What are they? Where are they? Did any such beasts ever exist anywhere at any time? Most say absolutely not. A few open-minded zoologists say maybe, but only if we dismiss all that nonsense about breathing fire and flying. The child in all of us says if they don’t exist, they should – winged, breathing fire, and all.
Maybe the question of their physical existence isn’t important. They have lived in our heads for all of human existence. The history of every culture, country and continent is entangled with the tales of dragons.
Entanglement with humans seems to be a necessary part of the life-cycle of every dragon. They never live in quiet seclusion in remote wildernesses. No, instead they live within easy flying distance of sleepy villages full of fat cattle and helpless peasants.
Of course, that’s only Western dragons. Asiatic dragons are more likely to bring good fortune and assorted other benisons. Kipling’s refrain, “East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet” apparently applies to dragons as well as everything else.
Does this difference of dragons have anything to do with beasts that might have been mistaken for dragons? The possibilities are several.
Crocodiles and large monitor lizards are the most common suggestions. The largest existing monitor lizard lives on the island of Komodo in S.E. Asia. It’s called the Komodo dragon. Unfortunately, neither crocodile nor Komodo dragon has wings, nor does either breath fire. The Leviathan described in the book of Job is a possible contender, “Out of his mouth ... sparks of fire leap out … Out of his nostrils goeth smoke”. Critics sniff that the Leviathan isn’t any more real than the dragon. Beside that, the Leviathan doesn’t have wings, either.
Accidental discoveries of dinosaur bones in ancient times may have re-enforced the dragons stories, but those bones would not have been interpreted as dragon bones without dragon stories already existing to support the interpretation.
I think dragons are older than evidence – or reason.
Infants are born with two innate fears: fear of heights and fear of snakes. Instinctive fear of heights is understandable. Fear
of snakes is odd. Why don’t infants just fear anything that isn’t mom? Why snakes in particular? Did the very real experience
of Eocene monkeys being eaten by Eocene tree snakes carry over
as genetic fear to modern humans? Maybe, but other predators ate monkeys, too. We don’t instinctively fear any of those predators. Why snakes? There must be another reason.
Mythology has reasons that are unreasonable. Storytellers don’t invent myths; They weave old myths into new stories that myth has predisposed people to believe. History and Myth travel together, inextricably entangled – like humans and dragons.
Dragons satisfy our need for mystery, adventure, and enchantment. They live in the misty world that lies beyond the quotidian – grumpy skeptics would say,”beyond the possible”.
But, what do they know?
The literary world would be much diminished without dragons.
Let us now speak of famous dragons: from the unnamed dragon that killed Beowulf; to the unnamed dragon killed by St. George; to Smaug the dragon imagined by JRR Tolkien; to the Hungarian Horntail, made famous by J.K. Rowling. It would take
a very thick book to name them all. Even then, many would be overlooked. And, that’s just the serious dragons. The cartoon dragons, from Puff to Pokémon are no less numerous.
All the categories of dragon-like creatures, from wyrms in general to dragons proper, have one thing in common: serpentine torsos.
The serpent in the Garden of Eden is identified as Satan –
the great liar and shape-shifter – also known as the Dragon. Is this, rather than genetic instinct, the real reason infants are born with
a fear of snakes?
Dragons are often used as metaphor for enigmatic, nearly invincible, evil. They are also a metaphor for anything fearful we don’t know about. Medieval map makers inscribed unmapped areas with, “Here be Dragons”.
What flaps or slithers near you?
Oh, wait! As I look through my kitchen window to the ridge beyond the deck - I see … I think I see… a dragon.
Dragon or delusion?