Siegfried's German Dragon
(Siegfried, the son of the king in Xanten, has left home to go adventuring and is learning the smith's craft. In making his own sword, he has destroyed hammers and even the anvil, and the smith is trying to get rid of him.)
Suddenly, the smith had a thought: not far from the smithy, in a wooded valley, under a linden tree, lived a horrible dragon: a monstrous beast who snorted fire from his tremendous maw and whose frightful talons no one had escaped alive. Just a look from his spiteful eyes paralyzed the most courageous men, and once those evil rows of pointy teeth opened, the unlucky victim had no time left for even one last prayer.
This was the solution! With a crafty smile, the smith turned to Siegfried and pointed at an empty sack: "We're out of coal. If you please, go to the charcoal-burner and get us a sackful!" And he described which way he should take in great detail -- but it was really the way that led into the dragon valley.
Siegfried threw the sack over his shoulder and walked cheerfully along the grassy trail beneath the leafy canopy high above, until he came to the ill-famed valley. A spring was gushing out of a rocky slope at the foot of an ancient linden tree, and Siegfried bent down to drink a cool draught. Suddenly he could hear a hissing kind of roar, and felt something like a fiery glow wafting over him. The dragon had rushed forth from its cave amidst the rifts, and its scaly body was slithering towards the spring. Its red tongue kept flickering out between the terrible jaws, and venomous breath from its nostrils blew far ahead.
Unafraid, Siegfried sprang up with his sword and attacked the monster. But may his blows fall never so close one upon the other, they could not cut through the horn-like dragon armor, which was harder than steel. Even though the sword struck sparks, even though the beast snorted and bellowed in pain and rage, none of the blows was mortal. When Siegfried felt the scorching fire-breath singing him, when the monstrous jaws were snapping within his life, he threw his sword aside, ripped a tree up by the roots and brought it down upon the dragon, whose tail immediately tangled in the branches. Furious, the dragon sought to free itself, but Siegfried threw tree after tree onto the scaly armor until it was entirely hidden by twigs, leaves and branches. The breath coming from the beast's throat was so hot that the trees caught fire, and the flames soon roared as in a blazing forge. In vain the dragon tried to shake off its burning burden, in vain it writhed and reared up in its agony: Siegfried thrust his sword into its body from below, where it was not protected by its horn-like armor, and pushed the deadly weapon home into its heart.
From the Song of the Nibelungs, oral tradition from the 5th century, first set down in written form about 1200.
Grendel, a Viking Dragon
(Beowulf has hung Grendel's arm and claw in the great-hall as a trophy.)
Every nail,
claw-scale and spur, every spike
and welt on the hand of that heathen brute
was like barbed steel. Everybody said
there was no honed iron hard enough
to pierce him through, no time-proofed blade
that could cut his brutal, blood-caked claw.
From the Old English epic Beowulf, composed between the 8th and 10th century, in the marvelous, very readable translation by Seamus Heaney.
The Babylonian Dragon Goddess Tiamat
In Babylonian mythology, written in the twelfth century BCE, the dragon goddess Tiamat, personifying the saltwater ocean, and Apsu, god of sweet water, existed before the world was created, when there was only chaos. Tiamat and Apsu were the parents of all that lives, including the gods themselves.
The young gods were so noisy that Apsu couldn't sleep at night. He complained to Tiamat, but Tiamat refused to do anything about it. Apsu was furious and plotted to kill the gods with his adviser Mummu, but the young gods discovered their plan, managed to cast a sleep spell on Apsu and Mummu, and killed them in their sleep. Tiamat flew into a rage when she learned of Apsu's death and swore to avenge her husband. She transformed herself into the underworld river and created an army of monstrous creatures: giant snakes with venom for blood, dragons, a scorpion-man, a fish-man, and others. The younger gods could not defeat all these monsters and Tiamat, and they called upon the hero Marduk to be their champion. After fierce fighting, Marduk challenged Tiamat to single combat, and even though she hurled spells at him, he defeated her by attacking her with magical storms, ensnaring her in a net, stabbing her into the heart, and crushing her skull.
Out of the parts of Tiamat's enormous body, Marduk then created the world as we know it. Her upper half he made into sky, her lower part into the earth, and her tears became the source of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates.
The Dragon in Oriental Mythology
In the mythology of many oriental countries, notably Japan and China, dragons are benevolent, if powerful, creatures protecting the emperor, bringing rain, and representing spiritual values like wisdom and strength. The dragon in traditional Chinese New Year's Day parades is believed to repel evil spirits that would bring bad luck in the new year. The Chinese imperial dragon had five claws, while all regular dragons had only four, and the emblem of the five-clawed dragon was prohibited from use by commoners. The Japanese dragon has three claws.
In Hindu myths dating back to about 1300 BC, Vitra, the dragon of the waters, drinks up all the water in the world. While he is resting, coiled around a mountain, the hero Indra, with help from the gods Agni and Soma, kills Vitra with tunder and lightning and releases the waters back upon the earth. For this deed, Indra became King of the Heavens.
