Judith (poem)
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Judith is an Old English narrative poem describing the beheading of Assyrian general Holofernes by Israelite Judith of Bethulia. Found in the same manuscript as the heroic poem Beowulf, it is one of m
A medieval illustration of Judith and Holophernes
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
Judith (poem)
…narrative poem describing the beheading of Assyrian general Holofernes by Israelite Judith of Bethulia. Found in the same manuscript as the heroic poem Beowulf, it is one of many retellings of the Holofernes–Judith tale as it was found in the Book of Judith, a story still present in the Catholic and Orthodox…
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