# European dragons --- ## Etymology > Whereas the etymology of the other Indo-European words for snakes, adders, and other similar creatures derives from their length or means of locomotion, the word dragon (Old English *draca*, Middle English drake, Old Norse *dreki*, Old High German *trahho*, deriving from Latin *draco*, Greek *drakon*) has been associated with the Indo-European root \**derk*, “see,” and this is assumed to refer to the dragon’s glittering eyes or its sharpness of sight.[^1] [[2024-0614. The etymology of Dragon comes from 'derk' (= see).|’This may explain the origin of the motif, attested frequently in Hellenic, Italic, and Germanic dragon lore, whereby the dragon functions as the sharp-sighted guardian of something of value, normally a golden object or hoard of objects’.]][^2] --- ## History [[“Senter, Mattox, and Haddad argue that the European dragon began its life as nothing more than a snake—a ‘draco’ or ‘drakon’ to the ancient Greeks and Romans.”]][^3] [[“Senter, Mattox, and Haddad argue that the European dragon began its life as nothing more than a snake—a ‘draco’ or ‘drakon’ to the ancient Greeks and Romans.”|’Over the centuries, errors in dragon descriptions accumulated by mistranslation, exaggeration, acceptance of folklore and myth as truth, and conflation of different animals,’ they explain. ‘By the Renaissance, the dragon had transformed into a fabulous creature.’]][^4] [[2025-0323. In the 1580s, 'Gessner attempted to compile everything ever written about each animal species on Earth—including dragons.'|’The authors’ conclusions come from a translation they did of the “dragon” section of *Schlangenbuch,* an encyclopedia of natural history by Swiss physician and naturalist Conrad Gessner published in the 1580s. Gessner attempted to compile everything ever written about each animal species on Earth—including dragons.’]][^5] > The first source used in the dragon section of *Schlangenbuch* is Homer’s *Iliad*, probably written in the ninth century BCE. Six passages mention the drakon, a creature that, from the context, is clearly a snake. Homer didn’t seem to be referring to any specific type of snake and neither did Aristotle, whose fourth-century BCE *History of Animals* noted that the eagle eats drakons. But, in the first few centuries CE, many Greek and Roman sources began to describe drakons or dracos as constrictors, apparently frequently basing their descriptions on pythons imported from India.[^6]Livia Gershon, ‘A Natural History of Dragons’, *JSTOR Daily*, 3 October 2022, https://daily.jstor.org/a-natural-history-of-dragons/. > The first of Gessner’s sources to assert that, as a rule, dragons could fly was Augustine of Hippo (354–430 CE). He described dragons as Earth’s largest animals, living in caves and emerging to spread their wings. While Augustine mentioned this in an exposition of a psalm, not a work of natural history, natural historians adopted his description.[^7] > In the medieval era, winged dragons were common in illustrated bestiaries. These dragons also commonly had legs, although natural historians of this time continued to insist that they did not. But, in the sixteenth century, taxidermic hoaxes became common in the Mediterranean world, often featuring bipedal, winged dragons. Gessner, among others, was fooled by this trickery and accepted that these dragons really existed. Subsequent encyclopedias followed his lead. It was only in the eighteenth century that natural historians determined that dragons didn’t exist at all. But as Senter, Mattox, and Haddad point out, that’s only because they were thinking of Gessner’s dragons, not Homer’s. [^1]: John Evans, ‘Dragon’, *[[Lindahl, et al., eds. 'Medieval Folklore_ A Guide to Myths, Legends, Tales, Beliefs, and Customs', 2002.|Medieval Folklore: A Guide to Myths, Legends, Tales, Beliefs, and Customs]]*, ed. Carl Lindahl, John McNamara & John Lindow (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 100. [^2]: John Evans, ‘Dragon’, *[[Lindahl, et al., eds. 'Medieval Folklore_ A Guide to Myths, Legends, Tales, Beliefs, and Customs', 2002.|Medieval Folklore: A Guide to Myths, Legends, Tales, Beliefs, and Customs]]*, ed. Carl Lindahl, John McNamara & John Lindow (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 100. [^3]: Livia Gershon, ‘A Natural History of Dragons’, *JSTOR Daily*, 3 October 2022, https://daily.jstor.org/a-natural-history-of-dragons/. [^4]: Livia Gershon, ‘A Natural History of Dragons’, *JSTOR Daily*, 3 October 2022, https://daily.jstor.org/a-natural-history-of-dragons/. [^5]: Livia Gershon, ‘A Natural History of Dragons’, *JSTOR Daily*, 3 October 2022, https://daily.jstor.org/a-natural-history-of-dragons/. [^6]: Livia Gershon, ‘A Natural History of Dragons’, *JSTOR Daily*, 3 October 2022, https://daily.jstor.org/a-natural-history-of-dragons/. [^7]: Livia Gershon, ‘A Natural History of Dragons’, *JSTOR Daily*, 3 October 2022, https://daily.jstor.org/a-natural-history-of-dragons/.