title: Beowulf and Other Old English Poems
author: Constance Hieatt
description: The identity of<b> Beowulf</b>s author and the exact date and place of its composition are unknown. A single copy of the poem, dated about the year 1000, survived Henry VIIIs destruction of Englands monasteries and was collected by Sir Robert Cotton. This copy was damaged, but not disastrously, in a library fire in 1731 and was finally placed in the British Museum in 1753. The Danish scholar Thorkelin had copies made of it in 1787 and published the whole of it for the first time in 1815. Originally untitled, it is named after its hero, Beowulf, and is divided into two parts: In the first part the young Beowulf battles the monster Gredel and Grendels vengeful mother; in the second, an aged Beowulf kills a fire-breathing dragon but is himself mortally wounded.<br /><br />No historic Beowulf is known to have existed, but some events described in the poem did take place in the sixth century. Early scholars tried to prove that more than one poet wrote the work, but it is now generally accepted that, like the Iliads Homer, there was one composer of <b>Beowulf</b>, who took the stories, legends, and myths of his cultures oral traditions and bound them together with his own artistic vision. Written in England at least fifty years after the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity, and perhaps much later, the poem is recognized today as the longest and greatest poem extant in Old Englishyet it describes an ancient heroic society of Danes and Geats in Scandinavia; there is not one word about England, or about the people who come to be known as the English, in the poem.
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  # Beowulf
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem, Translated From The Heyne-Socin Text by Lesslie
  Hall
  
  
  This page formatted 2005 Munsey's.
  
  
  http://www.munseys.com
  
  PREFACE.
  
  
  THE STORY.
  
  
  ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THE NOTES.
  
  
  BIBLIOGRAPHY OF TRANSLATIONS.
  
  
  GLOSSARY OF PROPER NAMES.
  
  
  LIST OF WORDS AND PHRASES NOT IN GENERAL USE.
  
  
  
  
  
  BEOWULF.
  
  
    
  I. THE LIFE AND DEATH OF SCYLD.
  
  
    
  II. SCYLD'S SUCCESSORS.—HROTHGAR'S GREAT
  
  
  MEAD-HALL.
  
  
    
  III. GRENDEL THE MURDERER.
  
  
    
  IV. BEOWULF GOES TO HROTHGAR'S ASSISTANCE.
  
  
    
  V. THE GEATS REACH HEOROT.
  
  
    
  VI. BEOWULF INTRODUCES HIMSELF AT THE PALACE.
  
  
    
  VII. HROTHGAR AND BEOWULF.
  
  
    
  VIII. HROTHGAR AND BEOWULF.—Continued.
  
  
    
  IX. UNFERTH TAUNTS BEOWULF.
  
  
    
  X. BEOWULF SILENCES UNFERTH.—GLEE IS HIGH.
  
  
    
  XI. ALL SLEEP SAVE ONE.
  
  
    
  XII. GRENDEL AND BEOWULF.
  
  
    
  XIII. GRENDEL IS VANQUISHED.
  
  
    
  XIV. REJOICING OF THE DANES.
  
  
    
  XV. HROTHGAR'S GRATITUDE.
  
  
    
  XVI. HROTHGAR LAVISHE