I like to believe that all the dragons in the world were magically cursed and turned into cats. But cats have never forgotten where they come from, hence the attitude.
I nearly didn’t reblog this but the above comment makes more sense than anything I’ve ever heard.
…that’s…that’s actually a story my mom used to tell me when I was little? That a dragon showed up at someone’s cottage so they gave it milk. And the dragon enjoyed the milk, so it kept coming back and got smaller and softer and purry-er until eventually it wasn’t a dragon anymore, it was a cat, and that’s where cats came from and why we keep giving them milk.
She might have gotten the story from Ursula K. Le Guin, or I have confused it with a different dragon story.
That’s also why cats tend to hoard their toys behind the couch!
Actually the story is even older. Written by a woman named Edith Nesbit, first published in 1899, it is called “The Dragon Tamers”. It predates Leguin and other fantasy biggies like Lewis and Tolkien.
Nesbit actually can be credited with being one of the first authors that began to shift myths and legends to more fantasy-like stories (fantasy as a genre how we know it, wasn’t around then because it was just part of literature, especially British literature). In fact, many scholars who study fantasy literature and children’s literature believe that, since her children’s stories were so popular with children in England, the stories and their content prompted Tolkien (the first to coin fantasy as its own genre in his essay “On Fairy Stories”) to take up the stories of dragons and elves and fairies as they’d have been children when she was writing.
Tolkien was born in 1892. He would have been 7 when “The Dragon Tamers” was first published. Edith Nesbit did a LOT for modernizing myths, legends, and lore as a children’s author, maybe more than we will ever know.
Dragons are extraordinarily good mimics, escaping human predation by disguising themselves as common airliners, some even going so far as to sport crude copies of carrier logos. This makes them difficult to track, though most sources agree that the dragon population is critically endangered.
While there has been some success with halting large-scale dragon hunting, conservationists are still concerned about a recent spate of crashes in otherwise healthy adults.
Given that dragons communicate via radio signals and that most crashes occur near military radar stations, it is theorized that the radar may be disorienting the dragons. Investigations are still ongoing.
in my one original universe dragons are just shitty possums that don’t really do anything, you just find them in your garden or bathtub making this expression
I always approve of ladies having a chill time with dragons. Who needs to be a damsel in distress?
artist unknown
Art source: Dragon Resting Its Head On The Lap Of A Woman – R. Leinweber (1912)
I love this picture because the body language (human and draconic) reminds me so much of when the dog decides she really, really needs to be at least half in my lap while I’m chilling with my computer.
Like, the dragon is all I adore you so much please pet behind my ears please and the lady is just sigh fine you always do this and I was going to get up for a glass of water but I guess I kind of love you too.
A young gay dragon has to explain to his parents why he is only kidnapping princes
He doesn’t have to explain. They love and support him and want him to feel comfortable, so they, too, begin looking for princes.
His mother, known for destroying kingdoms in a single breath, risks that reputation to find her son a mate.
His father, feared for snatching whole cities up in his claws, risks thatreputation to find his son a love.
They check every castle, every citadel, but the boys are all off. Too mean, too soft, too quiet, too loud, and the parents hate the idea of telling their son that they can’t find him anyone.
And then, as they’re about to leave, a voice. It’s a boy, barely an adult, with dark skin and bright eyes and a soul brighter than dragon fire.
“I heard you’re looking for a prince.”
“You are not a prince. Where is your castle, your court? Nobody worships you.”
The boy smiles, and holds out his hand. “I am the prince of woodlands, of brooks and bays and rivers and fields. My castle lies all around, my court are the animals who fill the earth, and the mortals worship for me is unending.” A breeze picks up, and in his hand forms a flower.
Science side of Tumblr: how can dragons breathe fire?
There are three variants of dragons. One of them possesses a gland that produces a liquid, which spontaneously combusts when coming into contact with oxygen. Some phosphorus compounds could do that for example.
The second one possesses two glands instead, which produce so-called hypergolic propellants, fluids that ignite when they come into contact with one another.
The third kind stores the methane bacteria in their stomach produce, and expells it when breathing fire. In their mouth there’s a piezoelectric crystal, which is a substance that produces a spark when placed under mechanical stress and could thus serve to ignite the methane gas.
Or it’s magic.
Thank you science side of Tumbr, I needed this information.
Upon ascending to the throne a young prince learns the highest state secret in the kingdom is that the treasury, and the very economy itself, has been managed for hundreds of years by a 4lb dragon too runty and crippled to amass or protect its own fortune.
His name is Fortescue and he doesn’t eat maidens (he eats roasted fish with fine herbs and assorted veg prepared by the cook) or slay warriors (he killed a rat that sassed him last week). But he’s very good at counting and assessing. He can stand on a pile of gold and tell if a single piece is missing. He can spot the difference between solid gold and gold plate at 50 yards.
The new king was smooth chinned and hairless, still a child. His uncle offered to advise him, but really the villain wanted to empty the king’s coffers and run off to Spain with a comely young widow. (Well, she’d be a widow by the time they’re ready to leave.)
Dragons are tough skinned and without a magic sword you can’t kill one, even a tiny one who limps a little and can’t fly higher than four feet in the air. The uncle didn’t think Fortescue would have a tough hide, which is how he ended up standing over the creature in the middle of the night holding the hilt of a shattered sword. Fortescue, who’d been having a lovely dream about breathing out flame like a volcano, was irritated. He took a great breath and breathed a narrow jet of flame over the broken sword hilt still in the uncle’s hand. A full sized dragon would have shot flames more widely, but a full grown dragon (regardless of size) can breathe flame hot enough to melt any substance on earth. The uncle screamed, but it was too late to drop his weapon, which had liquified in his hand.
He was thrown in prison in considerable pain. His dashing young widow ran off to France with the baker’s son, which she would have done anyway. The uncle was wrong about many things. He didn’t last very long in the dungeons, with his injured hand. The healers could have saved him, but it involved a saw and he said he’d rather die. Which he did.
The young king buried his uncle in the family crypt, but with a small, plain marker off in a pokey corner. Everyone generally agreed that it was a mark of quality and that he’d grow up to be a very good king.
The young king visited Fortescue in the treasury, which no king had ever done before, and asked the dragon if he could do anything to thank him. Anything at all. Fortescue thought it over and said, “Yes, I would like to fly in the garden at night sometimes. I can’t fly very high, but I like to see the stars.”
The king granted Fortescue the right of free movement within the kingdom. He often went out for an evening stroll on nights that Fortescue was out for a fly. He taught the dragon quoits and the dragon taught the king sound investment strategies. Over many years the king grew in stature and wisdom. He learned a lot from the dragon, who wept at the king’s death some 70 years later and sealed his tomb closed with seams of gold himself. The dragon kept up his faithful service and lived to see the king’s great great great great grandchild born. He died the same morning and they named the child Fortescue.
shealwaysreads 