Dragons
Everybody knows what a Dragon
is: an enormous, fierce, bloodthirsty creature appearing in fairy
tales and legends as an accessory whose main function is to set
off the bravery of a knight challenging him. The dragon is an obscure,
mysterious character, described in broad terms, and is little more
than a foil to enhance the hero's valor. The patron saint of England,
St George only gained his heroic reputation from the slaying of
a rather nasty specimen but are Dragons getting a bad press?
European Dragons
v Asian Dragons 
The Dragon is a legendary beast
in the folklore of many European and Asian cultures. Legends describe
dragons as large, lizardlike creatures that breathe fire and have
a long, scaly tail. In Europe, dragons are traditionally portrayed
as ferocious beasts that represent the evils fought by human beings.
But in Asia, especially in China and Japan, the animals are generally
considered friendly creatures that ensure good luck and wealth.
According to some medieval
legends, dragons lived in wild, remote regions of the world. The
dragons guarded treasures in their dens, and a person who killed
one supposedly gained its wealth. The English epic hero Beowulf
died in a fight with a treasure-guarding dragon.
In China, the traditional New Year's Day parade
includes a group of people who wind through the streets wearing
a large dragon costume. The dragon's image, according to an ancient
Chinese belief, prevents evil spirits from spoiling the new year.
Another traditional Chinese belief is that certain dragons have
the power to control the rainfall needed for each year's harvest.
However, the dragon is something else. He is
an admirable, intelligent and educated creature, who leads a most
interesting life. He has some fascinating characteristics in addition
to those occasional glimpses we are given through fairy tail and
legends.
Dragons, Fact
or Fiction 
In the world of fantastic animals, the dragon
is unique. No other creature has appeared in such a rich variety
of forms. It is as though there was once a whole family of different
dragon species that really existed, before they mysteriously became
extinct. Indeed, as recently as the seventeenth century, scholars
wrote of dragons as though they were scientific fact, their anatomy
and natural history being recorded in painstaking detail.
The naturalist Edward
Topsell, for instance, writing in 1608, considered them to be reptilian
and closely related to serpents: "There are divers sorts of
dragons, distinguished partly by countries, partly by their quantity
and magnitude, and partly by the different form of their external
parts." Personifications of malevolence of beneficence, paganism
or purity, death and devastation, life and fertility, good or evil.
All these varied, contradictory concepts are embodied and embedded
within that single magical word, Dragon.
Dragons from Myth and Magic
These contradictions over
what is a Dragon can be found in the Myth and Magic studies of
Dragons. Many studies depict the dragon as the fiece and ruthless
monster of European legend such as the Dragons Find from the collection
of Medium
Studies
or the fierce fighting dragons from the Land of The Dragons Collections
- New
Beginnings
Although the whimsical and
magical dragon is also not forgotton. The softer dragon image
runs through the ranges and whether it is the majestic and mystical
dragons that inhabit the worlds of Fire,
Ice,
Woodland,
Mountains,
Desert,
Glaciers
or Snow
or the humerous Dragon that adapts to the world as we know it
with an appreciation of music and motorbikes, the Dragon, in all
its guises and all its interpretations, is represented in the
collections.
To view all the Dragons available
from The Tudor Mintplease visit our Myth and Magic Shop
Myth and Magic
To Learn about Dragons in English Folklore please use
the link below
Dragons in English
Folklore
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