Wyvern/ Western Dragon-Bird Information

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_dragon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guivre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyvern
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilisk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockatrice
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aitvaras
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dragons_in_mythology_and_folklore

Owing to the constant interest in the topic by "Troodon Man," I am reviewing the information on the European dragons, Wyverns and dragon-birds, to be written up in a longer detailed article to follow. I have two preliminary scale reconstructions I am working on below with the green form centered in Western Europe from Spain and Portugal to Wales and England, and central Europe and the red phase in Eastern Europe from the Baltic to the Balkans and including also Russia and Turkey. The head seems to have little hornlike extensions similar to what is seen in some other types of pheasants, and it seems that both the longer wing and tail feathers are marked with eyespots (ocelli)

 

 

European dragons
Catalan dragon	drac	Catalan dragons are serpent-like creatures with two legs (rarely four) and, sometimes, a pair of wings. Their faces can resemble that of other animals, like lions or cattle. They have a burning breath. Their breath is also poisonous, the reason by which dracs are able to rot everything with their stench. A víbria is a female dragon.[NOTE: Also includes local 2-footed Tatzelwurm variant]
French dragons	Dragon	Authors tend often to present the dragon legends as symbol of Christianity's victory over paganism, represented by a harmful dragon. The French representation of dragons spans much of European history, and has even given its name to the dragoons, a type of cavalry.
Sardinian dragon	scultone	The dragon named "scultone" or "ascultone" appears in legends in Sardinia, Italy. It had the power to kill human beings with its gaze. It was a sort of basilisk, lived in the bush and was immortal.
Scandinavian & Germanic dragons	Lindworm	Lindworms are serpent-like dragons with either two or no legs. In Nordic and Germanic heraldry, the lindworm looks the same as a wyvern. The dragon Fafnir was a lindworm.
English dragons	Wyvern	Wyverns are common in medieval heraldry. Their usual blazon is statant. Wyverns are normally shown as dragons with two legs and two wings.
Welsh dragons	Y Ddraig Goch	In Welsh mythology, after a long battle (which the Welsh King Vortigern witnesses) a red dragon defeats a white dragon; Merlin explains to Vortigern that the red dragon symbolizes the Welsh, and the white dragon symbolizes the Saxons – thus foretelling the ultimate defeat of the English by the Welsh. The ddraig goch appears on the Welsh flag [The anfac  fourlegged , non winged and the twolegged, winged creatures are separate but combined in this dragon]
The worm hill dragon		700 AD the Anglo-Saxons settled and called the hill "Wruenele" this translates as "Wruen" worm, reptile or dragon and "ele" hill. According to local folklore the hill at Knotlow was the lair of a dragon and the terraces around it were made by the coils of its tail. Knotlow is an ancient volcanic vent and this may explain the myth.
The Bignor hill dragon		There is a brief mention of a Dragon on Bignor Hill south of the village of Bignor near the famous Roman Villa, apparently "A Large dragon had its den on Bignor Hill, and marks of its folds were to be seen on the hill". Similar legends have been told of ridges around other hills, such as at Wormhill in Derbyshire.
Zomok [Hungary]		A giant winged snake, which is in fact a full-grown zomok. It often serves as flying mount of the garabonciás (a kind of magician). The sárkánykígyó rules over storms and bad weather.
sárkány		A dragon in human form. Most of them are giants with multiple heads. Their strength is held in their heads. They become gradually weaker as they lose their heads. In contemporary Hungarian the word sárkány is used to mean all kinds of dragons. [It comes from a root meaning "Lord" as in feudal]
Slavic dragons	zmey, zmiy, żmij, змей, or zmaj, or drak, or smok Smok Wawelski from Sebastian Münster's Cosmographie Universalis, 1544	Similar to the conventional European dragon, but multi-headed. They breathe fire and/or leave fiery wakes as they fly. In Slavic and related tradition, dragons symbolize evil. Specific dragons are often given Turkic names (see Zilant, below), symbolizing the long-standing conflict between the Slavs and Turks. However, in Serbian and Bulgarian folklore, dragons are defenders of the crops in their home regions, fighting against a destructive demon Ala, whom they shoot with lightning.[2][3]
Armenian dragon	Vishap	Related to European dragons
Siberian dragon	Yilbegän	Related to European Turkic and Slavic dragons
Romanian dragons	Balaur, Zburator	Balaur are very similar to the Slavic zmey: very large, with fins and multiple heads.
Chuvash dragons	Vere Celen	Chuvash dragons represent the pre-Islamic mythology of the same region.
Asturian and Leonese dragons	Cuélebre	In Asturias and León mythology the Cuélebres are giant winged serpents, which live in caves where they guard treasures and kidnapped xanas. They can live for centuries and, when they grow really old, they use their wings to fly. Their breath is poisonous and they often kill cattle to eat. Leonese language term Cuelebre comes from Latin colŭbra, i.e., snake.
Albanian Dragons	Bolla File:Bua Shpata coat of arms Bollas in the Coat of Arms of House of Bua Shpata	In the Albanian mythology Bolla (also known as Bullar in South Albania), is a type of serpentic dragon (or a demonic dragon-like creature) with a long, coiled, serpentine body, four legs and small wings in ancient Albanian folklore. This dragon sleeps throughout the whole year, only to wake on Saint George's Day, where its faceted silver eyes peer into the world. The Bolla does this until it sees a human. It devours the person, then closes its eyes and sleeps again.[4] Bolla was worshiped as the deity Boa by the ancestors of Albanians, Illyrians.[5] Bolla appears in the coat of arms of the House of Bua Shpata.
	Kulshedra	In its twelfth year, the bolla evolves by growing nine tongues, horns, spines and larger wings. At this time it will learn how to use its formerly hidden fire-breathing abilities, and is now called a kulshedra or kuçedra (hydra). The kuçedra causes droughts and lives off human sacrifices. Kulshedras are killed by Drangue, Albanian winged warriors with supernatural powers. Thunderstorms are conceived as battles between the drangues and the kulshedras.
	Dreq	Dreq is the dragon (draco) proper. It was demonized by Christianity and now is one of the Albanian names of the devil.
Portuguese dragons	Coca [ie, Cocadrille]	In Portuguese mythology coca is a female dragon that fights with Saint George. She loses her strength when Saint George cuts off one of her ears.
Greek dragons	Drákōn - δράκων	Cadmus fighting the Ismenian dragon (which guarded the sacred spring of Ares) is a legendary story from the Greek lore dating to before ca. 560–550 B.C. Greek dragons commonly had a role of protecting important objects or places. For example, the Colchian dragon watched the Golden Fleece and the Nemean dragon guarded the sacred groves of Zeus.[6] The name comes from the Greek "drakeîn" meaning "to see clearly".[7]
Tatar dragons	Zilant	Really closer to a wyvern or cockatrice, the Zilant is the symbol of Kazan. Zilant itself is a Russian rendering of Tatar yılan, i.e., snake.
Turkish dragons	Ejderha or Evren	The Turkish dragon secretes flames from its tail, and there is no mention in any legends of its having wings, or even legs. In fact, most Turkish (and later Islamic) sources describe dragons as gigantic snakes. [Actually there are two kinds, see note at end]
Lithuanian Dragons	Slibinas	This dragon is more of a hydra with multiple heads, though sometimes it does appear with one head.

