Beowulf, A Precessional Myth, page 14

Conclusion

All the main elements of this story resolve to an astronomical reading.

1. A Danish king, Hrothgar, has built a magnificent new mead hall, meant to be the wonder of the world. This represents the equinox/solstice structure of a new precessional age.
2. A monster from the marshes, Grendel, attacks the hall and carries away and butchers nobles from the hall. Grendel, we have found, is the constellation Scorpius, slowly sinking below the celestial equator. Carrying away old nobles from the new mead hall is a metaphor for the change over from the old age to the new one.
3. Beowulf gives battle and mortally wounds the beast, tearing off its claw which he fixes up in the mead hall. Grendel crawls off to the marsh and drowns. Scorpius, has sunk beneath the celestial equator, and only its claw remains above the celestial equator for this new age.
4. Grendel's mother comes out of the marshes to reek revenge but is similarly defeated. The poet uses the strange phrase "that wolfish swimmer" which allows us to identify her with the constellation of Lupus (the Wolf), close to Scorpius, having preceded Scorpius into the mythic waters beneath the celestial equator. She is immensely old, with Biblical references to Cain, indicating that her fall into the waters was long ages ago. Lupus the wolf also has pagan associations with the Roman Empire, a society whose brutal suppression of early Christianity is remembered in this vile she-demon. Remember also that Rome's mythic founders, Romulus and Remus, were suckled by a she-wolf. Grendel's mother is loaded with so many mythic wolfish associations it's difficult to find any alternative constellation to fit her.
5. Many years later, in his old age, Beowulf battles a dragon, a familiar precessional image representing the polar constellation of Draco. Our hero stabs the creature in its only vulnerable place, representing the only place where the precessing Celestial North Pole passes through Draco. The dragon's hoard is knowledge of the precessional mechanism rather than physical gold.

This interpretation does not detract from the story which is a magnificent account of the values and actions of these northern warriors. The unknown scholar reveals a deep respect for the people and the times, and a desire to preserve, through the form of the Saga, their adventures for others to enjoy.

In writing this Saga for an Anglo-Saxon audience about Swedish warriors who go to the aid of a Danish king we now know the author had another motive - to preserve within this story knowledge of the ancient and royal science of precessional astronomy.