Poetry & Story
Grendel and the Kin of Cain: Beowulf’s Monster Genealogy
Why does Beowulf trace Grendel’s ancestry to Cain? Explore a monster shaped by violence, exile and broken kinship.
Read the essay →Easily digested essays and deep dives into the poetry, religion, culture, and everyday life of the Anglo-Saxons.
Christian poets inherited a heroic past. In Beowulf, The Dream of the Rood and the elegies, they gave its familiar stories new meaning.
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Poetry & Story
Why does Beowulf trace Grendel’s ancestry to Cain? Explore a monster shaped by violence, exile and broken kinship.
Read the essay →
Everyday Life
Food, farming and the work of the household: discover the rhythms and uncertainties of daily life in Anglo-Saxon England.
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The Viking Influence
Coins, bullion and merchants’ scales reveal how Scandinavian settlement reshaped trade in Anglo-Saxon England.
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WULFCRÆFT is created by Michael Riley, an English Studies graduate whose fascination with Beowulf grew into an exploration of Old English poetry, language, and everyday Anglo-Saxon life. Through essays and illustrated guides, he brings readers closer to the texts and material culture of early medieval England.
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