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Volume 11 Article 21
Number 1
Summer 7-15-1984
Dragons for Tolkien and Lewis
Ruth Berman
Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore
Part of the Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons
Recommended Citation
Berman, Ruth (1984) "Dragons for Tolkien and Lewis," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis,
Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 11 : No. 1 , Article 21.
Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol11/iss1/21
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Abstract
Discusses the revival of dragons in fantasy after a long hiatus (perhaps spurred by Victorian studies of
dinosaur fossils), which both influenced and was further refined by Tolkien and Lewis, with a brief look at
dragons in fantasy since their time.
Additional Keywords
Dragons in C.S. Lewis; Dragons in J.R.R. Tolkien; Dragons in literature; Dragons in mythology; Lewis,
C.S.—Characters—Dragons; Tolkien, J.R.R.—Characters—Dragons
This article is available in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic
Literature: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol11/iss1/21Page 53
Dragons for Tolkien and Lewis
Ruth Berman
When J .R .R . Tolkien and C.S. Lew is were boys, Sigurd the Volsung, as well as in a version r etold for
dragons were only just beginning to come back into youngsters in The R ed Fairy Book, e d ited by Andrew
literatu re a fte r a hiatus o f more than two centuries. Lang.
During the eighteenth century, most kinds o f fantasy
w ere d is c o u r a g e d . During the n ineteenth century, Tolkien has d escrib ed his fascin ation with dragons
fantasy becam e a g enre, but the absence o f dragons in h is essay, "On F a ir y -S to rie s ":
among the wealth o f ghosts, w itch es, dev ils, m e r-fo lk ,
fairies, e t c ., is striking. Monsters in general were I desired dragons with a profound d esire. Of
rare, but dragons were much rarer. Nineteenth century course, I in my tim id body did not wish to
f a n ta s is ts in v e n te d o r ig in a l m o n s t e r s - - L e w is have them in the neighbourhood, intruding
C arroll's Jabberw ock and Snark, Lina and the oth er into my r e la tiv e ly sa fe w orld, in which it
patchwork beasts led by Curdie in George M acDonald's was, fo r in stan ce, possible to read stories
The Princess and Curdiel — o r they made use o f less in p eace o f mind, fre e from fe ar. But the
fam iliar mythical beasts — Lewis C arroll's Gryphon, world that contain ed even the im agination o f
Frank R. S tockton 's G riffin ("T h e G riffin and the F a fn ir was r ic h e r and m ore b e a u t if u l, at
Minor C an on "), the Salamander and his snake-daughter w hatever co st o f p e r il.2
in E.T.A H offm an's "The Golden P ot," assorted snake-
women in C olerid g e's "C h ris tab el," K eats' "Lam ia," o r There were a few V ictoria n dragons, most o f them
O liver Wendell Holmes' Elsie V enner, o r the unusually in p oetry . William Morris was fond o f dragons in his
v a r ie d m en a g erie o f a sp h in x , a p h o e n ix , and an p oetry , including several in the v erse-n a rratives that
ou roboros-sn ake/m agn et in N ovalis' K lingsohr's Tale make up The Earthly Paradise: the d ra g on -lik e Chimera
(in Heinrich von O fte r d in g e n ). In A ndrew L a n g 's in "Bellerophon in Lycia," a dragon-woman in "The Lady
Prince P r ig io ' there is a ba ttle betw een a Firedrake o f the Land," the dragon guarding the apples o f the
and a Remora. The form er ought to be a dragon by its Hesperides in "The Golden Apples" (Tennyson also had a
name, but it has horns and h ooves; the la tte r might as v e r s io n o f th e H e s p e r id e a n d r a g o n in "T h e
well be a dragon by its d escrip tion , a long snaky ic e - H esp erid es"). He also had several dragons in The L ife
creatu re coilin g g la cie r -lik e ov e r the land, but Lang and Death of Jason, which was to have been part of The
did not choose to call it one. It was not until afte r Earthly Paradise, but grew to o long f o r it: not only
the turn o f the century that Lang included a dragon in the dragon guarding the golden f le e c e called fo r by
one o f his own stories, in "The Magician Who Wanted the original legend, but a swarm o f marsh dragons
More" (Tales of a Fairy Court, 1906), and even then it along the riv e r north o f C olch is, and a glimpse o f the
was a dragon that wasn't real but only the Magician in H esperides and th eir guardian dragon. (He om itted the
d isg u ise . dragons that draw M edea's cha riot when she flees
I o lc o s .) In h is p ro s e f i c t i o n , h o w e v e r , M orris
Until almost the end o f the century, the only p referred humanoid wonders — w itch es, magicians, un
major nineteenth century dragon was T olkien 's own earthly maidens.
