A dragon (Latin Draco, ancient Greek δράκων drakōn, “snake”; actually: “the staring one” or “sharp-eyed (animal)”; in the ancient Greeks and ancient Romans the name for any non-poisonous larger snake species) is a snake-like hybrid creature in mythology, in which characteristics of reptiles, birds and predators are combined in different variations. It is scaly in most myths, has two hind legs, two front legs, two wings (i.e. six limbs) and a long tail. He is said to have the ability to breathe fire. The dragon is known as a mythical creature from myths, sagas, legends and fairy tales of many cultures; until modern times, it was considered an existing animal.
In Oriental and Western creation myths, the dragon is a symbol of chaos, a monster hostile to God and man, which holds back the fruit-bearing waters and threatens to devour the sun and moon. It must be overcome and killed by a hero or deity in a battle in order for the world to emerge or exist (see Dragon Slayer). The East Asian dragon, on the other hand, is an ambivalent creature with predominantly positive qualities: a rain and good luck charm and a symbol of fertility and imperial power.
Description of the dragon myth
Appearance and attributes
Tales and images of dragons are known in many cultures and epochs, and its manifestations are correspondingly diverse. Basically, it is a hybrid creature made up of several real animals, but the multi-headed snakes of ancient mythologies are also called dragons. The snake proportions are predominant in most dragons. The body is mostly scaly. The head – or heads, often three or seven – comes from a crocodile, a lion, a panther or a wolf. The feet are paws of big cats or eagle claws. Most of the time, the dragon has four; but there are also two-footed forms such as the wyverns and snake-like hybrid creatures without feet.
These are juxtaposed with flying kites in typologies as crawling kites. The wings of the dragon are reminiscent of birds of prey or bats. Common elements are a forked tongue, a sharp, piercing gaze, the fiery maw and a poisonous breath. The demarcation from other mythical beings is not always clearly recognizable. Snake myths in particular have many similarities to dragon tales, and borrowed from the basilisk is the origin of the dragon from a’s egg, as described in some stories. The Chinese dragon combines the characteristics of nine different animals: in addition to a snake’s neck, it has the head of a camel, the horns of a roebuck, the ears of a cow, the abdomen of a shell, the scales of a fish, the claws of an eagle, the eyes of the devil and the paws of the tiger.
The Western dragon is usually of fearsome shape and size; as a symbol of the devil, ugliness determines his appearance. In its classic form, it belongs to all four elements: it can fly, swim, crawl and breathe fire.
Iconography
The ancient dragon was above all a frightening image and a symbol of power. The Roman army adopted the Draco standard as a military emblem from the Parthians or Dacians. The purple dragon flag belonged to the emperor; it was carried before him in battle and at celebrations. The Middle Ages continued this symbolism on flags, coats of arms, shields and helmets. As an imperial animal, the dragon still served Maximilian I, and with the accession to the throne of the House of Tudor, the golden dragon entered the coat of arms of Wales.
The independent pictorial type of the winged, fire-breathing dragon in clear demarcation from the snake did not prevail in Europe until the Carolingian period. In the visual arts and emblematics of the Christian Middle Ages, he appears above all as the embodiment of the devil or demon. But it also serves as a symbol of vigilance, logic, dialectics, wisdom and strength; in architectural sculpture and book illumination, there are also purely ornamental representations. From the High Middle Ages onwards, the predominant motif of Christian depictions of dragons is the fight against evil and original sin. Popular dragon slayers include Saint George and Archangel Michael, and sometimes Christ himself appears victorious over the beast. Sometimes the serpent from paradise appears in dragon form, the images of the Last Judgement show hell as a dragon’s mouth. The demonic variant is the dragon image, which took over fantasy culture in the present.
Although there are also different types in East Asia, the representation of the classic Chinese dragon Long is highly formalized. On ceremonial robes, its color and the number of claws indicated the rank of the wearer. The yellow dragon with five claws was reserved exclusively for the emperor himself. A special attribute of the Chinese dragon is a toy: a red ball belongs to the paper dragon of the Chinese festivals in New York, and the dragon chasing a pearl has been common in ceramics since the Ming period. The meaning of the precious piece of jewelry is not clear. It could symbolize the moon or perfection.
Literary motifs
Of all the elements, the dragon is most often associated with water. The East Asian dragon brings the rain and guarantees the fertility of the fields, the ancient dragons are often sea monsters. In fairy tales and legends, the water-guarding beast appears: it guards the only spring or river that serves as a food source and is responsible for floods and droughts. In fairy tales, the beast regularly demands human sacrifices. The salvation of the victim, preferably a virgin and king’s daughter, assures the victor a kingdom. Earth dragons dwelling in caves guard treasures.
