Dragon logistics
How do dragons carry their loot?
Some dragons, such as Smaug, start with an advantage, in that they set up their lair in a place that already has much loot in situ. However, gold-worshipping as they were, I doubt that the dwarves of Erebor kept all their riches in one huge, great, enormous pile, with the Arkenstone buried, oh, *vague hand-flap*, somewhere over there. So even dragons like Smaug have to break open dwarf babies' piggy banks, grab spare change from dead dwarves' pockets (not an easy job when your fingers are as big as oak trees) and gather the loot all together in one place, not to mention ferrying over all the riches of Dale and elsewhere.
However, most dragons prefer remote caves, and remote caves do not normally come with piles of gold in situ, unless they've been formerly inhabited by pirates or smugglers, and in that case, we would expect to find kegs of brandy and bottles of rum in the standard dragon hoard, and of these, the stories do not tell. Therefore, we must act on the assumption that most dragons have to carry all their loot from Point A (a sacked castle, for example) to Point B (lair.)
Another assumption we have to make is that dragons must carry this loot by themselves, utilising no mode of transportation other than that provided by their own bodies. This (below) is something we never hear tell of in the tales:
And neither is this:
Now, imagine that you, a mere human, wish to create an absolutely ENORMOUS pile of lentils, for, er, Reasons. I choose lentils since I imagine that a lentil in a human grip is much the same as a gold coin in a dragon grip, but feel free to change it to dried peas or even grains of rice, if your mental Standard Dragon (or mental Standard Mere Human) is particularly huge (or small). With violence, you have raided a well-stocked Lentil Bank in a nearby town, and you want to move all these lentils from the Lentil Bank to your lair, 5 miles away.
You could do it on foot, of course. You could grab two handfuls of lentils, and leg it. However I doubt you'll have many lentils left in your hot, sticky grip by the time you reach your lair. And then you've got to return to the Lentil Bank to get some more. Even if the police, army and TV news crews haven't been mobilised for your first return visit, they'll almost certainly be there by your 105th, by which time you have still made no discernible inroads whatsoever into the Lentil Bank's stores.
Now imagine you're doing it as a dragon. Yes, you have 4 hands with which to hold the lentils, but it can't be that easy to fly with all four of them held stiffly in order to keep the lentils gold from escaping; tucking your limbs must surely make for better aerodynamics. Besides, unless both Lentil Pile and your own hoard are neatly placed in open ground, open to the sky (and dark caves and castle store rooms are not, generally speaking), allowing you both to snatch up the loot and drop it again from mid-air, you will need those back feet for walking to and from suitable take-off and landing points.
I doubt it would end well.
So what are we left with?
This. This (below) is the only possible explanation. This is the big secret that the dragons don't want us to know. This, this, is why they indulge in fly-by burnings: so that any witnesses to their shopping trips don't live to tell the tale. So the poets will never know.
Some dragons, such as Smaug, start with an advantage, in that they set up their lair in a place that already has much loot in situ. However, gold-worshipping as they were, I doubt that the dwarves of Erebor kept all their riches in one huge, great, enormous pile, with the Arkenstone buried, oh, *vague hand-flap*, somewhere over there. So even dragons like Smaug have to break open dwarf babies' piggy banks, grab spare change from dead dwarves' pockets (not an easy job when your fingers are as big as oak trees) and gather the loot all together in one place, not to mention ferrying over all the riches of Dale and elsewhere.
However, most dragons prefer remote caves, and remote caves do not normally come with piles of gold in situ, unless they've been formerly inhabited by pirates or smugglers, and in that case, we would expect to find kegs of brandy and bottles of rum in the standard dragon hoard, and of these, the stories do not tell. Therefore, we must act on the assumption that most dragons have to carry all their loot from Point A (a sacked castle, for example) to Point B (lair.)
Another assumption we have to make is that dragons must carry this loot by themselves, utilising no mode of transportation other than that provided by their own bodies. This (below) is something we never hear tell of in the tales:
And neither is this:
Now, imagine that you, a mere human, wish to create an absolutely ENORMOUS pile of lentils, for, er, Reasons. I choose lentils since I imagine that a lentil in a human grip is much the same as a gold coin in a dragon grip, but feel free to change it to dried peas or even grains of rice, if your mental Standard Dragon (or mental Standard Mere Human) is particularly huge (or small). With violence, you have raided a well-stocked Lentil Bank in a nearby town, and you want to move all these lentils from the Lentil Bank to your lair, 5 miles away.
You could do it on foot, of course. You could grab two handfuls of lentils, and leg it. However I doubt you'll have many lentils left in your hot, sticky grip by the time you reach your lair. And then you've got to return to the Lentil Bank to get some more. Even if the police, army and TV news crews haven't been mobilised for your first return visit, they'll almost certainly be there by your 105th, by which time you have still made no discernible inroads whatsoever into the Lentil Bank's stores.
Now imagine you're doing it as a dragon. Yes, you have 4 hands with which to hold the lentils, but it can't be that easy to fly with all four of them held stiffly in order to keep the lentils gold from escaping; tucking your limbs must surely make for better aerodynamics. Besides, unless both Lentil Pile and your own hoard are neatly placed in open ground, open to the sky (and dark caves and castle store rooms are not, generally speaking), allowing you both to snatch up the loot and drop it again from mid-air, you will need those back feet for walking to and from suitable take-off and landing points.
I doubt it would end well.
So what are we left with?
This. This (below) is the only possible explanation. This is the big secret that the dragons don't want us to know. This, this, is why they indulge in fly-by burnings: so that any witnesses to their shopping trips don't live to tell the tale. So the poets will never know.