Dragons - A Natural History
This next part is titled "The Guivre And the Gargouille." "Dragons are not noted for shy, bashful behavior, which is why the guivre is so unusual an example." The story takes place in France during the medieval times. "Many serpent dragons were infamous for their dragon breath, which would poison anything that inhaled its fumes." "Wherever there was a guivre, there was death and destruction."
Basically, in this story they find out that the guivre find naked people embarrassing to look at so when one comes and slithers up to a farmer who's bathing in the river it blushes and slips away.
Personally, if I were a 'deadly' dragon or serpent I wouldn't care if the animal was naked or not. After all, humans are the ones who really have clothes. Everything else pretty much has fur. In the end they'll end up in my stomach with or without clothes anyway.
Moving back to the story. Later on it talks about dragons not all breathing fire. This specific one "spout fountain water". "In 520, Rouen, the capital of Nomandy, was under siege--by scaled head that had a long neck and a reptilian swan." It was later dubbed the "gargouille".
This archbishop gets tired of the case he find the gargouille's lair which is a cave. He goes to confront the thing with a prisoner condemned for murder. The prison's good as dead anyway so might as well. The archbishop raised his arms and placed two to make a cross. The creature sank down and started to foam in the mouth. Basically he tamed it and killed it.
What I don't like about this story is that that seems so... I don't know? Lame? "Oh! I got a cross which fingers. TO HELL WITH YOU." I don't know. It doesn't seem epic enough for me. I'm guessing that it was made to help inspire the people to fight for what they believe in I guess. But really.. That was lame.
Jormungander, The Midgard Serpent
This is a Norse myth so it's from Norway. "Spawned by Loki." Now that can't be good. I know of a whole entire fandom that'll be on their knees. (Okay. Sorry had to make a joke back to the story.) The creature became a problem because it was so huge and hideous that the problem was introduced to "Aesir, Odin the All-Wise casted it far into the deepest ocean where it thrashed bulk would be enveloped by the turbulence of waves." The "Jourmungander didn't vanish from existence." It ended up growing and "eventually encircled the globe. It remain[ed] there until Ragnarok, the Day of the Last Battke,"
That day it would be released and would confront the mightiest of the Aesir--Thor. Thor goes a journey before hand and Utgardhaloki, the king of the faints who were long-standing enemies of the Aesir, decides to challenge him. He plays a trick and Thor is ashamed that he cannot pick up this cat which is not the cute and light animal he thinks. He then is challenged to hold his liquor. Utgardhaloki's subject were able to douse down two and Thor couldn't drink his amount. Thor was lastly humiliated by having to wrestle a 'feeble old woman'.
Finally, Utgardhaloki admits to the truth and shows the reasoning for the illusion revealing that the horn that Thor was drinking out of was connected to the oceans, the old nurse was none other than Old Age and no one, could conquer her, and lastly the cat was the Jormungander.
Utgardhaloki flees and then Thor battled the creature. For the Aesir time was a faster while in the world Ragnarok arrived. Thor kills the Jormungander with thunderbolts and lightning fatality wounding it and whirled it in a giddy vortex then he threw it and it died.
Okay so I admit I took the fun out of that story but if you want to read it yourself the titles up there. I'm not going to go onto the next one because I've been at this library for two hours now and I feel bad for hogging the computer. I'll speak with y'all maybe when I get home. For now, leave me any questions or comments and lets get somewhere with this creature's existence.
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