Dictionary entry

FICTION

Webster's Dictionary 1828

FIC'TION, noun [Latin fictio, from fingo, to feign.]

1. The act of feigning, inventing or imagining; as, by the mere fiction of the mind.

2. That which is feigned, invented or imagined. The story is a fiction

So also was the fiction of those golden apples kept by a dragon, taken from the serpent which tempted Eve.