The Penguin Book of Dragons

by The Penguin Book of Dragons (retail) (epub)

  It is a known fact that those places in which dragons are generally observed are also the haunt of eagles, vultures, and other birds of prey. Large vultures are known to nest in remote cliffs and escarpments in the Alps, so there is no need to describe their habits in detail here . . . The Isle of Rhodes abounds in formidable eagles. These birds customarily make off with all kinds of prey, such as snakes, birds, rabbits, and lambs. They even seize children and take them to their mountain fastnesses to serve as food. Many have borne witness to the fact that in the eagles’ nests the prey are gradually accumulated into a heap from the continual hunting by which the eagles ensure that their food supply remains inexhaustible. The heap inevitably becomes a mass of decaying matter suitable for generating other forms of life. Inasmuch as some portion of the sperm stays in the corpse after death, it so happens that an animal can come into being in the deposited mass of fermenting matter. This occurs as a result of the confluence of various kinds of sperm. From the sperm that remains in the corpse of a quadruped, a worm is generated that resembles a quadruped. If the quadruped is a rabbit, the worm acquires elongated ears from the co-radiating force of the rabbit sperm. When the sperm of a flying animal is also present in a mass of decaying matter, it joins with the other sperm to produce a worm which, if it is not altogether winged, has at least membranes made of cartilage suitable for wings. In this way also, if snake corpses are present, their sperm imparts the head, tail, and neck of a snake to the nascent worm. The resulting serpent-hybrid embryo, once it has been formed from the variety of spermatozoa, increases in mass over time until it grows into a dragon of considerable size. If many dragons of both sexes come into being through generation in a mass of decaying matter, they are also able to reproduce sexually, as are insects which come into being in this way. And should the fecundity of such a noxious animal result in too much damage to the environment, Nature provides an excellent law by which only one dragon at a time can be generated by the mixture of spermatozoa in an underground cavern.

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  Another question is why dragons seem to breathe fire. The answer is that because of a certain viscous matter, they have an inborn glowing light, such as some fish, rotting wood and glow-worms have, which shines forth most brightly in darkness. And so when people see dragons glittering with light, they think that they have fiery bodies. You might ask how they acquire their extremely tough armor of scales. This is because of the same arrangement of matter by which shelled animals are covered, as well as by the moisture of a viscous and adhesive mucous that covers their outer surface all the way around and gradually degenerates into a durable, horn-like substance.

  THE LAST AMERICAN DRAGONS

  In the premodern world, dragons were a global phenomenon. Attested in every environment from the frigid north to the sweltering south, these monsters inspired epic stories of heroism and strange tales of peril throughout Europe, Scandinavia, and North Africa, and across the vast expanses of Asia. They were, however, a late arrival in the Americas. To be sure, the ancient cultures of Mesoamerica worshipped a supernatural feathered serpent known to the Aztecs as Quetzalcoatl, who combined the physical characteristics of a bird and a rattlesnake. Central to the pantheon of Mesoamerican religions, Quetzalcoatl was the god of rain and winds who created the world and humankind, but this deity bore only a superficial resemblance to the dragons of the ancient cultures of Europe and Asia. Even so, for a small window of time at the dawn of modernity, the Americas boasted their very own dragons. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, people living and working in remote corners of the western United States reported harrowing encounters with these large winged reptiles. Local newspapers printed breathless accounts of these episodes for a few short decades before the encroachment of human settlements and the development of modern technologies drove the American dragon into the realm of myth and fantasy.

  (A) A MONSTER OF THE AIR1

  Thomas Campbell and Joseph Howard, two wood-choppers working in the timber five miles northeast of Hurleton, California, inform us by letter of a singular creature they saw flying through the air last Friday afternoon. They write: “About four o’clock Friday afternoon last, while at work, we were startled by the sound of many wings flapping in the air. Looking up, we perceived passing over our heads, not more than forty feet above the tree-tops, a creature that looked something like a crocodile. It was, to the best of our judgment, not less than eighteen feet in length, and would measure two feet across the body, from the head to the tail a distance of probably twelve feet. The tail was about twelve feet long and tapered from the body to a point probably eight inches wide. The head was in the neighborhood of two feet in length and the jaws (for its mouth was open) could not have been less than sixteen inches long. On each side of the body, between the head and the tail, were six wings, each projecting between eighteen inches and two feet from the body. As near as we could see, these wings were about fifteen inches broad, and appeared to be formed similar to a duck’s foot. On the under side of the body we counted twelve feet, six on a side.” Mr. Howard fired one barrel of a shotgun at the monster, and writes: “It uttered a cry similar to that of a calf and bear combined, but gave no sign of being inconvenienced or injured. In fact, when the shot struck, we heard the bullets rattle as though striking against a thin piece of sheet iron. The object was also seen by a number of Chinamen working near us, who were badly frightened and fled to their cabins.” This is the first time we have ever heard of such a creature as this; but our informants are reliable men, hence we cannot doubt their statements.—Gridley (Cal.) Herald.

