A Dozen Favorite Dragons in Literature

(a highly idiosyncratic list, inspired by (and slightly overlapping with) this list by Olivia Rutigliano of the fifty “coolest” fictional dragons, and arranged alphabetically by dragon)

“a decrepit dragon, possibly moribund” (from “The Slaying of the Dragon” in Catastrophe and Other Stories by Dino Buzzati)
Falkor (from The Neverending Story by Michael Ende)
Fin Fang Foom (from Strange Tales #89 by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee—and many later Marvel comics)
Gleep (from Another Fine Myth—and its sequels—by Robert Asprin)
Griaule (from The Dragon Griaule—and its sequels—by Lucius Shepard)
The Great Red Dragon (from Bone by Jeff Smith)
“he [who], in his sullen hole, loved viciousness” (from Grendel by John Gardner)
“the incorruptible corpse” (from “Sixty-five” in Centuria by Giorgio Manganelli)
The Jabberwock (from Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll)
Leviathan (from The Book of Job)
“six lumps, where nothing had been” (from “Dragon’s Breath” in The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye by A. S. Byatt)
“‘You couldn’t pronounce it . . . And if you tried, you’d hurt yourself’” (from “Oakland Dragon Blues” in Sleight of Hand by Peter S. Beagle)

— August 29, 2022