Ebook Stories of Legendary Heroes

Such feasts as these were among the greatest pleasures of our ancestors. The men who received the gifts were always those who had been brave in battle, those who had risked their lives to defend their lord or to win trea sures for their people. As the years passed, the gleemen began to sing songs of their courageous deeds. By and by, most Of the names were forgotten, and the brave acts were all told as if they had been the work of some one hero. They grew bigger and bigger whenever they were sung. If a man had killed a bear, the song was likely to have it that he had overcome a giant. If he had killed a serpent, the serpent was sure to appear in the song as a dragon, then as a fire-breathing dragon; and so the stories increased. Thus it was that the story of Beowulf grew. When the people who lived about the North Sea came over to England, they still sang the old hero songs. A little while ago, a thousand years or more, some one put these songs together and gave us the poem Beowulf as we now have it.