Dragons - The Origin of Dragons - Extra Mythology

myths are not stories that are untrue rather they are tales that don't fit neatly into the historical record which serve as a foundation to a culture gather around the campfire myth lovers or you know your screens because today we're going to try a little thought experiment when I say the word dragon what do you think of you probably picture a serpent like creature with clawed feet that flies and has a long horse like face but some of you may be thinking of a terrifying monster and others an auspicious sign of good luck so where do these disparate myths of a dragon come from nearly every civilization on earth has dreamt up a creature we might call a dragon from the Babylonian Mushka shoe with its snake-like body and lion like paws to the Egyptians serpent God a pap the enemy of raw who tries to cast the Sun from the sky dragons have been with us since the dawn of civilization though in fact they actually predate what we often call civilization for even older dragons can be found in the Jade carvings and Neolithic pottery of China Quetzalcoatl the feathered serpent of Aztec fame was the dragon of Mesoamerica centuries before European sales appeared on their Shores and the Rainbow Serpent of Aboriginal Australian faith is perhaps the oldest continuously venerated deity in the world from the world's serpent of Viking myth to the venerable Japanese dragon there's almost no part of the globe where we don't find dragon like creatures they appear in some of our earliest myths they're one of the first things we as a species ever dreamt up either to frighten us or to protect us to nurture the world or destroy it but why o fiddy a phobia or fear of snakes might be one reason it's been shown that human beings have a biological reaction to serpents and our fear of them is atavistic and primal it exists deep below our conscious level in our amygdala show us a snake and our internal alarm system starts to go off it's why even if you aren't afraid of snakes you might have felt your skin start to crawl or get that tiny goose bump feeling prickling your arms when you see one or feel one slither over you but let's face it a lot folks are afraid of snakes in fact it's the single most common reported phobia and statistically more than a third of you right now have some fear of snakes so with this ancient primal urge it makes sense we'd create powerful creatures or deities out of Serpas myths can form from manifestations of our subconscious and here's one of our strongest subconscious triggers but there are other interesting answers too let's look at some of the distinguishing features of the dragon a surprising number of cultures give the dragon an odd non serpentine head from the horse like head of the dragons of Western Europe to the camel like head of the dragons of China we often get a facial structure on these beings wholly unlike what we think of on a snake and if dragons are just manifestations of our fears why not just adopt the image whole hog or you know serpent well there's one theory that says it was dinosaurs more accurately than it was fossils as people around the world stumbled on the bones of these giant creatures they naturally imagined what beings they might have come from and not knowing what parts went where it's easy to see Stegosaurus plates as huge scales or look at a Triceratops skull and start giving things all manner of gnarly horns plus early people not necessarily realizing that sometimes they'd see piles of bones from several different animals they'd string together a fanciful creation even putting multiple heads on things like the dragons from Slavic myth or the famous Hydra and there's even some argument though it's more of a hypothesis than anything remotely conclusive that the different fossils around the world also help account for the variations in dragons though again take that with a grain of salt because it seems like there's just as much if not more evidence against that idea as for it another theory though favors our own predilection for telling tall tales in a few go-rounds the campfire it's easy for that crocodile that almost got you to go from being 10 feet long to being 30 sprouting wings and breathing flames but of course this is one of those hypotheses that feel right but we'll never really be able to verify for sure next there's whales a number of Dragons especially across Northern Europe and Asia are associated with water seeing a whale leap could almost seem like flight and seeing a whale launch a geyser as it surfaces for air could easily lead the imagination to the idea it might be able to breathe all sorts of in an explosive turret interestingly though wherever they came from all of us around the globe interpret them in different ways in Western Europe dragons are often seen as evil and even used as allegories for demons or the devil after Christianity became the dominant religion while in China dragons were seen as wise and benevolent a symbol of good luck strength and prosperity and of course these different Reebs on dragons directly affect our myths about them for in Europe stories evolved about heroes slaying dragons while in China stories were created about heroes descending from them or seeking them out to get their help now this next part is only my own personal pet theory but I think this was at least a little bit dare I say political politics and myths well now they've ruined everything see in ancient Greece in medieval Europe where society is dis unified you get a lot of dragon stories however in the Roman period you don't get as many so to me this is because in that chaotic world of local politics you as a politician want to symbolize a dangerous enemy that will ravage the countryside something that only a strong leader and their heroic retinue can defend you from but in Rome you of course don't want anything that could imply there were things out in the world that the state couldn't handle and in China with the long there version of the dragon things went even a step further by associating the dragon with wisdom and might well used and then associating the imperial house with the dragon a myth cycle was created that reinforced the social order and helped encourage the idea of a wise and benevolent ruler now again that's wild speculation and in fact I'm not even a hundred percent sure if I believe it but it's always interesting to think of myths not just on their own but as a product of the societies that they came from what I find hard to believe is how these dragons could exist at all within the rules of physics and biology Hey whoo Lian permitted earth at my campfire whoa good thing I brought extra animated marshmallows hey listen I'm so glad you're here because I was just thinking how some dragons throughout history might be considered more plausible than others exactly in fact we could probably rank them by most realistic I mean dragon I isn't going anywhere with those tiny wings true plus I've never heard of a flying animal as giant as drogon oh man now I'm thinking of so many pop culture dragons let's head over to the minute earth Channel and rank them lead the way good sir oh and Zoe could you please make who Leon's marshmallows to go yeah nice and crispy [Music] legendary thanks to patrons Kyle Murgatroyd and Amancio Turk [Applause] [Music] [Music]

Channel: Extra Credits

Views: 810,992

Rating: 4.9296322 out of 5

Keywords: documentary, extra credits, extra credits mythology, extra mythology, james portnow, joe maslov, matt krol, video essay, chinese dragons, norse mythology, dragon mythology, western dragons, eastern dragons, mythological dragons, types of dragons, mythical creatures, mythical dragons, chinese dragons vs western dragons, dragon mythology east versus west, dragons, game of thrones, westeros, dracarys, pokemon, yoshi

Id: rL8qSfXIo4M

Length: 7min 33sec (453 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 04 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/megalithicman]

The Stave churches of Norway are essentially dragon temples... https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/stave-churches-are-all-wood-dragons-and-beauty