The Western Dragon: from the Greek Serpent to the Foe of Saint George
From the Greek drakon guarding treasure to the beast of Revelation, from Fáfnir to Saint George: how the winged dragon of European tradition was born.
The dragon that inhabits the European imagination, with bat-like wings, clawed feet and fiery breath, is the result of a long layering process. At its origin is the Greek drákōn, a word that simply meant a large serpent. The term is connected with the verb dérkomai, “to look intently”, and recalls the fixed and unsettling gaze of reptiles. From this ancient root, through the Bible, the Norse sagas and the legends of the saints, the medieval beast took shape.
The Guardian Serpents of Greek Myth
In Greek mythology the dragon is often a guardian. Ladon coils around the tree of the golden apples in the garden of the Hesperides; another sleepless serpent protects the Golden Fleece in Colchis and is lulled to sleep by Medea so that Jason can seize it. At Delphi, before Apollo's oracle stood there, lived Python, killed by the god with his arrows. The sanctuary preserved the memory of that victory in the name of its priestess, the Pythia, and in the Pythian Games.
These dragons do not fly and rarely breathe fire. They are creatures bound to the earth, to springs and caves, guardians of a place or a treasure that the hero must win. Their clash with a god or a hero expresses an idea widespread in many cultures of the ancient Mediterranean and the Near East: that of an order which establishes itself by defeating the dark forces of chaos.
The Beast of Revelation and the Saints
With Christianity the dragon becomes an image of evil. In the twelfth chapter of Revelation a great red dragon appears with seven heads and ten horns, identified with the ancient serpent, that is the devil, whom the archangel Michael and his angels cast out of heaven. From then on the fight against the dragon was a proof of holiness, and many saints' lives, such as that of Saint Martha at Tarascon, tell of monsters tamed or slain.
The most famous version is that of Saint George, set down in the Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine, compiled around 1260. The dragon terrorises the city of Silene, in Libya, and the inhabitants offer it victims chosen by lot, until the lot falls on the king's daughter. George wounds the beast, has it led into the city tied to the princess's girdle and kills it after the people have accepted baptism.
Dragons of the North and Heraldic Dragons
In the Germanic literatures the dragon is above all a greedy keeper of gold. In the Old English poem Beowulf the hero, by then an old king, dies fighting a dragon awakened by the theft of a cup from its hoard. In the Saga of the Volsungs Fáfnir, who has turned himself into a dragon to guard his gold, is killed by Sigurd, who by tasting the blood of his heart comes to understand the language of birds.
Meanwhile the iconography was changing. Over the course of the Middle Ages the dragons of manuscripts acquired membranous wings, legs and a twisting tail, until they became the typical figure of heraldry. The red dragon of Wales is linked to a legend told in the ninth-century Historia Brittonum: two dragons, one red and one white, fight beneath the fortress of King Vortigern, and the red one, symbol of the Britons, finally drives its opponent away.
The Western dragon thus sums up many fears and many desires: chaos to be tamed, evil to be defeated, treasure to be won at a high price. The alchemists adopted it too, calling the raw matter to be transformed in the course of the work a dragon. Every age has given it a different face, but its role has remained that of the adversary who tests those with the courage to face it.