There is perhaps no fantasy creature that is as awesome, iconic and ubiquitous as the dragon, which is as popular in mythology as it is in fiction. In fantasy novel terms, perhaps the earliest fictional depiction of a dragon appeared in The Hobbit, J R R Tolkien’s 1937 prelude to The Lord of the Rings. In Tolkien’s story Smaug the Dragon is entirely antagonistic, although it must be said that he makes an eloquent and charming villain, and many of the other authors who wrote novels in the same epic fantasy tradition have also utilised dragons as principal antagonists for their heroes. For example, in the first volume of Tad Williams’ Memory, Sorrow and Thorn series, the ‘iceworm’ Igjaruk is depicted as an implacable foe, while the dragons which appear in Robin Hobb’s Liveship Traders and George R R Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series, while not strictly evil as such, are at best amoral and certainly not friendly or safe to be around. Although there are exceptions (notably in Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern) this appears to be a common theme with dragons in literature – the heroes take care around these fabulous beasts, even when they appear to be on the same side. For the origins of this contradictory characterisation of dragons, we must look to real world mythology rather than speculative fiction.
Top Posts & Pages
The Inn at the Edge of the World
Click image to read my short story 'The Inn at the Edge of the World' in Bardic Tales and Sage Advice, Vol. 8.
The Witch of Wicken Fen
Click image to read my short story 'The Witch of Wicken Fen' in Aphelion, the Webzine of sci-fi and fantasy.
Tolkien
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Another Road to Middle Earth
Fifty years after its first publication, The Lord of the Rings found a new and even larger audience in a new medium, the three films directed by Peter Jackson and released in successive years 2001–2003. These are some of the most successful films ever made. The three between them had taken some £1,279 million at the […]
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After the King: Tolkien’s heirs
It is something of a relief, having looked last month at his critics, to turn this time to Tolkien’s many admirers. It would not be true to say that there was no such thing as epic fantasy before Tolkien: there was a tradition of English and Irish writers before him, such as E R Eddison and […]
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Tolkien: The Monsters and the Critics
“This is not a work that many adults will read right through more than once.” With these words the anonymous reviewer for the Times Literary Supplement (25 November 1955) summed up his judgment of J R R Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. It must have seemed a pretty safe prophecy at the time, for of […]
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The Wolf in the Attic
1920s Oxford: home to C S Lewis, J R R Tolkien and, in Paul Kearney’s novel The Wolf in the Attic, Anna Francis, a young Greek girl looking to escape the grim reality of her new life. The night they cross paths, none suspect the fantastic world at work all around them. Anna lives in a […]
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Of Wood Woses and Wild Men
In The Lord of the Rings a strange and primitive folk named the Woses came to aid the men of Gondor in breaking the siege of Minas Tirith. These wild woodland people lived in the ancient forest of Druadan, below the White Mountains. In form they were weather-worn, short-legged, thick-armed and stumpy-bodied and they knew wood-craft […]
Fabulous Realms 