How do you really kill a dragon?
Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon tells us we need a dragon to kill a dragon, so how did historical dragonslayers manage it? Dr Lydia Zeldenrust explains ten tried and tested historical methods to kill a fire-breathing beast – most of which you can survive…
In House of the Dragon, HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel, the Targaryens have little to think about when it comes to dragonslaying – after all, they have dragons of their own.
In lieu of a winged and fire-breathing steed, pop culture suggests the best way to slay a dragon is to shoot it with a bolt worthy of a ballista, as is the case for Smaug in The Hobbit and Rhaegal in Games of Thrones.
It is easy to see why hurling a sharp projectile at a flying dragon might seem the most effective way to take down a creature of such ferocious power, considering their nigh-impenetrable scales and unfortunate tendency towards pyromania.
But there are many more imaginative ways of killing a dragon, as the annals of historical texts, poetry and folklore attest. The dragonslaying experts of medieval literature dispatched their foes in myriad more inventive – if sometimes unorthodox – ways.
House of the Dragon: the real historical event behind the Game of Thrones prequel
It might not seem like it, but HBO's House of the Dragon has its roots in a very real civil war in the early medieval period known as the Anarchy – though there wasn't a dragon in sight
How to slay a dragon: 10 examples from history
Lance through the mouth
Performed by St George (died AD 303) and John de Somerville (late 12th century)
Lancing a dragon is probably the best-known method, as popularised by St George (though he is sometimes confused with other dragonslaying saints such as St Theodore). The account made famous in the medieval west is found in Jacobus de Voragine’s Golden Legend, a collection of saints’ biographies.
It tells how a dragon was poisoning the countryside around the city of Silene in Libya, with its people buying protection by offering the dragon a daily snack of two sheep. When they inevitably run out of sheep, they begin sacrificing their children. Interestingly, not all versions agree about the lance dealing the mortal blow – the Golden Legend says that George beheads the creature with his sword.
But it was the horseman thrusting a spear down the throat of a dragon writhing on the ground who was popularised in art, becoming the iconic medieval dragon-slaying image. This approach certainly is effective in getting around the dragon’s scaly armour, with a gaping mouth providing access to the heart.
John de Somerville, one of many medieval imitators of what we may dub the ‘St George method’, took it to the next level. John faced the dragon known as the Linton Worm, which terrorised the county of Roxburghshire in the Scottish Borders, eating crops and livestock and developing a taste for humans. De Somerville’s lance had a tip of burning peat, and he lodged the fiery lance in the dragon’s throat as it was getting ready to eat. It just goes to show that even tried and tested methods can be improved.
Knock it on the head
Performed by Sir Degaré (early 14th century) and Basil Digenes Akritas (12th century)
In the Middle English romance Sir Degaré, the titular character faces a fire-breathing dragon that seems impossible to kill. No skilled swordsman can penetrate its armoured hide.
Degaré, who is not yet a knight and is fighting with a rudimentary club, loses patience and smacks the dragon on the head with full force, knocking it senseless. He leaps onto the dragon and continues bashing until all its bones are broken and it lies dead. It is the sort of scene where you wonder who the real monster is.
A similar method is used in one version of the Byzantine epic Digenes Akritas, where the hero Basil also uses a club to knock out a dragon. It’s a great strategy if you want to prove your strength, but people will never look at you the same way after.
Stab to the underbelly
Performed by Beowulf (sometime between AD 700 and AD 1000)
The belly is another area not covered by a dragon’s scales, making it a good target – though one that is difficult and dangerous to reach. It requires the attacker to get in close and put themselves in a highly vulnerable position, so it is by no means guaranteed that they will live to tell the tale.
The Old English poem Beowulf and its eponymous hero give a famous example. When a slave steals a jewelled cup from a treasure hoard, it awakens the dragon who guards it. The dragon retaliates by burning the neighbouring towns to the ground. Beowulf’s fight with the dragon is of epic proportions: they wrestle through blasts of fire, his sword snaps in half, and he gets bitten on the neck.