f a v orite, Fafnir, appearing not only in Wagner's Ring
Cycle o f o p e r a s , b u t a l s o in W illia m M o r r is ' The relu cta n ce to use dragons was probably a
tr a n sla tio n o f The V olsu n g Sa g a, and in his poem result o f the to o rigid id e n tifica tio n o f the dragonPag‘ 54
with the dragon o f the Book o f Revelations, that is, mortal men. And at this point we should also
Satan. The most important uses o f the dragon before realise that dragons and snakes did not have
dragons disappeared in literature had been the dragon a uniformly bad reputation in G reece and the
w hich is the d e v il, fou gh t by St. G e o r g e , who is Near East. Greece to o had its benevolent
H olin ess, in Book I o f S p e n s e r's F a erie Queene reptilian d e itie s: sn ak es th at w e re sp ir its
(sixteenth century) and the dragon which is the shape o f s p r i n g s , g e n ii l o c i , e m b o d im e n ts o r
imposed upon the devil when he reports the Fall in a ttributes o f gods, e .g ., Asklepios, Athena,
Book X o f M ilton's Paradise Lost (seventeenth cen A pollo . . . . Zeus h im s e lf.4
tury).
The alleg orica l id en tification o f the dragon with
Tolkien im plicitly complained o f this id e n tifica Satan made it d ifficu lt to make use o f the ambiguity
tion in Beowulf: the Monsters and the C ritics, which p ro p e r ly b e lo n g e d to d ra g o n s. Some o f the
the essay in w hich he s u c c e s s fu lly d e fe n d e d the monsters in nineteenth century fantasy were not evil
s tr u ctu r a l in te g r ity o f the m on sters o f B e o w u lf at all, and some were h ostile without being morally
again st e a r lie r c r it i c s who had th ou gh t the poem evil (Jabberwocks must be killed , and it may be a good
c h a o tic . T o lk ie n s t r e s s e d th e d r a g o n 's n o n - idea to try to eliminate Snarks from the e co log y , but
allegorical nature in the poem: whiffling in tulgy woods and looking grave at puns are
not sins). Some were e v il, but not evil enough to be
The dragon wields a physical fire , and covets represented as Satanic: the patchwork monsters in The
gold not souls, he is slain with iron in his Princess and Curdie are expiating their sins, and one
b e lly . Beow ulf's by m e was made by Weland, is a little like a dragon in appearance — a winged
and the iron sh ield he bo r e ag a in st the s e r p e n t w ith tin y le g s - - bu t to c a ll it a d ra gon
serpent by his own smiths; it was not yet the would be to grant it an absolute, and inappropriate
breastplate o f righteousness, nor the shield degree o f ev il. By contrast, when C.S. Lewis had a
o f faith fo r the quenching o f all the fiery human d evolved into a monster and working ba ck to
darts o f the w icked.3 humanity through g ra ce, he fe lt fre e to turn Eustace
into a straightforward dragon (The Voyage o f the Dawn
He had already commented that conscious allegory in Treader). MacDonald included the corpse o f an actual
general might have harmed the poem: "had the matter dragon in Phantasies, but only b r ie fly , described in
(o f the theme o f man at war with the world, doomed to one paragraph ( in chapter 23 ).
overthrow in Time] been so exp licit, his poem would
certainly have been the worse" (p. 16). In theory, When nineteenth century writers did want to write
there is perhaps no reason why allegory should be less ab ou t Sa ta n ic e v il, th e y g e n e r a lly c h o se a human
e ffe c tiv e than subconscious symbol; in the p ra ctice o f shape. The use o f a monster to represent absolute
such a p oet as Sp en ser (bu t T olk ien d id n ot lik e e v il, a f t e r a ll, im p lies th at e v il is an o u tsid e
S p e n s e r ) a l l e g o r y w as s u p r e m e ly e f f e c t i v e . in fluence imposed upon innocent humanity. The writers
Nevertheless, it is true in p ra ctice fo r many writers in the same age th at p ro d u c e d Freud w ere more
that a conscious allegory is harder to d evelop than a interested in evil as an element o f humanity — the
concrete figure with perhaps unconscious sign ifican ce. Doppelganger o f James H ogg's Justified Sinner, Mary
C erta in ly , n in ete e n th c e n tu r y w r ite r s drew no Shelley's em bittered Monster, G oethe's Mephistopheles,
inspiration from the equation o f dragon and Satan. Stevenson's Mr. Hyde.
