I felt fortunate to meet Anne McCaffery in Hollywood, California several years ago. I had, of course created an image of her in my mind that made her into a person greater than most.

Instead the Dragon Creator was as ordinary as me and you. We talked about cats. I had a ginger Main Coon cat and she had a variety including Maine Coons. I wasn’t sure my cat could be a Maine Coon since he was orange. She assured me that color did not determine his designation as a Maine Coon cat.

I did comment on her dragon stories and she told me a movie may be in the works. Nothing to date but hope springs eternal.

More than most things fictional or real, I love the concept of dragons doing what I need them to accomplish. Think of a dozen that do your bidding. Traffic jam? A half dozen dragons led by a red swoop down and clear the way.

Bully pushing you to the brink of doing the unthinkable? A pair of reds should clear up the bully’s misguided thinking.

But it’s equally interesting to know how the idea of dragons came to be part of popular mythology.

Imagine you’re living about a thousand years ago. You discover the skull of a triceratops. No one then knew of dinosaurs as we do now, or at all. You carry the skull back to your village after a long and difficult effort to drag it up an on your mule drawn cart using say two logs as a ramp.

Everyone you meet are stunned by your discovery. Yet no one including local aristocracy can explain its existence. More bone are located and little by little they are assembled into a massive creature. Not all bone were triceratops, but who knew? Or who cared?

Finally it was decided, possibly by the prince, count, Duke, or whoever was in charge that the beast could fly. That would’ve proved frightening to the masses who lacked any real education. Who believed superstition as a way to understand the natural world outside the limits of their existence.

Of course, it’s possible even the noblemen and women believed it. Superstition guided most lives then even as it does quite a few now. Either way the man in charge now needed to be know as the man who skew dragons. Such power!

Time developed the discovery into serious mythology. Enough so even religions included dragons into their stories. During the Middle Ages dragons came to represent the devil. And the Christian Saint George was depicted as a dragon slayer. Although he was not known for that that in his lifetime.

Occasionally I love the innocence of ignorance. The creation of dragons is one of those occasions. And no, I’m not implying that any religion was or is founded on ignorance of any kind. Sigh. Sad how these days a disclaimer is more often than not, absolutely necessary.

However, Dragons should live forever.