History Main / HereThereBeDragons

* Film/MayflowerThePilgrimsAdventure'' includes this exchange:

** Medieval sea charts tended to focus heavily on coastlines, since they were meant chiefly to help sailors plot courses. As a result, coasts were very detailed and painstakingly illustrated, with every last detail of the coastline or minor port noted. The open oceans and the insides of the continents, being respectively empty of anything of note and irrelevant to marine navigation, tended instead to be left blank. As this resulted in most of the actual map being an empty white void, many mapmakers filled this parts with fanciful illustrations of landmarks, humans, animals and monsters to break the monotony.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': In an episode where Homer goes on a sea voyage, this is [[TravelMontage montaged by a dotted line]] traveling across such a map. [[LampshadeHanging Homer crashed into the compass rose, and avoided the sea serpent outright]].

'''Mulder:''' I've seen the same thing on maps of New York City.

* ''Literature/TheOthers'': ''Marked In Flesh'' features the embodiment of their analogue of the Atlantic Ocean basically tells humans that she remembers when map-makers would mark the maps of her expanses with "Here there be monsters" and then adds that they should resume labeling the maps as such before laying down the rules by which humanity must abide by if they expect to have any ocean-going vessels survive passage through her domain.

* ''Manga/MahouSenseiNegima'': The Magic World's map has "here be magical creatures" in chapter 190.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Battletech}}'', while usually fairly grounded, dips into this trope occasionally where the Deep Periphery is concerned, ranging from ''probably'' apocryphal-in-universe tales of vessels that suffer a MisJump sometimes coming out of jumpspace looking like they've been clawed or bitten by some vast predatory creature to more mundane stories of {{Lost Colon|y}}ies with caches of [[LostTechnology Star League tech]]... or TheRemnant of the old Star League Defence Forces who deserted ''en masse'' rather than serve under the mad tyrant Stephan Amaris, who turned out to have become the Clans. This region also serves as the setting for the novel ''Far Country'', the franchise's one and only experiment with introducing sapient aliens; there were plans for a sourcebook geared towards playing a BoldExplorer in uncharted space that would have expanded on the concept, but the OutOfGenreExperience didn't go down well with fans and ''Far Country'' is only considered canon in the broadest of BroadStrokes.

* In ''Webcomic/{{Endtown}}'' maps of the post-apocalyptic surface world are a bit... [[http://www.gocomics.com/endtown/2009/04/23 inadequate]]. As in, they're literally nothing but a north arrow and "here be dragons".

** The 8th Edition Skaven sourcebook includes map which uses the Skaven vernacular. Most areas are labeled with the Skaven names for their inhabitants ("Man-Things", "Elf-Things", "Green-Things", "Dead Things"); the Chaos Wastes, populated, if at all, by mutant monstrosities, is labeled "Things".

* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'': The official maps mark the [[GrimUpNorth northlands]] and [[MysteriousAntarctica southern wastes]] '[[TheLegionsOfHell Here There Be Daemons]]'. ''They're right.''

** One sourcebook has a Skaven map which uses the Skaven vernacular, in which the Chaos Wastes, populated, if at all, by mutant monstrosities, is labeled [[BuffySpeak "Thing-Things"]].

* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'': Topal the Pilot was an ancient [[OurElvesAreBetter Aldmeri]] BoldExplorer and [[WarriorPoet poet]] who was the first to discover and explore Tamriel during the Merethic Era. A skilled cartographer, Topal was on an in-universe CartographySidequest from the Aldmer to explore and document Tamriel's inland regions, which were very mysterious to them at the time. While he didn't encounter actual [[OurDragonsAreDifferent dragons]] (that we know of), he did encounter "cat demons", "human lizards", (believed to be primitive ancestors of the [[CatFolk Khajiit]] and [[LizardFolk Argonians]] respectively) "bat lizards" (believed to be related to Morrowind's Cliff Racers), and a race of now-extinct "BirdPeople".

* ''WesternAnimation/HowToTrainYourDragon'' has a map with, wouldn't you know it, dragons. This is meant literally, as it signals the dragon's nest.

