The Wulfman online

It's a cheap thrill, but you have to admit it's kind of inspiring that the oldest surviving work of English literature has such a formidable (and varied) presence on the Web. There seem to be hundreds of Beowulf pages and sites out there. Here's a starter set. Let the mead flow like water; we know there's a dragon in here somewhere.

-- Clif Garboden

Beowulf speaks (Ecgtheow's son)
Ever wonder what the epic poem sounded like back when Hrothgar was a pup? Okay, a little later, historically, but details aside, this site lets you hear the original in the original. Samples offered include the "Prologue," "Grendel's Approach to Heorot," "The Lament of the Last Survivor," and "Beowulf's Funeral."

Other reviews of Heaney's translation
Read what other reviewers have had to say about Seamus Heaney's Beowulf translation. Unfortunately the tantalizingly titled Washington Post piece "Going Gaga for the Saga" is a dead link, but this roster does connect you to a Sunday Times interview with Heaney that somehow manages to include questions about Jerry Hall and Harry Potter.

The original text
Good luck finding the browser font to see this text in all it's ancestral glory. The whole catastrophe -- from Grendel to Wiglaf -- in glottal-stopping Saxon.

Beowulf in the corner office
Need a laugh? Need further justification for having chosen the non-economic path? Check out this ostensibly parodic (but not) piece from Forbes on crisis management called "Leadership Lessons from Beowulf." (When in doubt, sacrifice a retainer.)

Yuki's Beowulf Image Page
This is one of those Geocities pages, so be prepared to do battle with the cursed sponsor window. Seems to be just a child's rendering of Grendel anyway, but it takes you to The Illustrated Beowulf satire -- further proof that there are more idle hands out there than you imagined.

Bulfinch's Mythology on Beowulf
Check out a classic take on a classic -- Thomas Bulfinch's rundown of Beowulf as fodder for fable. Lots of good links to supporting scholarship here as well.

Beowulf & Star Wars
Somebody had to do it; leaving the rest of us to ask why.

An evening with Beowulf
Well, the thing does hail from an oral tradition. Apparently in January 1999 "archeologist Benjamin Bagby gave an 80-minute rendition of the first quarter of the epic poem Beowulf, reciting, singing, and dramatizing while accompanying himself on a reconstruction of a six-string seventh-century lyre" -- to a packed house in Pittsburgh, no less. Who says television ruined traditional forms of entertainment?

Nerdwulf
A Beowulf-themed MUD -- beware, beware the List of Sleeping Thanes.