Question about Beowulf

[Charles Darnay]

I am curretnly reading Beowulf and found something kind of confusing: I was wondering if anyone could clear this up.

In the poem, there are references to Cain and Abel as well as God - suggesting a Judeo-Christian background, and yet, it is a Scandanavian poem (who beleived in many gods, not one all powerful God.) Does anyone know why the poem uses "God" instead of gods, and mentions Cain and Abel?

[Bastet]

Well, actually, it was a pretty common practice in the British Islands after the arrival of Christianity. In order to introduce Christianity into the popular folk in a subtle way, Christians mixed their elements with the local "pagan" beliefs. Also, transition to Christianity didn't happy overnight, so there was a transitional period where both Christian and pagan elements were mixed up and even appeared together in artistic compositions. I hope it helps :)

[Shea]

Another point is that Beowulf was only written down decades or centuries after it was created. No one really knows when it originated, but it was passed down as song in oral formulaic tradition.

At the time it was written down, the people who were educated to read and write were typically monks and other clergy. It's feasible to beleive that they would have inserted Christian ideas into the pagan parts of the story.

Try looking up Beowulf on Wikipedia, you'll probably get tons of info.

This is one of my favorite literary works by the way.

[Charles Darnay]

thanks for the info

[Woland]

There are some parts of the poem where the christian insertions are jarring, and then other parts where they are more seamlessly integrated.