Celebrate Appreciate a Dragon Day with One of Our Favorite Literary Dragons
Appreciate a Dragon Day is January 16, and it’s the perfect excuse to check out one of these great dragons from literature.
The Colchian Dragon
Where to find him: Argonautica, by Apollonius of Rhodes
Jason enlists the sorceress Medea’s help to subdue this dragon, who guards the Golden Fleece without sleeping or wavering in his vigilance.
Eustace Scrubb
Where to find him: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis
Turning into a dragon (while dreaming greedy dreams inside a dragon’s lair) actually does wonders for Lucy and Edmund’s spoiled cousin Eustace.
Sir Isaac Newton
Where to find him: Between Planets by Robert Heinlein
Don Harvey’s scientist friend is a dragon from Venus and one of the most compelling characters in this science-fiction classic.
Saphira Bjartskular
Where to find her: Eragon by Christopher Paolini
Honest, wise, ferocious and loyal, Saphira is bonded to Dragon Rider Eragon when he hatches her from a sapphire-blue egg.
Seraphina Dombegh
Where to find her: Seraphina by Rachel Hartman
In Seraphina’s world, rational, mathematically minded dragons live in an uneasy truce with humans, and Seraphina’s dragon blood puts her at risk when a murder occurs within the human royal family.
Firedrake
Where to find him: Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke
On his quest to find the mythical place where he and his fellow silver dragons can finally live in peace, safe from destructive humans, the dragon Firedrake teams up with other fantastic creatures and an orphan boy named Ben.
Mayland Long
Where to find him: Tea with the Black Dragon by R.A. MacAvoy
When Martha comes to San Francisco to find her worried—and now missing—daughter, she meets the mysterious Mayland, who, it turns out, is a centuries-old Chinese dragon—a fact that comes in handy when Martha goes missing, too.
This article was originally published in the winter 2016 issue of HSL.