This motif, which has been known since antiquity, may be related to the belief in the dead. Even in folk tales of the 19th and 20th centuries, it is often the deceased who secure their legacies from the grasp of the living in dragon form. As a chthonic figure, the dragon also shows its connection to snakes. The dragon is the enlargement of the serpent into the grotesquely fantastic.
Dragon Battle
Dragon fighting is the most common literary topos associated with the dragon. Several types of narratives can be distinguished, for example, according to the status of the hero or the setting (concrete or undefined). In ancient times, heroic combat predominates, with gods or powerful heroes appearing as dragon slayers. The legendary Christian dragon fight, which mainly originates from the biblical tradition, depicts the confrontation of the saints with evil, with the dragon serving as an allegory. The decisive factor here is not physical strength or dexterity, but faith; often a prayer alone helps to win.
Other beasts, such as giant wild boars, can also take over the function of the dragon. Another type is the chivalrous noble dragon slayer, who slays the dragon in a duel. Although these heroic figures usually have strength, courage and high morale, they often have to resort to ruse due to the physical superiority of the dragon. In the bourgeois-peasant realm of fairy tales and legends, the menacing beasts are often outwitted, poisoned or enchanted. The only thing that counts here is the result. The plague must be eliminated, the characteristics of the dragon slayer are secondary. To this day, the image of the dragon is used to depict the confrontation between good and evil, demonizing the opponent and making the victor appear as an overpowering hero.
Dragon’s Lair
A dragon’s lair is a collection of treasures in the care of a mostly fire-breathing dragon. Such hoards can be found in fairy tales, legends, tales, sagas and in modern fantasy literature, such as in the novel The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien. Most of the time, the dragon’s lair is located in a cave where it is suspiciously guarded by the dragon. In some legends, a dragon slayer sets out to slay the guard and take possession of the treasure. Some of these treasures are cursed and bring misfortune to the hero: for example, the Nibelungen legacy in the Old Norse Edda, which transforms the patricide Fafnir into a lindworm.
In the Völsunga saga, it is a treasure of gold that is located in an otter’s skin, which has to be set up and additionally covered with gold again until nothing of the otter is visible. In Beowulf, there are golden dishes, banners, helmets and rings in such a hoard.
Dissemination of dragon myths
The Indologist Michael Witzel sees the story of the killing of the dragon by a hero with superhuman strength as a basic element of what he calls the Laura storyline: In many mythologies, the primordial mother and father created a generation of monsters (titans, giants, dragons, night creatures, etc.) that must be killed in order to make the earth habitable. Often the blood of the dragon makes the earth fertile or he irrigates it. This idea is also common in regions such as Polynesia and Hawaii, where there are no large reptiles at all. This indicates the spread of the myth through migration.
Plot elements and motifs dealing with dragons are recognizable in the folklore of many other ethnic groups (see below). Due to the frequency of recurring motifs (e.g. “The dragon lives in or by the water” or “There is a fight with the dragon”), the Finnish School assumes a common origin. On the basis of 69 motifs from 23 different ethnic groups, a phylogenetic reconstruction (a method from evolutionary biology to determine ancestry and kinships) was carried out. According to this, the worldwide mythology around the dragon has its origins in southern Africa.
Classic Dragons
Middle East
The oldest Sumerian depictions of dragons can be found on scroll seals from the Uruk period. They belong to the hybrid creatures that are represented in a large number in the pictorial repertoire of the ancient Orient. The oldest written mention of a dragon can be found in the Keš temple hymn of about 2600 BC. Two basic types of dragons can be identified: snake dragons (late 4th millennium BC), which at least partially resemble a snake, and lion dragons, which are mostly composed of elements of lions and birds (early 3rd millennium BC).
Like all hybrid creatures, the ancient oriental dragons are neither gods nor demons but belong to a separate class of supernatural beings, whose names and form indicate a connection with the animal kingdom or with the forces of nature. They do not have a clear negative connotation. There are exceptions, such as the hostile many-headed snakes, which originate from the early dynastic period. As a rule, the early dragons appear in text and images as powerful, sometimes dangerous, but sometimes also protective beings.
The dragons are initially loosely associated with certain deities. In the Akkad period, however, they are joined by the gods as servants, sometimes they are rebels and defeated opponents. The motif of dragon fighting appears on seals from around 2500 BC, but it is not until centuries later that it has been handed down in mythological tales. In Mesopotamian texts of the late 3rd millennium, local gods first appear as dragon slayers. The traditions are united around 2100 BC in the Anzu myth: The warrior god Ninurta from Nippur defeats the lion eagle Anzu, who stole the tablets of fate and subsequently replaces Enlil as the supreme god of the Sumerian-Akkadian pantheon.
