Dragon/Dino - Breathe fire? blah... but there is also how we like to make those "little white lies"... A knight could have gotton his ass kicked in the dark ages and then declared that it was some huge beast with wings, claws and could even breathe fire and he was lucky that he wasn't burnt to a crisp. Now the people don't need to know that some peasant just gave him a good lickin'. News travels... others buy into, even more use said excuse or a variation... then you have a local myth about fire breathing dragons.
Pure story idea there, but hey.. I can easily see it happening... if you can blame the dog when you're younger as to why the goldfish died, you could probably make up a story about a dragon.
