Penguin Classics: Beowulf

'Rage-inflamed, wreckage-bent, he ripped open the jaws of the hall. Hastening on, The foe then stepped onto the unstained floor, Angrily advanced: out of his eyes stood An unlovely light like that of fire'

These are the great epic stories that inspired J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Conjuring up a twilight world of quests, treachery, magic, evil and fellowship, they are the most ancient narratives from Northern Europe and bring us as near as we will ever get to the origins of Tolkien's Middle Earth.