26-02-2017, 08:25 PM
(This post was last modified: 26-02-2017, 08:26 PM by davidjackson.)
Quote:So, all dragons are snakes (but of course not all snakes are dragons).
Exactly. Dragons were often used as allegoric serpents to denote the devil. They were also used in bestiary mythology as mortal enemies of elephants, as per your image posted.
Quote:The dragon is the enemy of the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., and hides near paths where elephants walk so that it can catch them with its tail and kill them by suffocation. It is because of the threat of the dragon that elephants give birth in the water.The reason is biblical. Elephants were associated with Adam and Eve; the dragon with the devil who attacked them. (Elephants were also said by the bestiary tradition to need the mandrake to conceive).
Many "foreign" snakes were depicted with legs - boa (described as an Italian snake which chases cows and suckles them, hence the name from bovine); Syrens from Arabia had legs and wings to pursue their prey; etc. It's not uncommon at all in the bestiary tradition. Dragons always have a crest or crown in the bestiary tradition when denoting a demonic element, or otherwise are depicted in the elephantine tradition.