Beowulf
Beowulf,an Old English poem of 3,182 lines, surviving in a 10th-cent. manuscript. It tells of two major events in the life of the Geatish hero Beowulf: the first when, in his youth, he fights and kills first Grendel, a monster who has been attacking Heorot, the hall of the Danish king Hrothgar, and then Grendel's mother who comes the next night to avenge her son; the second, 50 years later, when Beowulf, who has for a long time been king of the Geats, fights a dragon who has attacked his people, in a combat in which both Beowulf and the dragon are mortally wounded. The historical period of the poem's events can be dated in the 6th cent. from a reference to Beowulf's King Hygelac by the historian Gregory of Tours ; but much of the material of the poem is legendary and paralleled in other Germanic historical-mythological literature in Norse, Old English, and German.
Although it has been suggested that the date of the poem may be nearer to...
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