DRAGON, in Mythology. In the mythical history and legendary poetry of most nations, the dragon holds a prominent place as the embodi- ment of the antagonistic and hostile principle as it has opposed itself to man from the earliest period in the world's history. In other words, the dragon is the emblem of all that is obstructive, loathsome, and horrible in nature, the ideal of the spirit of evil which is in opposition to the order, harmony, and progress of the human race. On the other hand, in both China and Japan, the 'Bob-tailed dragon' is an exception, where he is regarded with veneration. 'His fidelity as a friend,' says Mr Conway in his Demonology and Devil Lore (i. 105), 'led to the ill return of an attack by which his tail was amputated, and ever since his soured temper has shown itself in raising storms. When a violent tempest arises, the Cantonese say "the bob-tailed dragon is passing," in the same proverbial way as the Aryan peasantry attribute the same phenomenon to their storm gods.' But this favourable aspect of the dragon is the exception. Again, whilst the serpent seeks the attainment of its object by cunning and deceitful artifices—crawling on its belly, and always assuming ostensibly characteristics the very opposite of its own—the dragon proceeds openly to work, running on its feet, with expanded wings, and head and tail erect, violently and ruthlessly making onslaught on its victim, spouting fire and fury from both mouth and tail, and wasting and devastating the whole land. Hence, as the universally recognised enemy of mankind, the overthrow of the dragon was made to figure as one of the greatest exploits of gods and heroes. As the highest ideal of human strength and courage, the task properly fell to Hercules; but it was not confined to him, for we find both Apollo and Perseus represented as dragon-slayers. In the Vedic mythology the dragon Vritra, the god of evil and darkness, is in antagonism to Indra, the god of light and good. From legendary poetry, the dragon passed into art, some of the earliest efforts of which probably consisted in depicting it on the shield or carving it for the crest of a conqueror's helmet. The dragon does not seem to have been a native emblem with the Romans, and when they ultimately adopted it as a sort of subordinate symbol, the eagle still holding the first place, it seems to have been in consequence of their intercourse with nations either of Pelasgic or Teutonic race. Amongst all the new races which overrun Europe at the termination of the classical period, the dragon seems to have occupied nearly the same place that it held in the earlier stages of Greek life; in modern Greek folk-tales, the dragon is specially prominent. For the story of Cadmus and the dragon's teeth, see CADMUS. In the Nibelungen Lied, we find Siegfried killing a dragon at Worms; and the contest of Beowulf (q.v.), first with the monster Grendel, and then with the dragon, forms the principal incident in the curious epic which bears the name of the former. Even Thor himself was a slayer of dragons (Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, ii. 653). Among the Teutonic tribes which settled in England, it was from the first depicted on their shields and banners, and most of the dragon myths of Great Britain were no doubt importations brought over by early colonists—the celebrated Lambton worm being a survival of an Aryan superstition. The Anglo-Saxon wyrn meant equally dragon, serpent, and worm; and in such names as Ormsby, Ormskirk, we have reminiscences of the 'laidly [loathly] worm' of the old ballads. As a device, the dragon appears to have been the standard of the West Saxons, and of the English previous to the Norman Conquest. It formed one of the supporters of the royal arms borne by all our Tudor monarchs, with the exception of Queen Mary, who substituted an eagle. Several of the Plantagenet kings and princes inscribed the figure of a dragon on their banner and shields. Peter Langtoffe says, at the battle of Lewes, fought in 1264, 'the king schewed forth his schild, his dragon full austere.' Amongst the Celts, it was the emblem of sovereignty, and as such borne as the sovereign's crest. Lord Tennyson's Idylls have made every one familiar with 'the dragon of the Great Pendragonship,' blazing on Arthur's helmet, as he rode forth to his last battle, and 'making all the night a stream of fire.'
The fiery dragon, or fire-drake, and the flying dragon in the air, were meteoric phenomena, of which we have frequent accounts in old books, and, indeed, as Brand remarks, 'the dragon is one of those shapes which fear has created to itself,' and which appears in circumstances, and clothes itself in forms, as various as our fears.
Of the two Hebrew words translated dragon in the authorised version of the Old Testament, one obviously means a serpent; while the dragon in Bel and the Dragon is a monster. The dragon of the Apocalypse is identified with the old serpent, the devil. In Christian art, the dragon is the emblem of sin, the usual form that is given to it being that of a winged crocodile. It is often represented as crushed under the feet of saints and martyrs, and other holy personages. Sometimes its prostrate attitude signifies the triumph of Christianity over paganism, as in pictures of St George (see GEORGE, ST), St Michael, and St Sylvester; or over heresy and schism, as when it was adopted as the emblem of the Knights of the order of the Dragon in Hungary, which was instituted for the purpose of contending against the adherents of John Huss and Jerome of Prague.
The dragon is often employed in heraldry, and figures of the heraldic dragon vary considerably according to the fancy of the draughtsman. The chief characteristics are the head of a wolf, the body of a serpent, four eagles' feet, bat-like wings, and barbed tongue and tail. An animal so represented is said to be dragonné. See GRIFFIN. A dragon without wings is called a lindworm, or lintworm, which Grimm (Deutsche Mythol. ii. 652) explains to mean a beautiful or shining worm. It should be noted that in some of the older treatises on natural history full descriptions of the dragon occur, the belief in its actual existence having been a widespread belief. Two of the ablest scientific writers of the 16th century, Conrad Gesner, professor of Natural History at Zurich, and Aldrovandi, the Pisan professor, have given elaborate descriptions of the dragon. In ancient mythology the task of drawing the chariot of the night was assigned to dragons, on account of their supposed watchfulness; and in devising loathsome ingredients for the witches' mess, Shakespeare (Macbeth, IV. i.) speaks of 'the scale of dragon,' alluding to the horror in which this mythical being was held.