1. Introduction

The Old English heroic poem known today by the editorial title of Beowulf survives, albeit damaged, in a single source: Cotton Vitellius A.xv of the British Library in London. This is a composite of two manuscripts, often called the Southwick Codex and the Nowell Codex, which were probably combined in the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century. The latter manuscript, which contains Beowulf, is thought likely to date from between the late tenth and early eleventh centuries AD. Beowulf, ho..