also, while we are at it
“my dragon flies because it’s magic xdxddxdxd”
fine, acceptable, it’s magic. Okay. Even as a biologist I’m willing to give it a pass. God knows that in my space opera project I’ve went “mumble mumble convergent evolution mumble” for some of my earth-like aliens. The shape is kinda believeable and original, you chose some cool features, it’s fine, no need for the whole phylogenetic tree.
Now, why is it magic? what does it mean it is magic?
Were dragons created by a god? are they manifestations of nature? why are dragons, especifically, magic and not say, crocodiles?
Is it a species with physical presence and a life cycle, or are they magical beings? how many dragons are there, how important they are to your world? are they worshipped, feared, venerated, just some kind of weird megafauna but otherwise unremarkable? what do they eat, how much?
If it’s a sentient dragon from a physical species, as most modern fiction seems to assume (you’d be surprised that in most medieval works they were mostly mindless beasts or demons, dragons as noble creatures are very much a modern invention in the West) how do they think? How do they act differently from smaller, less powerful, shorter lived species? Do they have their own gods, their own rituals, their own beliefs? Are they lonely beings or are they able, or interested, to form part of society, or even have their own societies?
What’s the cultural role of a dragon in the world you’re making? What do your characters think when they hear the word ‘dragon’? What do they know about dragons, when your hero goes and finds one, what are their conceptions of it? Can they fight it? How? Why?
Notice that most of my questions aren’t stupid UNREALISTIC! CINEMASINS DING!, but things that actually affect your characters, setting and plot. Don’t like to write a ethnographical paper about dragons?
do it anyways or I’ll shoot you, don’t, but if you’re introducing an element to your story, even if you’re using stock fantasy elements like dragons, you will benefit A LOT from thinking how they fit into your story.And even in settings were “it’s magic” is acceptable as an answer, or more *surreal* or comedic stories where things happen without too much logic, a dragon is still a symbol. What does your dragon mean in your story? “oh, a magical dragon”. Fine. Why is there a dragon on your story? Don’t have a whole herpetology paper, because this is just a romance? Okay, can you spare me a couple lines to tell me what does a dragon mean in your world? That too, is
yuriworldbuilding.If anyone is curious about why dragons in modern fantasy trend towards “magical creature with great wisdom” when in most medieval texts they’re closer to just “big dangerous reptile”: I’m pretty sure it’s like 90% because of Fafnir, a dragon in northern European tradition who is Like That.
I think most people would agree that the modern let’s-go-ahead-and-say-Western fantasy tradition has a lot of Tolkien in its DNA. Which means most of the dragons you see are very much conceptual descendants of Smaug. Smaug, in turn, is basically a mashup of Fafnir and the dragon from Beowulf, as a result of Tolkien’s personal & professional interests. If Tolkien’s academic specialty hadn’t been Old English (and therefore the related area of Old Norse), today’s fantasy dragons would be completely different, or might not even have become the genre staple they did.
Because neither Fafnir nor the dragon from Beowulf are that representative of the general medieval European conception of dragons — they’re from a pretty specific tradition that wasn’t all that widespread. The idea that dragons have hoards is specific to that tradition, for example. (What got lost in translation from said tradition to modern fantasy is that this is not because dragons are a species that inherently likes hoarding gold — rather, the act of immorally hoarding gold brings down a curse that turns you into a dragon.)
Fafnir can not only speak, he’s very intelligent and has access to prophetic wisdom — but that’s kind of just him; dragons from other traditions don’t really do that. (As alluded to above, Fafnir can do that because he used to be human before he was cursed for his greed.) The dragon from Beowulf breathes fire; I honestly can’t think of another example of that in a medieval text, but because that dragon breathes fire, Smaug breathes fire, and now it’s the default.
So yeah, when you’re doing your worldbuilding, consider the extremely specific origin of our current conception of dragons. Think of in-universe reasons & explanations for why your dragons are or are not like that.
THANK YOU for this addition.
Tolkien was a genius on his research of folklore and literature (in the very specific areas he chose to research), and it was implemented on his fiction. Tolkienesque fantasy usually takes those elements for granted when in fact they were based on Tolkien’s research on much older myths and motifs that are very complex. I think it’s more rewarding to do what he did instead of just taking what he created.
I’m not exactly sure on the history of fire-breathing dragons, but I know fire-breathing or such “sulfur breath” (IIRC, there are stories of dragons with noxious toxic breath) was common in mythological monsters. And in the particular case of Beowulf, it was probably based on the biblical Leviathan which is very explicitly said to have a fiery breath. Which in turn might be based in older Semitic or Mesopotamian mythology.
