Beowulf

Beowulf was a legendary Scandinavian hero who was celebrated in an epic poem of the same name composed in Old English. Generally dated to the 8th century, this very old Anglo-Saxon romance contains 6356 short alliterative lines. It was the first major poem in a European vernacular language, and is the only complete Germanic epic that survives. It is also the oldest extant epic-poem in the English language.

The epic records the exploits of the mythical hero Beowulf. It describes his killing of the water monster Grendel and its mother and his death in combat with a dragon.

He wrestled Hercules-wise, at the cost of his life, with first the formidable monster, and then the dragon that had to be exterminated or tamed into submission before the race he belonged to could live with safety on the soil.

The epic has both pagan and Christian elements in it.