John Aubrey’s Natural History, Part 3: Dragons

Are dragons real? The question crossed the mind of John Aubrey. A founding fellow of the Royal Society, he was an exponent of astrology, curious by the supernatural but seemingly sceptical about the existence of wyverns, a two-legged dragon, whose existence, on Mount Atlas in particular, was peddled in various books of the period. As a widely held belief amongst the populace, it is unsurprising that when Aubrey began writing his survey of Wiltshire's natural world, he should discuss them. 'Though it be foreign, as to Wiltshire, I will here by speake of the Wiverns,' he remarked in his chapter on birds, possibly considering them more closely related to birds than the mammals, reptiles, or fish he described in separate chapters.

Aubrey characterised the wyvern of common repute as breeding on Mount Atlas (the Atlas mountains in North Africa), being as big as a swan and feeding on monkeys. Influenced by the emerging scientific method, Aubrey typically approached supernatural accounts with curiosity and collected testimonies from those he considered reliable witnesses. His consideration of the wyvern was no different, and in 1672, with the help of Wyld Clarke, a factor based in what is now Agadir, a port city on Morocco's Atlantic coast near the foothills of the Atlas Mountains, sought the truth.

Clarke's accounts pepper several of Aubrey's works; having spent fifteen years in Africa, his experience was invaluable on topics as diverse as hurricanes, the culinary and medicinal value of porcupines and the best method of using henna to dye hair. Aubrey asked Clarke to make enquiries and provided him with a sketch of a green wyvern he had made from a heraldic device to ensure there was no mistake in the identification of the creature. Clarke obliged his friend and travelled 'farther in the Country than any Christian before him: and he could heare no newes of any such creature.' Thus concluded Aubrey, in his account, 'I insert this, to notifie this Vulgar Errour.'