I complained a while back that I didn’t know anything about dragons. Mythmoot VI took care of that for me.
Kevin Hensler is a student of ancient theology who did a great job backtracking through history to the origins of dragons. He started by noting the story parallels between the creation myths in Genesis chapter 1 and the Enuma Elish. Ever wonder what “divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament” means? I never figured it out, because I didn’t know about the older Babylonian text. The Babylonians, like any farmers, saw separating fresh water from salt water as the key to life.
Despite what you read in the Monster Manual, Tiamat wasn’t exactly a dragon, though they’ve found quite a few artworks that show a multi-headed lizard-thing fighting with the god Marduk, which may well be she. Kevin called her a “chaos creature”. All through history, storm gods have fought chaos creatures. Marduk vs. Tiamat turns to Thor vs. the Midgard Serpent turns to St. George vs. the Dragon. So it’s not a stretch to translate that ancient word into “dragon”. In general, a chaos creature’s role is to threaten society; the god’s job is to prevent that.
Kevin stops here; now comes my speculation. This gives us a pretty good idea of how old dragon-legends are: if the local religion’s purpose is to protect an established order from external chaos, then it must post-date agriculture. (Perhaps not by much.) A hunter-gatherer society wouldn’t see an established order as something that needs reinforcement, and a fishing society would see a storm god as someone to root against.
So why, as Richard asked, do dragons have hoards? Kevin says it’s because destroying the social order gives all power and wealth to the strongest. A hoard of treasure shows the audience the power of the dragon. This goes well with the idea that when you kill a dragon you ought to share the wealth as broadly as you can. Trying to keep it all exposes you to dragon-sickness like it did to Thorin. Even if the hero doesn’t spread the treasure out on the ground for all comers like that communist Bombadil, it’s still part of every legend that the hero either has to be generous with the loot or end up like a dragon himself.
I picked up one of the notepads on the tables in the main room and found this in it. If you’re the artist, let me know!
Steve Devine
O Mighty Canal Supervisor:
Here at the kava bar we had a similar craze for the “Seven” Tablets of Destiny (Number 5 got pulverized, darn it.) / Enuma Elish that lasted almost all of August. The section about the “Firmament to Divide the Waters” was, yes, pretty haunting. The revelation of why “De Rastaman hate De Babylon” answered a few questions, but wasn’t exactly a surprise. Having the hero physically walk around bound in the Tablets of Destiny so he could be clothed in the Law and the Prophecy as he paraded about was a particularly nice touch — that theme is an “Evergreen”. I guess the reason it never gets old is because people never stop doing that stuff.
After that I read through the Sumerian King List, and let me tell you man, that one stopped me cold. Use the ancient.eu link, and start reading it at the bottom going upwards for full impact. Mind-boggling.
Joe
Nice move, Enlil-bani!