Claim CH712:
Legends about dragons are really actual accounts of man meeting up with
dinosaurs.
Source:
Response:
- Folklore does not require a physical basis. Leprechauns, the Loch Ness
Monster, djinni, the tooth fairy, and other creatures have long
survived in folklore without any bodies to examine.
- Men never met up with living dinosaurs.
- Dinosaurs need not be living to inspire myth and legend. In China,
fossil bones (of all kinds of creatures, not just dinosaurs) have long
been called dragon bones. Fossils of Protoceratops inspired legends
of griffins (Mayor 2000). In Lakota myth, dinosaur fossils in the
Badlands of South Dakota are attributed to river monsters (Erdoes and
Ortiz 1984, 220-222). The Pawnee attribute fossils to a former race of
giants (Grinnell 1961, 355-356).
References:
- Erdoes, Richard and Alfonso Ortiz, 1984. American Indian Myths and
Legends, New York: Pantheon Books.
- Grinnell, George Bird, 1961. Pawnee Hero Stories and Folk-Tales,
Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press; reprinted
from Forest and Stream Publishing Company, New York, 1889.
- Mayor, Adrienne, 2000. The First Fossil Hunters, Princeton
University Press.
Further Reading:
Jones, David E., 2000. An Instinct for Dragons. New York: Routledge.
created 2003-9-24
