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#11 | |
Itinerant Songster
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: The Edge of Faerie
Posts: 7,066
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Here's the result of my research. The primary Dragons and Serpents are:
1) Fafnir (not of the Nibelunglied, but the Volsunga saga - sorry, my mistake) 2) Beowulf's Dragon 3) Lemmenkainen's Serpent 1) Fafnir is without wings, and spits poison. He doesn't begin to speak until after Sigurd has dealt the death blow. But from thereon he proceeds to prophesy, warn, and curse Sigurd (for going after his hoard), revealing an uncanny intelligence and 'fea' of mythic proportion. To save space and prevent boredom for those not so keen on this, I refer you to the website: The Story of the Volsungs 2) Beowulf's Dragon does not speak, but it flies and vomits fire. It is ferocious. I have the book, so I didn't look up a website for this one. 3) Lemmenkainen's Serpent. For info on this one, see Rune XXVI. Origin of the Serpent I'll quote from it briefly so you can get a sense of its proportions: Quote:
[img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] There's probably more in the tradition, but I wanted to get back to this thread before too much time passed. Anyway, I see similarity between Fafnir on one hand and Glaurung & Smaug on the other, especially Glaurung (both Turin and Sigurd are heroes who face tragic ends). The sheer ferocity of Beowulf's Dragon sets it apart. It's the only fire-breathing Dragon I've found so far. As to Balrogs versus Dragons, my initial sense upon doing this brief research is that: 1) there are levels of power among Dragons/Serpents. Intelligence that allows for speech may play a factor in this. 2) it's anybody's guess whether poison would be any more effective against Balrogs (spirits of fire) than firey breath. 3) Gandalf used words against the Balrog, not unlike Lemminkainen against the Serpent. But there was a physical battle between Gandalf and the Balrog, as has been said here already. A lot more can be said, but I'll let it go at this for now. |
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