In Game of Thrones they’re mounts and symbols of ancient power. In The Wheel of Time, it’s the title and symbol of the Chosen One. Then there’s Smaug from The Hobbit, the dragons of Pern, the various species encountered by Harry Potter—and so on.

It makes sense that dragons are one of the most popular mythical creatures in modern fiction because they’re just as common in folklore and myth. Just about every culture around the world has some kind of dragon in its ancient legends—and, interestingly, they’re often called a very similar thing. Drage in Danish, Drak in Czech, Ddraig in Welsh, Dreki in Icelandic, Draak in Afrikaans, Dragun in French, Drakon in Greek—you’re sensing a theme here. Then there’s the East Asian cluster, with names like Long (Chinese), Naga (Indonesia/India), and Rong (Vietnamese), which might not look as similar on the page but still bear the signs of a shared source.

There are other creature archetypes that are fairly widespread—little people and giants are the two that come straight to mind. But these groups don’t have the linguistic similarities that dragons share. It’s also easier to speculate on a shared origin from tribes of humans or near-human relatives. Slight differences in appearance and stature became magnified over time into the humanoid races of religion and folk tales.

But there’s no single clear source for dragons. What creature could every culture around the world have seen that would make them to go: that right there, that’s a dragon—and have it (mostly) match what people see and know everywhere else? It’s that mystery, of where they came from and why everyone has them, that makes dragons such a fascinating creature.

What is a dragon exactly?

Dragons vary in their details between cultures (and often from legend to legend within a culture). In my view, there are a few core traits that qualify something as a dragon:

• They’re reptilian in some form – This can be more snake-like or more lizard-like, but they are always a reptile, normally a scaled one.
• They aren’t solely terrestrial – Many dragons can fly, whether or not they have wings. Others come from the sea but can also breathe air and move on land, and some can do all 3.
• They’re smarter than the average monster – Dragons are often seen as wise guardians of knowledge. In other lore their intelligence is on par with a human’s, and they’re typically shown as being sentient, intelligent beings.
• They are long-lived or immortal – Connected to this, they’re also often very difficult to kill and elusive. Some dragons are primordial beings, said to have existed since the beginning of time.
• They possess supernatural, magical, or god-like abilities – Breathing fire is a common example. Other dragons have the power to control the weather or cause whirlpools, and there is a strong association in many cultures between dragons and storm or rain gods (and sometimes that god is themselves a dragon).

If a mythic creature meets all five of those qualifications, it’s a dragon in my book. A few common types of dragons in myth include…

European Dragons

This is the common archetype found in Medieval folklore and the modern fiction inspired by it. These dragons tend to be large and lizard-like, with 2-4 legs, a long tail, and wings, which are usually leathery but can be feathered. They’re also likely to breathe fire and may have other odd abilities, like acidic blood. They’re typically hostile and dangerous, though often not aggressive, preferring to stay in their underground lairs guarding their treasure until provoked.

Loong or lung (Chinese dragons)

This style of dragon is found throughout East Asia and is often a symbol of Imperial power and authority. They have snake-like bodies, though they often also have 2 or 4 legs and a feline head and face with features like a snout and mane. They don’t have wings (though they usually can fly) and often control water, especially natural disasters like floods and typhoons.

Feathered Serpents

This is a common motif in Mesoamerican cultures like the Aztec and Maya. They have snake-like bodies, usually legless. The face can be snake-like or feline and is frequently ringed by a wreath of feathers. Sometimes there are feathers elsewhere on the body, too, though as far as I know there are no depictions with actual wings. They are often culture heroes, associated with knowledge, language, and civilization, as well as with rain, water, and storms. Sometimes they also serve in a psychopomp role as guides of departed souls to the afterlife.

Rainbow Serpents

Common in Australian Aboriginal myth, the rainbow serpent is often a primordial creature and creator. They’re associated with water in both its life-giving and destructive ability, said to cause lightning, thunder, and rainfall. This is also how they came to be linked with rainbows, which are sometimes said to be the actual serpent traveling between water holes. They have snake-like bodies, usually with no legs, though sometimes they’ll have wings like a bat. They usually have a serpentine face, sometimes with a crest, mane, or beard.

Horned Serpents

Found in Asian, European, and North American mythologies, the horned serpent is another one typically associated with storms, lightning, and rain. They often live underwater and their scales are said to aid in healing, prophecy, or other useful things. They have a snake-like body with no legs or wings, and a pair of horns like those of a deer on their heads. Horned serpents tend to be benevolent, or at least ambivalent, to humans, said to do helpful things like send rain for crops or lead game into human areas for hunting.

