on the sixth day. Thus, according to the Bible all animals were created at approximately the same time. There were no long ages when man was not present and when dinosaurs ruled the earth. The Authorized Version utilizes the word "dragon" sixteen times, all in the Old Testament, rendering two Hebrew words which mean "sea or land monster."

But perhaps even more graphic are some Biblical references which use other names for the creatures but which clearly describe dinosaurs. In Job 40:15ff, for example, Behemoth is described: "Is strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly" (40:'16). Behemoth was a huge creature, and reading of it, one schooled in early literature can scarcely help but think of Fafnir, the dragon of early Danish fame. Behemoth, we read, moved his tail like a cedar. A tail as huge and powerful as a cedar tree? What animal can that possibly describe but a dinosaur? "His bones are as strong pieces of brass; his bones are like bars of iron" we read (40:18), perhaps recalling Sigurd, trembling because of the strength of the dragon Fafnir. When the author of Job writes "he that made him can make his sword to approach unto him," can the writer mean that only God is normally able to bring about the death of such a powerful creature? Again, I mentally envision Sigurd hiding in the pit, waiting for just the right moment to strike at one of the few places the dragon was vulnerable. Behemoth is a water creature, for "he lieth under the shady trees, in the covert of the reed, and fens...the willows of the brook compass him about" (40:22). This creature has a huge thirst, for "he drinketh up a river" (40:23). What animal other than a dinosaur can be described like this?

In the next chapter of Job, we read of another great creature, Leviathan. As with Behemoth, the record tells of God describing these creatures, and implies that Job was familiar with them. God is reminding Job of the great difficulty in catching a creature like Leviathan. God had created Leviathan, for He declares, "whatsoever is under the whole heaven is mine" (41:11). Leviathan has terrible teeth and scales or a strong, protective covering, typical of many dinosaurs. Do you see Sigurd trembling before Fafnir when you read, "When he (Leviathan) raiseth himself up, the mighty are afraid" (41:25)? Job is usually considered to be one of the oldest of the Bible books, possibly written when ice covered large parts of Europe and North Anerica shortly after the Great Flood. Many Bible scholars feel that some dinosaurs may have survived the Flood, being water creatures, but that due to severe climactic changes, they died out within a few generations after the Flood. If these small-brained creatures were experiencing hardships to which they were unaccustomed and ill-adapted, one can easily understand why a tradition of monstrous, fearsome dragons is recorded in virtually all early western cultures, which would have developed during or shortly following the time of Job.

The Bible presents this time in history as a time of dispersion (Gen 10,11). People groups were moving out away from Ararat, where their fathers had landed after the Flood, out away from Babel, where they had congregated. They were venturing into the new lands that were to become their homes. The whole earth was unknown to them. At the same time, great climatic changes may have caused the dinosaurs to have been uncharacteristically hostile.

It is true that eastern traditions have not viewed the dragon as fearsom and evil, as have western cultures. We can only speculate as to the reason, but it is possible that the eastward migrating people groups simply did not have the gruesome encounters that their western contemporaries must have experienced. If so, these eastern peoples may have told their children stories of dinosaurs as they were handed down from before the Flood, when life was ideally adapted to their existence, food was plentiful, and perhaps animals and humans did not kill one another for food (Gen. 9:3).

CONCLUSION

I propose that early humanity did encounter dragons, or dinosaurs. This means that humanity did not evolve millions of years after the dinosaures became extinct, but that the two co-existed. Each piece of evidence by itself may perhaps be explained away, as those who accept evolutionary concepts are prone to do. But the evolutionary model of history which separates humanity and dinosaurs by millions of years leaves too many unanswered questions. How could a people draw pictures of dinosaurs on ancient cave walls, if none were around to serve as models? How is it that so many ancient cultures wrote about dinosaurs (dragons), if they were unknown to early humanity? How do the early literary accounts of dragons end up being so realistic, down to the smallest details?

The evidence for the co-existence of humanity with dinosaurs is overwhelming. I have often heard it said that if evidence can be adduced from a number of different disciplines, it is strong indication to the veracity of a hypothesis. I have shown evidence from archaeology, prehistoric art, ancient literature, legend and mythology, and the Bible. This evidence leads me to the conclusion that human beings shortly after the dispersal from Babel did indeed encounter dinosaurs in the early earth, and that they drew them, wrote of them and passed on tales of them to their children. The dragons of ancient art and literature, I conclude, were in fact dinosaurs.