Thieving Thursday: Dragons and Unicorns

Ah, thieving Thursday. How can I choose from so many excellent blogs where I've dropped me wee words of wisdom?

I was all geared up to go off on the comment I made on Patricia's Subjective Soup about pain thresholds and how no one could really tell what someone else's pain threshold was - after all, how can anyone know what someone else is actually feeling.

But I digress.

So, why didn't I write on that? Well, because it's St. George's day and Relax Max has given me the absolutely best opportunity to talk about my husband, the dragon, unicorns, and their proverbial rivalry.

Now some of you might be skeptical that my husband is really a dragon. Scoff away, it won't hurt me or him, but I'm not going to argue. Dragons have hot tempers and voracious appetites. But they're not evil.

According to my own personal dragon, dragons are very very old and very very rare. They are very wise and fairly ruthless. Depending on the type of dragon, they might breath fire (but not all do) or fly. Most were adept at magics.

But there are quite a few myths associated with them:

1. Dragons capture and devour or rape maidens. Dragons have voracious appetites of all kinds and sex is no exception. However, when it came to sex, they do not have preference for virgins, in fact the opposite, and don't rape. Ever. If you hear of a large scaly creature raping someone, it is undoubtedly a drake (which ain't a dragon no way, nohow). Nor, when it came to sex, did they limit themselves to human or, for that matter, other dragons when it came to sex. Anything willing was fair game. Maidens would not be devoured unless they were particularly obnoxious.
   
2. Hoarding treasure. They collect things like magpies, shiny and valuable, but they like soft cuddly things as well. Even a dragon prefers a soft bed. But monetary items like coins or money don't mean anything; they like interesting things, unique things, like any other collector. They live so long, many collections are quite extensive.
   
3. St. George slayed a dragon and saved a maiden. Well, someone may have staked out a maiden thinking they could get ahead with a dragon that way, but dragons don't eat maidens nor could a knight take out a dragon (sorry). The dragon more likely went out drinking with St. George (Dragons tend to have excellent cellars) and returned him gently the next morning, leaving him with a fuzzy recollection of the previous night. I'm guessing St. George put his own spin on things when the hangover wore off.
4. Dragons have soft underbellies. Not so, sorry. If you're hoping for a loose scale, like Smaug, well the news is bad because Smaug was a drake. Dragons don't have that kind of vulnerability, at least not that Lee is willing to admit to. He says their scales are too fine. Hmm.

So, if dragons aren't so awful, why the horrible reputation? Well, part of it is the wonderful propaganda machine of the unicorns.

As some of you likely know, dragons and unicorns are sworn enemies (strange coincidence: my son has hated movies and pictures of unicorns since birth. Strange, no?). But why the emnity?

Well, dragons consider unicorns the scum of the universe, even if they admire their PR capabilities. I mean, what kind of creature interacts solely with virgins, insists on seeing them alone, is armed with a sharp horn and is nearly a match with a dragon in a fight, but is still seen as a pure and innocent creature. See, good PR.

Think about it.