Medieval Monsters: Beowulf and Beyond Section One: Introduction Why Beowulf? What possible importance could a piece of archaic literature have to a modern audience, especially one such as the SCA? It does not offer instruction on how to fight, how to fence, how to weave, or how to brew. There is no commentary on costume or on anything that anyone might consider practical. So why offer a class on Beowulf? How can that possibly help anyone actually do anything?

In the SCA we talk quite often about dreaming the dream. The dream, for a lot of people, includes creation of physical crafts – manifestations of the dream that can be held in the hand or otherwise displayed. Some of these items can be directly consumed, like a Tudor Tart or a full feast. Scadian libraries are full of books on cooking, heraldry, and crafting techniques. These are the things of art and science, are they not?

However, it is worth discussing that the dreams are also made of up intangible elements as well. Great works like Beowulf lend us this intangible element and understanding it can only further enhance our ability to dream. In looking at what the literature of the middle ages has to offer, we enhance our understanding of the who, the what, and the why behind mead houses and the rules of chivalry. Period literature gives to the imagination and can inspire the creation of more art and more crafts. This lecture will show that Beowulf, in particular, has inspired a good deal of art.

Today’s discussion on Beowulf will cover the history of the Beowulf manuscript, translations, adaptations, monsters, movies, books and the story itself. While there is a lot to cover, it is hoped that we do not lose sight of the fact that Beowulf is a product of the imagination and was a story told to entertain.

Slide Title: The Manuscript . The Beowulf manuscript in the Nowell Codex was created sometime between the 7th century and the 11th century. (Faulkner 171) The Beowulf manuscript is a part of the Nowell Codex, which includes four other works. Now, we say that Beowulf was written between the 7th century and the 11th century but it is vital to realize that the date of the manuscript is not that of the poem and the date of the poem is not that of the story. While the exact date of the poem is the matter of some contention, recorded history indicates that Beowulf’s liege lord, Hygelac of the Geats, was killed in a raid on the Frisians. This was recorded by Gregory of Tours in 594 who asserts that Hygelac died around 521. (Chickering 247)

Interestingly enough, Beowulf was almost entirely lost. The Nowell Codex nearly died in a fire while in storage in 1731, along with numerous other manuscripts now forever lost to history. Direct evidence of the fire damage can be witnessed in the seared edges of the pages of the manuscript. The British Museum took possession of the Nowell Codex from the Cotton family in 1702 and catalogued it as Cotton Vitellius A.xv.

Two copies of the damaged manuscript were made by Grimur Jonsson Thorkelin in 1815. This was before even further damage could happen to Beowulf and these manuscripts are employed as a supplement to the crumbling original.

In regard to the earlier versions of Beowulf, it is commonly believed that Cotton Vitellius A.xv is a copy of yet another manuscript. It is, effectively, manuscripts all the way down – at least until you hit the oral tradition.

Slide Title: Reading of Beowulf Slide Title: The Issue of Translation It cannot be stressed enough that despite the word “English” being in the label, Old English differs enough from Modern English that a modern English reader cannot make sense of it. It is common to confuse Old English and Middle English. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer were written in Middle English and he was writing in 1357, at lot of change had occurred between the 10th and the 14th century.

Beowulf was written in Old English and it requires the work of a translator. Translation can be a pretty tricky thing as there are a lot of elements to consider. The two most common ways that translators approach a project is through meaning and sound. If a translator considers meaning to be most important above all, as they translate they will select words that they believe most accurately mirrors the original. To approach a manuscript through prioritizing sound, the overall work looks to give the same auditory impact as the original, even if the words chosen are not an exact match for the original terms used.

Slide Title: First Three Lines When one looks at Anglo-Saxon poetry, they cannot help but notice

that there are some stylistic differences between contemporary English poetry and its predecessor. The Beowulf poet employs the use of kennings. Kennings are groups of words that symbolically stand in for other words. Examples of this is the term “whale-road” as a stand in for “ocean” and “ring -giver” as a replacement for “king”. Another aspect the reader must consider is that the individual that recorded Beowulf used a sort of prose-poetry and this poetry did not focus on rhyming but instead, alliteration. Alliteration is the repetition of sounds in closely connected words. Also, the physical structure of the lines is different in that Anglo-Saxon composers employed caesura, which is a break in the center of the lines. All of these aspects make Anglo-Saxon literature unique unto itself and ultimately, easier to memorize. Once someone heard it, they would be able to remember the story, so it might be repeated.

