Category: Dragons

 by Mikolaj Skakuj

It is time to meet dragons… again! In this post, I would like to address what seem to be the core serpentine characteristics inherent to dragons and point to instances of a re-emphasis on those features.

As previously mentioned on this blog, dragons are among the few mythical creatures to capture the popular imagination so readily (Green, 2021; Pollard, 2023). With this popularity comes great variety. Unfortunately, the variety contributes to acrimonious discussions on what is and is not a dragon, and one is left with only some vague intuition of what it is. Fortunately, a 2013 team of scientists applied phylogenetic methods to draconic myths and found that all dragons can be traced to a single serpentine origin in Africa, as previously discussed by Pollard (2023).

Traces of the serpentine origin can be seen in the stereotypical Western dragon of modern fantasy, namely the long and often flexible necks able to make snakish bends. Chinese dragons especially resemble giant snakes, except with four limbs and various exaggerations. In addition, the Ancient Greek word drákon (the etymological ancestor of the English dragon) can also mean serpent (Morwood and Taylor, 2002, p. 90).

Thus, we can attempt at a comprehensive and universal definition for all draconic beasts.

Dragon = a serpent or snake, monstrous or with exaggerated features, or any iteration/derivative thereof.

Under this definition, the cockatrice (in Polish synonymized with the basilisk) is a dragon with rooster features; the  wyvern is type of dragon, rather than a distinct creature; and the Melusine (a beautiful women with two serpentine tails beneath the waist) is a female half-human, half-dragon hybrid.

The definition nicely encompasses a vast majority of what most people consider dragons, big and small. Furthermore, one no longer needs to rely on additions of flying and fire-breathing (which are in common with other creatures, e.g., the griffin). However, an increasing number of popular culture variants tend to depart from the core serpentine features, although they could still be recognized as squamates (e.g., dragons from the How To Train Your Dragon (Sanders and DeBlois, 2010) sheds epidermal scales and have forked tongues). At one extreme, dragon designs may lose so much of the core traits, trading long necks for short ones and massive skulls in the case of the Gronckle, that people of the antiquity may not have recognize them as such, if not for the wings and fire.

 

 

 

However, we can also observe instances of the opposite trend. Within the How to Train Your Dragon film franchise, we have the Whispering Death, a rock-drilling dragon with only wings for limbs. Although the oversized and rather round heads are still unusual, the elongate and flexible body would surely be eerily familiar to any ancient Greek citizen. It even slithers when grounded. A giant mutant version of this dragon appears in The Defenders of Berk (season 2 of Dreamworks Dragons, (Brown and Sloan, 2012-2014)) and is known as the albino Screaming Death. Both those dragons can shoot spines, the look of which could recall the appearance of certain vipers.

Such serpentine reversions had precedent in pre-modern mythology. In the next example, the reversion was almost complete. I shall introduce the King of Snakes, with its golden crown, an icon of Polish legends.

The character is morally ambivalent. Bartłomiej Grzegorz Sala (2024) notes that in one legend from Cieszyna, the King of Snakes is a prince, who was cursed by his wicked mother, the Black Duchess, simply for falling in love with a maid. For once, a monster is the victim. In another from the Jura area, he is a draconic beast that terrorized the people. Elsewhere, he is neutral (and a plain snake), only going after the protagonist when he tries to steal some of its treasure.

Sala (2024, pp. 15 and 88) is almost certain that the King of Snakes was derived from another Slavic creature, itself ambiguous with regards to intention and whether there was one (in several forms) or many individuals. The Żmij (also Zmij) is sometimes an enemy of people, appearing in one legend from Ukraine as a seven-headed dragon that breathed fire, but can also be their friend. To make matters more complicated, it has also been depicted as a petty, serpentine thief, stealing milk, money or grain depending on the variant legend. The link between the King of Snakes and Żmij could be supported by the fact that the latter also wears a golden crown in the legend of Żmigród, Poland (Sala, 2024, pp. 17-20 and 88).

The last case of a dragon reverting to more serpentine characteristics I wish to mention is perhaps the greatest fire drake to ever be conceived: Smaug the Golden.

