Why Dragons?

Of course there were dragons—that’s how I introduce Jane Austen’s Dragons.

How can I say that? It is rather a bold claim. I confess, you’re not the first person to ask me that with a decidedly skeptical look. After all, you’ve devoured ever one of Austen’s works cover to cover, multiple times and there’s nary a dragon scale from “It’s a truth universally acknowledged to… “With the Gardiners they were on most intimate terms…”

On the surface, I would agree, it seems that way. But, there is more than meets the eye. There a few more truths universally acknowledged that place dragons firmly in Jane Austen’s world.

Let’s begin at the beginning: Jane Austen was very likely to have been very aware of dragons.

Why? Because England’s history is chock full of dragons. Literally everywhere. Don’t believe me? Take a look.

Uther Pendragon

Let’s start with Uther Pendragon, father of King Arthur. Then there’s Beowulf, of course, and the tale of St. George and the Dragon.

It isn’t a huge leap to believe that Austen was familiar with these myths.

But wait, there’s more! Lambton, the village outside Pemberley had a dragon: The Lambton Wyrm.

Then there’s the Mordiford Dragon who was cared for by a girl, in Herefordshire (very similar to Hertfordshire, right?)  reminiscent of Elizabeth Bennet.

Local dragons don’t stop there—this is just a sample of the dragon myths of Britain.

• The Dragon of Unsworth
• The Dragon of Wantly
• The Dragon of Longwitton
• The Bisterne Dragon
• The Worm of Linton
• The Stoor Worm
• The Sockburn Worm (or Wyvern)
• Blue Ben
• Lyminster Knucker

Dragon Ballads

What is more, these stories were passed down through oral tradition, both in story and ballad form until literacy became a thing. Once it did, along about the late 1600’s, those traditional ballad lyrics were published in “broadsheets” or “broadside ballads” and in newspapers.   People knew these songs and stories and kept them alive through the ensuing centuries.

EBBA ID: 31321 British Library – Roxburghe 3.626-627]

That means it is likely that Jane Austen was familiar with many of these dragon legends. If mash-ups had been a thing in her day, I’d be quite willing to bet that dragons would have been one of her first thoughts simply because they were so prevalent in local imaginations.

How might such a mash-up work? Consider: what if Uther Pendragon saw a real dragon, not a dragon-shaped comet? Would not others have seen it too? Well, no, not if the dragons had a way of hiding in plain sight that only a select few people could see through and Uther was one of those.

Perhaps he might have founded an Order whereby dragons and humans could live together peaceably. Perhaps all those myths of slain dragons were actually cover for dragons joining that Order and ceasing from their terrifying ways. What might that Order look like in the Regency era, with dragons throughout the land and peers and gentry managing dragons?

So that’s what Jane Austen’s Dragons does, shining a light into the secret world of the dragons in Jane Austen’s England and the role they played in her works.

 So, Of Course There Were Dragons!

I dare you! Come along and take the plunge! Take a chance on an entirely different take on Austen’s world that is truly in keeping with world she knew.