<P> A study of German and Norse texts reveals three typical narratives for the dragonslayer: a fight for the treasure, a battle to save the slayer's people, or a fight to free a woman . The characteristics of Beowulf's dragon appear to be specific to the poem, and the poet may have melded together dragon motifs to create a dragon with specific traits that weave together the complicated plot of the narrative . </P> <P> The third act of the poem differs from the first two . In Beowulf's two earlier battles, Grendel and Grendel's mother are characterised as descendants of Cain: "(Grendel) had long lived in the land of monsters / since the creator cast them out / as the kindred of Cain" and seem to be humanoid: in the poet's rendition they can be seen as giants, trolls, or monsters . The dragon, therefore, is a stark contrast to the other two antagonists . Moreover, the dragon is more overtly destructive . He burns vast amounts of territory and the homes of the Geats: "the dragon began to belch out flames / and burn bright homesteads". </P> <P> Beowulf's fight with the dragon has been described variously as an act of either altruism or recklessness . In contrast with the previous battles, the fight with the dragon occurs in Beowulf's kingdom and ends in defeat, whereas Beowulf fought the other monsters victoriously in a land distant from his home . The dragon fight is foreshadowed with earlier events: Scyld Shefing's funeral and Sigmund's death by dragon, as recounted by a bard in Hrothgar's hall . Beowulf scholar Alexander writes that the dragon fight likely signifies Beowulf's (and by extension, society's) battle against evil . The people's fate depend on the outcome of the fight between the hero and the dragon, and, as a hero, Beowulf must knowingly face death . </P> <P> Beowulf's eventual death from the dragon presages "warfare, death, and darkness" for his Geats . The dragon's hoard symbolizes the vestige of an older society, now lost to wars and famine, left behind by a survivor of that period . His imagined elegy foreshadows Beowulf's death and elegy to come . Before he faces the dragon, Beowulf thinks of his past: his childhood and wars the Geats endured during that period, foreshadowing the future . At his death, peace in his lands will end, and his people will again suffer a period of war and hardship . An embattled society without "social cohesion" is represented by the avarice of the "dragon jealously guarding its gold hoard", and the elegy for Beowulf becomes an elegy for the entire culture . The dragon's hoard is representative of a people lost and antique, which is juxtaposed against the Geatish people, whose history is new and fleeting . As king of his people, Beowulf defends them against the dragon, and when his thanes desert him, the poem shows the disintegration of a "heroic society" which "depends upon the honouring of mutual obligations between lord and thane". </P>

What was the name of the dragon in beowulf