Beowulf is an epic poem that falls under the genre of heroic epic. It is a long poem that recounts the deeds of a legendary warrior, Beowulf, who sets a moral example through his story. The poem is set in Scandinavia in the early sixth century and concerns the heroic deeds of Beowulf, a Scandinavian warrior who offers his services to King Hrothgar of the Danes to help defeat a monster called Grendel who has been terrorizing the kingdom. The ethical code in Beowulf is the warrior code of ancient Northern Europe, which was already becoming a thing of the past when the poem was written. For this reason, J.R.R. Tolkien suggested that the poem should be labeled an “elegy” rather than an “epic” because it mourns a heroic set of values which have been lost, and which may have been tragically misguided in the first place.