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A dragon is a magical legendary creature that appears in the folklore of multiple cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but dragons in Western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depicted as winged, horned, and capable of breathing fire. Dragons in eastern cultures are usually depicted as wingless, four-legged, serpentine creatures with above-average intelligence. Commonalities between dragons' traits are often a hybridization of reptilian, mammalian, and avian features.
EtymologyEdit
The word dragon entered the English language in the early 13th century from Old French {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, which, in turn, comes from Latin {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (genitive {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}), meaning "huge serpent, dragon", from Template:Langx, Template:Transliteration (genitive {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, Template:Transliteration) "serpent".Template:Sfn<ref name="LiddelScott">Δράκων Template:Webarchive, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, at Perseus project</ref> The Greek and Latin term referred to any great serpent, not necessarily mythological.Template:Sfn The Greek word {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} is most likely derived from the Greek verb {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (Template:Transliteration) meaning "I see", the aorist form of which is {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (Template:Transliteration).<ref name="LiddelScott"/> This is thought to have referred to something with a "deadly glance",<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> or unusually bright<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> or "sharp"<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> eyes, or because a snake's eyes appear to be always open; each eye actually sees through a big transparent scale in its eyelids, which are permanently shut. The Greek word probably derives from an Indo-European base {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} meaning "to see"; the Sanskrit root {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (Template:Transliteration) also means "to see".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
OverviewEdit
Draconic creatures appear in virtually all cultures around the globe,Template:Sfn and the earliest attested reports of draconic creatures resemble giant snakes. Draconic creatures are first described in the mythologies of the ancient Near East and appear in ancient Mesopotamian art and literature. Stories about storm gods slaying giant serpents occur throughout nearly all Near Eastern and Indo-European mythologies. Famous prototypical draconic creatures include the mušḫuššu of ancient Mesopotamia; Apep in Egyptian mythology; Vṛtra in the Rigveda; the Leviathan in the Hebrew Bible; Grand'Goule in the Poitou region in France; Python, Ladon, wyvern and the Lernaean Hydra in Greek mythology; Kulshedra in Albanian mythology; Unhcegila in Lakota mythology; Quetzalcoatl in Aztec culture; Jörmungandr, Níðhöggr, and Fafnir in Norse mythology; the dragon from Beowulf; and aži and az in ancient Persian mythology, closely related to another mythological figure, called Aži Dahaka or Zahhak.
Nonetheless, scholars dispute where the idea of a dragon originates from,Template:Sfn and a wide variety of hypotheses have been proposed.Template:Sfn
In his book An Instinct for Dragons (2000), anthropologist David E. Jones suggests a hypothesis that humans, like monkeys, have inherited instinctive reactions to snakes, large cats, and birds of prey.Template:Sfn He cites a study which found that approximately 39 people in a hundred are afraid of snakesTemplate:Sfn and notes that fear of snakes is especially prominent in children, even in areas where snakes are rare.Template:Sfn The earliest attested dragons all resemble snakes or have snakelike attributes.Template:Sfn Jones therefore concludes that dragons appear in nearly all cultures because humans have an innate fear of snakes and other animals that were major predators of humans' primate ancestors.Template:Sfn Dragons are usually said to reside in "dark caves, deep pools, wild mountain reaches, sea bottoms, haunted forests", all places which would have been fraught with danger for early human ancestors.Template:Sfn
In her book The First Fossil Hunters: Dinosaurs, Mammoths, and Myth in Greek and Roman Times (2000), Adrienne Mayor argues that some stories of dragons may have been inspired by ancient discoveries of fossils belonging to dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals.Template:Sfn She argues that the dragon lore of northern India may have been inspired by "observations of oversized, extraordinary bones in the fossilbeds of the Siwalik Hills below the Himalayas"Template:Sfn and that ancient Greek artistic depictions of the Monster of Troy may have been influenced by fossils of Samotherium, an extinct species of giraffe whose fossils are common in the Mediterranean region.Template:Sfn In China, a region where fossils of large prehistoric animals are common, these remains are frequently identified as "dragon bones"Template:Sfn and are commonly used in traditional Chinese medicine.Template:Sfn Mayor, however, is careful to point out that not all stories of dragons and giants are inspired by fossilsTemplate:Sfn and notes that Scandinavia has many stories of dragons and sea monsters, but has long "been considered barren of large fossils."Template:Sfn In one of her later books, she states that, "Many dragon images around the world were based on folk knowledge or exaggerations of living reptiles, such as Komodo dragons, Gila monsters, iguanas, alligators, or, in California, alligator lizards, though this still fails to account for the Scandinavian legends, as no such animals (historical or otherwise) have ever been found in this region."Template:Sfn
Robert Blust in The Origin of Dragons (2000) argues that, like many other creations of traditional cultures, dragons are largely explicable as products of a convergence of rational pre-scientific speculation about the world of real events. In this case, the event is the natural mechanism governing rainfall and drought, with particular attention paid to the phenomenon of the rainbow.<ref>Blust, Robert. "The Origin of Dragons". Anthropos, vol. 95, no. 2, 2000, pp. 519–536. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40465957. Accessed 6 June 2020.</ref>
EgyptEdit
