What were dragons a metaphor for in medieval times?

I have also heard this and it interests me greatly. However, I can't seem to find anything on it

le reptillian jews

I heard the Greeks got the idea of the big Cyclops monsters from finding elephant skulls which makes a lot of sense. Love imagining some Greek guy staring at one of these filled with wonder and horror

In the apocalypsis of John the Dragon is Satan.

yeah- I could imagine the feat of Odysseus!

they were mentioned in the bible
kingjamesbibleonline.org/Bible-Verses-About-Dragons/

that picture seems related to this

>And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.

dragons represent belligerent entities more powerful than you, the implication being that you put aside your anxieties and set your mind to acting like the hero

There isnt any. "They found dinosaur bones and thought they were dragons" is modern people trying to explain why medieval people drew pictures and told stories about dragons, without understanding the Biblical reference or how medieval allegory works.

This so much, there are so many retarded material explanations of allegory and myth going around

this board in general being a perfect example

"Dragon" was "serpent" in the original text, right? Like changing "goat" to "faun," or "aurochs" to "monoceros?"

Paganism.

I think this is possibly a backwards created myth.

Dinosaur bones are rare in europe especially full skeletons or even large bones.

Dragons are part of our ancestral memory from when they used to exist before the dragon genocide.

Nothing about dinosaurs written prior to 1841 uses the word dinosaur.

guess when the word dinosaur was coined?

Anal sex.

Sounds good to me. Dragons, serpents, winged serpents, sea serpents; these were all written about as real animals.

Where? Where were they written as a real animal and not as a metaphor for something else?

Where were they written about as a metaphor?

What makes you think dragons were used as metaphors?

Litterally everywhere dragons are mentioned, that the bible flat out refers to the devil as a dragon and medieval bestiaries repeatedly ascribe it to the devil?

Revelaation 12:9 Wycliffes translation

"And that dragon was cast down, the great old serpent, that is called the Devil, and Satan, that deceiveth all the world; he was cast down [cast out] into the earth, and his angels were sent with him. "

bestiary.ca/beasts/beast262.htm

What do you think the story of Saint George was about? Some guy having a fight with a dinosaur because big lizards are cool?

Dragons

Are you saying dragons are real?

Yes.

We should probably have at least a shred of physical evidence of dragons if that's so.

The ego

Well in Europe. In Asia, the dragon is a Falstaffian figure of life and prosperity.

>dinosaur
Would go for a monitor lizard. Remember, anything bigger than an anole (or whatever lived in Europe at the time) would've been a monster to them.

Dragons are the ultimate sneks.

I Greek Mythology, there were four types of dragons, the serpent Dracones, the marine Cetea, the fire-breathing Chimaera and the she-monster Dracaenae, all of which were symbolic expressions of the primal, untamed nature of the ancient world, each overcome by a great hero in his effort to secure the land for the new era of human civilization.

The culture hero slays the beast of chaos, like Marduk and Tiamat...

I don't know about this specifically, but Greeks found dinosaur bones and thought they were ancient heroes

I don't know about this. When the Chinese found Dinosaur bones, they thought them to be Dragon ones, hinting that they already established dragons in their beliefs

Humans and dinosaurs actually lived together at some point, and these are the remnants in folk memory

Not even dinosaur bones. I think they were gonna turn this into "dragon bone powder" before the scientific community bought it off their hands.

Spaceships.

Why would a hero kill Swedish black metal bands?

t. Ken Ham

Funny how creationists would think that the finding o the fossil of a dinoaur which lived 200,000 years ago would be a confirmation to their views.

>muh flood
>muh floating forest
>muh scientist conspiracy

That's an elephant seal skull.

Kulturkampf
Kek
Serpents and reptiles in general are a stand-in for the lower nature of man, and it's really not even that hard to extrapolate if you compare a reptile skull to a human's. The creativity of people in antiquity is really underestimated, it's not like everyone was a cretin until 1500! Kulturkampf is where we get the modern myths of "reptoids" in human skin, with psychopathic self-serving behavior, as if they had no concept of thought beyond eating, hoarding wealth and inflicting pain.
>Hint: those basic survival functions are what the "reptilian brain" is used to govern.

I don't know who was the genius who decided to put chinese and western dragons in the same category, when they're clearly unrelated mythological creatures with a very different purpose.

Or Jesus and the serpent/Satan in the Revelations, by the way.

Marduk is the hero

Jews, clearly

>Evil
>Decieving
>Murderous
>Cunning
>Loves to hoard massive amounts of gold

It's not clear that they were a metaphor at all. People have believed in dragons since very ancient times, and while some authors and artists undoubtedly used them in allegorical ways, the underlying idea of dragons as something that exists is probably meant quite literally.

>what is Judensau?

Kek.

Oh yeah, I think I remember hearing about a book of cryptids written by Linnaeus himself. It included a hydra, a reverse-frog, a satyr-ape, and a form of dragon.

What the fuck is a reverse-frog?

A frog with reversed metamorphosis. Starts out as a tiny frog and turns into a giant tadpole twice the size of the frog.

Found the image. Also, not a book itself, but rather a category he had on earlier versions of the book: Animalia Paradoxa.

Yet OP is asking about medieval times, when they are quite clearly allegorical for the devil/satan/hell.

Must have been some dank weed or potent ergot.

gr8 b8 m8.

Perhaps this was an explanation for very large salamanders?

>dragons represent belligerent entities more powerful than you, the implication being that you put aside your anxieties and set your mind to acting like the hero

Vaginas and their firey temptations.

Nah, there was an actual species of frog that had a larger tadpole stage, so they assumed that it had a reversed metamorphosis.

And then there's the Satyrus.

is that some kind of ancient furry