There is a pretty stong consensus that Olimpias kept snakes. She was also deeply religious and traditional. Likely the snakes may have well been part of of the older religious traditions (see my ideas on Minoins and the gods and monsters duels earlier), quite possibly as living idols representing drakons. I don't know where Olimpias would have gotten a large constrictor, though, as there were none naitive to the area. Moreover, many supposedly learned Greek philosophers were suprised at much of what they discovered in neighboring countries, so ancient Greece was not Rome, where alien and exotic fauna were well known of and collected.

As for weather a dragon actually made it with Olimpias, wouldn't he have to be a small dragon?

I would like evidence that dragons ever DID exist. Show me some bones. Give me the ISBN number of your Jewish Encyclopedia. Give me cited passages from the books you supposedly find all this information in, hell, I'll even accept links to reputable websites (note the word reputable). All I see in this thread is two people trying to make other people think that they are special because they have made ludicrous claims of special knowledge and experiences that apparently no one else has had. Until any decent evidence (Note: decent evidence does not mean made up cross-language translations of words or stating things that you call facts without sources) I'm going to keep believing that all of this dragon talk is just attention-whoring and I'll wager that everyone else feels the same. I'm sorry if this post comes across as a bit too harsh but I've just read all 54 pages of this thread and it makes my head hurt.


****

EDIT: Ty to gremlin for alerting me to something I missed, just putting this here to avoid posting more clutter

ANOTHER EDIT: Okay, was reading the Jewish Encyclopedia, several things seem strange.


Reading the Babylonian Origin section of the entry on the Seraphim (http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=488&letter=S&search=seraphim)
It says towards the bottom of the paragraph:

It is only natural that these winged guardians of Yhwh's throne were soon ranked as higher beings and invested with the human form or with some features of the human body; and it was because of the very fact that they were adopted into the Yhwh cult that they were, in process of time, ennobled and spiritualized.

This seems to imply that these winged serpents were GIVEN their higher status by the cult of yaweh, which constituted of people. People who had constantly developing religious ideas and lived in a chaotic time. There is no mention of people being confronted physically by these beings, only that the cult of yaweh believed them to exist, an idea that was incorporated from the neighboring Babylonians, and then, over time, the IDEA of dragons gained some footing with the cult of yaweh. This makes it no different from any other religious idea. It was created by humans to further their own sense of belief in their god. None of this has concrete evidence, if one expects to prove that dragons are the servants of gods, one must first prove the existence of god and then move on to proving the existence of dragons, something which I think this thread has aptly proven impossible to do without some kind of reputable, tangible evidence.


[/rant]

Archie, the greeks were fond of etiological musing....that is creating myths that explain earlier myths, or things they cannot oterwise explain....a git like DC.
That said there is a current belief that there is surprising continuity between certain traditions and religious rites, beliefs etc. that can help you put this lot into perspective.
I know it may be an effort, but do a little googling on Athena, particularly in reference to Medusa. You may find that she is related to a number of other female deities, and cthonic traditions. Which include the important reverence of snakes....call them drakons if you wish.
It may get a little confusing, but hold on to the cthonic significance of the snake and you'll see a real continuity of belief that transcends national boundaries.
Just about everything in Greek religion had a symbolic significance, it may be worthwhile looking at these gods/monster duels in this light rather than a straight forward account of one religion supplanting another.
Id be interested to hear what you discover.

you cant have read very closely, there are at least 2 or 3 links to the jewish encyclopedia on this thread. Go get yourself a coffee.

I didn't Google, the Hyenimums kicked me out because I was a Yahoo...

Yes we find some interesting characteristics: Medusa (daughter of sea-titans) forbidden sexual acts (with shape-changing Posidion) transformed into a scaled, winged, serpentine killer, and killed by Persius. There were interesting similarities of the Tiamat story: another serpentine goddess slain by the local hero. This still seems to run with the idea of one tradition demonizing the older tradition, though.



I am most interested in you concept of cthonic traditions, though, where do recommend for research?

dig deeper than the etiological perseus myth....i know it has value of its own but medusa is much older...parallels with tiamat is good...getting there...

her head is on athena's shield. why?


on another note who might triptolemus be paralleled with? how might he be significant to all of this?

I never said that 'IT' actually occured, and even if it had, it would not have produced viable offsrping. It would simply have been a 'performance' to remove all doubt as to Alex's divinity. Even when the ancients depiected the 'goose incident', it is a giant goose unlike no other.