In Egyptian mythology, Apep or Apophis is a giant serpentine creature who resides in the Duat, the Egyptian underworld.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The Bremner-Rhind papyrus, written around 310 BC, preserves an account of a much older Egyptian tradition that the setting of the sun is caused by Ra descending to the Duat to battle Apep.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn In some accounts, Apep is as long as the height of eight men with a head made of flint.Template:Sfn Thunderstorms and earthquakes were thought to be caused by Apep's roarTemplate:Sfn and solar eclipses were thought to be the result of Apep attacking Ra during the daytime.Template:Sfn In some myths, Apep is slain by the god Set.Template:Sfn Nehebkau is another giant serpent who guards the Duat and aided Ra in his battle against Apep.Template:Sfn Nehebkau was so massive in some stories that the entire earth was believed to rest atop his coils.Template:Sfn Denwen is a giant serpent mentioned in the Pyramid Texts whose body was made of fire and who ignited a conflagration that nearly destroyed all the gods of the Egyptian pantheon.Template:Sfn He was ultimately defeated by the Pharaoh, a victory which affirmed the Pharaoh's divine right to rule.Template:Sfn
The ouroboros was a well-known Egyptian symbol of a serpent swallowing its own tail.Template:Sfn The precursor to the ouroboros was the "Many-Faced",Template:Sfn a serpent with five heads, who, according to the Amduat, the oldest surviving Book of the Afterlife, was said to coil around the corpse of the sun god Ra protectively.Template:Sfn The earliest surviving depiction of a "true" ouroboros comes from the gilded shrines in the tomb of Tutankhamun.Template:Sfn In the early centuries AD, the ouroboros was adopted as a symbol by Gnostic ChristiansTemplate:Sfn and chapter 136 of the Pistis Sophia, an early Gnostic text, describes "a great dragon whose tail is in its mouth".Template:Sfn In medieval alchemy, the ouroboros became a typical western dragon with wings, legs, and a tail.Template:Sfn A famous image of the dragon gnawing on its tail from the eleventh-century Codex Marcianus was copied in numerous works on alchemy.Template:Sfn
West AsiaEdit
MesopotamiaEdit
Ancient people across the Near East believed in creatures similar to what modern people call "dragons".Template:Sfn These ancient people were unaware of the existence of dinosaurs or similar creatures in the distant past.Template:Sfn References to dragons of both benevolent and malevolent characters occur throughout ancient Mesopotamian literature.Template:Sfn In Sumerian poetry, great kings are often compared to the ušumgal, a gigantic, serpentine monster.Template:Sfn A draconic creature with the foreparts of a lion and the hind-legs, tail, and wings of a bird appears in Mesopotamian artwork from the Akkadian Period (Template:Circa 2334 – 2154 BC) until the Neo-Babylonian Period (626 BC–539 BC).Template:Sfn The dragon is usually shown with its mouth open.Template:Sfn It may have been known as the (ūmu) nā'iru, which means "roaring weather beast",Template:Sfn and may have been associated with the god Ishkur (Hadad).Template:Sfn A slightly different lion-dragon with two horns and the tail of a scorpion appears in art from the Neo-Assyrian Period (911 BC–609 BC).Template:Sfn A relief probably commissioned by Sennacherib shows the gods Ashur, Sin, and Adad standing on its back.Template:Sfn
Another draconic creature with horns, the body and neck of a snake, the forelegs of a lion, and the hind-legs of a bird appears in Mesopotamian art from the Akkadian Period until the Hellenistic Period (323 BC–31 BC).Template:Sfn This creature, known in Akkadian as the mušḫuššu, meaning "furious serpent", was used as a symbol for particular deities and also as a general protective emblem.Template:Sfn It seems to have originally been the attendant of the Underworld god Ninazu,Template:Sfn but later became the attendant to the Hurrian storm-god Tishpak, as well as, later, Ninazu's son Ningishzida, the Babylonian national god Marduk, the scribal god Nabu, and the Assyrian national god Ashur.Template:Sfn
Scholars disagree regarding the appearance of Tiamat, the Babylonian goddess personifying primeval chaos, slain by Marduk in the Babylonian creation epic Enûma Eliš.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn She was traditionally regarded by scholars as having had the form of a giant serpent,Template:Sfn but several scholars have pointed out that this shape "cannot be imputed to Tiamat with certainty"Template:Sfn and she seems to have at least sometimes been regarded as anthropomorphic.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Nonetheless, in some texts, she seems to be described with horns, a tail, and a hide that no weapon can penetrate,Template:Sfn all features which suggest she was conceived as some form of dragoness.Template:Sfn
LevantEdit
In the mythologies of the Ugarit region, specifically the Baal Cycle from the Ugaritic texts, the sea-dragon Lōtanu is described as "the twisting serpent / the powerful one with seven heads."Template:Sfn In KTU 1.5 I 2–3, Lōtanu is slain by the storm-god Baal,Template:Sfn but, in KTU 1.3 III 41–42, he is instead slain by the virgin warrior goddess Anat.Template:Sfn
In the Hebrew Bible, in the Book of Psalms, Psalm 74, Psalm 74:13–14, the sea-dragon Leviathan, is slain by Yahweh, god of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, as part of the creation of the world.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Isaiah describes Leviathan as a {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}), which is translated as "sea monster", "serpent", or "dragon".<ref name="tanin-translation">Template:Cite book</ref> In Isaiah 27:1, Yahweh's destruction of Leviathan is foretold as part of his impending overhaul of the universal order:Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
Job 41:1–34 contains a detailed description of Leviathan, who is described as being so powerful that only Yahweh can overcome it.Template:Sfn Job 41:19–21 states that Leviathan exhales fire and smoke, making its identification as a mythical dragon clearly apparent.Template:Sfn In some parts of the Old Testament, Leviathan is historicized as a symbol for the nations that stand against Yahweh.Template:Sfn Rahab, a synonym for "Leviathan", is used in several Biblical passages in reference to Egypt.Template:Sfn Isaiah 30:7 declares: "For Egypt's help is worthless and empty, therefore I have called her 'the silenced Rahab'."Template:Sfn Similarly, Psalm 87:3 reads: "I reckon Rahab and Babylon as those that know me..."Template:Sfn In Ezekiel 29:3–5 and Ezekiel 32:2–8, the pharaoh of Egypt is described as a "dragon" (tannîn).Template:Sfn In the deuterocanonical story of Bel and the Dragon from the Book of Daniel, the prophet Daniel sees a dragon being worshipped by the Babylonians.Template:Sfn Daniel makes "cakes of pitch, fat, and hair";Template:Sfn the dragon eats them and bursts open.<ref>Daniel 14:23–30</ref>Template:Sfn
