This poem has both Pagan and Christian ideals. The Christianity at the beginning is mostly used in character descriptions with light, positive words. When Beowulf is fighting with Grendel, Grendel's mother, and the dragon, it is dark and once he defeats them it becomes more light and positive. This represents how God helped him through the battle and God was “showing himself” through the light. The Paganism in the selection is mostly evident through the actions of Beowulf and other characters. For example, the fate that we see Beowulf constantly referring to and his boastful actions are characteristics of Pagan ideas. The greed, wealth, and desire for fame and gold seen mostly during battles are also examples of Paganism. As the poem goes on, it becomes more and more Pagan. At the beginning, success is attributed to God through Christianity and is later attributes to the great warrior, Beowulf, which is a Pagan idea.
Christianity and Paganism aren't as evident in Grendel as they are in Beowulf. Grendel oversees a priest talking about how the people have began to drift away from Paganism. The priest says the Pagan god, "the destroyer", sets limitations on mankind and judges the value of all objects. Also, in the past, Grendel has destroyed their ring of stone gods and he watched them slave to rebuild the stones very quickly. These actions offeneded the people because they honored the stone God. It is evident that Grendel is not Christian, in fact he makes gum of Unferth for believing in God. When they are fighting, Unferth asks "are you right with your God?" and in return Grendel tells how he laughed that Unferth was "one of those", meaning Christian. Overall, this book shows more Pagan ideas than Christian ideas.