98 Fun Facts About Dragon

'Dragon' entered English in the 13th century via Old French from a Latin word meaning what?

Huge serpent is what Latin draco meant; its Greek root drakon may come from a verb for seeing clearly, perhaps naming the beast for its deadly stare.

Which hero sowed a dragon's teeth to raise the first warriors of Thebes?

Cadmus slew the dragon guarding a spring near the future Thebes and sowed its teeth; armed men called the Spartoi sprang from the ground and became the city's founding nobles.

Chinese dragons were traditionally thought to govern what?

Rain and the seas were the dragons' realm: in a drought a village made offerings to its local dragon king, and the Dragon Kings of the Four Seas were each said to rule an ocean.

Under the Ming and Qing dynasties, what marked a dragon as imperial?

Five claws set the imperial dragon apart; honoured officials wore a four-clawed version that was officially no dragon at all but a mang, or python.

In Chinese legend, which fish turns into a dragon if it leaps the Dragon Gate waterfall?

A carp that fights its way upstream and clears the falls at the Dragon Gate becomes a dragon, so 'a carp leaping the Dragon Gate' came to stand for passing the imperial exams.

In the Chinese zodiac, which animal's year follows straight after the Year of the Dragon?

Snake comes sixth, right behind the Dragon; in the folk tale of the zodiac race it hid on the Horse's hoof, then startled the Horse at the finish line to slip in ahead of it.

The Dragon Boat Festival commemorates which ancient Chinese poet-statesman?

Qu Yuan, a poet and minister of the state of Chu, drowned himself in the Miluo River around 278 BC; legend says locals raced out in boats and threw rice to protect his body.

In 2009 UNESCO added the Dragon Boat Festival to which of its lists?

The Intangible Cultural Heritage list protects living customs rather than monuments; the 2009 entry covers the dragon boat races, the rice dumplings and the moxa and calamus hung over doors to ward off evil.

In Welsh legend, the red dragon of Wales fights an invading dragon of which colour?

White was the invader's colour: in the 9th-century Historia Brittonum a boy shows King Vortigern two dragons fighting beneath his collapsing fort, the red for the Britons and the white for the Saxons.

Which king won at Bosworth under a red dragon banner?

Henry VII, from an old Anglesey family, flew the red dragon at Bosworth and paraded it through the capital after his victory; the flag became officially Welsh only in 1959.

Which saint slays the dragon of Silene in the Golden Legend?

Saint George wounds the dragon in the Golden Legend, has the princess lead it into Silene on her girdle, and kills it only once the king and his people have been baptised.

In Beowulf, what provokes the dragon that the aged king finally fights?

The theft of a golden cup starts it: a slave slips into the lair and takes the cup from the hoard, and the waking dragon burns the Geats' homes, Beowulf's own among them.

Which of Beowulf's followers alone dares to help him against the dragon?

Wiglaf, a young kinsman of Beowulf, alone stands by him when the other retainers flee; he stabs the dragon's belly and receives the dying king's collar and armour.

In Norse legend, Fáfnir became a dragon to guard a hoard taken from which dwarf?

Loki seized the dwarf Andvari's gold, including a cursed ring, as weregild for Ótr; Fáfnir killed his father Hreiðmarr to keep it and was later slain by Sigurð with the sword Gram.

Jörmungandr, the Norse World Serpent, is the child of Loki and which giantess?

Angrboða, a giantess of Jötunheimar, bore Loki three children: the wolf Fenrir, Hel who rules the dead, and the serpent Jörmungandr, whom Odin cast into the sea around Midgard.

What does Jörmungandr do that makes him an example of an ouroboros?

Jörmungandr grew so large that he encircles Midgard and bites his own tail, the tail-eating loop that defines an ouroboros; his letting go is a sign of Ragnarök.

The Hydra slain by Heracles as his second labour lived at Lerna, reputedly an entrance to what?

Lerna's bottomless lake was reputed to be an entrance to the Underworld, which the Hydra guarded; Heracles's nephew Iolaus cauterised each neck so the heads could not regrow.

According to Hyginus, which goddess hurled a dragon into the sky, where it became the constellation Draco?

Athena, as the Roman Minerva, caught the dragon the Giants threw at her in battle and flung it, still twisted, to the stars, where Hyginus says she fixed it at the very pole of heaven.

Which star in Draco was the north pole star when Egypt's pyramids were being built?

Thuban sat nearest the sky's north pole when the Great Pyramid went up; the slow wobble of Earth's axis, called precession, has since carried the pole away and handed the job to Polaris.