IranEdit
Azhi Dahaka (Avestan Great Snake) is a dragon or demonic figure in the texts and mythology of Zoroastrian Persia, where he is one of the subordinates of Angra Mainyu. Alternate names include Azi Dahak, Dahaka, and Dahak. Aži (nominative ažiš) is the Avestan word for "serpent" or "dragon.<ref>For Azi Dahaka as dragon see: Ingersoll, Ernest, et al., (2013). The Illustrated Book of Dragons and Dragon Lore. Chiang Mai: Cognoscenti Books. ASIN B00D959PJ0</ref> The Avestan term Aži Dahāka and the Middle Persian azdahāg are the sources of the Middle Persian Manichaean demon of greed "Az", Old Armenian mythological figure Azhdahak, Modern Persian 'aždehâ/aždahâ', Tajik Persian 'azhdahâ', Urdu 'azhdahā' (اژدها). The name also migrated to Eastern Europe, assumed the form "azhdaja" and the meaning "dragon", "dragoness" or "water snake" in the Balkanic and Slavic languages.<ref>Appears numerous time in, for example: D. N. MacKenzie, Mani's Šābuhragān, pt. 1 (text and translation), BSOAS 42/3, 1979, pp. 500–34, pt. 2 (glossary and plates), BSOAS 43/2, 1980, pp. 288–310.</ref><ref>Detelić, Mirjana. "St Paraskeve in the Balkan Context" In: Folklore 121, no. 1 (2010): 101 (footnote nr. 12). Accessed March 24, 2021. Template:JSTOR.</ref><ref>Kropej, Monika. Supernatural beings from Slovenian myth and folktales. Ljubljana: Institute of Slovenian Ethnology at ZRC SAZU. 2012. p. 102. Template:ISBN.</ref>
Despite the negative aspect of Aži Dahāka in mythology, dragons have been used on some banners of war throughout the history of Iranian peoples.
The Azhdarchid group of pterosaurs are named from a Persian word for "dragon" that ultimately comes from Aži Dahāka.
In Persian Sufi literature, Rumi writes in his Masnavi<ref>III: 976–1066; V: 120</ref> that the dragon symbolizes the sensual soul (nafs), greed and lust, that need to be mortified in a spiritual battle.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
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In Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, the Iranian hero Rostam must slay an 80-meter-long dragon (which renders itself invisible to human sight) with the aid of his legendary horse, Rakhsh. As Rostam is sleeping, the dragon approaches; Rakhsh attempts to wake Rostam, but fails to alert him to the danger until Rostam sees the dragon. Rakhsh bites the dragon, while Rostam decapitates it. This is the third trial of Rostam's Seven Labors.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Rostam is also credited with the slaughter of other dragons in the Shahnameh and in other Iranian oral traditions, notably in the myth of Babr-e-Bayan. In this tale, Rostam is still an adolescent and kills a dragon in the "Orient" (either India or China, depending on the source) by forcing it to swallow either ox hides filled with quicklime and stones or poisoned blades. The dragon swallows these foreign objects and its stomach bursts, after which Rostam flays the dragon and fashions a coat from its hide called the babr-e bayān. In some variants of the story, Rostam then remains unconscious for two days and nights, but is guarded by his steed Rakhsh. On reviving, he washes himself in a spring. In the Mandean tradition of the story, Rostam hides in a box, is swallowed by the dragon, and kills it from inside its belly. The king of China then gives Rostam his daughter in marriage as a reward.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
East AsiaEdit
ChinaEdit
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The word "dragon" has come to be applied to the legendary creature in Chinese mythology, loong (traditional 龍, simplified 龙, Japanese simplified 竜, Pinyin lóng), which is associated with good fortune, and many East Asian deities and demigods have dragons as their personal mounts or companions. Dragons were also identified with the Emperor of China, who, during later Chinese imperial history, was the only one permitted to have dragons on his house, clothing, or personal articles.
Archaeologist Zhōu Chong-Fa believes that the Chinese word for dragon is an onomatopoeia of the sound of thunder<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> or lùhng in Cantonese.<ref>Guan, Caihua. (2001) English-Cantonese Dictionary: Cantonese in Yale Romanization. Template:ISBN.</ref>
The Chinese dragon (Template:Lang-zh) is the highest-ranking creature in the Chinese animal hierarchy. Its origins are vague, but its "ancestors can be found on Neolithic pottery as well as Bronze Age ritual vessels."<ref>Welch, Patricia Bjaaland. Chinese Art: A Guide to Motifs and Visual Imagery, Tuttle Publishing, 2008, p. 121</ref> A number of popular stories deal with the rearing of dragons.Template:Sfn The Zuo zhuan, which was probably written during the Warring States period, describes a man named Dongfu, a descendant of Yangshu'an, who loved dragonsTemplate:Sfn and, because he could understand a dragon's will, he was able to tame them and raise them well.Template:Sfn He served Emperor Shun, who gave him the family name Huanlong, meaning "dragon-raiser".Template:Sfn In another story, Kong Jia, the fourteenth emperor of the Xia dynasty, was given a male and a female dragon as a reward for his obedience to the god of heaven,Template:Sfn but could not train them, so he hired a dragon-trainer named Liulei, who had learned how to train dragons from Huanlong.Template:Sfn One day, the female dragon died unexpectedly, so Liulei secretly chopped her up, cooked her meat, and served it to the king,Template:Sfn who loved it so much that he demanded Liulei to serve him the same meal again.Template:Sfn Since Liulei had no means of procuring more dragon meat, he fled the palace.Template:Sfn
One of the most famous dragon stories is about the Lord Ye Gao, who loved dragons obsessively, even though he had never seen one.Template:Sfn He decorated his whole house with dragon motifsTemplate:Sfn and, seeing this display of admiration, a real dragon came and visited Ye Gao,Template:Sfn but the lord was so terrified at the sight of the creature that he ran away.Template:Sfn In Chinese legend, the culture hero Fu Hsi is said to have been crossing the Lo River, when he saw the lung ma, a Chinese horse-dragon with seven dots on its face, six on its back, eight on its left flank, and nine on its right flank.Template:Sfn He was so moved by this apparition that, when he arrived home, he drew a picture of it, including the dots.Template:Sfn He later used these dots as letters and invented Chinese writing, which he used to write his book I Ching.Template:Sfn In another Chinese legend, the physician Ma Shih Huang is said to have healed a sick dragon.Template:Sfn Another legend reports that a man once came to the healer Lo Chên-jen, telling him that he was a dragon and that he needed to be healed.Template:Sfn After Lo Chên-jen healed the man, a dragon appeared to him and carried him to heaven.Template:Sfn
