SYSK Gets Weird Playlist: Dragons: As Real as Mermaids

Charles "Chuck" W. Bryant (0:03)

Hey, everybody, Chuck here with Episode 7 of the SYSK, not SUSK, like we get in emails, Stuff You, Y-O-You Should Know playlist. Because we're getting weird, everybody. This episode's on dragons.

Dragons colon, as real as mermaids. See what we did there?

SPEAKER_2 (0:24)

Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.

Josh Clark (0:34)

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh. There's Chuck, Dragon Slayer Bryant.

And well, that's it. It's just the two of us. We can make it if we try, Chuck. Just the two of us, dragons and us.

Charles "Chuck" W. Bryant (0:51)

And the great Bill Withers.

Josh Clark (0:53)

What's that, Bill Withers? Can't even say what the straight say. We just had the same conversation like two months ago. I'm not doing it again.

Charles "Chuck" W. Bryant (1:01)

Oh, about Bill Withers?

Josh Clark (1:02)

Yeah. I didn't realize that that was a Bill Withers song.

It was a good song. Lean On Me, though, man, is just, whoa. I cannot take it.

Charles "Chuck" W. Bryant (1:11)

Grandma's Bed.

Josh Clark (1:13)

What is that?

Is that a Bill Withers song? I did not know that.

Charles "Chuck" W. Bryant (1:17)

It's good. He's great. And we probably have this exact same conversation.

Josh Clark (1:21)

I don't know if we have that one or not, but you know who else I like?

Who's a little bit like Bill Withers? Not quite as cool, I guess, if you're like a cool person, but George Benson was amazing and still is. I think he's still around. You ever listen to his stuff?

Charles "Chuck" W. Bryant (1:37)

Yeah, but now I'm realizing that maybe I should just not correct myself and let people send in a bunch of e-mails.

Josh Clark (1:45)

Oh, I love that. I love that. We get a million of the same e-mails.

Charles "Chuck" W. Bryant (1:50)

And it's grandma's hands. I was getting it, John Denver's grandma's feather bed kind of just was in the ether.

Josh Clark (1:56)

Gotcha.

Charles "Chuck" W. Bryant (1:56)

Because we just talked about John Denver, about karaoke.

Josh Clark (1:59)

Grandma's bed.

Charles "Chuck" W. Bryant (2:00)

Grandma's hands.

Josh Clark (2:01)

A follow up to Use Me Up.

Charles "Chuck" W. Bryant (2:04)

So dragons.

Josh Clark (2:05)

Yeah, let's talk about dragons. Let's have a pleasant conversation about dragons, shall we, Chuck?

Charles "Chuck" W. Bryant (2:10)

Yeah, dragons aren't real. And you'll notice by the title of this episode, which is dragons colon as real as mermaids.

And it's funny because I think the week before this comes out, mermaids is our pick for the...

Josh Clark (2:29)

Selects?

Charles "Chuck" W. Bryant (2:30)

The select episode, so it aligns perfectly.

Josh Clark (2:32)

That is perfect.

Charles "Chuck" W. Bryant (2:33)

But dragons aren't real.

Josh Clark (2:35)

Well, okay. Please stop saying that, because you're crushing my dreams.

Charles "Chuck" W. Bryant (2:39)

Sorry.

Josh Clark (2:41)

So when we talk about dragons, we have to say right here at the outset that there's a lot of different kinds of dragons. And typically, when you think of like the flying, winged, usually long, maybe scaly.

Charles "Chuck" W. Bryant (2:55)

Fire breathing.

Josh Clark (2:56)

Fire breathing dragon, often with a long kind of serpentine tail. Sometimes it's even pointy, like the devil. Sure. Which we'll see why.

That's considered a western dragon.

And that is its own thing that kind of evolved from a number of different traditions. But there's also the Asian dragon, which has variations among different Asian countries, but it generally seems to be kind of the same ancient Chinese thing. That's a totally different thing, and it evolved on its own in isolation as well. And so because you've got these different traditions of dragons that seem fairly similar in a lot of ways, there's a lot of people out there who say, wow, this is astounding. Every culture in the world has some sort of tradition of dragons. And that's kind of true, but throughout this episode, we'll see that's not really accurate. Nowadays, it seems that way because we have overlaid the idea of dragons over everything. But if you really kind of dig into the past and look into the nuance of some of these things that we term dragons, they're very different. So it's a lot more accurate to say that every culture in the world has mythical beasts, some of which share a lot in common with our modern conception of dragons. And that's probably where our modern conception of dragons came from was all these different ideas of it in the ancient past.