ADDITIONAL  Lithuania, Latvia, Estonian and Karelian Dragons:
Ai / Aijatar / Ajatar / Ajattara / Aijo
Region: Estonia, Southern Regions
Time Period: Unknown
Sources: Giants, Monsters, and Dragons

Aitvaras
Region: Lithuania
Time Period: 1547 (first mention)
Sources: Giants, Monsters, and Dragons pg 10, Circle of the Dragon others

Notes:
• Changes appearance - indoors it's a cock, outdoors its a dragon with a fiery tail
• Can bring both good luck and bad luck to it's masters, but will bring stolen money.
• Can be purchased - the price is a soul.
• The bad news - once you have one, they're near impossible to get rid of.
• Eats omelets, eggs and neighbour's chickens
• If injured, would be healed by just touching the ground
Tale 1:
One story says that a new wife wondered by her mother-in-law's corn bin never ran out, so she took a consecrated candle and looked in the bin. There she found an Aitvaras, but the candle scared it away and it disappeared.
Tale 2:
First mentioned when a neighbor suddenly became wealthy and the others investigated
Kaukas
Region: Lithuania
Time Period: Unknown
Sources: Giants, Monsters, and Dragons

Notes:
• Flying dragon with fiery tail that also manifests as a fowl.
• Brings good fortune and stolen goods and may be the guardians of treasure

aitvaras_by_silni-d4bzn9q

Ejderha (Turkey)

 

Galician_dragon_(Medieval_Age)

Zmej-Slavic, Balkan and Central-European Dragon

 



Trento-Italy-cathedral-relief_ hunting hound_with_wyvern
This could give the approximate scale for a large pheasant-like bird as measured against an average hunting hound.
In this case it is hard to measure around the tail coil but the whole is about ten feet long..

