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Embark on a mythical adventure as we delve into two captivating stories that blur the line between folklore and reality.
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00:00The legend goes that a dwarf named Fafnir was famous for his strength and courage.
00:06Because of his qualities, he was tasked with protecting their kingdom.
00:11Dwarves were known to gather a lot of wealth, so a bit of added security was a must.
00:16I mean, they lived in a house made from gold and precious gems.
00:20But Fafnir also had another special talent. He was able to shapeshift.
00:26Tricked by Loki, the Norse spirit of mischief, Fafnir was taken over by his greed and the shine of his
00:33father's treasure.
00:37He decided he did not want to share any of it, not even with his father or his brothers.
00:43He stole it and ran away all by himself to a place he'd be hard to find, the middle of
00:49the desert.
00:51To protect his wealth, Fafnir transformed into a huge dragon.
00:57His new appearance looked like a huge snake, powerful and scary.
01:01His magical powers did not end there, though.
01:04Because the dragon couldn't fly, he also spread poison all around his new home.
01:09So no one had a chance to survive if they wanted to take his gold away.
01:15Fafnir was soon defeated by a young hero named Sigurd.
01:19The legend of Fafnir tries to explain why family is more important than greed.
01:25It also shows the many magical powers dragons possess.
01:29But the most interesting part is that it's quite a good example of how dragons came to be in our
01:34tales.
01:36But hey, this is just one of the many stories mentioning dragons.
01:40Just switch on your TV or peek into any bookstore and you'll surely stumble upon dragons somewhere.
01:48Variations of dragon-like creatures have been described in stories from all over the world, from Asia to Northern Europe.
01:55Most of these creatures are depicted with reptile-like bodies, wings and claws.
02:00And the scariest trait of them all, they can breathe fire out of their mouths.
02:06The name of these creatures comes from the Latin word draconum, which translates to huge serpent.
02:13But let's take a trip down memory lane to see how it all started.
02:17An Asian historian, for example, discovered some fossils back in the 4th century BCE and decided that he'd stumbled upon
02:25dragons.
02:26It's easy to understand why he got so confused if you look at a fossilized stegosaurus.
02:31It was 30 feet long, 14 feet tall, and covered in armored plates and spikes.
02:38The Nile crocodile might have gotten mistaken for a dragon, too.
02:42It still exists today and lives in sub-Saharan Africa.
02:46But it may have been more popular in ancient times.
02:49When reaching maturity, Nile crocodiles can grow up to 18 feet long.
02:54But that's not all.
02:55It can even walk with its body off the ground.
02:58And some were even pictured standing on their two back legs.
03:04Goannas are dragon-like lizards that live in Australia.
03:07Large as they are, they also have razor-sharp teeth and claws, and are also known to even produce venom.
03:13It's easy to see why goannas may be the source for the Australian version of dragons.
03:20When humans first discovered whale bones back in the day, we had no idea these animals lived in the sea.
03:27Given their size, we surely must have thought they were dangerous.
03:30And because we rarely see whales, if we don't go underwater, of course,
03:35they were poorly understood and easily mistaken for dragons, too.
03:40Probably the most interesting source of dragon mythology is actually the human brain.
03:45In a book called An Instinct for Dragons,
03:48there was a theory which claimed that dragons existed in almost all ancient cultures
03:53because we had evolved to fear large predators to survive.
03:58We aren't the only mammals to do this.
04:00Monkeys have an innate fear of snakes and large cats, too, for example.
04:04When you combine these natural traits with folklore, you get a lot of dragon stories everywhere,
04:11adapted to each region.
04:14Reptilian beasts with magical powers date back as far as the origins of human civilization itself.
04:20I'm talking about ancient Mesopotamia.
04:23Humans back then used to believe in all sorts of creatures,
04:26but their head spirit was Marduk, the patron of the city of Babylon.
04:31If you look at the artwork from back then,
04:34Marduk was depicted with a snake-like dragon at his side.
04:37It could be either nice or vengeful, depending on what mood it was in.
04:44If you want to sign up to become a dragon,
04:47the first thing they'll ask you at the interview will be if you can breathe fire, of course.
04:52So scientists have tried to look into some ways that could make it real for dragons to breathe out fire
04:58without damaging their throats.
05:00To do that, they examined the bombardier beetle.
05:03This eccentric insect can pack up some really hot substances in its belly.
05:08Once the creature gets bothered by something, it shoots out a fiery load of chemicals.
05:14In all fairness, it's not really fire, but it does burn, so it's close enough.
05:20Going back to dragons, they'd need to have similar glands in their throats to produce the same effect.
05:26But where do dragons come from?
05:29They didn't just appear out of nowhere, regardless of the source you consult.
05:34Some tales, like that of Fafnir, say that even humans can turn into dragons.
05:40But the most popular theory is that dragons start out as eggs.
05:44Some sources even draft a series of stages a dragon has to go through during its life.
05:49Everything starts with hatching.
05:50Dragons are said to eat their way out of those shells and break the sides of the egg.
