Canrith

Everything you always wanted to know about Dutch Dragons

Dragons are generally situated in Celtic countries (Scotland, Wales, Ireland and Brittany) and in Asia. What most people don’t know is that in the early days dragons were also very common in the Netherlands. As a result of the increase of the Dutch population their habitat became smaller and their numbers diminished fast.

Nowadays there are three different species of dragons left in the Netherlands:

Well known is the “common dragon” from Limburg, a province in the south of the Netherlands (Dracus Ordinairus Limburgica). This type of dragon lives in the abandoned shafts of the former coal mines, where they can find plenty of coal, their main meal. They either have the color of a pint of dark ale as you can see on the picture or are a sort of darkish green (the type of green they call “brons-groen” in these parts of the country. Pictures at out next update.

Just across the border in the coal mines lives a distant German relative, the common German dragon (Dracus Ordinairus Gothicus). These dragons are black and it seems to appear that they wear helmets, but that’s just the shape of their heads. The Goth Dragon as it’s known does not like (day)light, so we don’t have a picture of this species.

There’s also a Belgian cousin (Dracus Ordinairus Patatus) living in the mines near Limburg and in the south of Belgium next to the French border. They are multi colored and produce a very strange sound as though they try to speak three different languages at the same time. Pictures at our next update.

In the northern provinces we find the other two types of Dutch dragons. The oldest type is called the Gasdragon from Slochteren (Dracus Gasbagius Slochterius). They live in the area where the Dutch used to mine for natural gas and feed on the residues of the stuff. There’s very little known about this dragon. They don’t like the company of people or other dragons, where the species from the south are real party animals and are especially attracted by festivals as the Dutch “Carnaval” and Halloween. Pictures at our next update.

The other one is called the Great Oil Dragon from the north (Dracus Oliedomo Majesticus). There’s a small group of them living in abandoned oil wells in the province of Groningen and a lager group living in oil wells in the Wadden Sea between the coast of Groningen and Friesland, another Dutch province, and the Dutch isles in that sea. The last ones do not only feed on oil but also feast upon the seals once in a while. Environmentalists who strongly deny the existence of dragons have other explanations for the disappearance of the seals. Pictures at our next update.