<P> The final act of the Anglo - Saxon poem Beowulf is about the hero Beowulf's fight with a dragon, the third monster he encounters in the epic . On his return from Heorot, where he killed Grendel and Grendel's mother, Beowulf becomes king of the Geats and rules peacefully for fifty winters until a slave awakens and angers a dragon by stealing a jewelled cup from its lair in order to gain freedom from killing his brother . When the angry dragon mercilessly burns the Geats' homes and lands, Beowulf decides to fight and kill the monster personally . He and his thanes climb to the dragon's lair where, upon seeing the beast, the thanes flee in terror, leaving only Wiglaf to battle at Beowulf's side . When the dragon wounds Beowulf fatally, Wiglaf slays it . </P> <P> This depiction indicates the growing importance and stabilization of the modern concept of the dragon within European mythology . Beowulf is the first piece of English literature to present a dragonslayer . Although many motifs common to the Beowulf dragon existed in the Scandinavian and Germanic literature, the Beowulf poet was the first to combine features and present a distinctive fire - breathing dragon . The Beowulf dragon was later copied in literature with similar themes such as J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit (1937), one of the forerunners of modern high fantasy . </P>

What caused the dragon to wake up in beowulf
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