Dragons

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[edit] Definition

Dragon from the Liber Floridus of Lambert of St. Omer, 1460

[edit] Etymology

The Greek word "drakon" (δρακων) means "snake"; the Latin word "draco" is a borrowing from the Greek. The French language is derived from Latin, and the French introduced the word "dragon" into Middle English following the Norman conquest.

[edit] Dragon-like creatures in the western world

• Worms, Wurms or Wyrms have no legs and no wings, but often have the characteristic crest of a dragon, and a spade-shaped barb at the end of their tails. "Worm" is also sometimes used as a generic term for any sort of dragon.

• Lindwurms have two front legs and no wings.

• Amphiteres are flying snakes, having wings, but no legs. They were described (from hearsay) by Herodotus, a historian of the fifth century BC:

There is a region moreover in Arabia, situated nearly over against the city of Buto, to which place I came to inquire about the winged serpents: and when I came thither I saw bones of serpents and spines in quantity so great that it is impossible to make report of the number, and there were heaps of spines, some heaps large and others less large and others smaller still than these, and these heaps were many in number. This region in which the spines are scattered upon the ground is of the nature of an entrance from a narrow mountain pass to a great plain, which plain adjoins the plain of Egypt; and the story goes that at the beginning of spring winged serpents from Arabia fly towards Egypt, and the birds called ibises meet them at the entrance to this country and do not suffer the serpents to go by but kill them [...]

As for the serpent its form is like that of the watersnake; and it has wings not feathered but most nearly resembling the wings of the bat. (Herodotus, Histories, Book II:75-76 [2])

• Wyverns have one pair of legs and one pair of wings. There are really two types of wyvern which no taxonomist would group together: wyverns with front legs, taking much of their weight on their belly or tail, the wings being set above and behind the shoulder; and wyverns with hind legs and a birdlike stance, the wings being forelimbs. Early illustrations of dragons usually show them as being of one or the other of the wyvern types.

• Heraldic dragons have four legs and a pair of wings.

There are also variants with four legs and four wings[3]; if there is a technical term for them, we are not aware of it.

It is noticeable that the wings of dragons in early manuscripts are much too small to be of practical use; modern illustrators have remedied this by increasing the size of dragons' wings.

The earliest medieval illustrations of dragons show the wings of dragons as being either batlike or birdlike according to the taste and fancy of the illustrator. It is only in modern times that batlike wings have become standard. Perhaps this trend was influenced by Herodotus' description of the Amphitere as having batlike wings. The earliest literary references to dragons, as such, doesn't mention them being winged; nor, indeed, breathing fire, which seems to be another medieval addition to the legend.

[edit] Eastern Dragons

• Chinese dragons, by tradition, are a composite of parts from nine animals: the horns of a deer; the head of a camel; the eyes of a devil; the neck of a snake; the abdomen of a large cockle; the scales of a carp; the claws of an eagle; the paws of a tiger; and the ears of an ox[4]. In appearance, the Chinese dragon is serpentine in form, has four legs and no wings. In modern chinoiserie manufactured for the Western market, the dragons portrayed are usually much closer to the Western concept of a dragon.

• Islamic dragons resemble Chinese dragons in being wingless and serpentine, like reptilian dachsunds. [5]

• Babylonian dragons are scaly-bodied creatures shaped rather like sheep[6][7], with short tails, necks, and muzzles, described as having "horns, the body and neck of a snake, the forelegs of a lion, and the hind legs of a bird".

It is clear from this that when translators choose the word "dragon" to translate a phrase from a foreign culture, the criteria are that the beast in question should have a scaly body and be mythical; and the fact that translators have often chosen this word does not mean that there are identical or mutually supporting accounts of dragons worldwide. An analogy can be found in the common translation of the Chinese Fenghuang as "phoenix": the creature in question really has nothing in common with the phoenix of Western legend except for being the most prominent mythical bird of its culture.

