Beowulf
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Beowulf is an Old English poem, an epic in the tradition of Germanic heroic legend consisting of 3,182 alliterative lines, contained in the Nowell Codex. It is one of the most important and most often
First page of Beowulf in Cotton Vitellius A. xv. Beginning: HWÆT. WE GARDE / na in geardagum, þeodcyninga / þrym gefrunon... (translation: How much we of Spear-Da/nes, in days gone by, of kings / the glory have heard...)
Remounted page, British Library Cotton Vitellius A.XV
The traditional view is that Beowulf was composed for performance, chanted by a scop (left) to string accompaniment, but modern scholars have suggested its origin as a piece of written literature borrowed from oral traditions. Illustration by J. R. Skelton, c. 1910
Geats
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The Geats, sometimes called Goths, were a large North Germanic tribe who inhabited Götaland in modern southern Sweden from antiquity until the Late Middle Ages. They are one of the progenitor groups o
Beowulf
…1025. Scholars call the anonymous author the "Beowulf poet". The story is set in pagan Scandinavia in the 5th and 6th centuries. Beowulf, a hero of the Geats, comes to the aid of Hrothgar, the king of the Danes, whose mead hall Heorot has been under attack by the monster Grendel for twelve years. After Beowulf…
Geatish settlements during the 6th century, within the red lines. The green areas show the main areas of North Germanic settlement in Scandinavia.
Sveær egho konong at taka ok sva vrækæ and the following sentences in the Westrogothic law