Cort:
>How do we know which is the "lesser" motif and which is the
>"Core" one?
It's relative, to be sure. But we were talking about dragons
and the core motif here is "water", usually rain but not
necessarily. It all depends on which dragon we are discussing
and what our definition of "dragon" is. I consider than a
subtype of serpents. The serpent theme is almost always linked
with water in general while the dragon theme is linked more
specifically with rain (water from the sky) and there are
special tell-tale symbols like bird claws, wings, etc that
are specifically sky symbolisms.
>Some consider Tiamat to be a dragon as well.
And yes, so if we're discussing Tiamat and we say that she
is a dragon, then she has nothing to do with rain, no. If we're
talking about dragons with eagle's claws that fly in the sky,
they have more to do with rain.
>Hmm...What about Cacus, a local Roman fire-breathing cattle-stealing giant?
Yes, the fire-breathing aspect would be merely the overlay
of the thunder dragon motif on top of the cattle-stealing
three-headed serpent. The fire being originally lightning.
- gLeN
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