Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society - The Most Badass Dragon Slayers in History

Episode Date: July 7, 2026

Picture a dragon and its dragon slayer. What do you imagine?It's likely going to be a giant, scaly, fire-breathing beast and a rugged knight with a massive sword. However, throughout history we have amazing myths of women dragon slayers.What are the ancient origins of the dragon? How do women dragon slayers differ from their male counterparts? And what genitals do medieval dragons have?!Joining Kate today is historian and author Jasmine Elmer, to get to know these historical stories and the reasons behind them.This episode was edited by Hannah Feodorov. The producer was Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Freddy Chick.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  You can take part in our listener survey here.All music from Epidemic Sounds. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Do you want even more shocking and scandalous history? Like why the ancient Greek statues had such small manhoods? Or what went on behind closed doors in the Georgian era? We'll sign up to History Hit, where you can see me discover the scandalous side of history, as well as hundreds of hours of original documentaries, plus new releases every week, covering everything from prehistoric Scotland to the Treaty of Versailles.

Sign up to join me in locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Hello, my lovely betwixters. It's me, Kate Lister, and you are listening to Betwixter Sheets. Welcome back. Hello, it is just so wonderful to have you back once again. But before we can go any further, I think you know what's coming. I have to tell you.

This is an adult podcast spoken by adults, other adults, about indulgy things, and adulty wake-a-wereing range, or subjects, new to be an adult too. Oh, my God, thank God, we've got through that. Do you feel safer? I feel safer, right? Let's crack on. Oh, hello, betwixters. that we are in 15th century

Japan and we've been invited out on a little boat trip. How quaint! Except it's not because every year a young woman is offered up to a dragon who lives beneath the waves. Oh did I not mention the dragon and the human sacrifice bit? Yeah, all right, maybe it's not quite sequent.

Today's sacrifice, though, doesn't seem particularly interested in dying. In fact, she's much more interested in slaying and kicking ass. Her name is Tokoyo, and you may be shocked to learn that she is in good company with other women dragon slayers in history. Well, who are they and what are their stories?

Let's get this dragon slayed and find out more. Hello and welcome back to Betwixta Sheets, the history of sex scandal and society with me, Kate Lister. Hands up, who amongst us who's pictured themselves having a starring role in Game of Thrones? That can't just be me. It can't, surely. In fact, if any of the producers of House of the Dragon are still recruiting for, let's say, I don't know,

Dineris's northern cousin, then look no further, I am willing. But what stories from history have women taming and even slaying the dragon? Today I'm joined by the historian and author Jasmine Elmer, who's written an entire book about them. Sords are the ready, everyone. Let's do this. Well, hello and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets. Only Jasmine Elmer. How are you doing, babe? I was wondering, you're going to put like a sound effect on top where you're like, the people were cheering. Is that going to go on? Or do I do it myself?

We can do. We can do. Hang on. Look, we'll do some post-editing magic now. Q, applause. There it is. Okay. Okay. If that doesn't happen, that is going to be so bad. Yeah, don't leave me hanging. Don't do a solitary clap, like one person, just clapping gently. That would just do me in. That's, that's an editor can be very, very mean there. And we will, we will be having words. Well, it's fabulous to have you back. How have you been? Great. Thank you. I love coming on here. I could probably hang out here all day. Probably like nearly all of your listeners. It's just such a fun place.

Well, it's fun because you're about to talk about dragons because your latest book, you've just suddenly dragons, except I say you've suddenly gone dragons, but your PhD was in dragons. Well, do you know what? I didn't, I did half a PhD. I didn't finish it. So I'm not a doctor, Jasmine Elmer. I'm a Can I just be a D, Jasmine now, Mark. Could be a D. Yeah, you're me. Yeah, you can, the big D. I did, I did half of a PhD and then stopped to write these books. So I don't know, I feel like I should just be given a doctorate anyway,

because I just change tact and wrote books for normal people, not academics. I think that I'm quite happy to call you doctor on those grounds. That's fine. If you could bestow it upon me with a certificate from the University of Cape Lister. I have a post-it note, absolutely. Wonderful, yeah. Doing gold writing. and then it'll be real.

And I can show it to people. There we go. You just need the confidence to pull it off. That's all you need. So, yes, I don't have a PhD. However, I have multiple, multiple, multiple hours of academic study on Dragons. So we wouldn't call a PhD. But yes, I do.

And now you have a book on Dragons. Let's give it its full title. Hang on. Slay ancient legends of female slayers and the hidden mythology of dragons. Yeah. Do you like it? I do like that. That's a very, very good title.

I like it because I love the double. play on sleigh. Yeah, well, I had to do that. It came into my brain and I thought, can we be this silly? And I thought, yes, we can. Can we make serious comments and be silly? I was like, yeah, I mean, it's fine. We're making a career of it. Yes, we can. So, why dragons, Jasmine? What's the attraction? I mean, you know, obviously they're very cool, but apart, what attracts you to dragons? Such a good question. Do you know what? I didn't know anything about dragons until I did my master's as an adult in classics and ancient history. And I was like, honestly, I was looking down the course list and I thought, oh, not more Roman emperors.