 

Front half of dragon statue, can be considered as representing the whole of a Wyvern in  itself  by incorporating the legend this way. The Dragon of Wales started out with just the two (Front)

 legs but later added on the rear pair also, as in this statue.                     

cockatrice



St George and the Dragon, above and below

 

Turkish lore speaks of a good dragon and a bad dragon in eternal conflict, a tradition supposedly derived from Inner Asia.
http://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%BCkrek
Bükrek and Sangal - Altai Turks and  two dragons fighting in mythology. The conflict is reminiscent  of Yin-Yang symbol. Bukri or also known as Bukra (Bukran),  Has good qualities. Harmless to humans, or even to help. Lizard appearance. No wings, and therefore can not fly. All the seas connects the major sea (ocean) live. There is a very strong ["Water tiger"] claws and a long neck. Her voice is also very nice, and it sounds even said to the other end of the world. It is in conflict with Evil dragons who seek escape from his voice. Fought the nine-year-long war with the evil dragon Sangal and won the match. (Twist / bug / Buk) is derived from the root. Twisty, is writhing. It also embodies the meaning of strength and invincibility. In this context, Boke (hero, champion) has to do with the concept. Bogen / Böge (shaman) are also linked with the word.

It seems that the religious myths recognize a sort of long-necked sea serpent or dragon traditionally, whose name is a "String of Buoys" reference originally but which became the common term of reference for Long Necked Sea-serpent when seen around the area of modern Turkey. This is potentially useful to know. I also don't know how extensively the myth reaches into Inner Asia.

 

The Biggest Study (Ivan Sanderson's Files) on Dragons

http://thebiggeststudy.blogspot.com/2012/05/dragon-morass-of-confusion-at-least-to.html
http://thebiggeststudy.blogspot.com/2012/05/dragon-mass-of-confusion-part-two.html
http://thebiggeststudy.blogspot.com/2012/05/dragon-mass-of-confusion-part-three.html
http://thebiggeststudy.blogspot.com/2012/05/dragon-mass-of-confusion-part-last.html
Survey of Dragon mythology, last of four parts:

[ I am reproducing most of the text from Part 4 (not ALL of it) because of a few interesting sightings included that I had not touched on before, but basically the author of the article is taking a metaphysical view of the problem whereas I am seeking a practical one-DD]

The Big Study

Another Master-Otter?

"DRAGON": A Mass of Confusion, part last.

Here we go on this last confused flight. Any attempt to learn about truly complex subjects never ends. I'm going to simply quit looking for more shards of evidence and ideas and leave the rest to you. I was in the middle of the last blog entry when a friend sent me another dragon claim --- you can never achieve "completion" so don't try. I have friends who never publish anything because they are always waiting to "wrap it all up". Not a chance.

Here are the first third cases claimed by some to be dragon encounters --- just my randomly collected files, remember. These are obviously the really old ones. To me, six of the seventeen sound like they could be dragons as defined in our series. There are seven others which are iffy. Unfortunately, none is a particularly strong case in the UFO sense of a well-documented sighting. Since they are really old, I suppose we shouldn't expect them to be. There's just barely enough here to keep our hopes up.

One of the things that I like most on that list is number 5, the dragon of Burley Beacon and Bisterne. This tale is about a very respectfully built dragon, legs and wings and reptilian and large, which has very inconvenient behaviors for the local populace. If one could take anything at all about this story at face value, the encounter took place in the 1400s, which in theory would be plenty "modern" enough for us to have good "history" and therefore credibility. In the tale, a historical character, Sir Maurice de Berkeley, confronts and slays the inconvenient monster, both he and his hunting dogs perishing due to the battle. Since that conquest, the Berkeley family became lords of that area's manor, and the dragon took its place on the family crest. The legend was consistently maintained for centuries thereafter. [The "Dragon is two-legged with feathered wings and is therefore a large bird]

If the culture of the times was like current US culture [even without our communications technology], the Berkeleys couldn't have gotten away with just making up such an "unusual" claim, and so we'd have good reason to believe that we had a good dragon story on our hands. But what if that is just what you did to create a family-establishing legend in those times and places? I don't know that culture. I cannot say. Some expert could.

