Beowulf

As a young man in Sweden (the land of the Geats), Beowulf is a great warrior, whose personality and characteristics include great strength and courage but also the necessary heroic qualities of loyalty, courtesy and pride (a great deal of pride).

Having become a hero in his own land, Beowulf hears about the terrible creature Grendel that is plaguing the golden mead-hall of King Hrothgar in Denmark and he sets off with a loyal band of warriors to rescue Hrothgar's court from this menace. 

Defeating Grendel he then has to cope with Grendel's mother who seeks vengeance for the death of her son.  He succeeds in this as well and much, respected and greatly rewarded, he returns to his own country where he eventually becomes a much loved and ruler keeping peace and ruling wisely.

However, as the poem illustrates, life always includes some evil or doom awaiting in the wing and fifty years later the land is ravaged by a dragon, fearfully angry at the theft of a gold cup from its lair.  Beowulf defeats the dragon, not without help from a loyal kinsman, but in doing so is mortally wounded.

His death is followed by years of chaos and the poem from which the story comes, reflects on the difference in responsibilities between those of a young warrior and those of a ruler who perhaps rashly leaves his people without a King.

Beowulf is an Old English epic poem set in the Dark Ages, possibly written between 500 and 700 A.D. The exact time is still debated. It was a folk story that would have been passed on by minstrels for many decades before being written down and the earliest written version in existence is in the British Museum. This was damaged by fire in 1731. There are two transcriptions made in 1786-87.
Although written in Old English the action takes place in Denmark and the hero, Beowulf, is Swedish. Given the time period its audience could well have been Anglo-Saxon Danish settlers who arrived in our islands during the Dark Ages, (a name that refers to the lack of written information about the period). Beowulf is part myth and part fact (many of the battles mentioned actually took place) but it is a story of heroism against the constant dark forces of evil and follows Beowulf’s life from its transition from young, bold, warrior to wise, reliable but ageing King.

The hero's name loosely translates from ‘Beo’ for bee and ‘wulf’ for hunter. A bear hunts bees of course (think of Winnie the Poo and his honey), and the name, therefore, becomes ‘bee-hunter’ or ‘Bear’.   J.R.R. Tolkien’s love of Anglo-Saxon, or Old English started when he was studying at King Edward’s School in Birmingham. Reading the poem in modern English and then in the original he grew to love the story and its language, realising that its dialect was similar to that of his mother’s West Midland ancestors.

Tolkien had loved stories about dragons as a child, and Beowulf includes battles against two monsters and a dragon. The tale in the poem of the theft of a golden cup from the dragon re-surfaces, of course, in The Hobbit as does the description of Theoden’s Golden Hall in The Lord of the Rings. Beowulf and the myths and legends of the Northmen were much loved by Tolkien and he greatly regretted that England did not have such a weighty store of ancient legends of its own.
His love of that period and the dearth of legend in his own country,  inspired Tolkien to create one for himself. Starting with his deeply imaginative and powerful work, The Silmarillion, which he considered his life’s work, and including The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, the rest is history of course.
Tolkien made his own translation of Beowulf but this has, regrettably, not been published.

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