Do you know how rare it is to find new information about dragons? Well you're in luck. We're delving deeper into the very essence of these legendary creatures.
If you research dragons you will find two schools of thought, both bent on de-mystifying dragons. The first is the naturalist school who explains dragons as made up stories by people who found dinosaur bones. These are the same people who de-mystify unicorns by pointing at a rhinoceros.
The second school are the fantasists who explain dragons as purely mystical creatures where they can be described with any powers or crazy whims as long as you accept they aren't real.
But if you stop at either school you’ll miss out on surprising evidence.
All you have to do is keep digging, and you will find strange accounts like this from On the Nature of Animals – a text containing brief stories of natural history, written by the Roman author Claudius Aelianus.
According to the text, the great “serpent” which Alexander the Great encountered “lived in a cavern and was regarded as sacred by the Indians”. Since they “paid it great and superstitious reverence”, they begged the conquering king not to attack the creature. Alexander “assented to their wish”.
It was when the army passed by the cavern that Alexander and his men supposedly caught sight of the great creature. Having “caused a noise” whilst passing by, the serpent – whose hearing was said to be the “sharpest […] of all animals” became immediately aware of the men outside its lair. It is said that the beast put its head out of the cavern and “hissed and snorted so violently that all were terrified and confounded”. The visible part of the serpent alone “was reported to measure 70 cubits”, the rough equivalent of 32 metres or 105 feet in length. The rest of its immense body remained within the cavern.
So what is so strange and surprising about this historical account? It presents a living dragon as a matter of fact. Great and what does this mean? How does it reveal the essence of dragons? It’s in line with and supports folk-lore. Notice the aura of fear it gave off. In folk lore, in ghost stories, in paranormal encounters, there is this recurring theme of wielding emotions against the beholder. Enforcing specific emotional states on the witness. It's called glamor in fairy stories, or implanted thoughts in alien encounters, or pure terror overpowering all willful defense in ghost tales. Think of the powers of the Slake in urban legend or the popular sleep paralysis demon. So that aura of fear ability dragons have in games, is actually based on something.
Let’s look at some other powers dragons are described with in folk lore across the globe to better understand what dragons are.
Across cultures, dragons are synonymous with aerial phenomena. They're linked to meteors the world over. Their ability to control the weather is well documented in Asian folklore, and comes up in Hungarian legends of the Sarkany.
They have been associated with plagues, and afflict those they fly over with disease in Italian legend.
The belief that reptiles live in the boundaries between the world of humans and the world of demons is a common theme in mythology and folklore.
Reptilian affinity and proximity to water may be a factor as water was seen as a boundary to other worlds. Combating dragons is often portrayed as spiritual warfare.
But one quality in particular that calls out dragons as paranormal creatures is the ability to shapeshift. Even though we have accounts of dragons as physical creatures that affect the physical world around them.
The Wawel Dragon of Krakow [Poland] was presented with young girls once a month to prevent it from rampaging and consuming many others. In the Solomon Islands lived a dragon that could kill with its eyes, recently covered in the Dragon Riddle article. We’re not talking about 100 degree Celsius beetle squirts or flight mechanics, just a physical creature that has supernatural powers, perhaps it’s transdimensional akin to demons, fairies or extraterrestrials. Because only these types of entities can shapeshift and not in the way of a cuttle fish or a rain frog.
Dragons are creatures that can go from flying snake into human forms at will. Sometimes described as wearing their skin inside out in folklore throughout Eastern Europe. But the ability for dragons to shapeshift isn’t just a product of Eastern Europe. There is the French tale of Griselda and the Dragon Troubadour. And in versions of the Chinese legend of the Yellow Emperor.
So, as we stand at the intersection of folklore and the inexplicable, one thing is clear—dragons aren’t just mythical creatures. They're a gateway to a world where the paranormal and the tangible intersect, challenging our understanding of reality itself.
-You can also sit back and listen to the audio version