“That his work cannot now be read at all without trouble, nor understood and valued in detail without sustained effort, is due under God to wyrd [fate/personal destiny], the doom of men to live briefly in a world where all withers and is forgotten. The English language has changed — but not necessarily improved! — in a thousand years. Wyrd has swept away to oblivion nearly all its kin; but Beowulf survives: for a time, for as long as learning keeps any honour in its land. And how long will that be? God ana wat” [God alone knows.] (J.R.R. Tolkien, Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary, 275).