An Instinct for Dragons. - book review

Folklore, April, 2003 by Jacqueline Simpson

By David E. Jones. London and New York: Routledge, 2000. 188 pp. Illus. 15.99 [pounds sterling] (hbk). ISBN 0-415-92721-8

How is it that so many cultures worldwide have the concept of monsters sharing (approximately) certain physical features, which we conveniently label as "dragons?" How old is the concept? Why is it so stable?

David Jones' solution is an evolutionary behaviourist one. He argues that the human mind is imprinted with certain innate fears inherited from the instinctive reactions of our primate ancestors to the dangers posed by three major classes of predators: snakes, big cats, and birds of prey. One can observe these reactions in vervet monkeys, which give a different alarm call for each class. The physical appearance of a dragon, Jones argues, is a compound of the most fear-inducing features of the three types of predator; the composite image was created some three million years ago in the brains of early primates, remains dormant as an imprint in certain primitive regions of the human brain, and becomes activated in periods of social stress, notably the transition from egalitarian tribes to chieftainships. At such periods, legends of dragons and dragon-slayers emerge.

I am not competent to assess the scientific validity of theories of pre-human memory; one can at least say that this one is rather more credible than its closest predecessor, the claim that "dragon" = "pre-human memory of dinosaur." If one is determined to establish the deep origin of the concept, the choice presumably must lie between a behaviourist explanation such as this, or a Freudian or Jungian one. All are pretty remote from the folklorist's prime concern; namely, the roles of the tales and visual images within the societies we know.

David Jones frames his discussion with chapters summarising some of the main myths and legends about dragons, from various cultures. A word of warning is needed to point out an error on p. 3, where he lists "reports of encounters with dragons" in various places in Britain "from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries." This dating is much too early; none of the various local legends he alludes to (at Ben Vair, Deerhurst, Bures, and so on) is recorded earlier than the mid-sixteenth century, and most are considerably later. He has confused the period in which the stories are set (often vaguely medieval), with that in which they were recorded; indeed, in one case, that of St Leonard's Forest, the chapbook source firmly dates the event as contemporary, in 1614.

Jacqueline Simpson, Folklore Society