Trolls And Dragons
written by Katali Sorcer Gobblefirn
Book 1 of myth series
Last Updated
05/31/21
Chapters
12
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438
Europe
Chapter 12
Europe
Proto-Indo-European
Further information: Chaoskampf, Sea serpent, Proto-Indo-European religion § Dragon or Serpent, and Serpents in the Bible
The story of a hero slaying a giant serpent occurs in nearly every Indo-European mythology.[75][76] In most stories, the hero is some kind of thunder-god.[76] In nearly every iteration of the story, the serpent is either multi-headed or "multiple" in some other way.[75] Furthermore, in nearly every story, the serpent is always somehow associated with water.[76] Bruce Lincoln has proposed that a Proto-Indo-European dragon-slaying myth can be reconstructed as follows:[77][78] First, the sky gods give cattle to a man named *Tritos ("the third"), who is so named because he is the third man on earth,[77][78] but a three-headed serpent named *Ngwhi steals them.[77][78] *Tritos pursues the serpent and is accompanied by *Hanér, whose name means "man".[77][78] Together, the two heroes slay the serpent and rescue the cattle.[77][78]
Ancient Greece and Rome
Greek red-figure vase painting depicting Heracles slaying the Lernaean Hydra, c. 375–340 BC
Main article: Dragons in Greek mythology
The ancient Greek word usually translated as "dragon" (δράκων drákōn, genitive δράκοντοϛ drákontos) could also mean "snake",[79][6] but it usually refers to a kind of giant serpent that either possesses supernatural characteristics or is otherwise controlled by some supernatural power.[80] The first mention of a "dragon" in ancient Greek literature occurs in the Iliad, in which Agamemnon is described as having a blue dragon motif on his sword belt and an emblem of a three-headed dragon on his breast plate.[81] In lines 820–880 of the Theogony, a Greek poem written in the seventh century BC by the Boeotian poet Hesiod, the Greek god Zeus battles the monster Typhon, who has one hundred serpent heads that breathe fire and speak all kinds of frightening animal noises.[29] Zeus scorches all of Typhon's heads with his lightning bolts and then hurls Typhon into Tartarus.[82] In the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, the god Apollo uses his poisoned arrows to slay the serpent Python, who has been causing death and pestilence in the area around Delphi.[83][82] Apollo then sets up his shrine there.[82]
The Roman poet Virgil in his poem Culex, lines 163–201 [1], describing a shepherd having a fight with a big constricting snake, calls it "serpens" and also "draco", showing that in his time the two words were probably interchangeable.
Attic red-figure kylix painting from c. 480–470 BC showing Athena observing as the Colchian dragon disgorges the hero Jason[84][85]
Hesiod also mentions that the hero Heracles slew the Lernaean Hydra, a multiple-headed serpent which dwelt in the swamps of Lerna.[86] The name "Hydra" means "water snake" in Greek.[82][87] According to the Bibliotheka of Pseudo-Apollodorus, the slaying of the Hydra was the second of the Twelve Labors of Heracles.[88][82] Accounts disagree on which weapon Heracles used to slay the Hydra,[82] but, by the end of the sixth century BC, it was agreed that the clubbed or severed heads needed to be cauterized to prevent them from growing back.[89][82] Heracles was aided in this task by his nephew Iolaus.[89] During the battle, a giant crab crawled out of the marsh and pinched Heracles's foot,[88] but he crushed it under his heel.[90] Hera placed the crab in the sky as the constellation Cancer.[90] One of the Hydra's heads was immortal, so Heracles buried it under a heavy rock after cutting it off.[82][90] For his Eleventh Labor, Heracles must procure a golden apple from the tree in the Garden of the Hesperides, which is guarded by an enormous serpent that never sleeps,[91] which Pseudo-Apollodorus calls "Ladon".[92] In earlier depictions, Ladon is often shown with many heads.[93] In Pseudo-Apollodorus's account, Ladon is immortal,[93] but Sophocles and Euripides both describe Heracles as killing him, although neither of them specifies how.[93] The mythographer Herodorus is the first to state that Heracles slew him using his famous club.[93] Apollonius of Rhodes, in his epic poem the Argonautica, describes Ladon as having been shot full of poisoned arrows dipped in the blood of the Hydra.[94]
In Pindar's Fourth Pythian Ode, Aeëtes of Colchis tells the hero Jason that the Golden Fleece he is seeking is in a copse guarded by a dragon, "which surpassed in breadth and length a fifty-oared ship".[95] Jason slays the dragon and makes off with the Golden Fleece together with his co-conspirator, Aeëtes's daughter, Medea.[96] The earliest artistic representation of this story is an Attic red-figure kylix dated to c. 480–470 BC,[97] showing a bedraggled Jason being disgorged from the dragon's open mouth as the Golden Fleece hangs in a tree behind him and Athena, the goddess of wisdom, stands watching.[97][85] A fragment from Pherecydes of Athens states that Jason killed the dragon,[96] but fragments from the Naupactica and from Herodorus state that he merely stole the Fleece and escaped.[96] In Euripides's Medea, Medea boasts that she killed the Colchian dragon herself.[96] In the most famous retelling of the story from Apollonius of Rhodes's Argonautica, Medea drugs the dragon to sleep, allowing Jason to steal the Fleece.[98] Greek vase paintings show her feeding the dragon the sleeping drug in a liquid form from a phialē, or shallow cup.[99]
Paestan red-figure kylix-krater (c. 350–340 BC) showing Cadmus fighting the dragon of Ares[100]
In the founding myth of Thebes, Cadmus, a Phoenician prince, was instructed by Apollo to follow a heifer and found a city wherever it laid down.[101] Cadmus and his men followed the heifer and, when it laid down, Cadmus ordered his men to find a spring so he could sacrifice the heifer to Athena.[101] His men found a spring, but it was guarded by a dragon, which had been placed there by the god Ares, and the dragon killed them.[101] Cadmus killed the dragon in revenge,[101][102] either by smashing its head with a rock or using his sword.[101] Following the advice of Athena, Cadmus tore out the dragon's teeth and planted them in the earth.[101][102] An army of giant warriors (known as spartoi, which means "sown men") grew from the teeth like plants.[101][102] Cadmus hurled stones into their midst, causing them to kill each other until only five were left.[101] To make restitution for having killed Ares's dragon, Cadmus was forced to serve Ares as a slave for eight years.[101] At the end of this period, Cadmus married Harmonia, the daughter of Ares and Aphrodite.[101] Cadmus and Harmonia moved to Illyria, where they ruled as king and queen, before eventually being transformed into dragons themselves.[103]
