Hic sunt dracones

In high school, we learn to think of history as endless lists of dates.  Of presidential terms and royal reigns.  Of endless battles.  Of the rise and fall of one empire after another.

If, at the university, we venture further into historical studies, of course, we learn about social and economic history, of the history of science and technology.  Even  history as viewed from the perspective of agricultural development.

All of these approaches to history present as attempts to understand the lives and thoughts of peoples who lived in places and centuries other than our own.

Last night, Professor Robin Stacey gave the first of five weekly lectures, sponsored by the University of Washington Alumni Association, asking a packed auditorium to consider the world of medieval Europe as revealed by the myths, legends, folklore, and fairy tales that evolved during those centuries.  She also showed how many of the fictional persons and creatures from the medieval period have continued to speak to our own time and civilization, although often modified in ways that meet our own emotional or political needs.

Professor Stacey has presented public lectures on medieval-related subjects in the past.  I blogged on a lecture series discussing the writings of J.R.R Tolkien in 2008, and the "Medieval Antecedents of the Modern World" in 2011.  Both were interesting and well-presented series.

Last night, her topic was dragons, creatures whose Anglo-Saxon antecedents go back to the early eighth century A.D., back to the "dragon" that the hero killed (and was killed by) at the end of the poem Beowulf.  

Many other civilizations have even earlier stories and traditions about dragons.  In China, they are considered symbols of power and bringers of good luck.  (I myself was born in a Year of the Dragon, and under the sign of Aries -- for those of us so fortunate, our faults, if any, dear Reader, lie not in our stars but in ourselves.)  

In the Old Testament, dragons were used as symbols for the enemies of God, and in the New Testament, in Revelations, were specifically identified with Satan.  In Christian culture, pre-Christian stories seem to have been merged with Christian beliefs, resulting in stories such as St. George and the Dragon.  The Christian dragon has none of the favorable attributes of his Chinese cousins.  

Professor Stacey pointed out that there is a theme that runs through many stories of dragons -- portraying them as hoarders of great wealth.  The Norse story of the dragon Fafnir and his hoard of wealth, who was killed by the hero Sigurd, is told in many versions, and was incorporated by Wagner into his Siegfried opera.  When we watch Siegfried kill the dragon to stirring music, we are watching a character that has appeared in many forms, dating back far beyond Beowulf.

The Norse Fafnir also shows up under the name of Smaug in Tolkien's The Hobbit, where he is described as the greatest dragon of his day, a malevolent creature who has seized an enormous treasure from the dwarves which he hoards deep inside a mountain, a site from which he has driven the dwarves.

Stacey described vividly, and often with appropriate humor, these manifestations of the "dragon" idea in many civilizations over several millennia.  I would have enjoyed hearing in more detail how each of these occurrences of dragons in a civilization's mythology or folklore corresponded to the peculiar character of each civilization's culture.  But she covered a great amount of material in an hour's lecture.  She has written several books on medieval topics, books that might well be worth looking into.

Future lectures will discuss King Arthur, "Tales of the Greenwood," the Templars, and Joan of Arc. 

Professor Stacey concluded by joking that she had always dreamed of working the old cartographical inscription "Here be dragons" into a talk.  In her lecture today, she succeeded.