@stefan well then here’s my question. Were the people listening to Beowulf a thousand years ago taking it as fiction or as a folk tale or as history? I realize now that I was suggesting to the child that Beowulf’s singers did actually believe dragons and monsters likely existed—unlike today!, when they’re popular but only as fiction (flat earth and reptile men conspiracy nuts notwithstanding)—but likely the truth is more complicated than I summarized.