The dragon is larger than all the rest of the serpents and than all other animals in the world. The Greeks call it ‘dracontam’, and from this comes its Latin name ‘draco’. It is said that it is often tempted to come out of caves into the air, and the air is shaken by it. It has a crest, a small mouth and narrow nostrils, through which it breathes, and it puts out its tongue. Its strength is not in its teeth, but its tail, and it harms more by blows than by force of impact. It has no harmful poison. But it is said that it does not need poison in order to kill, because it slays anything which it embraces… This dragon is like the devil, the fairest of all serpents, who often leaves his cave to rush into the air; the air glows because of him, because the devil rises from his abyss and transforms himself into an angel of light, deceiving fools with hopes of vainglory and human pleasures. The dragon has a crest because the devil is the king of pride; the devil can only deceive with his lies…

Excerpt from Bestiary: Being an English Version of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Bodley 764. Translated and introduced by Richard Barber.

Time-lapse of drawing

Here is a time-lapse of me creating the drawing in Procreate on an Apple iPad using an Apple Pencil.

Drawing #8 of 52 (52 in ‘22)