Beowulf is the most important Old English poem and perhaps the most significant single survival from the Anglo-Saxon period.
Though its composition was completed in England in the eighth century, the poem is set in the heroic societies of a fifth-century Scandinavia. Against this background of feuding and feasting, the hero Beowulf kills Grendel and Grendel`s mother, but in killing the Dragon is himself killed.

We have here something more than merely a heroic poem of historical interest: Beowulf has a truly epic quality and scope, and this verse translation successfully communicates the poem`s artistry and eloquence.