What's Up With Dragons?
In these troubling times of equal parts anxiety and boredom, I find it helpful to ask questions and seek answers from Wikipedia. It’s a nice way to practice curiosity and get insight into our world. For me, I chose dragons as my topic of discovery, because they have always been fascinating to me and I’ve had a few questions about them. Where do the mythos of Dragons originate? How do they play a role in the societies we see them in? And finally, what kept them around for so long?
But first, a little background
Dragons, or some depiction of serpentine creatures, exist in nearly all cultures, but depictions do vary. For instance, in the east, dragons were typically wingless and snakelike creatures with wisdom beyond human knowledge. Whereas, western depictions of dragons are winged, horned, and can breathe fire!
The word Dragon seems to have entered in the 13th century possibly from the Latin root draconem meaning “huge serpent” or the Greek drákōn to mean “serpent” or “giant sea fish.” From this, we can see that the word for dragon was described much later than their appearance. For instance, in Chinese literature, the character 龙 is the direct translation for dragon, but makes an appearance in fifth century texts. So how can these creatures emerge in such different times in such different ways?
In my short research, two theories emerged: Dragons were a manifestation of early fears of snakes, and other predators to humans in one analogous form, or that early humans found dinosaur bones and extrapolated dragons from them. Either way, it seems like the imagination, both driven from fear and wonder, was global.
To me, the most wonderful piece of this research to me is how dragons have continued to influence our lives in many cultures even now. Whether the colorful dragon puppets used in Chinese festivals, namely their spring and lantern festivals, or how the beast appears in our stories like Lord of the rings and the lore of Dungeons and Dragons, we have always been inspired by the things that make us the most afraid.
We manifest the shadows under our beds into ghouls and ghosts with a motivation we can understand. Imagine a slender tuxedo man in dense forested areas after one too many turns around the creepy side of reddit. Maybe one day we will have a beast who moves as suddenly as a breeze and leaves people gasping in their wake. Until that time, when we are ready to manifest the monster, I’ll think of dragons: a creature of gargantuan proportions, but… with the right tools and timing, a formidable foe that can be vanquished.
-Nikita Gamet