J.R.R. Tolkien translated the Old English poem Beowulf into modern English. His translation was published posthumously in 2014 in Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary, edited by Christopher Tolkien.
Tolkien completed the translation during the 1920s, before his later fame as a novelist. The published volume also contains Tolkien’s commentary on the poem and a related story, Sellic Spell. His scholarly engagement with Beowulf was especially important because he treated the poem as a carefully shaped work of literature rather than simply a historical source.
This translation is distinct from Tolkien’s celebrated lecture Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics, delivered in 1936. The lecture analyzes the poem; the later book presents Tolkien’s English rendering and notes. Beowulf itself tells of the hero’s battles with Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and a dragon.