Here be dragons.

Hic sunt dracones. Latin for “here be dragons,” this phrase was used by the makers of the 1504 Hunt-Lenox Globe (pictured) for the same purpose that medieval cartographers sketched illustrations of sea creatures and mythical monsters on their maps – to mark uncharted territories and provide a cautionary notation to would-be explorers: “Hey! Be careful. We don’t know what’s here. Could be dragons!”

It was as if, intuitively, the blue-orb builders were calling out explorers. Reviving the call of the myths that inspired the ancients and challenging potential pilgrims to embody the great heroes of myth (mentioned in “Of such stuff as legends“); hoping they might slay the Earth’s dragons and bring back the gold they guarded – an illuminated world.

As certain courageous globetrotters of the day answered the call and erased the mapmaker’s dragons and society obtained a rationality that was no longer informed mostly by myth, we humans slowly stopped receiving such explicit reminders that there are dragons left to be confronted. Which is why, in a world where technology suggests all is mapped and rationality says there’s no such thing as dragons, I write this reminder: just because we stopped populating our globes with monsters does not mean they went away; they simply went within, where they now rest nestled in our unmapped minds.

Now, to a boy who was once convinced he’d been blessed with a magic that could defeat dragons but who had long since resigned to being a knight trapped in a millennial’s body, this reminder is everything. Because it means there may yet be many beasts to be bested and much gold to be gathered. It means he may yet be made of magic. And it means that he may yet have his chance to be the knight he’s always dreamed of being.

I suspect, in my heart of hearts, that’s why I love things like ice baths and long, grueling workings. Not because I particularly enjoy them. But because they remind me that dragons are real, if only within. They swing the sign: “here be dragons.” And I know, as I approach, the reptiles in the rafters will descend to dine on my spirit; the serpent will show itself: “it’s okay to back off, one small surrender won’t kill your character.” It is then that the ice (or workout) becomes my arena. A place where I come to my testing point and must, by action, answer the question: be you king or coward? A place to practice steeling myself for a life that hangs many signs that say: “hic sunt dracones.” And a place where I can choose to shape myself into a hero, one small victory at a time, or not.

And while I can’t yet claim great courage in the face of such signs, I’ve started smiling when I see them. Because the dragons guard gold. And that means we may yet earn our place among the heroes of old.