<p>Monsters and the monstrous, whether from the remote pagan past or the new world of Christian Latin learning, haunted the Anglo-Saxon imagination in a variety of ways. In this series of detailed studies, Andy Orchard demonstrates the changing range of Anglo-Saxon attitudes towards the monstrous by reconsidering the monsters of <i>Beowulf</i> against the background of early medieval and patristic teratology and with reference to specific Anglo-Saxon texts.</p><p>The immediate manuscript context of the monsters in <i>Beowulf</i> is analysed, shedding light on the poet's treatment of the theme of the monstrous and its integration into his work, and a series of parallel discussions consider a range of medieval treatments of the same theme in a variety of analogous texts (all provided with translation), in Latin, Old English, Middle Irish, and Old Icelandic.</p><p>The twin themes of pride and prodigies are suggested by tracing changing attitudes towards the concept of pride and establishing a close link between the proud pagan warriors depicted in Christian tradition and the monsters they fight, and with whom they become increasingly identified.</p><p>An appendix contains new editions and translations (some for the first time in English) of the <I>Liber Monstrorum</I>, <I>The Letter of Alexander to Aristotle</I>, and <I>The Wonders of the East</I>.</p><p>Originally published in 1995 by Boydell & Brewer.</p>