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Flogdrake (Old Swedish: floghdraki, ), also elddrake or eldsdrake (), dialectally also godsdrake (Dalecarlian: gussdratji, ), is a type of dragon in Swedish folklore, and to a lesser extent Finnish and Estonian folklore (see kratt), by analogy a variation of the Pan-European firedrake, especially of Swedish folklore, to a lesser extent Finnish and Estonian folklore (see kratt), and only by analogy. By analogy, it is related to the of European myth; it is a wingless worm-dragon that flies across the sky while glowing, looking like a streak of fire or light akin to a shooting star, but unlike Slavic myth, it lives in mountain tunnels that it bores.
Related myths also exist in Northern Germany, for example the Schrat.
derives from [[Old Swedish]]: ''floghdraki'' (including the form ''flughdraki)'', meaning ”fly-dragon”, and initially referred to just flying dragons, as opposed to non-flying ones. The term is a literary loan from .
Laurentius Petri (1499–1573) potentially used the term figuratively in its later sense in 1568, in his translation of the Book of Isaiah ( Jesaia Prophete på nyt öffuerseedd, "Isaiah Prophet, translated a new"). He used it there to translate Seraph () in 14:29 – a biblical being, in this sense, a burning winged serpent – see fiery flying serpent. Isaiah 14:29 generally says something akin to: "Do not rejoice, all you Philistines, that the rod that struck you is broken; from the root of that snake will spring up a viper/basilisk, and its fruit/offspring will be a flying Seraph", in which Petri translated the last part as: " en brinnande floghdrake" ("a burning fly-dragon").
In folk etymology, the term later evolved into lohikäärme ("salmon serpent"), the modern Finnish word for dragon. However, the etymology for louhi has also been speculated to stem from elsewhere. Some have speculated a connection with the Finnish witch-goddess Louhi, which might originally have meant "witch, spellcaster" etc (then roughly "supernatural snake"). The Finnish folklorist and mythologist Martti Haavio connected the name with , but then speculating that the goddess had an earlier connection with flying. Other speculations have derived the lead from the verb louhia ("to mine, quarry, shatter" etc), to lovi ("cleft, crack"), which then connects to the trait that the dragon would drill into mountains (then roughly "mine snake"). Another theory connects it with the rare archaic word louhi, meaning "lightning" ("lightning serpent"), then figuratively to the dragon's appearance in the sky.
Some interpret the fire streak phenomenon as the dragon "firing over his possessions" or "illuminating his goods", and thus pointing out where the treasure or dragon's nest is to be found. The dictionary "Dictionary of the vernacular languages of upper Dalarna" ( Ordbok över folkmålen i övre Dalarna) gives the definition for godsdrake () as: "fire ball which appeares above hidden treasure". It also mentions godseld (): "fire indicating the presence of ore or hidden treasure".
Others interpret the fire streak as the dragon itself. Swedish archivist wrote in 1947 the following in his book about Bohuslän legends:
The old talk about the dragon. He came like a firebroom, it was as if someone had set fire to a sheaf of straw. He flew high in the air. Most people thought it was the devil, but some said that it couldn't be, because he wouldn't be let loose until the end of time. Then there were some who thought it would be the Last Judgment when they saw a dragon.
In Carl Gustaf Åström's writing "Om bergoljeborrningarne i Dalarne" ("About the oil drilling in Dalarna") from 1869, he tells of the Osmund mountain in Rättvik, Dalarna, Sweden, and that the so-called "flogeld" ("fly-fire") had been seen around the mountain, or "as the common people say, that the dragon flies in the mountains". The bookkeeper Olof Larsson in the 1730s is said to have "several times seen such sweeping over his farm, coming from the northwest, and striking into the Osmund mountain". Åström also mentions that such "fly-fire" still occasionally appeared at Gulleråsen in Dalarna.
In some beliefs, the dragon brings with it goods that it has stolen. This myth that also occurs with gnomes, and in Estonian and Northern Germany folklore, the two beliefs are found merged, in that the gnomes (, puuk; Estonian Swedish: skrat; , ) appear at night as a "fiery dragon" and are then called that.
(1967). 9789518580266, Finnish Literature Society. ISBN 9789518580266
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