Editing Dragon (section)

===Post-classical===
{{Main|European dragon|Welsh Dragon|Wyvern|Saint George and the Dragon|Margaret the Virgin|Dacian Draco}}
[[File:Welsh Dragon (Y Ddraig Goch).svg|thumb|The Welsh Dragon ({{Lang|cy|Y Ddraig Goch}}).]]
[[File:Vortigern-Dragons.jpg|thumb|Fifteenth-century manuscript illustration of the battle of the [[Welsh Dragon|Red]] and [[White dragon|White Dragons]] from [[Geoffrey of Monmouth]]'s ''[[Historia Regum Britanniae|History of the Kings of Britain]]'']]
The modern, western image of a dragon developed in [[western Europe]] during the [[Middle Ages]] through the combination of the snakelike dragons of classical Graeco-Roman literature, references to Near Eastern dragons preserved in the Bible, and western European folk traditions.{{sfn|Fee|2011|page=7}} The period between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries represents the height of European interest in dragons as living creatures.{{sfn|Jones|2000|page=101}} The twelfth-century [[Wales|Welsh]] monk, [[Geoffrey of Monmouth]], recounts a famous legend in his ''[[Historia Regum Britanniae]]'' in which the child prophet [[Merlin]] witnesses the Romano-Celtic warlord [[Vortigern]] attempt to build a tower on [[Snowdon]] to keep safe from the [[Anglo-Saxons]],{{sfn|Hughes|2005|page=106}} but the tower keeps being swallowed into the ground.{{sfn|Hughes|2005|page=106}} Merlin informs Vortigern that, underneath the foundation he has built, is a pool with two dragons sleeping in it.{{sfn|Hughes|2005|page=106}} Vortigern orders for the pool to be drained, exposing a [[Welsh Dragon|red dragon]] and a [[white dragon]], who immediately begin fighting.{{sfn|Hughes|2005|page=106}} Merlin delivers a prophecy that the white dragon will triumph over the red, symbolizing England's conquest of Wales,{{sfn|Hughes|2005|page=106}} but declares that the red dragon will eventually return and defeat the white one.{{sfn|Hughes|2005|pages=106–107}} This story remained popular throughout the fifteenth century.{{sfn|Hughes|2005|pages=106–107}}

Dragons are generally depicted as living in rivers or having an underground lair or cave.<ref name=Ormen>{{cite book|last=Ørmen|first=Torfinn|title=Drager, mellom myte og virkelighet (Dragons: between myth and reality)|year=2005|publisher=Humanist forlag A/S|location=Oslo|isbn=978-82-90425-76-5|pages=252|edition=1st|language=no}}</ref> They are envisioned as greedy and gluttonous, with voracious appetites.{{sfn|Fee|2011|page=7}} They are often identified with [[Satan]], due to the references to Satan as a "dragon" in the [[Book of Revelation]].{{sfn|Fee|2011|page=7}} The thirteenth-century ''[[Golden Legend]]'', written in Latin, records the story of [[Margaret the Virgin|Saint Margaret of Antioch]],{{sfn|Morgan|2009|page=}} a virgin martyr who, after being tortured for her faith in the [[Diocletianic Persecution]] and thrown back into her cell, is said to have been confronted by a monstrous dragon,{{sfn|Morgan|2009|page=}} but she made the [[sign of the cross]] and the dragon vanished.{{sfn|Morgan|2009|page=}} In some versions of the story, she is actually swallowed by the dragon alive and, after making the sign of the cross in the dragon's stomach, emerges unharmed.{{sfn|Morgan|2009|page=}}

[[File:St George and the Dragon Verona ms 1853 26r.jpg|thumb|Manuscript illustration from [[Verona]] of [[Saint George and the Dragon|Saint George slaying the dragon]], dating to {{circa}} 1270]]
The legend of [[Saint George and the Dragon]] may be referenced as early as the sixth century AD,{{sfn|Niles|2013|page=53}}{{sfn|Thurston|1909|pages=453–455}} but the earliest artistic representations of it come from the eleventh century{{sfn|Niles|2013|page=53}} and the first full account of it comes from an eleventh-century [[Georgian language|Georgian]] text.{{sfn|Walter|2003|page=141}} The most famous version of the story from the ''Golden Legend'' holds that a dragon kept pillaging the sheep of the town of Silene in [[Ancient Libya|Libya]].{{sfn|Niles|2013|page=53}} After it ate a young shepherd, the people were forced to placate it by leaving two sheep as sacrificial offerings every morning beside the lake where the dragon lived.{{sfn|Niles|2013|page=53}} Eventually, the dragon ate all of the sheep{{sfn|Niles|2013|page=54}} and the people were forced to start offering it their own children.{{sfn|Niles|2013|page=54}} One day, the king's own daughter came up in the lottery and, despite the king's pleas for her life, she was dressed as a bride and chained to a rock beside the lake to be eaten.{{sfn|Niles|2013|page=54}} Then, Saint George arrived and saw the princess.{{sfn|Niles|2013|page=54}} When the dragon arrived to eat her, he stabbed it with his lance and subdued it by making the sign of the cross and tying the princess's [[girdle]] around its neck.{{sfn|Niles|2013|page=54}} Saint George and the princess led the now-docile dragon into the town and George promised to kill it if the townspeople would convert to Christianity.{{sfn|Niles|2013|page=55}} All the townspeople converted and Saint George killed the dragon with his sword.{{sfn|Niles|2013|page=55}} In some versions, Saint George marries the princess,{{sfn|Niles|2013|page=55}} but, in others, he continues wandering.{{sfn|Niles|2013|page=55}}