In the fifth century BC, the Greek historian Herodotus reported in Book IV of his Histories that western Libya was inhabited by monstrous serpents[104] and, in Book III, he states that Arabia was home to many small, winged serpents,[105][106] which came in a variety of colors and enjoyed the trees that produced frankincense.[105][104] Herodotus remarks that the serpent's wings were like those of bats[107] and that, unlike vipers, which are found in every land, winged serpents are only found in Arabia.[107] The second-century BC Greek astronomer Hipparchus (c. 190 BC – c. 120 BC) listed the constellation Draco ("the dragon") as one of forty-six constellations.[108] Hipparchus described the constellation as containing fifteen stars,[109] but the later astronomer Ptolemy (c. 100 – c. 170 AD) increased this number to thirty-one in his Almagest.[109]
Ancient Greek mosaic from Caulonia, Italy, depicting a cetus or sea-dragon
In the New Testament, Revelation 12:3, written by John of Patmos, describes a vision of a Great Red Dragon with seven heads, ten horns, seven crowns, and a massive tail,[110] an image which is clearly inspired by the vision of the four beasts from the sea in the Book of Daniel[111] and the Leviathan described in various Old Testament passages.[112] The Great Red Dragon knocks "a third of the sun ... a third of the moon, and a third of the stars" out the sky[113] and pursues the Woman of the Apocalypse.[113] Revelation 12:7–9 declares: "And war broke out in Heaven. Michael and his angels fought against Dragon. Dragon and his angels fought back, but they were defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in Heaven. Dragon the Great was thrown down, that ancient serpent who is called Devil and Satan, the one deceiving the whole inhabited World – he was thrown down to earth and his angels were thrown down with him."[114] Then a voice booms down from Heaven heralding the defeat of "the Accuser" (ho Kantegor).[115]
In 217 AD, Flavius Philostratus discussed dragons (δράκων, drákōn) in India in The Life of Apollonius of Tyana (II,17 and III,6–8). The Loeb Classical Library translation (by F.C. Conybeare) mentions (III,7) that "In most respects the tusks resemble the largest swine's, but they are slighter in build and twisted, and have a point as unabraded as sharks' teeth." According to a collection of books by Claudius Aelianus called On Animals, Ethiopia was inhabited by a species of dragon that hunted elephants and could grow to a length of 180 feet (55 m) with a lifespan rivaling that of the most enduring of animals.[116]
Post-classical Germanic mythology
Main articles: Sea serpent and Lindworm
Drawing of the Ramsund carving from c. 1030, illustrating the Völsunga saga on a rock in Sweden. At (5), Sigurd plunges his sword into Fafnir's underside.
In the Old Norse poem Grímnismál in the Poetic Edda, the dragon Níðhöggr is described as gnawing on the roots of Yggdrasil, the world tree.[117] In Norse mythology, Jörmungandr is a giant serpent that encircles the entire realm of Miðgarð in the sea around it.[118] According to the Gylfaginning from the Prose Edda, written by the thirteenth-century Icelandic mythographer Snorri Sturluson, Thor, the Norse god of thunder, once went out on a boat with the giant Hymnir to the outer sea and fished for Jörmungandr using an ox-head as bait.[118] Thor caught the serpent and, after pulling its head out of the water, smashed it with his hammer Mjölnir.[118] Snorri states that the blow was not fatal: "and men say that he struck its head off on the sea bed. But I think the truth to tell you is that the Miðgarð Serpent still lives and lies in the surrounding sea."[118]
Towards the end of the Old English epic poem Beowulf, a slave steals a cup from the hoard of a sleeping dragon,[119] causing the dragon to wake up and go on a rampage of destruction across the countryside.[120] The eponymous hero of the poem insists on confronting the dragon alone, even though he is of advanced age,[121][122] but Wiglaf, the youngest of the twelve warriors Beowulf has brought with him, insists on accompanying his king into the battle.[123] Beowulf's sword shatters during the fight and he is mortally wounded,[124][125] but Wiglaf comes to his rescue and helps him slay the dragon.[125] Beowulf dies and tells Wiglaf that the dragon's treasure must be buried rather than shared with the cowardly warriors who did not come to the aid of their king.[126]
In the Old Norse Völsunga saga, the hero Sigurd catches the dragon Fafnir by digging a pit between the cave where he lives and the spring where he drinks his water[127] and kills him by stabbing him in the underside.[127] At the advice of Odin, Sigurd drains Fafnir's blood and drinks it, which gives him the ability to understand the language of the birds,[128] who he hears talking about how his mentor Regin is plotting to betray him so that he can keep all of Fafnir's treasure for himself.[128][129] The motif of a hero trying to sneak past a sleeping dragon and steal some of its treasure is common throughout many Old Norse sagas.[130] The fourteenth-century Flóres saga konungs ok sona hans describes a hero who is actively concerned not to wake a sleeping dragon while sneaking past it.[130] In the Yngvars saga víðförla, the protagonist attempts to steal treasure from several sleeping dragons, but accidentally wakes them up.[130]
Post-classical Western Europe
Fifteenth-century manuscript illustration of the battle of the Red and White Dragons from Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain
Great seal of Owain Glyndŵr (c. 1359 – c. 1415), prince of Wales: with dragon crest on his helmet
Main articles: European dragon, Welsh Dragon, Wyvern, Saint George and the Dragon, Margaret the Virgin, and Dacian Draco
