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Dragon Types

The most basic classification

    The number and definition of dragon species are as limited as your imagination.But saying so, it’s not that I believe the dragons are imaginary. After all, “Everything you can imagine is real.” Staying out of the fantasy game world, the dragons can be categorized based on their wings, number of limbs and body structure.And this categorizations reveals clearly how dragons differ from culture to culture.But that is another story and shall be told another time (R.I.P. Michael Ende) While some resources divide dragons by three groups as wyvern, drake and wyrm, some resources classified the dragons as a fourth class under the title “dragon”.

    Wyrm: (Old English. which came probably from Latin “vermis” meaning worm): A venomous or fire-breathing wingless dragon.They act like snakes and their bodies are long. Nidhogg, the root eater of the Yggdrasill in Norse mythology, and Jörmungand who killed the famous god of thunder Thor is a “wyrm”.Again, in Persian mythology, the 80-meter-long dragon killed by Rostam is an example of this species.

    Drake: Until the 13th century, the words “dragon” and “drake” were used for the same meaning, However, a”drake” started to be used also for the male duck since. Maybe that’s why “drake” describes small dragons. It is wingless and has four legs. Similar to Tolkien’s grouping, there are two types for drake: “fire-drake” and ice-drake. “Fire-drake” is reddish and has the breath of fire whereas “Ice-drake” is whitish and has the breath of snow an hail.

    Wyvern: (Middle English. Originated Latin “vipera”) It is a two-legged, two-winged and long-tailed dragon that is depicted separately from dragons in heraldry. This is the type of dragon we usually see in European/American cinema. Being mentioned in many medieval beast compendiums (medieval bestiaries) they have a very strange reproduction habit: Female vipera eats the head of the male vipera when they come together or before the young ones are born inside the female. And during the birth, the offspring come out of the mother’s womb by gnawing passage through her womb to reach outside (Hello Striga from the Witcher).

    This is the simplest and basic way to group the dragon species. Of course, this grouping is mostly European/American oriented. If you want, you can use these categories or you simply give one name and call them all as “Urulóki” like Tolkien, up to you.

    I am gonna share the grouping of dragons in eastern culture in another post.

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