European vs Asian Dragons

The dragons of Europe and the dragons of Asia are recognisably the same kind of creature, and yet they look and behave so differently that many people are surprised to learn they are usually classed together. The European dragon of Beowulf and St George is a winged, fire-breathing, treasure-hoarding reptilian beast to be slain by a hero; the Asian dragon of the imperial throne and the Dragon Boat Festival is a long, wingless, wise, weather-controlling serpent of rivers and clouds, and is the friend of humans.

The following pages collect the wider setting of the dragon: the Feathered Serpent of Mesoamerica, the dragon family as a whole, and the Welsh dragon of Llywelyn as a single case study in the political life of the European dragon.

The European dragon

The European dragon is, in its classic medieval form, a quadruped, often winged, capable of breathing fire, and a guardian of treasure in a cave. The English Beowulf (composed c. 700–1000 AD) kills a dragon in his final fight, dying of the wound; the Norse Völsunga saga tells of Sigurd the Volsung slaying the dragon Fáfnir; the Greek Apollo shoots the Python at Delphi and takes the oracle; the Christian St George of the Golden Legend (c. 1260) rescues a princess of Libya from a dragon by making the sign of the cross; St Michael in the Book of Revelation defeats a dragon identified as the devil; St Margaret of Antioch tames a dragon with her girdle. The European dragon is the opponent of the hero, the saint, and the church.

The Aberdeen Bestiary (c. 1200) says the dragon is “the largest of all serpents, or of all living things on the earth.” The Physiologus (c. 200 AD) calls the dragon the devil, and the medieval iconography adopts the equation. The European dragon is therefore not just a zoological figure, but a moral figure: it is the enemy of the saved. The European dragon is also a political figure. The Pendragon, the Welsh dragon Y Ddraig Goch in particular, is the emblem of the prince of Wales, of Welsh sovereignty, of the British crown, and of the British army. The dragon on the flag of the old City of London is a boundary-marker. The European dragon has been, for two thousand years, one of the principal emblems of a sovereign, of a country, and of a city.

The Asian dragon

The Asian dragon is, in its classic form, a long, sinuous, four-legged, scaled, antlered, pearl-chasing, weather-controlling being. The Chinese Lung (or Long) is the most elaborate of the Asian dragons. He lives in the rivers, the lakes, the clouds, and the seas. He rises from the water at the spring equinox to bring the rains, and descends at the autumn equinox. He is the emblem of the emperor, the master of the rivers, the controller of the rain, and the bringer of the harvest. The Dragon King Lung Wang presides over the four seas. The Dragon Boat Festival of the fifth lunar month is held in his honour, and the boats of the modern dragon-boat-racing tradition are the descendants of the racing boats that honoured him.

The Asian dragon is wingless. He flies by the power of his magic, and he is supported by the clouds. He is wise. He is beneficent, on the whole, to humans, and is not a creature to be slain. The Japanese Ryū is the same family. The Korean Yong, the Vietnamese Rồng, the Tibetan Druk, the Bhutanese Druk, and the Mongolian Yilbegān are all members of the same family.

The Indian Nāga is a related but distinct tradition. The Nāga is a great snake, sometimes with one head, sometimes with many, sometimes with a human face, sometimes crowned. The Nāga king Shesha (also called Ananta, the infinite) supports the world on his thousand hoods, and the Hindu god Vishnu reclines on Shesha between cycles of creation. The Buddhist Nāga Mucalinda shelters the meditating Buddha from a storm with his coils. The Nāga is the king of the snakes, the guardian of treasure, the holder of occult knowledge, and the patron of the water. The Nāga is also a being of the village: in Kerala, a five-hooded stone serpent is still installed in a family shrine, fed milk and rice, and consulted at weddings and births.

Comparing the two families

The two dragon families are easily compared point by point. The European dragon is a quadruped; the Asian dragon is a long, sinuous being. The European dragon is winged; the Asian dragon is wingless. The European dragon breathes fire; the Asian dragon controls the rain, the wind, the clouds, and the lightning. The European dragon guards a treasure in a cave; the Asian dragon lives in a palace under the water, in a cloud, or in a mountain, and is not specifically a hoarder. The European dragon is the enemy of the hero; the Asian dragon is the friend of the hero, or the bringer of the rain. The European dragon is slain; the Asian dragon is worshipped, or, in a few cases, tamed. The European dragon is, in the Christian moral reading, a figure of the devil; the Asian dragon is, in the Chinese and Japanese imperial reading, a figure of the emperor. The European dragon is a creature to be feared; the Asian dragon is a creature to be honoured.

The two dragons are also, in some respects, the same. They are both enormous, reptilian, long-lived, capable of speech in some traditions, figures of power, and figures of the older world — the world before humans, the world that the new city or the new kingdom has had to overcome in order to be founded.

The cultural function

The cultural function of the European dragon is to be the enemy that the hero must overcome in order to found a kingdom. The dragon guards the gold of the Nibelungen, and Sigurd must take it. The dragon guards the cave of Hades, and Heracles must enter. The dragon guards the city of the Libyan princess, and St George must save it. The dragon is the older order, and the hero is the new order that must displace it.

The cultural function of the Asian dragon is the opposite. The Asian dragon is the friend that the village must propitiate in order to have rain, to have a harvest, to have a child, to have a fortune. The Asian dragon is the older order that the new village must accommodate, not the older order that the new village must displace. The two cultural functions are two answers to the same question: what is the older power? The European answer is that the older power is the enemy, and the Asian answer is that the older power is the ally of the rice field and the cloud.

The modern blending

The two dragon families have been quietly blended in the modern fantasy genre. The Dungeons & Dragons bestiary, first published in 1974, maintains a chromatic table of European-style dragons — black, blue, green, white, red, gold, silver, bronze — but also recognises the Eastern-style Lung, the Pan Lung (coiled dragon), the Shen, and the T’ien Lung (celestial dragon). The dragons of the D&D bestiary are recognisably European in their wings, their fire, and their treasure, but they are also, in their roles, recognisably Asian: they speak, they bargain, they are old and wise. The dragons of the D&D bestiary are recognisably European in their wings, their fire, and their treasure, but they are also, in their roles, recognisably Asian. The dragons of A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin (1996–) are European-style dragons, but they are also ancient and intelligent, and bound by a relationship of bond and rider that is closer to the Asian idea of a dragon-ally. Daenerys Targaryen’s dragons are recognisable as the European dragon of Beowulf, but the political life of the dragons of Game of Thrones is closer to the Asian dragon. The dragons of How to Train Your Dragon (2010–2019) are European-style dragons, but the moral of the films is Asian in spirit: the dragons are misunderstood friends, and the hero’s task is not to kill the dragon, but to understand it. The dragon, in the modern fantasy, is the older order that the new order must learn to live with, or to overcome, or to befriend. The two traditions have, in the modern fantasy, finally met.

Sources and Further Reading

Dumézil, Georges. Archaic Roman Religion. University of Chicago Press, 1970.
Pontus. The Dragon in the Anglo-Saxon World (in Studies in Philology, 2013).
Smith, Richard J. Chinese Mythology: An Introduction. Lippincott, 1964.
La Farge, Oliver. La Farge’s Indians: The Ten Original Watercolors. Houghton Mifflin, 1972.