Yay 100!
As to 'silly', I'll let that one go. I am not asserting 'blind copying'. I do assert that Tolkien's dragons are based on those found in Germanic myth, particularly Fafnir and the Beowulf dragon. The evidence from the texts bears that out. I know of no others. I guess the question may be phrased thus:
"Is it safe to say that characteristics of dragons from Germanic, Finnish, and Celtic myth can be assumed to exist in Tolkien's dragons unless it is clear from Tolkien's mythos that they cannot fit?"
It is clear that Tolkien went beyond the two we know of in Glaurung, whose cunning went beyond Fafnir, and obviously beyond the Beowulf dragon.
I gotta run off to work. Back later.
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