Dragon Stories -- An Annotated List

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FOREWORD

This sounded as good as any other idea I had at the time. After looking at some basic collections of dragon stories, both Chinese and not, another idea bubbled up to the surface. Never a dragon fanatic, I had only vague ideas as to what dragons were all about. To me, Chinese dragons had always been more symbolic with deeply embedded social significance than characters in stories. Dragons from the Western tradition had simply been fanciful creatures that one encountered occasionally in folk tales and children's books. Curious as to the similarities and differences between Western and Eastern dragons, I expanded the bibliography to include both sorts. Since I am a children's librarian and have read many modern children's books featuring dragons, I began to wonder which dragon traits have survived through the thousands of years of their existence and which have disappeared when entering the realm of children's literature. I extended the bibliography again to include modern children's book dragons.

After a little more than a month's gathering of materials, reading, and thinking about dragons, I have come to some realizations:

• Western Dragons have existed in the Bible, myths, and ancient tales, disproving my naive assumption that they were invented by writers of the Knights/dragonslayer tales.

• If there are not "dragons" from every land in the world, serpent like monsters/gods definitely can be found in almost all cultures. It is often difficult to decide whether a certain creature is a dragon. This difficulty is evidenced in the fact that one of the two versions of the same story calls its monster a dragon and the other version names the monster a serpent.

• Traditional Western Dragons tend to be viewed as witless creatures whose pure intention is to destroy. They are simply beasts who do not command any means to communicate with humans. Most of the traditional western dragons are put in stories firstly to symbolize the evil of the world -- greed, gluttony, destruction, etc., and secondly to be conquered by heroes. They are both symbols and devices for storytelling.

• Traditional Chinese dragons are very different in temperament and in what they symbolize. They have been the symbol of power and good fortune for thousands of years in Chinese culture. In stories, even though they are often portrayed as bad-tempered and extremely powerful, they are acknowledged as akin to humans. They usually have human forms and speak human languages, are sometimes humans to start with, and are almost always associated with some natural elements that are important to an agricultural society -- most frequently, water and weather.

• Western dragons in contemporary children's books, especially in picture books, have ceased to be a symbol of pure evil, or even truly threatening adversaries. The portrayal of these dragons ranges from benign to utterly plush and cute. An opinion essay discussing the shared characteristics in contemporary children's picture book dragons entitled "Scare Them Off or Be Friends With Them: Picture Book Dragons" is being drafted at this moment.

This annotated list is far from finished at this point and might never be. My intention is not to choose a good telling over a lesser one, but to present as many stories as I can find so that the readers can spot similarities and differences from one telling to another, and from one type of dragon story to another.