{{Short description|Phrase used on maps to indicate uncharted areas}} {{About|a phrase used on maps}} [[File:Anfuorin.png|thumb|The text {{lang|la|Hic Sunt Dracones}} on the Hunt–Lenox Globe, dating from 1504]]
"'''Here be dragons'''" ({{langx|la|hic sunt dracones}}) is a phrase used to indicate dangerous or unexplored territories, in imitation of a medieval practice of putting illustrations of dragons, sea monsters and other mythological creatures on uncharted areas of maps where potential dangers were thought to exist.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-enchanting-sea-monsters-on-medieval-maps-1805646/ |title=The Enchanting Sea Monsters on Medieval Maps |last=Waters |first=Hannah |publisher=Smithsonian Institution |date=2013-10-15 |access-date=2017-01-19 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Van Duzer |first1=Chet |title=Sea Monsters on Medieval and Renaissance Maps |publisher=British Library Publishing |year=2013 |isbn=978-0712357715 |url=https://archive.org/details/seamonstersonmed0000vand |url-access=limited |via=Internet Archive |access-date=2025-12-05}}</ref>
== History ==
Although several early maps, such as the {{lang|la|Theatrum Orbis Terrarum}}, have illustrations of mythological creatures for decoration, the phrase itself is largely an anachronism.<ref>{{cite web | first = Erin C. | last = Blake | year = 1999 | title = Where Be "Here be Dragons"? | work = MapHist Discussion Group | url = http://www.maphist.nl/extra/herebedragons.html | access-date = 2005-10-14 | archive-date = 2018-04-01 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20180401000111/http://www.maphist.nl/extra/herebedragons.html | url-status = usurped }}</ref> The only known historical use of this phrase, in the Latin form "HIC SVNT DRACONES" ({{Langx|la|Hic Svnt Dracones||Here Are Dragons}}), is on the Hunt-Lenox Globe, dating to 1508.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Hunt-Lenox Globe |url=https://www.nypl.org/events/exhibitions/galleries/explorations/item/4095 |last=<!-- Not stated --> |date=n.d. |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240427194835/https://www.nypl.org/events/exhibitions/galleries/explorations/item/4095 |archive-date=2024-04-27 |url-status=live |access-date=2024-04-27 |website=New York Public Library}}</ref> Earlier maps contain a variety of references to mythical and real creatures, but the Lenox Globe is the only known map to bear this phrase. The term appears at the extreme periphery of the Asian continent.
The classical phrase used by medieval cartographers was ''HIC SVNT LEONES'' (literally, "here are lions") when denoting unknown territories on maps.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Van Duzer|first=Chet|date=2014-06-04|title=Bring on the Monsters and Marvels: Non-Ptolemaic Legends on Manuscript Maps of Ptolemy's Geography|journal=Viator|volume=45|issue=2|pages=303–334|doi=10.1484/J.VIATOR.1.103923|issn=0083-5897}}</ref>
== Dragons on maps == [[File:Psalter World Map, c.1265.jpg|thumb|upright|The Psalter world map with dragons at the base]]
Dragons appear on a few other historical maps:
* The T-O Psalter world map ({{circa|1250}} AD) has dragons, as symbols of sin, in a lower "frame" below the world, balancing Jesus and angels on the top, but the dragons do not appear on the map proper. * The Borgia map (c. 1430), in the Vatican Library, states, over a dragon-like figure in Asia (in the upper left quadrant of the map), "{{lang|la|Hic etiam homines magna cornua habentes longitudine quatuor pedum, et sunt etiam serpentes tante magnitudinis, ut unum bovem comedant integrum}}". ("Here there are even men who have large four-foot horns, and there are even serpents so large that they could eat an ox whole.") * The Fra Mauro Map (c. 1450) shows the "Island of Dragons" ({{langx|it|Isola de' dragoni}}), an imaginary island in the Atlantic Ocean.<ref>Item 558 in: {{citation|title=Fra Mauro's World Map|author-link=Piero Falchetta|first=Piero |last=Falchetta|publisher=Brepols |year=2006|isbn=2-503-51726-9|pages=294–295}}; also in [http://geoweb.venezia.sbn.it/cms/images/stories/Testi_HSL/FM_iscr.pdf the list online]</ref> In an inscription near Herat in modern-day Afghanistan, Fra Mauro says that in the mountains nearby "there are a number of dragons, in whose forehead is a stone that cures many infirmities", and describes the locals' way of hunting those dragons to get the stones. This is thought to be based on Albertus Magnus's treatise ''De mineralibus''.<ref>"In le montagne de la citade de here sono dragoni assai, i qual hano una piera in fronte virtuosa a molte infirmitade". Item 1457 in {{harvnb|Falchetta|2006|pp=462–464}}</ref> In an inscription elsewhere on the map, the cartographer expresses his scepticism regarding "serpents, dragons and basilisks" mentioned by "some historiographers".<ref>Item 460 in {{harvnb|Falchetta|2006|pp=276–278}}</ref> * A 19th-century Japanese map, the ''Jishin-no-ben'', in the shape of ouroboros, depicts a dragon associated with causing earthquakes.
