To Remember the Story is to Understand the Calendar

The actions of Beowulf the hero are a mnemonic for the calendar that tells the viewer just when in the year he is. The viewer looks at the eastern horizon at dawn, sees the place the sun will come up, the particular stars at the horizon, and knows when it is and what he must do. He tells himself that part of the story related to what he sees and knows for certain what is to come. The story maintains his memory of the eastern horizon at dawn, the figures of the story giving him the month, the individual stars giving him the precise date. Nothing else in his environment does this for him.