… or Here Be Dragons is an old phrase said to adorn those parts of a map that lie outside the known, traversable world.
The historical use of the phrase or the exact wording is debatable, with the Lenox Globe of the early 1500s long having been the only reliable use of the phrase and the Ostrich Egg Globe only recently coming to light.
Yet the practice of filling blank geography with monsters was so widespread and the phrase so memorable that it has become a well-known saying whenever someone talks about the dark and dangerous corners of the world.
Those places where the warming light of your civilization fades and you cannot rest assured about the safety of your quivering skin.
Whether dragons, or as was more common, lions, beasts or other people, the consequence remains: You venture off the map, you run the risk of getting eaten. Or worse.
For the warning could easily carry no other information than that there is very little known about said place. You might just fall off the edge of the world.
In any case, no journey home and no statues, rare metals, or exotic spices for you to pilfer and bring back. But is no information then truly the same as some information here?
It depends how far you are willing to follow the symbolic meaning along. For as a symbol dragon of the fiery variety is one thing, a lion, however majestic, quite another. The dragon, as a chiffre stands for the completely unexpected. The lion is an extremely toothy cat.
By its fantastical nature, the dragon communicates that wherever it roams, anything is possible. You know nothing and must expect anything. It is very hard to prepare yourself for encountering a dragon.
Lions, walruses, water-buffaloes, snakes, and whales, terrifying they may be, but they can be sufficiently prepared for. Proper clothing and spears of various sizes or variety tend to do the trick for all of them.
Where in the first case the cartographer says that you better come with tools, the second case indicates a warning for the timid admirer of sure-things and an invitation for the adventurer in search of open spaces.
Most of us would probably fall into either category regarding different regions of our individual maps. Sometimes the couch, sometimes the courser.
I have the hunch however that on the maps of our lives there are far more lions than dragons.
And whether lion or dragon we usually have quite a good idea which pastures each of them roam and, in our darkest of depths, we probably also know what keeps us from treading there.
As the year is coming to a close and with many people quietly preparing their best-laid-plans for personal renewal, I would like to invite all of us to put in some time as (crypto-) zoologists and take note in regard to our very own peculiar bestiary.
The lions and snakes, snapping turtles and boxing kangaroo need not overly worry us. Common sense, good advice and the proper tools will help us prevail if only we take the first step.
And as to the dragons, harpies and were-rabbits, the best remedy would align well with their fantastical nature. As the adventurers of myth and legend, the heroines and heroes, the lords and ladies, we only need one thing to prepare ourselves – courage.