Yorkshire Philosophical Society

Event Information

Dragons: Myth or Reality?

Peter Hogarth, Department of Biology, University of York

Why believe in dragons?  Everyone knows what a dragon is – a ferocious, flying, fire-breathing monster.  Dragons do not exist – but that has never stopped people believing in them.  From the earliest times, people have believed in dragons, have told stories about them, have written about them, have drawn, painted, or carved them: Why believe in something that doesn’t exist?  How did the idea of a dragon arise, how did it evolve, and why do we no longer believe in dragons – why did they become extinct?

Report

Dragons don’t exist, they never did. But the evidence for them convinced the world over millennia, from Nordic countries to the Middle East, from Africa to the Orient, and was often provided by “impeccable” sources, even into the 20th century in China. Dragon species evidently varied enormously – some were winged and horned, and in southern regions breathed fire; others were wingless and in northern climes lived in water. They featured widely in Chinese culture where they controlled the weather. In Norse myth, they were creatures of portent, associated with death and gloom (and treasure). They had curious appetites, and were chiefly slain by a god, saint, or knight. They were of course purely symbolic, and when medieval symbolism began to be challenged by Enlightenment science, they ceased to need to exist and gradually became extinct – except in cultural memory.

Carole Smith