Bloodsong and Bikermouse, [I'm posting this as a new message, since it really doesn't belong in the "hair file distribution" post.] Geats? Species?!? O ye gods and fishes!!!!! The "Matter of Beowulf" concerns Scandinavian peoples on Scandinavian soil, however, it is much closer to the "Matter of Arthur" than to the "Matter of Sigurd" in content, origin, and treatment. Therefore we usually think of it as an Old English subject rather than a story about Vikings. There is evidence (archeological, place-name, and documentary) that a Romano-British warlord fought several battles against the Saxons, and walloped them so decisively that after a final battle they went away to lick their wounds and didn't return for a hundred years... so legends grew around someone whose name could have been Artorius. OTOH, the Sigurd cycle is almost entirely mythological with many reworked myths included, and the few allusions to identifiable persons are poetic fancies. Wagner's Ring and Tolkien's LOTR are both modern offshoots from the basic story. Beowulf stands between Arthur and Sigurd. So now to Beowulf. About 500 AD the Roman Empire had collapsed and there were more than a dozen tribes fringing northern Europe: Franks, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians, Hathobards, Lombards, Wulfings, Wends, Slavs, Goths, Brondings, etc., all of them bickering, constantly bickering. (If I were Snorri Sturluson, I'd tell you that there were 12 tribes, and then name 13.) The Geats were a tribe in southern Sweden. The various Danish and Swedish tribes have fought back and forth (for more than 1500 years!) for the sovereignty of the area around the strait (if you control trade, you get rich, and to control trade you need both sides of the waterway). Please note that Geats (2 syllables!!!) are NOT a species. Neither are Franks or Angles or Slavs. They might dress a bit differently, and speak a different dialect, and follow diferent kings, but their mixed offspring are quite fertile. The Geats are a Scandinavian tribe, with their own king, just before the Viking Age proper. Beowulf was a Geat, and we can date his story in real time. His uncle is King Hygelac. In 520-21 AD this king fought and defeated the Franks in a major battle. (This is a short while before the Franks defeated the Gauls and gave their name to France.) Beowulf might have been a real hero at a time when a single hero gathered legends the way a strong and wise king gathers followers. If so, he was born about 495, helped Hrothgar in what is now Denmark defeat some monster about 515, accompanied his uncle against the Franks and Frisians as noted above, and later took the Geatish crown, and ruled for a long time, but probably not the 50 years suggested by the poet. The archeologists who uncovered Sutton Hoo (burial mound from about 700 AD) quoted from Beowulf to describe their findings: even though that wasn't his burial mound, or the loot from a dragon's lair, the items were similar enough to bring pleased recognition. So, the Geats are no more a "species" or "character class" than any of our ancestors. They are simple a tribe of people, doing what all the peoples of that Age did: farm and fight and brag over their drinking horns while poets carefully shaped their words. Carolly