The dragons portrayed in the four works examined here, BEOWULF, THE SAGA OF THE VOLSUNGS, DAS NIBELUNGENLIED and THIDREKS SAGA each represent an unaticipated challenge to audience expectations concerning dragons and dragon slayers. The assumption that we all know what a dragon is, has been so deeply rooted in our cultural imagination that scholars speak casually of dragons as if the word required no interpretation. In this book the author deploys the techniques and theories of modern literary criticism texts to illuminate the function and meaning of dragons in the medieval Germanic world.