Feeding the Dragon. A Foreword

This essay introduces some of the key themes of the book 'Feeding the Dragon. An Eschatological Motif in Medieval Europe' and presents a résumé of the project that underlies it. It will be argued that the two widespread motifs of the devouring devil, especially in the guise of a dragon, and the mouth of hell coalesced into the distinctively early English zoomorphic mouth of hell and that this coalescence was probably triggered by two apocrypha especially popular in early medieval England, the Seven Heavens Apocryphon and the Gospel of Nicodemus. Relevant textual and manuscript evidence affords intriguing insights into this syncretic blending, as well as hinting at the milieu where such a blending may have been endorsed and popularised, if not initiated. Finally, significant analogues from the Scandinavian context will be presented, suggesting that the same apocryphal eschatology could have reached Scandinavia as part of that network of exchanges of men and books which demonstrably crisscrossed the North Sea in the early Middle Ages.