His companion Wiglaf manages to stab the dragon in the belly, allowing Beowulf to grab a knife from his belt and deal the mortal blow. He wins, but it is already too late: the wound on his neck has started to fester, as he realises that the dragon’s bite is venomous.
Beowulf dies and Wiglaf goes on to tell of the deed, reminding us that if you choose this method to gain fame, you might want to bring a friend. It can work well, but you have to wonder whether it’s worth it.
Dig a ditch
Performed by Sigurd in the Völsunga saga (late 13th century)
This is a variation on the ‘stab to the belly’, and one in which the slayer survives. The ultimate demonstration is that of Sigurd of the Old Norse Völsunga saga.
In this tale Sigurd fights Fafnir, who is in fact a dwarf who was so greedy for gold and jewellery that he turned into a dragon to better guard his hoard.
Sigurd digs several ditches in the ground so he can dodge Fafnir’s venomous breath, and stab the dragon as it passes over. He does not manage to stab Fafnir in the heart straight away, but wounds him in the shoulder. This allows for some time for a final conversation, in which the dying dragon warns Sigurd that the treasure is cursed.
Fafnir’s blood turns out to have magical properties: when Sigurd licks some drops off his fingers, he suddenly understands the language of birds. Both Beowulf’s dragon and Fafnir were inspirations for Tolkien’s Smaug – surely the daddy of all dragons in modern fantasy.
Wear spiky armour (and bring a dog)
Performed by John Lambton, Peter Loschy and Moore of Moore Hall (all popularised in 18th- or 19th-century tales, set in undated medieval times)
There are several stories about dragons from Yorkshire, County Durham, and Northumbria that involve the wearing of armour with sharp blades or spears sticking out. Most were popularised in post-medieval ballads.
Take, for instance, John Lambton, who fought the Lambton Worm wearing armour with spears. When the dragon tried to wrap itself around him, it was cut to pieces. Peter Loschy had an additional strategy – he brought his dog. When the dragon began to regenerate after the blades in Loschy’s armour cut off body parts, the dog came to the rescue, taking the pieces far away so the dragon could not respawn.
While this is a great method for dragons that like to grab and squeeze you, it’s not so useful for the fire-breathing kind – they would undoubtedly be excited that their next snack has provided a handy roasting tin. If you think your dragon is a hugger, but it turns out to be a roaster, you can always take the approach pioneered by the knight Moore of Moore Hall, who used his spiked-toed boots to kill the Dragon of Wantley by kicking its “arse-gut”.
Get the dragon drunk
Performed by Susano-o no Mikoto in the Kojiki (cAD 712)
Now we’re talking. This is the story of Susano-o no Mikoto, who slays the legendary eight-tailed, eight-headed dragon Yamata no Orochi, as told in the Japanese chronicle of legends known as the Kojiki. After Susano-o was banished from heaven, he comes across an elderly couple who have lost seven daughters to a dragon, with the eighth daughter soon to be devoured too.
Susano-o transforms this daughter into a comb, which he puts in his hair for safekeeping. He sets a trap for the dragon, filling eight barrels with strong sake. When the dragon appears, it cannot resist the sake and puts each of its heads in a barrel, drinking them down to the bottom, eventually lying down in a stupor. Sosano-o then hacks the dragon into pieces. As he does this, he finds another sword hidden inside the dragon – this is Kusanagi no Tsurugi, one of the imperial regalia of Japan.
Feed it snacks laced with sulphur
Performed by in the Chronica Polonorum (c1190-1208)
Another inventive approach that targets a dragon’s more vulnerable insides, this time employed by Krakus, the legendary Polish king and founder of Kraków, when he faced the Wawel dragon.
This was another dragon that developed a taste for humans, whom the locals kept at bay with a weekly donation of cows or sheep, depending on which version of the tale you read. In the Chronica Polonorum by Wincenty Kadłubek, the populace sacrifice cows, and their weekly offering gave Krakus’s sons an idea. They took several cowhides and fill them with sulphur, setting them to smoulder just before the dragon took his fill. The flammable substance mixed with the dragon’s own gasses and ignited, culminating with the dragon breathing out fire as it died.