  (B) AN ENCOUNTER IN THE DESERT2

  A Strange Winged Monster Discovered and Killed on the Huachuca Desert

  A winged monster, resembling a huge alligator with an extremely elongated tail and an immense pair of wings, was found in the desert between the Whetstone and Huachuca mountains last Sunday by two ranchers who were returning home from the Huachucas. The creature was evidently greatly exhausted by a long flight and when discovered was able to fly but a short distance at a time. After the first shock of wild amazement had passed, the two men, who were on horseback and armed with Winchester rifles, regained sufficient courage to pursue the monster and after an exciting chase of several miles succeeded in getting near enough to open fire with their rifles and wounding it. The creature then turned on the men, but owing to its exhausted condition they were able to keep out of its way and after a few well directed shots the monster partly rolled over and remained motionless. The men cautiously approached, their horses snorting with terror, and found that the creature was dead. They then proceeded to make an examination and found that it measured about ninety-two feet in length and the greatest diameter was about fifty inches. The monster had only two feet, these being situated a short distance in front of where the wings were joined to the body. The head, as near as they could judge, was eight feet long, the jaws being thickly set with strong, sharp teeth. Its eyes were as large as a dinner plate and protruded about half way from the head. They had some difficulty in measuring the wings as they were partly folded under the body, but finally got one straightened out sufficiently to get a measurement of seventy-eight feet, making the total length from tip to tip about 160 feet. The wings were composed of a thick and nearly transparent membrane and were devoid of feathers or hair, as was the entire body. The skin of the body was comparatively smooth and easily penetrated by a bullet. The men cut off a small portion of the tip of one wing and took it home with them. Late last night one of them arrived in this city for supplies and to make the necessary preparations to skin the creature, when the hide will be sent east for examination by the eminent scientists of the day. The finder returned early this morning accompanied by several prominent men who will endeavor to bring the strange creature to this city before it is mutilated.

  TERROR TAMED

  Domesticated Drakes in Children’s Literature

  The nineteenth century witnessed a revival of
interest in the European Middle Ages and with it a renewed enthusiasm for dragons. This appeal found expression in children’s stories about saints and heroes that depicted dragons with time-honored attributes like great wings, lashing tails, and fiery breath. At the turn of the twentieth century, however, two authors of stories for young readers—Kenneth Grahame and Edith Nesbit—subverted the traditional depiction of medieval dragons by presenting them as misunderstood creatures unhappy with their lot as villains and eager to befriend human beings. By providing a model for the representation of dragons as allies rather than enemies, their short stories paved the way for many classic works featuring a productive partnership and mutual understanding between humans and dragons in modern fantasy literature, including Ruth Stiles Gannett’s My Father’s Dragon (1948), Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern novels (1967–present), the twelve books of Cressida Cowell’s How to Train Your Dragon series (2003–15), and Christopher Paolini’s The Inheritance Cycle (2003–11), among many others. Pete Yarrow’s popular song “Puff the Magic Dragon” (1963), about a young boy who leaves behind a friendly dragon when he loses his innocence, is another expression of this motif. Even the deployment of dragons as weapons of warfare in George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series (1996–present) owes no small debt to the gentle giants of these path-breaking stories.

  A LIZARDY SORT OF BEAST1

  In 1898, a decade before he achieved fame for his book The Wind in the Willows, British author Kenneth Grahame (1859–1932) overturned a centuries-old tradition about the depiction of dragons in western literature in a short story for children called “The Reluctant Dragon.” In this charming tale, two children in pursuit of an imaginary monster hear a story about a young boy in the distant past who encountered a dragon near his home on the Berkshire Downs in Oxfordshire. Despite its intimidating appearance, this creature did not behave like an ordinary dragon, for it had no interest in hoarding treasure or terrorizing the local communities. Instead, this contemplative creature was “a happy Bohemian [who] lolled on the turf, enjoyed the sunsets [and] told antediluvian anecdotes.” Even so, as the boy warned, although it had done no harm, the local townsfolk judged the dragon by his appearance and summoned St. George to vanquish it. The dragon and his boy soon convinced the saint that the monster posed no threat. After defeating his scaly opponent in staged combat, St. George declared that it intended no harm to anyone and the dragon lived ever afterward in peace with its human neighbors.

  Footprints in the snow have been unfailing provokers of sentiment ever since snow was first a white wonder in this drab-coloured world of ours. In a poetry-book presented to one of us by an aunt, there was a poem by one Wordsworth in which they stood out strongly with a picture all to themselves, too—but we didn’t think very highly either of the poem or the sentiment. Footprints in the sand, now, were quite another matter, and we grasped Crusoe’s attitude of mind much more easily than Wordsworth’s. Excitement and mystery, curiosity and suspense—these were the only sentiments that tracks, whether in sand or in snow, were able to arouse in us.

  We had awakened early that winter morning, puzzled at first by the added light that filled the room. Then, when the truth at last fully dawned on us and we knew that snow-balling was no longer a wistful dream, but a solid certainty waiting for us outside, it was a mere brute fight for the necessary clothes, and the lacing of boots seemed a clumsy invention, and the buttoning of coats an unduly tedious form of fastening, with all that snow going to waste at our very door.