You could also argue that world serpents, like Jörmungandr in Norse myth, Antaboga in Javanese myth, or Shesha from Hindu myth are a form of dragon. Though they exist on a more cosmic scale, they still fit the archetype I outlined above.

There are other dragons that don’t fit neatly into any of those categories. In my mythology research, I found roughly 170 variants on the dragon, and while a good portion of those are from Europe and Asia they exist on every inhabited continent, stretching back as far as the Sumerians and their contemporaries.

So why are dragons so common?

The short and disappointing answer is that nobody really knows. But it’s a bizarre enough cross-cultural through-line that a lot of people have come up with theories. Some of my favorites:

1) Misunderstood alien technology.

The prevailing ancient alien theorist take on dragons is that they were never animals at all. Rather, they were the ships of alien visitors that were seen as some kind of monster by primitive humans. As these aliens traveled around the world, various cultures would remember them in slightly different ways, but all derived from this same shared source. This explains both the presence of dragon-like creatures in so many mythologies and why their name is often so similar.

They typical traits of European dragons, especially, do have a lot in common with a large aircraft. Engines are loud and can release flame and smoke. Other theorists cite the appearance of the Leviathan in the Bible, which was said to be a double-hulled creature that made the sea boil when it emerged—what sounds like a possible description of a surfacing submarine. An advanced sea-air-land craft could explain a lot of the seemingly supernatural attributes of dragons, and if those aliens had terraforming or weather control technology that could also explain their connection to rain and storms.

2) Reflection of past evolutionary stages.

Carl Sagan’s book The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence is a good place to read more about this theory. In short, though, he suggests that the mythological concept of dragons arose out of early homo sapiens’ survival instincts. The idea of the creature formed as a combination of our natural fear of predators, including dangerous reptiles like crocodiles and snakes, with our attempt to understand our “reptile brains”, the aggressive and violent aspects of our behavior that are hold-overs from a distant evolutionary past.

3) Explanation for dinosaur bones.

Just like dragons, dinosaur fossils have been found on every continent. If we’re discovering them now, ancient people could have found some, too, and would likely have drawn similar conclusions: these belonged to a very large reptile. It’s just a short skip and jump from there to stories of dragons. This would also explain why dragons have the same core form everywhere but differ in the details. A fossil is just the skeleton, and each culture would’ve fleshed that out based on their understanding of the world and the animals they would encounter in their day-to-day.

4) Encounters with now-extinct animals.

It seems far-fetched to me that actual dragons existed at some point (though I’m sure someone’s posited this theory). But mythological accounts of things do tend to be exaggerated. It’s the old fish story effect, where the fish gets a bit longer with each retelling, but stretched out across generations. Because of that, it does seem plausible that the mythology of dragons is an exaggerated version of a real creature that people encountered.

One option is related to the last point: That a flying dinosaur or prehistoric sea snake managed to survive long enough to be seen by early humans before succumbing to extinction. If this did happen, sightings of this creature could have eventually transformed into mythical dragons. This seems especially plausible with something that lived in the oceans, making it possible for people on all continents to encounter the same creature. Even modern small birds can travel incredible distances, though, so a flying dinosaur hold-out could have boasted a similarly broad territory.

It could also have been an animal that evolved more recently, perhaps even concurrent with modern man, that has since either gone extinct or has gotten smaller or otherwise less dragon-ey as it continued to evolve. It’s easy to see how a giant crocodile, lizard, or snake could spawn dragon myths, especially if the creatures were fairly rare or already nearing extinction, making it elusive as well as terrifyingly dangerous.

The Human Fascination with Dragons

Regardless of where they came from, dragons are one of the most enduring, most universal symbols in human mythology. In a certain sense, they can be seen as a symbol for the violence and danger of the natural world. Many monsters were ultimately created to keep people (mostly kids) from going places they shouldn’t, and dragons are often said to live in caves, mountains, and other wild places that are plenty dangerous even without monsters.

Dragons are a more complex symbol than this, though. Their power doesn’t just come from size and violence but also intelligence. And while they are universally shown as powerful, they aren’t always malevolent. In some myths they play a key role in the creation of humanity, sometimes even as an ancestor, which could be seen as reinforcement for either Carl Sagan’s or ancient alien theory, depending on how literally you view it.

From a storytelling standpoint, this gives dragons a very unique place in the toolbox. They come equipped with some tropes that makes them an economical choice when you want to add a mythical creature—you can just say it’s a dragon without needing to explain more, whatever background your readers are coming from. Yet they also have remarkable flexibility. They can be friend or foe, mount or monster, equally powerful as ally or adversary. Wherever they came from, at least one part of the dragon myth is true: as a concept they are immortal, and likely to endure as long as humans are still telling stories.

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