4 ms·

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 wi

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).

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).