Still, the equation was natural enough, given the Dragons were thus inappropriate symbols fo r most
primary attitude toward dragons in previous Western nineteenth century fantasy writers, and even where
mythologies. The dragon was a creature o f e vil, an o th e r w ise a p p r o p ria te , t o o r ig id , to o obvious, too
ad v ersary to be k ille d by the h e ro , St. G e o rg e , clumsy fo r use. The dragon had to be separated from
D a n ie l, Z e u s , A p o llo , S ig u r d , B e o w u lf , e t c . its Christian alleg orica l meaning be fo re it could be
Sometimes, though, the dragon was not in itself evil, easily used by modem writers, Christian and non-
but was a faithful guardian, killed by the hero who C hristian a lik e .
has come to win the treasure — Hercules and the
Hesperidean dragon, Jason and the dragon o f the Golden Meanwhile, dragons were being brought into favor
F leece. These dragons do not hoard gold on their own by the d iscov ery o f dinosaurs. Stephen Prickett has
(unlike the dragons o f Sigurd and B eow ulf), and there shown in h is V ic t o r ia n F a n tasy th a t d in osa u rs
is often a strong element o f pity fo r the unfortunate influenced the portrayal o f dragons; illustrators soon
loyal guardians in the way o f the marauding (however began drawing saurian monsters (his earliest example,
heroical) champions. Sometimes the Western dragon may ap a rt from illu s t r a tio n s to b o o k s o f s c ie n c e , is
even be admired, as in the dragons o f Wales and King Tenniel's Jabberw ock, 1871), and the dragons they drew
Arthur which represent heraldically the strength o f a ten d ed to be more sa u ria n , w ith s h o r t e r , b u lk ie r
b o d ie s , and le s s se r p e n tin e than th e y had been
b e fo r e .5 Pickett does not discuss the gap between the
As Joseph F on ten rose show s in h is stu d y o f appearance o f dragons in illustration .and in writing
classical dragons. P y th on , the dragon is n a tu ra lly (h is e a r lie s t exam ple o f the w r itte n d ra g on is E.
ambiguous. Hero and dragon easily change places in N esbit's Book o f Dragons, 1900). The gap is probably
s to r ie s , and even the Western dragon has a benevolent a r e su lt o f the a l le g o r i c a l in te r p r e ta tio n o f the
sid e while the Oriental dragon, which is primarily dragon. A Jabberwock drawn by Tenniel as a distorted
benevolent, has its d e structive sid e: dragon is still a Jabberwock, not a dragon. Where
C a rro ll might a llo w h im se lf a sim p le m en tion o f
The Chinese dragons are in general benevolent d ra g on s as a p p ea rin g in a L a tin e x e r c is e - b o o k
and beneficent d eities, who send rain and belonging to the characters — "Their tu tor . . . had
bring good crops. They a ls o bring thunder tr ie d to e x tr a c t a m oral . . . as in the w ords
storm s, tem p ests, w h irlw in d s, and flo o d s . 'In fluen ce o f Sympathy in United A ction ,' which stood
Like Zeus or Baal, they bring both good and opposite to the anecdote 'Balbus was assisting his
bad w ea th er; fo r the g o d , we sh ou ld not m other-in-law to convince the d ra g o n ,'"6 a .B. Frost,
f o r g e t , can send both go o d and e v il upon the illustrator, made a fu ll-pa g e (p. 5) illustrationPage 55
out o f the sen ten ce, showing the fru strated Balbus and L ila c b o o k s , and q u o te d from th e V io le t p r e f a c e .
his m oth er-in -law with heaps o f re fe r e n ce books about Tolkien disagreed with some o f Lang's assumptions and
them, and the dragon looking very s ce p tica l indeed. p r e f e r e n c e s , bu t h is o v e r a ll ju dg m en t was th at
It was a dragon, but it did not r e ca ll visually those p ro b a b ly n o o th e r c o l l e c t i o n s o f f a i r y - s t o r i e s in
more snaky dragons trampled u n derfoot in paintings o f E n glish r iv a le d " e it h e r th e p o p u la r ity , o r th e
St. George or the Angel M ichael. inclusiveness, o r the general merits o f the tw elve
books o f tw elve co lo rs" (p. 17).