The English audience should be at least somewhat familiar with JRR Tolkien’s iconic creation in The Hobbit but for the rest of us let us recap: Smaug was a great wyrm of the North, who flew southwards to devast the City of Dale and oust the dwarves of Erebor, the Lonely Mountain, gaining a sickly wealth for over 160 years, until Thorin Oakenshield’s company arrived and set off his ultimate downfall at the hands of Bard the Bowman and his Black Arrow. It is worth mentioning that Smaug is extremely intelligent and speech-capable, elements taken from Fafnir of Norse myth (Pellerin, 2009, p. 16 and references within). Incidentally, ancient people of the Middle East and Egypt revered snakes as cunning and crafty.

We know from a drawing how JRR Tolkien himself envisioned Smaug. The illustration, Conversation with Smaug, depicts a lizard-like creature with bat-wings as an extra pair of limbs and an elongate body with an especially long tail. The legs are small and, curiously, the head boasts cat-like ears. In short, Smaug resembles some of Bristol’s dragons of Medieval tradition (see Jones, 2023).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Smaug steered away from his lepidosaurian roots when Rankin/Bass re-designed him in an animated adaptation of The Hobbit (Rankin Jr. and Bass, 1977). There, the legs are more fully developed, the torso is stockier (and fatter… do not mention this to Smaug!), fur grows on his back and the head is far more feline.

 

The most iconic rendition of Smaug is that of Peter Jackson’s (2012-2014) trilogy. There, he is at his largest (why is it that size gets greatly exaggerated with pop culture dragons?) and his wings and forelegs became the same set of limbs. Despite the retention of limbs, Smaug is much more serpentine, with a much longer neck that is flexible and muscular, and a proportionally smaller torso. The way he moves in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (Jackson, 2013)… you could almost swear that he slithers. His eyes have slit pupils, like snakes that rely on ambush (although the trait is also feline).

As well as in his physical features, Smaug is also a snake in character. Already utterly proud and cruel in the book, the Jackson rendition is outright sadistic, psychologically tormenting Bilbo Baggins and enjoying the prospect of Thorin being corrupted by the Arkenstone. Moreover, it is mentioned in The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies (Jackson, 2014) that Smaug was in league with the Dark Lord Sauron; The Desolation of Smaug (Jackson, 2013) hints at this when the dragon foresees that a “darkness is coming” and it “will spread to every corner of the land”. It appears that this iteration of Smaug had additionally reverted to the hellish dragon-devil archetype of Christian tradition, which might explain his popularity.

So, there you have it: three instances of dragons returning to their serpentine origins. First, the Whispering Death is a menace in How to Train Your Dragon. Secondly, the King of Snakes probably descended from the Żmij in Poland. And last, but not least, Smaug of many titles received the treatment from Peter Jackson and his creative team.

References

Brown, A. and Sloan, D. 1-2 (2012-2014) ‘Dreamworks Dragons’ [DVD]. 07/08/2012-05/03/2014. United States: Twentieth Century Fox.

Green, E. (2021) ‘Guest post: How To Evolve Your Dragon: Dragons Under Natural Selection’, Palaeomedia. Available at: https://palaeomedia.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/2021/08/22/guest-post-how-to-evolve-your-dragon-dragons-under-natural-selection/ (Accessed: 26/11/2024).

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013) Directed by Jackson, P. [Blu-Ray]. Denmark: Warner Brothers Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures.

The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies (2014) Directed by Jackson, P. [Blu-Ray]. Denmark: Warner Brothers Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures.

Jones, E. (2023) ‘The Bristol Dragons’, Palaeomedia. Available at: https://palaeomedia.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/2023/02/08/the-bristol-dragons/ (Accessed: 26/11/2024).

Morwood, J. and Taylor, J. (eds.) (2002) The Pocket Oxford Classical Greek Dictionary. New York: Oxford University Press.

Pellerin, C. (2009). Putting the Spotlight on Smaug. Bachelor Honours, Rhode Island College.

Pollard, S. (2023) ‘Darwinism and Dragons’, Palaeomedia. Available at: https://palaeomedia.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/2023/03/31/darwinism-and-dragons/ (Accessed: 26/11/2024).

