A common trope of modern fantasy stories is a dragon who can be appeased only by feeding it a virgin (female) once a year, or sometimes at other intervals.
So, when did this idea enter literature? Does it have medieval roots, or is it a modern invention?
It seems rather odd behavior, anyway. If someone didn't want to put their name into the lottery, it could be avoided easily enough. It seems like medieval writers would be creating a scenario where "virtue" would be punished. In the original stories, was the word actually something like "maiden" or German madchen, which could mean "virgin", but could also mean "young woman" or "unmarried woman"? (There's a similar word in Hebrew, the translation of which created all sorts of issues which are still with us today.)
Some quick googling didn't reveal answers. I'll try a bit more, but I thought I would throw the question out here just in case anyone has stumbled across an answer.
(The question popped into my head due to a song that came up on my Spotify feed. Spotify catalogs an awful lot of very obscure songs. I hadn't heard this one in a very long time, since I stopped going to sci-fi conventions a couple of decades ago. The song is to the tune of "The Irish Washerwoman" and the chorus goes,
"Do virgins taste better than those who are not?
Are they saltier, sweeter, more tasty or what?
Do you savor them slowly or down in one shot?
Do virgins taste better than those who are not?")
So, when did this idea enter literature? Does it have medieval roots, or is it a modern invention?
It seems rather odd behavior, anyway. If someone didn't want to put their name into the lottery, it could be avoided easily enough. It seems like medieval writers would be creating a scenario where "virtue" would be punished. In the original stories, was the word actually something like "maiden" or German madchen, which could mean "virgin", but could also mean "young woman" or "unmarried woman"? (There's a similar word in Hebrew, the translation of which created all sorts of issues which are still with us today.)
Some quick googling didn't reveal answers. I'll try a bit more, but I thought I would throw the question out here just in case anyone has stumbled across an answer.
(The question popped into my head due to a song that came up on my Spotify feed. Spotify catalogs an awful lot of very obscure songs. I hadn't heard this one in a very long time, since I stopped going to sci-fi conventions a couple of decades ago. The song is to the tune of "The Irish Washerwoman" and the chorus goes,
"Do virgins taste better than those who are not?
Are they saltier, sweeter, more tasty or what?
Do you savor them slowly or down in one shot?
Do virgins taste better than those who are not?")
via International Skeptics Forum https://ift.tt/2XmNbmw
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