Dragons - fact or fiction?

According to certain interpretations of Hansard there was a dragon with a handbag which ruled over the English, Welsh and Scots towards the end of the 20th century. It was alleged to be fearsome and even launched a thousand ships to defend an island 8000 miles away It looked like a female human and was about 5' 7'" tall

Well to give a really boring "factual" answer I think it's pretty certainly a "no". As other people have pointed out, if you want to broaden your description of dragons to include large lizards or things that exist in the imagination, then yes, but otherwise, the evidence for a "no" is that there has never been anything found! We've got tons of bones from dinosaurs that existed hundreds of millions of years ago, but nothing whatsoever (no bones, no relics, no pieces of scales or anything!) from something that according to myth still existed just a couple of thousand years ago (or up until medieval times according to some texts and studies of the natural world). The most recents uses of references to dragons were from sea-charts from as recently as the 15th Century, but these were usually used as symbols for parts of the ocean that were either at that point unexplored, or known to be very dangerous. File under "mythology" along with Santa Claus, the tooth fairy and god...

I would like dragons to be real, I'm collecting all sorts of books with dragon descriptions.

I picture them as a big western Dragon (4 legs, wings) with some magical powers.

Since there are creatures walking around on the world today that look like dragons, there is of course the possebility that they have actually lived.

But they could be all gone, because of dragonslayers, noble knights, etc.

But who knows? perhaps it was all fiction (although there are many recordings of dragons and heroes batteling them) or perhaps dragons are real and are living in hidden caves, sleeping or waititng for the right time to come out...

Truth is, we can't know for sure, but dragons are famous and everywhere in the world are legends with dragons of different types. And since legends are based on the truth, I'm pretty sure they at least lived here. I don't know if they still do, but I think dragons (or at least creatures that strongly looked like them) did live on earth

I love dragons!!! I believe they do exist, just hiding. We'll never now, someone might be erasing our memories of seeing something supernatural happen.

Flying Dragons would have these massive bat like wings nut prettier looking. Powerful to carry up his massive heavy body in to the sky and soar against any wind. Silk-like underneath when touching them but strong as to not be heavily damaged. The dragons will be covered in this beautiful scales that are also hard to penetrate. Their scales ragging in colors from black to almost blinding white. Eyes of the most unusual colors and as tall buildings while others as small as a large cat. Breathing all types of elements in different colors like black fire, purple water, red ice etc. Some will even have these magical powers. Turning into humans, changing size at will, changing into any animal, mind speech, turning invisible even.

To me, they would be the most fascinating creatures there are. I don't care what scientists and all those other people say, they just want to kill believe.

Dragons are mythological creatures akin to the serpent. The Old Testament, however, refers to the Devil as both a dragon and a serpent.

St. George slew a dragon. When the skull was examined in modern times, it turned out to be a giant crocodile. Pretty close, if you ask me. And, of course, the Komodo Dragon is real, the largest living known, non-crocodile-type reptile in the world. The African Speckled lizard is pretty huge; my Beagle, Bogie, got into a scrape with one once. The lizard intended to make a meal out of Bogie, but he successfully fought him off.

And then there are the giant snakes, the pythons and anacondas. So if its dragons you want, take your pick.

H

my daughter had an imaginary dragon called "I don't know, I don't know". She used to blame him for the mess in her room. Now she is 18, she can only blame herself for the mess.

Anyway, I adore dragons and even whilst being a role player, I always had a dragon with me. I have load of books on them, story books, and would love to have them flying around today. Just not the ones that breath fire though, the fire bridgade might strike again, with the amount of call outs the would get!

Seriously though, I think that if you love to believe in this sort of thing, you're not doing any harm, infact I think it means you have a great imagination. Wouldn't it be cool though if they were still about?

Yes we have Komodo dragons, bearded dragons, and chinese water dragons still in the world. But, the larger fire-breathing variety that I'm sure you're talking about have never existed. They were early civilizations' attempt at explaining the dinosaur bones they found. They had no idea how old the bones were, and thought the creatures were still around.

Dragons are fictional! But that doesn't mean that they couldn't exist. Evolution has all sorts of tricks up it's sleeves. There are in existence organisms that feature some of all of the basic morphological characteristics described by popular dragon mythologies. And some of those (particularly of the reptiles and birds) could conceivable evolve the missing traits in a relatively short amount of evolutionary time.

"Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup!" --one of my favorite bumper stickers

Yes I believe dragons exist. Always have, always will. Though I believe their presence has mostly been in the spiritual realm. And I don't know if we would even comprehend the appearance of one if we ever saw one. But I picture them in many of the ways they have been depicted over the years: both flying and not, all sizes and colors, some look menacing, others look no more harmful than a three week old kitten, some with feathers, others with scales, breating fire or not... They're widely misunderstood creatures.

Basically, I think dragons are fiction born out of fact, like any other myth or legend. There is no archaeological evidence to suggest that such creatures existed, however similar creatures such as the komodo dragon (though wingless) and certain dinosaurs resembling what we might perceive today to be a dragon, certainly do/did exist.