As a Fantasy reader, I love a good dragon character in a story, yet sometimes I have to wonder, why dragons? Why do they get more attention than other mythological creatures?

In traditional childhood stories, dragons usually fill the role of antagonist. You have dragon slayers who go out to save the village by killing the fell beast and getting rewarded with marriage to the princess for his heroic bravery. Not a great basis for a relationship if you ask me!

To be fair, a lot of modern children’s books have presented less threatening and even comical dragons, for which I credit Peter Yarrow who wrote Puff the Magic Dragon, both a story and a long favoured children’s song.

Sometimes the dragons in stories can speak to humans, like in The Hobbit. In most early stories, they are tricky and seek to use clever ruses to defeat the dragon slayer…