Dragonslayers

Dragonslayers are people who slay dragons for various reasons. Dragonslayers and the creatures they hunt have been popular in traditional stories from around the world: they are a type of story classified as type 300 in the Aarne–Thompson classification system. They continue to be popular in modern books, films, video-games and other entertainments. Dragonslayer-themed stories are also sometimes seen as having a chaoskampf theme - in which an heroic figure struggles against a monster that epitomises chaos.

A dragonslayer is often the hero in a "Princess and dragon" tale. In this type of story, the dragonslayer kills the dragon in order to rescue a high-class female character from being devoured by it. This female character often then becomes the love interest of the account. One notable example of this kind of legend is the story of Ragnar Loðbrók, who slays a giant serpent, thereby rescuing the maiden, Þóra borgarhjörtr, whom he later marries.

There are, however, several notable exceptions to this common motif. In the legend of Saint George and the Dragon, for example, Saint George overcomes the dragon as part of a plot which ends with the conversion of the dragon's grateful victims to Christianity, rather than Saint George being married to the rescued princess character.

In a Norse legend from the Völsunga saga, the dragonslayer, Sigurd, kills Fafnir - a dwarf who has been turned into a dragon as a result of guarding the cursed ring that had once belonged to the dwarf, Andvari. After slaying the dragon, Sigurd drinks some of the dragon's blood and thereby gains the ability to understand the speech of birds. He also bathes in the dragon's blood, causing his skin to become invulnerable. Sigurd overhears two nearby birds discussing the heinous treachery being planned by his companion, Regin. In response to the plot, Sigurd kills Regin, thereby averting the treachery.

Mythologists such as Joseph Campbell have argued that dragonslayer myths can be seen as a psychological metaphor:

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