No dissing the Roman emperors, but I've been doing that for 20 odd years. I'm like, okay, more Roman emperors, okay, or slavery in ancient Greece. All these topics are fine, but I had been in them for years and then I saw dragons. And I thought, that's different. I'll give that a crack. And I'd already done a lot of mythology. But honestly, it's when I started to study them, I just thought, why are they so much more than I thought they were? Why are they so layered in their meaning?

Why are they so prolific in world cultures and also throughout history? And they sort of became like this like obsession. I was like, hang on a minute. I need to know why. I need to know why. But also from a global question because we all know that like dragons come from so many cultures. And I just thought mythology does that. But like in this particular way with dragons, it's just like, with dragons.

It's just something else. It's his own entity. And I just thought there's something in that. A bit like how obsessed with sex you are. I just got obsessed with dragons. Yeah. Yeah. That's fair, isn't it?

That's fair. I mean, maybe yours is from personal experience. I haven't only got any personal experience of dragons. Mine's just from the fact that I've never been laid properly. Okay. And you just needed to know the history of that. Yeah. It's just a mass wave of sexual frustration that's happening here.

I don't think you have dragon frustrations. Oh, but you know what? Sometimes it would be cool to just like be going out for the school run and then there's this little dragon just floating around. So as a real starter question then, but it's probably actually quite, it's one of those ones that's actually quite tricky. What is a dragon? I mean, that's a good question. I mean, the definition is going to change depending on who you want to ask really because the dragon, like I've just already described, is fluid across many, you know, kind of cultures. So it's hard to do. choose a definition that relates to the physical characteristics because of that. Because it has so, I know we all want to say, oh, it's got wings and it breathes fire and it's a bit scaly and it might fly and it might, you know, but I think actually a better definition is kind of like you can use that loosely, but also it's about the behaviour.

You know, it's a kind of like a dragon's behaviour is often to do with marauding or guarding as well as these, I mean, if you could, like, broadly serpentine, scaly things, you can put those in more loosely. But that's, that's kind of, dragons are associated with really kind of what they're doing rather than what they look like, I think is a better definition. Are they always marauding? No, they're not always marauding. I think it's like there are different types, different types, but different,

I guess they display different personality sounds like a weird way to describe them. But yeah, they do different things in different cultures. So marauding is one that we, I think, associate a lot with the Western dragon, the medieval dragon. They can often maraud cause havoc for people. And you get there in the classical world as well. And you can trace that kind of very, like I said, Western Eurocentric view, like all way through really, all the way back.

But when you look at Eastern Dragons, it's a different situation. They're like more connected to like lark and prosperity and like rivers and natural spaces like that. So, you know, like they're not always that. And that's what makes them, I think, actually kind of hard to define. And part of that I think the study should be about what we want to do with definitions of dragons. So I think that's an open question.

I think it's still going on really. And we'll get a different answer of a different person each time. I bet Game of Thrones has really done a number on dragon studies. Maybe in a fabulous way, but like that was a global show, the impact of it, love it or hate it, it cannot be underestimated just how influential that show is. A piece of research that I was doing years ago is how Game of Thrones is rewriting medieval history for younger audiences. And I noticed that because I used to teach medieval studies and then suddenly everyone was coming into the class thinking that it was going to be like Game of Thrones. And it was like it was actually monks. It was mostly monks writing.

I'm so sorry. It's like religious texts and like monks writing about stuff. And everyone wanted it to be, and then I was like, my God, like Game of Thrones is now rewriting what people think of as medieval history and popular culture. Are they doing that with dragons as well? It's now everyone's thought of a dragon. Yeah, absolutely. Like, that's partly why the book is a global story of dragons, because we just have this

such heavy iconography around that medieval-looking dragon, which is wicked. Like, I love it. It's cool. The stories behind it are broadly. like it's it's a real awesome part of our cultural heritage but then we're missing out on like I said all this fluidity and the nuance and the breadth of dragon myth and that's what I was like trying to change with this book because you can buy quite a lot of books around dragons in the West and then you separately can buy dragons on books in the East but it's not you don't

really find many that bring them together so yeah I mean I don't think it's a bad thing I mean I love Game of Thrones and fantasy and all this stuff. Like, I don't love fantasy, but I do quite like Game of Thrones, but that's because I got forced to watch it by my husband. I resisted for years. He was well into it. And then I started watching, I thought, oh, no, but I like it.

But Game of Thrones is good. So I digress. But the thing is that I think that it's a good thing that dragons are popular. And I think people are asking more questions right now, because they are now seeing the dragon everywhere in these, like, more, you know, pop culture and kind of places. The inquisitive among us are going, hang on a sec. I want to know more about that. What did it really mean?

What's actually about? Have we always believed in dragons? Can you trace this belief, like, right back to the earliest writing and mythology? Yeah. Next question. Oh, wow. Okay. Okay.

