Is Beowulf history or myth? Many of the characters, episodes, and material artifacts mentioned poetically in Beowulf are similarly presented to us from archaeological sources and from various written sources, particularly Scandinavian documents, thus adding credibility to the historicity of the poem. But it is obvious that Beowulf, Grendel and the Dragon clearly belong to the “myth” classification. In his essay “The Digressions in Beowulf” David Wright says:Another effect of what are called the 'historical elements' in Beowulf – the subsidiary stories of the Danes and the Geats – is to give the poem greater depth and verisimilitude. Hrothgar, the Danish king, is a historical figure, and the site of his palace at Heorot has been identified with the village of Leire on the island of Seeland in Denmark. The Geatish king Hygelac actually existed, and his ill-fated expedition against the Franks, mentioned several times in the poem, is mentioned by Gregory of Tours in the Historia Francorum and given approximately AD 521 (127). establish in our minds a historically solid basis for poetry? "I have suggested in a previous article that the poet Beowulf's incentive to compose an epic about the 6th-century Scyldings may have had something to do with the fact that, at least in the 890s, Heremod, Scyld, Healfdene and the others were taken to be the common ancestors of both the Anglo-Saxon royal family and the ninth-century Danish immigrants, the Scaldingians” (Frank 60). Isn't universal acceptance as truth proof that the geneologies of the work are real With the exception? of the hero, this literary scholar seems to agree: "He [Beowulf] appears unknown outside the poem, while practically every other character is found in the early legends" (Chickering 252). Danish, and how unrealistic it seems: Scyld then departed at the appointed time, still very strong, in the custody of the Lord... They laid the king they had dearly loved, with their high ring-giver, in the center of the ship, the mighty by the tree. There was great treasure there, bright gold and silver, gems from distant lands (26-37) But we know from archaeological evidence that Beowulf's royal, aristocratic environment with its sumptuous burials and gold-adorned armor “ it can no longer be dismissed as poetic.” exaggeration or popular memories of a golden age before the Anglo-Saxons arrived in England (Cramp 114).