On the high pastures of Armenia stand the vishaps — stone stelae up to five metres tall, carved as fish or wrapped in the hide of a bull. They are some four thousand years old and were set at springs and water channels. In Armenian mythology the vishap is a dragon that lives in the mountains and holds back the water, until the hero Vahagn defeats it. The stelae predate the written tradition, so who raised them and why is known only from the stone.