Slide Title: Beowulf Beowulf is the most famous work in Old English and the most-studied poem in English before the Canterbury Tales. (Chickering 1) This means that the amount of work that academics have done on this poem alone is staggering. Go into any university library and the number of books and articles available would take a reader some time to chew through. In researching this particular talk, over a dozen books have been read and fourteen journal articles. This barely scratches the surface of available Beowulf scholarship.

It is not surprising in the least that Beowulf is the work that influenced J.R.R Tolkien the most. (Shippey 344) A good deal of his ideas for the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit were drawn directly from Tolkien’s familiarity with Beowulf. Tolkien not only studied Beowulf, he taught it and when called upon, defended the poem in his famous essay, The Monsters and the Critics.

Fantasist, scholar, and librarian George Borges considers it a foundational part of the Anglo-Saxon identity as, “…a German Aeneid.” (Borges 8) He proposes that cultures desire an origin story and for the Anglo-Saxons, Beowulf is an important piece of their identity. This of course, begs the question: why would Anglo-Saxons record a poem that features the Danes, who were Vikings, that were so despised at the time? Academic Mark Faulkner alleges, “…that Anglo-Saxons might have enjoyed hearing the graphic descriptions of Grendel dismembering Danish thanes in Heorot…” (Faulkner 171)

It is also worth considering that the individual who committed the story of Beowulf to paper was a Christian who chose to recount the adventure-story of a pagan warrior. Was the importance and the pervasiveness of Beowulf so overpowering that the scribe felt that the story must be told despite the pagan elements or did they write the story purposefully, with a Christian overlay, so Beowulf gives his glory not only to his name but to that of the Christian god of the middle ages?

Section Title: Dramatis Personae At the core, Beowulf is an adventure story. A young-ish lad is inspired to assist an aging King known as Hrothgar, as his mead-hall, the Heorot is routinely being attacked by a monster and his thanes slaughtered. As far as Hrothgar is concerned, Grendel is seriously, and quite literally, killing his buzz. Here they are, at a brand spanking new shiny new drinking hall, one created by and in honor of Hrothgar himself where the party never ends. Hrothgar and his Danish Thanes, they just get the ball rolling when Grendel shows up, breaks the doors down, and starts snacking on Danes like Doritos. They wanted to party, Grendel turned them all into hors d'oeuvres. Poor Grendel – everyone is partying without him and damn if that does not make him grouchy or well, maybe hangry. Grendel’s attacks on the Heorot go on for about twelve years before they realize it is going to take a Geat to do a Dane’s job.

Slide Title: Beowulf This aforementioned lad is Beowulf, a guy so amazing they named a poem after him. When first we meet Beowulf, he shows up at the Heorot because he heard they had a monster problem and if there is one thing that Beowulf would like to be famous for – it is slaying monsters. He does not have much of a reputation yet. Even his own people, “…had never much esteemed him in the mead-hall./They firmly believed he lacked force,/that the prince was a weakling.” (2186-188)

Once he is introduced to the those who have stubbornly been chilling at the Heorot despite the monster-attacks, Beowulf gets into a verbal throw-down. In this world, a man is only the stuff of his reported deeds. Unfortunately, Beowulf does not have much under his belt as of yet, so he winds up in a heated discussion that leaves him boasting against Unferth in a contest known as flyting. Flyting is essentially when two men in a mead hall get into a boasting and cutting match – each looking to make themselves appear great while tearing down the other.

Unferth claims that Beowulf is full of it and he cannot even swim very well. Unferth explains that Brecca won a past swimming competition against Beowulf. Therefore, Beowulf is everything but great, so he has no business proclaiming that he can fix this whole Grendel issue. Beowulf has an explanation. Beowulf claims came in last because during the competition he had to defeat a sea monster, as one does. Not only did he have to swim in difficult waters but look – there were adversaries that Brecca did not have to fight. Also, it was raining. If Unferth knew anything at all, he would know this.

Also, who is Unferth to challenge Beowulf anyway? Unferth has made some awful decisions including his association with untimely betrayals and other short-comings – the foremost of which is that Grendel is -still- alive to cause chaos. It is also indicated, that at one point, Unferth killed his own brother. Maybe Unferth should just shut up and sit down.

