Title: Beowolf

Author: Eirien Mereneliel :)

Rated: PG-13 for epic battle scenes and some scary images ;)
(in other words, it's nigh on impossible to use the story of Beowulf nonviolently… ;) )

Disclaimers: Many of the characters, places, etc.  are the property of J.R.R. Tolkien, Seamus Haney, and the anonymous author of the poem Beowulf.  This interpretation of the story and the original characters are mine :)

Summary:  The Third Age is past, but Middle-Earth is not peaceful. A terror haunts the once-great hall of Meduseld, and the old stories are not true...

Prologue

So.  The Spear-Danes in days long gone by

Fought with bravery in the bloody fields of war.

Hrothgar, their mighty king, conquered many nations,

Building a strong empire in the darkness of middle-earth.

So goes the holied tale the harper always sings.

Yet, he intones tearfully, there was a time of defeat,

Old alliances forgotten, feigning friendliness, the people

Of the White City came, converging on our borders,

Endangering the Riddermark, ruining the peace.

And there was worse.  For from the smoking eastern pools

Came Grendel, shadow-beast, the epitome of cruelty.

Left alone in defeat in the wars of the Third Age. 

He plagued our curséd hall for twelve long years:

No more Meduseld, the golden mead-hall of our fathers,

But Heorot, forsaken, palace of the hunted hart.

Hark not to the harper, for he will tell you lies;

Tall fish-stories grown from years of their retelling.

I was alive then, though none remember me for

Who I really am.

                           Let me tell you then,

For I remember well.  Listen now to the true tale.