Dragons of Europe! <le> <al> <el> <il>
There are a lot of stories about dragons that have been told through time. They are not real, but they can tell us a lot about the places that they are from. In this book, we will look at some ways that people told stories about dragons in Europe long ago.
Most dragons from Europe are mean beasts. They have bad labels. They steal gold, kidnap people, and launch attacks on towns. In these stories, there is often a hero that slays the dragon and brings peace.
Here is a tiny, German dragon called a puk. If you are good to it, a puk will sleep in the house and steal things for you. If you are not, it will burn you or torch the house down.
Most dragons of Europe have wings, legs and feet with claws. Many have horns. They are the types of dragons that give you a fright to look at.
Some dragons are hybrids, which means that they have parts of other beasts. It is common to see dragon hybrids that have the back or front of big cats and birds.
When you start looking, dragons are on all sorts of things. You can see items from European history with dragons. Some were for fights and others were works of art. There are also a lot of dragon statues, such as gargoyles. These dragons come from a French legend.
Slavic and Norse dragons are often on the next level. They are mean and scary. One Norse dragon is a small brute that crawls in the roots of the world tree and chews at them.
Some dragons were sea serpents or other beasts. Old maps had drawings of these monsters around some waters. It was to warn sailors of what may haunt those seas. Sometimes the maps had 'Here be dragons' on them.
You can even look for dragons in the night sky. There are a few groups of stars named after dragons. We name a lot of other things up there after myths as well, like planets and asteroids.
Saint George slayed the dragon to rescue the princess, taking refuge from its venom under an orange tree. A well-liked dragon story is that of Saint George. A dragon made demands for a maiden to be brought to it daily for it to eat. The last one left was the princess.
This is a symbol that you see in a lot of games, films and novels. It shows a dragon with its tail in its mouth. It stands for many things, such as the cycles in the world.
Dragons can be found all over. The ways that people think about these beasts shift over time, but we will always have their stories around.