Would zeus simply come down from Olysmpus and mix with, and be mistaken for one of her own pets? Pet snakes were actually VERY common in ancient Greece and Rome. They probably served much like cats in catching mice. It is modern people who try to make Olympias 'unusual' becasue of the Zeus 'thing'.

I have always maintained that the premise for dragons must is inseperable from an intelligent Creator. Many of the worldwide legends all come down to this, and those who accept an intelligent creator find the evidence/belief in dragons far more plausible.

There are many scientists who believe there must be an intelligent creator.

There are no bones becasue these creatures were engineered not to die. Their primary mission seems to have been accomplished, but th fact we see traces of them still, and all around the world, suggests they may still have tasks to perform, or they may simply now be in permanent retirement, but live on, and on because they were designed that way..

Not really entirely true. Lets think of it this way. Dino bones are already discovered to be dinosaurs. But the people are adanmant that they were dragons. Why is that so? I mean, if it were dinos, they'll be jumping for joy. But instead they remained saying that it was dragons. That is something to think of.

Or can we say that they do die, but their bones become dust or something? I mean everything has a possibility

Wait isn't Tiamat like a 5 headed hydra or something? or an entirely different dragon please explain

Actually, the only reference I have seen depicting Tiamat as a hydra is D&D. Game designers (role playing or video) will take elements form myth, but readilly modify them as the main purpose is to entertain, convey mythology. Tiamat has been depicted as a dragon, a serpent, and a woman, to my knowledge.

On the subject of Medusa, other parrallels become apparent. She, like the Fates, and the Norse Norns represent a triple goddess. She is also linked to a leviatheon of the deep (the Ketos who is petrified by her gaze, as opposed to being slain by Persius's sword). Whthout wanting to start an entire thread on the subject of the "sacred female" it is clear the the gods cursed her for her sexual transgressions, while the the instigator (Posidon) is actually doing part of the punishing. There is a clear demarcation with the fates, who are rather ethereal and sexless creatures, and the triple Gorgons, who embody different fierce passions. We may also be witnessing the passing of the warrior-female torch 9or head as it were) to Athena.Unlike the passionate Gorgons, Athena is the exemplar of honor and virginity, her birth from Zeus alone also helps remove any influence of the feminine. Why?
He linking with the ketos is interesting. Here we have the snake-priestis and the sea-dragon as the principal threats, attacking the princess Andromeda. References of virgins or young women associates with dragons and great serpents abound. Either as the popular virgin-sacrifice motif, or as priestesses associated with a serpent or dragon cult. What we may have is a retelling of an older belief system to explain what those women were "really" for in the shrines or religious caves. In a similar manner we see the tale of the Minotaur to explain why youths would go and compete in bull-jumping at the palace of the Minoians. It it possible the ancient legend of the world-serpent in the sea: represented by Jourmingand in the Norse, and Tiamat by the Babylonians, are linked with this tradition?

I don't think many of the religious folk on the boards would agree with that first statement, I find it hard to believe that just because someone believes in a creator god, then they are predisposed to put more faith into the idea of the existence of dragons.

Secondly, there must be something if they exist? Could one not die by accident? Or disease? Or death by attack from another dragon? It's the simple biology of all life forms that they will eventually die, the body runs down over time and even if one takes incredible care of one's body it will still eventually die. I don't necessarily want bones, why has no one ever found a dragon's scale lying on the ground? Or discarded teeth?

hahaha maybe no trophies because hmm they never where real?? so why are there no bones?

Thanks for the bit of information on Tiamat and Medusa Archosaur, its very helpful to find people who kindly give you the correct information, and the one part of medusa that i did not know was that she was linked to leviatheon, how is he connected to him? its very interesting

Actually, I don't think that Medusa is connected with Leviatheon, per se. She was connected with a ketos (a sea-dragon leviatheon creature) in many ways though. Poseidon makes out with her, which is the source of her curse. Then, Perseus kills her. Poseidon then sends the ketos to devour the woman Andromeda. Perseus uses the severed head of Medusa to petrify the ketos.

I do think that there is some some connection in the old legends between these sea-dragons of legend and the female characters that they are often associated with, other than the popularized virgin sacrifice bit.

There is a theory that medusa's head adorning Athena's shield predates the perseus myth...
did you find all you could about Athena?

what about triptolemus?

