Dragons!

Video: Why do so many cultures have dragon legends?

dragon Detail of a dragon from the Nine Dragon Wall, relief in glazed tile, 1756; in Bei Hai Park, Beijing.

A dragon, in the mythologies, legends, and folktales of various cultures, is a large lizard- or serpent-like creature, conceived in some traditions as evil and in others as good.

 In medieval Europe (the period of European history from the years 500 to about 1500) , dragons were usually depicted (shown) with wings and a barbed tail and as breathing fire.

In Greece the word drakōn, from which the English word was derived, was used originally for any large serpent (see sea serpent), and the dragon of mythology, whatever shape it later assumed, remained essentially a snake.

In general, in the Middle Eastern world (Egypt, Iraq etc.), 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. 

Ancient Egyptian art depicting Apepi being warded off by a god. Tomb of pharaoh Ramses I. Thebes West, about 1307 BC

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 good.

On the whole, however, the evil reputation of dragons was the stronger, and in Europe it outlived the idea of dragons being good. Christianity confused the ancient benevolent (good) and malevolent (evil) serpent deities (gods). In Christian art the dragon came to be symbolic of sin (wrongdoing or evil) and paganism (religions that are not Christian) and, as such, was  fought by saints.

This painting, from about 1480, illustrates a scene from the well-known legend of Saint George, a knight, battling and defeating a dragon that had been terrorizing a city and demanding human sacrifices, including a princess. 

The dragon’s form varied from the earliest times. The Chaldean (the Chaldeans lived in the Middle East about 2,500 years ago) 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 qualities but also had decorative effigies, dragons were early used as warlike emblems, as indicated in the story of the ancient Greek King Agamemnon (from Homer’s  poem Iliad), who had on his shield a blue three-headed snake. 

Norse warriors (who lived in what is now Norway and Sweden about 1,000 years ago and were also known as Vikings)  painted dragons on their shields and carved dragons’ heads on the prows (fronts) of their ships. 

A modern recreation of a Norse ship with a carved dragon on its prow

Sigurd, also known as Siegfried, a great hero of Germanic myth, is the slayer of the dragon Fafnir 

In England before the year 1000, the dragon was among the royal ensigns (flags) in war.  In the 20th century the dragon was officially incorporated in the armorial bearings of the Prince of Wales (son of the King or Queen of England).

The coat-of-arms of the Prince of Wales

In East Asian mythologies the dragon retains its prestige and is conceived as a beneficent creature. The Chinese dragon, lung, represents yang, the principle of heaven, activity, and maleness in the yinyang of Chinese cosmology (mythology about how the world began). 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 ryū 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. Dragons also figure in the ancient mythologies of other Asian cultures, including those of Korea, India, and Vietnam.

A dragon balloon in a parade in Singapore

The Korean Dragon is called a yong. There are three main types. The Korean dragon’s features are slightly different from Chinese dragons. In Korea, the Dragon was worshiped as a sacred one equipped with weapons and functions representing many animals, it meant great leap, ascension, and hope and, at the same time, the symbol of the greatest authority on earth.

A dragon and Jijang-bosal (The Bodhisattva of the Afterlife) at Daewonsa Temple in Pohang, Gyeongsangbuk-do.

The Korean Dragon was the god of water controlling the clouds and rain and also the protective god of Buddhism and the royal authority, which all led to the birth of various dragon gods. Dragons became the important theme of many legends. The ultimate goal and hope of the Dragon was to rise above the clouds and ascend to heaven.

Dragon made out of bamboo on display by Hangang-no near Samgakji subway station, Yongsan-gu, Seoul, to celebrate Yongsan-gu's 124th anniversary.

https://koreantempleguide.com/yong-dragons-%EC%9A%A9/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_dragon

Smaug the Dragon from the Hobbit

Smaug the Great, the dragon from the book, The Hobbit, written in the 1930s. The painting is by the book's author, J.R.R. Tolkien. He went on to write the book The Lord of the Rings.

From the 2013 movie, The Hobbit: the Desolation of Smaug

Chocolate: A Short History

The history of chocolate, and its creation from the beans of the cacao tree, can be traced to the ancient Maya, and even earlier to the ancient Olmecs of southern Mexico. 