Once establishing his abilities, Beowulf makes ready to defend the Heorot by taking on Grendel. It is important to note that as testosterone soaked as Beowulf is, he knows he has to have a plan to take out Grendel. When Grendel busts into the Heorot like it is any night ending in a “y” for his evening snack, Beowulf watches. He sees that Grendel does not use weapons but instead, he uses his claws to tear the Dane to pieces. So, Beowulf already knowing that weapons do no good against this guy, decides that he too is going to use his bare hands.

Beowulf fights Grendel in the Heorot, wrestling him. The fight goes on for a bit but in the end, Beowulf literally rips Grendel’s arm off. This in effect, finishes off Grendel, leaving him to die after he flees the hall. At this point, no one should envy the poor Dane in charge of housekeeping.

Beowulf’s job is not done yet, not by a long shot. It seems like sooner does he slay Grendel, that Grendel’s mom shows up ticked off and ready for a piece of the action. She bursts into the Heorot to grab her son’s arm back and in her panic, binge-eats a Dane and flees. Beowulf has no choice now but to finish what he started and go after Mum. When Beowulf goes back to reclaim the proof that he did the job for which he was hired, he realizes that he is not going to win the fight against her if he does not change weapons. Beowulf’s sword just is not getting it done. She has a shiny dagger she is using, and once his sword fails, he is not above filching one of hers to end things. Once he has vanquished her he goes back to the Heorot with Grendel’s head. Hrothgar rewards him with praise and a whole heap of stuff. Beowulf sails home and gives the gifts that Hrothgar gave to him as a reward for his work to his liege lord. When his liege dies in an ill planned attack against the Francs, Beowulf rules the roost.

Beowulf rules Geatland for a good fifty years before the dragon incident. Once his hall has been burnt to cinders by the giant lizard, he realizes he has another battle to fight. Sure, he could have sent one of his guys but hey – he solves his own problems. Even though he knows that this dragon is going to be the end of him, he’s pretty content in the knowledge that the treasure they liberate from the dead dragon will see his people through good times and bad.

Unfortunately, Beowulf’s men, for the most part, have proven themselves untrustworthy and all but his buddy, Wiglaf, flee the battle. When the men finally return, Beowulf is dying if not dead and Wiglaf is furious. Beowulf spent a lot of gold in order to ensure their loyalty and he ruled them like a good king but to no avail, they abandoned him in his time of need. Beowulf had intended the treasure to secure the safety of his people, since he did not give them an heir. However, Wiglaf, seeing the end of the Geats in the cowardice of his fellows and the death of Beowulf, buries all of the treasure in Beowulf’s burial mound.

Slide Title: The Monsters What of these monsters? They are described as:

“prowling the moors, huge marauders/from some other world. One of these things,/ as far as anyone can ever discern,/looks like a woman; the other, warped/in the shape of a man, moves beyond the pale/bigger than any man, an unnatural birth/called Grendel by the country people/in former days. They are fatherless creatures,/and their whole ancestry is hidden in a past of demons and ghosts.” (1348-57)

The monsters in Beowulf are clearly separated from the heroes and

the victims in that they are set aside from society. This is illustrated in a number of ways. First of all, they have no fathers according to the poem. Anglo-Saxon culture was obsessed with linage. Any given saga begins with a listing of famously great men that make up the family line and Beowulf, both the man and the poem, is no different. The audience does not know where the villains come from. It is said that the monsters could be of Cain’s lineage, giving them something of a Genesis. However, this is left vague and for audience conjecture.

As Grendel, his Mum, and the Dragon are lacking fathers they are lacking context and ties to the community. This brings us to the second point. It was understood as law that if one man injured or killed another he owed that man’s family a wergild. This was an actual payment made, in cash or labor, to the victim’s family as a way of keeping the peace in the community after an incident of violence. Grendel, his Mum, and the dragon have no way of making any sort of peace since they are not a part of society and therefore, cannot be made to pay for what they have done.

