“I risked my life often when I was young. Now I am old, but as king of the people I shall pursue this fight for the glory of winning” (lines 2511-2514). In the oldest surviving English story Beowulf, our protagonist Beowulf the Geat warrior raises beyond all challenges set in front of him in his lifetime, and conquers them, bringing forth glory and justice for himself and his people. In the epic poem Beowulf is characterized as a great warrior, established as a righteous hero, remembered as a gracious king, and represents the theme of Ubi Sunt. First and foremost; Beowulf is characterized in the story as a great and legendary warrior [one set of lines from the story that describing this is from the very beginning]. The first three lines [telling about him] state “There was no one else like him alive. In his day, he was the mightiest man on earth, high-born and powerful,” (lines 196-198). These lines directly say that Beowulf was a one of a kind warrior. He was so mighty that nobody in the whole earth could amount to his strength. Also, it says Beowulf was of nobility, because he was highborn, making him ever more special and powerful since he had those connections and ties. From the start we the readers view Beowulf as a truly special warrior.  A second piece of evidence showing that Beowulf is a good warrior according to his own code, or the Anglo-Saxon code, is in the single fact that he believes in himself confidently and uses boasting as a reasonable way to increase his honor and reputation as a great warrior. “All knew of my awesome strength. They had seen me bolstered in the blood of enemies when I battled and bound five beasts, raided a troll-nest and in the night-sea slaughtered sea-brutes,” (lines 418-422) is a confident boast that Beowulf tells to King Hrothgar, where he brags about the great battles that he’s been in that the highest of Geat councilmen knew about Beowulf. This shows that Beowulf was in a way conceited within his self-confidence. Being overly confident in oneself was seen as a good trait for a warrior to have in this time period, and they used boasting to increase their reputation. A last claim to make about Beowulf’s warrior character is that he can be competitive with others, another good warrior trait to have in this time period. An example of him being competitive is when Beowulf competed in a swimming race against Breca. In the poem, Unferth confronts Beowulf about this; “risking the water just to prove that you could win? It was sheer vanity made you venture out on the main deep. And no matter who tried, friend or foe, to deflect the pair of you, neither would back down: the sea-test obsessed you,” (Lines 508-512).  From these lines we know that Beowulf participated in the dangerous swimming race out of pride so that he could win all the glory when he defeated Breca. It tells of Beowulf’s obsession to prove him worthy and win fame, and his thirst for competition. We can see now that the type of character Beowulf embodies the most is a confident warrior-hero, and that these traits from Beowulf’s warrior character are large motives for fighting the big duels he fought against Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and the Dragon. Now, for a second large point to make about Beowulf is that he is well established throughout the book as a righteous and even legendary hero. For one, he was well established back in his home nation of Geatland as a fierce warrior-hero for the people, and excelled at being a fighter. Beowulf had the desire to excel and stood above the standard because of the tough road he chose to take that no others walked Beowulf in one scene of the story states “I have suffered extremes and avenged the Geats (their enemies brought it upon themselves, I devastated them),” (lines 422-423). In this statement Beowulf says that he suffered through extremes to avenge his people. So this shows that he stands for and is loyal to a group of people, and is willing to sacrifice himself and suffer through pain to protect others. This sort of loyalty is something that all heroes should have, whether they are Anglo-Saxon or modern. A second thing we see in the story is that Beowulf courageously chooses to go and defend Denmark from being terrorized by Grendel, and furthermore Grendel’s mother. For instance, in these lines we see just how courageous Beowulf is:  “He announced his plan: to sail the swan’s road and search out that king, the famous prince that needed defenders. Nobody tried to keep him from going,” (Lines 199-202). We see here that when he heard about the need for a defender in Denmark, he immediately formulated a plan to help, and nobody was going to stop him from accomplishing that. He was courageous enough to face a demon that no other warrior had a chance against. Courage was seen in Anglo-Saxon times as a trait that marks a hero, and we still