Which sea monster of the Hebrew Bible descends from Lotan, a serpent defeated by the Canaanite storm god Baal?

Leviathan is the Hebrew form of Lotan, the 'fugitive serpent' of the clay tablets from Ugarit; Isaiah gives Leviathan the same title, a fleeing serpent, in a verse about the beast God will slay.

Which prince's nickname came from his father's membership in the Order of the Dragon?

Vlad the Impaler was called Dracula, 'son of Dracul': his father took the name Dracul, 'the dragon', on joining the Order of the Dragon, founded by Sigismund of Luxembourg to fight the Ottomans.

In British heraldry, which winged dragon-like beast has only two legs?

A wyvern has two legs where the heraldic dragon has four, a line British heralds draw strictly though German heraldry does not; the name comes from Latin vipera, 'viper'.

The Komodo dragon is native to islands of which country?

Indonesia's Komodo, Rinca and Flores are among the few islands where the giant lizard lives; a 1926 American expedition to catch them gave its leader's friend the idea for the film King Kong.

Young Komodo dragons live in trees and roll in what to deter cannibalistic adults?

Faeces give the youngsters a smell that adult dragons are primed to avoid, a defence they need because big Komodos readily eat small ones; the trees keep them out of reach.

At which zoo did a reptile curator stroll the grounds in the late 1920s with a tame Komodo dragon named Sumbawa?

London Zoo's reptile curator Joan Procter trusted Sumbawa around children, and in 1928 the dragon ate a chicken and eggs from her hand, letting her pat it as it swallowed, in front of a scientific meeting.

Roughly how many facets, or ommatidia, does each of a dragonfly's compound eyes have?

Each compound eye holds roughly 24,000 ommatidia, some species approaching 30,000, giving dragonflies near all-round vision; damselflies fold their wings at rest while dragonflies hold theirs out flat.

What does a thrush reveal to Bard that lets him kill Smaug in The Hobbit?

A bare patch on his belly, in the hollow of the left breast, was the one gap in Smaug's armour of gems; Bilbo spotted it after flattering the dragon into rolling over to show off.

Which treasure, the Heart of the Mountain and heirloom of Thorin's family, lay in Smaug's hoard?

The Arkenstone lay in the hoard until Bilbo found it, hid it and then slipped it to the armies besieging the mountain, hoping they could trade it to Thorin and head off a war.

Who voiced Smaug, with performance capture, in Peter Jackson's Hobbit films?

Benedict Cumberbatch wore a motion-capture suit to act out the dragon's movements himself; his scenes opposite Bilbo reunited him with Martin Freeman, his Watson in the series Sherlock.

Which Longfellow poem, where a bird reveals a weak spot, has been suggested as a source for Smaug's death?

In The Song of Hiawatha a woodpecker tells Hiawatha to aim at the one unprotected spot, the tuft of hair, on the wampum-armoured Megissogwon; critics have likened this to the thrush and Smaug.

The How to Train Your Dragon films are based on books by which British author?

Cressida Cowell spent childhood summers on an uninhabited Scottish island, where she began writing and drawing; in her twelve books Toothless is a tiny green dragon, nothing like the film's.

Toothless in How to Train Your Dragon belongs to which rare breed?

Night Fury is the rare breed Hiccup brings down with a bolas; the crash tears off half the dragon's tail fin, so the boy builds him a replacement and learns to fly him.

In How to Train Your Dragon 2, which long-lost relative does Hiccup find living among wild dragons?

His mother, Valka, was presumed dead after a dragon carried her off in a raid; she had stayed to rescue dragons, and the sequel finds her five years after the first film.

In Game of Thrones, how does Daenerys hatch her three dragon eggs?

On her husband's funeral pyre: Daenerys lays the eggs beside Khal Drogo, has the witch Mirri Maz Duur tied to the pyre, and walks out of the ashes unburnt with three hatchlings.

Which actress plays Daenerys Targaryen, the Mother of Dragons, on Game of Thrones?

Emilia Clarke played Daenerys across all eight seasons from 2011 to 2019, earning four Emmy nominations; Tamzin Merchant had held the role in the unaired pilot.

Mushu, the small dragon in Disney's Mulan, was demoted from family guardian for what?

Mushu was demoted for failing to protect an ancestor and hopes that seeing Mulan safely through the war will win his post back; Disney invented him for the film and left him out of its 2020 remake.

Who voiced Mushu in the 1998 Mulan?

Eddie Murphy recorded Mushu's lines from a studio at his own home; Disney, hoping to repeat Robin Williams's Genie, had first approached Joe Pesci for the part.