The modern, western image of a dragon developed in western Europe during the Middle Ages through the combination of the snakelike dragons of classical Graeco-Roman literature, references to Near Eastern European dragons preserved in the Bible, and western European folk traditions.[131] The period between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries represents the height of European interest in dragons as living creatures.[132] The twelfth-century Welsh monk Geoffrey of Monmouth recounts a famous legend in his Historia Regum Britanniae in which the child prophet Merlin witnesses the Romano-Celtic warlord Vortigern attempt to build a tower on Mount Snowdon to keep safe from the Anglo-Saxons,[133] but the tower keeps being swallowed into the ground.[133] Merlin informs Vortigern that, underneath the foundation he has built, is a pool with two dragons sleeping in it.[133] Vortigern orders for the pool to be drained, exposing a red dragon and a white dragon, who immediately begin fighting.[133] Merlin delivers a prophecy that the white dragon will triumph over the red, symbolizing England's conquest of Wales,[133] but declares that the red dragon will eventually return and defeat the white one.[134] This story remained popular throughout the fifteenth century.[134]
MS Harley 3244, a medieval manuscript dated to around 1260 AD, contains the oldest recognizable image of a fully modern, western dragon.[8]
The oldest recognizable image of a fully modern, western dragon appears in a hand-painted illustration from the medieval manuscript MS Harley 3244, which was produced in around 1260 AD.[8] The dragon in the illustration has two sets of wings and its tail is longer than most modern depictions of dragons,[8] but it clearly displays many of the same distinctive features.[8] Dragons are generally depicted as living in rivers or having an underground lair or cave.[135] They are envisioned as greedy and gluttonous, with voracious appetites.[131] They are often identified with Satan, due to the references to Satan as a "dragon" in the Book of Revelation.[131] The thirteenth-century Golden Legend, written in Latin, records the story of Saint Margaret of Antioch,[67] a virgin martyr who, after being tortured for her faith in the Diocletianic Persecution and thrown back into her cell, is said to have been confronted by a monstrous dragon,[67] but she made the sign of the cross and the dragon vanished.[67] In some versions of the story, she is actually swallowed by the dragon alive and, after making the sign of the cross in the dragon's stomach, emerges unharmed.[67]
Manuscript illustration from Verona of Saint George slaying the dragon, dating to c. 1270
The legend of Saint George and the Dragon may be referenced as early as the sixth century AD,[136][137] but the earliest artistic representations of it come from the eleventh century[136] and the first full account of it comes from an eleventh-century Georgian text.[138] The most famous version of the story from the Golden Legend holds that a dragon kept pillaging the sheep of the town of Silene in Libya.[136] After it ate a young shepherd, the people were forced to placate it by leaving two sheep as sacrificial offerings every morning beside the lake where the dragon lived.[136] Eventually, the dragon ate all of the sheep[139] and the people were forced to start offering it their own children.[139] One day, the king's own daughter came up in the lottery and, despite the king's pleas for her life, she was dressed as a bride and chained to a rock beside the lake to be eaten.[139] Then, Saint George arrived and saw the princess.[139] When the dragon arrived to eat her, he stabbed it with his lance and subdued it by making the sign of the cross and tying the princess's girdle around its neck.[139] Saint George and the princess led the now-docile dragon into the town and George promised to kill it if the townspeople would convert to Christianity.[140] All the townspeople converted and Saint George killed the dragon with his sword.[140] In some versions, Saint George marries the princess,[140] but, in others, he continues wandering.[140]
Gargoyles are carved stone figures sometimes resembling dragons that originally served as waterspouts on buildings.[141][142] Precursors to the medieval gargoyle can be found on ancient Greek and Egyptian temples,[141][143][144] but, over the course of the Middle Ages, many fantastic stories were invented to explain them.[145] One medieval French legend holds that, in ancient times, a fearsome dragon known as La Gargouille had been causing floods and sinking ships on the river Seine,[146] so the people of the town of Rouen would offer the dragon a human sacrifice once each year to appease its hunger.[146] Then, in around 600 AD, a priest named Romanus promised that, if the people would build a church, he would rid them of the dragon.[146] Romanus slew the dragon and its severed head was mounted on the walls of the city as the first gargoyle.[146][147]
Dragons are prominent in medieval heraldry.[148] Uther Pendragon was famously said to have had two gold dragons crowned with red standing back-to-back on his royal coat of arms.[149] Originally, heraldic dragons could have any number of legs,[148] but, by the late Middle Ages, due to the widespread proliferation of bestiaries, heraldry began to distinguish between a "dragon" (which could only have exactly four legs) and a "wyvern" (which could only have exactly two).[148] In myths, wyverns are associated with viciousness, envy, and pestilence,[148] but, in heraldry, they are used as symbols for overthrowing the tyranny of Satan and his demonic forces.[148] Late medieval heraldry also distinguished a draconic creature known as a "cockatrice".[148] A cockatrice is supposedly born when a serpent hatches an egg that has been laid on a dunghill by a rooster[148] and it is so venomous that its breath and its gaze are both lethal to any living creature, except for a weasel, which is the cockatrice's mortal enemy.[148] A basilisk is a serpent with the head of a dragon at the end of its tail that is born when a toad hatches an egg that has been laid in a midden by a nine-year-old cockatrice.[148] Like the cockatrice, its glare is said to be deadly.[148]
Post-classical Eastern Europe
Zmey Gorynych, a three-headed dragon from Russian folklore.