I thought you were going to say, no, like, they didn't exist before the 16th century or something, but, like, they go right back. No, no. They're very, very, very ancient. So you have dragons in, like, ancient Mesopotamia, you know, one of our, you know, oldest known civilizations. stories of Tiamat, Marduk,

you have these primordial, like dragon-like beings there. And they're actually like the, I don't want to keep saying these, like the mother of dragons and to use all this stuff. But they are like the origin stories of like the dragons

that we especially we inherit in the West. So yeah, you have the Nagas are the ancient Indian dragons, they've been around for God knows how long. You know, we're talking, you know, 6,000, 7,000 years BC that we can trace these dragons

in iconography. and in later kind of epic tales. So it is pretty much as old as our mythology goes. I'm going to ask a question, I'll probably make me sound like an idiot or a genius, I'm not sure. But were dragons real? I've got to ask the question, because they crop up independently, it seems,

in every culture around the world, and they go back. They're some of the oldest mythologies that we've got. Is there any yet? Could it possibly have been a dinosaur? Yeah, I mean, yeah. That's the temptation, isn't it? Maybe it's not, that's smart, that's smart.

So there's two separate questions. Did they think they were real? And are they actually real? A two different questions to answer. Did they think they were real? Yeah, sometimes they really did. And I think it's very hard to know what, I'm going to give him like a really boring name John.

He wouldn't have been John in ancient Greece, right? He's knocking around. What does he really believe really about this mythology that he's like, you know, kind of immersed in? I can't answer that question for you, right? But what I can say is that there's a lot of, evidence about people believing that they're real physical creatures because in various points in history, for example, in the medieval period you could buy like dragons blood, you could actually

buy it. So they clearly believed, like to various ailments, you know, so they clearly believed you could physically get bits of dragon from somewhere, right? And so, you know, you get, and then like the ancient Greece and Rome, you get dragons mentioned among like normal animals. So like they clearly think they're real. Are they actually real? I'm sorry, but no. Don't sad. But I do think, but what's really interesting is like, okay, though, jazz, what about dinosaurs? Really good point. So Adrian Mayer wrote a really good book about this, called The First Fossil Hunters. And it's this idea that we found where dragon myth seems to be the most prolific are also places that are reasonably high kind of earthquake zones, a lot of seismic

activity, and therefore suggesting that a lot of fossils were therefore, like, you know, unearthed as they were, as the ground was moving. And then that meant that they found these giant fossils and we're like, what's that got to be? And they imagined it. They imagined a dragon. And let's not lie, a dragon looks like a dinosaur.

They're not far away from each other. They're reptilian style things, right? So that's plausible. That's really plausible. And then the other sort of school of thought is that actually the reason we have them all over the world and that people believed in them is because we have an inherent psychological fear of the snake. And all dragon stories really come from snakes.

And that's the first thing to kind of say about it. People are like what? But it really is, the first dragons look more snake-like than anything else. And it's like, you know, we have this inherent phobia of certain creatures, right? Like if you see, we don't have that many snakes in the UK, but I certainly know to keep away from it, right?

So it's almost like this inherent fear that we then project onto the mythology. And that's what a lot of monster myth is actually about anyway. it's about an inner fear that we're projecting. So it's probably not either or, is it? It's going to be a combination of those sorts of things. I'll be back with Jasmine after this short break. I was kind of hoping there that you go, yeah, they definitely existed. That would have been a hell of a mic drop moment.

Although, like, thinking about it, like I would classify a dinosaur as a dinosaur as a, as a, dragon. Well, that's the question. I mean, like, if we believe the theory that a dragon is really born, it's a story born of dinosaurs, and they really existed, because obviously they're really existed. We don't believe in sort of mad theories that they didn't. And that, and that means that like Jurassic Park is basically a modern dinosaur myth.

Why not? Why not? Exactly. Right. Yeah. But then they are real. They're just not called dragons. They're just called dinosaurs to us.

Yeah. In that sense, yeah. Why not? Like, it's not, it's not that it's, it's not quite what we think it is, but sure. Sure, why not? A lot of myth has a kernel of truth to it. People always think, oh, what nice story and they move on. But nearly all myth is an expression of our human interaction with this world.

So like that, and that's a real, that's real. Our interaction with the world is real. So that makes sense that there is an aspect of reality in this. Yeah. And of course, the other thing that is very important and central to the dragon myth and certainly to your book is that, yeah, it's a big, big scary monster and it seems undefeatable, but then a hero emerges. Bob-b-b-bom.

Somebody has to slay the dragon. For sure. And it's always men, is it? Well, here's a spoiler alert. Are we ready? I need another sound effect. Drum roll, please. I mean, yeah, we think it's a man, don't we?

We do. That's the image. That's the image. There's a young lass, she's tied to a stake, she's ever so upset, the dragon's going to come and get her, when all of a sudden, here comes, George. On his lovely steed. On his steed, yeah. And then everything's fine. I mean, that's such a well-trodden tale in our minds that, I mean, I remember doing at school.

I don't know if you remember doing it at school. Like, weirdly, like, to death at school. I don't know how much I learned about it, but it felt like it was every five minutes because it was just so strong in my psyche, this story. and so much part of our English identity, the St George legend, that I feel like we just think it's a man. But the spoiler alert is, no, no, no, no, no. There are examples of women too. And this is what your new books about, isn't it?

