Here there be monsters

[Walloon]

Were there really maps centuries ago that on unexplored areas, said “Here there be monsters”? Or is that a myth? I have never seen such a map in picture books on the history of cartography.

[Mangetout]

Well, a google on “here be dragons” site:.edu turns up quite a few hits; it appears to be a well-documented idea that ancient maps did bear such inscriptions (apparently so that unexplored areas wouldn’t just be blanks on the page), but I’ve yet to find a specific example.

[gallows_fodder]

From one of my classics courses in college, I recall there being a connection between Ptolemy and such an inscription.

This is the only online source I was able to find that mentions the connection, but it’s not a very robust cite. (It’s an interesting article, though. )

[plnnr]

I’ve also seen reference to the term “Here there may be tygers”

Robert Hunter appropriated the phrase for the song “When Push Comes to Shove.”

[donkeyoatey]

From this site , Walloon :

Where Be “Here be Dragons”?
Ubi sunt “Hic sunt dracones”?
That English mapmakers formerly placed the phrase “here be dragons” at the edges of their known world has somehow become general knowledge… and here is the list of all known historical maps upon which these words appear:

In other words, there aren’t any. Of course, it is not surprising that the English phrase does not appear on maps from a time and place where Latin was the language of learning, so here is the list of all known historical maps where the phrase appears in Latin:
The Lenox Globe (ca. 1503-07), copper, 13cm in diameter (in the collection of the New York Public Library): “HC SVNT DRACONES” (i.e. “hic sunt dracones”, “here are dragons”) appears on the eastern coast of Asia
In other words, there is one. Just one. MapHist’s collective wisdom has turned up an additional list of textual and pictorial references to dragons and beastly creatures, but only the Lenox Globe bears the legendary phrase.

gallows fodder, from the same page :

A PARTIAL LIST of EARLY EUROPEAN MAPS
containing DRAGONS and similar BEASTS [snip]

Ptolemy’s Atlas (originally 2nd century, taken up again in the 15th century) warns of elephants, hippos and cannibals