Illustration of the Wawel Dragon from Sebastian Münster's Cosmographie Universalis (1544).
Main articles: Slavic dragon and Kulshedra
In Albanian mythology and folklore, stihi, ljubi, bolla, bollar, errshaja and kulshedra are mythological figures described as serpentine dragons. It is believed that bolla, a water and chthonic demonic serpent, undergoes metamorphosis passing through four distinct phases if it lives many years without being seen by a human. The bollar and errshaja are the intermediate stages, while the kulshedra is the ultimate phase, described as a huge multi-headed fire-spitting female serpent which causes drought, storms, flooding, earthquakes and other natural disasters against mankind. She is usually fought and defeated by a drangue, a semi-human winged divine hero and protector of humans. Heavy thunderstorms are thought to be the result of their battles.[150][151]
In Slavic mythology, the words "zmey", "zmiy" or "zmaj" are used to describe dragons. These words are masculine forms of the Slavic word for "snake", which are normally feminine (like Russian zmeya). In Romania, there is a similar figure, derived from the Slavic dragon and named zmeu. Exclusively in Polish and Belarusian folklore, as well as in the other Slavic folklores, a dragon is also called (variously) смок, цмок, or smok. In South Slavic folklores, the same thing is also called lamya (ламя, ламjа, lamja). Although quite similar to other European dragons, Slavic dragons have their peculiarities.
In Russian and Ukrainian folklore, Zmey Gorynych is a dragon with three heads, each one bearing twin goatlike horns.[152] He is said to have breathed fire and smelled of sulfur.[152] It was believed that eclipses were caused by Gorynych temporarily swallowing the sun.[153] According to one legend, Gorynych's uncle was the evil sorcerer Nemal Chelovek, who abducted the daughter of the tsar and imprisoned her in his castle in the Ural Mountains.[153] Many knights tried to free her, but all of them were killed by Gorynych's fire.[153] Then a palace guard in Moscow named Ivan Tsarevich overheard two crows talking about the princess.[154] He went to the tsar, who gave him a magic sword, and snuck into the castle.[155] When Chelovek attacked Ivan in the form of a giant, the sword flew from Ivan's hand unbidden and killed him.[155] Then the sword cut off all three of Gorynych's heads at once.[155] Ivan brought the princess back to the tsar, who declared Ivan a nobleman and allowed him to marry the princess.[155]
A popular Polish folk tale is the legend of the Wawel Dragon,[156][157][158] which is first recorded in the Chronica Polonorum of Wincenty Kadłubek, written between 1190 and 1208.[157][158] According to Kadłubek, the dragon appeared during the reign of King Krakus[157] and demanded to be fed a fixed number of cattle every week.[157] If the villagers failed to provide enough cattle, the dragon would eat the same number of villagers as the number of cattle they had failed to provide.[157] Krakus ordered his sons to slay the dragon.[157] Since they could not slay it by hand,[157] they tricked the dragon into eating calfskins filled with burning sulfur.[157] Once the dragon was dead, the younger brother attacked and murdered his older brother and returned home to claim all the glory for himself,[157] telling his father that his brother had died fighting the dragon.[157] The younger brother became king after his father died, but his secret was eventually revealed and he was banished.[157] In the fifteenth century, Jan Długosz rewrote the story so that King Krakus himself was the one who slew the dragon.[156][157][158] Another version of the story told by Marcin Bielski instead has the clever shoemaker Skubę come up with the idea for slaying the dragon.[157][159] Bielski's version is now the most popular.[157]
Modern depictions
See also: List of dragons in fiction
Modern fan illustration by David Demaret of the dragon Smaug from J. R. R. Tolkien's 1937 high fantasy novel The Hobbit
Dragons and dragon motifs are featured in many works of modern literature, particularly within the fantasy genre.[160][161] As early as the eighteenth century, critical thinkers such as Denis Diderot were already asserting that too much literature had been published on dragons: "There are already in books all too many fabulous stories of dragons".[162] In Lewis Carroll's classic children's novel Through the Looking-Glass (1872), one of the inset poems describes the Jabberwock, a kind of dragon.[7] Carroll's illustrator John Tenniel, a famous political cartoonist, humorously showed the Jabberwock with the waistcoat, buck teeth, and myopic eyes of a Victorian university lecturer, such as Carroll himself.[7] In works of comedic children's fantasy, dragons often fulfill the role of a magic fairy tale helper.[163] In such works, rather than being frightening as they are traditionally portrayed, dragons are instead represented as harmless, benevolent, and inferior to humans.[163] They are sometimes shown living in contact with humans, or in isolated communities of only dragons.[163] Though popular in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, "such comic and idyllic stories" began to grow increasingly rare after the 1960s, due to demand for more serious children's literature.[163]
One of the most iconic modern dragons is Smaug from J. R. R. Tolkien's classic novel The Hobbit.[160] Dragons also appear in the best-selling Harry Potter series of children's novels by J. K. Rowling.[7] Other prominent works depicting dragons include Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern, Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea Cycle, George R. R. Martin's series A Song of Ice and Fire, and Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Cycle. Sandra Martina Schwab writes, "With a few exceptions, including McCaffrey's Pern novels and the 2002 film Reign of Fire, dragons seem to fit more into the medievalized setting of fantasy literature than into the more technological world of science fiction. Indeed, they have been called the emblem of fantasy. The hero's fight against the dragon emphasizes and celebrates his masculinity, whereas revisionist fantasies of dragons and dragon-slaying often undermine traditional gender roles. In children's literature the friendly dragon becomes a powerful ally in battling the child's fears."[164] The popular role-playing game system Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) makes heavy use of dragons.[8]
After recent discoveries in palaeontology, fictional dragons are sometimes represented with no front legs, but (when on the ground) walking on their back feet and the wrists of their wings, like pterosaurs did: for example see (in Game of Thrones) and (Smaug, as in the movie).
