Watkins demonstrates the continuity of poetic formulae in Indo-European languages from Old Hittite to medieval Irish. Using the comparative method, he shows how traditional poetic formulae of considerable complexity can be reconstructed as far back as the original common languages, thus revealing the antiquity and tenacity of the poetic tradition.

In How to Kill a Dragon, Calvert Watkins demonstrates the continuity of poetic formulae in Indo-European languages from the Old Hittite to medieval Irish. Using the comparative method, he shows how poetic conventions of considerable complexity can be traced to the original common languages, thus revealing the antiquity and tenacity of the poetic formulae. Drawing on examples from Vedic, Indian, Greek, Celtic, Latin, Armenian and Germanic languages, Watkins examines the structure of dragon-slaying myths, which recur in various guises in a wide variety of Indo-European poetic traditions.