The Dragon in Shrek ends up marrying which character?

Donkey wins Dragon over when the pair meet in her castle; she later swallows Lord Farquaad at the wedding, and Shrek 2 ends with the couple's litter of flying dronkey babies.

Which folk group made 'Puff, the Magic Dragon' a hit?

Peter, Paul and Mary recorded it in 1962; Peter Yarrow built the song on a poem by his fellow Cornell student Leonard Lipton, and both men always denied that it was about drugs.

In 'Puff, the Magic Dragon', what is the name of Puff's human playmate?

Little Jackie Paper brings Puff strings and sealing wax until he grows up and stops coming; the pair had frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honalee.

Charizard, the dragon-like Pokémon, actually has which two in-game types?

Charizard is Fire and Flying type despite its looks; only its Mega Charizard X form gains the Dragon type. Its Japanese name is Lizardon.

Historian Adrienne Mayor argues which real discovery may have inspired ancient dragon stories?

In The First Fossil Hunters, Adrienne Mayor argues that fossils of dinosaurs and mammoths lay behind ancient monsters: Protoceratops skeletons behind the griffin, giant bones in India's Siwalik Hills behind dragons.

In ancient Greek cult, as opposed to myth, drakontes were gentle figures associated with what?

Healing and wealth: the healer Asclepius was worshipped as a sacred serpent, and when plague struck Rome one was shipped from Epidaurus and slid ashore on Tiber Island, where his temple was built.

Which Aztec god was worshipped in the form of a feathered serpent?

Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent, was carved on temples at Teotihuacan centuries before the Aztecs; in their myth he made humankind from old bones brought to life with his own blood.

Which country is known in its own Dzongkha language as the 'Land of the Thunder Dragon'?

Bhutan calls itself Druk Yul after the Drukpa school of Buddhism dominant there; a dragon clutching jewels fills its flag, and its king is the Druk Gyalpo, the 'Dragon King'.

In Egyptian myth, which giant serpent did the sun god Ra battle every night?

Apep (Apophis), the serpent of chaos, attacked Ra's sun boat each night and was speared by its defender Set; he revived every day to fight again, and Egyptians put earthquakes down to his thrashing.

The imugi, a giant serpent said to need a thousand years to become a dragon, belongs to which country's folklore?

Korea's proverb 'an imugi that failed to become a dragon' describes a spiteful person with nothing left but ill temper, the fate of a serpent that never made its ascent.

Roman legend says Regulus's army killed a 120-foot serpent in North Africa while invading the lands of which city?

Carthage was the enemy when Regulus crossed to Africa in the First Punic War; at the Bagradas river his army is said to have needed catapults to kill the serpent, whose skin was sent to Rome.

In The NeverEnding Story, what is the name of the luckdragon who carries the young warrior Atreyu?

Falkor never needs to eat: luckdragons draw air and heat through their scales, which also makes going underwater deadly for them.

Which Disney villain transforms into a dragon at the climax of the animated film Sleeping Beauty?

Maleficent's dragon was modelled on a rattlesnake: animator Eric Cleworth wanted powerful muscles moving a bulky body over rocky ground.

Which martial arts star died six days before the Hong Kong premiere of Enter the Dragon?

Bruce Lee was only 32, and Enter the Dragon was his final completed film. Sammo Hung plays his uncredited opponent in its opening fight.

Which company's Dragon capsule was the first commercial spacecraft to attach to the International Space Station?

SpaceX chief Elon Musk named the capsule after the song Puff, the Magic Dragon, reportedly as a retort to critics who called his spaceflight plans impossible.

A 1926 expedition that returned with live Komodo dragons inspired which classic monster movie?

King Kong reached cinemas in 1933, and the expedition's leader, W. Douglas Burden, was also the man who coined the name Komodo dragon.

Dragon fruit, also called pitaya, grows on which kind of plant native to Mexico and Central America?

A cactus bears dragon fruit, and each flower opens only once, at night, when bats can pollinate it.

In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which dragon breed does Harry face in the first Triwizard task?

The Hungarian Horntail was built as a 40-foot fire-breathing animatronic, later shown off at the film's London premiere. In the story, Harry gets past it on his broomstick.

Bearded dragons, among the world's most popular pet reptiles, are native to which country?

Australia banned the export of its native wildlife in the 1960s, so most pet bearded dragons descend from animals smuggled out between 1974 and 1990.

Imagine Dragons built a following in Provo, Utah, before moving to which city, the hometown of Dan Reynolds?