T olk ien h im se lf d is lik e d th e id e n t if ic a t io n o f
dragons and .dinosaurs: Although Lang shied away from dragons in his
original fantasy tales, he was willing to include them
I d id n o t lik e b e i n g t o l d t h a t t h e s e w h ere he fo u n d them in h is s o u r c e s . He b ega n
creatures were "d r a g o n s !" . . . C h ild re n ca u tiou sly: in The Blue Fairy Book dragons appear as
ex p ect the d iffe r e n ce s they fe e l but cannot minor cha ra cters in one story, "The Story o f Pretty
analyse to be explained by th eir elders, o r G old ilock s" (tran slated from Mme. d 'A u ln oy), in which
at least r ecog n ized, not to be ignored or the h e ro 's tasks include g e ttin g past tw o watchful
denied. I was keenly alive to the beauty o f dragons; dragons are mentioned in "The Y ellow Dwarf"
"R eal thin gs", but it seemed to me quibbling and, at sligh tly more length, in the c a t 's explanation
to confu se this with the wonder o f "O th er o f how she becam e a cat in "The White C at" (another
th in g s". I was e a g e r to stu d y N a tu re , d 'A u ln o y ). But in th e o n ly s t o r y w h ich Lang
actu ally more eager than I was to read most tr a n s la te d /c o m p ile d h im s e lf f o r th e v o lu m e, "T h e
f a i r y - s t o r i e s ; but I d id n o t want to be Terrible H ead," a version o f the story o f Perseus,
q u ib b le d in to S c ie n c e and c h e a te d ou t o f Lang did not use "dragon" to d escrib e the m onster, but
Faerie by people who seemed to assume that by c a lle d it o n ly "a m on strou s b e a s t " o r "a sea
som e kind o f o r ig in a l sin I sh ou ld p r e f e r c re a tu re ." H.J. Ford, who did most o f the illustra
fa ir y -ta le s, but accordin g to some kind o f tions fo r the volume (th ere were also some by G.P.
new religion I ought to be induced to like Jacombe H ood), included the- dragons in his illustra
scien ce. tions to "The Y ellow Dwarf" and "The Story o f Pretty
( "Gh F a ir y -S to rie s ," Tree and L ea f, p. 6 6 .) G o ld ilo ck s."
As an "explanation" o f dragons, the id e n tifica tio n is In th e s e c o n d v o lu m e , Lang was a l i t t l e le ss
certa in ly too redu ctive to be satisfyin g. (Further cau tiou s, and the illustrators continued to be less
more, it is probably in c o rr e ct. Humans n ever met live cautious than th eir e d itor. "The Story o f Sigurd"
d in osa u rs, and e x tr a p o la tio n from existing snakes, included Fafnir, and dragons were mentioned in "The
lizards, allig a tors, e t c ., to the dragon o f myth is Princess Mayblossom" (from d 'A ulnoy) and a Romanian
more lik ely than extrapolation from the occa sion al ta le , "The Enchanted Pig." L a n celot Speed (who join ed
bone — the bones are more lik ely to have in flu en ced Ford in illustrating this volume) had tw o drawings o f
the giants o f myth.) But the realization that large Fafnir, and chose to draw the Norka (an undescribed
reptiles, even flying re p tile s, if not fire-breath in g monster) in "The Norka" and some goblins in "The
on e s, had e x is te d d re w a t te n tio n to th e f ic t i o n a l Golden Branch" as d ra g o n -lik e .
possibilities o f dragons, with perhaps an increased
awareness o f and delight in a d ragon's physical beauty By the third book , Lang was con fid en t enough o f
and terror (such as Tolkien praised in the B eow u lf- his dragons to d efen d them in the p re fa ce :
p o e t). Tolkien eventually made use o f P terod acty l
lik e c r e a tu r e s f o r the s te e d s o f th e N azgu l in Probably you who read the tales know very
The Lord o f the Rings, but he c a r e fu lly did not use well how much is true and how much is only
terms suggestive o f dragons to d escrib e them. m ake-believe . . . . I f there are frigh tfu l
monsters in fa iry ta les, th ey do not frighten
In a d d itio n to th e s p e c ia l in te r e s t in d ra g o n s you now, because that kind o f monster is no
p rom p ted b y d in o s a u r s , th e r e was an in c re a s in g lon ger going about the w orld, w hatever he may
interest in the study o f fo lk ta le s. As early as 1812 have d o n e lo n g , lo n g a g o . He h as b een
Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm had published th eir first tu rn ed in to s to n e , and y o u may s e e h is
c o l l e c t i o n o f K in d e r - und Ha u s - ma r c h e n . As it remains in museums. T h erefore, I am not
happened,the German fairy ta les' had few dragons— only a fr a id th a t y o u w ill b e a fr a id o f the
h alf a d ozen among the 210 stories o f The Complete magicians and dragons. 8
Grimm's Fairy T a le s, 7 n on e o f them in c lu d in g the
dragons in the t i t l e s . The im plicit id e n tifica tio n o f dragons and dinosaurs
in th is p a ssa g e w ou ld h a v e ir r it a t e d T o lk ie n , but
A much wider range o f dragons becam e available to c uriously he came clo se to the same answer in the
the general public when A ndrew Lang bro u g h t ou t problem o f ch ild ren 's possible fe a r o f monsters: "This
The Blue Fairy Book and its sequels. These c o lle c is, naturally, o fte n enough what children mean when
tions mixed folkta les from many cultu res, r e -te llin g s they ask: 'I s it tr u e ?' They mean: 'I like this, but
from ancient myth, and litera ry tales by such writers is it c o n t e m p o ra ry ? Am I s a fe in my b e d ? ' The
as Mme. d'A ulnoy o r Hans Christian Andersen. Lang a n sw e r: 'T h e re is c e r t a in ly no d ra g o n in E ngland
edited a dozen o f the co lo rs Blue (18 89 ), Red to d a y ', is all that they want to hear" ("O n F airy-
(1890), Green (18 92 ), Yellow (18 94 ), Pink (18 97 ), Grey S t o r ie s ," p . 4 0 ).