Ninurta mythology spread throughout the Middle East in the 1st millennium with the rise of the Assyrian Empire; as Nimrod, he found his way into the biblical tradition. While the Anzu myth deals with the generational change in the hierarchy of gods, a second oriental type describes the struggle of the weather god with the elemental force of the sea, symbolized by the horned sea serpent. This motif can be found in the Hittite Illuyanka myth, which originated around 1700 BC, in the Ugaritic Baal cycle written down around 1600 BC and in the battle of Marduk, the Babylonian main god, against the sea deity Tiamat.
In the retinue of the Tiamat are wild serpent dragons (ušumgallē nadrūti), the serpent Basmu and the dragon Mušḫušḫu. The multifaceted ancient Near Eastern myths created an image of the dragon that is still visible today because they flowed into the texts of the Old Testament. The dragon of the Christian tradition has its origins in the ancient Near East.
India, Iran, Armenia
Indra also kills a three-headed reptile depicted as a dragon or rain serpent and steals its treasures. The dragon’s name, Vritra, evokes the Iranian warrior god Verethragna (dragon slayer), who was ousted by Indra and sometimes represents evil and sometimes fights it, and was often equated with Heracles by the Greeks. In Armenia, this corresponds to the figure of Vahagn, a god of light and thunder. The similarity of the name refers to the similarities of the Indo-European ideas about the fight against a dragon that obscures the sun.
Bible
The Hebrew Bible uses the word tannîn for land snakes and serpent-like sea dragons. In addition, she knows two individual, particularly dangerous snake dragons, Leviathan and Rahab. Both come from the sea, and in both the Near Eastern narrative tradition lives on. Leviathan is related to Litanu, the adversary of Baal, the name Rahab probably has Mesopotamian roots. The Egyptian pharaoh as the enemy of God is also compared to a dragon (tannîn):
“You are like a lion among the Gentiles, and like a sea dragon, and leap in your streams, and stir up the waters with your feet, and make its rivers cloudy”.
Ez 32:2b–8 EU
However, the biblical dragon myth not only reproduces the ancient Near Eastern models, it develops them further. Dragon fighting is no longer just an act of beginning but also becomes an act of end. The Revelation of John has the Archangel Michael fighting with the great fiery red, seven-headed serpent dragon. Michael wins the battle in the sky, and
“[…] the great dragon was thrown out, the old serpent, which is called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world, and he was thrown to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him”.
Rev 12:9 EU
In the images of the Apocalypse of John, the dragon finally becomes the personification of evil, who is responsible for all violence after his fall from heaven. Its annihilation ends the present age.
Greek and Roman antiquity
In the case of the Greek dragons, the snake aspect predominates, so it is not possible to distinguish between all mentions of the mythical creature or a snake. The monsters of Greek mythology come from the sea or dwell in caves. They are often multi-headed, huge and ugly, possessing a sharp gaze and fiery breath, but rarely have wings. Well-known Greek dragons include the hundred-headed Typhon, the nine-headed Hydra, the serpent god Ophioneus, and Python, guardian of the Oracle of Delphi.
Ladon guards the golden apples of the Hesperides, and the motif of the guardian also appears in the Argonaut saga. In this version of the myth, there is no need to kill the beast in battle. Before Iason steals the Golden Fleece, the dragon is euthanized by Medea. From the Greek legend comes the constellation of dragon, hero and the beautiful princess, who is to be sacrificed to the beast. The rescue of Andromeda from the sea monster Ketos by Perseus has been a popular motif in art since ancient times.
Antiquity has enriched the dragon image of subsequent epochs by many facets. From the Greeks and Romans, Europe adopted the word “dragon”. The Greek “drákōn” (“the staring one”, in Greek “dérkomai” “I see”) has entered the European languages as a loanword via the Latin “draco”: as “trahho”, for example, in Old High German, as “dragon” in English and French, as “drake” in Swedish. The name of the constellation of the same name goes back to Greek astronomy, and the European dragon symbolism also shows ancient influence. The Dracostandarte, originally a Dacian or Sarmatian military emblem, was adopted by the Germanic and Slavic tribes of the Migration Period from the Roman army. The fearsome beast is not an enemy here, but a symbol of one’s own strength, designed to intimidate the opponent.
Christian Middle Ages
The Christian Middle Ages uphold the strong connection between dragon and devil. In pictures of exorcisms, the devils in the form of small dragons emerge from the mouth of the possessed, demons in dragon form adorn baptismal fonts and gargoyles of Gothic cathedrals. The allegorical imagery of the Bible is adopted by the legends of the saints. The dragon has about 30 opponents in the Legenda Aurea alone, a total of around 60 dragon saints are known. The beast stands for the torments of the blood witnesses in the acts of martyrdom, in the lives of the early medieval messengers of faith the dragon personifies paganism, sin, and later heresy.