[[File:Psalter World Map, c.1265 dragons.jpg|thumb|left|upright=3|Close-up view of the dragons on the 1265 Psalter world map]] {{clear}}
== Other creatures on maps == [[File:PtolemyWorldMap.jpg|alt=Ptolemy's Geography, world map in 1st projection (modified conic projection).|thumb|A mid-15th century Florentine map of the world based on Jacobus Angelus's 1406 Latin translation of Maximus Planudes's late-13th century copies of rediscovered Greek manuscripts of Ptolemy's 2nd-century ''Geography''. Ptolemy's 1st (modified conic) projection.]] * Ptolemy's atlas in ''Geographia'' (originally 2nd century, taken up again in the 15th century) warns of elephants, hippos and cannibals. * The ''Tabula Peutingeriana'' (a medieval copy of Roman map) has "{{lang|la|in his locis elephanti nascuntur}}", "{{lang|la|in his locis scorpiones nascuntur}}" and "{{lang|la|hic cenocephali nascuntur}}" ("in these places elephants are born, in these places scorpions are born, here Cynocephali are born"). * Cotton MS. Tiberius B.V. fol. 56v (10th century), British Library Manuscript Collection, has "hic abundant leones" ("here lions abound"), along with a picture of a lion, near the east coast of Asia (at the top of the map towards the left); this map also has a text-only serpent reference in southernmost Africa (bottom left of the map): "Zugis regio ipsa est et Affrica. est enim fertilis. sed ulterior bestiis et serpentibus plena" ("This region of Zugis is in Africa; it is rather fertile, but on the other hand it is full of beasts and serpents.") * The Ebstorf map (13th century) has a dragon in the extreme south-eastern part of Africa, together with an asp and a basilisk. * Giovanni Leardo's map (1442) has, in southernmost Africa, "Dixerto dexabitado p. chaldo e p. serpent". * Martin Waldseemüller's ''Carta marina navigatoria'' (1516) has "an elephant-like creature in northernmost Norway, accompanied by a legend explaining that this 'morsus' with two long and quadrangular teeth congregated there", i.e. a walrus, which would have seemed monstrous at the time.[[File:Carta marina navigatoria Portvgallen navigationes, atqve tocius cogniti orbis terre marisqve formam natvram sitvs et terminos nostris temporibvs recognitos et ab antiqvorum traditione differentes, LOC 2016586433-2.jpg|thumb|Martin Waldseemüller's ''Carta marina navigatoria'' with a monstrous walrus at top right (1516).]]Waldseemüller's ''Carta marina navigatoria'' (1522), revised by Laurentius Fries, has the morsus moved to the Davis Strait. * Bishop Olaus Magnus's ''Carta Marina'' map of Scandinavia (1539) has many monsters in the northern sea, as well as a winged, bipedal, predatory land animal resembling a dragon in northern Lapland. * On European maps of Africa, up until the Berlin Conference and the subsequent Scramble for Africa produced accurate cartographic representations of Africa, elephants replaced dragons as placeholders for unknown regions. An excerpt from ''On Poetry: a Rhapsody'' by the Irish satirist Jonathan Swift states: "''So geographers, in Afric maps, With savage pictures fill their gaps, And o'er uninhabitable downs, Place elephants for want of towns''".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Swift |first=Jonathan |title=On Poetry: a Rapsody |publisher=And sold by J. Huggonson, next to Kent's Coffee-house, near Serjeant's-inn, in Chancery-lane; [and] at the bookseller's and pamphletshops |year=1733 |edition=1st |location=Irland |pages=12 |language=en}}</ref>
== See also == * {{annotated link|Mappa mundi}} * {{annotated link|Terra incognita}}
== References == '''Notes''' {{Reflist}}
'''Bibliography''' *{{cite web | author = Livingston, Michael | year = 2002 | title = Modern Medieval Map Myths: The Flat World, Ancient Sea-Kings, and Dragons | work = Strange Horizons | url = http://www.strangehorizons.com/2002/20020610/medieval_maps.shtml | access-date = February 10, 2006 | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20060209042605/http://www.strangehorizons.com/2002/20020610/medieval_maps.shtml | archive-date = February 9, 2006 }}
==External links== * [https://web.archive.org/web/20071102164301/http://www.antiquemaps.co.uk/book/chapter10.asp ''Myths & Legends On Old Maps'' (Chapter 10)] * [https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/13/AR2007031301854.html "Here be Dragons" by David Montgomery, ''Washington Post'', 3/14/07] * [http://herebedragonsmovie.com/ "Here Be Dragons: An Introduction to Critical Thinking" by Brian Dunning from Skeptoid] * [http://sobrenatural.net/blog/2008/08/25/aqui-hay-dragones/ "Here Be Dragons" by Brian Dunning – Spanish Subtitled Version (Versión Subtitulada al Español de "Aquí Hay Dragones" por Brian Dunning)] *[https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/no-old-maps-actually-say-here-be-dragons/282267/ "No Old Maps Actually Say 'Here Be Dragons' -but an ancient globe does"]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Here Be Dragons}} Category:Cartography Category:English phrases Category:Dragons Category:Folklore