People all over the world tell stories.

They tell stories of filmes they have seen, books they have read or simply experiences they have had. Storytelling is as old as man himself. Long before TV or cinema, or even books, it was the main form of entertainment. Stories were passed from generation to generation and some of those ancient stories are still with us today in the form of legends, myths and folk tales. The Anglo-Saxon literature and poetry embodies these forms of stories. We know little about the people who composed Anglo-Saxon poetry because their work belong to an oral tradition. They were travelling minstrels called scops who performed for noblemen in the halls of kings. The poems composed by the scops can be divided into two groups: Pagan and Christian. The Pagan group includes sagas, tales and legends that are common to all Germanic cultures and which were brought to Britain during the early invasions. The subjects of the Christian poetry were taken from the Bible and the lives of the saints. The most elementary froms of expression known to the ancestors of the Anglo-Saxons while they were still on the continent and which survived the advent of Christianity are associated with the experiences of the community as a whole: they are connected with forms of work, with magic rituals. Mnemonic inscriptions would proclaim a workmans pride in his finished work. Among the earliest forms of popular literary productions, are various wise sayings, memory verses and charms, meant to control the course of nature. Realistic and fantastic elements were colapsed together. The gnomic situations were known either from experience or from fairy-tales which enjoyed an equal share of the primitive life. Acts were often prerogatives of a social positon. For instance the king offering land and jewels to the warriors who distinguished themselves in batlle or to the minstrels who chanted and played songs to the harp in the mead-hall, the hall where the king and his warriors gathered together and the mead an alcoholic drink from honey and water was served. The hero of the epic poem approaching the stature of gods, who kills dragons, refers us to many other archetypal situations of the same kind in international myth and folklore: Perseus battling with a gigantic serpenter, the god Apollo in combat with the Python, St. George victoriuos over a dragon, the archangel Michael struggling with evil in the guise of a serpent. The motifs of the epic poetry are: loyalty to the death, blood revenge, treachery and revenge. From the point of view of the humanity they foreground, there are important differences among them: The Battle of Finnesburgh, for instance, is more characteristic for the continental heroic saga. The fragment recounts the defence of the hell of Finneburg by a small band of Lanes, against their attacker, King Finn of the Frisians. The stress is laid on action, not on characters; its heroes do not feel, just make ready for the battle and are not afraid of death. On the contrary, Beowulf, the only complete narrative of the time, which refers to events occuring about A.D. 500, even if the epic was composed some centuries later, focusses character and sentiment and dwells upon the consequences of the action: grief, loss, suffering, exile, sadness. Beowulf is the oldest existing work of literature in the English language. The Angles, Saxons and Jutes took the story to Britain during their fifth century invasions, then the story was passed on from generaton to generation until it was eventually written down by an anonymous writer, probably in the eighth century. The poem tells the story of the hero Beowulf in his fights against supernatural creatures and includes many references to other stories and historical events. Most of the main action takes place in Geatland (in Sweden) and on the Danish island of Sjaelland (Zealand) during the sixth century. However, the many digressions extend the poems geography to the rest of Denmark, northern Germany, Poland and the Low Countries. The poem of 3183 lines opens with a short account of the obsequise of the Danish King Scyld Seafing, whose body was caried on board a ship, plies up with arms and treasures. The ship was entrusted to the sea and forever lost. The reign of Scyleds son and grandson, Beowulf and Healfdene, are quickly passed over, and we are brought to Hrothgar, the son of Healfdene, 1

who builds a hall, called heorot, in which to entertain his numerous retinus. In majestic, solemn tones, is rendered the archetypal gesture of ordering a pallace into being, somehow resembling Gods creation of the world. The fundation act in Beowulf is something uncommonly grand, demiurgic in its motives and effects: It came in his mind/ to build his henchmen a hall uproar,/ a master mead-house, mightier far/ then ever was seen by the sons of earth.// Wide I heard was the work commanded/ for many a tribe this mid-earth round,/ to fashion the folkstead. It fell as he ordered,/ in rapid achievements, that ready it stood there,/ of halls the noblest: Heorot he named it/ whose message had might in many a land. The seed of evil, however, lurke in the background, so that the hall,/ high-gabled wide is already waited upon by the hot surge of furious flames, i.e. the future strife between Hrothgar and his son-in-low, Ingeld. The analogy to the creation of the world becomes explicit in the next lines. The minstrel in the mead-hall, will sing of the early times of man,/ how the Almighty made the earth,/ fairest fields unfelded by water,/ set triumphant, sun and moon/ for a light to lighten the land dwellers,/ and braided bright the breast of earth/ with limbs and leaves; made life for all/ of mortal beings that breathe and move,/ So lived the clanamer The conjunction so establishes the link between the heavenly and the wordly dominions. The evil of the beginning of the world is being evolved both in its pagan hypostasis (the giants warring with God) and Christian one (the punishment inflicted on Cain for slaughtering Abel). The two traditions are blended in the figure of Grondel a monster which is reported to be kin of Cain. Pagan and Christian elements are freely intervoven in this epic bearing testimony of a time when, in spite of the way of Christianity, pagan rituals were still common (as indicated by the funeral pyre archeologists dug up at Sutton. The monster sprung from Cain attacks the hall by knight devouring thirty knights at a time. When twelve years have passed, Beowulf, a nephew of Hygelac, king of the Gaetas, determines to go to Hrothgars assistance. He embarks with fourteen companions and on reaching the Danish coast, is directed by the watchman to Hrothgar. Beowulf introduces himself and states the object of his coming (as Hrothgars thanes were empty and idle, he volunteers to be his champion in order to get rid of Grendel); the visitors are invited to feast. During the banquet Beowulf is tnunted by Hunferth, the kings orator, with having failed in a swimming contest against a certain Breca. Beowulf denies that, claiming he has been successful. The queen fills Beowulfs cup, and he assures her he is determined either to conquer or die. As night draws on, Hrothgar and his retinus, leave the hall to their visitors. Beowulf puts on his armour, declaring he will not use his sword. Grendel bursts into the hall and devours one of the knights. Beowulf seizes him by the arm, which he tears off after a desperate struggle, and the monster takes to flight, mortally wounded. The Danes come to express their admiration of his victory, which brings to their memory other heroes of the past, the archetypal champion against evil: Sigemund or two Danish prince, Heramad. Then, Hrothgar himself shows up rewarding Beowulf with rich gifts. During the feast which follows, the kings minstrel recites the story of Hnoef and Finn. Then the queen comes forward, thanks Beowulf and presents him with a valuable necklace which the latter will give to Hygelac on his return, together with the other presents he had received from Hothgar and his wife, in return he will receive a sword and a large share in the kingdom. During the night Grendels mother come to avenge her monster sons fatal injury and carried off a Danish nobleman and Grendels torn off arm. Beowulf and his men followed the blood trail left by the arm and came to the lake where Grendels mother had taken refuge. Beowulf plunged into the lake and swam into a chamber. He fought Grendels mother, killing her with an old sword he found in an underwater cavern. Grendels body was also lying in the cavern so Beowulf cut off his head and brought it back to King Hrothgar. There was a great feast in the hall to celebrate Beowulfs victory and an even greater celebration when he returned to his home country, where he was made king. After fifty years of successful reign Beowulf had to face another evil creature, a fire breathing dragon which was trying to destroy the country. Although he was very old, Beowulf slayed the dragon but he was mortally wounded in the process. A slight suggestion of Beowulf nourishing an undue interest in the treasure, a run for gold which has brought disaster upon him and his people, who, now that the king is dead must expect 2