In the Shanhaijing, a classic mythography probably compiled mostly during the Han dynasty, various deities and demigods are associated with dragons.Template:Sfn One of the most famous Chinese dragons is Ying Long ("responding dragon"), who helped the Huangdi, the Yellow Emperor, defeat the tyrant Chiyou.Template:Sfn The dragon Zhulong ("torch dragon") is a god "who composed the universe with his body."Template:Sfn In the Shanhaijing, many mythic heroes are said to have been conceived after their mothers copulated with divine dragons, including Huangdi, Shennong, Emperor Yao, and Emperor Shun.Template:Sfn The god Zhurong and the emperor Qi are both described as being carried by two dragons,Template:Sfn as are Huangdi, Zhuanxu, Yuqiang, and Roshou in various other texts.Template:Sfn According to the Huainanzi, an evil black dragon once caused a destructive deluge,Template:Sfn which was ended by the mother goddess Nüwa by slaying the dragon.Template:Sfn
A large number of ethnic myths about dragons are told throughout China.Template:Sfn The Houhanshu, compiled in the fifth century BC by Fan Ye, reports a story belonging to the Ailaoyi people, which holds that a woman named Shayi who lived in the region around Mount Lao became pregnant with ten sons after being touched by a tree trunk floating in the water while fishing.Template:Sfn She gave birth to the sons and the tree trunk turned into a dragon, who asked to see his sons.Template:Sfn The woman showed them to him,Template:Sfn but all of them ran away except for the youngest, who the dragon licked on the back and named Jiu Long, meaning "sitting back".Template:Sfn The sons later elected him king and the descendants of the ten sons became the Ailaoyi people, who tattooed dragons on their backs in honor of their ancestor.Template:Sfn The Miao people of southwest China have a story that a divine dragon created the first humans by breathing on monkeys that came to play in his cave.Template:Sfn The Han people have many stories about Short-Tailed Old Li, a black dragon who was born to a poor family in Shandong.Template:Sfn When his mother saw him for the first time, she faintedTemplate:Sfn and, when his father came home from the field and saw him, he hit him with a spade and cut off part of his tail.Template:Sfn Li burst through the ceiling and flew away to the Black Dragon River in northeast China, where he became the god of that river.Template:Sfn On the anniversary of his mother's death on the Chinese lunar calendar, Old Li returns home, causing it to rain.Template:Sfn He is still worshipped as a rain god.Template:Sfn
In China, a dragon is thought to have power over rain. Dragons and their associations with rain are the source of the Chinese customs of dragon dancing and dragon boat racing. Dragons are closely associated with rainTemplate:Sfn and drought is thought to be caused by a dragon's laziness.Template:Sfn Prayers invoking dragons to bring rain are common in Chinese texts.Template:Sfn The Luxuriant Dew of the Spring and Autumn Annals, attributed to the Han dynasty scholar Dong Zhongshu, prescribes making clay figurines of dragons during a time of drought and having young men and boys pace and dance among the figurines in order to encourage the dragons to bring rain.Template:Sfn Texts from the Qing dynasty advise hurling the bone of a tiger or dirty objects into the pool where the dragon lives;Template:Sfn since dragons cannot stand tigers or dirt, the dragon of the pool will cause heavy rain to drive the object out.Template:Sfn Rainmaking rituals invoking dragons are still very common in many Chinese villages, where each village has its own god said to bring rain and many of these gods are dragons.Template:Sfn The Chinese dragon kings are thought of as the inspiration for the Hindu myth of the naga.Template:Sfn According to these stories, every body of water is ruled by a dragon king, each with a different power, rank, and ability,Template:Sfn so people began establishing temples across the countryside dedicated to these figures.Template:Sfn
Many traditional Chinese customs revolve around dragons.Template:Sfn During various holidays, including the Spring Festival and Lantern Festival, villagers will construct an approximately sixteen-foot-long dragon from grass, cloth, bamboo strips, and paper, which they will parade through the city as part of a dragon dance.Template:Sfn The original purpose of this ritual was to bring good weather and a strong harvest,Template:Sfn but now it is done mostly only for entertainment.Template:Sfn During the Duanwu festival, several villages, or even a whole province, will hold a dragon boat race, in which people race across a body of water in boats carved to look like dragons, while a large audience watches on the banks.Template:Sfn The custom is traditionally said to have originated after the poet Qu Yuan committed suicide by drowning himself in the Miluo River and people raced out in boats hoping to save him.Template:Sfn But most historians agree that the custom actually originated much earlier as a ritual to avert ill fortune.Template:Sfn Starting during the Han dynasty and continuing until the Qing dynasty, the Chinese emperor gradually became closely identified with dragons,Template:Sfn and emperors themselves claimed to be the incarnations of a divine dragon.Template:Sfn Eventually, dragons were only allowed to appear on clothing, houses, and articles of everyday use belonging to the emperorTemplate:Sfn and any commoner who possessed everyday items bearing the image of the dragon was ordered to be executed.Template:Sfn After the last Chinese emperor was overthrown in 1911, this situation changed and now many ordinary Chinese people identify themselves as descendants of dragons.Template:Sfn
The impression of dragons in a large number of Asian countries has been influenced by Chinese culture, such as Korea, Vietnam, Japan, and so on. Chinese tradition has always used the dragon totem as the national emblem, and the "Yellow Dragon flag" of the Qing dynasty has influenced the impression that China is a dragon in many European countries.