BTW, the olympian Athena is later...she does spring from Zeus' head, but her mum was metis, who was swallowed by zeus.

Zeus "swllowing" women probably hearkens back to the day when we was a weather controlling 'storm dragon' like Enlil, or maybe he is Enlil by anothr name to another culture, much like Enki to Yaw to Yahweh.

No reptile I am aware of shed scales, and no archosaurs do save for feathers on birds. Dragon teeth may be virtually identical to crocodilian teeth, and these are found ll over the world. Lizards and snakes shed their skin, but turtles and crocs don't.

Crocodiles in captivity that do not struggle with large prey like wildebeasts and such, seldom lose teeth at all. Dragons that largely consumed calves, lambs, and human sacrifices would probably not lose any teeth either.

There are some scientists that claim we may be able to eventually "shut off" the aging process too.

I know some "religious folk" don't like the idea of dragons as heavenly creatures, but the evidence is overwhelming, and apparent in alost every theology. As we have seen there is even good evidence that Yahweh Himself is a dragon, and certainly his highest associates.

This is the reason everyone has dragons. Even the Bible explains that Yahweh is simply the 'lord' over the hebrews, with many more of the same creatures being lords over other cultures. The cannanite and hebrews believed there were 70 such creatures, but they knew little of the whole world. Still, there may not have ever been more.

The goddess Athena existed before olympian Zeus.

Earlier you also stated that Satan and at least some of his demons were also dragons, and many dualistic religions support the idea of angels fighting demons, certainly if these forces were both dragons, and the dualistic religions are correct in believing that these forces do exist and combat each other, it would not be unlikely that every so often one would fall in battle, or at least be injured and shed blood and scales.

Secondly, I find your proposed "evidence" of dragons as heavenly creatures to be hardly extant, much less overwhelming, all you have provided is religious views of a handful of cultures. That is technically anecdotal evidence but is impossible to substantiate, just the same as it is impossible to prove that there is/was/ever will be a god, that jesus was resurrected, or that the Dalai Lama is actually the 14th reincarnation of Chenrezig. But people still believe these things based on faith. These things are designated as matters of faith because people believe them without any kind of actual proof. It is also impossible then, to prove that yahweh exists, as it is likewise impossible to prove that yahweh has physical form, or that said physical form is a dragon. Until real proof that can be substantiated with physical, usable evidence which is not based on faith can be given, this all still remains just an idea held by one person, maybe a few more, which doesn't seem very significant.

As I tried to prove to myself that enlil or enki is a dragon

On web-based research on Enlil and resource that would prove him a dragon, dragon-like, or even remotely resembling a dragon. pls go to these links, posting what is in those links is very inconvenient. read and see if there is a slight hint or depiction of anything dragon-like

http://www.pantheon.org/articles/e/enlil.html

http://i-cias.com/e.o/enlil.htm

(this provided “The Harps That Once...: Sumerian Poetry in Translation")
http://www.gatewaystobabylon.com/myths/tex...enlilninlil.htm

very detailed and with biblical citations too
http://www.piney.com/BabAnunnki.html

go to this link
http://www.halexandria.org/dward184.htm

"From a Biblical perspective, it was Enki who (with the critical assistance of his half-sister, Ninki, aka Nin-khursag) created Adam and Eve. It was Enlil, on the other hand, who created “Edin”. Enki was the serpent in the garden, who urged Adam and Eve to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (which was infinitely beneficial to their spiritual growth). It was Enlil, who drove them out of Edin, while Enki was there to clothe them. It is worth noting that Zecharia Sitchin [2] claims that the biblical word for “snake” is nahash, which comes from the root word NHSH, and which means “to decipher, to find out.” In other words, Enki, the God of Wisdom"

This is the only thing mention about enkil in association to reptilian but not as a dragon, and remotely too, it refers to the tempting snake in the biblical garden of Eden story. Not a dragon. And from the same link also...

"According to the ancient Sumerian texts, the Sumerian god, Anu, the “supreme Lord of the Sky”, the currently reigning titular head of the Sumerian Family Tree, had two sons. They were Enki (Ea), Lord of the Earth and Waters (whose mother was Antu), and Enlil (Ilu), Lord of the Air and Lord of the Command (whose mother was Ki). These two half-brothers"

In summation, I found nothing that proves him as a dragon or his religion and ideology of such. Not to my dismay. Any one PLEASE give me a link were I can read and see for myself that Enlil is a dragon as was previously mentioned.

bravo! beautifully said!

