Ancient and Biblical Dragons

Surveys | Perseus and Andromeda | Cadmus and the Dragon | Bel and the Dragon | How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics

Surveys

The Drakones and Drakainai, part of Aaron Atsma's Theoi Project, cataloguing Greek divinities, heroes and monters.

Jewish Encyclopedia: Dragon. Short article on the meaning and incidence of the Hebrew term ("dragon" in the Septuagint). Article is by Emil G. Hirschand Hermann Gunkel from the 1901-1906 Jewish Encyclopedia

Biblical dragons from the excellent Sommerland: On Dragons.

Dragons and Serpents in the Bible from Polenth Blake's Dragon Stone, with a very extensive set of Dragon and Serpent Biblical Quotations.

Dragon Stories — An Annotated List, compiled, summarized or retold by Roxanne Hsu Feldman . A wide variety of texts, both European and Asian.

Enuma Elish Extracts from Polenth Blake's Dragon Stone.

Perseus and Andromeda

Christina Neofotistou. Some higher-res images at Projekt30. On interesting, relevant image "Perseus And Andromeda - A role reversal."

Much about Frederic Leighton's "Perseus and Andromeda" (1891)

On Titian's Perseus and Andromeda, from the owner, the Wallace Collection, reviewing some compositional changes revealed by x-rays.

Cadmus and the Dragon

Two versions of the story (one and two) from Roxanne Hsu Feldman's Annotated List of Dragon Stories.

Bel and the Dragon

Early Jewish Writings: Bel and the Dragon. Page lists translations and summaries, with its own excellent florilegium of printed summaries beneath the resources. Compiled by Peter Kirby.

Jewish Encyclopedia: Bel and the Dragon by Crawford Howell Toy. Summarizes the content and the textual issues; from the 1901-1906 Jewish Encyclopedia.

Text: New American Bible version.

Bible.org's "Net Bible" sports a new translation, which with extensive philological and pastoral notes. Read the preface to decipher where the notes came from. Sorry, the site is in frames, so I can't link the relevant sections directly.

Harper's Bible Dictionary (1985). Skimpy.

Greek text in Theodotion and original LXX versions, transliterated rather mechanically. The layout showing all thoe kais (and) nicely illuminates the "paratactic" style.

Greek text of Theodotion and original LXX version, in PDF format so you don't need special fonts, courtesy the Department of Classical, Near Eastern and Religious Studies (hey, you put your chocolate in my peanut butter!) at the University of British Columbia.

I am flabbergasted that someone would name their restaurant , rock band or pub "Bel and the Dragon."

How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics

Amazon. How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics by Calvert Watkins, exploring the linguistic commonalities between early Indo-European dragon-slaying stories.

Journal of American Folklore, review by William Bernard (Spring 1999).

"In this book Watkins seeks to demonstrate the method and value of Indo-European comparative poetics by unearthing and tracing a single formula or verbal expression and its variants through all known ancient Indo-European literatures and a few representative modem ones, showing how recognition of the poetic formula enhances our grasp of the cognitive and affective import of the passages in question."