The Lady of Langho, Part 2

This tale of The Lady of Langho (a.k.a. The Daughter of Hippocrates) is a really interesting exercise in distinguishing fact from fiction — if that could apply in the case of a mythical beast like dragons. The tale comes from a 14th-Century book, The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, which itself has uncertain origins. Allegedly it details the adventures of an English knight, Sir John Mandeville, who traveled through exotic lands like India and China.

However, records show there never was a Sir John Mandeville. In some ways, the book resembles Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, which is also a collection of stories framed as a travelogue. It seems that The Travels was widely distributed and translated, since copies have been preserved through the centuries in a number of languages.

One fun part of this origin is to pick out some of the anachronisms that “Sir John” wrote into it. Hippocrates lived in the 4th Century B.C.E., after all. There’s no way there were knights running around in that era. The Knights of the Hospital, referred to in the tale, wouldn’t even be founded until the 12th Century. You could as well expect pirates yelling “Arrr” or gangsters with tommy guns.

The Lady of Langho legend could be viewed as a proto-horror story, in which a hapless young woman is transformed against her will and everyone who might help runs from the sight of her. Some, however, have interpreted the story in a more sophisticated way. The Hospitaller attempts a rescue on his own but is killed due to lack of preparation. The common sailor who impersonates a knight shows his true colors when he flees from the lady in her cursed form.

It’s suggested that perhaps the Lady of Langho was better off in the shape of a dragon than if she had bound her fate to either of these two.

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