During the Anglo-Saxon period, myths and legends would have been passed down orally across decades and centuries. Whoever wrote Beowulf, he most likely began the epic poem as a sequence of songs based on traditions that had been passed down orally before him. As for characters in the story, they are only known from names found in ancient poems, so we cannot say with certainty what they looked like or even if they were real people. At the time, writing was done using runes which are linear markings carved into objects such as wood or stone. Runes were commonly used to write short phrases, words, or names. They were easy to carve and could be made by anyone with a sharp knife. There are several types of runes, including futhark, gothic, luhnunes, ogham, runic alphabets, and ulfberht. Runes were first used in Europe around the 3rd century A.D., but they weren't recognized as a means of recording information until much later. The first documented use of runes as a method of recording stories came when the Icelandic poet Egil's skáldskaparmál was compiled around 925 A.D. This collection included many traditional stories told by Icelanders themselves. It is believed that some of these tales may have been recorded in rune form earlier than they were written down for the first time.