05:59Then there's the wormling stage, which is what dragon specialists, or dragonologists if you like, call a newly hatched dragon.
06:08It's still small and weak, but don't worry, it can take care of itself pretty well.
06:14The rest of a dragon's life stages are pretty self-explanatory.
06:18There are grown-up dragons, then ancient ones.
06:22A dragon's life ends when it reaches the twilight stage.
06:26Some sources claim dragons never stopped growing.
06:29Others even say they never reach the end of their lives.
06:32They just pass on to another type of spiritual existence.
06:37Dragons are known to be the symbol of a lot of different things.
06:40But that all depends on their origin.
06:43In some regions of Asia, they are known to bring luck, power, and wealth.
06:48To become a powerful warrior in Britain, you'd need to first defeat a dragon.
06:53That's why you often see them on flags.
06:55The flag of Wales, for example, has a large red dragon on a green and white background.
07:01Western stories aren't as nice to dragons.
07:04They are often seen as evil and vengeful.
07:08Another myth associated with dragons is that they love gold and precious stones.
07:14This greedy side of their temperament seems to date back to ancient Greece,
07:19where dragons were tasked with guarding treasures.
07:21Some of these guarding dragons were seen in such tales as The Hobbit and in the Harry Potter series.
07:29As for dragons' magical abilities, they also vary a lot.
07:33Some were said to have blood with supernatural properties.
07:37Some were rumored to be able to speak.
07:39Others were famous for their wisdom.
07:41A lot of dragons in ancient literature could fly or shapeshift, even into humans.
07:48Some real-life creatures got their names thanks to bearing a resemblance to dragons.
07:53Like the dragonfly, that has more than 5,000 subspecies we know about.
07:58It got its name from folklore tales, as Europeans in the Middle Ages saw it as an evil insect.
08:06Dragonflies were accused of some really nasty things, like biting people's eyes and mouths.
08:11But the creature that resembles mythical dragons most is a reptile called the flying dragon.
08:18They're seen in wooded areas of Southeast Asia.
08:21They don't really have wings, per se, but parts of their ribs are elongated to support some extra skin
08:28that allows them to leap through the air between trees.
08:31Those wings are also brightly colored and contrast with their brown bodies.
08:39In a frosty Canadian park, hidden deep beneath layers of thick ice,
08:45scientists discovered a bizarre skeleton they named the frozen dragon.
08:50The skeleton had been in the frozen ice for millions of years.
08:53It took experts decades to work out the species of this strange fossil.
08:58It was identified as a new genus of pterosaur.
09:01Pterosaurs were massive flying reptiles with wingspans of over 16 feet.
09:07Their heads were 3.5 times the size of their bodies.
09:11Pterosaurs lived 76 million years ago, when they soared above the dinosaurs.
09:16Scientists described them as the biggest, meanest, and most bizarre animals that ever flew.
09:22The new genus has been named Cryodracon boreus,
09:26which translates to frozen dragon of the north winds.
09:32In 2013, a young mountaineer was climbing one of the tallest mountains in Western Europe, Mont Blanc.
09:39He noticed a strange metal box poking out of the snow.
09:42The mountaineer pried the box open and found that it was filled with precious rubies, emeralds, and sapphires.
09:49The climber immediately handed the box to the authorities.
09:52It was discovered that the box likely belonged to a passenger on one of two flights from India that crashed
10:00into the mountain over 50 years ago.
10:02The box was valued to be worth over $200,000, and authorities are still searching for the heir to the
10:09small box of treasures.
10:11In northwest Siberia, in 2007, a reindeer herder was on an outing with his sons when he noticed something strange
10:19in the ice.
10:20The man realized it was a frozen mammoth calf and immediately contacted the local museum.
10:27The calf was named Luba and was the best preserved mammoth mummy in the world at the time of its
10:33discovery.
10:33Luba had been in the ice for 41,800 years and is around 30 to 35 days old.
10:41From trunk to tail, the mammoth calf is roughly the same size as a large calf.
10:46If you're interested in seeing for yourself, Luba travels to museums all around the world.
10:52On the frozen continent of Antarctica, covered in layers of ice and snow, is Mount Erebus, the frozen volcano.
11:00The volcano was discovered in the middle of an eruption in 1841 by explorers on an arctic expedition.
11:07The volcano is over 12,000 feet tall and has been active for the last 1.3 million years.
11:14Deep within the middle of the volcano is a huge crater filled with large volumes of molten lava.
11:20The volcano has occasional explosions, which means it's classified as being in continuing eruption.
11:26However, these eruptions are nothing to worry about because they're generally rather small.
11:32Back in 1991, two hikers were traveling across the Italian Alps when they stumbled across a body that they presumed
11:40to belong to a recently lost hiker.
11:42The duo trudged back down the mountain to report their unfortunate findings.
11:47Once the remains were recovered, it was clear that the body was not recent at all.
11:52Scientists determined that the Iceman was more than 5,000 years old and named him Otsi.
11:59The discovery was unlike anything scientists had ever before seen because the body was so well preserved.
