About Dragons

Summaries and surveys

Slaying the Dragon surveys the historical development and common elements of ancient Egyptian exemplars, Perseus and Andromeda, and St. George. From Larry Orcutt's Catchpenny Mysteries of Ancient Egypt, "A critical and skeptical look at fringe theories of ancient Egypt." Orcutt's that rarest of enthusiastic autodidacts—a balanced one.

"The Dragon as an Archetype" by Laurence Mee, from Alara's Stories and Information About Dragons. Mee's paper is a synethic account of world dragons, with particular attention to Jungian explanations. Her closing paragraph is largely about art:

"As for the depiction of Dragons in modern art and literature, there is certainly a paucity of variation in the image. The Dragon is almost always shown with four legs, a serpentine body, and with wings. This is only to be expected due to the dominance of Christianity and the conformity of artists over the centuries to this form. Other types of Dragon, such as the Wyvern and the wyrm, are not given anywhere near the same amount of emphasis. The only other image that endures is that of the Chinese Lung which has remained fairly true to the original despite the additions of successive generations. ... What we are seeing is the merging of the ancient archetypes into a composite image that resembles all of them, yet is also removed from them. One global image for one global civilisation."

This is a stimulating concept. Let me raise some objections in a footnote.[1]

Wikipedia: Dragon. Unable to encompass all the meanings and varieties of dragons, this page is now a gateway to other pages. Two of the most significant pages are:

European Dragon, a somewhat scattershot overview including sections on Greco-Roman, German, Slavic and Catalan dragons, but none on French or German dragons.

Chinese dragon, a smaller but more focused overview.

The Chinese/European split has left many Middle Eastern and other Asian dragons out in the cold.

Dragon Stone by Polenth Blake has three good pages on dragons in heradry (sort of a "Dummies Guide," which is appreciated):

Dragons of History Around the World by James Vandale. Survey of famous dragon tales—Lernaean hydra, Saint George, the Lambton Worm, etc. Evidently "donated"; the containing site is nuts (see here.) Content also here, here and elsewhere.

Serpents and Dragons from Dave's Mythical Creatures and Places. Includes subpages on dragons, wyverns and even more exotic creatures. (I'd never even heard of the Amphiptere. Have you?)

Lengthy summaries of thirty dragon stories . The containing site, www.biopark.org, seeks to "reexamine" reptiles through both "exoteric and esoteric sources" in expectation of the "chilling but exciting new creature that may climb out of the ashes of human tragedies to become the Futureps." Take a lithium.

"Dragons Of History Around The World" a run-down from Alara's Stories and Information About Dragons.

Lady Gryphon's Mythical Realm, a large and impressive omnigatherum of the mythical and legendary. Includes three pages on western dragons and a good one on Asian Dragons.

Megasites

Sommerland: On Dragons by Amanda and Donna Quinn. The art sections are described elsewhere, so I'll stick to the excellent text. Among the highlights are a short introduction to dragons, a synthetic dragon timeline, and an excellent analysis of dragon misconceptions. Among these are the common internet notion that all Eastern dragons are good, all Western dragons evil, and that Christianity "made dragons evil."[2]

Dragon Stone by Polenth Blake, a nicely structured and well-written dragon omnium-gatherum, refreshingly free of animated GIFs and yucky backgrounds—indeed of images generally. Sections have been liberally linked to all over this site.

Draco's Lair 2000. Centered on Dragonheart, this large website has a wide variety of materials, including image galleries, book reviews, stories and more.

The Circle of the Dragon There's too much here to describe briefly, but the focus here is on detailed explanatory text about dragons in history in a well-organized and professional context. But there are also excellent galleries, quizzes and—in keeping with the author's current status, as a student at Mount Holyoke—an extensive bibliography.

Here Be Dragons . Long-time Google winner, with a some good content, and more ads than a 1999 copy of the Industry Standard! The site's virtually unusuable for all the ads, and includes a lot of bogus content, no doubt put there to fool Google into giving them position. Oh, and they'll sell the domain to you for $135,000. Screw 'em. They're not getting any more links from me!

Frequently Asked Questions

"How Many Toes Does a Dragon Have?" answered by ad-milker Dragonorama.

Dragon dictionaries

Mythological Dragon List from Polenth Blake's Dragon Stone. Extensive. See also Types of Mythological Dragon and dragons in many languages.

A Concise Directory of Famous Dragons (diverse ) from ad-milking Dragonorama.

Alphabetical dictionary of 141 dragons from The Circle of the Dragon. Also sorted by country.

Relatives

Dragons and their Kin an enormous list, with 88 entries. Unknown author.

Other

Mini reviews of recomended dragon non-fiction from Amanda and Donna Quinn's excellent Sommerland: On Dragons. The selection is personal.

Notes:

First, there are linguistic problems. "Dragon" has recently come to be, in English, the "unmarked" term for a welter of ideas and words&emdash;on the web at least, can even extend to Quetzacoatl, Tiamat and Leviathan. Discussing the history of the "dragon" begs the issue of whether there is a "dragon," or if we are forcing disparate concepts into a single interpretive category. (Compare the lack of general discussion of "little people," which can be ascribed to the lack of an encompassing English word for dwarves, gnomes, kobolds, goblins, hobbits and so forth.) Second, Mee's "paucity of variation" is problematic. There are certainly many wyverns, drakes and wyrms on Elfwood. More importantly, there is a different "variation" at work; contemporary dragon art is completely free of (or ignorant of) rich but static iconographic traditions (eg., depictions of Ss. George and Margaret or the limited ways Asian dragon were depicted). At the same time, Mee may well be right that the consensus English fantasy dragon—quadriped, winged, scaly, fire-breathing dragon—is crowding out other European and non-European conceptions, with the Asian dragon its only real competition. Lastly, its hard to see how Christianity is to blame for the death of wyverns, wyms and drakes. These were most prominent in the Middle Ages, when the Church was it's strongest, and, according to Mee, less prominent today when Christianity has much less purchase on minds, and churches have given up having anything to say about them. (back)
This notion is all over the web, with the added implication that Christianity is evil for "slandering" dragons. It's hard to know where to begin on this, except by clearly and steadily explaining that dragons aren't real! "Dragons" are in reality neither good nor evil, but symbolize one or the other (or something else) as the culture requires. In any case "dragons" are rarely the "point." In Christianity, for example, although dragons often symbolize evil, this characterization is not about dragons, but about the power of virtue and bravery to overcome evil.

The sisters Quinn's clear-headed essay might seem undercut by their interest in providing a "website that is completely sympathetic to Christians and Christian values." If anything, however, this programmatic intention has enabled them to cut through the nonsense surrouding dragons, not to adapt the material to their beliefs. It's also comforting to see a web-Christian comfortable with a Hellenistic date for Daniel. (back)

If you enjoy this site you may like this other site by me:

Mermaids on the Web. Similar site, with over 1,320 pictures .

Angels on the Web. Images and other web resources on angels in Western culture, religion and art.

Griffins in Art and on the Web. Like this site, but Griffins.