Wolf vs. Dragon. What if Medieval Dragons Were Wolf-Headed Snakes from Antiquity?

• Giuseppe Delia ^[1]
  1. [1] Durham University

     Durham University

     Reino Unido

     
• Localización: New Frontiers in Archaeology: proceedings of the Cambridge Annual Student Archaeology Conference 2019 / Kyra Kaercher (ed. lit.), Monique Arntz (ed. lit.), Nancy Bomentre (ed. lit.), Xosé L. Hermoso Buxán (ed. lit.), Kevin Day (ed. lit.), Sabrina Ki (ed. lit.), Ruairidh Macleod (ed. lit.), Helena Muñoz Mojado (ed. lit.), Lucy Timbrell (ed. lit.), Izzy Wisher (ed. lit.), 2019, ISBN 978-1-78969-794-0, págs. 195-213
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • In this paper, I would like to discuss a hypothesis regarding the mythological origins of dragons, as imagined in Medieval Europe. This concept potentially comes from Egypt. The impact of Egyptian religion and practices spread throughout the Mediterranean after being collected, interpreted and adapted by the Greeks. In both Egyptian and Greek myths, there are many kinds of threats to mankind, but wolves and snakes played a particular role because they may have represented the most immediate dangers of the untamed nature surrounding villages and cities. This leads to countless ways for these people to deal with them. The major diffusion of Egyptian traditions was via the Roman Empire. When Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, paganism was gradually and systematically rooted out, but some of its features, mainly the iconography of dragons and the philosophy behind them were assimilated by Christians. However, when the knowledge of classical culture became elitist, people lost the references in some tales and images, so they found new ways to explain them, usually distorting their meanings. The transmission of stories is usually affected by word-of-mouth, which tends to enrich and shape the original narrative in a multitude of ways and add or delete things to meet the audiences’ tastes. I argue that is also the case with wolves-snakes and dragons in Medieval times.