Slide Title: Grendel The first monster under discussion is Grendel. The poem gives the reader some details. He is a “dark death-shadow” (159-160). He appears to have glowing eyes “…while a baleful light,/flame more than light, flared from his eyes.” (725-6). His hands are inhuman. “Every nail,/ claw-scale and spur, every spike/and welt on the hand of that heathen brute was like barbed steel.” (983-6) He is invulnerable to the weapons that the Danes insist on trying to use against him. He is all of these things and absolutely furious about the partying going down at the Heorot. As a reward for all of his raging and Dane consumption, Beowulf rips off his arm and that winds up affixed to the Heorot like a prize catch. Grendel flees into the night, dying as damn, he just lost an appendage. Grendel was riding high on being untouchable by weapons. Obviously, he did not realize that Beowulf is not above using a hands-on approach. Grendel later dies and his body winds up in his mother’s den.

Slide Title: Grendel’s Mum This brings us to Grendel’s Mum. She finds out what happened to Grendel and decides she is going to get revenge. She makes her way to the Heorot consumed with anger and grief. She bursts in the door and is attacked by the men there. Nothing is going to plan so she grabs up Aeschere and murders him. Nothing brings relief like stress-killing a Dane. She also steals back Grendel’s arm - she will be damned if those stinking Danes use it as a trophy. Once she has done that, she heads back to her under-water lair to wait this whole thing out. This is it, right? She killed the big nasty Dane, posted his head at the foot of a cliff and now it is time to chill in her lair, surrounded by armor and weapons. Her place is likened to a “battle hall” in line 1513 of the poem so the audience is made aware that she likes a heavy metal décor. Beowulf gets to the lake that hides Grendel’s Mum’s cave to discover that it is infested with monsters. “There were writhing sea-dragons/and monsters slouching on slopes by the cliff,/serpents and wild things such as those that often/surface at dawn to roam the sail-road/and doom the voyage.” (1426-430) These enemies are nothing to trifle with but pretty much as soon as Beowulf sticks a toe in the water, Grendel’s Mum snatches him up and drags him down deep before the other monsters get a chance at him. As a matter of fact, when Beowulf goes down to revenge the death of Hrothgar’s lovely assistant, Aeschere, he finds out that unlike Grendel, Mum knows a thing or two about sharp objects. She fights Beowulf with a knife from her own collection. Grendel’s Mum can hold her own and the battle goes on for some time. It actually goes on long enough that everyone who came to watch gives up and goes home, assuming the worst. Eventually Beowulf has to steal one of her own swords to kill her as embarrassingly, his sword fails him. (Huh, he got that sword off of the smack-talking Unferth, weird.) He beheads her, beheads an already dead Grendel, snags Grendel’s head and comes back up to shore.

Slide Title: The Dragon This brings us to Beowulf’s third adversary, the dragon. The thing that one needs to know about dragons is that if one were to populate the land with every dragon mentioned in every saga, drapa, lay, and epic, heroes would be tripping over them left and right. The countryside would be a wreck; everything would be on fire. There are multitudes of dragons out there in the Middle Ages, as representatives of Satan, the devil, the demonic, or the simply scary. “The dragon is meant to represent the evil side of heroic life: Malice, greed, destruction.” (Heaney 114) The dragon in Beowulf could have come from the Bible or even the Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson, in which Thor fights the Midgard Serpent. It does not matter too greatly to the Geats where this Dragon came from. It is just there and that means trouble.

So, there is this dragon. He’s huge on finding burial mounds with treasure and then laying claim to them. A notable Viking dies, he gets buried with all kinds of riches and the next thing you know the whole horde is dragon infested. As the dragon in question is content to horde gold and randomly terrorize farmers, he is not motivated to do much else. Much like Grendel’s Mum, he enjoys his own cave full of treasures. He really likes stuff and probably would have been featured on an episode of Anglo-Saxon hoarders if he had not eaten the production staff.

An escaped Geat slave stumbles upon the dragon’s hoard and decides he really, really needs a new shiny jeweled goblet. So, he uses the five-finger discount and absconds with his goods. The dragon has a sixth-sense about these things, noticed that something is missing, and has decided he is going to mess the Geat up that took it. He sets about burning the hell out of the countryside and eventually, even Beowulf’s home. Beowulf determines there is no rationalizing with this guy so naturally, Beowulf has to kill him.