Proto-Indo-European
Further information: Chaoskampf, Sea serpent, Proto-Indo-European religion § Dragon or Serpent, and Serpents in the Bible
The story of a hero slaying a giant serpent occurs in nearly every Indo-European mythology.[75][76] In most stories, the hero is some kind of thunder-god.[76] In nearly every iteration of the story, the serpent is either multi-headed or "multiple" in some other way.[75] Furthermore, in nearly every story, the serpent is always somehow associated with water.[76] Bruce Lincoln has proposed that a Proto-Indo-European dragon-slaying myth can be reconstructed as follows:[77][78] First, the sky gods give cattle to a man named *Tritos ("the third"), who is so named because he is the third man on earth,[77][78] but a three-headed serpent named *Ngwhi steals them.[77][78] *Tritos pursues the serpent and is accompanied by *Hanér, whose name means "man".[77][78] Together, the two heroes slay the serpent and rescue the cattle.[77][78]
Ancient Greece and Rome
Greek red-figure vase painting depicting Heracles slaying the Lernaean Hydra, c. 375–340 BC
Main article: Dragons in Greek mythology
The ancient Greek word usually translated as "dragon" (δράκων drákōn, genitive δράκοντοϛ drákontos) could also mean "snake",[79][6] but it usually refers to a kind of giant serpent that either possesses supernatural characteristics or is otherwise controlled by some supernatural power.[80] The first mention of a "dragon" in ancient Greek literature occurs in the Iliad, in which Agamemnon is described as having a blue dragon motif on his sword belt and an emblem of a three-headed dragon on his breast plate.[81] In lines 820–880 of the Theogony, a Greek poem written in the seventh century BC by the Boeotian poet Hesiod, the Greek god Zeus battles the monster Typhon, who has one hundred serpent heads that breathe fire and speak all kinds of frightening animal noises.[29] Zeus scorches all of Typhon's heads with his lightning bolts and then hurls Typhon into Tartarus.[82] In the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, the god Apollo uses his poisoned arrows to slay the serpent Python, who has been causing death and pestilence in the area around Delphi.[83][82] Apollo then sets up his shrine there.[82]
The Roman poet Virgil in his poem Culex, lines 163–201 [1], describing a shepherd having a fight with a big constricting snake, calls it "serpens" and also "draco", showing that in his time the two words were probably interchangeable.
Attic red-figure kylix painting from c. 480–470 BC showing Athena observing as the Colchian dragon disgorges the hero Jason[84][85]
Hesiod also mentions that the hero Heracles slew the Lernaean Hydra, a multiple-headed serpent which dwelt in the swamps of Lerna.[86] The name "Hydra" means "water snake" in Greek.[82][87] According to the Bibliotheka of Pseudo-Apollodorus, the slaying of the Hydra was the second of the Twelve Labors of Heracles.[88][82] Accounts disagree on which weapon Heracles used to slay the Hydra,[82] but, by the end of the sixth century BC, it was agreed that the clubbed or severed heads needed to be cauterized to prevent them from growing back.[89][82] Heracles was aided in this task by his nephew Iolaus.[89] During the battle, a giant crab crawled out of the marsh and pinched Heracles's foot,[88] but he crushed it under his heel.[90] Hera placed the crab in the sky as the constellation Cancer.[90] One of the Hydra's heads was immortal, so Heracles buried it under a heavy rock after cutting it off.[82][90] For his Eleventh Labor, Heracles must procure a golden apple from the tree in the Garden of the Hesperides, which is guarded by an enormous serpent that never sleeps,[91] which Pseudo-Apollodorus calls "Ladon".[92] In earlier depictions, Ladon is often shown with many heads.[93] In Pseudo-Apollodorus's account, Ladon is immortal,[93] but Sophocles and Euripides both describe Heracles as killing him, although neither of them specifies how.[93] The mythographer Herodorus is the first to state that Heracles slew him using his famous club.[93] Apollonius of Rhodes, in his epic poem the Argonautica, describes Ladon as having been shot full of poisoned arrows dipped in the blood of the Hydra.[94]
In Pindar's Fourth Pythian Ode, Aeëtes of Colchis tells the hero Jason that the Golden Fleece he is seeking is in a copse guarded by a dragon, "which surpassed in breadth and length a fifty-oared ship".[95] Jason slays the dragon and makes off with the Golden Fleece together with his co-conspirator, Aeëtes's daughter, Medea.[96] The earliest artistic representation of this story is an Attic red-figure kylix dated to c. 480–470 BC,[97] showing a bedraggled Jason being disgorged from the dragon's open mouth as the Golden Fleece hangs in a tree behind him and Athena, the goddess of wisdom, stands watching.[97][85] A fragment from Pherecydes of Athens states that Jason killed the dragon,[96] but fragments from the Naupactica and from Herodorus state that he merely stole the Fleece and escaped.[96] In Euripides's Medea, Medea boasts that she killed the Colchian dragon herself.[96] In the most famous retelling of the story from Apollonius of Rhodes's Argonautica, Medea drugs the dragon to sleep, allowing Jason to steal the Fleece.[98] Greek vase paintings show her feeding the dragon the sleeping drug in a liquid form from a phialē, or shallow cup.[99]
Paestan red-figure kylix-krater (c. 350–340 BC) showing Cadmus fighting the dragon of Ares[100]
In the founding myth of Thebes, Cadmus, a Phoenician prince, was instructed by Apollo to follow a heifer and found a city wherever it laid down.[101] Cadmus and his men followed the heifer and, when it laid down, Cadmus ordered his men to find a spring so he could sacrifice the heifer to Athena.[101] His men found a spring, but it was guarded by a dragon, which had been placed there by the god Ares, and the dragon killed them.[101] Cadmus killed the dragon in revenge,[101][102] either by smashing its head with a rock or using his sword.[101] Following the advice of Athena, Cadmus tore out the dragon's teeth and planted them in the earth.[101][102] An army of giant warriors (known as spartoi, which means "sown men") grew from the teeth like plants.[101][102] Cadmus hurled stones into their midst, causing them to kill each other until only five were left.[101] To make restitution for having killed Ares's dragon, Cadmus was forced to serve Ares as a slave for eight years.[101] At the end of this period, Cadmus married Harmonia, the daughter of Ares and Aphrodite.[101] Cadmus and Harmonia moved to Illyria, where they ruled as king and queen, before eventually being transformed into dragons themselves.[103]
