guarding an immense hoard of treasure (as in most of the old dragon
stories), begins to ravage the land. Once more the aged Beowulf
goes forth to champion his people; but he feels that "Wyrd is close
to hand," and the fatalism which pervades all the poem is finely
expressed in his speech to his companions. In his last fight he
kills the dragon, winning the dragon's treasure for his people; but
as he battles amid flame and smoke the fire enters his lungs, and
he dies "as dies a man," paying for victory with his life. Among
his last words is a command which reminds us again of the old
Greeks, and of the word of Elpenor to Odysseus:

"Bid my brave men raise a barrow for me on the headland,
broad, high, to be seen far out at sea: that hereafter
sea-farers, driving their foamy keels through ocean's mist,
may behold and say, ''Tis Beowulf's mound!'"

The hero's last words and the closing scenes of the epic, including
the funeral pyre, the "bale-fire" and another Viking burial to the
chant of armed men riding their war steeds, are among the noblest
that have come down to us from beyond the dawn of history.

Such, in brief outline, is the story of _Beowulf_. It is recorded on a
fire-marked manuscript, preserved as by a miracle from the torch of the
Danes, which is now one of the priceless treasures of the British Museum.
The handwriting indicates that the manuscript was copied about the year
1100, but the language points to the eighth or ninth century, when the poem
in its present form was probably composed on English soil. [Footnote:
Materials used in _Beowulf_ are very old, and may have been brought to
England during the Anglo-Saxon invasion. Parts of the material, such as the
dragon-fights, are purely mythical. They relate to Beowa, a superman, of