A legendary monster usually conceived as a huge, bat-winged, fire-breathing, scaly lizard or snake with a barbed tail. The belief in these creatures apparently arose without the slightest knowledge on the part of the ancients of the gigantic, prehistoric, dragon-like reptiles. In Greece the word drakon, from which the
English word was derived, was used originally for any large serpent, and the dragon of mythology, whatever shape it later assumed, remained essentially a snake.

In general, in the Middle Eastern world, where snakes are large and deadly, the serpent or dragon was symbolic of the principle of evil. Thus, the Egyptian god Apepi, for example, was the great serpent of the world of darkness. But the Greeks and Romans, though accepting the Middle Eastern idea of the serpent as an evil power, also at times conceived the drakontes as beneficent powers--sharp-eyed dwellers in the inner parts of the Earth. On the whole, however, the evil reputation of dragons was the stronger, and in Europe it outlived the other. Christianity confused the ancient benevolent and malevolent serpent deities in a common condemnation. In Christian art the dragon came to be symbolic of sin and paganism and, as such, was depicted prostrate beneath the heels of saints and martyrs.

The dragon's form varied from the earliest times. The Chaldean dragon Tiamat had four legs, a scaly body, and wings, whereas the biblical dragon of Revelation, "the old serpent," was many-headed like the Greek Hydra. Because they not only possessed both protective and terror-inspiring qualitiesbut also had decorative effigies, dragons were early used as warlike emblems. Thus, in the Iliad, King Agamemnon had on his shield a blue three-headed snake, just as the Norse warriors in later times painted dragons on their shields and carved dragons' heads on the prows of their ships. In England before the Norman Conquest, the dragon was chief among the royal ensigns in war, having been instituted as such by Uther Pendragon, father of King Arthur. In the 20th century the dragon was officially incorporated in the armorial bearings of the prince of Wales.

In the Far East, the dragon managed to retain its prestige and is known as a beneficent creature. The Chinese dragon, lung, represented yang, the principle of heaven, activity, and maleness in the yin-yang of Chinese cosmology. From ancient times, it was the emblem of the Imperial family, and until the founding of the republic (1911) the dragon adorned the Chinese flag. The dragon came to Japan with much of the rest of Chinese culture, and there (as ryu or tatsu) it became capable of changing its size at will, even to the point of becoming invisible.Both Chinese and Japanese dragons, though regarded as powers of the air, are usually wingless. They are among the deified forces of nature in Taoism.

The term dragon has no zoological meaning, but it has been applied in the Latin generic name Draco to a number of species of small lizards found in the Indo-Malayan region. The name is also popularly applied to the giant monitor, Varanus komodoensis, discovered on Komodo, in Indonesia.

Draco

The celestial dragon guards a treasure of galaxies and double stars.

It is difficult to observe the constellation Draco the Dragon in one season. The tail end of Draco slithers between the Big Dipper and Little Dipper, which are frequent spring observing targets. Draco's midsection reaches an area north of Cepheus that is overhead on autumn evenings. This winding constellation finally tops off above the summer constellations of Hercules and Cygnus. All told, Draco's string of stars wraps halfway around the North Celestial Pole.

The most recognizable asterism in Draco is a four-star trapezoid north of the Keystone of Hercules that defines the head of the dragon. Draco's brightest star is Eltanin (Gamma [g] Draconis), an orange, spectral type K star of 2nd magnitude, 150 light-years distant, which burns as brightly as 180 suns. Another star in the constellation brighter than 3rd magnitude is Rastaban (Beta [b] Draconis), which also composes part of the dragon's head. The Alpha (a) designation of Draco goes to Thuban, a rather unimposing star that can be found between the bowl of the Little Dipper and the handle of the Big Dipper. Thuban's notoriety lies in its distinction as a former pole star; 4,800 years ago, the wobble of Earth's axis put Thuban within 10' of the North Celestial Pole.

With vast convolutions Draco holds Th' ecliptic axis in his scaly folds. O'er half the skies his neck enormous rears, And with immense meanders parts the Bears. Economy of Vegetation
-- Erasmus Darwin -- (1731-1802)

-- Andrea Gianopoulos --

Source:Britannica.com