Beowulf: Christian vs. Pagan Translation Activity
Instructions: Read each sentence and tell if it is a Christian or Pagan concept.
1. Then his hour struck,/ And Scyld passed on to the peace of God.... (K 12-13)
2. He bore the curse of the seed of Cain / Whereby God punished the grievous guilf/Of Abel's murder. (K 65-66)
3. Nor ever had Cain/Cause to boast of that deed of blood; God banished him far from the fields of men;...(K
67-69)
4. Of his blood was begotten an evil brood, ? Marauding monsters and menacing trolls,/ Goblins and giants who
battled with God/A long time. (K 71-73)
5. An the poet's clear songs, sung/Of the ancient beginnings of us all, recalling/The Almighty making the
earth....(R 4-7)
6. Till the monster stirred, that demon, that fiend, / Grendel, who haunted the moors, the wild/Marshes, and made
his home in a hell / Not hell but earth...(R 16-19)
7. He was spawned in that slime, / Conceived by a pair of those monsters born/Of Cain, ...(R 19-21)
8. They split / Into a thousand forms of evil-spirits / And fiends, goblins, monsters, giants, / A brood forever
opposing the Lord's/Will, ... (R 25-29)
9. King Hrothgar's glorious/Throne protected by God-God, / Whose love Grendel could not know. (R 83-85)
10. That was their way, / And the heathen's only hope, Hell/Always in their hearts, knowing neither God / Nor His
passing as He walks through our world, the Lord/Of Heaven and earth; ... (R 93-97)