He is not always killed in battle. The victory over him is a miracle performed with God’s help, even the sign of the cross or a prayer is enough to scare him away. Three dragon saints rank among the Fourteen Helpers in the High Middle Ages: Margaret of Antioch, who fended off the dragon with the sign of the cross, Cyriacus, who cast out the devil from an emperor’s daughter, and George. He becomes the most popular of all holy dragon slayers; his lance fight against the beast is still spread today in countless representations worldwide.
The coats of arms of German cities, which show the dragon as a mean figure, are mainly derived from St. George’s legends, and many folk customs and dragon festivals can be traced back to them. Well-known, for example, are the Further Drachenstich and in Belgium the Ducasse de Mons. A spectacular festival is the Catalan firewalk Correfoc, where fire-breathing dragons and devils parade through the streets. The festival may have pre-Christian origins, but has been linked to the Catalan patron saint St. George (Sant Jordi) since the Middle Ages.
In Metz, on the other hand, legend has it that it was Bishop Clement who drove the dragon Graoully, who lived in the amphitheater and led him out of the city by his stole. Until the 19th century, a depiction of the dragon was carried through the streets and beaten by the children of the city.
The dragon occupies a prominent position in the ornamental pictorial art of the Viking Age. Dragon heads decorate runestones, brooches, weapons and churches. “Dreki” is a common ship-type designation in the Viking Age; however, contrary to modern adaptations, the dragon has not been archaeologically proven as a pictorial motif on the bow. In Germanic literature, the dragon is well documented from the 8th century to modern times, especially in heroic poetry, occasionally also in the Old Norse skalds.
The Old English epic Beowulf mentions crawling or flying dragons a few times, which, among other things, act as guardians of treasures. In ancient Scandinavian sources, they protect against hostile spirits. The Germanic word lindworm is a pleonasm: both the Old Icelandic linnr and the wurm refer to a snake, and the descriptions of the lindworms are more snake-like than dragon-like. The Germanic tribes later adopted not only the name but also the idea of the flying monster.
The lint dragon of the Nibelungenlied indicates the fusion of both beliefs. The medieval Germanic sources also incorporate ideas from Norse mythology, such as the Midgard Serpent or Fafnir, a greedy patricide in dragon form, whose fate is reported in the Edda and the Völsunga saga. The envious dragon Nidhöggr, which gnaws on the world ash tree, on the other hand, is more likely to be traced back to Christian vision literature. The relationship between non-Christian and Christian heritage is uncertain in detail.
In the High Middle Ages, the dragon becomes a favorite opponent of the knights in the heroic epic and courtly novel. In the Arthurian tradition, but especially in the legends of Dietrich of Bern, a dragon fight is an almost obligatory part of a heroic life. With the victory, the hero saves a virgin or an entire country, acquires a treasure, or simply proves his courage. The special characteristics of the defeated often pass to the victor: The bath in the dragon’s blood makes Siegfried invulnerable, other heroes eat the dragon’s heart because of it.
Early science
A synthesis of ancient and Christian traditions can be observed in the views of medieval scholars on the dragon. Pliny the Elder already attributed a medicinal effect to parts of the dragon’s body, Solinus, Isidore, Cassiodorus and others classified the beast in the animal kingdom. The medieval naturalists were, in view of the abundance of biblical evidence, even more convinced of the real existence of the beasts. “With the exception of its fat, none of its flesh and bones can be used for healing purposes,” wrote Hildegard von Bingen in her Naturlehre. Dragons were believed to have arisen from the bodies of slain people on battlefields, similar to how maggots “emerge” from animal carcasses.
Detailed systematics of the various dragon species were drawn up by researchers in the early modern period: Conrad Gessner in his book of snakes of 1587, Athanasius Kircher in the Mundus Subterraneus of 1665 or Ulisse Aldrovandi in the work “Serpentum et Draconum historia” of 1640. Until well into modern times, dragons remained a part of living nature, for the existence of which there was also apparently evidence. For early scientific collections and natural history cabinets, the scholars acquired finds from distant countries that were composed of dried rays, crocodiles, bats and lizards – forgeries in today’s sense, “reconstructions” in the understanding of early modern scholarly culture that merely anticipated the discovery of a “real” dragon. Zedler’s Universal Encyclopedia said that the dragon was:
“[…] an immense large serpent that habits to dwell in remote deserts, mountains and stone cliffs, and causes great harm to people and livestock. One finds their many forms and kinds; for some are winged, others are not; some have two, others have four feet, but Kopff and Schwantz is a snake species.”
