In almost every culture around the world,
dragons appeared in myths and legends.
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The Dragon in Chinese culture
The oldest culture in the world to utilize dragons in their mythology and beliefs, are the Chinese. For them, the dragon is a divine, mythical creature that brings good fortune, prosperity and bounty.
Basically dragon is a positive force, representing power and excellence, as well as being a benevolent force which radiates goodwill, good luck, and blessings. Eastern dragons tended to be water creatures.
The dragon also represents the essential forces of Nature. A dragon's anger would either produce storms and floods through the clouds they breathed out, or such things as water shortages, when they beat their tails about, and emptied lakes and rivers. Those were pretrty huge dragons :)
A dragon's celestial breath, known as sheng chi, bestows warmth from the sun, wind from the ocean, soil from the Earth, and water from rain.
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The Dragon in Western culture
In Western culture, the dragon developed a very different persona. Western dragons are all fire, and flinging their tails about, biting heads off and guarding treasures.
In early christian texts, dragons were depicted as the devil or the devil's servant and is generally used as a symbol for evil.
Later in Europe these dragons in art forms were thought to be real life animals rather than symbols of evil. It was even thought that a bishop couldn't achieve sainthood without slaying a dragon. Christianity wasn't the only religion to change the myth of dragons. A new aspect was introduced to the general dragon myth by the Greeks: the idea of sacrificial virgins.
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Actually, if you read a broad range of literature from both hemispheres, you'll find that eastern dragons sometimes took a notion to be bad characters, and in the west, there are dragons whose whole existence was to serve and protect a kingdom, or prince, and they display the most sterling qualities of loyalty and sacrifice.
Dragons have fallen into many different categories,
there is the wide variance in their physical images, but they have always retained some basic core elements.
As the mythology of dragons in both Eastern and Western cultures became shared through world travel, the line between the two images blurred, so that some Western representations, now show a definite eastern influence.
When most people think of dragons they generally think of fire breathing monsters, but originally dragons were usually connected with water. This connection with water can be traced back to what is commonly thought to be the first dragon in mythology, the monster of watery chaos in sumerian mythology.
Egyptians changed dragons from characters in creation myths to daily battles between good and evil. Later in Egypt dragons were associated with Seth, the violent god of destruction, who shook the very sea itself.
It was thought that after death souls of the wicked would be devoured by a fire breathing dragon. This is perhaps the first dragon to breathe fire in any culture.
In the earliest writings of the old testament the storm god Yahweh is depicted destroying dragons. The dragons became a common symbol for later Hebrew prophets as enemies of Israel.
This new idea first appeared in the story of Perseus and Andromeda in which Andromeda, an Ethiopian princess, is sacrificed to a sea dragon. In the story, Perseus sees Andromeda, falls instantly in love with her, and rescues her from the dragon gaining her hand in marriage. This becomes a traditional concept in almost all European dragon myths.
The greeks also introduce the idea of dragons guarding hoards of treasure.
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