Surviving in one manuscript dating from around AD 1000, and believed to have been composed some two or three hundred years earlier, Beowulf is a poem composed in Old English, also known as Anglo-Saxon, a language worlds apart from even Chaucer’s Middle English. Although written in England, the poem’s action is set in Scandinavia; it centers on the human warrior Beowulf’s courageous encounters with three foes: the beast Grendel, whose fierce attacks have been terrifying the Danes; Grendel’s mother, whom Beowulf battles in an underwater cavern; and, some fifty years on, an unnamed dragon who threatens Beowulf’s homeland in southern Sweden and whom the hero dies defeating. The drama of these battles enlivens the heroic atmosphere the poet conjures: Beowulf’s adventures unfold against a backdrop of stories and loyalties that, together with the monstrous nature of his adversaries, give this tale an ahistorical strangeness and power. Throughout his marvelous rendering, Seamus Heaney captures and holds fast the human feelings that animate this stirring saga.