Beowulf
Beowulf is the longest surviving Anglo-Saxon poem written in Old English. Dating from between 700 and 1000, Beowulf survives in a single manuscript, the Nowell Codex, and was made the English National Epic in the 19th Century. It presents something of a mystery: it is a tale of a legendary Germanic past in which pagan heroes achieved great things, and yet has what is referred to as ‘Christian colouring’, and is overwhelmingly likely to have been copied into the Nowell Codex by a monk or clerk. Old English scholars make careers through debating the poem’s authorship and date of composition.
The poem’s action and narration of history are centered around the titular hero fighting and killing three monsters: Grendel and his mother (a pair of cannibalistic giants), and finally a dragon. 50 years have passed after the deaths of Grendel and his mother, and Beowulf is king of the Geats. He has fought many battles, and wisely presides over a peaceful kingdom. However, one night a disgraced slave is banished by his master, and tries to win favor by stealing a cup from a sleeping dragon. The dragon wakes up, and instantly realizes that a golden cup is missing.
Snorting along the ground, the dragon realizes that a man has trespassed and committed the theft. It waits until nightfall, before leaving its barrow and vast hoard of treasure, flying far and wide over the settlements and burning the people alive in their homes. Hearing of this, Beowulf is grimly determined to kill the dragon himself despite his great age, and seems to know that he will die. He summons the cup-thief (who unfairly escaped the dragon’s wrath), and is led to the barrow, where he delivers a rousing speech about his former deeds to his band of retainers.
All at once, Beowulf roars at the barrow, and the dragon flies down to meet him in combat. A fierce battle ensues, and Beowulf’s shield is burned to ashes. His trusty sword, which has served him so well, fails to pierce the dragon’s hide, and his warriors flee in panic. Only one remains, Wiglaf, who runs to Beowulf’s aid, and manages to injure the dragon’s belly. Beowulf himself then delivers the death blow with a dagger. The king, however, is mortally wounded, and dies a noble death after admiring the dragon’s vast treasure hoard and naming Wiglaf as his heir.
The story of the dragon, like Fáfnir in Völsunga saga, is didactic. The dragon was content to sit on its treasure so long as no one stole from it, and had lived peacefully in the same place for 300 years. The desperate slave’s theft alone aroused the dragon’s vicious ire. At Beowulf’s funeral, a solitary woman sings of the coming destruction of the Geatish kingdom, hardly a surprise given how cowardly its soldiers showed themselves to be at the barrow. The poem famously ends with a final superlative adjective to describe the great hero: lofgeornost (‘the most eager for glory’).
