26. Beowulf

In October 1731 there was a fire in the Ashburnham House residence of the Keeper of the King’s libraries in Westminster, London. The fire threatened the one and only manuscript of the Old English poem, Beowulf. It was rescued by the librarian and others leaping from the window, clasping manuscripts. Singed but intact, Beowulf was literally saved from a Burning Archive. 200 years later in 1936 an English scholar of Beowulf sought to recover the poem and artistry of Beowulf from the dead hand of arid historical scholarship. That scholar was JRR Tolkien. One year later he began to write Lord of the Rings. Would we have had the Lord of the Rings if we did not first have Beowulf?

Full credits and reference at www.theburningarchive.com.