In the fifth century BC, the Greek historian Herodotus reported in Book IV of his Histories that western Libya was inhabited by monstrous serpents[104] and, in Book III, he states that Arabia was home to many small, winged serpents,[105][106] which came in a variety of colors and enjoyed the trees that produced frankincense.[105][104] Herodotus remarks that the serpent's wings were like those of bats[107] and that, unlike vipers, which are found in every land, winged serpents are only found in Arabia.[107] The second-century BC Greek astronomer Hipparchus (c. 190 BC – c. 120 BC) listed the constellation Draco ("the dragon") as one of forty-six constellations.[108] Hipparchus described the constellation as containing fifteen stars,[109] but the later astronomer Ptolemy (c. 100 – c. 170 AD) increased this number to thirty-one in his Almagest.[109]
Ancient Greek mosaic from Caulonia, Italy, depicting a cetus or sea-dragon
In the New Testament, Revelation 12:3, written by John of Patmos, describes a vision of a Great Red Dragon with seven heads, ten horns, seven crowns, and a massive tail,[110] an image which is clearly inspired by the vision of the four beasts from the sea in the Book of Daniel[111] and the Leviathan described in various Old Testament passages.[112] The Great Red Dragon knocks "a third of the sun ... a third of the moon, and a third of the stars" out the sky[113] and pursues the Woman of the Apocalypse.[113] Revelation 12:7–9 declares: "And war broke out in Heaven. Michael and his angels fought against Dragon. Dragon and his angels fought back, but they were defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in Heaven. Dragon the Great was thrown down, that ancient serpent who is called Devil and Satan, the one deceiving the whole inhabited World – he was thrown down to earth and his angels were thrown down with him."[114] Then a voice booms down from Heaven heralding the defeat of "the Accuser" (ho Kantegor).[115]
In 217 AD, Flavius Philostratus discussed dragons (δράκων, drákōn) in India in The Life of Apollonius of Tyana (II,17 and III,6–8). The Loeb Classical Library translation (by F.C. Conybeare) mentions (III,7) that "In most respects the tusks resemble the largest swine's, but they are slighter in build and twisted, and have a point as unabraded as sharks' teeth." According to a collection of books by Claudius Aelianus called On Animals, Ethiopia was inhabited by a species of dragon that hunted elephants and could grow to a length of 180 feet (55 m) with a lifespan rivaling that of the most enduring of animals.[116]
Post-classical Germanic mythology
Main articles: Sea serpent and Lindworm
Drawing of the Ramsund carving from c. 1030, illustrating the Völsunga saga on a rock in Sweden. At (5), Sigurd plunges his sword into Fafnir's underside.
In the Old Norse poem Grímnismál in the Poetic Edda, the dragon Níðhöggr is described as gnawing on the roots of Yggdrasil, the world tree.[117] In Norse mythology, Jörmungandr is a giant serpent that encircles the entire realm of Miðgarð in the sea around it.[118] According to the Gylfaginning from the Prose Edda, written by the thirteenth-century Icelandic mythographer Snorri Sturluson, Thor, the Norse god of thunder, once went out on a boat with the giant Hymnir to the outer sea and fished for Jörmungandr using an ox-head as bait.[118] Thor caught the serpent and, after pulling its head out of the water, smashed it with his hammer Mjölnir.[118] Snorri states that the blow was not fatal: "and men say that he struck its head off on the sea bed. But I think the truth to tell you is that the Miðgarð Serpent still lives and lies in the surrounding sea."[118]
Towards the end of the Old English epic poem Beowulf, a slave steals a cup from the hoard of a sleeping dragon,[119] causing the dragon to wake up and go on a rampage of destruction across the countryside.[120] The eponymous hero of the poem insists on confronting the dragon alone, even though he is of advanced age,[121][122] but Wiglaf, the youngest of the twelve warriors Beowulf has brought with him, insists on accompanying his king into the battle.[123] Beowulf's sword shatters during the fight and he is mortally wounded,[124][125] but Wiglaf comes to his rescue and helps him slay the dragon.[125] Beowulf dies and tells Wiglaf that the dragon's treasure must be buried rather than shared with the cowardly warriors who did not come to the aid of their king.[126]
In the Old Norse Völsunga saga, the hero Sigurd catches the dragon Fafnir by digging a pit between the cave where he lives and the spring where he drinks his water[127] and kills him by stabbing him in the underside.[127] At the advice of Odin, Sigurd drains Fafnir's blood and drinks it, which gives him the ability to understand the language of the birds,[128] who he hears talking about how his mentor Regin is plotting to betray him so that he can keep all of Fafnir's treasure for himself.[128][129] The motif of a hero trying to sneak past a sleeping dragon and steal some of its treasure is common throughout many Old Norse sagas.[130] The fourteenth-century Flóres saga konungs ok sona hans describes a hero who is actively concerned not to wake a sleeping dragon while sneaking past it.[130] In the Yngvars saga víðförla, the protagonist attempts to steal treasure from several sleeping dragons, but accidentally wakes them up.[130]
Post-classical Western Europe
Fifteenth-century manuscript illustration of the battle of the Red and White Dragons from Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain
Great seal of Owain Glyndŵr (c. 1359 – c. 1415), prince of Wales: with dragon crest on his helmet
Main articles: European dragon, Welsh Dragon, Wyvern, Saint George and the Dragon, Margaret the Virgin, and Dacian Draco
