During the Middle Ages, the dragon, the terrible winged serpent of legend and literature, was “as much an actuality as the elephant or camel; it was oftener said to be seen, even if never seen” (Tatlock 223). The reasons for this are varied; equal parts popular myths passed down by tradition and word of mouth, and ‘evidence’ in the form of mysterious sightings (a precursor to the modern sightings of Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster) and perhaps even the discovery of dinosaur bones served to solidify the dragon in the medieval mind as an existing creature. As late as 1405 a dragon supposedly appeared near Sudbury (probably in Suffolk) and after killing sheep and shepherds disappeared into a marsh following a futile attack by villagers (223). Considering the human penchant for exaggeration, it is almost impossible to guess what actually happened; it is, however, a startling example of the prominence and solidity the dragon possessed over the medieval mind, a prominence that insured the survival of the dragon through the years, through many incarnations and images—from the worm that was the very symbol of Satan himself, to a misunderstood species capable of both good and evil—to the dawn of the twenty-first century.
First of all, it is worth noting that though dragons are mythological creatures, in many texts they are regarded as real, even so far as their body parts are supposed to have brought good luck or have curative properties. According to Pliny in his writings on natural history, the head of a dragon “buried under a threshold brings good luck to a home,” ointment from its eyes would ward off nocturnal phantasms, and the teeth and/or vertebrae of a dragon would “help make potentates gracious to supplicants” (South 38). Exactly WHAT these remedies were actually made of is not known, but it is further evidence of the strong presence of dragons not only in literature and mythology, but also in the psyches of people in Europe and around the world.
In his book “Mythical Monsters” Charles Gould devotes a large portion of his chapter on dragons delving into the various early myths of dragons as coming from a nearly universal tradition of folklore about serpents, from the “winged serpents” of Herodotus, who guard the “trees which bear the frankincense” (182), to Cicero’s account of the ibises who destroyed a horde of the ‘flying serpents’ from the deserts of Libya (186). Though these serpents bear little resemblance to the dragon as we know it, it did not take long for the flying serpent—whose very nature as a flying, cold-blooded creature contains a hint of the supernatural—to evolve into what we today call the dragon.
Delving into the full history of dragons around the world, in addition to filling many hundreds of pages, would be monumentally difficult. Dragons represent different things to each society in which they are found; for example, in China the dragon is one of the four magic animals, along with the tortoise, phoenix, and unicorn, “for the oriental dragon is most popularly associated with royal or imperial power” and was indeed a symbol of benevolent energy, as opposed to the Western image, which was overwhelmingly negative (South 32).
For the West, the lore of dragons can be traced to Greek and Roman traditions and myths, from Jason and his timely theft of the Golden Fleece from the jaws of a dragon, to Hesiod’s description of the “awful snake” guarding the golden apples of the Hesperides.
Dragons are prolific in Anglo-Saxon literature in translations of the Psalms and poetry. Dragons were also found on shields and amulets during the Anglo-Saxon period as well as on military ensigns, implying that though dragons were regarded as evil and the personification of satanic energy, their power and majesty were also respected and even desired. However, in most medieval English literature the dragon is inescapably intertwined with evil—resulting from the Book of Revelation, in which St. John sees “an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain. And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the Devil and Satan” (qtd. in South 40). Many, if not most, of the narrative structures follow a pattern laid out by Jonathan Evans—“the dragon guards something valuable; someone tries to take it; the dragon resists, and a battle ensues; the dragon is slain; the victor acquires the object sought” (South 29).
The episode of the dragon in Beowulf follows this pattern up to a point—at the end, though Beowulf succeeds in killing the dragon, he is slain as well. Unlike the outright cannibalism of Grendel, the dragon is a “hidden evil,” who is “stirred to occupying dark nights over Beowulf’s hall because he has been dispossessed of an item of treasure” (Taylor 232). In some sense Beowulf is a horror story, since a common convention of horror stories is to establish “isolation from civilization so that the protagonists can no longer feel safe” (Oakes A-3). The dragon is commonly found in Old Norse and medieval Scandinavian legends as a monster who “flies, breathes fire, guards a treasure, and is fought and killed by a hero” (Evans A-2). Beowulf’s dragon is of this type, a guardian of a treasure who ravages Beowulf’s kingdom following the theft of a cup. Beowulf goes to fight the beast, and after a complex battle that occupies nearly nine hundred lines at the end of the poem, dies not long after the monster is killed (South 42). Though some critics have drawn parallels between the dragon and a human king, most agree that the dragon—and Grendel and his mother—represent “perversions of the social roles Beowulf is called upon to play at each stage of his career—thane, avenger, and king” (Atkinson 38).
The dragon as a figure in medieval folklore and literature is more often than not allegorical—either representing Satan or ‘the other’, the symbol of everything wild and untamed. After Beowulf the dragon took up a prominent place in saints’ lives and medieval romances, in a time when it seemed that “no bishop or abbot achieved sainthood, without first having slain a dragon” (Porter 25). Arguably the most popular and well-known of these is the legend of St. George.