For sure. The women who are slaying dragons, which is such a subversion of that really iconic myth of the man who slays the dragon and saves the girl. the girl actually saves herself. Exactly. Or sometimes saves the man. I like that.

Even better. I love the idea of just a young lass just picking him up, like sweeping them up and around. It's all right, Dave. Don't worry. I'm here. Yeah. I mean, this is the cool, cool thing.

Like when I first came across Dragon Stories, I couldn't really believe that there weren't any focus, really, on the female slayers. There are some scholars that have written about. I'm not going to sit and pretend I've discovered something brand new. There are a couple of scholars that have written about this. but certainly not brought together global tales of female slayers. And there isn't a book out there that focuses on female slayers at all.

So this is like, I'm going to call it groundbreaking. Can I get away with that? You can absolutely. So, yeah. I mean, and also there's so much interesting stuff about female slay because why they slay is a really interesting question. Because why do you think a man slays? Well, they normally do it to rescue the maiden,

but sort of, I guess, why do things, they're normally like saving, It's the hero saving the town, isn't it? Exactly. It's always like this quite male, masculine, egoic, like pursuit of, like, glory. Get the monster. I'll sort it, don't worry. And that has really ancient origins. It's, you know, Joseph Campbell talks about this, a heroic cycle, which comes from

the ancient world, which is bloke does stuff. Yeah. Like, bloke kills things, overcomes challenges. Bloke might go to the underworld. Bloch comes back enlightened. Yay. And then we have this. Like that's why it's so trodding in our minds.

It's so like ingrained in our minds because it's just, that motif is replicated all over the place. But when women kill dragons, they do it for, they do it for different reasons. And those reasons. Perimenopause. Yeah. That's it. Let's leave it there for today.

Do you know what? Do you know what? I would love it if I had found a perimenopausal woman slaying a dragon. That would be so much free. Just a woman who's fucking pissed off. It just stop making so much. Bloody noise. Yeah, just because it was pissing her off.

That, oh, do you know what? Do you know what? If my publisher was listening, I think that might be the next retelling. That's the next one. That's the next one. No, that's me being very silly. Why do women slay dragons? I mean, there's a lot of reasons, but nearly the reasons are selfless, not selfish.

So they tend to, in all the stories I have, I have four stories that I go into in the book. So they're four retelling. So you really get immersed in the story. right and all of them do go and slay this dragon overpower a dragon to help someone else

or for faith or something inside themselves that they want to reclaim so it's less about like you know showing off yeah yeah it's less about like all look at my muscles like how you know strong life

everyone worship me and it's more honestly, I think real shit, real shit, like real shit that we care about. Like you, if I said to you, Kate, you need to go slay a dragon, right? And you'd be like, yeah, exactly. Also, premenopause can't be bothered for a start. Can't be bothered. Can't be bothered. Can't be able.

It's too hot right now as well, not doing that. It is hot. Right. So all of that, let's get over those, really. But the genuine, if I was going to ask you to do something that bloody hard and that really scary, you'd have to have a good reason. And what reason would you choose? You would choose probably love of someone else.

You want to save someone. You want to help someone. Like it's got to be something like deeply emotive in you that makes you do it. I can see why other people would do that, yes. Oh, he's such a lovely person, Kay. You give back so much. Everyone thinks I'm really nice and I'm absolutely not at all. No, that's not sure.

If anybody threatened my niece or my nephews, I would go riding in. There you go. So your niece and nephews have been held by a dragon and you've got to go and get them. No one else is doing it. Right, okay. So my niece I'd rescue, my nephew I'd rescue, and there is one nephew that I'd want to know what he'd done to the dragon first. Okay, fair enough. You could have that. That could be part of your quest. Right, okay, fine. So the point is that these women don't do it for these kind of like, you know, this recognition, this like global fame recognition or, you know, men don't always do that as well, but they do it because they have this masculine need to impose control over the moment. So it's not all just ego, you know. But women have much more, I think honestly, more down-to-earth and relatable reasons. And that's what really hit me when I wrote these stories.

I was like, wow, I could relate to this. I mean, I'm not going to go slay a dragon, but I could relate to these aspects of their tales. They felt really real to me, really, really, like, kind of like part of a woman's journey. It's an interesting trope, actually, that we still get today when it comes to, like, women's stories, like in films and in literature, is their motivations for being quote-unquote heroic are normally like this kind of primal instinct. It's sort of like that, almost that, like, mother mythology

of like, you've woken the mama bear now and she's cross. It's that kind of, it was like Ripley and aliens. Like she's not doing it because she wants to be famous. She's doing it because she needs to like save all of these people. Yeah. So like we're still doing it. But give me an example. So tell me about, is it Margaret of Antio?

Yeah. She's one of my people. So the other three sort of, I'd see more themes that connect to the other. She's kind of a standalone. I kind of love that about her. So she is a young woman from Antioch, which is kind of like, you know, Turkey Syria border. And she grew up without her father. She lived out in the sticks with a nurse, as you do, right?