– Large complete universal encyclopedia of all sciences and arts
It was not until the modern natural sciences in the 17th century that most of these ideas were rejected, but there were also critical voices early on. Bernard of Clairvaux already refused to believe in dragons, and Albertus Magnus considered the reports of flying, fire-breathing beings to be observations of comets. Alchemy used the dragon only as a symbol: Ouroboros, which bites its own tail and gradually eats itself, stood for the prima materia, the raw material for the production of the philosopher’s stone. Modern zoology has excluded the dragon from its systematics since Carl Linnaeus, but outside the strictly scientific discourse, it remained far more stubbornly “real” than many other mythological beings. The hunt for dinosaur dragons (see below) was still a serious business at the beginning of the 20th century.
Fairy tales and legends
The dragon is one of the most common motifs in European fairy tales. In what is probably the most common type of dragon fairy tale, the “dragon slayer” (AaTh 300), the monster appears as a supernatural opponent. As a hero, he is often opposed by a simple man: the victor over the beast can be a tailor, a stargazer or a thief. Accordingly, victory cannot always be won by force of arms, but requires a ruse or a spell. Well-disposed animals or clever people act as helpers.
The fairy tale is closely related to the myth and the heroic saga, which is particularly evident in the dragon fairy tales. The motives match down to the last detail: often a virgin has to be saved, a treasure has to be won or the dragon’s tongue has to be cut out so that the hero has proof that he himself and not a rival killed the beast.
In addition to the dragon slayer, there are a number of other fairy tale types in which the dragon plays a role. The story of the animal husband is widespread: the hero is transformed into an animal, often a dragon. The bride must break the spell and redeem the hero through love and steadfastness. The mixing of dragons and humans is more common in Eastern European fairy tales. The Slavic dragon is sometimes a half-human hero who can ride and fight with chivalrous weapons, and who is only recognizable as a dragon by his wings.
There are two types of dragon legends. On the one hand, etiological narratives that describe how a place got its name; these include the story of Tarasque, to which the southern French city of Tarascon takes its name, or the legend of the Wawel dragon, after which the Wawel Hill in Krakow is named. The second type is explanatory legends that attribute special natural phenomena (for example, “footprints” in the rock) to the action of dragons. In the field of legend are the “eyewitness accounts” that have made the Alpine Tatzelwurm famous, for example – even the chroniclers of the Renaissance considered the Alpine dragon, which many Alpine inhabitants wanted to have encountered, as a real existing animal.
Compared to fairy tales, European dragon legends are generally characterized by greater realism. The place and time of the event are always indicated: the local dragon stories preserve the pride of the inhabitants of being “special”. And there is not always a happy ending. Defeating the dragon can also cost the hero his life.
There are numerous folk tales about the Latvian domestic dragon (Puhkis), which is said to be the devil in order to make a pact with him. Puhkis is not a great mythical monster but appears as an evil supernatural being in people’s everyday lives. Some of the cooked food should be given to the dragon, but even when he helps someone, he always does so by dishonest means.
East Asia
The oldest East Asian depictions of dragon-like hybrid creatures come from the Chinese region. The Neolithic cultures on the Yellow River left behind objects made of shells and jade that combine snakes with pigs and other animals. The best known are the jade artifacts of the Hongshan culture (circa 4700–2900 BC). They are referred to as “pig dragon” (zhulong 豬龍) in Chinese. From the Shang Dynasty (15th to 11th centuries BC), the dragon symbolized royal power, and the Han Dynasty (206 BC to 220 AD) established its shape. The Chinese dragon Long is the most important origin of Far Eastern dragon ideas: Since the Song Dynasty (10th century), Buddhism adopted the hybrid creature and spread it throughout East Asia.
The Chinese dragon (more recently, according to Michael Witzel) has a more positive meaning than its Western counterpart. It stands for spring, water and rain. Since it combines the characteristics of nine different animals, it is assigned to the Yang, the active principle, according to Chinese number mysticism. It also represents one of the five traditional species of living beings, pangolins, and is the fifth among twelve animals in the Chinese zodiac. Together with the phoenix (fenghuang), the turtle (gui) and the unicorn (qilin), the Chinese dragon is one of the mythical “four wonder animals” (siling) that helped the Chinese world creator Pangu.
The dragon of Chinese folk tales has magical abilities and is extremely durable: it can take thousands of years to reach its final size. As an imperial animal, it has five claws and is yellow in color, otherwise, it has only four claws, such as in the flag of Bhutan. The Dragon and Phoenix duo has represented the Emperor and Empress since the time of the Warring States. The imperious and protective dragon of mythology is also opposed by the ominous dragon of Chinese folk tales. In China, for example, the dragon is not a thoroughly positive being, but an ambivalent one.
The dragon plays a huge role in Chinese art and culture: there are sculptures made of granite, wood or jade, ink drawings, lacquer work, embroidery, porcelain and ceramic figurines. Dragon myths and rituals have been handed down in writing as early as the 11th-century BC Book of I-Ching, and the Spring and Autumn Annals depict dragon ceremonies that were supposed to summon rain. The Dragon Boat Festival in its present form dates back to the pre-Han period, and dragon dances and processions are also part of the Chinese New Year and the Lantern Festival. Feng Shui takes the dragon into account in house construction, garden design and landscape planning, and Chinese medicine knows recipes made from dragon bones, teeth or dragon saliva; The starting materials for this are, for example, fossils or reptile skins.
