Efne her is cumen an draca þe me sceal forswelgan. Ælfric’s Take on Gregory the Great’s Swallowing Dragons

This paper discusses Ælfric’s take on the imagery of the swallowing devil in three of the Catholic Homilies: the homily for the twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost (CH I. 35), the homily for St Benedict’s Day (CH II. 11), and the homily for Palm Sunday (CH I. 14). In all three homilies, the antecedent of the demonic devourer has ultimately been traced to Gregory the Great, although, as is often the case with Ælfric, the ultimate patristic source has been mediated by Carolingian compilers and integrated with echoes of ingrained biblical reading, exegetical learning, liturgical drill, and familiar stories within the monastic context. Through a detailed comparative analysis of the primary sources, this essay will try to clarify the relationship between Ælfric’s homilies and their source-texts, both ultimate and intermediate, as well as assessing Ælfric’s distinctive contribution to the imagery of the devouring dragon, a veritable topos of early English demonology and eschatology which proved instrumental in conveying key concepts of Christian theology and eschatology in captivating and exemplary narratives.