And her father was a pagan. So that's why she was kind of taken away. And she became a devout Christian under this kind of like, you know, leadership of this nurse. sort of like, you know, this being brought up by this woman. And then as she sort of enters, and a lot of these stories, again, are about the kind of entering puberty and growing up as a woman and that threshold as well. There's a lot that goes on in that area in terms of time. And so she goes to Antioch one day for like the first time and the Roman governor,

Elibrius sees her and falls in love with her and says, let's get married, you know, come me and she goes no I won't because I'm Christian and you're pagan and he was like well you need to convert to paganism or I'm going to torture you and she goes oh he sounds lovely he is the guy you swipe left on or right is the bad one right is which one is it uh swipe right I think is yeah swipe left if you don't like somebody so it's that one get rid of him yeah okay he sucks so he really super sucks so she refuses and he keeps her in a prison and tortures her. And so what Margaret does then, she's being tortured. And because of her devout faith, she says to God, I want you to manifest this evil in a physical form in front of me so I can

see the thing I'm battling because she just, you know, she's being tortured and it's this sort of like, you know, kind of ethereal, weird thing going on around her. So the devil comes in the form of a dragon. And she sees it and it swallows her whole and inside its stomach, she makes the sign of the cross. And she believes deeply in her faith to overcome this dragon. And then she bursts out of its stomach or she's vomited up, whichever version you fancy. Right.

So she sort of, her weapon against the dragon is faith. And that's the other cool thing about these women. Some of them you do use swords. Some of them use things like this. But some of them also just use the power of their presence, the power of their beliefs. Wow. So she uses the power of her belief.

I mean, very much in that very had. geographical, like, saintly style. She used to have faith to overcome something. So then it disappears because she's overcome it. She is then still tortured and eventually killed by a Librius because she's a saint. So she has to be like, you know, this has to happen. Oh, oh, all that effort. And she becomes the patron saint of women in childbirth and pregnancy.

And so actually the thing about her throughout history, although that is obviously a saintly tale. so, you know, is it true? Is it not? You know, leave that open for you. But what kind of happens throughout history is she becomes this huge figure, probably bigger than St. George, worshipped in more places. There are about 250 churches in the UK alone named after Margaret, St. Margaret. Oh, she's a big deal, then?

She's a massive deal. And the reason we don't know about her as much today is because in 1969, the Vatican took her off the list of accepted saints. And they do that because they go and, like, historically research and see if they can actually corroborate the story of a saint and if they don't quite make the mark they knock them off. So that's why we don't hear as much about St Margaret's Day but she was more popular, almost certainly more popular than St. Georgian, historically speaking. And killed at least one dragon that we know of, the body count of one.

Exactly. But I mean, because, you know. It's impressive though. Yeah, it is. It is. But also using no weapons, just using her deep faith. And this is what I mean about the way that women approach the dragon. So we know that, you know, that's more, I mean, obviously, St. George uses his faith in other ways as well.

But then he then kills the dragon a bit later on in the story. But she just uses her faith. So I think that women use a different type of power. Obviously, that's a very Christian story. So it has like a lot of Christian iconography around it and meaning and nuance. But I think that that makes it quite unique a story. And there's an interesting tradition that develops, I don't know when it develops. But when you're looking at images of things.

St George killing the dragon. The dragon has a vulva in some of the images, which is like an interesting... It's like, you didn't need to go that hard. I wonder why Kate has brought that up. She's gone... Our jazz is coming on. I'm going to Google where the genitalia of dragons are.

Yeah, exactly. We're now into a very niche corner of the internet. Jokes aside, is actually pretty well known that dragons in the medieval period could have genitalia often of... See, I'm not completely insane. She's not just being a weirdo, like, she's just made it up. She hasn't googled some weird dragon porn. It's actually real what she's saying.

Yeah, so you do get the vulva on a number of dragons in the medieval period. And that's because what the dragon symbolises in the medieval period, obviously in the Christianized world is this idea of, you know, the temptation, the connections to the serpent in Eden. Oh, yeah, of course. It becomes an embodiment of the devil. And as we know, sex is a bad thing, you know, unless it's in a certain like maritals.

This is for making babies. Once a week, we delights us. So it kind of, we get this sort of exploration of the chaos and the monstrosity of, of, of kind of that more promiscuous sex. Like, almost kind of put on top of the dragon myth in this time. So that's why you get the, and you do get like, you know, they're not, they're not quiet about it. Because you can have a dragon's vulva out and then a spear from one of the, one of the figures. subtle is it yeah it's not subtle

and then there's this whole interesting thing then about the dragon sometimes if the gender is not clear right but the dragon in this sort of like symbolism being the kind of like chaotic monstrous carnal madness of sex and then so therefore like the uncivilised in that respect

and then like the civilised man who's like coming in with his you know sword with his shiny sword or his long stick giving it a poke but it's about actually that's symmetrical we have these symmetrical battles again

in the ancient world as well this idea of like the need for man to overpower a beast like a dragon because they're trying to impose order on something that we perceive as uncivilised chaotic out of control

so it's something that the thing about dragon stuff that's really interesting is you just see this thing play out again and again and again and again across history. So I can go back thousands of years ago, oh yeah, they're using that same kind of like symbolism there. And then go a thousand years later, oh, they're using it again,

