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.
Does he offer an explanation on why dragons are winged in plenty myths?EDIT: raptors, illiterate me. Raptors.The linked article mentions that one of the predator types merged into the dragon is raptors (as in birds of prey, not velociraptors)
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 ]
I still have deep-seated, instinctual nightmares of the merg.
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.
