The world of Beowulf might seem at first to be a place of pure brawn. Beowulf can swim the ocean for weeks at a time, dive down into the mere for a full day without taking a breath, and wrestle monsters to death with his bare hands. However, these tales of superhuman power rest on a fragile structure. While the poem lauds heroism, its deeper concern is with the leadership that can spring from overvaluing it—and the risks and doubts of that leadership.

Hrothgar makes this point well in his speech of guidance to Beowulf: 

Sometimes [God] allows the mind of a man

of distinguished birth to follow its bent,

grants him fulfilment and felicity on earth

and forts to command in his own country […] 

until the man in his unthinkingness

forgets that it will ever end for him.

[…]The whole world

conforms to his will, he is kept from the worst

until an element of overweening

enters him and takes hold (119). 

Heroism, Hrothgar explains, cannot be taken for granted, or considered exclusively one’s own virtue. The broader structures of society (and of a hero’s soul) can’t function simultaneously with this singular ability. Though heroism can confer glory, its rightful role is in relation to the culture it protects.