but this time it's Christian rather than pagan or this time it's, you know, this fear about women, this fear about the devil, this fear about, you know, another thing in the ancient world. So it's kind of what I love about it. Well, let's talk about some non-Christian traditions then. Tell me about some female dragon slayers who aren't, you know, making signs of the cross inside a dragon,

stomach. Luckily, that's quite unique to her, so that's good. So I have three others in my book. So there are a few other dragon tales, but you'll love this as a historian. The source material was too vague or too kind of like just a little bit. Like I was like, I don't really feel comfortable looking into that story. It wasn't enough there for me. So I picked these other three figures. So there's Medea from ancient Greece who I have in the book. And her story is pretty kick-ass. But then you have Tokoyo, who is a Japanese, I made her a young samurai, female samurai, Onomusha they're called, which actually existed, female samurai. So she has her tail of the dragon.

And then you also have Thakane, who is a young woman from the Basotho tribe in Lizotho, South Africa. So I wanted to get a nice, like, big global tale, big mixture of these different women from different cultures for us to look at. I mean. Who's Thakani? Let's talk about her. The Kani is amazing. So she is this young woman and she lives in this village and her parents have died. So she's taken on the role of elder to her two younger brothers who are chieftains,

who are about to kind of, you know, coming of age, take over their power. They're kind of position as chief in the village. But they want some special skins to wear and they ask her to go and get this rather than any old animal skin. They want the skins of these creatures called the Nana Balele. And the Nana Belle L.Ale are essentially, they look quite a lot like crocodiles to us if you look to the imagery. And in Africa, you often get dragons look more like crocodiles or snakes. They don't really look like the kind of things that we recognize in Europe. So the Nana Belle L.A. are essentially crocodiles, but they have glowing skin.

And they're kind of like a bit more like, they're kind of like, you know, magical, you know, in that sense. So she has to go on this big quest to go and find the Nana Belle Lere. and there is a witch involved in that who helps her as she does that and she takes some tribesmen along with her so she eventually, I'll cut it all short because you can read the De Tustan book, but she finds an alabanella, she slays them and takes the skins

and then she has to flee while the rest of them try and get her, basically they chase her. So there's a whole little second, there's like part two where she's trying to escape from them and then she gets back to the village and eventually she's victorious with the help of the witch. So there's magical elements to it as well. So that one's motivated,

largely by fashion. I just really wanted a nice coat. I don't think I can carry on with this podcast now. Because that's just made me crap out. Now I can relate. Okay. I have never once had that thought, Kate. And that's why I love you because you see the world differently, don't you?

I just, I, the motivation for a nice coat. That's all I'm saying. Yeah, I guess we could get into like the whole like, should you buy a fur coat thing from this, right? Don't buy dragon skin. Don't buy dragon skin. Terribly unethical. I mean, I just can't get past that.

That's absolutely fantastic. I just really don't want to talk anymore about it because I want to leave it there. So the fashion choice. And thank you for listening to Betwixt the Shoots. Yeah, I'm so glad everyone's learned so much about dragons. You know, this is where they come. This is why they come here.

Right. No, but the truth is outside of the fashion choice, this is all about, obviously, a young woman's sense of duty. And the thing that makes her go out is that she's got to do this thing, which kind of sucks. I don't like that motif very much. Like this young woman that has to do this thing for her brothers. That's her job. Yeah, it's not her deciding I'd like a really nice coat. It's just to go and do this for someone out. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. For these windy little brothers who honestly I wanted to bitch slap as I was writing them

because there's not much about them to be good. To be fair, they're just sort of in the background. So, but what actually is cool about her story is that in doing that, starting off out of a sense of duty, but finding herself and her power as she goes through this journey, she returns someone different because she's gone through it. Although the reasons for going are like that,

there is an evolution of self that comes out of it, which is pretty awesome. That's the heroic quest, isn't it? It is, but it was very much in a sort of sense of like personal empowerment and a sort of like sense of her becoming her own self, you know, because she's also sort of a teenager, probably in terms of age.

So, you know, some of these, a lot of these people in these stories are probably teenagers or young adults. Okay. Oh, that's interesting. From a psychological point of view, like, you know, going out there and slaying the dragon

as you are on the cusp of adulthood. I mean, being a teenager is hard enough. I don't know if you could tell them. Without having to kill fucking dragons as well. Although the ones in this case, they don't sound like they're particularly threatening and they sound like they just have nice skin. Like they're not, they're not threatened.

threatening villages or maybe they are. No, no, I mean, and that's the thing. So this is a folk tale. It's passed down by oral tradition between the tribes in this region. So how I've got my hands on it is there was a woman in the sort of 60s, 50s who went to the Basotho people and recorded their tales in the original language. And she was from that area. That's my source material for it.

So I'm sure, and I do know that the names that Karnay was used in the original. this culture repeatedly. Actually, I have kind of a lot of stock stories, and they use the same sort of characters. So I imagine that this is one tale in Takane's story. There might have been more. So I think that, you know, that's the other thing. This is just one little snippet of the story. I'll be back with Jasmine after this short break.

