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also described vaguely and mysteriously as being at the edge of the oceans
of the world.
Another dragon was overcome by Jason and the Argonauts in their quest
for the magical Golden Fleece.10 It is told that the hero Jason reached
Colchis, which is described as being located in Georgia, near the Black Sea.
Forced to complete three apparently impossible tasks to win the fleece, Jason
was helped by the king s daughter Medea, who, assisted by the love arrows
of Eros, fell in love with him. The third and final task was to overcome the
dragon who never slept, who guarded the fleece. To induce sleep, Medea
used drops of a sleep-inducing potion made from magical herbs.
Dragon Power 47
DRAGONS IN SCANDINAVIAN AND
EUROPEAN TRADITIONS
Scandinavian dragons are the true fire and earth dragons, living in deep sub-
terranean caves. Stemming from the Norse world, dragons have a strong tra-
dition in Scandinavia, Germany, and other parts of Western Europe (where
the Anglo-Saxons settled) as guardians of treasure, a quality they shared with
Celtic dragons. Dragons were accorded a certain respect, and the Vikings had
dragons on the prows of their ships to strike fear into enemies seeing them
approaching the land. The Vikings would lower these figureheads when
approaching home so as not to offend the land wights, or spirits, on the cliff
tops. In the Norse as well as the Anglo-Saxon and Celtic traditions, dragons
were thought to guard the wealth of chiefs, who were sometimes buried with
fabulous treasures for their life in the next world. It was believed that deceased
warriors might be transformed into dragons to protect the gold hoards of their
chiefs from grave robbers an apt deterrent that may partly explain the Fafnir
and Beowulf legends in which the stolen treasure is cursed.
Norse and European myths describe dragons in great detail as possessing
all or some of the following features: eagle s feet, batlike wings, the front legs
of a lion, a reptile/dinosaur s head with a huge mouth and teeth from which
smoke and fire pours, huge scales, the horns of an antelope, a soft underbelly,
and a spade-like snake or lizard tail that may begin close to the head.
Smaller fire drakes found in the myths of France and Germany do not have
wings, but they are also cave dwellers, red with fiery breath, where they live
with their great hoards the riches of the earth.
According to Bulgarian dragon lore, the male dragon was a fire dragon and
a benign protector of humans and crops. Bulgarian dragons had three heads
and three wings. Scandinavian and European dragons, already described in
the section on dragon-slaying saints, were thought to grow to be up to sixty
feet long. They laid eggs, although the incubation period of their eggs was
much shorter than that of Chinese dragons.
THE GIGANTIC DRAGONS OF SCANDINAVIA
In Scandinavian myth, two gigantic dragons appear, similar to the Ancient
Egyptian world serpent. The dragon Nio"gg, or Nidhogg, whose name
means dread biter, lived in Nifleheim, the realm of ice and snow. He
devoured the corpses of those who had been evil in life. The World Tree
Yggdrasil contained the nine realms that made up the Norse universe,
48 Fabulous Creatures, Mythical Monsters, and Animal Power Symbols
including Asgard, realm of the gods, near the top; Midgard, the realm of
humans, in the center; and Nifleheim, the regions of cold and darkness, at
the base of the tree, to which the dead descended who were not chosen to
live with the gods.
One of the roots of the World Tree extended over Nifleheim. Nidhogg
constantly gnawed at this root, when he was not devouring the corpses of
criminals (or of other evildoers banished there). Nidhogg s movements were
held responsible for earthquakes in the Viking world. Nidhogg, eating away
at the roots of the World Tree, was one of the factors predicted to contribute
to the literal fall of the world of the old gods and race of old human gods,
when a great earthquake would shake the tree and cause it to be uprooted.
This destruction would culminate in the battle of Ragnarok.
As with Ancient Egyptian dragons, there is some confusion with Scandina-
vian dragons over what is a serpent and what is a dragon. Jormungand, or Ior-
mungandr, was described as the offspring of the trickster god Loki and his
giantess wife Angurboda, whose name means anguish boding. Jormungand,
known as the World Serpent, encircled the whole of the ocean surrounding
Midgard, the world of mortals. Jormungand was so large that he had to bite
his own tail. When he turned, tempests and tidal waves were said to be caused
in the world.11 At the last battle Jormungand would rise from the ocean onto
the land, causing floods and tidal waves never before seen. It was foretold by
the Norns, the three Norse goddesses of Fate, that Jormungand would fatally
poison the Thunder god Thor, but that at the same time he would be killed
by the dying god.
Fafnir was another significant Norse and German dragon. (The Anglo-
Saxon culture shared many of the Viking myths.) Norse myth records that the
dwarf Regin persuaded his godson Sigurd (called Sigfried in Germany) to
seek and kill Fafnir, who had a fabulous hoard of treasure. However, Sigurd
did not know that Fafnir was the brother of Regin. In one version of the
myth, Fafnir had been rewarded with a hoard of gold and gems by the gods.
He was so afraid of losing it that he hid in a cave with it, and over the years
he turned into dragon form because of his obsession with the gold.
Of course the whole dragon-slaying idea was actually a plot by Regin to
seize the hoard for himself. Sigurd rode with Regin to find the dragon. At
Reign s suggestion they hid in a deep ditch, and when Fafnir came to drink
at a nearby pool, Sigurd stabbed his soft underbelly with his magical
sword. Regin cut out the heart of his brother and roasted it, but some of the
hot fat dripped on Sigurd s finger. He licked the burn and immediately under-
stood the language of the birds, who told him that Regin intended to kill him
as well. Therefore Sigurd beheaded the dwarf and claimed the treasure and
the wisdom of the birds for himself.
Dragon Power 49
In another version, Fafnir killed his own father in order to take the treas-
ure his father owned, and hid in a cave with it. Because of this evil deed, he
was transformed into a dragon. This is very different from the Chinese con-
cept described earlier in which becoming a dragon was a blessing. In a third
version of the legend from the Volsungr Saga, Fafnir was changed into a
dragon after stealing the cursed treasure of the dwarf Andvari.12
BEOWULF AND THE DRAGON
The most famous English dragon slayer after St George was Beowulf, who
was also non-English. The epic poem Beowulf was written in England in the
seventh or eighth century CE, or perhaps later during the twelfth century.
The poem recounts events from the late fifth and early sixth centuries CE, and
it originally comes from Swedish sources.13 This was the time when the
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