The modern, western image of a dragon developed in western Europe during the Middle Ages through the combination of the snakelike dragons of classical Graeco-Roman literature, references to Near Eastern European dragons preserved in the Bible, and western European folk traditions.[131] The period between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries represents the height of European interest in dragons as living creatures.[132] The twelfth-century Welsh monk Geoffrey of Monmouth recounts a famous legend in his Historia Regum Britanniae in which the child prophet Merlin witnesses the Romano-Celtic warlord Vortigern attempt to build a tower on Mount Snowdon to keep safe from the Anglo-Saxons,[133] but the tower keeps being swallowed into the ground.[133] Merlin informs Vortigern that, underneath the foundation he has built, is a pool with two dragons sleeping in it.[133] Vortigern orders for the pool to be drained, exposing a red dragon and a white dragon, who immediately begin fighting.[133] Merlin delivers a prophecy that the white dragon will triumph over the red, symbolizing England's conquest of Wales,[133] but declares that the red dragon will eventually return and defeat the white one.[134] This story remained popular throughout the fifteenth century.[134]
MS Harley 3244, a medieval manuscript dated to around 1260 AD, contains the oldest recognizable image of a fully modern, western dragon.[8]
The oldest recognizable image of a fully modern, western dragon appears in a hand-painted illustration from the medieval manuscript MS Harley 3244, which was produced in around 1260 AD.[8] The dragon in the illustration has two sets of wings and its tail is longer than most modern depictions of dragons,[8] but it clearly displays many of the same distinctive features.[8] Dragons are generally depicted as living in rivers or having an underground lair or cave.[135] They are envisioned as greedy and gluttonous, with voracious appetites.[131] They are often identified with Satan, due to the references to Satan as a "dragon" in the Book of Revelation.[131] The thirteenth-century Golden Legend, written in Latin, records the story of Saint Margaret of Antioch,[67] a virgin martyr who, after being tortured for her faith in the Diocletianic Persecution and thrown back into her cell, is said to have been confronted by a monstrous dragon,[67] but she made the sign of the cross and the dragon vanished.[67] In some versions of the story, she is actually swallowed by the dragon alive and, after making the sign of the cross in the dragon's stomach, emerges unharmed.[67]
Manuscript illustration from Verona of Saint George slaying the dragon, dating to c. 1270
The legend of Saint George and the Dragon may be referenced as early as the sixth century AD,[136][137] but the earliest artistic representations of it come from the eleventh century[136] and the first full account of it comes from an eleventh-century Georgian text.[138] The most famous version of the story from the Golden Legend holds that a dragon kept pillaging the sheep of the town of Silene in Libya.[136] After it ate a young shepherd, the people were forced to placate it by leaving two sheep as sacrificial offerings every morning beside the lake where the dragon lived.[136] Eventually, the dragon ate all of the sheep[139] and the people were forced to start offering it their own children.[139] One day, the king's own daughter came up in the lottery and, despite the king's pleas for her life, she was dressed as a bride and chained to a rock beside the lake to be eaten.[139] Then, Saint George arrived and saw the princess.[139] When the dragon arrived to eat her, he stabbed it with his lance and subdued it by making the sign of the cross and tying the princess's girdle around its neck.[139] Saint George and the princess led the now-docile dragon into the town and George promised to kill it if the townspeople would convert to Christianity.[140] All the townspeople converted and Saint George killed the dragon with his sword.[140] In some versions, Saint George marries the princess,[140] but, in others, he continues wandering.[140]
Gargoyles are carved stone figures sometimes resembling dragons that originally served as waterspouts on buildings.[141][142] Precursors to the medieval gargoyle can be found on ancient Greek and Egyptian temples,[141][143][144] but, over the course of the Middle Ages, many fantastic stories were invented to explain them.[145] One medieval French legend holds that, in ancient times, a fearsome dragon known as La Gargouille had been causing floods and sinking ships on the river Seine,[146] so the people of the town of Rouen would offer the dragon a human sacrifice once each year to appease its hunger.[146] Then, in around 600 AD, a priest named Romanus promised that, if the people would build a church, he would rid them of the dragon.[146] Romanus slew the dragon and its severed head was mounted on the walls of the city as the first gargoyle.[146][147]
Dragons are prominent in medieval heraldry.[148] Uther Pendragon was famously said to have had two gold dragons crowned with red standing back-to-back on his royal coat of arms.[149] Originally, heraldic dragons could have any number of legs,[148] but, by the late Middle Ages, due to the widespread proliferation of bestiaries, heraldry began to distinguish between a "dragon" (which could only have exactly four legs) and a "wyvern" (which could only have exactly two).[148] In myths, wyverns are associated with viciousness, envy, and pestilence,[148] but, in heraldry, they are used as symbols for overthrowing the tyranny of Satan and his demonic forces.[148] Late medieval heraldry also distinguished a draconic creature known as a "cockatrice".[148] A cockatrice is supposedly born when a serpent hatches an egg that has been laid on a dunghill by a rooster[148] and it is so venomous that its breath and its gaze are both lethal to any living creature, except for a weasel, which is the cockatrice's mortal enemy.[148] A basilisk is a serpent with the head of a dragon at the end of its tail that is born when a toad hatches an egg that has been laid in a midden by a nine-year-old cockatrice.[148] Like the cockatrice, its glare is said to be deadly.[148]
Post-classical Eastern Europe
Zmey Gorynych, a three-headed dragon from Russian folklore.
Illustration of the Wawel Dragon from Sebastian Münster's Cosmographie Universalis (1544).
