Beard the lion/in his den

This expression is used figuratively to confront danger or adversity head-on without fear. There are two sources, both biblical. The first is from Samuel I, 17:35, where a lion steals a lamb from the flock David is tending. David pursues the lion and says, “And I went out after him, and smote him, and delivered it out of his mouth: and when he arose against me, I caught him by the beard, and smote him, and slew him”. The second is from Daniel VI, 16-24, where Daniel miraculously survives after being shut in the lions’ den. There is evidence it was a Latin proverb before Shakespeare and others began to use it figuratively from the 16th century onwards. Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) used it in Lochinvar, “And dar’st thou, then, to beard the lion in his den, the Douglas in his hall?” The expression sometimes appears in the form of ‘to beard the dragon’ from about 1800 onwards, but this is not in keeping with the classical biblical source.