Dragon slayer
A dragon slayer is an almost exclusively male hero figure who succeeds in defeating a mythical dragon ; it stands for great courage and overcoming evil . Dragon slayers can be found in myths , sagas , legends and fairy tales of many cultures, as well as in more modern genres such as fantasy and role play .
A dragon slayer usually frees people from the surrounding area from attacks and devastation by the fire-breathing dragon or from a long-lasting drought . Sometimes he rescues virgins from captivity in the dragon's cave or gains access to a treasure that was kept and guarded by the dragon. In some Germanic sagas or in the Nibelungenlied , however, the treasure is cursed and brings bad luck to the tragic hero in the further course of the story. In the legends of the dragon slayers Siegfried or Sigurd , the hero becomes invulnerable by bathing in the blood of the dead dragon - except for a small hidden place that ultimately becomes fateful (based on the Achilles heel of Greek mythology ).
Well-known dragon slayers in historical order
- Marduk defeats the chaos dragon Tiamat in Babylonian mythology
- Teššup in Hittite mythology
- Apollo ( Python ), Heracles ( Hydra ), Kadmos , Iason and Perseus ( Keto ) in Greek mythology
- Prince Gozu in Japanese mythology
- Archangel Michael in the Old Testament of Christianity and Judaism
- Bayajidda , the founding hero of Daura , in the original legend of the Hausa in the Niger-Chad region
- Siegfried in Germanic mythology
- Dietrich von Bern and Hildebrand (see original ) in the German heroic sagas
- Wolfdietrich in the German heroic sagas
- Beowulf in Old English literature
- Tristan in Old French Literature
- St. George as the best known representative of the Christian saints in the genre legend
- The Bogatyrs Dobrynja Nikititsch and Aljoscha Popowitsch in Slavic mythology
- Krak defeats the Wawel dragon and founds the city of Krakow in Polish folk belief
Saint Margaret of Antioch is one of the rare dragon slayers. Occasionally Saint Martha of Bethany is mentioned as the dragon slayer, but instead she tamed the dragon Tarasque ; however, this does not help the dragon, he is finally murdered by the villagers. The miracle of taming the dragon is also attributed to Saint Marcellus of Paris .
regional customs
The folk drama in the eastern Bavarian border town of Furth im Wald , where the Further Drachenstich is performed every year in August , is particularly well-known .
Picture gallery
The dragon slayer (copper door by Neuwied artist Klaus Rudolf Werhand from 1974)
St. Fronto of Périgueux as a dragon slayer (stained glass window in the church of Saint-Germain-de-Belvès , Périgord )
Saint George fighting the dragon (painting by Bernat Martorell around 1440)
Dragon sculpture on the top of Mengjia Longshan Temple in Taipei, Taiwan
15th century Persian miniatures Rostam (Shāhnāme) killing a dragon
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Dragonslayer in literature and film
- Rainer Maria Rilke : The Dragon Slayer (1902)
- Bard the archer in the fantasy novel The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien (1937)
- Túrin in the stories The Silmarillion and The Children of Húrin by JRR Tolkien (published posthumously)
- Ulrich in the fantasy film The Dragonslayer (1981)
- Knight Bowen in the fantasy film Dragonheart (1996)
- Denton Van Zan in the science fiction action film Reign of Fire (Reign of Fire) (2002)
- Phosphorus in the romantic novella The Golden Pot by ETA Hoffmann (1819)