Another prize of the era is of course this: the 1619 claim by Athanasius Kircher that a winged dragon AND a winged serpent flew from Mount Pilate to Lake Lucerne [Switzerland] and that's just that. Love it, but WHO said it, and why are we to believe it??

Here's the rest of these things [I told you that my files weren't too hot on this critter]. I have about five more cases which intrigue me more than most, and at least a couple of handfuls of maybes. Compared to Little People encounters, Sea Serpents, UFOs this topic is starving for evidence. Number forty is a full-fledged dragon rising from the ocean. If I had a dozen more I'd be in business.

That's the trouble with the narrowly-defined true dragon, rather than the great big reptile. There ARE a few dragons which ascend beyond being just big reptilians, but they are few.

Japan contributed a smallish Dragon recently [2003] when this Lake "lizard" crawled out of the water and flew away. Was it well-observed? Multiple-witnessed? If so, it would be a mini-dragon. And we'd all be happy. [This was in Japan and was most likely a large lizard designed like a Draco lizard with webbed-rib-wings: such creatures had been rumoured in China for ages]

.....

By the way, Ulrich Magin, in his fairly recent book Investigating the Impossible has as his second chapter as pretty good candidate for an ocean-going Dragon [winged and all] from 1922 near Istanbul. I just read this so it's not in my files, but it's as good as any.
[This appears to be a Plesiosaurian Sea-monster with winglike front flippers in motion out of the water, a type of sighting that occurs infrequently the whole world over]

...



Possibly related to that tale is the reported experience of a modern scientist, while attending a workshop in 1984. This meeting was a naval presentation [he was in at the time] and the subject matter was not very exciting. It was about 11am and well into the orientation lecture when the officer began to see the floor beneath himself and the other officers in the room becoming transparent. He was not asleep in any way, as he remembered every word of the lecture "loud and clear", but his experience of the "floor environment" was radically changing despite the above-the-floor scene remaining exactly the same.

What he was now looking at below the floor was a set of apparent "connections" between every individual in the room with the back of a great animal --- yep, a dragon. Each man was attached to that great dragon through which seemed to flow an animating energy of life. He felt powerfully alive. The dragon, which seemed to extend forever, had a tiled/fitted scaly back composed of subtle jewel-like colors. It was "impossibly beautiful". Staring at the beauty, he then saw the beast writhe a bit, lift up its head, and momentarily stare back at him. The view of the dragon lasted several minutes until the floor again began "solidifying" and the vision was gone. "Strange days indeed. Most peculiar, Momma", as John Lennon said.

F.W. Holiday in his Dragon and the Disk seems to have a totally different idea. After searching the Scottish Lochs and the Welsh countryside for years, Holiday sees that the dragons and the Balls-of-Light phenomena are somehow one. Although I like Holiday's originality of thought process as he pursued these mysteries, and have an instinctive itch telling me that somewhere in all of that mish-mash some truth lies, I still can't make any hard connection. Paul Devereux seems to be able to, as he has his Earth line energy concepts, and even called his work the Dragon Project. But I'm still not quite getting it. Strangely enough, in a recent book, Solomon Islands Mysteries, it seems that people in that part of the world have the exact same idea. And, as I have difficulty with any hypothetical cultural transferences between the Solomons and Wales or Loch Ness, that is even more intriguing.

But what does it actually mean? Are Earth energies [the physical textbook kind] generating brain-boggling electromagnetic fields [Michael Persinger and John Derr's hypothesis], and scrambling consciousness, burping up dragons? And the BOLS are just secondary physical side-effects? Or are the BOLS faerie, and the "dragons" or whatever else from "there"? Remember that Teodorani believes that the only sustainable hypothesis to cover the behavior of the BOLS he studies is that they somehow contain consciousness. Cue John Lennon again.

Let's go into a different Out Proctor Hollow. The above is a very early painted rendition of what Pierre Marquette saw of the Piasa Bird on that expeditition. Hmmmm.... just look at that thing for a moment....