Burst it open from the inside
Performed by St Margaret of Antioch (died c303-306)
Dragonslaying was a surprisingly common pastime for medieval saints, for whom the dragon was often a manifestation of the devil – and, arguably, one woman from modern-day Turkey did it better than St George.
Margaret of Antioch converted to Christianity at a young age. When the local governor wanted to marry her and demanded she renounce her faith, she steadfastly refused and was subsequently put to various methods of torture. During her ordeal, it was said that Satan appeared to Margaret in the form of a huge dragon, and that she let herself be swallowed whole. Once inside, she took out her cross, irritating the dragon’s innards so much that she eventually bursts forth from its stomach, killing it instantly.
Margaret shows that a clever mind is by far the most valuable tool in a slayer’s arsenal. She is often depicted emerging halfway from the belly of a dragon, with her dramatic act making her patron saint of – among other things – childbirth.
Use a makeshift bomb
Performed by Amoryus and Cleopes in Amoryus and Cleopes (1449) and Amar Ayyar in Hamzanama (1562)
While Amoryus might have slain the dragon, it was his lady Cleopes who had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the species and how to defeat them. In John Metham’s 1449 poem Amoryus and Cleopes (itself adapted from the story of Pyramus and Thisbe in Ovid’s Metamorphoses), it is she who identifies the dragon as serra cornuta, a dangerous type that “blew flamyng venym owte of hys mowth”.
Cleopes knows exactly what Amoryus must do: she tells him to cover his armour with red and wear an image of a buffalo, she gives him magical rings for protection and explains how to brew a potion to counteract the dragon’s venom.
When the dragon shows a moment of weakness, leaving his mouth open too long after yet another blast of venomous fire, Amoryus takes his chance. He throws the potion in its mouth as a kind of bomb, bringing the dragon down.
We find an even more explosive approach in the Hamzanama, the adventures of Amir Hamza, made most famous through the illuminated cloth manuscript commissioned by the Mughal emperor Akbar I. In this text, the trickster ayyar Amar, also known as Umar, throws a vial of naphtha at a dragon, engulfing it in fire.
Kiss it on the lips
Performed by Gingalain in Le Bel Inconnu (c1180–1230) and in Lybeaus Desconus (c1325–50)
Forget princes turning into frogs. Did you know lots of medieval tales feature noble ladies becoming dragons? So, if all else fails, you could always try kissing one. This motif is known as the Fier baiser, or dangerous kiss, where a knight is suddenly confronted with a dragon all too keen to go in for a smooch (think Dragon and Donkey in Shrek).
The dragon in the French poem Le Bel Inconnu is a particularly sexy example. Initially the knight Gingalain is paralysed with fear, but as the dragon draws closer, he becomes entranced by her beautiful lips. She lunges towards him, stealing a kiss, before transforming into a beautiful woman.
Sometimes the kiss has unexpected effects. In the English poem Lybeaus Desconus (another telling of Gingalain’s story), the dragon’s wings and tail just drop off after the kiss, revealing the naked woman underneath, much to the knight’s delight.
This is, though, a bit of luck. Most dragons are just regular dragons, so it’s worth weighing up whether you would rather spend those last seconds before death wielding a sword or puckering up. It probably depends on whether there are witnesses.
What is the best way to slay a dragon?
Now you know how to take out a dragon, medieval-style, but the best advice is to try not to fight one in the first place. These methods are best used for defence and only as a last resort.
You might be better following the example of the Welsh saint Carantoc, who put vestments around a dangerous dragon and prayed for it, after which it became meek as a lamb and followed the saint around as a kind of pet.
We would do well to heed George RR Martin’s warning that “not all men are meant to dance with dragons”. The best strategy, after all, is to leave them alone.
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