The cacao plant is believed to have originated in the upper reaches of the  Amazon basin and the foothills of the Andes in South-Eastern Ecuador. It is thought that humans first used wild cacao plants by eating the sweet, fleshy pulp (the soft middle)  inside the cocoa pod which surrounds the cocoa beans.  Evidence suggests that this may have been fermented and served as an alcoholic beverage as early as 3,500BC.  

Researchers do not agree on which Central American culture first domesticated the cacao tree, but the first to use fermented cocoa beans rather than the pulp to make a drink seem to have been the Olmecs. The Olmecs lived on the east coast of Mexico and were around between 1600 BC to 400 BC. 

Throughout much of its history, chocolate was a bitter drink (like coffee or green tea), not a sweet, rich-tasting treat. But after it became popular with the kings and the rich of Europe and the people of colonial America (around the years 1700 to 1800), chocolate soon evolved into the universally loved food it is today.

Who Invented Chocolate?

Chocolate is made from the fruit of cacao trees, which are native to Central and South America. The fruits are called pods and each pod contains around 40 cacao beans. The beans are dried and roasted to create cocoa beans.

It’s unclear exactly when cacao was first eaten or drunk or who invented it.  Ancient Olmec pots and vessels from around 1500 B.C. were discovered with traces of theobromine, the stimulant compound found in chocolate and tea.

It’s thought the Olmecs used cacao to create a ceremonial drink (for religious events, weddings etc.). However, since they kept no written history, opinions differ on if they used cacao beans in their drinks or just the pulp (soft inside part) of the cacao pod.

Mayan Chocolate

The Olmecs undoubtedly passed their cacao knowledge on to the Central American Maya who not only consumed chocolate, they revered (loved) it. (The Mayan civilization was at its greatest from the years 250 to 900.) The Mayan written history mentions chocolate drinks being used in celebrations and to finalize important transactions and ceremonies.

Despite chocolate’s importance in Mayan culture, it wasn’t only for the wealthy and powerful, but was easily available to almost everyone. In many Mayan households, chocolate was enjoyed with every meal. Mayan chocolate was thick and frothy (with bubbles on top) and often combined with chili peppers, honey or water.

Xocolatl

The Aztecs took chocolate love to another level. (The Aztecs were a civilization in central Mexico from 1300 to 1521.) They believed cacao was given to them by their gods. Like the Maya, they enjoyed the caffeinated kick of hot or cold, spiced chocolate beverages in ornate (very nicely decorated) containers, but they also used cacao beans as currency to buy food and other goods. In Aztec culture, cacao beans were considered more valuable than gold.

Aztec chocolate, which they called xocolatl, was mostly an upper-class extravagance, although the lower classes enjoyed it occasionally at weddings or other celebrations.

Spanish Hot Chocolate

There are conflicting reports about when chocolate arrived in Europe, although it’s agreed it first arrived in Spain. One story says Christopher Columbus discovered cacao beans after intercepting a trade ship on a journey to America and brought the beans back to Spain with him in 1502.

No matter how chocolate got to Spain, by the late 1500s it was a much-loved indulgence (something that costs a lot of money that you don't buy often) by the Spanish king and the rich people, and Spain began importing chocolate in 1585. As other European countries such as Italy and France visited parts of Central America, they also learned about cacao and brought chocolate back to their countries.

Soon, chocolate mania spread throughout Europe. With the high demand for chocolate came chocolate plantations, which were worked by thousands of enslaved people.  

But Europeans weren’t satisfied with the traditional Aztec chocolate drink recipe. They made their own varieties of hot chocolate with cane sugar, cinnamon and other common spices and flavorings.

Soon, fashionable chocolate houses for the wealthy cropped up throughout London, Amsterdam and other European cities.

Chocolate in the American Colonies

Chocolate arrived in Florida on a Spanish ship in 1641, and it’s thought the first American chocolate house opened in Boston in 1682. By 1773, cocoa beans were a major American colony import and chocolate was enjoyed by people of all classes.

During the Revolutionary War, chocolate was provided to the military as rations (soldier's food) and sometimes given to soldiers as payment instead of money. 