Beowulf gathers up his best men, including his buddy Wiglaf, and attacks the dragon where it lives. While Beowulf and the Dragon duke it out, the rest of Beowulf’s army decides this is a losing battle and so they abandon the two to fight it out with his serpent-ness. The battle goes a few rounds and Beowulf’s sword breaks, again. Seriously, it snaps, leaving him almost defenseless. The dragon succeeds in biting Beowulf’s neck but with Wiglaf’s help, Beowulf is able to slay the giant serpent. However, the victory is short-lived when Beowulf realizes that while he has killed the dragon, the dragon’s poison is going to kill him.

Section Title: Beowulf in Popular Culture Beowulf has inspired creators in the present just like it did in the past. It is a story that has been adapted to a multitude of mediums. The majority of these are what we call adaptations. Earlier, when translation was discussed, it referred to the elements of sound and meaning that take a work from one language into another. Adaptation is a term used to mean that the piece of work in question borrows character, themes, and some of the story in order to create something new.

Like translation, adaptation requires that a series of decisions be made, and these revolve around what part of the story to keep and what part to let go. The creator must consider what themes to use, as Beowulf has many and how those themes fit into the type of story they would like to tell. There is also the matter of perspective and point of view. Is the story really about Beowulf or is it about the monsters? Who is telling the story and why?

Slide Title: Beowulf in Popular Culture: Film There have been four films released win the last twenty years that adapt the Beowulf story to their own ends. Many of these films look to answer questions regarding the fathering of Grendel, the source of his anger, and inject a bit of romance into the plot with varying levels of success. It is worth noting that all of the films covered today end with a victorious Beowulf fresh from slaying Grendel’s Mum. One can only think that Tolkien would be horrified at the lack of dragons.

Nineteen ninety-nine was a good year for Beowulf as it saw the release of two films. The first of which is, Thirteenth Warrior and it was directed by John McTiernan and featured Antonio Bandaras as Eben. This film draws more or less directly from Michael Crichton’s Eaters of the Dead and follows Eben as the thirteenth of the thirteen warriors set out to do battle against the monsters. The plot of this will be revisited under the topic of The Eaters of the Dead.

The second movie from ninety-nine is entitled simply, Beowulf. It was directed by Graham Baker and featured Christopher Lambert as Beowulf. It has a post-apocalyptic bent involving a Mad-Max feel. This is the first of at least two films that felt that Grendel desperately needed a daddy and enlists the closest named guy. Hrothgar has had an affair with Grendel’s Mum, producing a really angry Grendel. It also explains Beowulf’s awesome fighting ability giving him a supernatural origin as the son of Baal.

In 2005 Sturla Gunnarssson released Beowulf and Grendel, filmed in Iceland and starred Gerard Butler. This take on the Beowulf story provides four new characters including a witch named Selma and Grendel’s Son. Grendel has a dad in this feature, he just goes unnamed but is killed by Hrothgar cuing Grendel’s need for revenge. Later, an adult Grendel rapes Selma creating the character of Grendel’s son who survives the movie. Who knows, may actually grow up and adopt dad’s favorite hobby.

The most recent film, released in 2007, is also titled Beowulf and was directed by Robert Zemeckis. It starred Anthony Hopkins as Hrothgar. Neil Gaiman had a hand in writing the screenplay for this particular adaptation as he co-wrote it with Roger Avery. Their misunderstanding of just how long Beowulf was down in the cave fighting Grendel’s Mum, and the desire to foist the fatherhood of Grendel again onto Hrothgar, leaves the viewer with a sexy Grendel’s mum played by Angelina Jolie. “What if,

“ Gaiman wondered, “Beowulf hadn’t’ killed the mother at all – what if he had spent those missing hours having sex with her?” (Vaz and Starkey 15) It is all very confusing but there is bloodshed, a dragon, and mead so who can criticize?

Slide Title: Beowulf in Popular Culture: Books One of the most popular literary adaptations of Beowulf is in John Gardner’s Grendel published in 1971. This novel is told explicitly from Grendel’s point of view as a creature caught between man and monster. It describes a Grendel before Beowulf’s arrival, giving a bit of background into the character. “He told of an ancient feud between two brothers which split all the world between darkness and light. And I, Grendel, was the dark side, he said in effect.” (Gardner 51) Gardner also depicts a scene in which Grendel meets the dragon that will eventually slay Beowulf. “My advice to you, my violent friend, is to seek out gold and sit on it.” (Gardner 74)