The Thai Mangkon, the dragons in Tibet, Vietnam, Korea, Bhutan or Japan have Chinese roots that have mixed with local traditions. Some elements of Far Eastern dragon cults also show parallels with the Nagas, the serpent deities of Indian mythology. For example, dragons from Japanese and Korean myths often have the ability to metamorphose: they can transform into humans, and humans can be reborn as dragons. The respect for the rulers of the water meant that the emperor claimed descent from the dragon king Ryūjin. Likewise, the Korean kings traced their ancestral lineage back to dragon deities. A particularly strong local tradition has shaped the image of dragons in Indonesia: here, in contrast to China, the mythical creature is female and protects the fields from mice at harvest time. Dragon pictures are hung above children’s cradles to ensure a peaceful sleep for the offspring.
Dragons in America
Hybrid creatures with snake parts are also not alien to the mythologies of South, Central and North America. The best known is the amphithe or feathered serpent, a form taken by the Mesoamerican god Quetzalcoatl, for example, but there are also other types. In North and South America, the double-headed snake is common; In addition to the two heads – one at each end – it sometimes also carries a third, human head in the middle. Chile knew the fox snake “guruvilu”, the Andean inhabitants “amaro”, a mixture of snake and a feline predator. Rain god Tlaloc could take the form of a hybrid of snake and jaguar, and the fire element is also represented in the snake cult of America: The fire serpent Xiuhcoatl was responsible for drought and crop failures among the Aztecs.
Detailed investigations were devoted in particular to the gods and mythical creatures of the Olmecs. A hybrid creature with parts of caiman, hedgehog, jaguar, man and snake can be found in large numbers on stone monuments and ceramics found in San Lorenzo Tenochtitlan, Las Bocas and Tlapacoya, for example. However, it is impossible to classify this creature in a mythological context, as there are no written documents. The American and East Asian depictions of dragons show many similarities. The dragon motif therefore also served as an argumentation aid for attempts to find trans-Pacific relations between China and pre-Columbian America. However, there is no generally accepted evidence for this thesis so far.
Islam
Arabic dictionaries refer to the dragon as tinnīn (تنين) or ṯuʿbān (ثعبان), the common Persian name is Aždahā (اژدها). He is generally a land dweller, often a cave dweller, and he, like the Western dragon, personifies evil. The images of dragons in Islamic culture combine Western and Eastern elements into an independent style. Pre-Islamic-Persian, Indian, Greek, Jewish and Chinese influence can be felt in them.
In the medieval Arab world, the dragon is a common astronomical and astrological symbol. He already appears in serpentine form in the Kitāb Suwar al-Kawākib ath-Thābita (“Book of the Shape of the Fixed Stars”, around 1000 AD), where Abd ar-Rahman as-Sufi illustrates the constellation of the same name. The idea goes back to the Indian Nagas that a huge dragon is encamped in the sky, where its head and tail form the upper and lower nodes of the moon. The celestial dragon has been blamed for solar and lunar eclipses, as well as comets.
Despite the predominantly “Western” focus on the sinister dragon type, Islamic images have shown unmistakable Chinese influence since the Mongol expansion in the 13th century. The dragon, which adorns sword hilts, book covers, carpets and porcelain, is a long, undulating creature with antennae and a mustache. Miniatures in manuscripts from the 14th to 17th centuries from Persia, Turkey and the Mughal Empire provide numerous examples of this type.
In Islamic literature, traditional dragon fighting predominates. Many dragon stories are handed down in Shahnāme, the Book of Kings, which was written around the year 1000. Mythical heroes and historical figures appear as dragon slayers: the legendary hero Rostam, Great King Bahram Gur or Alexander the Great. One of the main characters of the Shāhnāme is the mythical dragon king Zahhak or Dhohhak, who is defeated by the hero Firaidun after a thousand years of rule.
The Persian stories are rooted in myths of the Veda and Avesta periods, but have a strong historical component. They refer to the struggle against foreign domination and contemporary religious conflicts. A completely different type of dragon can be found in the Qisas al-anbiyāʾ (“Prophetic Narratives”). The prophet is Moses; the beast is his staff. If the staff is thrown to the ground, it turns into a dragon and helps the prophet in the fight against all kinds of opponents. The beast is a fearsome helper on the right side in the Qisas.
