#SagaSaturday - Beowulf Chapter 1

So, here goes my first try at this. I'm going to tell a story in "chapters" adding a group of tweets to a thread each week. I'm calling it #SagaSaturday.

I'm starting with Beowulf.

There once was a Danish tribe that called themselves Scyldings, a name of which came from their heroic leader, Scyld Scefing.

Scyld showed up on the shore one day as an orphaned babe in a ship full of treasure.

Then comes the bootstrapping, because you know he would claim he was self-made even with the literal boatload of money he showed up with, but, anyhoo, Scyld becomes the tribes great and honorable king.

And he begat Beow (who is also called Beowulf at points but not to be confused with our Beowulf)

who begat Healfdene

who begat Hrothgar...who is the king at the time our real story begins.

Hrothgar, like his great granddaddy, is a great king who wins lots of wars and brings lots of riches and all the jazz to his people, so, he decides it is time to build a great monument to himself and that was to be a grand mead hall, named Heorot.

And the men rejoiced!

And rejoiced some more!

In fact they rejoice so long and so hard, they piss off the local ogre, Grendel, who is a decedent from Cain, a fact that makes him a bit bitter.

Grendel was so pissed he went on a murderous spree that put his ancestor's infamous deed to shame and killed 30 of Hrothgar's guys. Talk about a grump neighbor 😏

Grendel then returns the next night and drives the men from the hall. Well, this goes on for 12 years. I mean, I would have probably moved but that's just me.

Come back next Saturday for chapter 2 where we meet the true hero of our story, Beowulf.

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Pith of the Myth

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