#dragno

I wanted to draw some Norway-dragons through the ages! The problem is I usually base these on flags and Norway didn't have its own flag till around 1814..

In the viking age country flags weren't exactly a common thing, (the Danish flag is considered the oldest and its from 1219). Kings would have their own symbols, but those would change every few decades when a new King came to power... so instead of going with any particular flag I just made it red and gold, the colors of the Norwegian coat of arms. During this time we also established our own "colonies" on Iceland, Greenland, Faroe Islands, Orkney Islands and Sheltand Islands)

The Kalmar Union was formed in 1397, and was a union of Norway, Sweden and Denmark (as well as Norway's island territories, and part of Finland which was ruled by Sweden at the time.. though Shetland and Orkney ended up being given to Scotland during this period). Being a union Norway again didn't have its own flag so I went with the Kalmar flag, which is yellow with a red Nordic Cross.

After the Kalmar Union was dissolved Norway remained in union with Denmark, at this point the closest we had to a national flag was the Danish one with a golden lion in the corner. So I went with red white and gold.

Then came the union with Sweden after the Napoleonic Wars. Norway did at first try to just gain full independence at this time, so we had a flag made, the same red white and blue as is in use today. But Europe didn't think we deserved independence and just gave us all to Sweden. We did get our own Constitution though... though in the process we lost Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands to Denmark. Iceland would eventually gain its own independence sometime after WW2. Sweden having long since lost their Finnish territories to Russia.

Then in 1905 we got this.