TIL that in the work, An Instinct for Dragons, an anthropologist argues that the universality of dragons across human societies is due to evolutionary reasons, with common primate predators being merged into a hybrid monster.
I still have deep-seated, instinctual nightmares of the merg.
Your post is right up there with that askouija: Put your money in the bag, this is a bag
Ha! I wrote a paper about the meaning of dragons for a undergrad anthropology college course in 2003 and I cited the heck out of this book. Also Mythical Beasts edited by John Cherry.
well we’re waiting_judgesmail.gif I mean…dude. You gotta tell us what you got on the paper. How’d you score?
Oh wow. No one ever asks about my undergrad grades anymore. It was a study-abroad in London, UK at Goldsmith’s college. I got whatever a UK “D” was at the time, a 55 or something. Thankfully I came with a study-abroad program guide who gave us a “US Grade Equivalent” sheet at the start which said that was a passing grade and I didn’t worry about it. For the course “Animals In Medieval Art and Literature” which became 3 credits of Anthropology at my local state university in the United States toward a Bachelor’s in Science the following year. I entered grad school 4 months after that in an unrelated field and never used this knowledge for anything but trivia since.
Does he offer an explanation on why dragons are winged in plenty myths?EDIT: raptors, illiterate me. Raptors.TL;DR- dragons are what happen when you mash together big cats, big snakes, and big birds of prey
Got it - thanks. My sight simply skipped past the “raptors” part.
[Thanks also @randomsnark@lemmy.ml ]
The linked article mentions that one of the predator types merged into the dragon is raptors (as in birds of prey, not velociraptors)
This would be a bear not a lizard. Idiotic premise.