The Hobbit (1977) Directed by Rankin Jr., A. G. and Bass, J. United States.

Sala, B. G. (2024) Księga smoków polskich [Translated title: The Book of Polish Dragons]. 2nd, reprint edn. Poland: BoSz.

How to Train Your Dragon (2010) Directed by Sanders, C. and DeBlois, D. [Blu-Ray]. United States: Dreamworks Animation SKG.

 

by Sophie Pollard, MSc Palaeobiology course, University of Bristol

(This post also shared on the Bristol Dinosaur Project blog)

No matter how much or how little you know about mythology, you know about dragons. They’re pretty much everywhere. From the feathered Quetzalcoatl of Aztec culture to the many-headed Mesopotamian deity Tiamat, supernatural serpents have been causing floods, kidnapping women, and making a general nuisance of themselves to the heroes of our favourite stories for as long as anyone can remember.

But where did these lumbering lizards come from in the first place? How did they get to be so widespread? And what does any of this have to do with palaeontology?

Well, when scientists took a look at the dragon myth from the perspective of evolutionary biology, they found some strangely familiar patterns.  Myths tend to change gradually. Stories tend to get misremembered and changed in little ways with each telling, causing them to drift over time.

Maybe a fossil is discovered, and not knowing what to make of it, people assume it must be a dragon, adapting their myths to their new find, or perhaps accounts of unusual and terrifying animals get mixed up with mythology, or maybe the storyteller simply decides that the massive, serpentine predator just isn’t scary enough and adds an extra head or two for good measure.

You can look at these little changes in the same way you’d look at mutations in an organism, and the long-term drift of story elements in the same way as evolution. Adaptation in the face of a changing cultural environment. Survival of the coolest heroes, the scariest monsters, and the most satisfying endings.

And we can see real-life examples of this in the stories we still have today. Certain patterns and ideas, like an apocalyptic flood, cosmic hunt across the night sky and of course a scary, supersized snake are shared by many cultures across the world and tend to move around with human populations as they migrate throughout history.

 

To learn more about these patterns, mathematical methods can be borrowed from evolutionary biology. If we swap genetic or physical attributes of animals for the elements of a story, such as whether the dragon has mammalian features, or a taste for human flesh, we can use phylogenetic analysis to work out which patterns of development were the most likely, and even work out where a story might have come from in the first place.

In order to get so widely spread, you’d think the dragon myth would have had to appear pretty early in human history before we started to migrate around the world, or else it would have had to spring up on its own multiple times.

A group of scientists, led by Julien d’Huy, set out to determine the origin of the dragon using phylogenetic techniques in 2013. They used data from 23 regions around the world to create a number of “phylogenetic” trees, which could be combined to show which of the trees was the most likely.

The tests showed a very high likelihood that there was a single origin of the dragon myth. In fact, the trends shown in the research were stronger than those produced by most biological data, partially because they fit so well with patterns of migration in humans.

So, we can be pretty sure that the dragon has one single point of origin, and that it followed humanity as it dispersed around the globe. Furthermore, we now have an idea of what the myth looked like as it dispersed.

According to d’Huy and his research team, the first dragon story was likely being told as long as 75,000 years ago in South Africa. This dragon was a chimaera whose body was part snake and was linked with water in some way.

Interpretations of rock art from Lesotho, in southern Africa, seem to corroborate this story. One painting, in particular, termed the “Rain Snake Panel”, depicts men catching a gigantic, mythic snake in an underwater environment.

Human migrations out of Africa via the near east and into the far east would have carried the dragon myth with them, around 80, 000 to 60, 000 years ago.

At this point, the dragon was a giant snake, usually possessing the head of a second species, with ears, horns, scales, and sometimes human hair. It was still strongly associated with water, sometimes bringing storms, rain and floods, and could often fly.

These ideas will likely seem pretty familiar if you’ve heard any stories of eastern dragons. And you can even spot something similar in some early archaeological finds, such as the dragon depicted at the neolithic Xishuipo site in Henan, China, which dates back around 6, 000 years.

