The Roman poet Virgil in his poem Culex lines 163–201,[1] describing a shepherd battling a big constricting snake, calls it "serpens" and also "draco", showing that in his time the two words probably could mean the same thing.

Some depictions show dragons with one or more of: feathered wings, crests, ear frills, fiery manes, ivory spikes running down its spine, and various exotic decorations.

In some accounts, the hero Sigurð defeats Fáfnir by digging a pit and then lying in wait, piercing his heart with a sword as he passes overhead and slaying him.

The Roman author Claudius Aelianus in his book De Natura Animalium[8] describes the draco as a big constricting snake found in India, presumably the Indian Python, but with its size and strength greatly exaggerated so that it can kill an elephant by constricting its neck; this battle between a draco and an elephant is repeated with much embellishment in later descriptions of dracones or dragons in bestiaries.

[10] Dragons are usually shown in modern times with a body more like a huge lizard, or a snake with two pairs of lizard-type legs, and breathing fire from their mouths.

Its movements are denoted by the Anglo-Saxon verb bugan, "to bend", and it is said to have a venomous bite, and poisonous breath; all of these indicate a snake-like form and movement rather than with a lizard-like or dinosaur-like body as in later depictions, and no legs or wings are mentioned (although it is able to fly); however it shows several dragon features that later became popular: it breathed fire, flew, lived underground, and collected treasure.

In the modern period and late medieval times, the European dragon is typically depicted as a huge fire-breathing, scaly, and horned lizard-like creature, with wings (usually leathery bat-like, sometimes feathered), two or four legs, and a long muscular tail.

[20] After it ate a young shepherd, the people were forced to placate it by leaving two sheep as sacrificial offerings every morning beside the lake where the dragon lived.

[23] When the dragon arrived to eat her, he stabbed it with his lance and subdued it by making the sign of the cross and tying the princess's girdle around its neck.

[25] In myths, wyverns are associated with viciousness, envy, and pestilence,[25] but in heraldry, they symbolise the overthrowing of the tyranny of Satan and his demonic forces.

[25] A "basilisk" is a serpent with the head of a dragon at the end of its tail that is born when a toad hatches an egg that has been laid in a midden by a nine-year-old cockatrice.

[27] The dragon motif is known in Celtic art in diverse styles, and is presumed to have derived from a serpent-like creature in ancient folklore of the Middle East and Greece.

[27] One example found in Britain is an early Iron Age Celtic sword that features two opposing dragons, queried to be from the Hallstatt culture.

[32][33] Two other swords and scabbards (also from the bottom of the river Thames) are thought to include a dragon pair from the La Tène or Hallstatt cultures.

[38] Dragons, or worms, are prevalent in early Germanic folklore and art, with notable examples being the killer of Beowulf, the central figure of the Völsung Cycle Fáfnir and Jǫrmungandr.

[39][40][41][42] In this cultural context, the distinction between snakes and dragons is blurred with both being referred to by the same terms, including Old Norse: ormr and Old English: wyrm.

[53] Specific worms are also depicted, such as Jǫrmungandr on the Altuna stone and Fáfnir on the Jurby cross, the Hylestad stave church and the Ramsund carving.

For example, Drakons (дракон, змей, ламя, (х)ала; dracon, zmey, lamya, ala) in Bulgarian mythology are either male or female, and each gender has a different view of mankind.

The female dragon represents harsh weather and is the destroyer of crops, the hater of mankind, and is locked in a never-ending battle with her brother.

[63] Other dragon-like creatures in Polish folklore include the basilisk, living in cellars of Warsaw, and the Snake King from folk legends, though neither are explicitly dragons.

Iberian dragons are almost always evil, such as the Cuélebre, or Cuelebre, a giant winged serpent in the mythology of Asturias and Cantabria in the north of Spain.

The Catalans also distinguish a víbria or vibra (cognate with English viper and wyvern), a female dragon-like creature with two prominent breasts, two claws, two wings and an eagle's beak.

One day, a young and brave knight of the noble House of Cittadini, tired of witnessing the death of his fellow citizens and the depopulation of Terni, faced the wyvern and killed it.

Grateful for his deed, the population built a small church dedicated to the saint on the top of the mountain near the dragon's lair in the 13th century.

The county once formed part of the early medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex in western England, which too bore a dragon, or a wyvern, as a symbol.

European-type dragons are often depicted without front legs, and, when on the ground, standing and walking pterosaur-fashion on their back feet and the wrists of their wings.

Dragons play prominent roles in JRR Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium, particularly in The Silmarillion and The Hobbit, and in the unconnected Farmer Giles of Ham.

The Efteling has since 1979 an animatronic scene in the Fairytale Forest that depicts an archetypical Western European dragon protecting a treasure from getting stolen by the public.

The books are set in a fictional Viking world and focus on the experiences of protagonist Hiccup as he overcomes great obstacles on his journey of Becoming a Hero, the Hard Way.

Tui T. Sutherland's book series Wings of Fire is set in a dragon-dominant world where five dragonets must complete a prophecy to end a twenty-year-long war.