(Chocolate was also provided as rations to soldiers during World War II to give them more energy, but the chocolate bars were made to taste "like a boiled potato" so that the soldiers would eat them when they needed energy and not when they just wanted something sweet.)

Cacao Powder

When chocolate first came on the scene in Europe, it was a luxury only the rich could enjoy. But in 1828, Dutch chemist Coenraad van Houten discovered a way to treat cacao beans with alkaline salts to make a powdered chocolate that was easier to mix with water.

The process became known as “Dutch processing” and the chocolate produced called cacao powder or “Dutch cocoa.”

Van Houten supposedly also invented the cocoa press, although some reports state his father invented the machine. The cocoa press separated cocoa butter from roasted cocoa beans to inexpensively and easily make cocoa powder, which was used to create a wide variety of delicious chocolate products.

Both Dutch processing and the chocolate press helped make chocolate affordable for everyone. It also opened the door for chocolate to be mass-produced.

 In 1847 the English firm of Fry and Sons combined cocoa butter with chocolate liquor and sugar to produce sweet chocolate—the base of most chocolate confectionary—and in 1876 Daniel Peter of Switzerland added dried milk to make milk chocolate. Many flavored, solid, and coated chocolate foods rapidly followed.

Photo by Denny Müller on Unsplash

Did Lindt get the idea of putting hot peppers in chocolate from the Maya?

The First Artists Lived 30,000 Years Ago

 Some of the earliest art, created thousands of years ago, can be found in caves, especially in Europe.

A cave painting of a rhinoceros from about 30,000 years ago. There are no rhinoceroses in Europe today. 

This map shows Europe during its last glaciation, about 20,000 to 70,000 years before today

A painting of a bear 

Part of Chauvet Cave today. 

Over 30,000 years ago, during the Stone Age, when people used stone tools, some of the first artists created paintings inside of caves. Chauvet Cave is a prehistoric cave site found in the limestone cliffs of Southern France. People lived inside the cave 32,000 to 26,000 years ago during the Paleolithic Age. The Paleolithic Age is the name we give to the period of time which extends from the earliest known use of stone tools by hominins (human-like creatures) around 3.3 million years ago, down to roughly around 11,650 years ago. 

The Paleolithic era more generally refers to a time in human history when foraging (eating wild plants), hunting, and fishing were the primary means of obtaining food.

Chauvet Cave is a prehistoric cave site found in the limestone cliffs of Southern France. Jean-Marie Chauvet and two other speleologists, or cave researchers, would make the discovery on December 18, 1994. This would be the first external contact with the cave since a rock slide sealed its entrance 25,000 years ago.

Both predator (animals that eat other animals) and prey (the animals predators eat) animals, such as horses, cave bears, owls, deer, and lions are depicted, but the majority of the paintings focus on predators. 

The paintings were made with juices from plants and berries, charcoal from burnt sticks. The only light they had came from a fire. 

Stone Tools

Everyday Life in Chauvet Cave

Sleep Improves Students' Scores and Thinking Skills

 

• Teenagers who go to bed earlier and sleep for longer than their peers (teens about their own age) tend to have sharper mental skills and score better on cognitive (thinking and problem solving) tests, researchers have said.

• A study of more than 3,000 adolescents (teens) showed that those who turned in (went to bed) earliest, slept the longest, and had the lowest sleeping heart rates outperformed (did better than) others on reading, vocabulary, problem solving and other mental tests.

The researchers expected teenagers with healthy sleeping habits to score better than those who slept poorly, but were surprised at the impact (effect or change) that even small differences in sleep made.

“We think that it’s the sleep driving (making stronger) the better cognitive abilities, in part because we consolidate (bring together and organize) our memories during sleep,” said Barbara Sahakian, a professor of clinical neuropsychology at the University of Cambridge.

A good night’s rest has long been linked to better mental performance, but researchers are still teasing apart (trying to find out) what happens in adolescence when crucial (very important) brain development (brain growth and changes) coincides (happens at the same time) with a shift towards later bedtimes and less sleep overall.

Sahakian’s team and researchers at Fudan University in Shanghai analysed data from 3,222 young people in the adolescent brain cognitive development study, the largest long-term investigation into brain development and child health in the US. Those who took part had brain scans, cognitive tests, and tracked their sleep using Fitbits.