That Medea, is that? Was she the really nasty one from Greek mythology? I love that. Or am I thinking of someone else? I would get my hands round your net for that. Because I think, I think... Sorry. No, no, you're fine.

No, because I think you're thinking because she's the one that kills her children. So you probably... Yes, okay. So that's the thing... I say this, like, in the book, and I've talked about this, you know, publicly as well. We all just think that about Medea

because we just go straight to the... Oh, she had a bad rap. Yeah. She just killed two or three kids, and now that's all anyone can talk about. Which is obviously... That ain't going to... new awards for things.

It's not great. So. Mumsnet would be so angry with that. Mums net would go batch it on that. Actually, I might just put up a post and pretend and see what happens. That would be fun. Posting as Medea and just see what happens. Okay, that's actually. I'm going to put that down on my little notebook here.

No, not really. Police sirens in the background. So although I know, I'm not going to sit here as a mother as well myself, I'm not going to say it's a good idea to kill your children. I mean, even if we want to sometimes, we shouldn't. Yeah, no. But that's the thing about Medea. She's amazing as a person and she's got a great story,

but we only remember that because it's so horrible. It just sticks in our brains. So rewind her story and what I'm doing in my book, this is like the origin of Medea. So it is the same person. Same person, but rewind the clock. And we're going all the way back to like the first moment that she meets Jason, who is the husband who betrays her and she kills.

because of it. So we're going all the way back to that first meeting. Part of that first meeting is the dragon. And what I love about Medea's stories, I have a little theory. This is my own theory, which I'm quite proud of, because I've sent to a few people and they're quite like it. So Medea meets this dragon and how she, Jason's looking for the golden fleece. I'm going to cut it short because there's so much in this story, right? Jason's looking for the golden fleece. He comes to where Medea lives. Medea falls in love with him, either on her own or because the gods have induced it on her. And so she wants to help him. And he's a bit pathetic. He is a proper pussy. If you ever want to look at any figure of mythology that's a bit weak, have a little look at Jason. He's really annoying.

I feel like his modern name, I mean, even, I don't know what we think of Jason's today. I don't know. It feels slightly anachronistic, doesn't it? Like a Jason in ancient Greece. Exactly. It does. It really does. So he needs her help quite a lot because she's a witch, so she's got magical skills. And so what she does of this dragon is she puts it to sleep essentially so he can take the fleece that it's guarding. So you can read all the cool bits to there's more cool bits to that.

That's the top bit, right? But what my theory is, like I mentioned, is that when you overpower a dragon, now don't forget she doesn't actually kill the dragon, but when you overpower it, you transfer the power away from the dragon and you embody it in yourself. It's almost

like she takes the monstrosity of the dragon and it becomes part of her and it plays out as part of her. Because in dragon myth, what tends to happen is unless you kill it and you end it, especially in the West, if you don't kill it and end it, it continues. It continues on whatever it's doing is playing out. So in some ways it could be part of the reason why Medea turns the way she does. Think of it.

I mean, I'm not going to use words like karma because it doesn't relate to this culture. But you could like think of it like that. you could think of it like this thing has happened. And now this thing's... Yeah. Like kind of cause and effect and things like that. So yeah, there's a lot of really interesting stuff around that for Medea as well. So she doesn't actually kill the dragon.

She just makes it go to sleep. Always kill the dragon. Yeah, you need to kill it. So when I was writing Slay, I had a long debate with a professor actually, who's a dragon expert. And I said, can we call Medea a slayer if she doesn't kill the dragon? And we both agreed, yes, because it's about when you... Vibishing. When you vanquished the dragon

and if you haven't physically killed it I mean that's just note to self Always kill the dragon Put that down Put it down on your notes On your iPhone Everybody listening Just like mental lock

That is a very useful life hack You might need that one day I know you all have a note on your iPhone That says important things So just for a little dot there Kill dragon The more I think about it The more that like the alien franchise

Is basically Dragon Like that big reptilian monster monster that in aliens it is even attacking the maiden in the character of Newt and Ripley has to come and get it and it doesn't breathe fire but it does have acid for blood and it does burn things and wreak havoc doesn't it? Well this is really interesting. So first of all I feel like you've just watched Alien because I feel like it's fresh on your mind. Yeah, it is.

Yeah, I have. Yeah, actually. We're recording in the afternoon. Is that what you were doing this morning? Because that's a couple of times we've had this reference. It's a good reference, I will give you. You've raised some interesting points from it. I watched it last night for some reason.

But I did think at the time, it's quite like a dragon. And now you're saying all this stuff. I'm like, it's very like a dragon. So remember that dragons are one monster in a family of monster myths. There are other monsters, right? Dragons make up especially in the ancient world, their classical world, they make up a big portion of the monstrous. But there are other monsters that we could put into,

to that. A lot of them are like some kind of derivation of dragon. Like Medusa is obviously a monster and a woman and she has the snake like elements. And then we sort of call those, you could call her a composite dragon, which is when we have like little parts of dragon as in them. So if it's, but they are monsters, monsters, right? So if we just stop calling it a dragon for a minute, call it a monster. Now, why did they exist any kind of monster myth anywhere? Because they are, as we said, our expression of our deepest fears, often about the unknown.