Thanks for the links Kidchaos, i'll check those out when i have some time but thanks again

Both Enlil and Enki are called "Great Dragons of Heaven" in their Hymns, and these hymns are probably the OLDEST accounts of these deities. And a millenia later, when Enki is called Ea, his dragon form is described in intricate detail in a Babylonian hymn.

Stichin is trying to sell his books to Trekkies. Obviously he is going to ignore the obvious references of the Sumerian gods as dragons. There is even a libation vase of Ningishzida in dragon form. Even Ishtar is "a terribel dragon" in her hymns. Marduk is portrayed with a friendly dragon by his side to show he is son of Enki, "the greate dragon who stands in Eridu". The ancients believed the gods could change thier form, so we can see these gods in the guise of humans as well. As I have explained before, this belief may have arisen from the dragons appointing human surrogates to pretend they were the gods while they were off boinking their lady dragon friends.

Just wait for the book..... YOU WILL BELIEVE!

No I didn't. I never supported the dualistic view. To the Jews, Satan is merely an obedient servant to Yahweh. In fact, Satan is not even a name, but a word meaning an 'opposer' or 'obstacle'. There may actually be several Satans in the Bible, they are not important enough to even be given a proper name.

The 'god dragons' may have fought for territory or females, but these were probably bloodless disputes. Still they may have been the origins of the earliest 'dragonslaying' tales, such as Enki overcoming Abzu, who would have both been dragons, for after all, no human with bronze age technology could overcome such a creature.

Virtually every culture believed in dragons. Most have dragons connected with thier theology. Those that do not, may have at one time. As I have shown, even Zeus, and probaby Odin, and other weather controlling gods were almost certainly dragons in the begining, as we can also see with yahwe, and the chinese and american 'dragons'.

There are in fact many ways to produce smoke with out flame. That saying is just a BS reason to believe rumour and stories.

Ancient God tale books are full of mythology and metaphorical analogies. Taking these tales at face value
is rather demeaning if you ask me.

I will still say most of these dragon tales are nothing more than fantastical stories. In idealogic terms, these cultures
lifestyles were totally different from todays. Their whole lives were based around awe inspiring wonderment of the
world around them. Today we pretty much have a word and meaning for everything.

As for the sightings/stories these people talked about, well, it works much like today. You have a person(s) account
on some supposed monster, and it spreads like wildfire and before you know it the story is being totally misinterpreted
as some huge, flying, fire breathing beast. By the time it gets back to the source, it's already to late. Because now
lots of people are seeing these supposed huge, flying, fire breathing beasts. I don't think it's that these people were
intentionaly lying, (Some of them proabably did see things they couldn't explain). But, a majority of them were more
than likely making up a story from their own personal account and fitting it in with the already ongoing story, as that
story is rather popular.

Well, thats my take on it anyway. Because, the Dragon thing just isn't happening for me.

Right and this book of yours would be coming out when in North America?

Trust me..... you'll be one of the first to know. All the major mall bookstores will have it, plus Amazon and E books.

Indeed DC! I cannot wait for that day.

I have the hymns. its even there on the links. let me post it again. and it has nothing that mentions "Both Enlil and Enki are called "Great Dragons of Heaven" in their Hymns". not even the most faintest idea.

(this provided “The Harps That Once...: Sumerian Poetry in Translation")
http://www.gatewaystobabylon.com/myths/tex...enlilninlil.htm

and you said "weather controlling 'storm dragon' like Enlil". now this is really unprovable. no non-personal webpage or educational webpage would support this.

the only reason i entittled my post "As I tried to prove to myself that enlil or enki is a dragon" was to try to see this reasoning about dragons thru the eyes of a beleiver. for the records i am not. This was asimple practice of thinking out of the box. But alas, excessive reaserch on the net with my effort on thinking, seeing it thru the eye of a beleiver gave me one answer. and the answer is

THERE IS NO MENTION OF ENLIL AND ENKI AS DRAGONS, THERE IS NO SUPPORTING DOCUMENTS ON THIS EITHER, NOT THE HYMNS AS YOU MENTION.

in my search to prove that Ningishzida is a dragon.