Dragons in the modern age
Dragons and dinosaurs
When, at the beginning of the 19th century, the new science of paleontology discovered the dinosaurs, the dragon myth acquired a new facet. Christians explained the fossil finds as the remains of antediluvian animals that would not have found a place on the ark. But the actual existence of the giant monsters of which the Bible speaks also seemed to be proven. In 1840 The Book of the great sea Dragons was published.
Its author, the fossil collector Thomas Hawkins, equated the biblical sea dragons with the Ichthyosaurus and the Plesiosaurus; he found the model for the winged dragon in the pterodactyl. But if the dinosaurs have survived long enough to find their way into mythical narratives as dragons, then they could still exist in the present, so the logical conclusion. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the search for recent giant lizards became a serious business, spurred not least by the great success of Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1912 novel The Lost World.
Thus, while paleontology helped to consolidate the belief in dragons and transfer it to the modern age, the ancient myth also worked in the opposite direction. The early models and illustrations of the dinosaurs, especially the popular depictions of the British Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, were just as dependent on interpretations of the finds as they are today, and the traditional idea of the dragon entered into these interpretations. For example, Hawkins is said to have specially selected the Pterodactylus giganteus, excavated in 1847, for his reconstruction of a pterosaur, which came close to the dragon idea with a wing width of 4.90 meters. On the other hand, the pterodactyl, which was better known at the time and had already been described by Georges Cuvier, was hardly larger than a sparrow.
In the Stadtmuseum Jena, a draco is exhibited in connection with the Seven Wonders.
Fantasy culture
The figure of the dragon is experiencing a renaissance in fantasy culture. J. R. R. Tolkien used the traditional motif of the treasure keeper for his Smaug, and in more recent fantasy novels and role-playing games, comics, films and musicals, the authors also borrow from fairy tales, heroic epics and folk ballads. However, the traditional meaning of the dragon is often broken. Fantasy dragons are not uniformly “good” or “evil”. In some role-playing games, such as Dungeons and Dragons, dragons take both sides. Also, in others – like Gothic II, Bethesda’s Skyrim or Guild Wars 2 – you have to kill the dragons to save the world or avert a disaster. In Anne McCaffrey’s science fiction novels, they even fight alongside humans against common enemies. Dragons in fantasy culture usually have characteristics such as lizard resemblance, ability to fly, fire breath or similar abilities, size, intelligence and magical talent.
Basically, they are associated with something magical, a task or a story, and often they possess wisdom. The gloomy aesthetics of the fantasy images also contain an element of fascination: fantasy dragons are at once terrifying and beautiful, noble and terrifying. It is striking that in most games the dragon can be fought or found, but rarely, as in Spyro, to play itself. As a newer element to the traditional meanings of the dragon, the “friendly dragon” appears. Dragons are used as a stylistic device to represent the good core in evil or outwardly formidable; Examples of this are Eragon, Dragonheart or How to Train Your Dragon.
Children’s literature and animated series
The dragon symbol is finally turned into its opposite in modern children’s books: Here the dragon is a cute, friendly and tame creature. The British writer Kenneth Grahame made a start with his 1898 work The Dragon Who Didn’t Want to Fight, an anti-war book that wanted to break down old enemy stereotypes and counter the positive attitude towards war and violence. In German-language children’s literature, the character became popular only after the Second World War. One of the pioneers of the dragon wave was Michael Ende: In his Jim Button series from 1960 to 1962, the helpful half-dragon Nepomuk still appears next to smelly, loud “real” dragons.
From the 1970s onwards, countless dragon books and cartoons appeared. The initially degenerate Viennese dragons Martin and Georg seem surrealistic in Helmut Zenker’s children’s novels about the dragon Martin. Also well-known are Max Kruse’s semi-dinosaur Urmel aus dem Eis, Peter Maffay’s green Tabaluga, the dragons of the Austrian Franz Sales Sklenitzka or little Grisu, who actually wants to become a firefighter and yet sometimes unintentionally sets fire to his surroundings. “The Little Learning Dragons” are the namesakes of a series of learning books from Ernst Klett Verlag. The stories from the series “The Little Dragon Coconut” by Ingo Siegner are also widely distributed.
The mythical creatures in the children’s books no longer have any negative qualities; they are dear through and through, and do not hurt a fly except by accident. There is also criticism of the defusing of the old horror images. The old symbol of the devil would thus be deprived of its function of helping to cope with evil in reality.
Modern symbolism and advertising
The symbolic power of the dragon is unbroken in the present, despite the variety of types and nuances of meaning that have emerged over the millennia-long development of the myth. As an almost world-famous mythical creature with a high recognition value, it is used as a trademark in the advertising industry. For some cities, countries and football clubs, the dragon serves as a heraldic animal, some clubs, clubs and institutions as a badge. Of the traditional meanings, the element of power and strength is decisive in the modern context. On products from Wales, a red dragon advertises pride in the ancient national symbol, and for the power of China, the dragon is a universally understandable metaphor.
