Dragon Folklore

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As Jorge Luis Borges shapes the words of the introduction to his well-known book, The Book of Imaginary Beings, “there is something in the dragon’s image that fits man’s imagination, and this accounts for the dragon’s appearance in different places and periods” (Borges 12). Indeed, folklore possesses a significant purpose in most countries’ historical and cultural development, and without a shadow of a doubt, the images of the dragons can be easily traced all across the world, though their name and dividing physical characteristics may differ from each other in most cases. From the Mexican feathered deity, the Quetzalcoatl, to the Japanese Ryūjin, and from the Northern, Old Norse Fafnír to the aboriginal Rainbow Serpent, the folklore of the …show more content…

They can be worshipped, feared, abhorred, respected. Their chief adjectives may divaricate from place to place, but it can be agreed that all of the dragon portrayals evoke one word that can be linked to them: power. They are supreme beings that cannot be messed with or the consequences must be come up against. The sole essence of these enormous, snake-like beasts where enough to use them as an indicator of power and strength. Their portraits come into sight on the pages of the ancient medieval lexicons, on the Viking vessels, or even on the flags of the Chinese Qing …show more content…

How did these magical, celestial beings come into existence? It is certain that there must be an explanation, and though folklore studies still quarrel over the core of the dragon legends and various myths across the globe, the legitimate answer would be the unearthing of the dinosaur and Quaternary mammalian fossils, which were discovered as a result of erosion and the spread of agriculture and housing system, where boring and digging up the soil could have ended up in a sudden surprise in the form of large, unexplainable bones of an unknown being (Sanz 24-25). On the other end of the spectrum are the real, living creatures that an everyday man can face with. It is enough to ponder the character of the crocodiles, alligators, various sea predators, or even the lizards of the deep jungles. Even in the beginning of the twentieth century, a pilot, whose plane crashed into the islands of Indonesia, has mistaken the komodo dragon of the magical beast: “The airman came back with a tale that he had met fierce and monstrous dragons, at least four meters long, which according to the inhabitants ate pigs, goats, and deer, and even attacked horses” (Huevelmans 50). In consequence, it can be indubitably understood that a face-to-face encounter with “dragons” was a possibility not only centuries, but even a few decades ago. Therefore assuming

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