"Run like a hare and fight like a Bear..."

[Buzz_Bumble]

Because fire breathing dinosaurs never existed. Even if a fire-breathing dinosaur had existed, there were not any humans around with the dinosaurs, so it's couldn't possibly be the source of dragon myths.

Dragons are just another silly myth, a made up nonsense along with all the other fairy tales and fantasy creatures from ye olde days where the vast majority of people were stupid, easily fooled, and superstitious.

[The Shade]

How do you know there wasn't humans when the fire breathing dinosaur lived?? Did you have a look??

Yes, I don't believe in dragons, but a fire breathing dinosaur is'nt out of the question, I certinly believe it.

And people wer'nt easily fooled, superstitious yes, stupid no.

[Rusvul]

We know that people weren't there because there hasn't been a single primate skeleton found that dates back to that time. Much, much later. Rather than 65 billion years, we've found maybe primate skeletons tens of thousands of years old, just an estimate. And I know what you might say: Well, just since nobody's ever found one, that doesn't mean they don't exist...
That's the same principle that makes it possible for dragons to have existed. Since you can't prove a negative (About the existance of something), this argument can't really go anywhere.

[rachel25]

all the skeletons would have been washed away in the World Wide Flood and people have been on earth since it was created but that depends on what you believe in and I believe that humans were created on the sixth day and that Adam named all the animals 

[Romsca]

So are we saying that bears could have existed in Redwall either before all of the Redwallers or at the time of the earliest Redwallers (though they weren't called Redwallers yet)? Or are we saying they were just made up?

[Kitsune]

I don't think there were bears where they were, they could have been elsewhere. Legend of them could have come from some travelling beast, or 'bears' could have been made up in Redwall like dragons to us.

......that was before we got on the dragon topic, but unfortunately it started it.

[Tam and Martin]

Back to bears....

[Buzz_Bumble]

all the skeletons would have been washed away in the World Wide Flood...

And somehow this mythical "world wide flood" managed to leave all the dinosaur skeletons, bigger and smaller than modern man.   

We know that people weren't there because there hasn't been a single primate skeleton found that dates back to that time.

Not only no primates, but, depedning on how far back you want to go, either no mammals at all or mammals that were only basically GUOSIM shrews. 

So are we saying that bears could have existed in Redwall either before all of the Redwallers or at the time of the earliest Redwallers (though they weren't called Redwallers yet)? Or are we saying they were just made up?

Nobody knows. It could be either option, or they could have learnt about bears from travellers from other areas that do have bears. There certainly don't seem to be any bears in Mossflower during the time of the books' stories.

[Ungatt Trunn]

I have 2 ideas that I think are possible:
1. That bears, like Plugg said, are just mythical creatures, like Dragons.
2. That they are creatures that might not be around anymore or are from a far-away land and are known in poems and songs.

[rachel25]

all the skeletons would have been washed away in the World Wide Flood...

And somehow this mythical "world wide flood" managed to leave all the dinosaur skeletons, bigger and smaller than modern man. 

there is no need to be rude about other peoples beliefs 
Back to bears I think bears could have lived in deep Mossflower 

[Romsca]

Yeah, maybe they just generally avoided the other more intelligent creatures because they didn't like civilization, kind of like today. Bears who live in forests next to big cities will generally stay in the forest and not go into the city unless

-Humans feed it food, and it therefore it gets too friendly around humans

-It's rabid, and it tries to kill everything in sight

-It's extremely hungry, and humans have taken its food supply of rabbits, deer, and fish due to overhunting

In Redwall, they would be way to scared to feed the bears. Rabies isn't mentioned in the books, so hopefully it is nonexistent in the Redwall world. Redwallers don't hunt and there's not enough vermin to significantly decrease the food supply of a supposed bear. Therefore, if there were bears, they would avoid any of the Redwallers or vermin.

[Buzz_Bumble]

all the skeletons would have been washed away in the World Wide Flood...

And somehow this mythical "world wide flood" managed to leave all the dinosaur skeletons, bigger and smaller than modern man.

there is no need to be rude about other peoples beliefs 

I wasn't trying to be rude ... simply stating an obvious fact.

Redwallers don't hunt and there's not enough vermin to significantly decrease the food supply of a supposed bear.

Mossflower residents don't seem to hunt other land animals (although the vermin do sometimes teasingly talk about wanting to taste roasted mouse or similar), but they do eat fish and the vermin hunt birds.

[HeadInAnotherGalaxy]

Az vell az birdz' eggz like zoze zat a certain rat vho zhall gae namelezz liked...

[Kitsune]

all the skeletons would have been washed away in the World Wide Flood...

And somehow this mythical "world wide flood" managed to leave all the dinosaur skeletons, bigger and smaller than modern man.

there is no need to be rude about other peoples beliefs 

I wasn't trying to be rude ... simply stating an obvious fact.

Redwallers don't hunt and there's not enough vermin to significantly decrease the food supply of a supposed bear.

Mossflower residents don't seem to hunt other land animals (although the vermin do sometimes teasingly talk about wanting to taste roasted mouse or similar), but they do eat fish and the vermin hunt birds.

Guys! I am probably one of the biggest dragon fans ever, but they just don't exist! I really wish they did, but there aren't fossils of them so they most likely didn't. Nobody has ever seen one, too. So this debate is pointless. And it's really off-topic! I don't think either one of you said much about bears yet.

[Ungatt Trunn]

I have a thing to say about this whole dragon thing:
There weren't dragons in the same since that we may think of them, but it is possible that there was a fire-breathing creature, probably a dinosaur. As some of you may know, it is possible for a cow to breath out fire if it gets a certain type of gas in its stomach (I read it in a magazine once). So, can't there have been some sort of creature that is now extinct that could have breathed out fire? That could mean that some of those old story's about "Dragons" could have been true. They could have encountered this fire-breathing creature. But, as is with most other "mythical" creatures, we can't be absolutely certain of our facts. That all I really have to say on the matter