KoreaEdit
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The Korean dragon is in many ways similar in appearance to other East Asian dragons such as the Chinese and Japanese dragons. It differs from the Chinese dragon in that it developed a longer beard. Very occasionally, a dragon may be depicted as carrying an orb known as the Yeouiju (Template:Korean), the Korean name for the mythical Cintamani, in its claws or its mouth. It was said that whoever could wield the Yeouiju was blessed with the abilities of omnipotence and creation at will, and that only four-toed dragons (who had thumbs with which to hold the orbs) were both wise and powerful enough to wield these orbs, as opposed to the lesser, three-toed dragons. As with China, the number nine is significant and auspicious in Korea, and dragons were said to have 81 (9×9) scales on their backs, representing yang essence. Dragons in Korean mythology are primarily benevolent beings related to water and agriculture, often considered bringers of rain and clouds. Hence, many Korean dragons are said to have resided in rivers, lakes, oceans, or even deep mountain ponds. And human journeys to undersea realms, and especially the undersea palace of the Dragon King (Template:Korean), are common in Korean folklore.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
In Korean myths, some kings who founded kingdoms were described as descendants of dragons because the dragon was a symbol of the monarch. Lady Aryeong, who was the first queen of Silla, is said to have been born from a cockatrice,<ref>Samguk yusa</ref> while the grandmother of Taejo of Goryeo, founder of Goryeo, was reportedly the daughter of the dragon king of the West Sea.<ref>The book of the genealogy of Taejo of Goryeo – Pyeonnyeon-Tong-Long (Template:Korean)</ref> And King Munmu of Silla who, on his deathbed, wished to become a dragon of the East Sea in order to protect the kingdom. Dragon patterns were used exclusively by the royal family. The royal robe was also called the dragon robe (Template:Korean). In the Joseon period, the royal insignia, featuring embroidered dragons, were attached to the robe's shoulders, the chest, and back. The King wore five-taloned dragon insignia while the Crown Prince wore four-taloned dragon insignia.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Korean folk mythology states that most dragons were originally Template:Ill (Template:Korean), or lesser dragons, which were said to resemble gigantic serpents. There are a few different versions of Korean folklore that describe both what imugis are and how they aspire to become full-fledged dragons. Koreans thought that an Imugi could become a true dragon, yong or mireu, if it caught a Yeouiju which had fallen from heaven. Another explanation states they are hornless creatures resembling dragons who have been cursed and thus were unable to become dragons. By other accounts, an Imugi is a proto-dragon which must survive one thousand years in order to become a fully-fledged dragon. In either case, they are said to be large, benevolent, python-like creatures that live in water or caves, and their sighting is associated with good luck.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
JapanEdit
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Japanese dragon myths amalgamate native legends with imported stories about dragons from China. Like some other dragons, most Japanese dragons are water deities associated with rainfall and bodies of water, and are typically depicted as large, wingless, serpentine creatures with clawed feet. Gould writes (1896:248),<ref>Gould, Charles. 1896. Mythical Monsters". W. H. Allen & Co.</ref> the Japanese dragon is "invariably figured as possessing three claws". A story about the samurai Minamoto no Mitsunaka tells that, while he was hunting in his own territory of Settsu, he dreamt under a tree and had a dream in which a beautiful woman appeared to him and begged him to save her land from a giant serpent which was defiling it.Template:Sfn Mitsunaka agreed to help and the maiden gave him a magnificent horse.Template:Sfn When he woke up, the seahorse was standing before him.Template:Sfn He rode it to the Sumiyoshi temple, where he prayed for eight days.Template:Sfn Then he confronted the serpent and slew it with an arrow.Template:Sfn
It was believed that dragons could be appeased or exorcised with metal.Template:Sfn Nitta Yoshisada is said to have hurled a famous sword into the sea at Sagami to appease the dragon-god of the seaTemplate:Sfn and Ki no Tsurayuki threw a metal mirror into the sea at Sumiyoshi for the same purpose.Template:Sfn Japanese Buddhism has also adapted dragons by subjecting them to Buddhist law;Template:Sfn the Japanese Buddhist deities Benten and Kwannon are often shown sitting or standing on the back of a dragon.Template:Sfn Several Japanese sennin ("immortals") have taken dragons as their mounts.Template:Sfn Bômô is said to have hurled his staff into a puddle of water, causing a dragon to come forth and let him ride it to heaven.Template:Sfn The rakan Handaka is said to have been able to conjure a dragon out of a bowl, which he is often shown playing with on kagamibuta.Template:Sfn The shachihoko is a creature with the head of a dragon, a bushy tail, fishlike scales, and sometimes with fire emerging from its armpits.Template:Sfn The fun has the head of a dragon, feathered wings, and the tail and claws of a bird.Template:Sfn A white dragon was believed to reside in a pool in Yamashiro ProvinceTemplate:Sfn and, every fifty years, it would turn into a bird called the Ogonchô, which had a call like the "howling of a wild dog".Template:Sfn This event was believed to herald terrible famine.Template:Sfn In the Japanese village of Okumura, near Edo, during times of drought, the villagers would make a dragon effigy out of straw, magnolia leaves, and bamboo and parade it through the village to attract rainfall.Template:Sfn
VietnamEdit
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The Vietnamese dragon (Template:Langx) was a mythical creature that was often used as a deity symbol and was associated with royalty.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>Template:Better source needed Similar to other cultures, dragons in Vietnamese culture represent yang and godly beings associated with creation and life. In the creation myth of the Vietnamese people, they are descended from the dragon lord Lạc Long Quân and the fairy Âu Cơ, who bore 100 eggs. When they separated, Lạc Long Quân brought 50 children to the sea while Âu Cơ brought the rest up the mountains. To this day, Vietnamese people often describe themselves as "Children of the dragon, grandchildren of the fairy" (Con rồng cháu tiên).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
South AsiaEdit
IndiaEdit
