Dragons

[zyndara]

was there a species that orginated the stories of firebreathing dragons of old?

[Homer55]

It originated from the kamodo dragons from indonesia.

[zyndara]

I can't buy this. How did stories of the kamodo dragon reach europe in those early centuries, where the knights were suppose to be fighting them? What I was wondering was there something like the giant squid, which has recently washed up on shore, that the sailors of old called sea monsters, that was attributed to the stories the knight told of fighting dragons?

[Artemis]

They were real but very little documentation as all the heroes killed them off.

[stoo_pid]

As far as our early ancestors are concerned, they probably first saw images of dragons on the shields & ships of the Norsemen carried images of dragons on their shields & ships. But the dragon mythology is known throughout the world in one form or another and the history goes back at least as far as the Sumerian civilisation. There are various possibilities including, big cats, predatory birds, serpents, lizards, and so on

In 1405 the villages of Bures & Wormingford in Essex were terrorised by a dragon.

"Close to the town of Bures, near Sudbury, there has lately appeared, to the great hurt of the countryside, a dragon, vast in body, with a crested head, teeth like a saw, and a tail extending to an enormous length. Having slaughtered the shepherd of a flock, it devoured many sheep....In order to destroy him, all the country people around were summoned. But when the dragon saw that he was again to be assailed with arrows, he fled into a marsh or mere and there hid himself among the long reeds, and was no more seen."

In this particular case, it is thought the dragon was a crocodile brought back to the UK by Richard the Crusader that later escaped.

Click here for more dragon info

[Kingaroo]

There was a mythical beast called the salamander which was believed to be able to live in fire. I don't know how our amphibious little friends got that name, since they are moisture-dependent creatures, unlike snakes and lizards (reptiles) that like to lie on hot rocks.

I've seen an illustrated book about dragon lore around the world. There do seem to be large reptilian creatures (not all of which breathe fire or fly, and only some of which swim) in many cultures' early belief systems, which makes one think there must have been some fairly widespread phenomenon which varied people interpreted in similar ways. I'm voting for dinosaur skeletons. Crocs and alligators are also possibilities. I suspect giant squid don't wash ashore often enough or in enough parts of the world to have spawned such ubiquitous myths, though I suppose it might have been more common in early human times.

[equalibra]

Fire breathing dragons did infact originate from a sub solar system not to far from earth, its unclear as to what time it occurred but they were apparently forced to look for food on Earth as they had exhuasted the population of 'flying pigs' that they originally shared the planet with.......sorry, couldnt resist!

[XxHeatherxX]

If they were real Artemis, bones would have surely been found by now.

[sharx100]

100's or even 1000's of years ago dragons were supposed to have attacked brave knights and bring down mighty kingdoms but there is also the belief that in certain cultures dragons were called upon to defend a kingdom against evil spirits, this later stopped and gargoyles were put on churches and cathedrals to ward off evil spirits as well because as time went on more and more people stopped believing in huge fire breathing reptilians that lived in caves and volcanoes.

[willowman]

Sorry, but talk of dragons always reminds me of the classic line in Fawlty Towers, when somebody mentioned St George.

The Major ; Ah, St George, killed the dragon didn't he, Fawlty

Basil ; Better than marrying it Major!

[zyndara]

XxHeatherxX

Are they not uncovering new dinosaur bones even to this day?

[XxHeatherxX]

DINOSAUR, not dragon.

[sharx100]

if dragons truly did exist then they surely would look like a tyrannosaurus rex skeleton, and komodo dragons are supposedly descendants of it therefore they are all giant lizards and just deeper underground than we have ever looked or buried beneath the land mass which has now been flooded over by the sea because of all the cwap we have been flooding into the the atmosphere and and damaging the E.M field(electro magnetic).

[pugwashjw]

Read the description of one of God's creations , taken from the Book of Job. Job 40; 15-18 "15 Here, now, is Be�he�moth that I have made as well as you.
Green grass it eats just as a bull does.

16 Here, now, its power is in its hips,
And its dynamic energy in the tendons of its belly.

17 It bends down its tail like a cedar;
The sinews of its thighs are interwoven.

18 Its bones are tubes of copper;

AND the whole of Job 41; With particular reference to verses 19-23 " 19 Out of its mouth there go lightning flashes,
Even sparks of fire make their escape.

20 Out of its nostrils smoke goes forth,
Like a furnace set aflame even with rushes.

21 Its soul itself sets coals ablaze,
And even a flame goes forth out of its mouth.

22 In its neck lodges strength,
And before it despair leaps.

23 The folds of its flesh do cling together;
They are as a casting upon it, immovable.

AND EVEN A FLAME GOES FORTH OUT OF ITS MOUTH. ????