A fantastic many cultures have legends of dragon-like monsters. In fact, people have, by definition, by no means come throughout legendary beasts. So the place in our collective reminiscence do the origins of those ‘nice and horrible’ creatures lie? It’s a difficult query to untangle, because the historian Ronald Hutton makes clear on this lecture from February 2024 at Gresham School in London, the place he’s professor of divinity. However, armed with curiosity, humour and scholarship, Hutton units out to slay myths and conquer mysteries about dragon lore, and account for its many permutations throughout cultures. The result’s half palaeontology dig, half historical past lesson and half literary evaluation, culminating in a a riveting dive into human creativeness.
