Mr. Benjamin Thorpe, in the preface to his edition of the poem (1855) says--"With respect to this the oldest heroic poem in any Germanic tongue, my opinion is, that it is not an original production of the Anglo-Saxon muse, but a metrical paraphrase of an heroic Saga composed in the south-west of Sweden, in the old common language of the north, and probably brought to this country during the sway of the Danish dynasty. It is in this light only that I can view a work evincing a knowledge of northern localities and persons, hardly to be acquired by a native of England in those days of ignorance with regard to remote foreign parts. And what interest could an Anglo-Saxon feel in the valourous feats of his deadly foes, the northmen? in the encounter of a Sweo-Gothic hero with a monster in Denmark? or with a fire-drake in his own country? The answer, I think, is obvious--_none whatever_." In a note Mr. Thorpe says--"Let us cherish the hope that the original Saga may one day be discovered in some Swedish library." The only MS. of the poem extant, (MS. Cott. Vitellius A. 15), he says--"I take to be of the first half of the eleventh century." With respect to the strictly historical character of this poem, Mr. Thorpe says--"Preceding editors have regarded the poem of Beowulf as a myth, and its heroes as beings of a divine order.[24] To my dull perception these appear as real kings and chieftains of the North, some of them as Hygelac and Offa, entering within the pale of authentic history, while the names of others may have perished, either because the records in which they were chronicled are no longer extant, or the individuals themselves were not of sufficient importance to occupy a place in them." Mr. Haigh likewise contends for the historic value of the poem; but attributes its locality to Britain. Some of the legends and traditions of the North of England certainly suggest that the Scandinavian population settled there were either acquainted with the poem or the legendary elements which strongly characterise it, and upon which it is evidently mainly constructed, whatever strictly historical matter, as in the romances of Richard Cœur de Lion, Charlemagne, Arthur, and others, may have become incorporated therewith.[25] Mr. John R. Green ("The Making of England") says, "The song as we have it now is a poem of the eighth century, the work it may be of some English missionary of the days of Beda and Boniface, who gathered in the homeland of his race the legend of its earlier prime."