The Old English poem known in the modern era as Beowulf consists of some 3182 lines of alliterative verse. The poem is preserved on folios 129r to 198v of a unique and badly damaged Anglo-Saxon manuscript sometimes called the ‘Nowell Codex’ and now known by its shelf mark as the London, British Library, MS. Cotton Vitellius A.xv. The text was copied by two dif…