* ''Film/StarTrekIITheWrathOfKhan'': The novelization has two scientists on the Genesis team, with rather warped senses of humor, create hypothetical maps of the proposed Genesis Planet with one region marked "Here There Be Dragons". By way of explanation, they ask what's the point in giving humanity a strange, new world to explore if there isn't some element of danger? No one's ever quite sure if they're joking or not (Genesis could be programed to create life forms, like plant life, but the main team hadn't coded in animals). While staying the Genesis cave later in the book, [[BrickJoke Saavik's internal monologue mentions her being fairly sure she saw some kind of large, flying reptile in the distance]].
* One of the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' Pocket Books novels is actually called ''Here There Be Dragons'', and deals with a planet where there are, indeed, dragons -- well, technically, giant carnivorous reptiles which ''look'' like the creatures of myth, although [[CallASmeerpARabbit everyone calls them dragons]]. They don't fly, although one character comments of a dead one he'd seen that he wouldn't have been surprised if he'd been told it could breathe fire.
* ''Franchise/StarWars'': Throughout the Franchise/StarWarsLegends novel ''Crosscurrent'', TheHero Jaden Korr uses "There be Dragons...", when thinking about his doubts about himself, the force, and everything.

* One of the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' Pocket Books novels is actually called ''Here There Be Dragons'', and deals with a planet where there are, indeed, dragons -- well, technically, giant carnivorous reptiles which ''look' like the creatures of myth, although [[CallASmeerpARabbit everyone calls them dragons]]. They don't fly, although one character comments of a dead one he'd seen that he wouldn't have been surprised if he'd been told it could breathe fire.

* ''Literature/EarthCentAmbassador'': This Trope is discussed by the Earthcents ambassadors in a reunion when they notice the presence of several planet size creatures in the Galactic maps, someone suggest they go there to check whats really in there, but they change of idea when Libby told them that the Stryx didn't put those creatures there for decoration, there really are planet size creatures in those places and they don't like anybody bothering them in their teritories.

* Creator/{{Disney}}: One map of the world does this with characters from ''Disney/TheLittleMermaid''.

* ''{{Manga/Berserk}}'' has an interesting variation -- they don't get a map showing the bizarre sea monsters seen on medieval maps, they ''actually see one'' after Griffith causes the real world and astral planes to merge.

* The usually fairly grounded ''TabletopGame/{{Battletech}}'' franchise dips into this trope occasionally where the Deep Periphery is concerned, ranging from ''probably'' apocryphal-in-universe tales of vessels that suffer a MisJump sometimes coming out of jumpspace looking like they've been clawed or bitten by some vast predatory creature to more mundane stories of LostColonies with caches of [[LostTechnology Star League tech]]... or TheRemnant of the old Star League Defence Forces who deserted ''en masse'' rather than serve under the mad tyrant Stephan Amaris, who turned out to have become [[SpaceMongols the Clans]]. This region also served as the setting for the novel ''Far Country'' the franchise's one and only experiment with introducing sentient aliens; there were plans for a sourcebook geared towards playing a BoldExplorer in uncharted space that would have expanded on the concept, but the OutOfGenreExperience didn't go down well with fans and ''Far Country'' is only considered canon in the broadest of BroadStrokes.

* While maps like these ''did'' exist, they were typically intended for decorative purposes and to serve as a way to take in the whole world at a glance; during the Age of Exploration, depictions of peoples and creatures reported by explorers were also used as a way to show the cartographers were up to date on the latest discoveries and thereby that the map was itself the latest in accuracy. Maps used in actual navigation were largely devoid of artistic license.

In old times, mapmaking was a fairly imprecise task, due to the lack of advanced technology for exploration purposes. So, to fill great blank areas on the maps, mapmakers used to include textual and/or graphic warnings of the dangers of going into uncharted territory. Such warnings took the form of sea serpents, dragons, cannibals and many other mythical and, sometimes, even real creatures. The actual line "Here There Be Dragons" [[BeamMeUpScotty has been found only once]], on the 16th-century [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunt-Lenox_Globe Lenox Globe]], but is too cool to give up.

** Renaissance maps of the Americas tended to lean rather heavily towards this to make up for the scarcity of available knowledge and as competing mapmakers tried to sell their maps as the most complete, informative and up-to-date. Common themes in maps of South America, for instance, included Brazilian cannibals roasting human limbs on spits, Patagonian giants, Amazons and headless people with their eyes and mouths on their chests.

* ''Literature/HereBeDragons'' is a science fiction novel whose main character keeps a print of a centuries old map which seems to be a cross between the Lenox globe and the Carta Marina.

* ''Website/TheOnion'': "[[http://www.theonion.com/article/midwest-discovered-between-east-west-coasts-1686 "Midwest" Discovered Between East, West Coasts]]" has a map of FlyoverCountry styled this way, complete with "Here there be tractor pulls".

** Olaus Magnus Art/CartaMarina is one of the most notable historic examples of this trope. The map is lavishly decorated with wondrous scenes and creatures -- besides the hordes of sea monsters that made it famous, Olaus Magnus included depictions of various unusual peoples, as well as a few land-bound monsters in northern Scandinavia, and added descriptions and warnings to various illustrations. All in all, there's barely an inch of the map that isn't home to some strange thing.