i checked wiki

"Ningishzida (sum: dnin-ǧiš-zi-da)is an underworld Mesopotamian deity. He is the patron of medicine, and may also be considered a God of nature, as his name in Sumerian means "lord of the good tree". In Sumerian mythology, he appears in Adapa's myth as one of the two guardians of Anu's celestial palace alongside Dumuzi. Sometimes he was depicted as a serpent with a human head. Ningishzida is the son of Ninazu, and is related to Ngeshtin-ana. His wife is either Ninazimua or Dazimua[1]. He was one of the ancestors of Gilgamesh. His symbolic animal is the bashmu dragon, a type of snake with horns. He is also associated with the Hydra constellation. It is not established whether the Ningishida was male or female, although "nin" referred to a female entity in Sumerian. However, this is not a rule, as the 'nin-' prefix simply implies divinity (as with Ninurta and others)

Ningishzida is the earliest known symbol of snakes twining (some say in copulation) around an axial rod. It predates the Caduceus of Hermes, the Rod of Asclepius and the staff of Moses by more than a thousand years.

In the Louvre, there is a famous green steatite vase carved for king Gudea of Lagash (dated variously 2200–2025 BCE), dedicated by its inscription: "To the god Ningiszida, his god Gudea, Ensi (governor) of Lagash, for the prolongation of his life, has dedicated this".


The Adapa myth mentions Ningizzida and Tammuz (or Dumuzi) and refers to the Serpent God as male.

The Sumerians regarded their deities as dualistic and often had both a male and a female (yin-yang) aspect (as the language itself does not differentiate between masculine and feminine genders, but rather, active and inactive genders)."

nope, no mention of it being a dragons there, snake is what i read. he had a "symbolic animal bashmu dragon". symbolic is not saying that he is, if you say he is


and from the ever so wise Britanica encyclopedia.
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9055882/Ningishzida

in Mesopotamian religion, Sumerian deity, city god of Gishbanda, near Ur in the southern orchard region. Although Ningishzida was a power of the netherworld, where he held the office of throne bearer, he seems to have originally been a tree god, for his name apparently means “Lord Productive Tree.”

Being the nature of this object of my research, i found it wise to beleive the 2 bodies of knowledge which were un biased on the subject. The apparent conlcusion, IT IS NOT A DRAGON, IT WAS REPRESENTED AS DRAGON. the prev two sources are non-personal webpages and are educational web pages.

In my search to prove that Ishtar is a dragon.

I checked this link.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishtar

nope, no mention of it being a dragon.

I tried this link...
http://inanna.virtualave.net/ishtar.html

nope, no mention of it being a dragon,

I tried this link.
http://www.pantheon.org/articles/i/ishtar.html

nope, not a dragon.

So is Ishtar a dragon?
Nope. All of the resources are non-personal web pages and are educational.

Thats not a solid date that i was inquireing for, IF you can give me a date then i can believe you, and on my novel, so far its going fairly well, but is running dry of ideas for a title...

im shure i'll figgure on out eventually

and you never did give us a title for your novel DC (at least not 1 i recall)

Yet another addition to a dragon-based novel genre would be a good pastime read, now that depends if the writters skill, but nontheless is a welcome idea.
Now passing it as NON-FICTION would be a great challenge, almost imposible, ALMOST.

I support you in writting the novel Dragon Seeker. As long as its a Novel. I imagine it would be wonderfully made.

I never said that you supported he dualistic view, I said that many religions do.

As far as I am aware, with a fair amount of research under my belt, there is never mention of Odin ever being a dragon, in fact the only creature that has potential to be a dragon in the norse mythos is Nidhogg, a serpent in Nifelheim who gnaws the roots of Yggdrasil.

Check the geneologies of the Norse 'serpent dragons'. They are offspring of the humanoid gods. This only makes sense in earlier times when they were all dragons.

For someone who claims to be an academic, you are not a very good researcher. The fact that these gods are all called 'great serpent dragons' in their hymns is well established. Even Grem won't dispute this, although he claims they are only 'titles'. But this is only his opinion. Stichin also knows the hymns, only he claims these are not the gods themselves, but their 'rocket ships'. And of course, David Ickes and his lot, also know they are called 'dragons', hence the "reptilian" connection. All of these hymns have been posted on the UM dragon threads before.

If you ask Grem nicely, I am sure he will help an "academic" like yourself to find the hymns. Yes, they are on the internet. They are endnoted in my book of course and have been discussed here many times. This "academic" is tired of placating every newbie too lazy to read the older threads, over and over again with the same information.

