Editing Princess and dragon (section)

==History==
One of the earliest examples of the motif comes from the [[Ancient Greece|Ancient Greek]] tale of [[Perseus]], who rescued the princess [[Andromeda (mythology)|Andromeda]] from [[Cetus (mythology)|Cetus]], a sea monster often described as resembling a serpent or dragon.<ref>{{cite book|last=Jacobs|first=Joseph|date=1916|title=Europa's Fairy Book|location=New York, London|publisher=[[G. P. Putnam's Sons]]|pages=228–230}} (Notes on Tale nr. III).</ref> This was taken up into other [[Greek mythology|Greek myths]], such as [[Heracles]], who rescued the princess [[Hesione]] of [[Troy]] from a similar sea monster. Most ancient versions depicted the dragon as the expression of a god's wrath: in Andromeda's case, because her mother [[Cassiopeia (mother of Andromeda)|Queen Cassiopeia]] had compared her beauty to that of the sea [[nymph]]s, and in Hesione's, because her father had reneged on a bargain with [[Poseidon]]. This is less common in fairy tales and other, later versions, where the dragon is frequently acting out of malice. The homosexual variety of the tale is also found in Greek mythology; similar myths existed in [[Crissa]] and [[Thespiae]] of a terrifying beast that ravaged the place unless a young man was sacrificed, [[Alcyoneus (son of Diomos)|Alcyoneus]] in Crisa and [[Cleostratus (mythology)|Cleostratus]] in Thespiae to them. In both cases a man who is in love with the youth ([[Eurybarus]] and [[Menestratus (Thespiae)|Menestratus]] respectively) and steps in to take the youth's place and slay the monster.<ref>{{cite book | last = Celoria | first = Francis | title = The Metamorphoses of Antoninus Liberalis: A Translation with a Commentary | publisher = [[Routledge]] | date = 1992 | isbn = 0-415-06896-7 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=cHt0DwAAQBAJ | location = Canada, USA | pages = [https://books.google.com/books?id=cHt0DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA128 128–129]}}</ref>

[[File:Susanoo-no-Mikoto-slays-Yamata-no-Orochi-in-Izumo-By-Tsukioka-Yoshitoshi.png|thumb|right|''Susanoo'' slaying the ''Yamata no Orochi'', by [[Yoshitoshi]].]]

The Japanese legend of [[Yamata no Orochi]] also invokes this motif. The god [[Susanoo-no-Mikoto|Susanoo]] encounters two "Earthly Deities" who have been forced to sacrifice their seven daughters to the many-headed monster, and their daughter [[Kushinadahime]] is the next victim. Susanoo is able to kill the dragon after getting it drunk on [[sake]] (rice wine).<ref>Weiss, Michael. "Slaying the Serpent: Comparative Mythological Perspectives on Susanoo's Dragon Fight". In: ''Journal of Asian Humanities at Kyushu University (JAH-Q)''. Volume 3. Spring 2018. pp. 1-20.</ref>

Another variation is from the tale of [[Saint George and the Dragon]]. The tale begins with a dragon making its nest at the [[spring (hydrosphere)|spring]] which provides a [[city-state]] with water. Consequently, the citizens had to temporarily remove the dragon from its nest in order to collect water. To do so, they offered the dragon a daily [[human sacrifice]]. The victim of the day was chosen by drawing lots. Eventually in this [[lottery]], the lot happened to fall to the local princess. The local [[monarch]] is occasionally depicted begging for her life with no result. She is offered to the dragon but at this point a traveling [[Saint George]] arrives. He faces and defeats the dragon and saves the princess; some versions claim that the dragon is not killed in the fight, but pacified once George ties the princess' sash around its neck. The grateful citizens then abandon their ancestral [[paganism]] and convert to [[Christianity]].

A similar tale to St. George's, attributed to Russian sources, is that of ''St. Yegóry, the Brave'': after the kingdoms of Sodom and Komor fall, the kingdom of "Arabia" is menaced by a sea-monster that demanded a sacrifice of a human victim every day. The queenly stepmother sent the Princess Elizabeth, the Fair, as the sacrifice. Yegóry, the Brave rescues Elizabeth and uses her sash to bind the beast. To mark her deliverance, he demands the building of three churches.<ref>Hapgood, Isabel Florence. ''A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections''. New York: Chautauqua Press. 1902. pp. 16-17.</ref>

In a tale from [[Tibet]], a kingdom suffers from drought due to two "serpent-gods" blocking the streams of water at the source. Both dragons also demand the sacrifices of citizens from the kingdom, men and women, to appease them, until prince Schalu and his faithful companion Saran decide to put an end to their existence.<ref>"The Prince with the Golden Mouth". In: Jewett, Eleanore Myers, and Siddhi-kür. Kalmükische märchen. ''Wonder Tales From Tibet''. Boston: Little, Brown, and company, 1922. pp. 112-132. [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044019175355&view=1up&seq=148]</ref>