[edit] Ancient sources

If we look at the earliest sources using the words draco or drakon, it is plain that they describe a large snake, for three reasons:

• Some authors say so explicitly: St John of Damascus says of "dragons" that "they are serpents"; St Isidore of Seville says "the dragon is the largest serpent".

• Their habits, as described, are those of snakes: Pliny the Elder and Isidore of Seville both agree that the "dragon" kills by constriction.

• As we have noted, the word "drakon" in Greek means "snake; and the Latin "draco" is derived from the Greek.

The snakes they describe are rather larger than the constricting snakes to be found in the tropics of the Old World; however, the authors all appear to be going on hearsay about lands or times not their own, and the reported length of large snakes is often exaggerated (a recent example may be found here).

[edit] Pliny the Elder (1st century AD)

Africa produces elephants, beyond the deserts of the Syrtes, and in Mauritania; they are found also in the. countries of the Æthiopians and the Troglodytæ as mentioned above. But it is India that produces the largest, as well as the dragon, which is perpetually at war with the elephant, and is itself of so enormous a size, as easily to envelope the elephants with its folds, and encircle them in its coils. The contest is equally fatal to both; the elephant, vanquished, falls to the earth, and by its weight, crushes the dragon which is entwined around it.

The sagacity which every animal exhibits in its own behalf is wonderful, but in these it is remarkably so. The dragon has much difficulty in climbing up to so great a height, and therefore, watching the road, which bears marks of their footsteps when going to feed, it darts down upon them from a lofty tree. The elephant knows that it is quite unable to struggle against the folds of the serpent, and so seeks for trees or rocks against which to rub itself. The dragon is on its guard against this, and tries to prevent it, by first of all confining the legs of the elephant with the folds of its tail; while the elephant, on the other hand, endeavours to disengage itself with its trunk. The dragon, however, thrusts its head into its nostrils, and thus, at the same moment, stops the breath and wounds the most tender parts. When it is met unexpectedly, the dragon raises itself up, faces its opponent, and flies more especially at the eyes; this is the reason why elephants are so often found blind, and worn to a skeleton with hunger and misery. What other cause can one assign for such mighty strifes as these, except that Nature is desirous, as it were, to make an exhibition for herself, in pitting such opponents against each other?

There is another story, too, told in relation to these combats --the blood of the elephant, it is said, is remarkably cold; for which reason, in the parching heats of summer, it is sought by the dragon with remarkable avidity. It lies, therefore, coiled up and concealed in the rivers, in wait for the elephants, when they come to drink; upon which it darts out, fastens itself around the trunk, and then fixes its teeth behind the ear, that being the only place which the elephant cannot protect with the trunk. The dragons, it is said, are of such vast size, that they can swallow the whole of the blood; consequently, the elephant, being thus drained of its blood, falls to the earth exhausted; while the dragon, intoxicated with the draught, is crushed beneath it, and so shares its fate.

Æthiopia produces dragons, not so large as those of India, but still, twenty cubits in length. The only thing that surprises me is, how Juba came to believe that they have crests. The Æthiopians are known as the Asachæi, among whom they most abound; and we are told, that on those coasts four or five of them are found twisted and interlaced together like so many osiers in a hurdle, and thus setting sail, with their heads erect, they are borne along upon the waves, to find better sources of nourishment in Arabia. (Pliny the Elder, Natural History, Book VIII, ch. 11 - 13 [8])

[edit] Cassius Dio Cocceianus (2nd century AD)

Cassius Dio is cited by St John of Damascus (below) as confirming the existence of giant snakes:

Now while Regulus was encamped beside the Bagradas river, there appeared a serpent [δρακων] of huge bulk, the length of which is said to have been one hundred and twenty feet (for its slough was carried to Rome for exhibition), and the rest of its body corresponded in size. It destroyed many of the soldiers who approached it and some also who were drinking from the river. Regulus overcame it with a crowd of soldiers and with catapults. [9]

You will note that the length of the serpent is hearsay: Cassius Dio is writing over four hundred years after the events he describes, and does not claim to have seen the sloughed skin of the snake.

