Probably three words you'd never expect to here from me. We are reading Beowulf in English. Before we started it, however, we read the Seafarer's Poem. Now, there was a bunch of monks who wrote down all of these old poems so we wouldn't lose them entirely. However, when they went in, they also added a whole bunch of Christian references and ideals. (The Anglos were pagan) For example, in the Seafarer, it's a beautiful account of how the sea draws the Viking. All of the sudden, though, it breaks into a sermon of how we shouldn't rely on earthly goods-- complete going away from the Viking. As a Christian, I can almost understand why the monk did this. But from a historian point of view.... I mourn for the history and the stories we have lost. Does that make sense?