Serpents and Dragons of Myth and Legend, Arranged by Name from A to Z (this trail's own arrangement)

In classical natural history and later medieval bestiaries the amphisbaena is a two-headed serpent with a second head at the tip of its tail, said to move forward in either direction without turning. Pliny's Natural History is among the sources the page records, and ancient and medieval writers credit its dried skin with protective properties.

In Chinese tradition the Azure Dragon, Qinglong, is the emblem of the eastern quarter of the sky, one of the Four Symbols, and belongs to the east, to spring and to the phase Wood. The page records that he is not the same figure as the imperial five-clawed dragon of the throne.

The page records the dragon as a creature found in the folklore of many cultures, roughly serpentine in form and often combining features such as wings and claws. It notes that European dragons are generally depicted as dangerous and East Asian dragons as usually beneficent, and that the Western, Chinese and Slavic forms have their own pages.

In European legend the dragon is described as a winged, hoard-guarding reptile. The page traces it to the Greek drakon, a great serpent, and to the barrow-dwelling treasure-keeper of Beowulf and the Norse Fafnir, and records that wings and the four-legged heraldic body are medieval additions.

In Chinese tradition the long is long-bodied, wingless and whiskered, and belongs to water: rivers, lakes, the sea and rain. The page records that dragon kings govern the waters and are petitioned in drought, and that from the Han period the five-clawed form is an imperial emblem.

In Norse tradition the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda name Nidhogg as a serpent or dragon at the bottom of the world tree Yggdrasil, gnawing one of its roots. The squirrel Ratatoskr runs up and down the trunk carrying words between it and the eagle at the top.

In Greek tradition the Homeric Hymn to Apollo describes Python as a monstrous she-serpent killed by Apollo at the spring later called Delphi. The page records that the Pythian Games commemorated the killing and that the oracle's priestess, the Pythia, took her title from the serpent's name.

In European heraldry a wyvern has two legs, wings and a barbed tail, while a dragon has four legs. The page records that this distinction is a rule of blazon developed by English heralds, that the name comes from the Old French wivre, and that the wyvern has no cycle of stories of its own.