The Haven of Fantasy 1 - The Bestiary I

The world that we live in has many wondrous, majestic, exotic, and dangerous creatures. Lions, eagles, snakes, scorpions... all these and more tickle the fancy of many of us. Why else would there be so many fantastic creatures, some counterparts or amalgamations of existing animals, and others completely independent. Hm... maybe there's something there worth while.

Hail Friends, this is Drakai of the House of Nidhogg, and today we'll be including a new sub-segment of the previously established segment of The Haven of Fantasy (try to keep up with me, this may get a bit confusing). We'll be calling this new sub-segment simply "The Bestiary." And, starting strong, I'm going to cover my favorite fantastic creature, the very reason for my nickname and for the name of the blog.

If you haven't guessed it yet, it's the dragon.

The word 'dragon' comes into the English language from the Old French word dragon (go figure), meaning 'huge serpent, dragon'. This, in turn, comes from the Latin word draco and the Ancient Greek drakon, both meaning also 'huge serpent'.

There are two basic types of these magnificent beasts. There is the European dragon, based on old European folk tales. These beings often have either animal-level intelligence or a keen one, but focused on evil and cruelty. They are also known to hoard gold, and be able to sleep on it without getting a cramp. And that, more than anything, shows their magical nature.

The other basic type is the Eastern Dragon, based on the folk tales of China, Japan, Korea, and so on. These dragons are depicted with an above-level intelligence, and more often than not benevolent.

The media also follow this split pretty good as well. Most eastern anime, manga and games depict dragons as their own serpentine versions, while the western ones have their reptilian counterparts. Usually. There are, as always, some exceptions.

Honestly, this post was supposed to be a lot longer. Maybe even too long. So I've decided to split it into three: this, the general one; western dragons; and eastern dragons. So join me on the next Day of the Sun when I'll cover the second part of this three-part post. You can call this a cliffhanger if you really want.

On a mostly unrelated note, I've found these things called 'labels'. They're on the right over here, when I'm writing this thing. Apparently they help my posts be found by Google. We'll give it a shot, see what happens.