Beowulf

Beowulf was the first major poem written in a European language and is one of the most important Old English poems. Found in a tenth century manuscript, it is thought to have been composed in the seventh or eighth century. Beowulf, the hero of the epic, frees the Danes by killing Grendel, an ogre that has been terrorizing them, as well as Grendel?s mother who seeks to avenge her son's death.