Except of course he does, in countless translations, adaptations and retellings.ĭragon Slayer: the story of Beowulf by Rosemary SutcliffĪs you expect from this great writer, this retelling of the story is very accessible and full of the details for which she was famed.

Some of the There is no evidence that anyone called Beowulf ever existed. How and why the manuscript was created is not known. Origially the story would probably have been told in three parts over three evenings, in a great hall, much like the one featured in the story. His body is set alight in a funeral pyre and a barrow made in his honour, high on a cliff to warn ships of the rocks below. Many years after his return to his homeland, Beowulf is made king and takes on a fire-breathing dragon in a battle to protect his people that is his last. The monster’s mother wants vengeance and Beowulf follows her into a deep, dark lake where he kills her. Beowulf kills Grendel by tearing his arm off. Grendel is a blood-thirsty monster who terrorises the hall at night.

The manuscript is long, about 3000 lines in Old English, and is kept in the British Library and tells the story of the hero Beowulf and his battles with Grendel, Grendel’s mother and a dragon.īeowulf, from the kingdom of the Geats, in present-day Sweden, brings his warriors to help the Danish king defend his beautiful great hall from Grendel. Beowulf’s story has survived for about 1500 years, composed around the 6 th or 7 th centuries and written down in the 10 th or 11 th centuries. We have some great archaeological Anglo-Saxon finds including several hoards containing jewellery, such as the Staffordshire and Lenborough Hoards – hidden and never reclaimed – and the magnificent Sutton Hoo ship burial in Suffolk. The Anglo-Saxons have never left us: swear words, place names and the foundation of our language.

Beowulf morpurgo