Re: Scandinavia and the Germanic tribes such as Goths, Vandals, Angl

--- On Wed, 11/5/08, Andrew Jarrette <anjarrette@...> wrote:

> The idea of the Anglo-Saxons welcoming foreign elements
> comes from
> this and later:
>
> "Why does the poet choose to valorize the royal family
> of a foreign,
> sometimes enemy nation in the opening lines of his poem?
> Beowulf is
> permeated with pro-Danish sentiment, in spite of the
> manifold
> difficulties which the Scylding dynasty is represented to
> have
> suffered. Why not celebrate the heroic founders of some
> native
> Anglo-Saxon royal family--their victories over the Britons
> or other
> enemies, for instance--as would have poets of most other
> epic traditions?"

. . .
Perhspa it was written in the Danelaw or at a time when the Danes had overrun England when a poet felt the need to suck