12:05For years, Otsi was studied by scientists who discovered that our ancestors have a lot more in common with us
12:12than we ever knew before.
12:14Otsi was covered in ink body art.
12:16Research done on the contents of his stomach revealed that his last meal was dry-cured meat, similar to the
12:23bacon we eat today.
12:25Otsi has at least 19 relatives living today, somewhere in Central Europe.
12:31Scientists were researching ancient squirrel burrows in Siberia when they came across something interesting.
12:37One of the squirrels had hidden away precious seeds deep beneath the ground.
12:42The seeds had been encased in ice for 32,000 years.
12:46The seeds were for the flower Silene stenophilia, which had long since gone extinct.
12:52Amazingly, scientists were able to recover plant tissue from inside the seeds and grow an entire crop of flowers.
12:59They've since reintroduced the previously extinct flower to natural habitats all across the world.
13:06In 1930, a team of Norwegian scientists sailed around the Arctic Ocean, conducting research on the seas and glaciers.
13:14They reached White Island, a dangerous and icy land no human had set foot on before.
13:20Or so they thought.
13:22The scientists were shocked to discover the tip of a small boat sticking out of the snow.
13:27Frozen inside the boat, they found scientific equipment and various personal items, including a jacket monogrammed S.A. André.
13:36They had discovered the wreck of the famous André Arctic Balloon Expedition.
13:41In 1897, Swedish explorers, led by André, attempted to travel to the North Pole by hydrogen balloon.
13:49No one had ever heard from them ever again.
13:51Then, people only found out what happened to them when the wreck was discovered 33 years later.
13:57It turns out that the balloon had crashed on White Island only two days after departing from Sweden.
14:03The explorers traveled along the island on a small makeshift boat, but were unable to make it any further.
14:10The best preserved woolly mammoth ever found was discovered in an area of permafrost in Siberia in 2010.
14:17Scientists named the frozen mammoth Yucca after the small village near where it was found.
14:23Yucca had been frozen for 39,000 years and is thought to have been around 6 to 8 years old.
14:29Because Yucca is so well preserved, it has been studied for years and provided new information about mammoths.
14:36In 2019, scientists reported that they were able to activate cells taken from Yucca's tissue.
14:42Maybe one day, we'll have woolly mammoths roaming the land.
14:46From looking at pictures and videos of Antarctica, the continent appears to be freezing cold, covered in snow, and flat,
14:54except for a few small hills.
14:56Scientists believe that too.
14:58When studying the Gombertsev Mountains in the early 2000s, they were shocked to discover that the small rocky hills were
15:05actually the peak of a gigantic mountain formation under a mile of snow.
15:10Using radar technology, researchers worked out that the mountains are really around 10,000 feet tall and sprawl across 750
15:19miles.
15:20This is around the same size as the European Alps, except hidden under tons of ice and snow.
15:26At a gold mine in Siberia, a businessman was examining a nearby river when he noticed something interesting in the
15:33frost.
15:33It was a small woolly rhino calf that was later named Sasha.
15:37The woolly rhino has been extinct for 15,000 years.
15:41It's thought that Sasha could have been frozen in the ice for up to 39,000 years.
15:46Sasha is unique because it's the only full-body woolly rhino to have ever been discovered.
15:53Glaciers around the northern Italian town of Palo have begun to melt.
15:57Artifacts from decades and even centuries ago have been discovered pouring out of the ice.
16:03Personal belongings from soldiers have been found.
16:05Things like diaries, photographs, and even love letters.
16:09Historians have even uncovered an entire cabin preserved beneath the ice.
16:14The cabin was filled with hard metal helmets and clothes.
16:17In 1845, Sir John Franklin embarked on an ill-fated expedition to the North Pole.
16:23The crew traveled on two ships, HMS Erebus and the ironically named HMS Terror.
16:29The expedition met with disaster, and both ships were lost to the icy waters.
16:35In 2016, the HMS Terror was discovered by a team of researchers.
16:41Despite being lost for 170 years, the freezing cold waters had maintained the ship in pristine condition.
16:48Scientists described the ship as frozen in time.
16:52Dinner plates and glasses were still on shelves, beds and desks were still in order,
16:57and even the passengers' luggage appeared to be in good condition.
17:01The HMS Erebus was also discovered nearby, but due to changing water conditions, the ship wasn't in great shape.
17:08The glacial ice surrounding a mountain passageway in Norway that was notoriously used by the Vikings
17:14has revealed hundreds of ancient artifacts.
17:17One of these artifacts was a giant unopened wooden box that was welded together.
17:23Researchers were beside themselves with anticipation, waiting to open this box.
17:28They believed it would be filled with Viking treasures or artifacts that would give us an insight into ancient society.
17:34When they opened the box, all that was inside was a plain old beeswax candle.
17:39It turns out that this box wasn't actually as old as they thought it was.
17:43By analyzing the candle, they discovered that the box dates back to the 17th century.
17:49The age of the Vikings had ended by the 11th century.
17:52It's likely that the candle box belonged to a farmer who was shipping it from his summer farm to his
17:58winter farm
17:58to light up the long nights.
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