" As we coasted along the rocks, frightful for their height and length, we saw two monsters painted on these rocks, which startled us at first, and on which the boldest Indian dare not gaze long. They are as large as a calf, with horns on the head like a deer, a frightful look, red eyes, bearded like a tiger, the face somewhat like a man's, the body covered with scales, and a tail so long that it twice makes a turn of the body, passing over the head and down between the legs, and ending at last in a fish's tail. Green, red, and a kind of black are the colors employed."

Not exactly a European dragon but certainly in the ballpark. My intuition is that the things were pictorially somewhere between the two renditions above.

The Sioux have a legendary creature, sometimes painted on rockfaces, called the Unktehi. It seems properly cryptozoological if not trending towards prehistoric or dragonish.[This one is a Mishipizhiw, Algonquin analogue of the Unktehi and what had most likely been painted on "Piasa Rock"]

Apparently there are more than one place where the Unktehi is drawn, indicating some significance to me. I've taken one such drawing and added wings --- an illegal move by me, but I'm meditating..... not completely far off Piasa Bird imagery. [Yes, forget the wings: Unktehi were contrasted with winged creatures and fought against them. Some at least seem to be based on fossil dinosaur bones]

Could the pre-European Native Americans known of a dragon-like creature? If so, what does that do to our ideas as to whether anyone ever had true "external reality" encounters? As I said, folks: I'm trying as hard as I can on this one.

And with that: what then is this alleged Native American pictoglyph from Wupaki Park all about? Is it legit? A modern fake? Half legit with modern additions? Too bad that I at least don't know, as it is a fine, albeit crude, rendition of a dragon in my eyes.[Actually it is a water monster and it could be "Blowing like a whale": Both Mishipizhiws and Unktehis were actually water-monsters]

So even here Out Proctor, I'm still haunted by Beowulf's Bane. Where did it come from? It doesn't seem like a reverie of the Lifeforce of the World, but more like an awesome cousin of the equally awesome Piasa Bird. [Which was not a bird. That part was a hoax]

Desperate for inspiration, I'm turning to my least favorite Catholic saint, Augustine. Despite being a theological misfire of calamitous proportions on several major topics, he was a highly curious man with many contacts. And in an unfinished treatise on the creation of the world, Augustine stated flatly that dragons existed and that the pagans have known this for a long time.

When Augustine uses the word "pagans" he is usually referring to certain Greco-Roman area cults, one of which he himself belonged to as a youth. But Augustine also knew well the "paganism" of the British, as his main theological opponent, the one who tested his thinking most severely, was a British monk named Pelagius. In fact there was a lot more "commerce" between Britain and Rome back then than one imagines [we are speaking of the c.400AD era here --- the Dark Dark Ages]. What sort of dragons was Augustine hearing about, that convinced him of their reality? By the way, he speaks of these things as natural beasts from the creation, not icons of Satan.

[This is another twolegged winged dragon more than likely based on a large pheasant of foul reputation and identical to the Wyvern if not also to the Cockatrice]
I'm getting an itch that he's talking about this. You're allowed to get itches Out Proctor.

Going back to the beginning: Tiamat vs. the gods of Order. The Tiamat legend gets a serious change of imagery with the Mesopotamian ascendance of the later Babylonian-Assyrian empire. By 700BC The battle isn't between goodness and a giant sea monster, but between Bel [good guy god] and a winged dragon... or maybe a Griffin.{Second guess is correct]

Here's another cylinder seal of that era. The fight now takes on a decidedly dragonish flavor, as the opponent is properly winged, and yet continues the flavor of the serpent/reptilian Tiamat in the back of one's mind. And... the griffin, which seems very close to our ancient dragon at this point, is a guarder of treasures as well.

Here we have an illuminated manuscript representing the biblical story of Daniel "defeating" the dragon, which is clearly a direct Old Testament steal from the old Bel and the Dragon Mesopotamian story. Our dragon here, happily in its cavern has a more dragony than eagle-like head, and one sees many legends running together on details.[This one is more likely a big monitor  lizard]

Dragons and Griffins --- not really so different in appearance. Throw a Wyvern into the middle and you have rather smoothly translating physical set. How does this play into our story, though? I can't claim to have strong opinions about that. The legends, powerful legends possibly resting upon real sea serpent and monster encounters were there. They were so ubiquitous that they were in the minds of Bible writers and people like Augustine. Right with that were the Griffins. Based on encounters? All this was a stew existing in the scandinavian and british minds. The Beowulf poet lived in that legendary environment. He plucked it out. Was it a plucking of an idea based upon encounters? Or was this only a very emotive image of awesome force?

