Dragon

Chinese pot decorated with a dragon. Yuan dynasty

A pair of Kanglasha dragons installed inside the Kangla Palace in Manipur, India

A dragon is a mythical creature, belonging to mythology and fantasy. There are stories about dragons in European and Chinese cultures.

There are many kinds of dragons in the cultures. In general:

A dragon has scales and fins.
A dragon can look like a reptile or a snake.
Dragons can be heard about in stories.

The Chinese dragon is associated with the emperor of China. It is the symbol of Chinese Imperial power.^[1]

Dragons are in many stories such as How to Train Your Dragon, and Harry Potter. Some stories, such as those by Anne McCaffrey, have dragons who are looking for help, or giving help. A dragon also appears in the Book of Revelation chapters 12-13, where he is seen as the Devil.

Gallery

A dragon in Dungeons & Dragons
The Colchian dragon from Greek mythology
Smaug on an airplane
Chinese Dragon

Dragon Media

An early appearance of the Old English word dracancode: ang is deprecated (oblique singular of draca) in Beowulf
Several bones purported to belong to the Wawel Dragon hang outside Wawel Cathedral, but actually belong to a Pleistocene mammal.
Illustration from an ancient Egyptian papyrus manuscript showing the god Set spearing the serpent Apep as he attacks the sun boat of Ra
Four panels illustrating Awre in the Kebra Nagast.
The mušḫuššu is a serpentine, draconic monster from ancient Mesopotamian mythology with the body and neck of a snake, the forelegs of a lion, and the hind-legs of a bird.^[2] Here it is shown as it appears in the Ishtar Gate from the city of Babylon.^[2]
The Destruction of Leviathan (1865) by Gustave Doré
Rustam kills the dragon, folio from Shahnameh of Shah Ismail II, attrib. Sadegi (Beg), Iran, Tabriz, c. 1576 AD, view 1 – Aga Khan Museum – Toronto, Canada
A dragon from the Nine Dragons Scroll by Chen Rong, 1244 AD.
Illustration of the dragon Zhulong from a seventeenth-century edition of the Shanhaijing