Did every country have dragon slayers?

In China, if you called someone a dragon you'll be giving them the highest compliment imaginable. In medieval Europe, if you called someone a dragon you were calling them a monster that deserved to die. But in both these traditions there was always someone or something hunting dragons. But why? Welcome to the Mysteries of Mythology. Dragon Slayers of Myth and Legend. Welcome back mystics to this third and final part of the Dragon Origin series. First we go to Asia. In Chinese myth, the Long was an evil. It was rain, rivers, clouds and thunder. The breath of the world itself. To farmers, dragons meant life. Too much rain or too little and the entire community suffered. So people didn't generally hunt dragons. They prayed to them. There were four dragon kings, each ruling a sea and controlling the flow of rain and water. When crops withered, people begged the dragon kings for mercy. And when floods destroyed their homes, they built temples to calm their anger. The emperor of China himself was called the True Dragon Son of Heaven. His throne was the Dragon Throne. To harm a dragon was to threaten the and the harmony between heaven, earth and humanity. So in a world where dragons represented the divine balance, you'd think that dragons were never slayed. But they were. Ne Zha, the fiery child god from investiture of the gods, famously killed Ao Bing, the third son of the Dragon King of the Eastern Sea. But he didn't do it for glory, he did it in self-defence. Ao Bing was flooding Ne Zha's village after Ne Zha accidentally disturbed the sea. And when Ne Zha realised he'd angered the Dragon King, he sacrificed himself to atone. But who was later reborn as the protector of the people and even of the dragons themselves. Then there's Hu Yi, best known for shooting down the nine suns to save the earth from burning. But legends also say he slew a hydra-like dragon called Xiao Ying that was poisoning rivers. Again, not because dragons were evil, but because one of them had gone rogue, disturbing the natural balance. Even gods sometimes fought dragons. Oolang Shen, the three-eyed warrior deity, defeated a river dragon that demanded human sacrifice, then spared its life once order was restored. In the East, the dragon or long wasn't a monster. But once in a while, when a dragon went too far, a hero had to step up in order to restore balance. This worldview runs through nearly every Eastern philosophy. In Taoism, balance between yin and yang sustains the universe. In Confucianism, harmony between heaven, earth and humankind defines a just society. And in Buddhism, dragons even become protectors of sacred teachings, guardians of wisdom itself. So while you think Asian dragon slayers can only be found in the worlds of PlayStation and Xbox, they were also found in traditional Chinese mythology. While Eastern cultures were only occasionally dealing with a few wayward dragons, medieval Christian Europe was doing the exact opposite. The story of Saint George is perhaps the best known example. A dragon was terrorising a village in Roman times, a place called Cyllene, believed to be in modern-day Turkey or Libya. The venomous creature lived in a nearby pond and was poisoning the countryside. To protect the city, the villagers began offering its sacrifices. First two sheep a day, then a man and sheep, and finally their own children chosen by a lottery. For years, families offered their children in this way. Then one year, the lottery chose the princess. The king refused to give up his daughter, but the villagers were outraged. They had all lost children themselves, so why should the king's daughter be spared? Furious and desperate, they dragged her to the dragon's lair. In most versions of the story, the princess is depicted as brave. She goes willingly, resigned to her fate and accepting that this is simply how things must be done. Some scholars see this as a reflection of older mythological traditions that centred on the goddesses, the earth and sacrifice as part of the natural cycle. As the princess waits by the water, Saint George, a Roman soldier and devout Christian, rides by. Seeing her distressed like a bride and awaiting death, he immediately offers to save her. She refuses, telling him to leave. This is the way of things here, she says. The dragon must be fed, or the others will suffer. George cannot bring himself to abandon her. When the dragon emerges from the pond, he charges forward on horseback and drives his lance deep into its side, wounding it severely. Then he asks the princess to throw him her girdle, the belt worn around her waist as a symbol of chastity and protection. As soon as George ties the girdle around the dragon's neck, the creature becomes completely tame. It follows him quietly like a pet. George leads the dragon and the princess back to the village, where he offers the people a choice. He will slay the dragon if everyone agrees to convert to Christianity. They accept without hesitation and the The Tarasque was terrorising the region of Provence. Legend said it was the spawn of the biblical Leviathan. It had a lion's head, six legs, a snake-like tail and a turtle-like armoured shell. It breathed poison and all attempts to kill it had failed. Until Saint Martha, a young devout Christian woman, ventured alone into the forest, found it feeding on a shepherd it had just killed and caught it distracted. As it began to turn on her, she held out her crucifix and sprinkled holy water on it. The Tarasque instantly laid down at her feet like a trained dog. Martha crafted a leash from her own hair, just like the princess' girdle in the Saint George story, and led it back to town. She had no intention of killing it, she wanted to show the people that God's power could pacify even the most savage beasts. The dragon didn't need to die. At the moment the townspeople saw the Tarasque, docile, harmless, on a leash, they grabbed stones, sticks, farm tools and beat the creature to death right there in the street. Even the saint didn't want it dead, but people's fear and the need for revenge were too strong. Some scholars say there is symbolism in the stories. In Western belief, humanity should be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing. The belief is that you should subdue the earth, have dominion over it and be its master. Contrast that with Buddhism, Hinduism and many Native American and Mesoamerican traditions where the earth and everything on it are sacred, part of a cycle to be respected. In medieval Europe chaos wasn't acceptable. Nature had to be conquered. And the dragon, representing untamed nature, old pagan beliefs, everything civilization needed to overcome, had to die. The dragon slayer became the ultimate hero because he was doing what Christianity demanded, destroying chaos, not coexisting with it. So after 75,000 years of storytelling, from the rain snakes of Africa to the dragons of China and Europe, why did this creature appear everywhere? Because everything lined up so perfectly. It was the perfect storm. Our minds were built to notice serpents. Our ancestors carried one unforgettable story out of Africa. And the earth itself, with its fossils, flames and storms, seemed to prove the story true. Everywhere humans went, dragons followed. And every culture shaped them in its own image. In the east, dragons ruled the skies and brought the rain, symbols of balance, wisdom and life. In the west they became chaos incarnate, monsters to be slain, not understood. Two sides of the same truth. Do we see ourselves as part of nature or as its conqueror? In the end dragons aren't imaginary and they aren't real. They're reflections of us, of our fears of chaos, our respect of nature, our need to understand the unknown. And that's why they've never gone away from our minds. Why we still draw them, dream them and bring them to life on screen. Because the dragon is more than a myth. It's the oldest story we still tell. The mirror that shows who we are and what we are afraid of the most. Hic sunt dracones. Here be dragons. And here, at the edge of the map, is where the human story really began. So what do you think mystics? Are dragons our oldest fear or our oldest teacher? Were dragon slayers heroes or did they destroy something sacred? Let me know what you think in the comments. I try to read every one. And if you journeyed with me through all three parts of this series, thank you. Truly. It means more than I can say. 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