Beowulf

For twelve years the monster Grendel has raided the great hall of the Danish king Hrothgar by night, until a young warrior of the Geats, Beowulf, crosses the sea to fight him bare-handed and tears off his arm. Grendel's mother comes for revenge, and Beowulf follows her down through a lake to her underwater cave. Fifty years later, an old king himself, he faces a dragon that is burning his own land, and wins at the cost of his life.

Composed in Old English by an unknown poet, perhaps in the eighth century, Beowulf is the oldest long poem in English. This is Francis Barton Gummere's verse translation of 1910, which keeps the alliteration of the original, read by Tad E. in under three hours.