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In the Rigveda, the oldest of the four Vedas, Indra, the Vedic god of storms, battles Vṛtra, a giant serpent who represents drought.Template:Sfn Indra kills Vṛtra using his vajra (thunderbolt) and clears the path for rain,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn which is described in the form of cattle: "You won the cows, hero, you won the Soma,/You freed the seven streams to flow" (Rigveda 1.32.12).Template:Sfn In another Rigvedic legend, the three-headed serpent Viśvarūpa, the son of Tvaṣṭṛ, guards a wealth of cows and horses.Template:Sfn Indra delivers Viśvarūpa to a god named Trita Āptya,Template:Sfn who fights and kills him and sets his cattle free.Template:Sfn Indra cuts off Viśvarūpa's heads and drives the cattle home for Trita.Template:Sfn This same story is alluded to in the Younger Avesta,Template:Sfn in which the hero Thraētaona, the son of Āthbya, slays the three-headed dragon Aži Dahāka and takes his two beautiful wives as spoils.Template:Sfn Thraētaona's name (meaning "third grandson of the waters") indicates that Aži Dahāka, like Vṛtra, was seen as a blocker of waters and cause of drought.Template:Sfn
BhutanEdit
The Druk (Template:Langx), also known as 'Thunder Dragon', is one of the national symbols of Bhutan. In the Dzongkha language, Bhutan is known as Druk Yul "Land of Druk", and Bhutanese leaders are called Druk Gyalpo, "Thunder Dragon Kings". The druk was adopted as an emblem by the Drukpa Lineage, which originated in Tibet and later spread to Bhutan.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
EuropeEdit
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Proto-Indo-EuropeanEdit
Template:Further The tale of a hero slaying a giant serpent occurs in almost all Indo-European mythology.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn In most stories, the hero is some kind of thunder-god.Template:Sfn In nearly every iteration of the story, the serpent is either multi-headed or "multiple" in some other way.Template:Sfn Furthermore, in nearly every story, the serpent is always somehow associated with water.Template:Sfn Bruce Lincoln has proposed that a Proto-Indo-European dragon-slaying myth can be reconstructed as follows:Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn 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,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn but a three-headed serpent named {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} steals them.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn *Tritos pursues the serpent and is accompanied by *Hanér, whose name means "man".Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Together, the two heroes slay the serpent and rescue the cattle.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
Ancient GreeceEdit
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The ancient Greek word usually translated as "dragon" ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}} drákōn, genitive {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} drákontos) could also mean "snake",<ref>Chad Hartsock, Sight and Blindness in Luke-Acts: The Use of Physical Features in Characterization, Brill, Leiden-Boston, 2008, pp. 193–4.</ref>Template:Sfn but it usually refers to a kind of giant serpent that either possesses supernatural characteristics or is otherwise controlled by some supernatural power.Template:Sfn 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.<ref>Drury, Nevill, The Dictionary of the Esoteric, Motilal Banarsidass Publ., 2003 Template:ISBN, p.79 Template:Webarchive.</ref> 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 make many frightening animal noises.Template:Sfn Zeus scorches all of Typhon's heads with his lightning bolts and then hurls Typhon into Tartarus. In other Greek sources, Typhon is often depicted as a winged, fire-breathing serpent-like dragon.Template:Sfn 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.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Apollo then sets up his shrine there.Template:Sfn
The Roman poet Virgil in his poem Culex, lines 163–201 Appendix Vergiliana: Culex, 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.
Hesiod also mentions that the hero Heracles slew the Lernaean Hydra, a multiple-headed serpent which dwelt in the swamps of Lerna.Template:Sfn The name "Hydra" means "water snake" in Greek.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn According to the Bibliotheka of Pseudo-Apollodorus, the slaying of the Hydra was the second of the Twelve Labors of Heracles.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Accounts disagree on which weapon Heracles used to slay the Hydra,Template:Sfn 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.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Heracles was aided in this task by his nephew Iolaus.Template:Sfn During the battle, a giant crab crawled out of the marsh and pinched Heracles's foot,Template:Sfn but he crushed it under his heel.Template:Sfn Hera placed the crab in the sky as the constellation Cancer.Template:Sfn One of the Hydra's heads was immortal, so Heracles buried it under a heavy rock after cutting it off.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn 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,Template:Sfn which Pseudo-Apollodorus calls "Ladon".Template:Sfn In earlier depictions, Ladon is often shown with many heads.Template:Sfn In Pseudo-Apollodorus's account, Ladon is immortal,Template:Sfn but Sophocles and Euripides both describe Heracles as killing him, although neither of them specifies how.Template:Sfn Some suggest that the golden apple was not claimed through battle with Ladon at all but through Heracles charming the Hesperides.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The mythographer Herodorus is the first to state that Heracles slew him using his famous club.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn
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".Template:Sfn Jason slays the dragon and makes off with the Golden Fleece together with his co-conspirator, Aeëtes's daughter, Medea.Template:Sfn The earliest artistic representation of this story is an Attic red-figure kylix dated to Template:Circa 480–470 BC,Template:Sfn 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.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn A fragment from Pherecydes of Athens states that Jason killed the dragon,Template:Sfn but fragments from the Naupactica and from Herodorus state that he merely stole the Fleece and escaped.Template:Sfn In Euripides's Medea, Medea boasts that she killed the Colchian dragon herself.Template:Sfn In the final scene of the play, Medea also flies away on a chariot pulled by two dragons.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> 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.Template:Sfn Greek vase paintings show her feeding the dragon the sleeping drug in a liquid form from a phialē, or shallow cup.Template:Sfn
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.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn Cadmus killed the dragon in revenge,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn either by smashing its head with a rock or using his sword.Template:Sfn Following the advice of Athena, Cadmus tore out the dragon's teeth and planted them in the earth.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn An army of giant warriors (known as spartoi, which means "sown men") grew from the teeth like plants.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Cadmus hurled stones into their midst, causing them to kill each other until only five were left.Template:Sfn To make restitution for having killed Ares's dragon, Cadmus was forced to serve Ares as a slave for eight years.Template:Sfn At the end of this period, Cadmus married Harmonia, the daughter of Ares and Aphrodite.Template:Sfn Cadmus and Harmonia moved to Illyria, where they ruled as king and queen, before eventually being transformed into dragons themselves.Template:Sfn