When the tale is not about a dragon but a [[troll]], [[Giant (mythology)|giant]], or [[ogre]], the princess is often a captive rather than about to be eaten, as in ''[[The Three Princesses of Whiteland]]''. These princesses are often a vital source of information to their rescuers, telling them how to perform tasks that the captor sets to them, or how to kill the monster, and when she does not know, as in ''[[The Giant Who Had No Heart in His Body]]'', she frequently can pry the information from the giant. Despite the hero's helplessness without this information, the princess is incapable of using the knowledge herself.  
[[File:Illustration at page 25 in Europa's Fairy Book.png|thumb|left|The Marshall (false hero) tells the court how he killed the dragon. Illustration by [[John D. Batten|John Batten]] for [[Joseph Jacobs]]'s ''Europa's Fairy Book'' (1916).]]

Again, if a [[False hero|false claimant]] intimidates her into silence about who actually killed the monster as in the [[fairy tale]] ''[[The Two Brothers]]'', when the hero appears, she will endorse his story, but she will not tell the truth prior to them; she often agrees to marry the false claimant in the hero's absence. The hero has often cut out the tongue of the dragon, so when the false hero cuts off its head, his claim to have killed it is refuted by its lack of a tongue; the hero produces the tongue and so proves his claim to marry the princess.<ref>[[Max Lüthi]], ''Once Upon A Time: On the Nature of Fairy Tales'', p 54, Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., New York, 1970</ref> In some tales, however, the princess herself takes steps to ensure that she can identify the hero&mdash;cutting off a piece of his cloak as in ''[[Georgic and Merlin]]'', giving him tokens as in ''[[The Sea-Maiden]]''&mdash;and so separate him from the false hero.
[[File:Orlando Furioso 20.jpg|thumb|right|Ruggiero Rescuing Angelica, an illustration for ''[[Orlando Furioso]]'' by [[Gustave Doré]]]]

This dragon-slaying hero appears in [[Romance (heroic literature)|medieval romances]] about [[knight-errant|knights-errant]],<ref>[[Johan Huizinga]], ''[[The Autumn of the Middle Ages]]'' p 84 {{ISBN|0-226-35992-1}}</ref> such as the Russian [[Dobrynya Nikitich]]. In some variants of [[Tristan and Iseult]], [[Tristan]] wins [[Iseult]] for his uncle, King [[Mark of Cornwall]], by killing a dragon that was devastating her father's kingdom; he has to prove his claim when the king's steward claims to be the dragon-slayer.<ref>Anne Wilson, ''Traditional Romance and Tale'', p 46, D.S. Brewer, Rowman & Littlefield, Ipswitch, 1976, {{ISBN|0-87471-905-4}}</ref> [[Ludovico Ariosto]] took the concept up into ''[[Orlando Furioso]]'' using it not once but twice: the rescue of [[Angelica (character)|Angelica]] by Ruggiero, and [[Orlando (character)|Orlando]] rescuing Olimpia. The monster that menaced Olimpia reconnected to the Greek myths; although Ariosto described it as a legend to the characters, the story was that the monster sprung from an offense against [[Proteus]]. In neither case did he marry the rescued woman to the rescuer. [[Edmund Spenser]] depicts St. George in ''[[The Faerie Queene]]'', but while Una is a princess who seeks aid against a dragon, and her depiction in the opening with a lamb fits the iconography of St. George pageants, the dragon imperils her parents' kingdom, and not her alone. Many tales of dragons, ending with the dragon-slayer marrying a princess, do not precisely fit this cliché because the princess is in no more danger than the rest of the threatened kingdom.

An unusual variant occurs in [[Child ballad]] 34, ''[[Kemp Owyne]]'', where the dragon ''is'' the maiden; the hero, based on [[Ywain]] from Arthurian legend, rescues her from the [[Shapeshifting|transformation]] with three kisses.<ref>[[Francis James Child]], ''The English and Scottish Popular Ballads'', v 1, p 306, Dover Publications, New York 1965</ref>

Mythological comparativist Julien d'Huy ran an analytical study of the antiquity and diffusion of the snake- or dragon-battling mytheme in different cultural traditions.<ref>d'Huy, Julien. (2016). Première reconstruction statistique d'un rituel paléolithique: autour du motif du dragon. Nouvelle Mythologie Comparée / New Comparative Mythology.</ref>

Scholarship suggests a connection between the episode of the dragon-slaying by the hero and the journey on an eagle's back, akin to the Mesopotamian myth of [[Etana]].<ref>Annus, Amar. "Review Article. The Folk-Tales of Iraq and the Literary Traditions of Ancient Mesopotamia". In: ''Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions''. 9 (2009): 91. 10.1163/156921209X449170.</ref>