A patient lies in the MRI scanner while researchers look at the images from the MRI scan of the patient's brain

• Even those with the best sleeping habits got less sleep than experts recommend, the study found. According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, 13- to 18-year-olds should have eight to 10 hours sleep per night.

The teenagers fell into three distinct groups. The first, about 39%, went to bed the latest and woke the earliest, sleeping on average seven hours and 10 minutes a night. The second group, about 24%, slept for seven hours and 21 minutes on average. The third, about 37%, went to bed the earliest, slept the longest, and had the lowest sleeping heart rates. They slept about seven hours and 25 minutes.

While there were no meaningful differences in the educational achievements of the different groups, those in group three scored highest on cognitive tests, followed by group two, and group one scored the worst. Brain scans showed that those in group three had the largest brain volumes and best brain functions. Details are published in Cell Reports.

Sahakian said it was “surprising” that minor differences in sleep had such an impact, adding: “It suggests that small differences in sleep amounts accrue over time to make a big difference in outcomes.”

• For teenagers who want to improve their sleep and boost mental skills, Sahakian recommends regular exercise to help with sleep, and not using mobile phones or computers late in the evening.

Colin Espie, a professor of sleep medicine at the University of Oxford, who was not involved in the study, said: “One of the consequences of having highly evolved brains, that can perform complex tasks, is that as humans we are particularly dependent on sleep, not least in the developing years.

“As this research shows, falling asleep late and getting less sleep is problematic. No doubt this is exacerbated on school days when young people need to get up relatively early for school, and play catchup on the weekends – a phenomenon known as social jet lag.”

 

He added: “We would do well as a society to place more emphasis on sleep by, for example, incorporating more sleep health content into personal and social education at secondary school.” Oxford’s Teensleep project proposes ways to help teenagers improve their sleep health.

Gareth Gaskell, a professor of psychology at the University of York, welcomed the focus on early adolescence. “I would like to see more in the way of intervention studies during adolescence so we can find out how to help adolescents that might have suboptimal sleep patterns. Often, quite simple changes can be made to the bedtime routine, for example around screen use, to improve the timing and duration of sleep.”

From: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/apr/22/teenagers-bed-early-sleep-longer-sharper-brains-study

More on the importance of sleep for teenagers: https://www.sleepfoundation.org/teens-and-sleep

How to Get Better Sleep

1. Stick to a sleep schedule
Go to bed and get up at the same time every day, including weekends. Being consistent reinforces your body's sleep-wake cycle.
If you don't fall asleep within about 20 minutes of going to bed, leave your bedroom and do something relaxing. Read or listen to soothing music. Go back to bed when you're tired. Repeat as needed, but continue to maintain your sleep schedule and wake-up time.

2. Pay attention to what you eat and drink
Don't go to bed hungry or stuffed. In particular, avoid heavy or large meals within a couple of hours of bedtime. Discomfort might keep you up.
Nicotine, caffeine and alcohol deserve caution, too. The stimulating effects of nicotine and caffeine take hours to wear off and can interfere with sleep. And even though alcohol might make you feel sleepy at first, it can disrupt sleep later in the night.

3. Create a restful environment
Keep your room cool, dark and quiet. Exposure to light in the evenings might make it more challenging to fall asleep. Avoid prolonged use of light-emitting screens (computers, TV, phones) just before bedtime. Consider using room-darkening shades, earplugs, a fan or other devices to create an environment that suits your needs.
Doing calming activities before bedtime, such as taking a bath or using relaxation techniques, might promote better sleep.

4. Limit daytime naps
Long daytime naps can interfere with nighttime sleep. Limit naps to no more than one hour and avoid napping late in the day.
However, if you work nights, you might need to nap late in the day before work to help make up your sleep debt.

5. Include physical activity in your daily routine
Regular physical activity can promote better sleep. However, avoid being active too close to bedtime.
Spending time outside every day might be helpful, too.

6. Manage worries
Try to resolve your worries or concerns before bedtime. Write down what's on your mind and then set it aside for tomorrow.
Stress management might help. Start with the basics, such as getting organized, setting priorities and delegating tasks. Meditation also can ease anxiety.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/adult-health/in-depth/sleep/art-20048379