Lots of griffin, wyvern, dragon image exists. Shreds of claims and testimonies exist. The Piasa Bird stands there mocking. Dragons.... did any entity from faerie ever decide to manifest in that form? Where are the encounter stories? [Ironically the Piasa bird seems to be the only one of this series that was not originally a bird]

I'm out of here. Dragons DO exist Out Proctor.... but I still don't know about anywhere else.

Till next time, and next topic: may your lives be full of wonders and only beneficent dragons.

Gwiber-Wyvern by Tim Morris

"Gwiber or Welsh Flying Serpent by Pristichampsus (Tim Morris) on Deviant Art: It has been theorised that century old reports of feathered flying serpents in Wales may have been some sort of unusual bird, perhaps a pheasant. It makes sense, unlikely as it seems, the Quetzal bird was worshiped as a flying serpent by the Mayans, because it appears serpentine in flight. Like the Quetzal and the peacock, it is said to glitter and shine, with eyed wings and tail appearing like jewels. The birds were reported to raid chicken coops, either this is scapegoating, and the culprit was a fox. Alternately, some large birds, including pheasants, are very aggressive towards chickens (also, large birds invariably attack each other), and many kinds of domestic pheasant are cannibalistic.

"Thanks to Karl Shuker for introducing me to this Cryptid."
Thanks do go to Karl for pointing this creature out, since it is one of the featured creatures of From Flying Toads to Snakes With Wings. However the identification is mine as well as very nearly the same wording I used
I did say "Some domestic fowl can be cannibalistic" because actually this does include even chickens-allegedly some fighting cocks enjoy eating the losers in fights, and so on.
Darren Naish posted a reference to cannibalism in pheasants on Tet Zoo before:
http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/2010/03/pheasant_cannibalism.php

English Water Jug 1100s

North German Water Jug, 1200s

Illuminated Boewulf Manuscript from the 1300s

I have done an article on this for the CFZ and it has been reprinted in Richard Muirhead's journal FLYING SERPENT. Essentially I was the one to come up with the complete theory on this, although someting of the same idea has been around for years. My idea was that the Gwiber was the same as the Wyvern and also the Cockatrice, and was a large pheasant-like bird with a long feathered tail. Traditionally, it was up to nine feet long. It was definitely a bird because it had feathered wings and only two legs with clawed and scaly feet. It also turns out that it is THE Traditional Western European Winged Dragon, and that all Western Winged Dragons were really birds, albeit very large and agressive birds that were rumoured to be venomous. I added photos showing that a pheasant with a very long tail could actually curl it around as if it were a snake's tail. Furthermore it was such a size that the hen of this pheasant was about the size and shape as the cock of a smaller species of pheasant, hence giving rise to those stories about a cock laying eggs.

A Wyvern.

Supporting this idea is the fact that the artistic depictions of dragons, Wyverns and Cockatrices are all pretty much similar, and even the dragons are often shown with bird beaks (and pretty much chicken-beak-shaped-beaks at that) And some types of pheasants do have feathered crests at the back of the head looking like horns or ears, so that part of the traditional descriptions match up also. The traditional descriptions did remain very closely similar from the 1100s up into the 1700s.

They are occasionally still being reported in parts of Wales and in other places.

dragon-art-lindworm-wappen-at-klagenfurt-gaertner

1420 Moors Subduing a Dragon

Winged Dragons Gesner 1589 and Spanish Flying Dragon 1560

Dragon skeleton reconstruction made in Rome in 1691. Not exactly accurate but it does illustrate what the overall shape was still supposed to be. The head looks as if it is a dog's skull.

Rafael, Renaissance Italy, St George and the Dragon.
Once again the traditional size and shape is approximated
And is about right for a large pheasant-like bird with a long tail

Cockatrice-Dragon 1628

The corresponding Russian tradition might be the Firebird and there could be a Western European green phase for the original bitd and an Eastern European red phase. Both bitds are represented as having peacock-like tail feathers marked with prominent ocelli (eyespots) the Lithuanian dragon also manifests as a sort of a large fowl with a tail made out of fire.

 The original posting was on  http://forteanzoology.blogspot.com/2011/01/dale-drinnon.html