In the long Anglo-Saxon epic poem that bears his name, the hero Beowulf fights and kills the monster Grendel and then Grendel’s mother. He then becomes the king of the Geats, one of the Germanic groups that lived in western Sweden, and takes arms late in life against a dragon that was threatening his people.

He ruled it well for fifty winters — that was an aged king, a veteran guardian of his people, — until in the dark nights a certain one began to have power, — a dragon, who on an upland heath kept watch over a hoard….

Then the fiend began to vomit forth flames, to burn the noble dwellings; the gleam of fire blazed forth, a terror to the sons of men; the hateful creature flying in the air would leave there no thing with life….

Beowulf discoursed, — spoke a last time with words of boasting: — “I ventured on many battles in my younger days; once more will I, the aged guardian of the people, seek combat and get renown.” . . .

Then rose the doughty champion by his shield; bold under his helmet, he went clad in his war-corslet to beneath the rock cliffs, and trusted in his own strength — not such is the coward’s way. Then he who, excellent in virtues, had lived through many wars, — the tumult of battles, when armies dash together, — saw by the rampart a rocky arch whence burst a stream out from the mound; hot was the welling of the flood with deadly fire. He could not any while endure unscorched the hollow near the hoard, by reason of the dragon’s flame….

Never a whit [Not in the least] did his comrades, those sons of nobles, stand round him in a body, doing deeds of warlike prowess; but they shrank back into the wood and took care of their lives…. [One of Beowulf’s warriors assists him, and together they kill the dragon, though Beowulf is mortally wounded in the fight.]

Then the chieftain wise in thought went on until he sat on a seat by the rampart…. Beowulf discoursed: despite his hurt, his grievous deadly wound, he spoke, — he knew full well that he had used up his time of earthly joy…. “I have ruled over this people fifty winters; there was not one of the kings of the neighbouring tribes who dared encounter me with weapons, or could weigh me down with fear. In my own home I awaited what the times destined for me, kept my own well, did not pick treacherous quarrels, nor have I sworn unjustly any oaths. In all this may I, sick with deadly wounds, have solace; because the Ruler of men may never charge me with the murder of kinsfolk, when my life parts from my body….

“I utter in words my thanks to the Ruler of all, the King of Glory, the everlasting Lord…. Bid the war-veterans raise a splendid barrow [mound of earth] after the funeral fire, on a projection by the sea, which shall tower high on Hronesness as a memorial for my people, so that seafarers who urge their tall ships from afar over the spray of ocean shall thereafter call it Beowulf’s barrow.

Source: Beowulf and the Finnesburg Fragment, trans. John R. Clark Hall, rev. C. L. Wrenn (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1940), pp. 132, 137, 147, 148, 150, 156, 157, 160.

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