Winged Dragon Earrings

The dragon of the modern period is typically depicted as a giant, scaly, horned, dinosaur-like creature, with leathery wings and the ability to breathe fire. Iconically, yet it has at last combined the Chinese dragon with the Western one. It typically protects a cavern filled with gold and treasure and is usually associated with a great hero, who attempts to slay it. Many modern stories portray dragons as brilliant creatures who can speak, some with the ability to wield magic. Often, dragons are extremely ancient. Some are helpful and wise, whom heroes can consult for advice, while others are greedy and guard a vast hoard of treasure.

For the Greeks of Classical times, dragons were terrifying, serpent-like earth-born remnants of an earlier age, dark creatures that had to be heroically eliminated. Dragons were guardians of underground sources of power, and often guarded the more literal sources, springs, where the watery underworld burst to the surface. The water-dragon most widely depicted was called the “Hydra.” The serpent-like dragon guardian of the spring or cleft, where healing and oracular properties must not be approached without caution, was a protector of the original inhabitants of Greece (Pelasgians) and their prehistoric lore. Always, in the literary myths that have survived, the hero from the new Olympian age is seen to destroy the dragon, never to consult it At Delphi the ancient oracle came from the Goddess’s serpentine dragon deep in the cleft, the Python and his seeress; but Apollo “saved” the inhabitants of Delphi from its “ravages”— then assumed the oracular powers for himself.

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