Abstract

Abstract:

Many early modern sources from Eastern Germany and the Baltic mention a household spirit in the shape of a flying snake. This so called dragon allegedly brought money and produce to its owner. Everything it brought it stole from somebody else. This household dragon appears in early ethnological literature, in scientific treatises and in witch trials. Early modern authors agreed that the household dragon was a demon in the shape of a snake-like monster. Even scientists who suggested alternative explanations for alleged dragon sightings failed to reject the demonological explanation outright. Alleged contact with such a dragon provoked a number of witch trials. Persons accused of being in contact with a household dragon were profit-oriented social climbers who had accumulated wealth quickly. Their neighbors maintained that they had become rich simply because the dragon had provided them with money and produce. Folk tales collected in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries presented essentially the same motifs. In both, early modern sources and modern folk tales, dragon narratives were an extremely aggressive form of social criticism that condemned profit-oriented economic behavior.

pdf

Share