Here be dragons

"Here be dragons" (Latin: 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.

History

Although several early maps, such as the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, have illustrations of mythological creatures for decoration, the phrase itself is largely an anachronism. The only known historical use of this phrase, in the Latin form "HIC SUNT DRACONES" (Latin: Hic Sunt Dracones, lit. 'Here Are Dragons'), is on the Hunt-Lenox Globe, dating to 1508. 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 SUNT LEONES (literally, "here are lions") when denoting unknown territories on maps.

Outside cartography, the phrase became a general term for legal disclaimers that caution against performing potentially dangerous actions.

Dragons on maps

Dragons appear on a few other historical maps:

The T-O Psalter world map (c. 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), "Hic etiam homines magna cornua habentes longitudine quatuor pedum, et sunt etiam serpentes tante magnitudinis, ut unum bovem comedant integrum".