This essay will provides a synoptic discussion of the dragon-fight within that vast and kaleidoscopic narrative repository known as the Vǫlsung-Nibelung cycle, with a particular focus on the hero-dragon dynamic in three key texts of the legend, namely Vǫlsungasaga, the Nibelungenlied, and, especially, Beowulf. With no pretensions for exhaustiveness, or originality for that matter, the motif of the dragon-fight will be used as a lens through which it will be possible to look at several aspects of the diffraction, de-composition, and re-composition of the Vǫlsung-Nibelung narrative in its transmission through space and time, as well as in its transmigration through different cultural milieux and linguistic-literary traditions.