(1900), V iolet (1901), Crimson (19 03 ), Brown (1904),
Orange (19 06 ), Olive (19 07 ), and Lilac (19 10 ). In the stories o f the third book , a dragon was a
ch a ra cte r in "The T h re e D o g s ," and d ra g on s w ere
Tolkien eviden tly read the whole series. In "On m entioned in "The Blue Bird" (from d'A ulnoy) and
F a iry-S tories" he id en tified him self as "one o f the "H eart o f I c e " (tran slated from the Comte de C aylus).
children whom Andrew Lang was addressing — I was bom Ford (the sole illu stra tor in this volume and in the
at about the same time as the Green Fairy B ook" r e s t o f th e s e r ie s ) c h o s e th e sin g le s e n te n c e in
(p . 38), discussed in d eta il stories from the Blue and "H eart o f I ce " saying that the fairy G orgonzola rodeaway on a dragon as the basis fo r a splendid fu ll-page (Considering Tolkien's attachment to Fafnir, it seems
d ra w in g p r i n t e d b o t h as p. 119 and as th e a little surprising that he was able to enjoy comic
fron tisp iece. dragons, to o .) A rare example o f good and primarily
non-com ic dragons appeared in Kenneth Morris' Book of
In the following volumes Lang included dragons the Three Dragons (1930).
freely; the next one. The Yellow Fairy Book, had two
as title characters, " The Dragon o f the North" (an The co m ic d ra g on s might h ave resu lte d
Estonian ta le), and "The Dragon and his Grandmother" eventually in a s te r e o ty p e as r ig id as that o f the
(from the Grimms — and in the Grimms' version titled Sa ta nic d ra g o n , but T o lk ie n r e sto re d the dragon's
"The Devil and his Grandmother"); there were also potential for primarily non -com ic evil in Smaug ( The
s e v e r a l le s s im p o r ta n t d r a g o n s , in clu d in g the Hobbit, 1937). Smaug has his comic moments — neces
in e v ita b le dragon rap id tran sit so p op u lar among sarily, since the c h ie f opponent to this mighty evil
French fairies. is the timid Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, and seeing the
mighty tripped up is one o f the basic elements o f
Suddenly, at the very end o f the century, three
writers turned dragons to e ffe c tiv e use in stories o f
their own creation, by turning the stereotype o f St. This mixture o f comedy and heroism corresponds to
George slaying the Satanic dragon topsy-tu rvy: Kenneth Tolkien's moral vision o f ordinary humanity as a force
Grahame with "The Reluctant Dragon" (in Dream Days, fo r good. As Gandalf said several times, there is
1898), E. Nesbit with a collection o f short stories, more to H obb its than m eets the e y e ; E lron d 's
The Book of Dragons (1900, printed first the year characterization o f heroism attempted by the small is:
before in The Strand Magazine), and in America L. "This quest may be attempted by the weak with as much
Frank Baum with A New Wonderland (1900; reprinted with hope as the strong. Yet such is o ft the course of
a change o f title and place-nam e as The Magical deeds that move the wheels o f the world: small hands
Monarch o f Mo in 1903), featuring a Purple Dragon as do them because they must, while the eyes o f the great
the main antagonist. are e lse w h e r e ."'
