Béowulf (Squashed Edition‪)‬

The Squashed edition of Béowulf, the great tale of heroes and monsters, written around 850AD. Abridged from the original text to read in an hour or so.

Here is the beginning of English. Maybe the oldest story known in the mixture of Frisian, Nordic and Germanic dialects, which eventually became this language. 'Maybe', because it is far from clear where, when, for who or by whom it was written.

Translated and abridged by Glyn Hughes.

Squashed editions are precise abridgements - the original ideas, in their own words, the full beam of the book, the quotable quotes and all the famous lines, but neatly honed down to the length of a readable short story.

"Like reading the bible without all the begats" - Prof. Jim Curtis