[edit] St Isidore of Seville (7th century AD)

A dragon (of the wyvern type) throttling an elephant, from the Aberdeen Beastiary[1]. While it illustates a description of a "serpent" borrowed from St Isidore, this is a medieval illustration, so the dragon has been given legs and wings.

The dragon is the largest serpent, and in fact the largest animal on earth. Its name in Latin is draco, derived from the Greek name drakon. When it comes out of its cave, it disturbs the air. It has a crest, a small mouth, and a narrow throat. Its strength is in its tail rather than its teeth; it does harm by beating, not by biting. It has no poison and needs none to kill, because it kills by entangling. Not even the elephant is safe from the dragon; hiding where elephants travel, the dragon tangles their feet with its tail and kills the elephant by suffocating it. Dragons live in the burning heat of India and Ethiopia. (St Isidore of Seville, Etymologies, Book 12, 4:4-5 [10][11])

[edit] St John of Damascus (8th century AD)

I am not telling you, after all, that there are no dragons; dragons exist but they are serpents borne of other serpents. When just born and young, they are small; but when they grow up and mature, they become big and fat so that they exceed the other serpents in length and size. It is said they grow up more than thirty cubits; as for their thickness, they become as thick as a huge log. (St John of Damascus, On Dragons)

By one of life's little ironies, this author is often cited by the stranger sort of Creationist as attesting to the reality of dragons. It is clear from context that the saint is saying that "dragons" are nothing but big snakes.

[edit] Misconceptions

[edit] Hic sunt dracones ("Here be dragons")

There is a widespread popular belief that words to the effect of "here be dragons" are a commonplace legend on the more obscure regions of ancient maps.

In fact, the phrase appears only once[12], on the Lenox Globe[13], in China at about the latitude of the Equator.

[edit] False etymology

On a number of websites one may read misinformation such as this:

The word "dragon," according to the Oxford English Dictionary (1966), is derived from the Old French, which in turn was derived from the Latin dracon (serpent), which in turn was derived from the Greek Spakov (serpent).[14]

Evidently someone ignorant of the Greek alphabet has read the word "drakon" in Greek script (δρακων) and interpreted the δ as an s, the ρ as a p, and the ν as a v. Thanks to the marvel that is copy-and-paste, this misinformation has spread itself liberally around the Internet.

[edit] Creationists and dragons

Some Creationists are eager to identify dragons with dinosaurs in order to bolster their strange, pointless fantasy of non-avian dinosaurs living alongside humans.

Unfortunately for them, none of the dragons of legend resemble dinosaurs in any particular except that they're scaly and that no-one's ever seen one.

How do the early literary accounts of dragons end up being so realistic, down to the smallest details?[15]

--- writes one creationist. To which the shortest answer is "They didn't."

The most ancient authors state explicitly that the "dragon" (draco / drakon) is a snake, and describe these "dragons" as behaving in a snake-like way: being carnivorous, capturing their prey by constriction, shedding their skin, and living in the tropics just as the largest constricting snakes do today.

The "winged serpent" described by Herodotus, which could be killed by an ibis, is clearly not any species of dinosaur. The charming and fantastical illustrations of medieval bestiaries also bear no resemblance to any species of dinosaur except in having a scaly hide. Medieval illustrators were quite capable of drawing beasts which they had actually seen: it is plain that no illustrator of dragons had seen a tyranosaur, a stegosaurus, a triceratops, a duck-billed dinosaur, or any other known species of dinosaur.

The long, low, sinuous bodies of Chinese and Islamic dragons resemble crocodiles far more than they resemble dinosaurs, if we had to identify the myth as having its origin in some real creature; and the Babylonian dragon is, as we have observed, shaped like a sheep.

There is, then, no reason to identify the dragons of legend with dinosaurs except for wishful thinking.

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