A painting made in Sept. 1927 of a serpentine dragon with four claws and small wings, coiled to resemble a Celtic knot, with the handwritten caption "hringboga heorte gefysed" at lower left. The first known public display of the picture was as a slide shown in a lecture for children that J. R. R. Tolkien gave at the University Museum, Oxford, on Jan. 1, 1938, in which he described the creature as "a newly hatched dragonet." See Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull, J. R. R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1995), 53.

The caption derives from Beowulf, l. 2561 ("ða wæs hringbogan heorte gefysed"). I speculate that the altered ending of originally genitive hringbogan arises from Tolkien's omission of an intended nasal suspension mark over the final letter of hringboga (cf. his use of a nasal suspension mark in the caption "wudu wyrtum fæst"—written "wudu wyrtū fæst"—in the caption to another Beowulf-associated picture, of the monster mere, a few months later).

The image has been reproduced several times, with and without the caption that associates it directly with Beowulf and with and without other contextual association with Beowulf. In its original, painted form, but without caption, it was first printed in the catalog of an exhibition in which the painting was displayed (Catalogue of an Exhibition of Drawings by J. R. R. Tolkien at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 14th December-27th February, 1976-1977 and at the National Book League, 7 Albemarle Street, London W1, 2nd March-7th April, 1977). Also in 1976 it was published in altered form and without caption as an embossment on the cover of a deluxe edition of The Hobbit. It appeared again in its original form but without the caption in The J. R. R. Tolkien Calendar, 1979 (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1978); in original form, with caption, and at original size in Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull, J. R. R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1995), plate 48; and with enhanced color and no caption on the front of the dust jacket of Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary, together with Sellic Spell, by J. R. R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014).

• Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull, J. R. R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1995), 52-53.

Information in Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull, J. R. R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1995), 53.