Compare and contrast Beowulf and Hercules.

Both Beowulf and Hercules are arguably by origin divine heroes. On a more secular plane, they are both royal warriors. And of course they are the "heroes" or principal characters of their respective stories. Both are European in origin. More specifically, we can point out that stories of Hercules inspired Germanic listeners to acts of martial bravery and to heroic deeds during the Roman period, just as Beowulf's story inspired a later generation of Germanic warriors. Also like Beowulf, Hercules is said to have fought with monsters in caves. Hercules fights with the monster Cacus, while Beowulf encounters the deadly dragon. Perhaps the two heroes have a common Indo-European origin, and both heroes figure in royal genealogies of historical tribes, the one in Denmark, the other in Greece.