On the Origin of Dragons

[Corva]

Here we shall speculate on where humans originally got the idea of giant winged firebreathing lizards from.

In the world today, there *are* 'winged' lizards which can glide quite a way, though they're not capable of flying. However, their not found in a lot of the areas we get our dragon myths from. Perhaps the idea's spread over time, and mutated until it gained size and firebreath?

Also, there are snakes which are able to launch themselves into the air like a spring, and then glide. This may be a possible origin of the more serpentine dragons found in east asiain mythology...

[BeneathTheStarlight36]

i believe that humans got the idea of dragons from dragons actually existing in some way. scientifically speaking, then maybe dragons actually walked this Earth. or if they got the idea from religion, they were the product of some kind of prophetic dreams. like they were part of an objectively true religious belief, but became part of untrue mythologies and fictional stories.

i'm not telling anybody else here to believe that, i'm just saying that's what i believe.

dragons can be compared to some things in nature though, i can see why that'd come up.

[asdf]

I don't know about you, but an idea I've seen thrown around is the "primal fears" thing. Ya know, how you can combine stuff cavemen would fear like snakes/alligators, birds of prey, and fire and what do you get? A Dragon!

My favorite theory though is still them actually existing.

[Forgotten Dragon's Ire]

Well considering how many cultures who have no history of ever having contact with each other all have a similar creature that roughly equates to what we think of as a dragon. I personally think that their must be something behind this coincidence like some sort of creature that has for some reason disappeared from our sight.