It is true that Beowulf and the Finnsburgh episode if extrapolated as historical would be set in about the 5th century. But it is naive to assume that the literary tradition as it sets in around the 10th century takes as its core material things that happened in the 5th century exclusively. As much as I believe that most of these legends are based on historical templates, the actual historical material mixed into them more likely than not span all of the 5th to the 9th centuries. So it isn't at all implausible, as suggested in the references cited, that characters set in this "5th century" drama take their names from historical 8th century individuals. The half-millennium of "Dark Ages" gets mixed up into a single "heroic age", with genuinely historical traditions sitting alongside dragons and dwarves. --dab (𒁳) 11:05, 19 November 2010 (UTC)Reply