[[File:Galician dragon (Medieval Age).jpg|thumb|left|upright|Dragon in a granite Relief (14th century). San Anton Museum ([[A Coruña]], [[Galicia (Spain)]]).]] 
Dragons are well known in myths and legends of [[Spain]], in no small part because St. George (Catalan Sant Jordi) is the patron saint of [[Catalonia]]. Like most mythical reptiles, the Catalan dragon (Catalan drac) is an enormous serpent-like creature with four legs and a pair of wings, or rarely, a two-legged creature with a pair of wings, called a wyvern. As in many other parts of the world, the dragon's face may be like that of some other animal, such as a lion or a bull. As is common elsewhere, Catalan dragons are fire-breathers, and the dragon-fire is all-consuming. Catalan dragons also can emit a fetid odor, which can rot away anything it touches.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.spainisculture.com/en/propuestas_culturales/espana_a_traves_de_sus_tradiciones.html|title=The legends and traditions of Spain's cities and villages in Spain is Culture|website=www.spainisculture.com|accessdate=1 September 2023|archive-date=30 August 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230830074256/http://www.spainisculture.com/en/propuestas_culturales/espana_a_traves_de_sus_tradiciones.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>

[[Gargoyle]]s are carved stone figures sometimes resembling dragons that originally served as waterspouts on buildings.{{sfn|Sherman|2015|page=183}}{{sfn|Cipa|2008|pages=1–3}} Precursors to the medieval gargoyle can be found on [[ancient Greek temple|ancient Greek]] and [[Egyptian temple]]s,{{sfn|Sherman|2015|page=183}}{{sfn|Dinsmoor|1973|page=96}}{{sfn|Swaddling|1989|pages=17–18}} but, over the course of the Middle Ages, many fantastic stories were invented to explain them.{{sfn|Sherman|2015|pages=183–184}} One medieval French legend holds that, in ancient times, a fearsome dragon known as ''[[Gargouille|La Gargouille]]'' had been causing floods and sinking ships on the river [[Seine]],{{sfn|Sherman|2015|page=184}} so the people of the town of [[Rouen]] would offer the dragon a [[human sacrifice]] once each year to appease its hunger.{{sfn|Sherman|2015|page=184}} Then, around 600 AD, a priest named [[Romanus of Rouen|Romanus]] promised that, if the people would build a church, he would rid them of the dragon.{{sfn|Sherman|2015|page=184}} Romanus slew the dragon and its severed head was mounted on the walls of the city as the first gargoyle.{{sfn|Sherman|2015|page=184}}{{sfn|Cipa|2008|pages=1–30}}

Dragons are prominent in medieval [[heraldry]].{{sfn|Friar|Ferguson|1993|page=168}} [[Uther Pendragon]] was famously said to have had two gold dragons crowned with red standing back-to-back on his royal [[coat of arms]].{{sfn|Friar|Ferguson|1993|page=28}} Originally, heraldic dragons could have any number of legs,{{sfn|Friar|Ferguson|1993|page=168}} but, by the late Middle Ages, due to the widespread proliferation of bestiaries, heraldry began to distinguish between a "dragon" (which could only have exactly four legs) and a "[[wyvern]]" (which could only have exactly two).{{sfn|Friar|Ferguson|1993|page=168}} In myths, wyverns are associated with viciousness, envy, and pestilence,{{sfn|Friar|Ferguson|1993|page=168}} but, in heraldry, they are used as symbols for overthrowing the tyranny of Satan and his demonic forces.{{sfn|Friar|Ferguson|1993|page=168}} Late medieval heraldry also distinguished a draconic creature known as a "[[cockatrice]]".{{sfn|Friar|Ferguson|1993|page=168}} A cockatrice is supposedly born when a serpent hatches an egg that has been laid on a dunghill by a rooster{{sfn|Friar|Ferguson|1993|page=168}} and it is so venomous that its breath and its gaze are both lethal to any living creature, except for a weasel, which is the cockatrice's mortal enemy.{{sfn|Friar|Ferguson|1993|page=168}} A [[basilisk]] is a serpent with the head of a dragon at the end of its tail that is born when a toad hatches an egg that has been laid in a [[midden]] by a nine-year-old cockatrice.{{sfn|Friar|Ferguson|1993|page=168}} Like the cockatrice, its glare is said to be deadly.{{sfn|Friar|Ferguson|1993|page=168}}