A Dragon is a legendary creature belonging to the world of mythology, storytelling and fantasy. There are stories about dragons in Chinese culture, European culture, South American culture, and many others.

Dragons can look like dinosaurs and other extinct animals. Because of that, it is easy to think that those animals might have been an example for dragons as they were thought of in the history of humankind.

There are many kinds of dragons in the different cultures. In general –

• A dragon has: none to four legs, claws, scales and possibly spikes. Optional wings.
• A dragon can look like a snake with wings, or like lizards
• A dragon has a tail and a long neck.
• A dragon has a wide mouth with big and dangerous teeth.
• Sometimes they have horns and hair.
• A dragon can fly.
• A dragon can perhaps breathe fire (or other dangerous substances).
• A dragon can have special powers.
• Some dragons live in caves.

In a number of stories, dragons are dangerous and attack humans. Other stories have dragons that are looking for help, or giving help.  In my Dragomeir Series, the dragons become companions and are lifelong friends to their specific riders.  They can be dangerous to those who attempt to hurt the ones they love or their way of life, but to their riders they are the ultimate friend.  Here are some interesting quotes about dragons:

It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.

      J. R. R. TOLKIEN, The Hobbit

And though I came to forget or regret all I have ever done, yet would I remember that once I saw the dragons aloft on the wind at sunset above the western isles; and I would be content.

     URSULA K. LE GUIN, The Farthest Shore

If the sky could dream, it would dream of dragons.

     LLONA ANDREWS, Fate’s Edge

The ultimate challenge of a teacher lies not in the slaying of dragons, but rather in exposing them as beasts no longer to be feared.

      ALAN BURTON, A Wayward Wizard’s Wistful Words
If you want to conquer the world, you best have dragons.

     GEORGE R. R. MARTIN, A Dance with Dragons

O to be a dragon,

a symbol of the power of Heaven — of silkworm

size or immense; at times invisible.

Felicitous phenomenon!

     MARIANNE MOORE, O To Be a Dragon

How should we be able to forget those ancient myths that are at the beginning of all peoples, the myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into princesses; perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.

     RAINER MARIA RILKE, Letters to a Young Poet

Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for you art crunchy and good with ketchup.

     ANONYMOUS

Come not between the dragon, and his wrath.

     WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, King Lear

If you see the dragon fly,

best you drink the flagon dry.

     GREG HAMERTON, Second Sight

The hunger of a dragon is slow to wake, but hard to sate.

     URSULA K. LE GUIN, A Wizard of Earthsea

Imagine a land where people are afraid of dragons. It is a reasonable fear: dragons possess a number of qualities that make being afraid of them a very commendable response. Things like their terrible size, their ability to spout fire, or to crack boulders into splinters with their massive talons. In fact, the only terrifying quality that dragons do not possess is that of existence.

     DAVID WHITELAND, Book of Pages

A dragon stranded in shallow water provides amusement to the shrimps.

     CHINESE PROVERB

I desired dragons with a profound desire. Of course, I in my timid body did not wish to have them in the neighborhood. But the world that contained even the imagination of Fáfnir was richer and more beautiful, at whatever the cost of peril.

     J. R. R. TOLKIEN, The Tolkien Reader

It is one thing to read about dragons and another to meet them.

     URSULA K. LE GUIN, A Wizard of Earthsea

Did not learned men, too, hold, till within the last twenty-five years, that a flying dragon was an impossible monster? And do we not now know that there are hundreds of them found fossil up and down the world? People call them Pterodactyles: but that is only because they are ashamed to call them flying dragons, after denying so long that flying dragons could exist.

     CHARLES KINGSLEY, The Water Babies

Here be dragons to be slain, here be rich rewards to gain;

If we perish in the seeking, why, how small a thing is death! DOROTHY L. SAYERS, Catholic Tales and Christian Songs

People who deny the existence of dragons are often eaten by dragons. From within.

     URSULA K. LE GUIN, The Wave in the Mind:

Talks & Essays on the Writer, the Reader, & the Imagination

Do you love reading about dragons?  Check out this ongoing series  at my website –

THE DRAGOMEIR SERIES:

“The Emerald Dragon”

“Flight of theAguiva”

“Egg of the Amphitere”

And the forthcoming book –

“Daughter of the Dark Lord”

Part One

“The Burning Sky”

Solitaire