Main articles: Slavic dragon and Kulshedra
In Albanian mythology and folklore, stihi, ljubi, bolla, bollar, errshaja and kulshedra are mythological figures described as serpentine dragons. It is believed that bolla, a water and chthonic demonic serpent, undergoes metamorphosis passing through four distinct phases if it lives many years without being seen by a human. The bollar and errshaja are the intermediate stages, while the kulshedra is the ultimate phase, described as a huge multi-headed fire-spitting female serpent which causes drought, storms, flooding, earthquakes and other natural disasters against mankind. She is usually fought and defeated by a drangue, a semi-human winged divine hero and protector of humans. Heavy thunderstorms are thought to be the result of their battles.[150][151]
In Slavic mythology, the words "zmey", "zmiy" or "zmaj" are used to describe dragons. These words are masculine forms of the Slavic word for "snake", which are normally feminine (like Russian zmeya). In Romania, there is a similar figure, derived from the Slavic dragon and named zmeu. Exclusively in Polish and Belarusian folklore, as well as in the other Slavic folklores, a dragon is also called (variously) смок, цмок, or smok. In South Slavic folklores, the same thing is also called lamya (ламя, ламjа, lamja). Although quite similar to other European dragons, Slavic dragons have their peculiarities.
In Russian and Ukrainian folklore, Zmey Gorynych is a dragon with three heads, each one bearing twin goatlike horns.[152] He is said to have breathed fire and smelled of sulfur.[152] It was believed that eclipses were caused by Gorynych temporarily swallowing the sun.[153] According to one legend, Gorynych's uncle was the evil sorcerer Nemal Chelovek, who abducted the daughter of the tsar and imprisoned her in his castle in the Ural Mountains.[153] Many knights tried to free her, but all of them were killed by Gorynych's fire.[153] Then a palace guard in Moscow named Ivan Tsarevich overheard two crows talking about the princess.[154] He went to the tsar, who gave him a magic sword, and snuck into the castle.[155] When Chelovek attacked Ivan in the form of a giant, the sword flew from Ivan's hand unbidden and killed him.[155] Then the sword cut off all three of Gorynych's heads at once.[155] Ivan brought the princess back to the tsar, who declared Ivan a nobleman and allowed him to marry the princess.[155]
A popular Polish folk tale is the legend of the Wawel Dragon,[156][157][158] which is first recorded in the Chronica Polonorum of Wincenty Kadłubek, written between 1190 and 1208.[157][158] According to Kadłubek, the dragon appeared during the reign of King Krakus[157] and demanded to be fed a fixed number of cattle every week.[157] If the villagers failed to provide enough cattle, the dragon would eat the same number of villagers as the number of cattle they had failed to provide.[157] Krakus ordered his sons to slay the dragon.[157] Since they could not slay it by hand,[157] they tricked the dragon into eating calfskins filled with burning sulfur.[157] Once the dragon was dead, the younger brother attacked and murdered his older brother and returned home to claim all the glory for himself,[157] telling his father that his brother had died fighting the dragon.[157] The younger brother became king after his father died, but his secret was eventually revealed and he was banished.[157] In the fifteenth century, Jan Długosz rewrote the story so that King Krakus himself was the one who slew the dragon.[156][157][158] Another version of the story told by Marcin Bielski instead has the clever shoemaker Skubę come up with the idea for slaying the dragon.[157][159] Bielski's version is now the most popular.[157]
Modern depictions
See also: List of dragons in fiction
Modern fan illustration by David Demaret of the dragon Smaug from J. R. R. Tolkien's 1937 high fantasy novel The Hobbit
Dragons and dragon motifs are featured in many works of modern literature, particularly within the fantasy genre.[160][161] As early as the eighteenth century, critical thinkers such as Denis Diderot were already asserting that too much literature had been published on dragons: "There are already in books all too many fabulous stories of dragons".[162] In Lewis Carroll's classic children's novel Through the Looking-Glass (1872), one of the inset poems describes the Jabberwock, a kind of dragon.[7] Carroll's illustrator John Tenniel, a famous political cartoonist, humorously showed the Jabberwock with the waistcoat, buck teeth, and myopic eyes of a Victorian university lecturer, such as Carroll himself.[7] In works of comedic children's fantasy, dragons often fulfill the role of a magic fairy tale helper.[163] In such works, rather than being frightening as they are traditionally portrayed, dragons are instead represented as harmless, benevolent, and inferior to humans.[163] They are sometimes shown living in contact with humans, or in isolated communities of only dragons.[163] Though popular in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, "such comic and idyllic stories" began to grow increasingly rare after the 1960s, due to demand for more serious children's literature.[163]
One of the most iconic modern dragons is Smaug from J. R. R. Tolkien's classic novel The Hobbit.[160] Dragons also appear in the best-selling Harry Potter series of children's novels by J. K. Rowling.[7] Other prominent works depicting dragons include Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern, Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea Cycle, George R. R. Martin's series A Song of Ice and Fire, and Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Cycle. Sandra Martina Schwab writes, "With a few exceptions, including McCaffrey's Pern novels and the 2002 film Reign of Fire, dragons seem to fit more into the medievalized setting of fantasy literature than into the more technological world of science fiction. Indeed, they have been called the emblem of fantasy. The hero's fight against the dragon emphasizes and celebrates his masculinity, whereas revisionist fantasies of dragons and dragon-slaying often undermine traditional gender roles. In children's literature the friendly dragon becomes a powerful ally in battling the child's fears."[164] The popular role-playing game system Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) makes heavy use of dragons.[8]
After recent discoveries in palaeontology, fictional dragons are sometimes represented with no front legs, but (when on the ground) walking on their back feet and the wrists of their wings, like pterosaurs did: for example see (in Game of Thrones) and (Smaug, as in the movie).
