Drakaina

The cave on the slope of Parnassus smelled of carrion and cold stone, and the shepherds of Crisa learned to read each morning by whether their flocks came back whole. Something lived in the dark there, long and patient. When it uncoiled into the light it moved on a body that had no legs at all. From the waist up it was a woman, with a face that might once have stopped a traveller for the wrong reasons. Below that it was all serpent, a single muscled rope of scale that crossed a hillside faster than a man could run.

The Greeks had a word for her kind. A drakon was a serpent-dragon, the guardian coiled at the root of sacred things, and a drakaina was its female counterpart. She was rarely just a snake. The name is the plain feminine of drakon, yet the creatures it gathered up almost always carried something human in them, a head and a torso shaped like a beautiful woman, the monstrous part beginning where the legs should be. The old artists called this shape the anguipede, the serpent-foot, and it belonged to a whole family of she-dragons rather than a single beast. Echidna wore it. So did Campe, Delphyne, Sybaris, and many a portrait of Scylla, Ceto, and Lamia.

They came from the oldest stock in the world. Echidna, the one most often named as the model of the type, was a daughter of the primordial sea-powers, half a bright-cheeked nymph and half a vast speckled serpent, hidden away in a cave deep beneath the earth where the immortals could not reach her. She did not age and she did not die of time. What she did instead was breed. Coupled with the storm-giant Typhon, she brought into the world the Chimera, the hound Cerberus, the many-headed Hydra, the riddling Sphinx, and Ladon who curled around the golden apples. To call her the mother of monsters is only to count her children.

Most drakainai, though, were known for one place and one appetite. The she-dragon of Delphi, later given the name Delphyne, held the oracle on Parnassus before Apollo ever drew his bow there. The earliest telling makes her a nameless thing the young god kills beneath the rocky ridge, cheered on by the Corycian nymphs of the cave above the sanctuary. A grimmer story sets her deeper in the rock as a jailer. When Typhon tore the sinews from Zeus’s hands and feet during their war for the sky, he hid them in the Corycian cave and set the half-maiden, half-beast to guard them. She kept her watch in the dark until Hermes and the goat-god Aegipan slipped past her, lifted the sinews, and carried them back so Zeus could stand and fight again. The dragoness who could swallow a god’s strength was undone by two thieves and a moment of inattention.

The pattern repeats with small, vicious variations. On Mount Cirphis above Delphi a drakaina called Sybaris, or Lamia by other mouths, lived in an enormous cavern and came down each day to carry off flocks and people, until the city resolved to feed her a chosen youth to buy a little peace. A hero named Eurybarus, passing through, saw the boy garlanded for the cave, took the wreaths from his head and put them on his own, and walked in alone. He seized the monster and flung her from the cliff. Where her shattered head struck the foot of Crisa, a spring broke open and ran clear, and the people named it Sybaris after the thing that died to make it.

Some drakainai did the imprisoning rather than the haunting. Campe was the warden Cronus set over the Cyclopes and the Hundred-Handed giants in the pit of Tartarus, a creature so dreadful that Zeus had to kill her before he could free the prisoners whose weapons would win him the throne of heaven. Far to the north, in the cold grass of Scythia, another serpent-woman met Heracles as he drove the cattle of Geryon home. She had stolen his mares and would only return them on the condition that he lie with her. He did, and from that bargain came the line of Scythian kings, who traced themselves back to a mother who was lovely above and a snake below.

What the drakaina could do followed from what she was. She was venom and crushing weight and a hunger that did not tire. She guarded thresholds, the mouth of a cave, the seat of a prophecy, the place where a god’s power lay hidden, and she held them with the patience of something that did not need to sleep on a human schedule. Several were tied to oracles and the deep places where the future was supposed to live, as though serpent and prophecy belonged together. And she bred true, throwing off monsters the way a lesser creature throws off offspring.

Her limits were just as fixed. She belonged to her lair and could not follow far from it. She could be outrun by cunning, slipped past while she watched the wrong thing, lured into trusting the wrong guest. And against the one weapon that mattered she had no answer at all. A drakaina was slain only by a god or by a hero with a god’s blood in him, by Apollo’s arrows or Zeus’s killing of Campe or a young man’s nerve at a cave mouth. She was always going to lose this story. That was the point of her. The order the Greeks lived inside was built on her body, on the spring that ran from her skull and the shrine raised where she fell, and the dragon at the root of the sacred place existed mostly to be cleared away so the sacred place could begin.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a drakaina in Greek mythology?

A drakaina is a female dragon or serpent in Greek myth, usually pictured as a woman from the waist up with the long coiling tail of a snake instead of legs. The word is the feminine form of drakon (dragon), and the type includes Echidna, Delphyne, Campe, and Sybaris.

What is the difference between a drakon and a drakaina?

A drakon is a male serpent-dragon, typically shown as a giant snake guarding a sacred place or treasure. A drakaina is its female counterpart, and unlike the often wholly serpentine drakon she usually has the head and torso of a human woman joined to a serpent’s body.

Who are the most famous drakainai?

The best-known drakainai are Echidna, the cave-dwelling mother of monsters; Delphyne, the she-dragon of Delphi who guarded Zeus’s stolen sinews; Campe, the jailer of Tartarus; and Sybaris, also called Lamia, who devoured the people near Delphi. Scylla, Ceto, and Lamia were also frequently depicted in drakaina form.

How was a drakaina killed?

A drakaina could be destroyed only by a god or by a hero descended from the gods. Apollo killed the she-dragon of Delphi with his bow, Zeus slew Campe to free the Cyclopes, and the hero Eurybarus hurled Sybaris from a cliff, where a spring rose from her broken skull.

What did the drakaina represent?

The drakaina embodied the chaotic, dangerous power rooted in a sacred place, which a god or hero had to clear away to claim it. Her death frequently founded something lasting, a shrine, a spring, or a royal line, so the order of the Greek world was often built on the body of the dragon that guarded its sites.

Related Entries

Echidna, Typhon, Python, Campe, Lamia, Sybaris, Scylla, Ladon, Drakon, Hydra, Medusa, Apollo, Zeus, Tiamat, Melusine, Heracles (Hercules)