In the fifth century BC, the Greek historian Herodotus reported in Book IV of his Histories that western Libya was inhabited by monstrous serpentsTemplate:Sfn and, in Book III, he states that Arabia was home to many small, winged serpents,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn which came in a variety of colors and enjoyed the trees that produced frankincense.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Herodotus remarks that the serpent's wings were like those of batsTemplate:Sfn and that, unlike vipers, which are found in every land, winged serpents are only found in Arabia.Template:Sfn The second-century BC Greek astronomer Hipparchus (Template:Circa 190 BC – Template:Circa 120 BC) listed the constellation Draco ("the dragon") as one of forty-six constellations.Template:Sfn Hipparchus described the constellation as containing fifteen stars,Template:Sfn but the later astronomer Ptolemy (Template:Circa 100 – Template:Circa 170 AD) increased this number to thirty-one in his Almagest.Template:Sfn
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,Template:Sfn an image which is clearly inspired by the vision of the four beasts from the sea in the Book of DanielTemplate:Sfn and the Leviathan described in various Old Testament passages.Template:Sfn The Great Red Dragon knocks "a third of the sun ... a third of the moon, and a third of the stars" out of the skyTemplate:Sfn and pursues the Woman of the Apocalypse.Template:Sfn 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."Template:Sfn Then a voice booms down from Heaven heralding the defeat of "the Accuser" (ho Kantegor).Template:Sfn
In Template:Nobr, 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.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In the 4th century, Basil of Caesarea, on chapter IX of his Address to Young Men on Greek Literature, mentions mythological dragons as guarding treasures and riches.
GermanicEdit
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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.Template:Sfn In Norse mythology, Jörmungandr is a giant serpent that encircles the entire realm of Miðgarð in the sea around it.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn Thor caught the serpent and, after pulling its head out of the water, smashed it with his hammer, Mjölnir.Template:Sfn 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."Template:Sfn
Towards the end of the Old English epic poem Beowulf, a slave steals a cup from the hoard of a sleeping dragon,Template:Sfn causing the dragon to wake up and go on a rampage of destruction across the countryside.Template:Sfn The eponymous hero of the poem insists on confronting the dragon alone, even though he is of advanced age,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn but Wiglaf, the youngest of the twelve warriors Beowulf has brought with him, insists on accompanying his king into the battle.Template:Sfn Beowulf's sword shatters during the fight and he is mortally wounded,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn but Wiglaf comes to his rescue and helps him slay the dragon.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn
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 waterTemplate:Sfn and kills him by stabbing him in the underside.Template:Sfn 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,Template:Sfn 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.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn In the Yngvars saga víðförla, the protagonist attempts to steal treasure from several sleeping dragons, but accidentally wakes them up.Template:Sfn
Post-classicalEdit
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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 dragons preserved in the Bible, and western European folk traditions.Template:Sfn The period between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries represents the height of European interest in dragons as living creatures.Template:Sfn 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 Snowdon to keep safe from the Anglo-Saxons,Template:Sfn but the tower keeps being swallowed into the ground.Template:Sfn Merlin informs Vortigern that, underneath the foundation he has built, is a pool with two dragons sleeping in it.Template:Sfn Vortigern orders for the pool to be drained, exposing a red dragon and a white dragon, who immediately begin fighting.Template:Sfn Merlin delivers a prophecy that the white dragon will triumph over the red, symbolizing England's conquest of Wales,Template:Sfn but declares that the red dragon will eventually return and defeat the white one.Template:Sfn This story remained popular throughout the fifteenth century.Template:Sfn
Dragons are generally depicted as living in rivers or having an underground lair or cave.<ref name=Ormen>Template:Cite book</ref> They are envisioned as greedy and gluttonous, with voracious appetites.Template:Sfn They are often identified with Satan, due to the references to Satan as a "dragon" in the Book of Revelation.Template:Sfn The thirteenth-century Golden Legend, written in Latin, records the story of Saint Margaret of Antioch,Template:Sfn 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,Template:Sfn but she made the sign of the cross and the dragon vanished.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn
The legend of Saint George and the Dragon may be referenced as early as the sixth century AD,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn but the earliest artistic representations of it come from the eleventh centuryTemplate:Sfn and the first full account of it comes from an eleventh-century Georgian text.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn Eventually, the dragon ate all of the sheepTemplate:Sfn and the people were forced to start offering it their own children.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn Then, Saint George arrived and saw the princess.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn All the townspeople converted and Saint George killed the dragon with his sword.Template:Sfn In some versions, Saint George marries the princess,Template:Sfn but, in others, he continues wandering.Template:Sfn
