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The Dragon: Europe

Among the earliest classics of Europe, its existence is asserted as a scientific fact, and accepted by poets as a sound basis for analogies, comparisons, allegories, and fable; it appears in the mythology of the Goth, and is continued through the tradition and fable of every country of Europe; nor does it fail to appear even in the imperfect traditions of the New World,* where its presence may be considered as comparatively indigenous, and undetermined by the communications dependent on the so-called discovery of later days. Turning to other popular accounts, we find equally limited and incredible versions of it. All consider it sufficiently disposed of by calling it fabulous, and that a sufficient explanation of any possible belief in it is afforded by a reference to the harmless genus of existing flying lizards referred to above. * " In turning to the consideration of the primitive works of art of the American continent when in the bronze work of the later iron period, imitative forms at length appear, they are chiefly the snake and dragon shapes and patterns, borrowed seemingly by Celtic and Teutonic wanderers, with the wild fancies of their mythology, from the far eastern land of their birth." -D. Wilson, Prehistoric Man, 1862. "He had remarked that the Indians of the north-west coast frequently repeat in their well-known blackstone carvings the dragon, the lotus flower, and the alligator." -C. G. Leland, Fusang, London, 1875. † "Dragon, an imaginary animal something like a crocodile."-Rev. Dr. Brewer, Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, p. 243. ‡ "In the woods of Java are certain flying snakes, or rather drakes ; they have four legs, a long tail, and their skin speckled with many spots, their wings are not unlike those of a bat, which they move in flying, but otherwise keep them almost unperceived close to the body. They fly nimbly, but cannot hold it long, so that they fly from tree to • Some consider it an evolution of the fancy, typifying noxious principles; thus, Chambers* says, "The dragon appears in the mythical history and legendary poetry of almost every nation as the emblem of the destructive and anarchical principle; as misdirected physical force and untamable animal passions.

The dragon proceeds openly to work, running on its feet with expanded wings, and head and tail erect, violently and ruthlessly outraging decency and propriety, spouting fire and fury both from mouth and tail, and wasting and devastating the whole land." • The point which strikes me as most interesting in this passage is the reference to the legendary theory of the mode of the dragon's progress, which curiously calls to mind the semi-erect attitude of the existing small Australian frilled lizard (Chlamydosaurus). This attitude is also ascribed to some of the extinct American Dinosaurs, such as the Stegosaurus. No one, so far as I am aware, in late days has hitherto ventured to uphold the claims of this terrible monster to be accepted as a real contemporary of primitive man,† which tree at about twenty or thirty paces' distance. On the outside of the throat are two bladders, which, being extended when they fly, serve them instead of a sail. They feed upon flies and other insects." - Mr. John Nieuhoff's Voyage and Travels to the East Indies, contained in a collection of Voyages and Travels, in 6 vols., vol. ii. p. 317; Churchill, London, 1732. * Chambers' Encyclopædia, vol. iii. p. 635. † The following is the nearest approach to such an assertion I have met with, but appears from the context to apply to geologic time prior to the advent of man. "When all those large and monstrous amphibia since regarded as fabulous still in reality existed, when the confines of the water and the land teemed with gigantic saurians, with lizards of dimensions much exceeding those of the largest crocodiles of the present day: who to the scaly bodies of fish, added the claws of beasts, and the neck and wings of birds: who to the faculty of swimming in water, added not only that of moving on the earth but that of sailing in air: may even have been co-existent with him to a comparatively recent date, and but lately passed away into the cohort of extinct species, leaving behind it only the traditions of its ferocity and terrors, to stamp their impression on the tongues of all countries.

No one has endeavoured to collate the vast bulk of materials shrouded in the stories of all lands. If this were perfectly effected, a diagnosis of the real nature of the dragon might perhaps be made, and the chapter of its characteristics, alliances, and habits completed like that of any other wellestablished species. The following sketch purposes only to initiate the task here propounded, the author's access to materials being limited, and only sufficient to enable him, as he thinks, to establish generally the proposition which it involves, to grasp as it were some of the broader and salient features of the investigation, while leaving a rich gleaning of corroborative information for the hand of any other who may please to continue and extend his observations.

At the outset it will be necessary to assign a much more extended signification to the word dragon than that which is contained in the definition at the head of this chapter. The popular mind of the present day doubtless associates it always with the idea of a creature possessing wings; but the Lung of the Chinese, the δράκων of the Greeks, the and who had all the characteristics of what we now call chimeras and dragons, and perhaps of such monsters the remains, found among the bones and skeletons of other animals more resembling those that still exist and propagate, in the grottos and caverns in which they sought shelter during the deluges that affected the infancy of the globe, gave first rise to the idea that these dens and caves were once retreats whence such monsters watched and in which they devoured other animals."- Thomas Hope, On the Origin and Prospects of Man, vol. ii. p. 346; London, 1831.