Draco in the Sky and Dragons on the Earth

A brief summary of some of the myths surrounding the Draco constellation and dragons

Dragon in the Sky — image created by author in Midjourney

DRAGON IN THE SKY

There has never been a time in my life that I wasn’t fascinated by dragons. When I learned that there was a constellation called Draco, naturally I had to find out more about this group of stars.

A very brief summary of Draco follows, then some myths surrounding dragons is included toward the end of this article.

By Sidney Hall — This image is available from the United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs divisionunder the digital ID cph.3g10050.This tag does not indicate the copyright status of the attached work. A normal copyright tag is still required. See Commons:Licensing for more information., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=33202358

By ESA/Hubble, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11496779

There’s a dragon in the sky. What are the myths surrounding this constellation?

DRACO MYTHS

In Greek mythology, the dragon in the sky’s name is Ladon. He was tasked with guarding the golden apple tree and was defeated in battle by neighboring constellation Heracles. Ladon was then commemorated in the sky as a constellation, always remembered as vanquished forever.