Beowulf Hrothgar, king of the Danes, whose great hall, Heorot, is plagued by the monster Grendel. Beowulf kills Grendel with his bare hands and Grendel's mother with a giant's sword that he found in her lair. Later in his life, Beowulf becomes king of the Geats, and finds his realm terrorized by a dragon, some of whose treasure had been stolen from his hoard in a burial mound. He attacks the dragon with the help of his "thegns" or servants, but they do not succeed. Beowulf decides to follow the dragon to its lair at Earnanæs, but only his young Swedish
The dragon (Beowulf) northern literature there are only two that are significant ... we have but the dragon of the Völsungs, Fáfnir, and Beowulf's bane." Furthermore, Tolkien believes the "Beowulf" poet emphasizes the monsters Beowulf fights in the poem and claims the dragon is as much of a plot device as anything. Tolkien expands on "Beowulf"'s dragon in his own fiction, which indicates the lasting impact of the "Beowulf" poem. Within the plot structure, however, the dragon functions differently in "Beowulf" than in Tolkien's fiction. The dragon fight ends "Beowulf", while Tolkien uses the dragon motif (and the dragon's love for treasure) to