beliefs, there are simply too many references in the poem to a manifestly non-Christian world view:

Each of us must expect an end/of worldly life;/let him who can, earn/fame before death; that's the finest thing. . . .

In one of many references to fate or destiny, Beowulf says "Wyrd often spares the undoomed earl, when his courage holds!"  We can find many instances in which Christianity appears in the poem, but these appearances have more to do with Anglo-Saxon poliitical correctness than fully internalized beliefs.

Even though Beowulf clearly includes the theme of man's short life, and the poet includes Christian references, the Beowulf poet seems convinced that Wyrd governs the world of men.  And, besides, he would probably advocate sacking Bede's convent to make sure sparrows had no respite.

Beowulf may be compared to Bede's sparrow in the sense of the metaphor the sparrow represents:

Suddenly a little bird flies in, a sparrow, ... So is the life of man. Clear enough itself, but before it, and after the end thereof, darkness; it may be, storm.

The sparrow represents the void at the beginning of life and the unknown at the end of life. A human's coming into life has no light on the place of origin, neither has a human's going out of life have a known destination. An unremembered void sends humans out and an undocumented void welcomes humans in at the beginning and then at the end of life. Like the sparrow, humans are "in at one door and then out at another. Where it came from none can say, nor whither it has gone."

I suppose there could be a broad comparison between Beowulf, who came into the lives of the Danes to save them, gives them a brief period of peace, and then leaves for his own kingship, and the sparrow that flies through the hall, briefly warm but then back into the winter, but it's a stretch. Better to compare Beowulf's search for glory, his success in battle, and his death itself as a life to the sparrow; they both have a perfect moment that ends.

I, personally, find the comparison in #3 above rather tenuous. I don't think Beowulf enters the mead hall like Bede' sparrow in any way. Beowulf does not enter seeking sanctuary and shelter. He comes deliberately to kill Grendel and to gain fame for himself. I personally think the main similarity is the religious one pointed out in #2.

Outside of the religious similarities between the two, I would suggest that Beowulf flies into the mead hall like Bede's sparrow. The sparrow, while seeking shelter from the cold, comes in, warms and leaves. Like the sparrow, Beowulf enters into Hrothgar's mead hall, does what needs to be done, and leaves as well.

They are most similar in that both emphasize the value of Christianity as an alternative to the paganism it replaced. Christianity gave the Old English something to look forward to after death (namely, eternal life in heaven with a loving God). In one Old English poem after another, heaven is seen as an alternative to the pain of existence divorced from God.

In a famous passage in the Venerable Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, a Christian missionary is attempting to convert a pagan tribe to Christianity. The king is inclined to convert but asks the opinions of his leading counselors.  One responds as follows:

“The present life of man upon earth, O king, seems to me, in comparison with that time which is unknown to us, like to the swift flight of a sparrow through the house wherein you sit at supper in winter, with your ealdormen and thegns, while the fire blazes in the midst, and the hall is warmed, but the wintry storms of rain or snow are raging abroad. The sparrow, flying in at one door and immediately out at another, whilst he is within, is safe from the wintry tempest; but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, passing from winter into winter again. So this life of man appears for a little while, but of what is to follow or what went before we know nothing at all. If, therefore, this new doctrine tells us something more certain, it seems justly to deserve to be followed.” The other elders and king's counsellors, by Divine prompting, spoke to the same effect.

This idea seems relevant to the Old English poem Beowulf in a number of ways, including the following:

• Very early in Beowulf, the great Danish king Shield Sheafson dies. The poet reports his death by commenting that

Shield was thriving when his time came

and he crossed over into the Lord’s keeping. (26-27)

The report of Shield’s death recalls the sparrow anecdote in at least two ways. First, Shield is “thriving” at the time he dies, just as the sparrow moves suddenly from the warmth of the room (life on earth). However, the crucial difference is that while the sparrow exits into a bitter, dangerous storm, Shield crosses over “into the Lord’s keeping.” The sparrow anecdote made Christianity seem attractive to pagans because Christianity taught that there might be something far better than a cold, metaphorical storm to anticipate after death – that a warm and loving father existed in heaven, where one might spend eternity in utter joy. The initial reference to Shield’s death implies that Shield was taken into heaven immediately after dying.

• Likewise, at the very end of the poem, when Beowulf’s corpse is burned, the poet writes that “Heaven swallowed the smoke” (3155). This phrase can be taken to imply that Beowulf’s soul is received into heaven. Indeed, earlier in the poem, at the moment of Beowulf’s death, the poet had noted that Beowulf’s

. . . soul fled from his breast

to its destined place among the steadfast ones. (2819-20)

In other words, his soul had gone to heaven.

These passages from Beowulf imply, as does Bede’s anecdote about the sparrow, why Christianity seemed so appealing to so many pagans. The Christian faith offered a happy alternative to the pagan vision of earth as a brief respite from the cold and dark unknown.