3 ms·

but why is "big snake" so common? what about big rabbit? or big pigeon?

BiteCode_dev 4y ago
Because we eat the latter, so we like them. But fear the former. At some point there were giant rodent in Australia. But they were probably tasty because they disappeared after we arrived.
rickdeckard 4y ago
Is "big snake" really common? To me it looks like it is common in places with an abundance of snakes in different sizes, which makes the creation of a fable with "an even bigger snake" as predator quite reasonable. rabbits or pigeons were not really feared/respected, so a story about them being bigger might not be that memorable... As for big rabbitm there's some mythology though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_rabbit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_rabbit Giant Birds exist in a few fables iirc (I don't know why of all possible birds a fable would portrait a giant pigeon, Eagles or Falcons carry more ambiguity and respect I'd say)
- Dalewyn 4y ago
  >Is "big snake" really common? Just off the top of my head: * The European dragon. * The Middle Eastern wyvern. * The Chinese dragon and its variants throughout Asia. * The Mesoamerican feathered serpent (Quetzalcoatl for a chief example). And I'm sure there are many more. If you ask me, it's far too coincidental for various unrelated peoples across the entire globe to have fundamentally the same mythical construct. The concept of a "dragon" is one of the Lowest Common Denominators of humanity, nearly everyone everywhere knows what a "dragon" is (local equivalent term as appropriate), and the mystery behind why that is is simply intriguing.
  - bee_rider 4y ago
    Is that where the idea of a wyvern comes from? European dragons come in the more lizard+avian form (more recent), and the older, more serpent-like form (probably descended from ancient mythology going all the way back to the Fertile Crescent). The former isn't really an example of a "big snake" and the latter probably is the common source of lots of serpent like creatures, reducing the coincidence a bit (in the sense that it isn't surprising that myth-makers through history were inspired by each other).
Engineering-MD 4y ago
There are already big mammals that people fear and tell tales of: lion, tiger, elephants etc. they were also mythical creature in some of Europe in the medieval period. The addition of a huge reptile seems consistent. There are also big humans (giants), and big sea creatures (leviathan, kraken).
einpoklum 4y ago
> but why is "big snake" so common? Well, over 40% of humanity has the Abrahamic religions in its cultural background at this point, and one of the foundational myths there is the evil snake which tempts primordial man, with god cursing man and snake to be eternal enemies. So you have one cultural artifact with a single source (ok, not really, but sort of) accounting for that. And Judaism, Islam and Christianity don't have mythical evil pigeons or rabbits.
- bee_rider 4y ago
  Which was probably in part influenced by other mythological early fertile crescent serpents and snakes, further reducing the coincidence.
bee_rider 4y ago
Those species are too specific, though -- a big pigeon, no. Big birds, yeah. Big rabbit -- not so common. Big mammals? I mean there are mythological versions of wolves, lions, etc. But those do seem to be a different sort of thing (we generally seem to have an easier time telling apart different species of mammal -- I guess because they are more similar and familiar to us). Snakes do seem a little over-represented. I wouldn't classify the really popular medieval type of dragon that this article seems to be discussing (with the wings and lizard-like body) as a big snake. But there are other big mythological serpents. Maybe some of it is evolutionary in the sense they discuss (fear of a body-form that threatened previous hominid species). But there were also species of snake that threatened the actual people coming up with those myths, not because they were giant and really fond of eating people, but because they were poisonous and easy to trip over. Snakes are also a really simple shape. From a distance (like on top of a mountain) a river can look like a giant snake winding across the landscape. A floating log in the waves from just the right perspective could look like a sea-serpent (which would I guess have a tendency to spread, since so much long distance trade was maritime). Add in a little historical coincidence (the presence of snake-gods in early mythology, like that of Mesopotamia) and it seems plausible to explain this without invoking any pre-homo-sapien memories.

Because we eat the latter, so we like them. But fear the former. At some point there were giant rodent in Australia. But they were probably tasty because they disappeared after we arrived.

rickdeckard 4y ago

Is "big snake" really common? To me it looks like it is common in places with an abundance of snakes in different sizes, which makes the creation of a fable with "an even bigger snake" as predator quite reasonable. rabbits or pigeons were not really feared/respected, so a story about them being bigger might not be that memorable... As for big rabbitm there's some mythology though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_rabbit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_rabbit Giant Birds exist in a few fables iirc (I don't know why of all possible birds a fable would portrait a giant pigeon, Eagles or Falcons carry more ambiguity and respect I'd say)

Dalewyn 4y ago
>Is "big snake" really common? Just off the top of my head: * The European dragon. * The Middle Eastern wyvern. * The Chinese dragon and its variants throughout Asia. * The Mesoamerican feathered serpent (Quetzalcoatl for a chief example). And I'm sure there are many more. If you ask me, it's far too coincidental for various unrelated peoples across the entire globe to have fundamentally the same mythical construct. The concept of a "dragon" is one of the Lowest Common Denominators of humanity, nearly everyone everywhere knows what a "dragon" is (local equivalent term as appropriate), and the mystery behind why that is is simply intriguing.
- bee_rider 4y ago
  Is that where the idea of a wyvern comes from? European dragons come in the more lizard+avian form (more recent), and the older, more serpent-like form (probably descended from ancient mythology going all the way back to the Fertile Crescent). The former isn't really an example of a "big snake" and the latter probably is the common source of lots of serpent like creatures, reducing the coincidence a bit (in the sense that it isn't surprising that myth-makers through history were inspired by each other).

Engineering-MD 4y ago

There are already big mammals that people fear and tell tales of: lion, tiger, elephants etc. they were also mythical creature in some of Europe in the medieval period. The addition of a huge reptile seems consistent. There are also big humans (giants), and big sea creatures (leviathan, kraken).

einpoklum 4y ago

> but why is "big snake" so common? Well, over 40% of humanity has the Abrahamic religions in its cultural background at this point, and one of the foundational myths there is the evil snake which tempts primordial man, with god cursing man and snake to be eternal enemies. So you have one cultural artifact with a single source (ok, not really, but sort of) accounting for that. And Judaism, Islam and Christianity don't have mythical evil pigeons or rabbits.

bee_rider 4y ago
Which was probably in part influenced by other mythological early fertile crescent serpents and snakes, further reducing the coincidence.

bee_rider 4y ago

Those species are too specific, though -- a big pigeon, no. Big birds, yeah. Big rabbit -- not so common. Big mammals? I mean there are mythological versions of wolves, lions, etc. But those do seem to be a different sort of thing (we generally seem to have an easier time telling apart different species of mammal -- I guess because they are more similar and familiar to us). Snakes do seem a little over-represented. I wouldn't classify the really popular medieval type of dragon that this article seems to be discussing (with the wings and lizard-like body) as a big snake. But there are other big mythological serpents. Maybe some of it is evolutionary in the sense they discuss (fear of a body-form that threatened previous hominid species). But there were also species of snake that threatened the actual people coming up with those myths, not because they were giant and really fond of eating people, but because they were poisonous and easy to trip over. Snakes are also a really simple shape. From a distance (like on top of a mountain) a river can look like a giant snake winding across the landscape. A floating log in the waves from just the right perspective could look like a sea-serpent (which would I guess have a tendency to spread, since so much long distance trade was maritime). Add in a little historical coincidence (the presence of snake-gods in early mythology, like that of Mesopotamia) and it seems plausible to explain this without invoking any pre-homo-sapien memories.