A dragonslayer is a person or being that slays dragons. Dragonslayers and the creatures they hunt have been popular in traditional stories from around the world: they are a type of story classified as type 300 in the Aarne–Thompson classification system. They continue to be popular in modern books, films, video games and other forms of entertainment. Dragonslayer-themed stories are also sometimes seen as having a chaoskampf theme—in which a heroic figure struggles against a monster that epitomises chaos.
Description
A dragonslayer is often the hero in a "Princess and dragon" tale. In this type of story, the dragonslayer kills the dragon in order to rescue a high-class female character, often a princess, from being devoured by it. This female character often then becomes the love interest of the account. One notable example of this kind of legend is the story of Ragnar Loðbrók, who slays a giant serpent, thereby rescuing the maiden, Þóra borgarhjörtr, whom he later marries.
There are, however, several notable exceptions to this common motif. In the legend of Saint George and the Dragon, for example, Saint George overcomes the dragon as part of a plot which ends with the conversion of the dragon's grateful victims to Christianity, rather than Saint George being married to the rescued princess character.
In a Norse legend from the Völsunga saga, the dragonslayer, Sigurd, kills Fáfnir—a dwarf who has been turned into a dragon as a result of guarding the cursed ring that had once belonged to the dwarf, Andvari. After slaying the dragon, Sigurd drinks some of the dragon's blood and thereby gains the ability to understand the speech of birds. He also bathes in the dragon's blood, causing his skin to become invulnerable. Sigurd overhears two nearby birds discussing the heinous treachery being planned by his companion, Regin. In response to the plot, Sigurd kills Regin, thereby averting the treachery.
Mythologists such as Joseph Campbell have argued that dragonslayer myths can be seen as a psychological metaphor:
"But as Siegfried learned, he must then taste the dragon blood, in order to take to himself something of that dragon power. When Siegfried has killed the dragon and tasted the blood, he hears the song of nature. he has transcended his humanity and re-associated himself with the powers of nature, which are powers of our life, and from which our minds remove us. …Psychologically, the dragon is one's own binding of oneself to one's own ego."
Dragonslayer characters
Antiquity
- Enki
- Ninurta
- Inanna
- Marduk
- Ra
- Teshub
- Indra
- Garuda
- Janamejaya
- Uttanka
- Baal
- El (deity)
- Yahweh
- Michael
- Daniel
- Apollo
- Perun
- Zeus
- Jupiter
- Perseus
- Heracles
- Menestratus
- Heros
- Saint George
- Vahagn
- Tarḫunz
- Cadmus
- Rostam
- Fereydun
- Garshasp
- Yu the Great
- Erlang Shen
- Li Ji
- Eurybarus
- Mwindo
Medieval and early Modern legend
- Guy of Warwick
- Baldr
- Beowulf
- Sigurd or Siegfried
- Dietrich von Bern
- Tristan
- Margaret the Virgin
- Heinrich von Winkelried
- Gawain
- Dobrynya Nikitich
- Skuba Dratewka/Krakus
- Drangue
- Zjermi
- E Bija e Hënës dhe e Diellit
- Susanoo
- Nezha
- Lancelot
- Făt-Frumos
- Fráech
- Bayajidda
- Bahrām Gūr
- Iovan Iorgovan
- Prâslea the Brave
- Greuceanu
- Haymon
- Wada Heita Tanenaga [ja]
- John Lambton
- Mamadi Sefe Dekote (Africa)
- Benzaiten aka Saraswati
- Teodosio de Goñi
- Piers Shonks
- Dieudonné de Gozon
Tolkien's legendarium
References
- Thompson, Stith (1977). The Folktale. University of California Press. p. 27. ISBN 0-520-03537-2.
- Byock, Jesse L. (1990). Saga of the Volsungs: The Norse Epic of Sigurd the Dragon Slayer. Los Angeles, London: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-23285-2.
- Campbell, Joseph; Moyes, Bill (1988). The Power of Myth. Anchor Books. ISBN 978-0-307-79472-7.
- Campbell, Joseph; Moyes, Bill (1988). The Power of Myth. Anchor Books. ISBN 978-0-307-79472-7.
