#glowtails

Hello, so the eldkvast was made known to me by my friend @rave-lord-nito - who says;

my sources for Swedosh dragons would be "Dragons" by Johan Egerkrans (now available in English! Was not earlier) "Folksagor" by Jan-Öyvind Swahn ("Folk tales", either Book 1: (Hjältemod/"Heroics"), 4: (Djur/"Animals") or 7: (Oknytt/"Beings") ISOF (Institutionen för Språk och Folkminne/The Swedish institute for language and folklore) who have a great map of regional dragon legends on their website Trollguld by Ebba Schön ("Troll's gold"), a bit more obscure and harder to find, discusses Lindworms well iirc

I will post their list in a separate ask (LINK HERE) (was sent to my inbox when I said "help Nito remember back in 2022 when I asked you about dragons?!?! can you remember sources?!?!")

Looking back through our conversations, there is a map of Scandinavian and Baltic folklore, linked above, which was made by Institutet för Språk och Folkminnen (institute for language and folklore). I am not a Swedish speaker myself so Nito very kindly translated some (including one involving a RIFLE, a very modern solution for the very old problem of dragon slaying...).

As for Eldkvast, Nito said -

Btw, having read some of these tales, there does seem to be a throughline of descriptions, at least across eastern Norway and western Sweden, of the dragons appearance: Serpent-like (one story similar to the one above describes it as a "big serpent" but others mention legs and wings), with a long tail and a "glowing" head. Flies across the sky in a streak of fire, and sometimes dives into a tarn or lake (or the sea)

(...) most seem to say they glow because the spew fire as they fly (which i think sounds a lot like a comet, in reality, which could be neat) Specifically they say "Eldkvast", lit. "Fire broom" which is also often applied to meteors, for a mental image

(note I cut out some bits of the conversation for brevity)

Further copy-paste from conversation to clarify;

Northwyrm — 2/8/2022 5:43 PM Quick double check - Eldkvast is the name of a dragon with a fire tail? Nito — 2/8/2022 6:23 PM Well, more like, the name of the fire trailing behind a dragon in flight [6:23 PM] In more everyday use applied to fire from rockets, comets, or old-timey blackpowder guns Northwyrm — 2/8/2022 6:38 PM ah gotcha, do you have any names for the dragon itself or can I go ham with creative freedom etc.? Nito — 2/8/2022 6:41 PM Nope, no named dragons or creature names what i could find, most are just referred to as a dragon or serpent