num_pages: 136
description: Ever since Tolkiens famous lecture in 1936 it has been generally accepted that the poem Beowulf is a fantasy and of no use as a witness to real history. This book challenges that view and argues that the poem provides a plausible detailed and consistent vision of pre-Viking history which is most unlikely to have been the poets invention and which has moreover received strong corroboration from archaeology in recent years. Using the poem as a starting point historical archaeological and legendary sources are combined to form a picture of events in the North in the fifth and sixth at once a Dark and a Heroic Age and the time of the formation of nations. Among other things this helps answer two long-unasked why did the Vikings come as such a shock? And what caused the previous 250 years of security from raiders from the sea?
language: English
title: Beowulf and the North before the Vikings
publisher: Arc Humanities Press