logo
episode-header-image
Feb 2024
41m 25s

Dragons: From the Ancient World to the H...

History Hit
About this episode

Take dinosaur bones, snake poison, volcanic lava, fear of the unknown. Mix it all together and you have a dragon!


Today we're finding out about the ancient origins of dragons and why there used to be a much wider variety of dragon types than we see today. Our guide is dragon expert Jasmine Elmer. Jasmine's new documentary "Dragons: Myth & Reality" is out now on History Hit.


Edited by Tom Delargy, Produced by Freddy Chick, Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.


Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code AFTERDARK - sign up at historyhit.com/subscribe.  


You can take part in our listener survey here.

Up next
Today
The Truth About Frankenstein
Against a time of radical change, a gothic masterpiece was written by the teenage Mary Shelley.Published in 1818, Frankenstein takes us into a dark world where man and monster meet in mutual torment. A world of raw, animalistic fear.How was this story influenced by the tragedies ... Show More
48m 13s
Jul 7
How Bloody Was 'Bloody Mary'?
Last week we heard about Mary's formative years. Today we get to her reign, the infamous burnings and ask ourselves if Bloody Mary was as bad as people think.Edited by Tomos Delargy. Produced by Stuart Beckwith. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.Please vote for us for Listeners' ... Show More
39m 59s
Jul 3
The Final Days of Anastasia Romanov
In the aftermath of the bloody Russian revolution, the Romanovs went from being a glittering royal family, to vulnerable everyday citizens who were soon murdered.In the wake of their deaths, the that one family member survived, began to gain traction.How do the claims of Princess ... Show More
51m 11s
Recommended Episodes
Jan 2022
Dragons Exist In Nearly Every Culture’s Mythology As a Mirror of Their Fears. What Are Ours?
We live in the golden age of dragons – they appear in Game of Thrones, most film adaptations of the works of J.R.R. Tolkein, and nearly everything tangentially related to fantasy. They date back millennia, appearing in every cultures mythology, from ancient Greece and India to me ... Show More
50m 18s
Jun 2024
461. Dragons
"When dragons flew to war… everything burned. I do not wish to rule over a kingdom of ash and bone."Dragons - the most compelling of mythical beasts - are one of the most vivid creations of all human imagination, and their enduring resonance is captivatingly displayed by their ro ... Show More
54m 16s
Aug 2022
From Ancient Ireland to Westeros: A History of Dragons
In this special episode brought to you by NOW, I look into why humans are fascinated with dragons. Did you know mythology around dragons is older than organised religion and spiritual beliefs of any kind? Meanwhile images of dragons has been found on all continents in societies f ... Show More
29m 7s
Oct 2023
L'ennemi juré d'Apollon : Python
Mes chers camarades, bien le bonjour !Dans cette mini-série, nous explorons tous ces dragons qui, dans les mythologies grecque, japonaise, babylonienne et scandinave, crachaient du sang noir, du venin, de l’eau ou des vapeurs fétides. Eh oui, le dragon était parfois une créature ... Show More
5m 48s
Oct 2023
Tiamat, la mère de tous les dragons
Mes chers camarades, bien le bonjour !Dans cette mini-série, nous explorons tous ces dragons qui, dans les mythologies grecque, japonaise, babylonienne et scandinave, crachaient du sang noir, du venin, de l’eau ou des vapeurs fétides. Eh oui, le dragon était parfois une créature ... Show More
6m 10s
Sep 2020
Dragons
Before “Lord of the Rings” and “Game of Thrones,” dragons stalked the pages of mythology across the world. The European version became a powerful metaphor for the evils that supposedly stalked mankind. And that's where we get the most iconic European Dragon Story, featuring a man ... Show More
50m 14s
Nov 2022
Dragons: Is There Anything to This? Or Just Total Fiction?
Can dragons be traced back to dinosaurs? Will Simon ever watch the Hobbit movie? In this episode of Decoding the Unknown, you'll find out the answers to these thrilling questions! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices 
1h 16m
Nov 2023
Human Evolution: Dragon Man
Homo longi, also known as Dragon Man, is an extinct archaic human species - with a nearly complete skull found near Harbin, China, dating back to at least 146,000 years ago. Discovered in 1933 during the construction of the Dongjiang Bridge, it remained hidden until 2018 due to w ... Show More
35 m
Jun 2020
Dragon Psychology 101
Dragons hoard treasure, deep in their lairs. They don’t show it off to their neighbors. Revisionist History applies dragon psychology to the strange world of art museums, with help from Andy Warhol, J.R.R. Tolkien, a handful of accountants and the world’s leading hoarding expert. ... Show More
41m 13s
Jul 2020
Three Dragons (Advanced)
Three dragons live on three separate mountains, with a human kingdom lying in the middle. For a hundred years the two species live in peace, until one day a knight comes from abroad and makes a proposal to the King: he will slay the dragons and bring glory to his kingdom... Today ... Show More
35m 54s