Further reading
- Bauman, Richard. "A Sixteenth Century Version of The Dragon-Slayer". In: Fabula vol. 11, no. Jahresband, 1970, pp. 137-143. https://doi.org/10.1515/fabl.1970.11.1.137
- Davis, S. (1953). "Argeiphontes in Homer--The Dragon-Slayer". Greece & Rome. 22 (64): 33–38. doi:10.1017/S0017383500011712. JSTOR 640827. S2CID 163106261.
- d'Huy, Julien. (2013). "Le motif du dragon serait paléolithique: mythologie et archéologie". In: Préhistoire du Sud-Ouest. 21. pp. 195–215.
- d'Huy, Julien. (2014). "Mythologie et statistique. Reconstructions, évolution et origines paléolithiques du combat contre le dragon". In: Mythologie française. pp. 17–23.
- Hart, Donn V.; Hart, Harriett C. (October 1960). "A Philippine Version of 'The Two Brothers and the Dragon Slayer' Tale". Western Folklore. 19 (4): 263. doi:10.2307/1497353. JSTOR 1497353.
- Jagiełło, Mieszek (2021). “Thoughts on the Symbolism and Origin of Apollo’s Fight Against the Pythian Snake”. In: Classica Cracoviensia 24 (December): 25-39. https://doi.org/10.12797/CC.24.2021.24.02.
- Järv, Risto (2002). "The Three Suitors of the King's Daughter: Character roles in the Estonian versions of The Dragon Slayer (AT 300)". Folklore. 22 (20–22): 33–48. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.543.2458. doi:10.7592/FEJF2002.22.dragons.
- Markus-Takeshita, Kinga Ilona (2001). "From Iranian Myth to Folk Narrative: The Legend of the Dragon-Slayer and the Spinning Maiden in the Persian Book of the Kings". Asian Folklore Studies. 60 (2): 203–214. doi:10.2307/1179054. JSTOR 1179054.
- Ramsey, Jarold (1999). "Ti-Jean and the Seven-Headed Dragon: Instances of Native American Assimilation of European Folklore". Reading the Fire: The Traditional Indian Literatures of America. University of Washington Press. pp. 222–236. ISBN 978-0-295-97787-4. JSTOR j.ctvcwn26j.18.
- Róheim, Géza (1940). "The Dragon and the Hero". American Imago. 1 (2): 40–69. JSTOR 26300857.
- Róheim, Géza (1940). "THE DRAGON AND THE HERO (Part Two)". American Imago. 1 (3): 61–94. JSTOR 26300866.
- Simpson, Jacqueline (1978). "Fifty British Dragon Tales: An Analysis". Folklore. 89 (1): 79–93. doi:10.1080/0015587X.1978.9716092. JSTOR 1260098.
- Smith, Karen P. (2006). "Serpent-Damsels and Dragon-Slayers". In Csonka-Takács, Eszter (ed.). Christian Demonology and Popular. Vol. 2. Central European University Press. pp. 121–138. ISBN 978-963-7326-76-9. JSTOR 10.7829/j.ctt2jbmrh.10.
- van der Schaaf, Baukje Finet; Ditzel, Ruth; Kooper, Erik (1994). "The 'Lai de Tyolet' and 'Lancelot and the Whitefooted Stag': Two Romances Based on a Folktale Motif". Arthuriana. 4 (3): 233–249. doi:10.1353/art.1994.0039. JSTOR 27869068. S2CID 162109364.
- Vaz da Silva, Francisco (2003). "Iberian Seventh-Born Children, Werewolves, and the Dragon Slayer: A Case Study in the Comparative Interpretation of Symbolic Praxis and Fairytales". Folklore. 114 (3): 335–353. doi:10.1080/0015587032000145379. hdl:10071/614. JSTOR 30035123.
- Witzel, Michael (2008). "Slaying the Dragon across Eurasia". In Hot Pursuit of Language in Prehistory. pp. 263–286. doi:10.1075/z.145.21wit. ISBN 978-90-272-3252-6.
External links
Media related to Dragonslayers at Wikimedia Commons
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