The Sorcerer's Companion: A Guide to the Magical World of Harry Potter (26 page)

Dragons have been featured players in myth and folklore for most of recorded history. In the West, they appeared in the early literature of Babylonia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, Germany, Scandinavia, and the British Isles. The list of warriors who’ve done battle with dragons reads like a
Who’s Who
of heroes. The Greek and Roman hero Hercules slew several dragons in his long career, most notably the Hydra, who had nine venomous heads. Various Babylonian warriors battled Tiamat, a dragon known as the Queen of Darkness, who had the head and forelegs of a lion, the hind legs of an eagle, feathery wings, and a scaled body impervious to all weapons. The Norse thunder god Thor succumbed to the venom of the Midgard Serpent, a huge dragon that encircled the entire Earth, but not before dealing the creature a fatal blow. Beowulf, considered one of the first heroes of English literature, also met his death while slaying a dragon, and medieval knights made dragon hunting a fairly common pastime.

Physical descriptions of dragons remain fairly consistent from tale to tale. Generally depicted as enormous serpents (the Greek word
drakon
means “huge serpent”), dragons tended to be armored with impenetrable scales and equipped with one or two pairs of legs and a set of batlike wings. Most had wedge-shaped heads and long, sometimes poisonous, fangs. Some also sported twin horns, enormous claws, and a forked or barbed tail. Welsh dragons were often red, German dragons were white, and others came in black or yellow.

Any dragon to wing his way from Europe to China or Japan would experience some serious culture shock. Instead of finding himself loathed, feared, and attacked, he’d be welcomed with a smile. For in the East, the dragon has always been viewed as a benevolent creature and sign of good fortune.

Unlike their Western cousins, Eastern dragons don’t breathe fire or have wings, although they can usually fly by magic. A typical Eastern dragon has the horns of a stag, the head of a camel, the neck of a snake, the claws of an eagle, the ears of a bull, and long whiskers on his face. In Chinese legends, there are dragons who guard the skies, dragons who bring rain, and dragons who control rivers and streams. In Japan, where they are widely considered to be wise, kind, and helpful, dragons have served as the official emblem of the imperial family for centuries.

Almost all dragons had one thing in common—their scorching breath. The enormous fireballs the creatures could unleash at will were more than just a hazard for brave knights: They were said to devastate entire countries! And when a hero was clever enough to avoid the flames and slay his foe, a dragon could prove dangerous even after death. Dragon’s blood was said to be deadly to the touch, and dragon’s teeth, if planted in the earth, were alleged to grow a crop of armed and blood-thirsty warriors. (The modern expression, “sowing dragon’s teeth,” means causing a war.)

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photo credit 20.1
)

Such a threatening beast was bound to be perceived as the natural enemy of mankind. Dragons were said to be crafty, gluttonous, and cruel creatures who lived in huge caves or the craters of volcanoes, as well as in lakes and oceans. Periodically, they would satisfy their hunger by feasting on livestock or people. In many legends, a dragon would kidnap a young maiden and spirit her away, sometimes to make a meal of her, sometimes simply to share her company. Although they had no need for money, dragons were also famous for their greed, maintaining enormous hoards of gold, silver, and other treasures. (Sea dragons were apt to hoard pearls.) A dragon was said to know the exact composition of its stash, and to realize instantly, and react violently, if even a single coin was taken.

During the Middle Ages, dragons came to be associated with the biblical serpent responsible for the expulsion of mankind from the Garden of Eden and were portrayed in art and literature as representatives of sin, wickedness, and sometimes even the Devil himself. The classical struggle of knight against dragon therefore represented the larger battle of good against evil. Many Christian saints were said to have encountered dragons. One of the most famous was St. George, who was reportedly traveling near Silena, Libya, when he heard of a dragon that lived in a local lake. Like many of its kind, the dragon enjoyed feasting on maidens, and it refused to allow the townspeople access to their only water supply unless they fed it a maiden each day. Entire armies had been slaughtered trying to fight the creature. On the day St. George arrived, the king’s daughter, the only remaining maiden in the land, was to be sacrificed. St. George gallantly offered to fight the dragon and succeeded in killing it with a single strike of his lance. The success of St. George was much admired, especially after he was made patron saint of England in the fourteenth century. Dragons became associated with chivalry and romance, and any literary knight worth his salt had to slay a fire-breathing beast and rescue a fair maiden to be considered a true hero. In the legends of King Arthur, both Lancelot and Tristan, sometimes cited as the most gallant knights of the Round Table, were dragon slayers. Tradition holds that such brave souls, eager to prove their Christian faith and heroism, were responsible for the eventual extinction of dragons. Charlie Weasley would no doubt tell you otherwise.

ome people have trouble remembering their dreams, but that’s never a problem for Harry. Whether he’s sleeping soundly on Privet Drive or dozing off during Professor Trelawney’s class, Harry has dreams that give him plenty to ponder during waking hours. Vivid and frightening, some seem to foretell future perils; others offer an unwanted glimpse of horrific events occurring at the very moment Harry has the dream. Such nightmares are not easily ignored.

From the Bible to the epic poems of India, early writings suggest that people have always been fascinated by their dreams. In antiquity, it was widely believed that dreams contained important information, often in the form of predictions about the future of the dreamer, his or her family or village, or—especially if the dreamer was a king—the fate of an entire nation. Sometimes a dream’s message is perfectly clear, as it is with many of Harry’s most intense and scary dreams. But often, the meaning is hidden or disguised, requiring the services of an interpreter.

Dream interpretation, or oneiromancy (from the Greek
oneiros
, meaning “dream,” and
mancy
, meaning
“prophecy”
) is one of the oldest systems of
divination
. In ancient times, it was always considered a job for a professional—usually a priest or priestess or someone known simply as a dream interpreter, whose only job was to listen to people’s dreams and explain their meanings, sometimes offering advice on what course of action, if any, the dreamer should take. Systems of dream interpretation are referred to in the earliest of all recorded literature, the myths of the Assyrian hero King Gilgamesh, which were inscribed on clay tablets around the seventh century
B.C.
In ancient Egypt, dream interpreters were known as “the learned men of the magic library” and resided in temples where the god of dreams, Serapis, was worshipped.