Fantastic Creatures: The Wyvern

While our writers fought over dragons, we also managed to work in some less common mythical reptiles.

For his story, The Mage and the Spotted Wyvern, author Craig A. Price, Jr. chose to focus on one such mythical beast. Let's find out why ...

I chose a wyvern as my mythical beast for this anthology. There are a few reasons that sparked me to choose this particular creature. For one, a wyvern is generally in the shadows when everybody who loves fantasy is leans toward dragons. Wyverns get cast aside, and often forgotten about. However, they are just as important as dragons. If there is a land of dragons, why wouldn’t there be smaller dragon creatures with only two legs as well? Most stories don’t talk about them, but they are just as beautiful of a creature. When you think about the massive size of actual dragons, and how big they can get according to stories and folklore … wouldn’t it make much more sense for riders to use wyverns instead? The way I think of it is, a human riding a horse verses an elephant. The wyvern would be the horse, and the elephant would be the dragon. It’s more practical to ride the smaller animal; it’s faster and can maneuver much easier. Another twist I put on the creature, when compared to most the commonly thought of dragon folklore, is instead of fire, I gave it ice. I’m partial to ice myself. I do have a wyvern in my full length novel Undiscovered Origins, which has started my interest toward the creatures.

You'll be able to read about Craig's Wyvern in the Fantastical Creatures Anthology!