BEOWULF • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Beowulf

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/bˈeɪəwˌʊlf/ Listen

Beowulf

noun

The legendary hero of an anonymous Old English epic poem composed in the early 8th century; he slays a monster and becomes king but dies fighting a dragon.

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Etymology of 'Beowulf'

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"Beowulf" Quotes from Famous Books

... difference," said I to my wife, after we had departed, "between a Welshman and an Englishman of the lower class. What would a Suffolk miller's swain have said if I had repeated to him verses out of Beowulf or even Chaucer, and had asked him ...

— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow

... this uncritical literary handling of elements really popular were the national romances of Arthur, of Charlemagne, of Sigurd, or of Etzel. The pagan legends were Christianised, like that of Beowulf; they were expanded into measureless length, whole cycles were invented about the heroic families; poets altered the materials each in his own way and to serve his own purpose, and often to glorify ...

— The Book of Romance • Various

... king he! To him an heir was afterward born, a son in his halls, whom heaven sent to favor the folk, feeling their woe that erst they had lacked an earl for leader so long a while; the Lord endowed him, the Wielder of Wonder, with world's renown. Famed was this Beowulf: {0a} far flew the boast of him, son of Scyld, in the Scandian lands. So becomes it a youth to quit him well with his father's friends, by fee and gift, that to aid him, aged, in after days, come warriors willing, should war draw nigh, liegemen loyal: by lauded deeds shall an earl ...

— Beowulf • Anonymous

Words linked to "Beowulf" : fictitious character, character, fictional character