Why are you getting up? Was that one too sad or something? Sorry about that, but life in ancient Greece was pretty tough. You’re lucky that not many people die young these days, the way Kleobis and Biton did. I know, I know—some still do, and it’s terribly sad, but your doctors can fix a lot of things that killed people in my time. They can’t fix everything, though. Many mysteries remain, and who knows—maybe someday, a scientist will find a medicine like the magic herb in the story I’m about to tell you, something that will save as many lives as your antibiotics and vaccines do. Interested? Great.
You know, I’ve seen some scary-looking snakes in these woods. Sometimes they even go slithering over me, which would make me shiver if I could still shiver, and on hot days, they like to warm themselves in the sun on me. I’m not bothered by snakes, especially now that they can’t bite me, but I don’t like to feel them sliding around on my face.
Greece has only one kind of venomous snake: the adder, like the one that bit my poor Eurydice. So I think this story originally came from someplace other than Greece, maybe from Maionia, which is in the western part of what you people call Turkey. There are lots of snakes in Turkey, including one that has a hood like a cobra’s and that sounds kind of like the monster in this story, about Tylos and the dragon.
Tylos was a young man who lived in Maionia with his sister, a tree nymph, or dryad, named Moria. In Maionia, there also lived a drakon—a hideous snake, or perhaps a dragon (the word δράκων can mean either one). This reptile, whatever it was, lived in a wild area, where it lay in wait for prey. Passersby, cows, even whole flocks of sheep would disappear down its huge throat. When it finished eating, it would blow out a great blast of air, and sometimes the blast would terrify someone nearby long enough for the snake to grab this victim, too.
One day, as Tylos strolled near a river with his sister, he accidentally brushed against the drakon, which instantly spread its hood and attacked him. Moria shrieked at the sight of this reptile with rows of teeth in its gaping jaw and a long, muscular body. The drakon didn’t just bite the young man; it wrapped its tail around his neck and torso, and with its fangs, it ripped at his face, spitting poison all the while. Not surprisingly, Tylos fell dead from this lethal combination of poison, face ripping, and strangulation.
The drakon stayed on the youth’s body, mauling Tylos even as he lay lifeless. The dryad must have been immune to the creature’s attack, for she managed to pull the terrifying beast off her brother without being injured. The drakon hissed and spit at Moria as she saved her brother from being devoured.
Tylos’s mutilated face and body were a horrible sight, and Moria wailed so loudly that a giant named Damasen heard her cries. Damasen was no ordinary giant, if you can call any giant ordinary. His mother was none other than Gaia, the earth, and he was born fully bearded and armed like a soldier, even holding a spear.
He approached Moria and asked, “Why are you crying?” but she was so distraught, she couldn’t speak. She pointed wordlessly at the writhing reptile and at the corpse of her brother, lying in the dust.
Damasen didn’t hesitate for a moment. He tore a tree from the ground and, wielding it like a club, ran toward the drakon.
The creature hissed a challenge and flung itself at the giant. The drakon was so huge, this caused the ground to tremble as though in an earthquake. It wrapped its long body around the giant’s feet and spiraled up his body. Rolling its eyes and breathing its foul breath into his face, it opened its mouth and spat yellow, foamy poison into Damasen’s eyes. Then it reared up over his head, looking for a spot unprotected by his armor, where it could sink its fangs.
But the monster was used to dealing with mere humans and sheep and cows, not with someone as large and strong and battle-proven as the son of the Earth, and it had met its match. Damasen shook the serpent off his arms and legs and whirled the tree in the air—once, twice, three times—and then smashed it down on the drakon, right where its head joined its long neck.
All was still. Moria was stunned into silence, and Damasen stood panting near the two dead bodies, Tylos’s and the drakon’s, wiping the stinking drakon spit off his face and recovering from the fight.
Then a slithery sound reached the ears of the girl and the giant, and out of the shrubs poked a narrow head. It looked around as if wondering what all the commotion was about. Then it spied the reptile’s broken body, and the rest of the creature emerged.
It was another drakon—technically a drakaina, for it was a female. She coiled herself out of the dust, her long tail dragging behind her like the train of a gown, and headed straight for the drakon’s body.
“What do you think she wants?” Moria whispered to Damasen. He could only shake his head.
Moria was terrified. Would the creature realize that Damasen had killed her mate and attack the giant, too? Would she tear at Moria the way the drakon had torn at Tylos?
But neither the girl nor the giant could have imagined the strange thing the drakaina did next. After nosing the drakon’s corpse and realizing her mate was dead, she turned and wound with great haste through the rocks that lay around them, toward a hill covered with flowers and herbs. Moria and Damasen watched in amazement as the creature yanked a plant known as the flower of Zeus from the ground and, clutching it in her teeth, came slithering back. She coiled herself next to the drakon and carefully dropped the plant against one of its nostrils.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then the drakon’s body gave a great shudder, and bit by bit, as life returned first to one part of the monster and then to another, the creature moved. His tail was the last to revive. Finally, cold breath hissed out of his many-toothed mouth.
Moria clutched at Damasen, afraid that the two creatures would come at them. But the drakon had learned his lesson, and with his mate, he went slithering back into his den rather than daring to approach the giant again.
Moria wasted no time. She picked up the flower of Zeus and laid it against her Tylos’s nostril. Then she waited.
At first, she thought the flower must work only on monsters, because her brother lay as pale and motionless as before. Just as she was about to give up and begin preparations for Tylos’s funeral, she thought she saw a faint color come to his torn cheek. Then one foot twitched, and he raised his head and blinked. Slowly and shakily, he stood. He looked around, bewildered, and then he raised his hands to the gods in thanks as the blood flowed back through him.
Tylos lived for a long time after that, but on his face and body, he always carried the deep scars that the drakon had inflicted on him.
Dragons
The noun δράκων comes from the verb δέρκεσθαι (derkesthai), meaning “to see clearly.” Many snakes have poor eyesight, though.
A Tough Baby
The Cretan goddess of childbirth gave Damasen a shield on his first day of life, and the goddess of strife and discord was his nanny. His name means “the subduer.”