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Dragons are well known in myths and legends of Spain, in no small part because St. George (Catalan Sant Jordi) is the patron saint of Catalonia. Like most mythical reptiles, the Catalan dragon (Catalan drac) is an enormous serpent-like creature with four legs and a pair of wings, or rarely, a two-legged creature with a pair of wings, called a wyvern. As in many other parts of the world, the dragon's face may be like that of some other animal, such as a lion or a bull. As is common elsewhere, Catalan dragons are fire-breathers, and the dragon-fire is all-consuming. Catalan dragons also can emit a fetid odor, which can rot away anything it touches.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Gargoyles are carved stone figures sometimes resembling dragons that originally served as waterspouts on buildings.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Precursors to the medieval gargoyle can be found on ancient Greek and Egyptian temples,Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn but, over the course of the Middle Ages, many fantastic stories were invented to explain them.Template:Sfn 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,Template:Sfn so the people of the town of Rouen would offer the dragon a human sacrifice once each year to appease its hunger.Template:Sfn Then, around 600 AD, a priest named Romanus promised that, if the people would build a church, he would rid them of the dragon.Template:Sfn Romanus slew the dragon and its severed head was mounted on the walls of the city as the first gargoyle.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
Dragons are prominent in medieval heraldry.Template:Sfn Uther Pendragon was famously said to have had two gold dragons crowned with red standing back-to-back on his royal coat of arms.Template:Sfn Originally, heraldic dragons could have any number of legs,Template:Sfn 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).Template:Sfn In myths, wyverns are associated with viciousness, envy, and pestilence,Template:Sfn but, in heraldry, they are used as symbols for overthrowing the tyranny of Satan and his demonic forces.Template:Sfn Late medieval heraldry also distinguished a draconic creature known as a "cockatrice".Template:Sfn A cockatrice is supposedly born when a serpent hatches an egg that has been laid on a dunghill by a roosterTemplate:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn Like the cockatrice, its glare is said to be deadly.Template:Sfn
Post-classical EasternEdit
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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.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfn
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.Template:Sfn He is said to have breathed fire and smelled of sulfur.Template:Sfn It was believed that eclipses were caused by Gorynych temporarily swallowing the sun.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn Many knights tried to free her, but all of them were killed by Gorynych's fire.Template:Sfn Then a palace guard in Moscow named Ivan Tsarevich overheard two crows talking about the princess.Template:Sfn He went to the tsar, who gave him a magic sword, and snuck into the castle.Template:Sfn When Chelovek attacked Ivan in the form of a giant, the sword flew from Ivan's hand unbidden and killed him.Template:Sfn Then the sword cut off all three of Gorynych's heads at once.Template:Sfn Ivan brought the princess back to the tsar, who declared Ivan a nobleman and allowed him to marry the princess.Template:Sfn
A popular Polish folk tale is the legend of the Wawel Dragon,Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn which is first recorded in the Chronica Polonorum of Wincenty Kadłubek, written between 1190 and 1208.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn According to Kadłubek, the dragon appeared during the reign of King KrakusTemplate:Sfn and demanded to be fed a fixed number of cattle every week.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn Krakus ordered his sons to slay the dragon.Template:Sfn Since they could not slay it by hand,Template:Sfn they tricked the dragon into eating calfskins filled with burning sulfur.Template:Sfn Once the dragon was dead, the younger brother attacked and murdered his older brother and returned home to claim all the glory for himself,Template:Sfn telling his father that his brother had died fighting the dragon.Template:Sfn The younger brother became king after his father died, but his secret was eventually revealed and he was banished.Template:Sfn In the fifteenth century, Jan Długosz rewrote the story so that King Krakus himself was the one who slew the dragon.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn Another version of the story told by Marcin Bielski instead has the clever shoemaker Skuba come up with the idea for slaying the dragon.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Bielski's version is now the most popular.Template:Sfn
Modern depictionsEdit
Dragons and dragon motifs are featured in many works of modern literature, particularly within the fantasy genre.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn 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".<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> In Lewis Carroll's classic children's novel Through the Looking-Glass (1871), one of the inset poems describes the Jabberwock, a kind of dragon.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn In works of comedic children's fantasy, dragons often fulfill the role of a magic fairy tale helper.Template:Sfn In such works, rather than being frightening as they are traditionally portrayed, dragons are instead represented as harmless, benevolent, and inferior to humans.Template:Sfn They are sometimes shown living in contact with humans, or in isolated communities of only dragons.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn
One of the most iconic modern dragons is Smaug from J. R. R. Tolkien's classic novel, The Hobbit.Template:Sfn Dragons also appear in the best-selling Harry Potter series of children's novels by J. K. Rowling.Template:Sfn 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 The 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 (such as Cressida Cowell's How to Train Your Dragon series) the friendly dragon may become a powerful ally in battling the child's fears."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The popular role-playing game system Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) makes heavy use of dragons.Template:Sfn
- Jabberwocky.jpg
John Tenniel's illustration of the Jabberwock for Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass, showing the dragon as a myopic professorTemplate:Sfn
- Gringotts Dragon (42428011465).jpg
Fire-breathing statue of the Ukrainian Ironbelly from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 at Universal Studios Florida
- DnD Dragon.png
Representation of a dragon as it appears in the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons
See alsoEdit
Template:Portal Template:Div col
- Balaur
- Bat (heraldry)
- Behemoth
- Dragonology
- Feilong (mythology)
- Griffin
- Guivre
- Horned Serpent
- Ichneumon (medieval zoology)
- Lambton Worm
- The Last Dragon, fictional 2004 documentary
- List of dragons in literature
- List of dragons in mythology and folklore
- List of dragons in popular culture
- Mokele-mbembe
- Partridge Creek monster
- Peluda
- Scylla
- Sea serpent
- Snallygaster
ReferencesEdit
BibliographyEdit
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- Bates, Roy. Chinese Dragons. Oxford University Press, 2002. Template:ISBN.
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- Garrett, Valery M. Chinese Dragon Robes. Oxford University Press, 1999. Template:ISBN.
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- Visser, Marinus Willem de; The Dragon in China and Japan Template:Webarchive, Amsterdam, J. Müller 1913.
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External linksEdit
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