This is the first episode of Fate Going As It Must: A Beowulf Talk Show! On the show I’ll talk with people who are fans of Beowulf to try to understand how they discovered the poem and why they think it’s still important.

My first guest is Paul Begadon, whose writing about old stories (including Beowulf) you can find at woodkern.net. We cover quite a few topics, including:

• Favourite movie adaptations
• The importance of storytelling
• What Beowulf can teach to us today: overcome your demons
• Stories of katabasis; the Jungian interpretation of Beowulf’s fight with Grendel’s Mother as journey to the subconscious for the power to succeed
• Best introductory translation of Beowulf
• What does “Hwaet” even mean?
• Robert Graves and Grendel’s Mother as ancient goddess
• The kenning in Beowulf’s name

Feel free to leave your thoughts on the show and on the topics covered in the comments. Or, go ahead and answer this question: What is your favourite adaptation of Beowulf?

The theme music for the show is:

The Pyre Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/