The origins of the St. George legend are obscure and uncertain, but the particulars of the tale are not. There are many versions; it apparently began as an Oriental legend absorbed into Christian mythology (Porter 199). According to the Byzantine hagiographer Metaphrastes, George was a native of Cappadocia who rose to the rank of tribune under Diocletian (Boas 42). In a version published in a nineteenth century edition of “American Notes and Queries” George was born by Caesarean section and that “over his heart nature had punctured the lively form of a dragon, upon his right hand a blood-red cross, and on his left leg a golden garter” (qtd. in Ogier 29). The earliest Greek and Latin records focus upon his “agonizing martyrdom” and make no mention of the dragon (South 43). The historical St. George most likely “lived in Palestine at the end of the third and beginning of the fourth century AD” (Riches 46).
The dragon does not appear until later on, in the twelfth century, after several prior French manuscripts make mention of a “den filled with wild beasts including dragons” (South 43). When integrated into the legend, St. George meets a maiden by a lake who tells him a tale of a dragon who devours children and cattle as sacrifice; the maiden is due to meet the same fate. In some versions of the tale, possibly later ones, the maiden is the king’s only child—a plot twist no doubt designed to heighten the drama and the heroism of the saint (“What is the Legend of St. George and the Dragon?” 150). St. George fights and defeats the dragon, though the dragon is captured but not killed. After the city’s inhabitants rejoice and become Christians all, St. George goes on to his fate as a martyr, the legend following the tradition from that point forward.
Further retellings—such as the Legenda Aurea of Jacob Voragine—give variance to the slaying of the dragon. In one St. George does not slay the dragon until twenty thousand people are baptized. In renderings given by other authors St. George slays the dragon right away as it rises from the lake to devour the maiden (South 44).
From such minor mentions, St. George’s legend became fused with that of Sir Beves, and the dragon moved to the forefront of the legend. Spenser’s Faerie Queene—which portrays the dragon as a monstrously large creature whose death shakes the very earth underneath it—displays the dragon’s death most dramatically, complete with the wound to a vulnerable area that causes the creature to bleed profusely and submit to the superior might of the saint. The epic poem served to further develop this new element of the legend, firmly entrenching it and ensuring that St. George would no longer be most popularly known for his martyrdom, but for the slaying of the dragon.
Medieval literature with dragon-slaying knights and saints abound, including Sirs Lancelot and Gawain of the Arthurian tradition, whose individual run-ins with dragons take up only a small part of their respective legends. In such tales the battle against the dragon takes on an allegorical aspect-the dragons “who threaten the saints present a ferocious appearance, but are easily defeated in an apparent allegory of the Christian’s defeat of sin through grace” (South 45).
However, though a large proportion of ancient and medieval tales featuring dragons are negative (at least from the dragons’ perspectives), stories from that time period (and earlier) featuring dragons as benevolent DO exist. For example, in Aelian’s De natura animalium a “powerful but benevolent dragon
. . . rescues a young man from brigands and kills his attackers” (South 37). In another story the Emathian prince Pindus is protected from the attacks of his jealous brothers by a dragon that he had befriended. Though Pindus dies, the dragon remains to guard his body until it can be given proper burial. Although such benevolent stories are rarities, for Aelian they served to illustrate the idea that there is a “universal reason” reflected in the rational behavior of the animal kingdom (South 37).
After Spenser’s Faerie Queene, dragon lore passed largely from English consciousness—or went dormant (South 48). Reasons for this are varied: the growing skepticism following the Enlightenment, or because of the immense theological symbolism placed upon the dragon, or perhaps because after St. George and Beowulf there was simply nothing new to add to the myth. It was, in a sense, “getting old” and becoming its own form of cliche. In any case the dragon, once a symbol of Satan himself, was now relegated to the realm of decoration and allegory, moving from center stage to the background, no longer a significant feature of plot or theme. Another reason for this might have been what Ruth Berman refers to as the discouragement of fantasy during the eighteenth century. When fantasy reemerged as a genre during the nineteenth century, “Monsters in general were rare, but dragons were much rarer” (53). In addition, the overuse of the dragon-slayer image “may have turned exaggeration into melodrama—perhaps anticipating the comical tone later exploited by writers of children’s literature” (49).
There is arguably no better example of this comical tone than in Kenneth Grahame’s famous story The Reluctant Dragon—a story which features St. George himself in his perennial role as a dragon-slayer, but with a much different tone and outcome. With the advent of a more modern mentality, the character of the dragon was seen in a different, more sympathetic light. Whereas in the past dragons had been almost universally the embodiment of Satan, they were now also seen as the “faithful guardian” who is inevitably slain by the hero seeking the treasure, “and there is often a strong element of pity for the unfortunate loyal guardians in the way of the marauding (however heroical) champions” (Berman 54). Grahame expertly makes this example by integrating such a narrative into one of the best-known tales featuring dragons—St. George’s legend.
In Grahame’s work a young boy, who “spent much of his time buried in big volumes” meets a dragon after his father comes home in an uproar. The boy, having more knowledge of dragons by virtue of his extensive book knowledge, goes the next day after tea to meet the dragon, who is not the bloodthirsty monster of legend, but a rather benign, talkative creature glad to have some company. The boy tries to warn the dragon about his true nature—“You’re a scourge, and a pest, and a baneful monster!” (13).
