Dragons and Antiquity

The Shepherd’s Calendar
BnF, Réserve des livres rares, Vélin 518 fol. E 6v
Photo © Bibliothèque Nationale de France
Dragons evoke distance in space, but also in time. In fantasy, whether asleep, petrified or vanished, they often belong to a bygone antiquity, to the time of the world's creation, a past that everyone believes is lost forever. But it would take vey little for dragons to make a comeback, bringing magic to a disenchanted world — for many readers, a world much like our own.