In the program, American Benjamin Bagby plays the fairy tale on song and harp as it may have sounded when the bards presented it at the time of the migration.
But Benjamin Bagby does not describe it as he sings as he performs the story.
- I am careful with the word "singing" because I believe more in using the voice in all possible forms, somewhere between talking and singing and between screaming and whispering, he says in the program.
A blood-curdling story
History was written down in England around the 7th century, but takes place in southern Scandinavia. It is about the hero Beowulf who went to Denmark in the 500s to help the Danish king to kill the beast Grendel.
But long before the saga was written down, it may have been put forward by Bard in a manner similar to what Benjamin Bagby came up with.
- I don't know if it sounds authentic. We may not be able to imagine what it sounded like. But this probably did not sound strange to them, he says in the program.
Here is the whole clip when Benjamin Bagby presents the story of Beowulf:
In the world of science - true stories we find out what connections the story of Beowulf has to our Swedish history and what parts of it can be true. The program will be broadcast in SVT2 at 20:00 on October 21, 2019 and can be viewed on SVT play from October 20.