Yeah, I haven’t done a deep dive into fire-breathing dragons, but I think the elements you mention there are very likely at play. If I had to formulate a hypothesis, I’d guess that it went like this:
1. Dragons in medieval texts do often (but not always) have dangerous breath. However, it’s not magic necessarily — the version I’ve seen most often is that they’re just so ridiculously venomous they can poison you at range.
2. Beowulf, like many medieval texts, draws heavily on Biblical material, which includes the idea of a monster with fiery sulphurous breath.
∴ The combination of these two ideas produces the innovation of a fire-breathing dragon.
Fafnir is only one reason for the wise, intelligent dragons of modern fantasy. Dominic Cheetham argues that aside from the re-discovery of Old-English/Old-Norse dragons (especially Fafnir and Beowulf), other influences on a great change in dragon depictions in English-language literature in the late 19th century were the growing interest in East-Asian mythology (where the dragon-like lóng have always been depcited as wise, intelligent and powerful) and in folklore, which led to the written publication of folktales, some of which contained motives that did not appear in the St. George derived dragonslayer stories that where the standard in English literature for 600 years. Also, children’s stories began to bring forth parodies of the St. George plot in order to make them more accessible to children, which also lead to the appearance of dragons that were morally complex or good.
Source: Dominic Cheetham (2013), Dragons in English: The Great Change of the Late Nineteenth Century, Children’s Literature in Education, Vol. 45, pp. 17-32, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10583-013-9201-z
I’d also argue that the discovery of dinosaurs and other extinct animals had a huge influence in the way dragons are depicted in modern fantasy, but this probably didn’t make dragons more intelligent so it’s not relevant here.
This shift in dragon depictions mostly applies to English language texts, but as American pop culture became a huge influence on pretty much everywhere in the world in the 20th century, I guess that’s how it reached the rest of the world. I’m pretty sure it appeared in German literature only after the world wars, but I’m not sure. The Nibelungensage was popular in German literature at least from the 19th century, but I don’t know a lot about German literature and pop culture before the wars. Maybe @adarkrainbow knows a bit about French literature here.
Also, since Tolkien grew up during this shift, I think he can’t be credited with inventing the wise, intelligent modern dragon, but I’m pretty sure he was the one who changed it from a fun children’s book character into a sinister fantasy antagonist.
About the fire-breathing, the source of that seems to be the association of venom and fire in ancient texts and later the association of dragons and the devil. The oldest fire-breathing dragon appears in the Acts of Philipp in the fourth century [1], but as @maniculum said, it definitely wasn’t the standard in the middle ages. I know that most “lindwurms” in German folklore are more associated with poison, while it’s the fae-like dragons that are described as fiery, and those latter dragons have basically nothing in common with modern fantasy dragons.
[1]: Philip J. Senter, Uta Mattox, Eid. E. Haddad (2016), Snake to Monster: Conrad Gessner’s Schlangenbuch and the Evolution of the Dragon in the Literature of Natural History, Journal of Folklore Research, Vol. 53, No. 1-4
The association with treasure and fire-breathing goes back further, I would say, to ancient Greece.
Traditionally dragons have been the guardians of – if not hoards – great treasures. The dragon (drakōn) that protected the Golden Fleece, Ladon in the garden of the Hesperides, and so on.
While Typhon is described as breathing fire, the original firebreather is the Chimera, who has a dragon’s head for a tail. And dragons were described as have eyes that flashed fire.
I definitely agree about the treasure, pretty sure that’s where the norse got the idea, though the symbolism was pretty different there.
But I’m not sure if fire was specifically a snake/dragon thing in Ancient Greece. Typhon and the Chimaera were hybrids eith serpentine elements, but so was cerberos or the hydra. I’d argue that snake-parts and fire breath were just two elements a monster could have, but they don’t necessarily belong together.
I would need to reread Drakon by Daniel Ogden (something I don’t have time to currently do) but he talks a bit about the fire and snake stuff in it; Drakontes and serpents weren’t always depicted as breathing fire, but being fiery/burning was a common association with them, especially with their eyes and venom, so my guess would be that serpents had an association with fire, that manifested in a few ways, including breathing fire, and Typhon and the Chimaera had fiery aspects because they had serpentine aspects.
More specifically he talks about how Drakon myths tend to have fire as a key motif, whether it’s breathing fire, burning venom, venom that makes you burst into flames, or fire as a key weapon against the serpent. There is a diverse but common motif of serpents being in some way associated with fire of which fire breathing seems to be one variant.