tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4176769156825838190.post1581148513939228583..comments2022-04-11T01:28:17.873-07:00Comments on A Blog of Beasts!: Can We Evade the Scaly Claws of Euhemerism?Animals in the Middle Ageshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10809281152134119502noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4176769156825838190.post-35666975666043931012015-06-01T08:13:31.643-07:002015-06-01T08:13:31.643-07:00"The problem with all of these ideas, much as..."The problem with all of these ideas, much as we raised in class, is that both simplistic euhemerism and simplistic symbolism is that they assume a code that scholars can and should break to read the truth. Any story that fails the litmus test of modern scientific rationalism is not a fundamentally different type of tale, but rather a simple historico-cultural fact hidden behind a scaly cipher." Nicely put! Perhaps a way out of the tangle, which I tried to suggest in class but didn't develop properly: medieval Christians thought of dragons as real animals <i>and</i> symbolic creatures, whereas we (moderns) tend to think of dragons as real phenomenon disguised as symbols. In their understanding, for the dragons to be symbolic at all, they needed to be real animals, whereas we tend to put "real animals" in one category and "symbolic animals" in another. So, oddly, while we think of dinosaurs as real, we do not tend to give them any particular symbolism other than "great beasts," while simultaneously excluding dragons from the category "real animals" precisely because they are symbolic for us (of evil, greed, or simply "fantasy"). RLFBAnimals in the Middle Ageshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10809281152134119502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4176769156825838190.post-23988793209408070652015-05-31T01:01:55.595-07:002015-05-31T01:01:55.595-07:00Also, I rather liked The Thirteenth Warrior. It se...Also, I rather liked <i>The Thirteenth Warrior.</i> It seems a little unfair to call its explanation of Beowulf's dragon disappointingly mundane and then go on to adduce an incident where something as mundane as lightning inspired a story of the Devil himself.Luke Bretscherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02570008416437578457noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4176769156825838190.post-75963473008075106452015-05-31T00:44:57.952-07:002015-05-31T00:44:57.952-07:00Your post is interesting, but I'm not entirely...Your post is interesting, but I'm not entirely certain that I understand what you're getting at. If I have not badly misinterpreted, then your main point is that those who write about draconic myth tend disproportionately to find euhemeristic explanations for characteristics of dragons. This is certainly plausible; historians are often criticized, not without reason, for trying to make the past just-so—to fit things into neat molds where they don't belong.<br /><br />For some aspects of draconic myth I don't doubt that you are correct. Folklore and its evolution are, as you showed with the Black Shuck of Bungay story, often highly chaotic and unpredictable. But that is just one incident. For such an enduring myth as that of the dragon to be built up, one suspects there simply must be some (more or less logical) set of phenomena that keep it going. That doesn't mean, of course, that we will be able to find those phenomena, or that we have found them if we think we have. So in that way you may still be quite correct. I would simply warn against dismissing the draconic myth as entirely unexplainable.<br /><br />I do like your point about the "age-old iconographic tradition" which may well have shaped the idea of dragons. The draconic myth as we've been discussing it, though, seems a bit more specific than can be explained by that alone.Luke Bretscherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02570008416437578457noreply@blogger.com