The Reluctant Dragon, as Grahame imagined him, is Bilbo, timid though he is, reaches a com ic heroism
a good dragon, indeed, a lovable dragon; Saint George
o f his own in dealing with Smaug: "'C onfound you,
is able to recognize the dragon's goodness (once it is
Smaug, you worm!' he squeaked aloud. 'S top playing
pointed out to him by the B oy), and the fight between h id e-an d -seek! Give me a light, and then eat me, if
them is a put-up job to satisfy the conventional-
you can catch m e!'"1 0 Smaug doesn 't answer; it takes
minded villagers. Nesbit's dragons and Baum's Purple more than Bilbo alone to conquer such a dragon. But
Dragon are evil, but com ically evil; because they are
it takes the unheroic protagonist Bilbo to get the
amusing they are likable in almost the same way as the
information which enables the h eroic minor cha ra cter
Reluctant Dragon, even though they lack his sweetness
Bard o f Dale to shoot the dragon.
of temper. It is not entirely surprising when one o f
Nesbit's dragons ("h e Dragon Tamers") is tamed by
Tolkien used evil dragons tw ice more, Glaurung in
kindness and d e ce it - - and turns in to a p u s sy ca t.
The S ilm a rillio n (an d Un fin ish e d T a le s ) and the
These dragons are defeated not by h eroic, militant
virtue, but by n on-heroic ingenuity. unnamed dra g on o f the poem "T h e H oard" in The
Adventures o f Tom Bombadil. Glaurung is entirely and
Two of Nesbit's stories in The Book of Dragons and uncomically e v i l :
one o f Baum's later stories (the episode o f "The Royal
Dragon of Spor" in The Enchanted Island of Yew, 1903), The Dragon craw led with slow weight to the
are lik e "The R e lu cta n t D ragon " in e x p lic it ly edge o f the c lif f, and he did not turn aside,
upsetting the legend o f St. George. In Nesbit's "The but made ready to spring over the chasm with
Deliverers o f their Country" the statue o f the saint his great forelegs and then draw his bulk
refuses to wake up and fight a whole horde o f dragons; afte r. Terror came with him; fo r he did not
instead he gives two children some weatherlore from begin his passage right above, but a little
his fe llo w sain t Denis so that th ey can rain the to the n o rth w ard , and th e w a tch e r s from
dragons out. In Nesbit's "The Fairy Kingdom" Princess beneath could see the huge shadow o f his head
S a brin ette (g ra n d -d a u g h te r o f George and Princess against the stars; and his jaws gaped, and he
Sabra) is p rotected by h er in h e rite d d r a g o n -p r o o f had seven ton g u es o f fire .' Then he sen t
equipment, aided by the power o f love. Baum's Royal fo rth a b la s t, so that all the ra v in e was
Dragon o f Spor, although terrifying to behold, quietly filled with a red light, and black shadows
and firm ly r e fu se s to fig h t P rin ce M arvel, h aving flying among the rocks; but the trees before
learned a lesson from St. G eorge's d efeat o f his (the him withered and went up in smoke, and stones
dragon's) father. The Magical Monarch tries to fight crashed down into the river. And thereupon
the Purple Dragon h eroically at the start o f A_ New he hurled himself forward, and grappled the
Wonderland and fails com pletely, getting his head- bft fu rth e r c l i f f w ith h is m ighty c la w s , and
o f f f o r his pains. It takes a mass a t ta c k with a began to heave him self across. 1
gian t d en tal fo r c e p s and some lu ck to d e fe a t the
Purple Dragon. Yet Glaurung is not a symbolic equivalent o f Satan.
Like most nineteenth (and tw entieth) century writers,
A ft e r th ese th ree works at the turn o f the Tolkien p referred a human figure to symbolize Satan —
century, many comic dragons were created — e.g., Lord Sauron in The Lord o f the R in g s. M orgoth in The
Dunsany's "Miss Cubbidge and the Dragon ofRom ance," S i l ma r i l l i o n and Un f in is h e d T a l e s ; M orgoth is
Lady G r e g o ry 's p la y The D rag on , the d ra gon s in Glaurung's Master.
A.A. M iln e's "Us T w o" and " K n ig h t-in -A r m o r " (in
Now We___Are S ix ), o r the c ir c u s D raco in P.L. In "The Hoard" Tolkien portrayed an ambivalent
Travers' Mary Poppins Comes Back. Even Tolkien wrote dragon — like the elves, the dwarf, and the human
one. Farmer Giles of Ham (1949), in which the unheroic hero who have also tried to possess the hoard, the
Farmer Giles d efeats and tames the dragon Crysophylax. dragon is to be pitied as well as condemned. It hasPage 57
given way to greed and d estroyed its own happiness in modern animals are c a lle d out o f Narnia by Aslan, and
the p rocess: then d in osaur-like crea tu res come out to eat away the
v e g e t a t io n : " g r e a t d ra g o n s and g ia n t liz a r d s and
There was an old dragon under grey ston e; feath erless birds with wings like b a t's wings . . . .