From here, the dragon made its way back towards the near east and up into Siberia losing many of its features and becoming more snake-like by around 50, 000 years ago. By this time, the dragon had also become increasingly more antagonistic and aggressive.

We then see the ice-age glacial maximum, allowing the Chinese myth to move a little ways south into parts of Oceania, and for the Siberian dragon to move into North America over the Bering land bridge, where we see the Palraijuq from Inuit oral tradition within the Yukon region of Canada.

This massive, crocodile-like monster is said to have had six legs and lived in lakes, streams, and swamps, where it would lie in wait for unsuspecting prey, dragging its victims into the icy waters to be drowned.

 

Meanwhile, the Chinese dragon myth headed down into Oceania but not quite all the way to Australia until the Younger Dryas event only 12, 000 years ago. Stories of the fabulously named Rainbow Serpent can be found all over Australia to this day, where it is often hailed as a creator deity in Aboriginal folklore.

Not long after, around 10, 000 years ago, the dragon myth crossed the Pacific Ocean to reach Mesoamerica.  Quetzalcoatl, a feathered serpent and Aztec deity, which happens to have its own pterosaur, Quetzalcoatlus, named after it, is perhaps the most famous example of an American dragon.

We also see dragons all over Europe at this time, but they’re not the European dragons we see today. Instead, we see a giant serpent, usually with multiple heads, and the ability to speak as well as other human attributes. It lives in or near water, or sometimes underground, and is aggressive and dangerous, often with a taste for human sacrifice, but is also prone to trickery.

Around 8, 000 years ago, we see the Proto-Indo-European expansion, influencing Europe, India, western Asia, and North Africa (particularly the Nile region). The proto-Indo-Europeans spoke of NgWhi, who was a three-headed serpent who stole cattle, a resource which would have been extremely valuable to the people of the time.

Interestingly, and a little disappointingly, this taste for cattle may be responsible for the modern European dragon’s love of kidnapping women, due to a mistranslation of an old word for cow.

So, we have an idea of how the dragon myth found its way around the world, but that doesn’t explain why this idea stayed so popular for such a long time. After all, it’s rare to see any myth so widespread or so old.

The answer might lie in the simple fact that snakes are scary. Love them or hate them, we all jump a little when we see a suspiciously shaped stick out of the corner of our eyes. Humans have great snake-detecting capabilities, with brains designed to recognise visual patterns and three-dimensional, coloured vision. As a species, we are designed to hate snakes, so what better subject to scare each other with over a campfire?

We can never be completely sure where humans got the idea for dragons in the first place, or what drove it to take up so many forms all over the world, although we can make educated guesses. Either way, it’s nice to speculate on a subject so well-known and well-loved as the dragons of our childhood stories.

References

• Challis, S., Hollmann, J. & McGranaghan, M. ‘Rain snakes’ from the Senqu River: new light on Qing’s commentary on San rock art from Sehonghong, Lesotho. Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa 48, 331-354, doi:10.1080/0067270X.2013.797135 (2013).
• d’Huy, J. 2014.-2015. Statistical Methods for Studying Mythology: three Peer Reviewed Papers and a Short History of the Dragon Motif. – The Retrospective Methods Network Newsletter, Winter 2014-2015, 9, 125-127. The Retrospective Methods Network Newsletter, 125-127 (2014).
• Witton MP, Naish D (2008) A Reappraisal of Azhdarchid Pterosaur Functional Morphology and Paleoecology. PLoS ONE 3(5): e2271. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0002271

With my thanks to Dr Evan Jones, of the Department of Historical Studies, University of Bristol, for bringing these images to my attention and for help with the background and discussion. I also thank Margaret Condon, Research Associate in the Department of Historical studies for her insight and further information about dragons, Henry VII and the royal charter. The document is held by and is the property of Bristol Archives.

The city of Bristol in the UK has a long history, much of it preserved in the ancient documents held by the Bristol Archives. Among these documents are dragons – and the dragons on this particular document are seen here for the first time.

In 1499, the Tudor king, Henry VII, granted a charter to the Corporation of the city, the original of which is preserved in the city Archives. A charter was a document that recorded judicial decisions and changes in the law, and for Bristol to be granted a charter was no small achievement. Rather like a large company bidding for a major contract, the city had to prepare its petition to the king to be awarded the charter; it took a lot of work and money

to submit its request. In Bristol’s case, the charter was to change the way the city was governed and its officials elected.