So dragons and other monsters tend to live on the periphery of society. They live on borderlands. They live in the liminal. We now know that the edge of town is a Tesco. That isn't scary to us, right? We've been to Tesco. It can be scary.

It can be. It's going to say, speak for yourself, Jasmine. Definitely seen some sights in Tesco. I've seen some things, man. I've never been the same since. We have geographical knowledge. We've travel.

to these places. Others have traveled. We go on Google Maps. So what's really interesting is you think about that monsters live on the peripheral and on their boundary of the unknown, where is our modern boundary of the unknown? It's space. So now we're shitting ourselves about aliens. Good point. Because that, like, we know the world. I know the world. I know that there isn't like, I know that there isn't a dragon that lives up the road in Exeter. In the woods. It's like, I know that because I've been there, seeing it with my own eyes. And I've traveled a lot all over the world, I don't really believe that the countries I haven't been into have dragons in there because someone would have told me on social media, right? So now think about this.

The knowledge that we have, the information that we have, even more in the last hundred years. So myth is expanded, like this fear of the monstrous is expanded to include, I think the new, the new liminal is space. And I think that's why we're getting more, a lot of people are getting more and more interested in aliens. And we've always been interested, but I think we're more and more intro. I mean, all this stuff coming out about the UFOs from the US, you know, they're releasing all the like, you know, the files recently, all the censored files, you know, it's just stuff. I think we're just getting more into that because that's now our monstrous. Yeah, that makes perfect sense actually. Like, yeah, that's such, in almost every mythology

around the world throughout history, you do get this idea of like the bad things happen, normally in the woods, normally far away, because to them that was just largely unknown and that you sort of forget how dark the world would have been and how frightening it would be to go outside of your little village or area because literally it's just a wilderness and it's not lit up and you don't know what the fuck is in there. Yeah, you don't know what's in there. And these myths are like I said, they're circulating, they're real to most people.

And it's just that fear of, I mean, I guess it plays out in some ways of our fear of, I'm not my personal fear, but the issues that we have around immigrants. Immigrants are dragons. Not the same thing, but I'm saying that there's this fear of, there's this fear of the other coming into my space. And that fuels fear. I'm obviously going to call full bullshit on it. But, you know, like, that is, these things are not unconnected.

Like these, the ways our mind operate about things that we are afraid of, which is what we're talking about today. It's a very primal fear and very easy to activate. Quite obviously, it's very easy to activate. Yeah. Like we said, you can change context. You can change context with it. You can move around to different contexts and see the same thing playing out in different ways,

which to me just makes this dragon stuff more relevant because we can see it. Yeah, all right, we're not knocking around thinking there's a dragon over there, but we are playing these same fears out in different ways today. So as a final question, them, do you have a favourite dragon slay? Man or woman. But I suppose we should say woman because of the book, but like a favourite one.

It won't be a man. Quite frankly. Just running around, waving their willies about. trying to get famous. Unless they look like Jason Mamoa, then it might be a man. It's always fine if it's Jason. It would be right for him.

So I think that I would say the story that just really, the two stories that really hit home for me were Medea. I really loved writing the story of Medea and also St. Margaret. There was something in both those stories. I don't know if it's just me. They just resonated with me in a way. They're just the other ones felt like older versions of me

because they were much more teenage and they're kind of like tone, they felt a bit more like, yeah, I can, I kind of really feel like they're my favourites. I love that. And early readers to the book have definitely been drawn to those two as well. Jasmine, you have been wonderful to talk to, which I knew that you would be. And as always, if people want to know more about you and your work, where can they find you? They can find me on the old gram. Yes. You're lots of fun on Instagram, actually. Yes, I'm on there. I'm on there saying things. You sometimes get perimenopausal rants out of me as well. Sometimes you do. That's true. We love to go off topic, don't we, Kate?

Yes, we do. That's our brand. Slightly off top. Experts in things, but also random shit too. I've just random nonsense with some history thrown in. Give us the full title of the book again. So their full title of the book is Slay Ancient Legends of Female Slayers and the Hidden Mythology of Dragons. You can buy it in the shops, you know, wherever you like to get stuff.

All those links are in my bio. Easiest place to do it is just hit me up on on Instagram. It's Jazz underscore Elma. You can find me there. and then you can just get what you need. And if you've loved all this and you love dragons and you love female empowerment and you love finding out more about the history of our symbolism,

then this book is definitely for you. It's fabulous. Thank you so much. You have been spectacular. Thank you for listening. Thank you so much to Jasmine for joining us. And if you like what you heard, don't forget to like with you and follow along

wherever it is you get your podcasts. Coming up, we have got episodes on Helen of Troy ahead of the Big Odyssey film release and an episode on sex work in Soviet Russia, all coming your way. And if you'd like us to explore a subject or if you just wanted to say hello, then you can email us at betwixt at historyhit.com.

This podcast was edited by Hannah Theodorov and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The Senior Producer was Freddie Chick. Join me again, Betwixte Sheets, The History of Sex Scandal and Society, a podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.