  When dinner-time came we had to be dragged in by the scruff of our necks. The short armistice over, the combat was resumed; but presently Charlotte and I, a little weary of contests and of missiles that ran shudderingly down inside one’s clothes, forsook the trampled battle-field of the lawn and went exploring the blank virgin spaces of the white world that lay beyond. It stretched away unbroken on every side of us, this mysterious soft garment under which our familiar world had so suddenly hidden itself. Faint imprints showed where a casual bird had alighted, but of other traffic there was next to no sign; which made these strange tracks all the more puzzling.

  We came across them first at the corner of the shrubbery, and pored over them long, our hands on our knees. Experienced trappers that we knew ourselves to be, it was annoying to be brought up suddenly by a beast we could not at once identify.

  “Don’t you know?” said Charlotte, rather scornfully. “Thought you knew all the beasts that ever was.”

  This put me on my mettle, and I hastily rattled off a string of animal names embracing both the arctic and the tropic zones, but without much real confidence.

  “No,” said Charlotte, on consideration; “they won’t any of ’em quite do. Seems like something lizardy. Did you say an iguanodon? Might be that, p’raps. But that’s not British, and we want a real British beast. I think it’s a dragon!”

  “ ’T isn’t half big enough,” I objected.

  “Well, all dragons must be small to begin with,” said Charlotte, “like everything else. P’raps this is a little dragon wh’s got lost. A little dragon would be rather nice to have. He might scratch and spit, but he couldn’t do anything really. Let’s track him down!”

  So we set off into the wide snow-clad world, hand in hand, our hearts big with expectation—complacently confident that by a few smudgy traces in the snow we were in a fair way to capture a half-grown specimen of a fabulous beast.

  We ran the monster across the paddock and along the hedge of the next field, and then he took to the road like any tame civilized tax-payer. Here his tracks became blended with and lost among more ordinary footprints, but imagination and a fixed idea will do a great deal, and we were sure we knew the direction a dragon would naturally take. The traces, too, kept reappearing at intervals—at least Charlotte maintained they did, and as it was her dragon I left the following of the slot to her and trotted along peacefully, feeling that it was an expedition anyhow and something was sure to come out of it.

  Charlotte took me across another field or two, and through a copse, and into a fresh road; and I began to feel sure it was only her confounded pride that made her go on pretending to see dragon-tracks instead of owning she was entirely at fault, like a reasonable person. At last she dragged me excitedly through a gap in a hedge of an obviously private character; the waste, open world of field and hedge row disappeared, and we found ourselves in a garden, well-kept, secluded, most undragon-haunted in appearance. Once inside, I knew where we were.

  This was the garden of my friend the circus-man, though I had never approached it before by a lawless gap, from this unfamiliar side. And here was the circus-man himself, placidly smoking a pipe as he strolled up and down the walks. I stepped up to him and asked him politely if he had lately seen a Beast.

  “May I inquire,” he said, with all civility, “what particular sort of a Beast you may happen to be looking for?”

  “It’s a lizardy sort of Beast,” I explained. “Charlotte says it’s a dragon, but she doesn’t really know much about beasts.”

  The circus-man looked round about him slowly. “I don’t think,” he said, “that I’ve seen a dragon in these parts recently. But if I come across one I’ll know it belongs to you, and I’ll have him taken round to you at once.”

  “Thank you very much,” said Charlotte, “but don’t trouble about it, please, ’cos p’raps it isn’t a dragon after all. Only I thought I saw his little footprints in the snow, and we followed ’em up, and they seemed to lead right in here, but maybe it’s all a mistake, and thank you all the same.”

  “Oh, no trouble at all,” said the circus-man, cheerfully. “I should be only too pleased. But of course, as you say, it may be a mistake. And it’s getting dark, and he seems to have got away for the present, whatever he is. You’d better come in and have some tea. I’m quite alone, and we’ll make a roaring fire, and I’ve got the biggest Book of Beasts you ever saw. It’s got every beast in t
he world, and all of ’em coloured; and we’ll try and find your beast in it!”

  We were always ready for tea at any time, and especially when combined with beasts. There was marmalade, too, and apricot-jam, brought in expressly for us; and afterwards the beast-book was spread out, and, as the man had truly said, it contained every sort of beast that had ever been in the world.

  The striking of six o’clock set the more prudent Charlotte nudging me, and we recalled ourselves with an effort from Beastland, and reluctantly stood up to go.

  “Here, I’m coming along with you,” said the circus-man. “I want another pipe, and a walk’ll do me good. You needn’t talk to me unless you like.”

  Our spirits rose to their wonted level again. The way had seemed so long, the outside world so dark and eerie, after the bright warm room and the highly-coloured beast-book. But a walk with a real Man—why, that was a treat in itself! We set off briskly, the Man in the middle. I looked up at him and wondered whether I should ever live to smoke a big pipe with that careless sort of majesty! But Charlotte, whose young mind was not set on tobacco as a possible goal, made herself heard from the other side.