Beowulf

Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as an early form of the English language. In the poem, Beowulf, a hero of a Germanic tribe from southern Sweden called the Geats, travels to Denmark to help defeat a monster named Grendel. This poem, about Danish and Swedish kings and heroes, was preserved in England because the English people are descendants of Germanic tribes called the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. Jutes and northern Saxon tribes came from what is now southern Denmark and northern Germany. Thus, Beowulf tells a story about the old days in their homeland.

Beowulf is the greatest of the surving works composed in Old English. An Epic poem, Beowulf was composed orally in a form of poetry in which each line is effectively split in half, with the first half linking with the second alliteratively. It is the epic story of Beowulf, the man's man, a badass whose dark side you would not want to experience. He embodies all of the social ideals of the culture that created him: loyalty, honesty, courage, justice, and generosity. Despite much of the blood and horror, Beowulf proves to be a story of good versus evil and one man's quest to become immortal through fame. (The Geats did not believe in much of an afterlife, therefore the only way to live beyond death was by the legends you inspired.)

Believed to be composed circa 700 c.e., Beowulf has instances of blatantly obstrusive Christian influence in an otherwise pagan work. The snippits of Christianity were likely inserted by a priest who recorded the narrative in writing. (Priests were practically the only people in that day who were literate, and they probably didn't like all of that profane, godless paganism.) Apparently the priests would insert bits of Christianity (who knows what they took out?) as not to fully corrupt anyone who might read Beowulf.