"Here be dragons", dragons are not mystical creatures after all, there is substantial evidence that they existed in the distance past and their descendants may be hanging around today.
It is not curious, that Dragon lore and legend is common to all early cultures? How could it be possible for such a unique creature to arise spontaneously in diverse and widely separated communities, unless the creature was not mythical at all. Dragons existed at one time pretty much globally. After all, "here be dinosaurs", was once true of the entire planet. Dragons in fact may have been one of the animals in the dinosaur family.
The serpent, most often with wings, seems to be the earliest dragon of renown. The first dragon of record, was Zu, of Ancient Babylonia lore, who had a distinct personality and powers. Interestingly the ancient peoples, like the Babylonians had no such concept as "fiction writing", they wrote about what they believed existed or had existed at some time. They never intentionally make up stories. The Story about Zu related to their view of religion and the gods.
The dragon Zu, was very naughty, ripping off the Tablets of Law by which universal order was maintained. He was later napped by Ninurta, the sun god and wasted, just in the nick of time, too. Because without those Law Tablets the planet was returning rapidly to primordial chaos, oh my. This is sort of a somewhat different take on serpent/dragons of the biblical Genesis account with Eve being bested by the highly intelligence and shifty serpent/dragon, tricked into munching a golden delicious, and with the Golden age of man ending.
This Dragon is pictured in beautiful golden tiles lining the processional way into the city of Babylon. What makes this interesting is that lions, bulls and dragons are all depicted life-size.This dragon is shown to be similar in size to a bull. Giving credence to the idea, that the Babylonians believed this a real creature.
The dragon and serpent in legend and myth had similar characteristics, both could fly both had amazing powers. One of the most fascinating dragon types, and best known, are of Chinese and Japanese legend. Actually the Chinese have 3 dragon types and the Japanese 9. The most well known is the fire breathing type. These cultures tended to glorify dragons since they symbolized virtue and power. These dragon related to the elements, like water, fire and air.
The "Knucker" is the swamp dragon of England, with one are more heads, it belches flames of venom. It holds in common with most other dragons this ability to torch people and stuff, but differs for Asian dragons in that his reputation is way bad, not your typical Star Buck's dating material.
Is Nessie, this most constantly sighted creature of lock nest, really one of the last surviving member of this English swamp dragon family? Maybe dragons never really disappeared at all, they are simply camera shy, and really very timid creatures. There reputations as bad guys, just so much PR hype.
Currently, the best documented sightings of dragons have been taking place in a lake in the Changbai mountains, in northeastern Jilin province of china. Local government officials caught sight of a school, of as many as 20 dragons, swimming through this lake. This is China's version of the "Loch Ness Monster", the legendary "Lake Tianchi Monster", with sightings dating back a century. The Chinese government is not dismissing these sighting, but has an on going investigation to discover what's happening here.
These creatures all have a surprising similarities to the dragons of myth, and legend. From all accounts, these monsters don't act so nasty really. And the stories of old, of brave knights slaying dragons seem to be very plausible. Because, far from being at risk to be killed and eaten, a warriors biggest problem was catching,.... those chicken-hearted weenies.
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