Dragons, a Brief History Long in Miles (Published 2003) (2024)

The first dragon myths appear with the Sumerian legends of the god-mother Tiamat who transforms herself into a legged, horned serpent, and of the snake Zu who steals the law tablets.

Dragons appear in Chinese and Indian legends in about 2700 B.C., and in Egypt a creation myth describes the dragon Apep.

One Chinese text says a dragon has a deer's antlers, a camel's head, a hare's eyes, a serpent's neck, a crocodile's belly, an eagle's claws, a tiger's paws and a buffalo's ears. Asian dragons are often benign -- bringing rain, revealing treasures or granting wishes.

The Greek legends, which arose about 4,000 years ago, are full of dragons: the Golden Fleece's sleeping sentinel, the teeth that grew into warriors, the hydra whose nine necks Hercules cauterized, the sea snake from whom Perseus rescued Andromeda.

The Hittites, Babylonians and Persians had dragons. The Bible has the Leviathan and Eve's scaly tempter. The Aztecs had Quetzacoatl, the plumed serpent. The Illini Indians had the piasa, a bird-winged dragon with the head of a man with antlers. The missionary Father Jacques Marquette described an immense one carved into a Mississippi cliff face.

Alaskan Inuits have legends of the kikituk, a seagoing reptile that walks ashore hunting humans, and bone carvings of giant four-legged reptiles confronting men and caribou were cataloged in 1897.

The classic dragon story -- St. George, patron saint of England, rescuing a princess -- actually dates from A.D. 315 and concerns a Roman soldier from Cappadocia, in central Turkey, who fought a swamp creature in Libya. He was later martyred as a Christian, and impressed English crusaders adopted him.

The English have a particular fondness for dragons. They were regularly spotted during eclipses, riots and earthquakes, and a flock of 400 was reported in 1532. In 1420, the village of Lambton was supposedly ravaged by one, and in 1669 the village of Henham claimed to have slain one and held a fair to celebrate.