Las Vegas is where the band recorded its first three EPs, and the name Imagine Dragons is an anagram of a phrase only its members know.

In Studio Ghibli's Spirited Away, which character who befriends Chihiro can transform into a dragon?

Haku is really the spirit of the Kohaku River, and regains his memory when Chihiro recalls falling into that river years earlier.

In How to Train Your Dragon, which Viking teenager befriends and learns to ride the dragon Toothless?

Hiccup names the dragon Toothless for its retractable teeth, then builds it a prosthetic tail fin so that it can fly with him on its back.

Which Crazy Rich Asians star voices Sisu, the title creature of Disney's Raya and the Last Dragon?

Awkwafina's Sisu is the last of her kind, sought by the warrior princess Raya to save the land of Kumandra from evil spirits called the Druun.

Spyro the Dragon, the PlayStation platform hero who debuted in 1998, is famously which colour?

Purple was a late change: Spyro was first going to be green, but the developers worried he would blend in with the grass.

In Disney's Pete's Dragon, what is the name of the dragon who protects the orphan Pete and can turn invisible?

Elliott is a green dragon the townsfolk cannot see, so his clumsiness gets Pete blamed as a bringer of bad luck.

In the Dragon Ball series, which wish-granting dragon appears when all seven of Earth's Dragon Balls are gathered?

Shenron's name means God Dragon, and if he is ever destroyed the Dragon Balls stay useless until their creator remakes them.

Which actress played the warrior Yu Shu Lien in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon?

Michelle Yeoh won her Oscar for Everything Everywhere All at Once, becoming the first Asian winner of the Best Actress category.

Which Swedish author died in 2004, the year before The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was first published?

Stieg Larsson died of a sudden heart attack at 50, so the whole Millennium trilogy that made his name appeared after his death.

Which game designer created Dungeons & Dragons with Dave Arneson?

Gary Gygax had earlier added a fantasy supplement to the wargame Chainmail, whose rules served as the first rule system for Dungeons & Dragons.

Which Scottish actor voiced Draco, the last remaining dragon, in the 1996 fantasy film Dragonheart?

Sean Connery was the only actor the director had in mind, because he wanted the dragon's personality to come from the man behind the voice.

In the Babylonian epic Enuma Elish, which god kills Tiamat, the sea goddess later pictured as a many-headed dragon?

Marduk made the gods promise to proclaim him supreme before he would fight. Tiamat's many-headed dragon form was popularised by Dungeons & Dragons in the 1970s.

In Greek myth, which god killed the serpent-dragon Python and took over its oracle at Delphi?

Apollo's priestess at Delphi became known as the Pythia, and the Pythian Games held there marked the kill; in some tellings they were the god's penance for it.

In Greek myth, the serpent-like dragon Ladon twined around a tree in the Garden of the Hesperides to guard what?

Golden apples were the goal of Heracles's eleventh labour: in one version he shoots Ladon with an arrow, in another Atlas fetches them for him.

In Norse legend, which hero kills the dragon Fáfnir, then understands the speech of birds after tasting its blood?

Sigurd, called Siegfried in German tradition, killed the dragon by lying in a pit and stabbing it in the heart from underneath.

At Ragnarök, which Norse god kills the world serpent Jörmungandr but dies after walking only nine steps?

Thor is poisoned by the serpent's venom during the fight, so the two old enemies end up killing each other.

In Japanese myth, which storm god got the eight-headed serpent Yamata no Orochi drunk on sake, then killed it?

Susanoo found the sword Kusanagi inside the serpent's tail, and it became part of the Imperial Regalia of Japan.

In the Rigveda, which king of the gods slays Vritra, the serpent of drought who blocks the rivers?

Indra struck with a newly forged vajra, his thunderbolt weapon, and was afterwards hailed as the slayer of the first-born of dragons.

In the Book of Revelation, which archangel leads the angels in a war in heaven against a great dragon?

Michael and his angels win, and the dragon, named in the text as the devil, is hurled down to the earth with his own followers.

Uther Pendragon, whose epithet was once read as 'the head of a dragon', fathered which legendary king of the Britons?

King Arthur's father got the name, wrote Geoffrey of Monmouth, after seeing a dragon-shaped comet; in older Welsh verse the title simply meant 'leader of warriors'.

Zmei Gorynych, a many-headed dragon fought by the hero Dobrynya Nikitich, comes from the folklore of which country?

Russia's folk epics pit heroes called bogatyri against the zmei, and one tale has dragons with three, six, nine and twelve heads beaten on successive nights.