his red eyes blinked as he lay alone. They went to and fro tearing up the trees by the roots
His jo y was dead and his youth spent, and cru m b lin g them up as if th e y w e re s t ic k s o f
he was knobbed and wrinkled, and his limbs rhubarb."15
bent
in the long years to his gold chained; In his lo g ic a l way, Lewis even wondered what an
in his h eart's furnace the fire waned. u n fa lle n d ra g o n w ou ld b e , and in c lu d e d on e in
Perelandra. Ransom
The g reed f o r beauty is a theme Tolkien used many
tim es over. In The Lord o f the Rings it is subor saw a s tr a n g e h e r a ld ic a ll y c o lo u r e d tr e e
dinate to greed fo r the pow er o f the ring, but one loaded with y ellow fru its and silv e r leaves.
form o f that tem ptation is to p e rce iv e the ring as too Round the base o f the indigo stem was coiled
fa ir to d estroy. In oth er works, the beau ty matters a smal 1 dragon c o ve re d with sca le s o f red
more than the pow er. Thorin's desire to possess the g o ld . He r e c o g n is e d th e g ard e n o f th e
Arkenstone contrasts with B ilb o's g en erosity in giving H esperides at o n ce . °
it up (an d la t e r in g iv in g up th e One R in g ); the
desire to possess the Silmarillion d estroys many o f It is a g u a rd ia n , n o t a h o a r d e r , and its g o ld is
the Elves. The mythical figure o f the dragon and its u n coin able. It fears no th eft and is fre e to leave
h oard o f g o ld f i t t e d in w e ll f o r T o lk ie n 's use in the tree to eat, o r drink, o r nudge Ransom to pat its
developing this theme again in "The H oard."
C.S. Lewis did not cre a te any dragon as important L e w is a p p a re n tly c o n s id e r e d u sin g d ra g on s as
in it s s to r y , o r as m em orab le as Sm aug, bu t lik e sy m b ols o f g o o d n e s s , in th e a s p e c t o f t e r r if y in g
Tolkien he was fascin ated by the idea o f dragons — godhood, but in both cases he d e cid e d against it. In
strong, bea u tifu l, and dangerous. And like Tolkien he Dymer the Brute is d escrib ed in terms that sound as if
m en tion ed th e id e a o f " th e lit h e s c a ly b o d y o f it is a dragon o f some kind — "The pale and h eavy
Fafner"13 as desirable — although unlike Tolkien he b r u te , r o u g h -r id g e d b e h in d , / And fu ll o f e y e s ,
chose to give a list o f several figu res in Norse myth clinking in sca ly rind" 17 — and in Till We Have Faces
th a t b rou g h t him j o y , in s te a d o f sin g lin g o u t the the version o f the myth o f Cupid and Psyche given
dragon. r e fe rs to her as taken by a dragon. Within the body
o f the story , how ever, the Shadow-Brute is never
As n oted, Lewis made use o f the dragon as a symbol d e s c r ib e d s p e c i f i c a l l y . L e w is may h ave d e c id e d
o f (redeem able) evil in the transform ation o f Eustace against d ra gon -god s p a r tly b e c a u s e o f th e S a ta n ic
in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. He made an unusual a s s o c ia t io n , bu t th e sy m b ol o f sh a d o w in ess is so
use o f the M iltonic d ra g o n -a s-d e vil by parodying it in im p o r ta n t in b o t h B ru te s that, u sin g so s p e c i f i c a
The S c re w ta p e L e t t e r s , e x c e p t that the dragon is m onster as a dragon would have been inappropriate in
om itted in the p rocess. Screw tape is n ot transform ed any case.
in to a d ra g o n , h y d ra , o r ch im e ra d ir e , bu t in to a
centipede. Tolkien, then, and (in a lesser d e g re e ) Lew is were
im portant in bringing the n o n -co m ica lly evil side o f
In h is a l le g o r y P ilg rim 's R e g r e s s L e w is u sed d ra g o n n atu re b a c k in to u se . B oth made u se o f
dragons alleg orica lly with some e ffe c tiv e n e s s as the sym pathetic aspects o f dragon nature as w ell, but the
final shapes o f the ex ces ses o f North (rig idity , la ck m ajority o f th eir dragons were e v il, including among
o f em otion) and South (ca relessn ess, irra tion ality ). them the best known o f their dragons, Tolkien 's Smaug.
