A Basic History of Dragons…

It is plain to see that dragons are perhaps the most majestic paragon of the fantasy and fairy tale genre. From the age-old idea of knights rescuing beautiful princesses from fire breathing dragons to the more modern take of humanized dragons like the ones in Tui T. Sutherland’s bestselling Wings of Fire series, dragons are a concept that has intrigued mankind for a long time.

But just how long ago did dragons actually make their first appearance?

I was not surprised when my research brought me to China. Carved jade dragons were excavated at sites of the Hongshan culture and were dated to 4500-3000 BCE! What I did find surprising, however, was that most, if not all, early dragons were not depicted with wings. Rather, they were depicted as more serpent-like physically.

Additionally, most dragons could not be linked to literature until around 2000 BCE. At that time, dragons popped up in myths and stories all over the world in ancient Mesopotamia, Greece, China (of course), Egypt, and other places. 

The history of dragons is so dense that I could go on for many pages and never finish describing all of the literary treatments of such mythical creatures over the past few thousand years.

With this in mind, I strongly encourage you, my readers, to do some of your own research and post any interesting facts you find in the comments section below 🙂

Fairy truly yours,

Grace W. Wong