Yet its heroes and its setting are not English. The poem is set in two places:the first half takes place on a Danish island, and the second half takes place in Beowulfs homeland, which consists of two large islands off the southeast coast of Sweden. The hero of the poem, the warrior Beowulf, is a member of a southern Gotland tribe known as the Geats (pronounced "yea-ots"). The warrior travels to rescue the Danish people, called Scyldings (pronounced "shillings"), who are being harassed by the monster Grendel.
The early Anglo-Saxons. Why should the English compose and preserve a long poem about a foreign people? One reason is that the poem champions values that were also important to the early Anglo-Saxons of Britain:bravery, loyalty, and devotion to the community. It is difficult to convey just how challenging the lives of the earliest Anglo-Saxons were. Every day was a battle to survive. The Anglo-Saxons lived in huts and dressed in animal skins to protect themselves against the miserable, bone-chilling dampness of the weather. They eked out an existence by farming the land, hunting, and venturing forth on dangerous, turbulent seas to fish. When they weren't scraping together a skimpy existence, they were fighting neighboring tribes and clans.