Just so you know, when we see a Sumerian god in human form on a cylinder seal with a dragon by his side, it is to remind the viewer that this is a dragon god in the form of a human. As I said before, I do not believe the dragons can actually change their body forms but may have had human assistants that pretended to be the dragns in their human forms. This is probably the origin of the ornate beards and headresses worn by sumerian deities. The dragons requried constant human 'replacements' for their human 'stand ins' because they would agee, and the headresses and beards would make the succession of stand-ins appear to be the 'same' god in human form. I suspect the stand in would have his skin dyed the color of the dragon as well.

Here ya go KC,
http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/edition2/etcslbycat.php

youll find everything besides the assyrian poem about Sassu-Wunnu (an aspect of Ea...not enki's true form) which is a mushushu like dragon of vengence.

happy hunting.

I think when you find the relevant references in the hymns etc, you'll see that they are titles, epithets, figurative and metaphoric... and placed amongst a host of similar accolades.

They are not literal descriptions.
but anyway, make your own mind up.

Contradiction, much.

I can't even find Peter Horgath in a search.

You're talking about a mythical genealogy as if it is already established as credible, when in reality we don't even know if any kind of god figure has ever existed. I really must insist that if you expect to be taken seriously to start proving the existence of gods, then we can talk about dragons or whatnot, and of course various mythologies differ from each other, according to the Norse, the world is built from the remains of a titan, but according to the Egyptians, Atum created himself, rose out of the water and proceeded to create other gods and terraform the great watery abyss. Mythologies are not to be readily taken as fact, since mythologies themselves are anecdotal evidence given to us by people who believe them. Keep in mind that at one point all these myths were a people's religious beliefs and people who believe fervently in something will almost never remain objective when presenting it to you, they will never present the other side of the argument and talk about their beliefs as if it is the only truth. Mythologies are often used to convey morals and ethics along with attempts to explain away the mysteries of life and the universe that man cannot comprehend. We cannot believe that a mythology is true simply because "oh it is so old and they were so wise". If anything that is more of a reason to DISbelieve, mythologies were in general, oral tradition, passed down throughout generations, and the stories have undoubtedly changed. Try to imagine playing a 5,000 year long game of "telephone" and think of how accurate the end result will be.

ARE YOU KIDDING?

Are you kidding?? that is so correct!

as i tried to prove abzu as a dragon

i tried this link
http://www.ancientneareast.net/religion_me...ology/abzu.html

nope, not a dragon.

i tried this link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abzu

you can always count on good ol wiki. Nope not a dragon.


Are you kidding?

first of all, i apologize for not having read this post in its entirety. 57 pages? c'mon! hehe. i will go back and read more later, but i would like to say that Dragons have always been and always will be a metaphor. They have never truly existed. And if, as some claim they do exist and they are that powerful, what possible reason could they have for interacting with humans? It would be like us trying to interact with ants, trying to alter their belief structure, or whatever. I fear that we would be little more than a curiosity to a dragon, and they would certainly not need to hide from us or elude our detection. Again, it would be like us trying to remain undetected by insects, what's the point? No, no matter how much you want to believe in dragons, they only ever existed in dreams and stories told to garner better behavior among deviants.

ARe you kidding? They are not literal descriptions! Abosulutely! It is so clear and easy to understand! Even 5th graders would understand this! Not literal descriptions there. Nope. Titles-yes! Figurative-very much. Metaphoric-wonderful made. Nothing less. its so easy that its elementary!!

They are Not literal descriptions. They are artfully made titles, epithets, figurative and metaphor.

Actually, by today's standards they would not be that powerful. A 10 year old with an RPG-7 today would be a dangerous propostion to a creature that could have slain bronze age armies with impunity and was worshipped as gods.

But despite their greatness, dragons almost everywhere anwered to a higher authority that was not a dragon. They answered to the Creator.

Legends all over the world state the same thing. The dragons are credited with civilizing mankind. In return, we fed and pampered them. There may have been little or no compassion in the dragons' motives, but ultimately they served the Creator's will, and mankind survived. And with their work done, the dragons faded into obscurity becasue it was willed that they do so by a power far greater than them.

Billions still believe in one of these dragons, only most have forgotten he is a dragon.

Dragons by Peter Hogarth isbn 0-670-28176-x