Daniel Ogden’s Dragons, Serpents, and Slayers in the Classical and Early Christian Worlds: A Sourcebook explores the lore of dragons, covering a wide range of textual accounts. The image of the dragon is present in many cultures and religions, and gathering the information and presenting it in an accessible, logical fashion is indeed a daunting task. Ogden succeeds in bringing the complex, sprawling history of the dragon into a well-focused entry point for dragon lore.
In addition to traditional front-matter, such as an introduction and table of contents, the book contains other items to assist the reader, including a “List of Figures,” and a “Quick Key to Some Special Terms and Conventions Used in this Book.” Though those elements are quite useful in their own right, the “Schema of Motifs” is the most helpful and interesting component.
The text is divided into two parts: Part One: The Classical Dragon contains nineteen chapters that focus on a number of mythic dragon tales. The early chapters deal with ancient Greek protagonists such as Zeus, Apollo, and Heracles, and their struggles against dragon-type entities. These chapters also present other monsters that one might not consider dragons, such as Medusa, Lamia, and the Chimaera, but the author makes it clear how these creatures fit into dragon-lore.
Part Two: The Christian Dragon contains six chapters, which focus on serpentine images and various saints, including St. Philip, St. Silvester, St. Patrick, and St. George. As can be expected, these chapters contain a number of passages from the Bible, but they employ other ancient texts as well. Although Part Two is shorter than Part One that does not indicate that the topic has been under-treated. In fact, both sections are thoroughly covered and well detailed.
Ogden weaves ancient texts into his discussion, and the transitions are well done. The chapters are supplemented by a number of black-and-white images of ancient art. These images do not overwhelm the text: in fact, only twenty-nine images are presented. Though the images are helpful and contribute a great deal to the visual appeal of the text, the book’s strength lies in its thorough presentation and detailed analysis.
The book contains three appendices that extend the discussion into more focused areas. Appendix A presents “World-foundational Dragon-slaying Tales from the Ancient Near East and India.” Appendix B limits its focus to “Germanic Dragon Fights of the Eighth to Thirteenth Centuries AD.” Appendix C is the most interesting of the three, presenting “A Selection of Dragon and Serpent-Slaying Tales of Folkloric Interest.” The appendices are a great addition to the text, covering topics that do not really fit in the organizational scheme of the two-part structure.
Dragons, Serpents, and Slayers in the Classical and Early Christian Worlds employs a well-organized approach to researching dragon lore and provides readers with an in-depth, historical view of the dragon throughout the centuries. Ogden presents a number of passages from important texts which are crucial to understanding this field of inquiry. Given the recent popularity of dragons, fueled in large part by popular culture phenomena like The Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter novels, this book is likely to appeal to a broad audience. That, however, does not diminish the scholarly value of the text. Quite simply, anyone wishing to begin research in dragon lore should start with this book.
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[Review length: 554 words • Review posted on October 1, 2014]