The dragon (Beowulf) The dragon (Beowulf) The final act of the Anglo-Saxon poem "Beowulf" is about the hero Beowulf's fight with a dragon, the third monster he encounters in the epic. On his return from Heorot, where he killed Grendel and Grendel's mother, Beowulf becomes king of the Geats and rules peacefully for fifty winters until a slave awakens and angers a dragon by stealing a jewelled cup from its lair. When the angry dragon mercilessly burns the Geats' homes and lands, Beowulf decides to fight and kill the monster personally. He and his thanes climb to the dragon's lair where, upon seeing
Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics work's wide influence. Tom Shippey wrote that the essay "was seized upon eagerly, even gratefully, by generations of critics". Alvin A. Lee wrote that "Tolkien's manifesto and interpretation have had more influence on readers than any other single study, even though it has been challenged on just about every one of its major points." Seth Lerer wrote that the essay "may well be the originary piece of modern "Beowulf" criticism. … The strategies … control the fundamental assumptions of Old English scholarship for the next fifty years." R.D. Fulk commented that "No one denies the historical importance of this lecture.