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Tag: #dragons

India

There was not much that I could find when doing the research for this blog post. So this may be shorter than the other ones that have already been published. The sources I manage to find were more focused on the hero of the story than the bad guy. The two main characters of this story are Indra and Vritra.

Indra is compared to the Greek god Zesus and the Norse god Odin the terms of being referred as the king of the gods. He is the god of thunderbolts and is a warrior that defeats asuras. Asuras are anti-gods which I thought of as gods that have evil intentions. Indra’s most famous defeat is of Vritra.

Vritra is asuras and his anatomy and physical aspects are snake-like. He caused droughts because he would hoard rains, rivers, and in general all of the water. In order to defeat Vritra Indra was powered by soma which gives the drinker immortality. He broke Vritra’s jaw in two fully killing the asura.

https://in.pinterest.com/pin/291537775856335724/

When learning about these two figures in Indian mythology I kept thinking about the similarities between them and the story I talked about in my Norse blog post. Both the heroes of the story are gods related to thunder and the villains are related to water. The villains are serpent-like and are defeated by the gods. It makes me think about how many other mythology tales could be similar.

Links to the sources that were used:

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Indra#ref942544

Greek

https://dragon-vibe.com/blogs/dragon-blog/dragons-in-greek-mythology

I decided to look into Greek mythology because it is another subject that I am interested in. I’ve always been fascinated by the stories about the different gods and monsters. My god and goddess I have to say are Hades and Artemis. Hades because honestly just due to Cerberus and Artemis because of what she represents. She is the goddess of hunting, wild nature, and chastity. I got a little off-topic.

In Greek mythology, there was no definite physical definition of a dragon. It was not what we typically think of when we think of a dragon. It was more described as serpent-like. There are four different types of these “dragons”. The four types are dracones, cetea, chimaera, and dracaenae. I will briefly talk about these four different types and offer one example for each one. I will then talk about two specific creatures that are the reason for most of these creatures.

Dracones

The creatures that were considered this type had several heads, serpent-like bodies, poison, and rows upon rows of sharp teeth. These creatures were usually guardians of treasures.

One creature that many may recognize goes by the name is a hydra. A hydra has 9 heads and for every head that was decapitated 2 more would grow. Its task was to guard the springs of Lerna. The hydra was eventually slain by Heracles.

Cetea

These were more sea creatures and those associated with princesses. The Greeks believed the cetea lived in the oceans. The princesses were usually sacrifices to these sea creatures.

Ethiopian cetus is once such creature that was sent to destroy a kingdom by Poseidon, god of the seas. The King of the land tried to sacrifice his daughter but she was recused by Perseus who slain the beast.

Chimaera

The chimaera does breathe fire like a dragon. Its body was a mixture of a lion, serpent, and goat. An example of this type of creature is the Khimaira. The Khimaira has 3 heads, the foreparts of a lion, the hind parts of a goat, a goat’s head on its back, and the tail were the head of a serpent. It was killed by Bellerophon by throwing a spear into her throat causing her to suffocate due to melting the metal.

https://dragon-vibe.com/blogs/dragon-blog/dragons-in-greek-mythology

I added an image because I know it may be hard to imagine.

Dracaenae

The body of a nymph and the lower body parts of a drakon or sea monster. There are two main dracaenae that play roles in Greek mythology. Their names are Ceto and Echidna. Ceto is a marine goddess that has the bottom of a sea monster. She gave birth to Echidna. Echidna married Typhon and their children are some well known monsters, such as the Hydra and Khimaira that were previously mentioned.

Typhon and Echidna

Typhon’s parents are Gaia and Tartarus due to this he was both god and a monster. His reason for birth was to destroy Zeus, the king of the gods. He was able to inhale and breathe fire. Typhon was so giant that his head touched the stars and his eyes were red. He had about 100 heads that are said to be of different creatures or snakes that made different noises. His torso was human and the legs were 100 serpent vipers. There were hundreds of different wings and his hands were the same as his legs.

As previously mentioned he married Echidna. They are known as the father and mother of all monsters. Some of their other children include the Sphinx, Cerberus, and the Lion of Nemea.

I hope that you guys found this as interesting as I did. Let me know what you guys think! I have included the links where I found the information in this blog post.

https://dragon-vibe.com/blogs/dragon-blog/dragons-in-greek-mythology

https://www.theoi.com/greek-mythology/dragons.html


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