hostility on all sides, may be a contribution of the Christian copyist, some monkish redactor of the text. Two types of material have entered into the making of the epic. On the one hand, we find therein the characters of Scandinavian chieftains who were real people, attested by documents. On the other, there is the supernatural realm of the fairy-tales: water-monsters, fire-sweping dragons, plunging into the historical realities of the sixth century. We also get the primitive view of nature as primarly hostile, perneated by evil, supernatural forces, associated with darkness, mystery and perils, as well as the description of the pool in which Grendels mother hiden. The repeated emphasis on darkness and mystery, on a thorough wilderness and thoroughness, changed with the connotations of an alien presence, hostile, terrifying, the hyperbole of the emblematically brave heart forsaking life rather then plunge into the deep, the mosterly cosmic projection in the end through prosopopeic forciby communicate the entire horror of existence. In sharp contrast, the man-made mead-hall suggests a shelter from cosmic terror, the enlightened place where a socializing process goes on scops singing to the harp, a henchman serving the mead in a carved cup, the king imparting gifts, the thanes feeling their hearts warming up to him. Antithesis is, in fact, one of the favourite tropes. One of the most famous European sagas to be composed in the same period as Beowulf is the Germanic epic poem The Nibelungenlied (The Songs of the Nibelungs). The Nibelungenlied was written down in old German by an anonymous scribe around A.D. 1200, but it dates from an earlier period. The sagas characters belong to the Nibelung-Burgundian Germanic population, who settled between the River Rhine and France in the fifth and sixth centuries A.D. The saga was told around fires at night and slung to the harp in the banqueting halls of kings and nobles. It was known to all Germanic-speaking peoples in Germany and Scandinavia, as well as to the Angles and Saxons in Britain. Like Beowulf, Siegfried, the hero of the saga, kills a dragon. By bathing in its blood, he acquires magic powers and becomes almost invincible. However, he also comes into possession of a treasure which carries with it a terrible curse: its owner will meet a violent death. In the course of many adventures, Siegfried promises to marry Brunhild, queen of the Valkyries, but then breaks his promise and marries Kriemhild. Brumhild is furious and has Siegfried killed, but when he dies she kills herself in despair. Many years later, Kriemhilds second husband, Attila, king of the Huns, claims that Siegfrieds treasure should be his, but Gunther, Kriemhilds brother, has hidden it at a secret location in the River Rhine (where, according to legend, it is still hidden today). In the ensuing battle over the treasure between Attila and the Huns and Gunther and the Nibelungs, Gunther and nearly all the Nibelungs are killed. In desperation at the death of her brother and the defeat of her people, Kriemhild kills her two sons and serves them to her husband at the victory banquet. She then murders him while he is sleeping and is herself killed by a knight who is horrified at what she has done. Common elements between Beowulf and The Legend of the Nibelungenlied: the hero, the slaying of a monster/dragon, elements of magic and mystery, acts of violence. Both poems belong to an oral storytelling tradition and were passed on from generation to generation untill they were finally written down. The heroes of northern European sagas lived in a world of powerful and mysterious forces where nobility, fatalism, pride, loyalty, the search for glory and death all played important parts. He lived in violent times, in a violent environment where nature was often hostile and man was constantly under the threat of death from marauding monsters. Nowadays, medieval legends have become very popular in todays computer games because of their mix of magic, adventure and conquest. The monsters, dragons, magic rings, capes of invisibility, secret potions and the motives of love, greed and vengeance have all been reproduced in these games to entertain todays players. As a conclusion, we can state that the medieval motives are very actual nowadays.