The document is of the form known as an illuminated manuscript. Written in Latin, it’s illustrated by a heavily decorated coloured initial letter, and on the top line, some of the capitals are embellished by small sketches of creatures and human faces.

 

The image of the King himself is contained within the ‘H’ of his name in the title, written as a lower case ‘h’ (fig. 2).

At his feet, a tiny figure in a red robe is holding out a long document. This was the mayor of Bristol making the submission to the enthroned king, who is holding the orb and spectre of state; the king wears a crown that could have been originally rendered in gold leaf. There is a strange creature next to the mayor, nibbling the king’s feet. It’s not clear what this is, the shaggy mane implies it could be a lion, and lions were certainly known in England by then, there had even been two Barbary lions in the menagerie at the Tower of London, representing the majesty of the monarch.

Henry’s coat of arms is shown on the left of the throne, forming part of the ‘h’ (fig. 3).

The shield is quartered in blue red and gold, with what looks now like a black creature with a red tongue, on the right, possibly a dog. Our Welsh readers will immediately recognise the red dragon to the left. The red dragon – also the emblem of Wales – is a symbol of Henry VII’s Welsh ancestry, traditionally the symbol of Cadwaladr, King of Gwynedd from whom Henry claimed descent, and was the emblem of the Tudor kings. This dragon is relatively consistent with the traditional Welsh dragon, which today appears on the Welsh flag; one foot is raised, the tail is looped and a faint mark implies the barbed tongue although it doesn’t look like it has a barbed tail, it’s possible the tail barb is black against the black background.

What looks now like a black dog on the right is actually a white greyhound, but on the document was probably rendered in silver which, over time, has tarnished to black. The white greyhound was also a Tudor symbol because it had been used by Henry’s father, Edmund Tudor, so the dragon and greyhound appear together supporting the coat of arms.

But back to the dragons!

The interlaced black pattern around the capital in figure 2 – known as ‘strapwork’ – ends upper right in the face of a dragon, with red eyes and a red mouth and tongue, long ears and spikes on the face and below the jaw.

Other dragons appear in the illumination above around the title text (fig. 4)

On the far right is what looks like a two-headed dragon looking to the right, behind the long tail of a bird (detail, fig 5). The bird is likely a peacock with its long tail feathers.

This dragon and the red dragon in the coat of arms could have been drawn by the same artist. The heads have long ears, and the shape of the face and the position of the eyes is the same; the mouth is pulled back in a grimace. The dragons have spines running along the neck and back all the way to the tail, and the wings are structured in the same way, like bats’ wings, with ribs and membranes between the ribs. It’s not clear whether the two-headed dragon has four legs or two; if there are four, the hind legs are not visible and, if not, the artist has drawn it as a two-headed wyvern, but the tail has interesting lateral stripes, implying the artist had a clear idea of what the dragon should look like

Figure 6Perhaps the most endearing of the images is the one in the centre, of the baby dragon and the snail (fig. 6.) It’s clearly a baby as the artist has drawn it with a large head relative to the body, big horns/ears and eyes, a small tongue and tail, and no spines. The wings are also smaller compared to the body. It wears a collar with a chain attached to a point to the upper right strapwork and the lines of the collar and ring are drawn more heavily than those of the body, emphasising it being constrained or tamed in some way. It’s possibly chaffing at the collar, peering at the smiling snail to the left, which could be read as taunting the dragon. It raises the question of who has tried to tame it – and why? And why is the snail there and what is it doing?

There are also human faces in amongst the drawings and in the left-hand sketch in figure 4, a bird is tweaking the nose of the rather grumpy looking man in the hat; the artists decorating such documents often show a darker sense of humour.

All the dragons are drawn well enough to be clearly identifiable as dragons. They’re drawn fairly consistently like this throughout the Middle Ages in Europe with the features seen in these dragons. The features such as the bat wings and the spines are still incorporated in dragon design today, a fascination with them that shows no signs of going away.