In the mountains below Vrågåvarden in Rollag there is a dragon cave. The cave has a great treasure and is guarded by a dragon. In the mountain Sørkjefjellet on the other side of the valley there is also a treasure cave. In the old days people in the village could see the dragon as a huge fireball with long luminous tail when he flew back and forth to guard his treasures.

The caves are still there, but the dragon I have never seen...

Where did the dragon come from?

The oldest story of dragons can be found in the world’s oldest written story, the epic of Gilgamesh, king of Uruk ca. 2600 B.C. He defeated a dragon that terrorized the Southern Mesopotamia at the time. The story of Gilgamesh has affected both the Bible writers and others for several thousand years.

The first instance of dragons in Norse literature is in the legend of Beowulf from the 800s.

In the Norwegian folklore, the dragon dwells in caves and is guarding great treasures. Names linked to the dragon can be found several places in the country, Dragon Caves, Dragon Mountain, Dragon Silver from Kongsberg etc...

How did the dragon become a dragon?

Folklore tells that no snake is so small that it does not dream of being a dragon.

To become a dragon, a snake had to bite seven pregnant women. Or he could bite a rooster to get wings, bite a horse to get a mane, and then bite a man to get a ring around its neck and be a perfect dragon.

Sources: Ola Bøe “Trollskap og godvette”. “Gilgamesh” Per Seyersted’s Norwegian edition from 1979.