Her hair was made of venomous, spitting snakes long, curved claws grew out from her hands her feet were made of more spitting snakes the heads of dozens of snarling beasts- including lions, wild boars, and dogs- sprouted from around her waist and she had the huge upward-curving tail of a scorpion. She had the head and upper torso of a beautiful woman and the lower body of a serpent. An interesting twist on this: the drakainae, or “she-dragons,” of which Kampe was one of the most bizarre. In fact, the Greeks gave us the root of the word “dragon”- drakon, their name for these monsters. (Image credit: DeviantART member ropen7789)Īncient Greek mythology tells of literally hundreds of dragonlike creatures, going back to at least the eighth century B.C. He has magical powers, including the ability to change the shape of his face and that most dragonlike characteristic: the ability to breathe fire. Humbaba is described as having the head and paws of a lion, the horns of a bull, the claws of a vulture, a body covered in scales, and a long tail which ended in the head of a snake.
In one tale, Gilgamesh sets out to kill the guardian of the Cedar Forest, a terrifying beast known as Humbaba. The tablets, which date to the eighteenth century B.C., tell the stories of Gilgamesh, the legendary warrior king of Uruk, a city in Sumer. He was also said to have magical powers, including the ability to hypnotize other gods with his gaze- very similar to a characteristic later attributed to other dragons.Īnother of the earliest dragonlike monsters, this beast is in one of the oldest known pieces of literature, the Epic of Gilgamesh, found etched into clay tablets in the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh. Yet other images show him with a large, stout body a long tail and the arms, hands, and face of a human. In some paintings he looks like a long skinny snake in others he is part snake, part crocodile. In the Egyptian Book of the Dead, which dates to 2100 B.C., he is described as a giant serpent, more than 50 cubits (about 75 feet) long, with a head made of flint. One of history’s earliest recorded mythical creatures with dragonlike characteristics, this ancient Egyptian god, also called the “Evil Lizard,” was the god of darkness and evil. Here are some of the most historically significant dragonlike beasts ever recorded. And while the beasts in these stories vary greatly, they have several traits in common: they are virtually always depicted as having snakelike or lizardlike bodies, they’re almost always covered or partially covered in scales, and they often (but not always) have wings. Stories of enormous, terrifying reptilian beasts have been part of folklore around the world for longer than the written record can tell us. Here’s a look at some dragons you may not have heard of.
You’ve heard of Puff the Magic Dragon Smaug, the dragon in The Hobbit and Norbert, the dragon in the Harry Potter books. The following is an article from the book Uncle John's Canoramic Bathroom Reader.
0 kommentar(er)