The leafy seadragon, a fish that looks like drifting seaweed, belongs to the same family as which animals?

Seahorses are its close relatives, and as with them the male minds the eggs: a female seadragon lays up to 250 bright pink ones onto his tail.

The blue dragon, a small sea slug that floats upside down, steals stinging cells from which venomous prey?

Portuguese man o' war stings are stored in the slug's own tissues as a defence, so a person who picks one up can get a very painful sting.

The dragon blood tree, named for its blood-red sap, is native to which island group in the Indian Ocean?

Socotra belongs to Yemen, and the tree's red resin went into the varnish used by Italian violin-makers of the 18th century.

Which kitchen herb has the species name dracunculus, Latin for 'little dragon'?

Tarragon of the French kind used by cooks has sterile flowers, so it is never grown from seed and has to be propagated by dividing the roots.

The Draco lizards of Southeast Asia, nicknamed flying dragons, glide on membranes supported by which body parts?

Their ribs extend to spread the membranes, and glides of 60 metres have been recorded with a drop of only 10 metres in height.

In the Second World War, the 'dragon's teeth' were rows of concrete pyramids built to block what?

Tanks were slowed by the teeth and channelled into killing zones, and land mines were often laid in the gaps between them.

Ha Long Bay, whose name means 'descending dragon', lies on the northern coast of which country?

Vietnam's legend says the gods sent a family of dragons to fight off invaders, and the jewels and jade they spat out became the bay's islands.

Which part of Hong Kong has a name meaning 'nine dragons', a count of eight mountains and one emperor?

Kowloon counts eight peaks, Lion Rock among them, and adds Emperor Bing of Song, a child who was the last ruler of his dynasty.

According to legend, the Wawel Dragon lived in a cave beneath the castle hill of which Polish city?

Kraków now has a dragon statue below the castle that breathes real fire. In the legend the beast is killed with bait stuffed with sulfur.

Which European capital has a dragon on its coat of arms and a Dragon Bridge guarded by four dragon statues?

Ljubljana's dragon sits on top of the castle tower in the city's arms, and sixteen smaller dragons decorate the bridge besides the famous big ones.

The Drakensberg, named the Dragons' Mountains by Dutch settlers, borders which landlocked African country?

Lesotho meets the range at its highest stretch, over 3,000 metres up, and nobody knows who first named these mountains after dragons, or why.

House of the Dragon, set nearly 200 years before Game of Thrones, is based on which George R. R. Martin book?

Fire & Blood came out in 2018, and the series opens about a century after the Targaryen conquest united the Seven Kingdoms.

In a traditional Chinese dragon dance, the dragon is led by a performer holding a ball that represents what?

A pearl stands for wisdom, so the routine in which the dragon chases it shows the creature forever in pursuit of knowledge.

Which Japanese company released the fantasy trivia arcade game Quiz & Dragons in 1992?

Capcom mixed role-playing heroes with a board game for its quiz quest, the first game worked on by Hideaki Itsuno, later of the Devil May Cry series.

The 1983 arcade game Dragon's Lair, starring the knight Dirk the Daring, was animated by which former Disney animator?

Don Bluth's hand-drawn scenes played from a LaserDisc, giving the game film-quality animation when rivals still drew their heroes as sprites.

In chess, the Dragon Variation, said to be named after the constellation Draco, is a line of which opening?

Sicilian Defence players get there by posting a bishop on g7; the master Fyodor Dus-Chotimirsky claimed he coined the name in 1901 after seeing the stars in Black's pawns.

Naomi Novik's Temeraire novels reimagine which real conflict with dragons fighting as an air force?

The Napoleonic Wars pull Captain William Laurence out of the Royal Navy and into the Aerial Corps when a captured egg hatches and the dragon Temeraire picks him.

In Tolkien's The Silmarillion, which wingless fire-drake is described as the Father of Dragons?

Glaurung could also bend minds: he wiped the memory of Nienor, sister of the hero Túrin, and it came back only when the dragon died.

Which author of the Dragonriders of Pern series was the first woman to win a Hugo Award for fiction?

Anne McCaffrey won it in 1968 for the novella Weyr Search, which tied for the prize and went on to open Dragonflight, the first Pern novel.

In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, which dragon called the World-Eater must the Last Dragonborn defeat?

Alduin once ruled the dragons, until three human warriors used an Elder Scroll to throw him forward in time.

In Pokémon, which type did the developers add in X and Y to balance the powerful Dragon-type?

Fairy was the first new type since Pokémon Gold and Silver, and it was handed to old Pokémon as well as to new ones.