Slide Title: Beowulf in Popular Culture: Books Another popular adaptation of the Beowulf story is in Michael Crichton’s Eaters of the Dead, the novel that inspired the Thirteenth Warrior. Eaters of the Dead is a fictitious retelling of the Beowulf story combined with a travelogue commonly known as the Risala written by Ibn Fadlan in 921-922. Crichton’s ultimate goal was to make a very sort of realistic Beowulf story and to that end, mixed historical reality with fantasy. Crichton made some interesting choices in his retelling of Beowulf. The first of which, is his use of names. He uses Rothgar instead of Hrothgar and Hurot instead of Herot. Beowulf becomes Buliwyf. Instead of one Grendel, we get the wendol or windon. These are mysterious figures that appear out of the fog and mist to attack the Herot. Grendel’s Mum is also a character, referred to as the “head and heart of the wendol.”

Slide Title: Beowulf in Popular Culture: Books Due to the popularity of The Eaters of the Dead and The Thirteenth Warrior, Ibn Fadlan’s work, The Risala, has received a great deal of attention and a good amount of confusion. As recounted in the Risala, Ibn travels north into the country of the Rus. The Rus are not Danes nor are the Geats but rather Swedish Vikings. He describes the way in which they live, in a way that Crichton found interesting and useful. Some of the most famous lines and best scenes in The Eaters of the Dead and The Thirteenth Warrior actually come from Fadlan. There is a scene in both the movie and the book in which Fadlan is taken a bit aback by the morning rituals of his traveling companions.

“Every day without fail they wash their faces and their heads with the dirtiest and filthiest water there could be.” (Fadlan 47)

Fadlan witnesses what the popular imagination depicts as a Viking funeral and his observations become rather legendary.

“There I see my father and my mother./There I see all my dead relatives./There I see my master sitting in paradise and paradise is green and beautiful.” (Fadlan 50-4)

Slide Title: Conclusion In the end, no matter who is telling the story or why, there is action, there is adventure, all washed in the ink of the past. While Beowulf may have initially seemed daunting or at worst, irrelevant, the purpose of this discussion was to illustrate the contrary. Beowulf is accessible, and moreover, enjoyable. There are ways in which modern individuals vary from those of the Middle Ages, but the ability to recognize and enjoy a good story is not one of them.

Slide Title: Suggested Reading There are a number of translations of Beowulf out there. The most recommendable is Seamus Heaney’s Beowulf: A New Translation. In the world of academic essays, reading J. R. R. Tolkien’s Monsters and the Critics will provide a good understanding of where Beowulf rested in the world of academia and Tolkien’s rebuttal to that. The Word Exchange edited by Greg Delanty has a forward by Seamus Heaney and provides some great Anglo-Saxon poetry samples as well as riddles and songs. For the ancient history buff, Tacitus’ Germania is a Roman’s account of the Germanic tribes outside of the Roman Empire written around 98 AD. In regard to more monsters, heroes, and high adventure, Jane Smiley’s Saga of the Icelanders is a solid introduction to the Icelandic sagas and includes some of the most popular.

Works Cited Borges, Jorge Luis. Professor Borges: A Course on English Literature. Translated by Katherine Silver, New Directions, 2013 Chickering, Howel, Beowulf: A Dual Language Edition. Random House, 2006 Chickering, Howel., Allen J. Frantzen, and R. F. Yeager, editors. Teaching Beowulf in the Twenty-First Century. Arizona Center for Medieval Arts, 2014. Crichton, Michael. Eaters of the Dead. Random House, 1976 Fadlān, Ibin. Ibin Fadlān and the Land of Darkness. Translated by Dahhan, S., Penguin, 2012 Faulkner, Mark. “Teaching Beowulf In Its Manuscript Context.” Teaching Beowulf in the Twenty-first Century, edited by Howell Chickering, Franzen, Yeager, Arizona Center for Medieval Arts, 2014, pp. 169-175 Heaney, Seamus. Beowulf: A New Verse Translation. Faber and Faber Unlimited, 1999 Gardner, John. Grendel., Random House, 1971 Shippey, Tom. The Road to Middle-Earth. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2003 Tolkien, J.R.R., Beowulf., Houghton Mifflin, 2014 Vaz, Mark Cotta., Steve Starkey. The Art of Beowulf. Chronicle Books, 2007