It's interesting to learn that maps didn't actually warn "Here be dragons", be it in Latin, English, or any other language. But did the people of the time believe that dragons were out there on the open seas? In a way, they wouldn't be wrong thinking that. That is, aside from questions of literal belief, a dragon is nifty shorthand for adverse sailing conditions. Say there's a spot where your ship stands a better than average change of being either capsized or becalmed. If you say that dragons are there, that's a pretty vivid way of describing the conditions.
That's not getting into the fact that there were and are some unusual creatures in the sea, some of which we may not have discovered in our own time.
As for the dragon fighting a giant lobster, I don't know what to say. Big fan of shellfish?
2 comments:
Oddly enough, I happen to be reading what may well be Michael Crichton's first book (published posthumously in 2017) called Dragon Teeth. It's the (relatively) true story of a young man, William Johnson, who joined a world renowned paleontologist on his journey into the west on his latest expedition.
Crichton who was known for being an excellent researcher, delved into a number of fascinating details relevant to the period and the place. One of them is the history of dinosaurs about which he said: "In 1876, scientific acceptance of dinosaurs was still relatively recent; at the turn of the century, men did not suspect the existence of these great reptiles at all, although the evidence was there to see."
Since dinosaur bones have been found worldwide over the course of history I wonder if they were interpreted as pieces of creatures that once existed, i.e. dragons. There certainly have been enough legends about them to make the idea worth contemplating. No wonder they struck a generalized terror in the populace and no wonder when men were going to sea the unknown spaces became the territory of dragons.
and we still wonder about the Kraken...
I read Dragon Teeth a few years back. I don't remember all the details, but I do remember it being a pretty fun read. (Relatively) true is the best way to describe it. Johnson himself is an invention of Crichton, but his mentor Edward Drinker cope was very real. There are other historical figures who show up, some of them quite surprising. Robert Louis Stevenson is one of these, although he did tour the United States in real life.
Natural history was a very new study in 1876, of course. Both evolution and the idea of large extinctions in the past were still controversial. Even scientists who believed in them might find the idea of giant reptiles who'd dominated nearly every continent a little much to accept. It was wild enough to learn that there had been creatures closely related to elephants in North America.
It's interesting to think about where the idea of dragons came from. Probably numerous sources, and just coming across a crocodile under the right circumstances could get things rolling. But finding, say, a skull or foot that didn't correspond to any living animals you knew could also support it. Put them together and yes, you might start thinking that there are living dragons at large in the world.
Hugely annoying that if you just Google "kraken" the top result is a cryptocurrency. SEO is a plague.
Post a Comment