The dragon has also largely lost its viciousness in the Western industrialized countries. On the one hand, the change in meaning can be explained by the influence of fantasy culture and children’s literature. The dragon logo of a cough drop, for example, shows a cute colorful little animal that offers a fruit with a smile. On the other hand, specific requirements have to be met in global marketing. Advertising campaigns in which evil dragons appear are not enforceable on a global scale. In 2004, for example, the sporting goods manufacturer Nike had to cancel a campaign in China in which basketball star LeBron James appeared as a dragon fighter. The victory over China’s national symbol was perceived as a provocation there.
Explanations
Hypotheses of origin in natural history
A number of theories try to attribute the emergence of the dragon figure to real natural phenomena. Although rejected early on in serious research, the question of whether and under what circumstances a memory of living dinosaurs could have arisen in humans is still discussed in pseudo- and popular scientific representations today. Today’s animal species such as the Indonesian Komodo dragon or the South Asian species of the common kite and the collared lizard are also discussed as the origin of the dragon myth, and cryptozoology – which is not scientifically recognized – is searching for other, as yet undiscovered animal species that are said to have served as models.
Another hypothesis assumes that the dragon myth can be traced back to fossil finds. Although skeletal remains of ancient animals, such as cave bears and woolly rhinoceroses, found in caves have been proven to influence individual dragon legends, the myth itself cannot be explained by the fossil finds.
Modern science is no longer concerned with dragons as possible living beings within biological systematics.
Mythological interpretation of the dragon
In the cosmogonic myths of Europe and the Middle East, the idea of the dragon as a symbol of chaos, darkness and misanthropic forces predominates. The mythology of the 19th century, therefore, placed the dragon in close connection with the moon; the “annihilation” and reappearance of the moon is reflected in the dragon myth, according to the Indologist Ernst Siecke. The interpretation of the dragon as a symbol of the conflict between the forces of nature, the change of seasons and the victory of summer over winter is also one of the “lunar” explanations of early mythological research.
In the 20th century, a newer generation of researchers, represented by the Frenchman Georges Dumézil, the Dutchman Jan de Vries and the Romanian Mircea Eliade, recognized a parallel to the initiation rites in dragon fighting. In this explanation, the battle is equated with the initiation test: just as the hero must defeat the dragon, the initiator must pass a test in order to enter a new stage of his life cycle. The encounter with a threatening being, a ritual devouring and a subsequent “rebirth” are frequent components of initiation rituals.
De Vries also saw the dragon fight as an echo of the act of creation. Like initiation, the battle with the beast is an imitation of the events of creation. It is the battle that most clearly distinguishes the dragon from the mythical serpent. In contrast to her, the hybrid creature combines in itself the most dangerous features of various animals and misanthropic elements. The dragon thus becomes the perfect opponent.
Calvert Watkins describes dragon fighting as part of an “Indo-European poetics”.
The idea of the dragon in East Asia may have been associated with totemism in very early times, whereby the dragon is said to represent a composite of various totem animals. In the Far East, on the one hand, he became a symbol of imperial rule, and on the other, a water deity. Ceremonies in which dragons are implored for rain identify him as a rain god; like the cow, the dragon is associated with a fertility cult. The connection with water is common to all dragon myths. Rüdiger Vossen presents a synthesis of “Western” and “Eastern” ideas: In his opinion, the ideals of “taming water, asking for sufficient rain and fertility for fields and people” are links between the dragon myths of different cultures.
Psychoanalytic interpretation
In analytical psychology founded by Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961), the dragon is considered to be the manifestation of the negative aspect of the so-called mother archetype. It symbolizes the aspect of the destructive and devouring mother. To the extent that the dragon must be slain in order to win the hand of a princess, it is also interpreted as a form of the shadow archetype that imprisons the anima personified in the princess. The shadow archetype stands for the negative, socially undesirable and therefore suppressed traits of the personality, for that part of the “I” that is relegated to the unconscious because of anti-social tendencies. The anima, for Jung the “archetype of life par excellence”, is a quality in the unconscious of the man, a “feminine side” in his psychic apparatus. So, according to this view, the dragon fight symbolizes the confrontation between two parts of the man’s personality.
Other depth psychological and psychoanalytic interpretations see the dragon as an embodiment of the hostile forces that prevent the self from liberating; an image of the all-powerful father, a symbol of power and domination and a sanctioning figure of taboos. From a psychoanalytic point of view, the dragon fight is a symbol of the struggle with evil inside and outside one’s own person.
Philatelic
On May 5, 2022, Deutsche Post AG issued a postage stamp with a nominal value of 85 euro cents with the motif of a dragon in the series Europa Märchen – Mythen und Sagen. The design comes from the graphic designer Frank Philippin from Aschaffenburg.
References (sources)
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