Beowulf

Some of Michael Wood's series on the Search for the English Dark Ages are posted on Youtube, including this one on Beowulf:



Tolkien's essay on Beowulf was important because it reminded scholars that the story was pretty good and the critics who were busy pulling it apart to find information about history or customs were missing the point. His essay is on line HERE.

And nowadays, we might not worry about monsters like Grendel, but terrorists who come out of "no where" to bomb fiestas and ordinary folks.

As for Dragons, one wonders how much of the firey imagry comes from folk memories of the Laacher See eruption 12,000 years ago.