Each dragon is p ortrayed in a poem (rep rin ted in Poems
as "The Dragon Speaks" and "D ra g o n -S la y e r"). The O th er-w riters then p roce e d e d to c re a te memorable
v ictorious chant o f Vertue the d ra g on -slay er seems to evil dragons, as in John Gardner's Grendel, Ursula K.
me to dwell too much on the jo y o f pulling the brute LeG uin's The Beginning Place and the Earthsea books
to p ieces; it leaves me wondering if Vertue could n't (Earthsea dragons, h ow ever, are amoral rath er than
have found it in him to give the brute a qu icker and im m oral, c r e a t u r e s o f e le m e n ta l n a tu r e , n o t o f
more m erciful death. "The Dragon Speaks" is the more darkness), o r Andre N orton's Dragon M agic. Good or
interestin g, with the dragon 's song tempting John to com ic dragons also continue popular, rounding out the
g re e d and at th e same tim e p o rt ra y in g (sy m p a com p lexity o f values prop er to dragon myth. Some
th etica lly , somewhat as in Tolkien 's "The H oard") how exam ples are My Father's Dragon (and the sequels) by
the dragon itse lf had been tem pted and given way to Ruth Stiles Gannet, Poo-P oo and the Dragons by C.S.
greed . I t c o m p la in s , " I n w in t e r n ig h t th e Forester, The Dragon and the George by Gordon Dickson,
g old /F reez es through toughest scales my c o ld b e lly ,"14 the smithing dragons o f The Swordsmith by Eleanor
but it is unable to give up the freezin g gold. Arnason, Smarasderagd in Peregrine: Secundus by Avram
Davidson, o r the trained dragons o f the Pern books by
A d r a g o n -r e la t e d fig u r e is th e g ia n t g re e n Anne M cC affrey o r o f Dragon's Blood by Jane Y olen.
serpent, the oth er form o f the g reen, w itch , in The
Silver Chair. Unlike the n in eteen th -cen tu ry snake- Footnotes
women, she is en tirely ev il. (The salamander's snake-
daughters are apparently good; K eats' Lamia seems to 1 MacDonald included a dragon in Phantastes, but
lov e h er human sw eetheart genuinely, as does M orris' only b r ie fly : in ch a p ter 23 a paragraph is given to
dragon-w om an, and Elsie Venner struggles against her the d escrip tion o f the body o f a dragon slain by the
venomous nature; even Geraldine at moments seems to knight. In L ilith , with its stress on the
repent o f what she is doing to C hristabel.) redeem ability o f all, the word "dragon" is avoided in
the d escrip tion o f w orm -like and sn ak e-like large
Morally neutral dragons appear b r ie fly in The Last monsters buried in "th e bad burrow " (ch a p ter 10; also
B a tt le in a kind o f u n w in din g o f e v o lu t io n . The cha p ter 40 ).Page 58
2 Tolkien, "On F airy-Stories," in Tree and Leaf 8. Barbara Strachey. Journeys o f Frodo: An Atlas of
(London: George Allen & Unwin, 1964), p. 40; original J.R.R. T o lk ie n 's The Lord o f the R ings.
ly published in Essays Presented to Charles Williams, BalI antine Books. New York 1981. Map 26.
1947, 9. Jana Garai. The Book of Symbols. Simon and
3 Tolkien, Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics Schuster. New York 1973. Page 115.
(F olc roft, PA: Arden Library, 1980), pp. 21-22; 10. C.G. Jung. Symbols o f Transformation. Princeton
originally published 1936. University Press. Princeton, N.J. 1976. Page 396.
’ Joseph L. Fontenrose, Python, A Study o f Delphic 11. Heinrich Zimmer, The King and the Corpse, ed.
Myth and its Origins (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Joseph Campbell. Bollingen Series XI, Princeton
University o f California Press, 1959), pp. 491-492; University Press. Princeton, N.J. 1970. Pages
see also pp. 469-474 fo r discussion o f the inter 26-52.
changeability o f hero and dragon. 12. Raymond de Becker, The Understanding of Dreams and
5 Stephen Prickett, V ictorian Fantasy Their Influence on The History of Man. Hawthorn
(Bloomington, IN, and London: Indiana University Books, Inc. New York 1968. Page 345.
Press, 1979), pp. 79-91. 13. New Larousse Encyclopedia o f Mythology, lo c . c i t ■
6 Lewis Carroll, A Tangled Tale (NY: Dover, 1958),
p. 6 ("K not II. Eligible Apartments1') ; originally
published 1885. BIBLIOGRAPHY
7 The Complete Grimms Fairy Tales, translated by
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Longmans, Green, 1892), pp. x -x i. It is interesting Tolkien, J.R.R. The Lord o f the Rings. 3 vols.
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4. From a lecture by Dora K a lff, 17 January 1969, New York 19807 --------
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Houghton M ifflin Conpany. Boston 1979. Page 36.You can also read
