Description
Book SynopsisTwo thousand years of legend and lore about the menace and majesty of dragons, which have breathed fire into our imaginations from ancient Rome to Game of Thrones
A Penguin ClassicThe most popular mythological creature in the human imagination, dragons have provoked fear and fascination for their lethal venom and crushing coils, and as avatars of the Antichrist, servants of Satan, couriers of the damned to Hell, portents of disaster, and harbingers of the last days. Here are accounts spanning millennia and continents of these monsters that mark the boundary between the known and the unknown, including: their origins in the deserts of Africa; their struggles with their mortal enemies, elephants, in the jungles of South Asia; their fear of lightning; the world’s first dragon slayer, in an ancient collection of Sanskrit hymns; the colossal sea monster Leviathan; the seven-headed “great red dragon” of the
Book of Revelation; the Loch Ne
Trade ReviewI love the way Scott Bruce has scoured so much ancient lore to bring us this treasury of dragon-related information, and I shall turn to it frequently -- Philip Pullman
Scholarly and thrilling. By collecting some of the foundational - and also most surprising - historical sources on these guardians of the 'boundary between the known and unknown', Scott Bruce has created the new indispensable resource for anyone who cares about dragons -- Adam Gidwitz, New York Times bestselling author of A Tale Dark and Grimm and The Inquisitor’s Tale