The dragon (Beowulf) with a Discussion of the Stories of Offa and Finn", says that "Beowulf"s dragon acts like "the typical dragon of Old English proverbial lore" because he guards treasure. W. P. Ker criticized the inclusion of Beowulf's fight with the dragon and his subsequent death in the poem, writing "It is as if to the end of the "Odyssey" there had been added some later books telling in full of the old age of Odysseus, far from the sea, and his death at the hands of Telegonus". In "", J. R. R. Tolkien noted that the dragon and Grendel are "constantly
Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics 1936". Tolkien stated, for instance, that Beowulf was not an actual picture of Scandinavia around 500 AD, but was a self-consistent picture with the marks of design and thought. This might leave the reader wondering, commented Shippey, what exactly Tolkien meant by that. Shippey argued that there was evidence from the chronology given in the 2014 book, supported by the work of scholars such as Martin Rundkvist, that there was serious trouble among the eastern Geats, with migration and the taking over of mead-halls by new leaders, at that time, just as portrayed in the poem. Beowulf: The Monsters and