The book Elef ha-Magen contains a critical
edition of a rationalist commentary by R. Shemarya ben Eliyahu ha-Ikriti on the
Talmudic aggadot found in the first chapter of tractate Megilla.
R. Shemarya was a Byzantine scholar who lived around the years 1260-1346, and
his work is one of the few medieval compositions that comments sequentially on aggadot
according to the order of their appearance in the Talmud. The book also
includes an extensive introduction on R. Shemarya and his writings