“‘Not a word of truth in it,’ said the dragon, wagging his head solemnly. ‘Character’ll bear the strictest investigation’” (15). Though a dragon with scales and claws and capable of breathing fire, the dragon cares not for fighting—his dragon brethren are so “earnest and all that sort of thing—always rampaging, and skirmishing, and scouring the desert sands, and pacing the margin of the sea, and chasing knights all over the place, and devouring damsels, and going on generally” (11). This dragon, by contrast, is an intellectual, who prefers to sleep and laze the day away, living in peace. He is the exact opposite of the ‘typical’ dragon in his lack of chaos, enmity, or disorder. However, though the villagers view having a dragon as a distinction, conformity to old thought patterns prevails and they determine that the dragon must be killed, that “the country-side must be freed from this pest, this terror, this destroying scourge” (17), conveniently forgetting that the dragon had done absolutely nothing to warrant such extreme retribution. By illustrating such behavior Grahame and other authors who have written similar stories turn the dragon from the embodiment of Satan into a nominally benign creature who is merely misunderstood and persecuted.
The Boy takes St. George to meet the dragon, and they both agree to a mock fight, one to merely satisfy convention. Grahame’s description of the ‘battle’ at times reads more like the account of a modern sports match, with a great deal of drama on the part of the dragon, who must put on a good show lest the villagers find out about their plan. St. George ‘kills’ the dragon by a clever shot to the neck that looks fatal to the untrained eye but is in reality a mere scratch, skillfully applied by St. George to the dragon to be non-fatal but also not to “tickle” the dragon. When St. George leads the defeated creature to town he does not kill it, as in earlier legends, but lectures the townspeople about bloodlust and lying about the dragon’s misdeeds. The dragon, whose theatrics during the battle earn him many fans amongst the villagers, finally gains the acceptance in society that he has always desired, and at the conclusion of the story saint, dragon, and boy walk off into the moonlight together as friends. “Grahame’s dragon is the first in a long lineage of peaceful dragons in children’s stories, where the dragons are generally affable, cute, misunderstood, but always nonthreatening creatures more like overgrown puppies” (South 50).
In literature of a more serious and ‘adult’ nature, the dragon would not make a significant return until the fantasy novels of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis—whose works of fantasy owed a great deal to their knowledge of Anglo-Saxon literature, most prominently Beowulf (Bawcom A-36)—which would resurrect the genre of fantasy and raise it to an entirely new level, a level which would afford dragons a new, more balanced position in the human psyche.
Tolkien’s dragon Smaug—the final obstacle faced by Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit—reaches more of a balance than any of the dragons previously covered. He typifies dragons in that he guards a horde of gold and is “fully ferocious”, his fiery death as glorious and dramatic as that of Beowulf’s dragon; however, “his fascination with riddles and susceptibility to flatter contain hints of the comical” (South 51). Tolkien also introduces, along with the tradition dragon-guarding-a-cursed-treasure element, the element of dragons as magic users, who can place spells upon their victims through enchantment—in Smaug’s case through the enchantment of his voice (51).
After Tolkien and Lewis the genre of fantasy became a powerful force in literature. “Fantasy . . . is essentially a kind of psychological allegory, concerned with the wholeness of the individual soul” (Morgan 4). The gods and monsters of postmodern fantasy are “metaphors for contrary impulses, values, weaknesses and temptations within our psyches” (5). For Arthur Morgan, author of an article examining the role of dragons in the classroom, fantasies are the “literary equivalent of dreams,” revealing through metaphor and symbolic images the realities of life. In modern fantasy the dragon no longer embodies the living image of Satan—rather, it is a reflection of humanity itself.
In the mid-1970s a phenomenon alternately called ‘role-playing’ or ‘gaming’ was begun by Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax, who founded the Tactical Studies Rules Association (or TSR) in 1973. Though the games themselves vary wildly in genre and scope, the game Dungeons and Dragons would be the first step in bringing the dragon into a prominent place the modern spotlight. Role-playing is an inherently creative endeavor, and the characters established for role-playing quickly transformed into the kind of characters found on the pages of a book.
One of the offshoots of D&D is a realm of characters and places referred to collectively as Dragonlance. In the early 1980s a series of books were written by a pair of women about a planet called Krynn and the adventures of various beings on a continent called Ansalon. In the first book of an epic trilogy a group of people—a knight, a half-elf, a dwarf, a kender (a race of small, fleet-footed people), a mage and his brother, and two barbarians—are brought together as the continent begins to rumble with news of war. As on Earth, dragons are figures of legend on Krynn, rumored to have existed before an event called the Cataclysm—when people turned against the true gods of Krynn and a
“mountain of fire crashed like a comet through Istar [a glorious city],
the city split like a skull in the flames,
mountains burst from once-fertile valley,
seas poured into the graves of mountains,
the deserts sighed on abandoned floors of the seas,
the highways of Krynn erupted
and became the paths of the dead” (Weiss 6).
Back to Non Fanfic page
Back to Mich’s Universe
