(no subject)

Things I have explained to people about Beowulf in the last two days:

- Beowulf is not the same as The Canterbury Tales. (!?) It was written several centuries earlier by people speaking a different language.

- Yes, Beowulf does seem a lot less Christian than The Canterbury Tales. That is because, although it was written by Christian people, it is not about them.

- Yes, Beowulf is a pretty Norse-seeming story. That's possibly because it's about a bunch of Geats (from what is now Sweden) and Danes and is set entirely in pre-Christian Scandinavia.

- The book Grendel by John Gardner is not about St Peter* (!?) and the dragon, but instead is about Beowulf and, y'know, Grendel.

- Grendel is not the dragon.

- Beowulf is also not the dragon.

- But there is a dragon in the story, yes.




I'm not surprised about any of these (except the first one) - a lot of people haven't read Beowulf, and that's fine. I haven't read The Canterbury Tales. I'm just surprised that it's come up twice in as many days.




*I'm now torn between imagining St Peter fighting a dragon - St Peter in my head looks like the dude from the 70's version of Jesus Christ Superstar** - and wondering which saint the patron actually meant. I mean, it's either St George or St Michael, but I'm curious. Or are there other dragon-fighting saints?

**To be honest, most everything involving the Gospels looks like that movie in my head.