The Votadini exodus to Wales

[fasta]

John, I've been thinking about this and it does appear that whilst the Germanic and Scandinavians may have had personalised gods (as did the Romans come to that) they still had a reverence for and belief in the dragon and I doubt - though cannot prove - that theirs came via either the Sarmatians or Romans. The Milky Way was the Worm of Middle Earth for example and we also have the Beowulf dragons. Whilst these are much later, of course, it seems to point to the independent development of the dragon. Feathered serpents of the Aztec point to another:



...not to mention China of course where it's been around for 5000 years at least. Even in Ireland St Patrick is supposed to have imprisoned them, along with banishing the snakes. Wales used to have a tradition of house serpents (common in many parts of Europe apprently) and it was said that if it was fed human milk it would turn into a Wibber (a type of serpent dragon). Wibbers could often be destructive. There's no way of knowing when this dragon developed however.

My point is that seems to have 'flown in' from all directions and not just the Middle East so there's no reason why it couldn't have been present in Britain, though there's no way of proving it one way or another.

As they say, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Mak

When I mentioned the East I was thinking as far as the Far East,China being the main example.As for a connection Aztec's I'm not even going down that road. :wink:

China may be the place of 'birth' of the symbol but that takes us off topic completely.

I agree with Robert and many others as to the introduction of Dragon image's through Eastern cavarly/Sarmatian units in the Roman army.How they got them is another story,perhaps from the far east over a long period of time?

The examples we have in Germanic or British/Briton's are post Roman so how can we say that they aren't at least influenced if not created because of Roman culture?

We can't say that they were pre-Roman just because they existed further east.

To return to your point which raised my interest in the thread.That the Brigantes could of used a Dragon for their symbol which was later taken West. I personally have a problem with the idea because of the lack of evidence that it was a pre-Roman tribal symbol.

After Rome perhaps (if a tribal system still existed)they may of used a Draco. I've no problem with the theory then or that the Britons in the West used Roman symbols still.But these surely are because they wanted to continue the link with Roman rather than any ancient tribal roots.

Then this can be said for the house of Wessex in the Saxon period up to the Normans,both who worked towards the Roman ideas.

I've said my bit on the matter and we will have to agree to disagree. wink: