You see a wooden object sitting at the edge of the table... look closely and you'll see thin strings and tiny, intricate metal fittings and ornaments... it's a lyre! Does this mean that Anglo-Saxon poetry was performed with musical accompaniment? Can you imagine the heroic feats of Beowulf and the terrifying fights with Grendel and the dragon SUNG alongside the plinks and strummed chords of a six-stringed lyre? It's possible!

To hear performer Benjamin Bagby's version of what a musical performance of "Beowulf" may have sounded like, check out this video clip: http://www.bagbybeowulf.com/video/index.html

This lyre is very similar to the remnants of an instrument found at Sutton Hoo, a 6th-century royal burial in Anglia. On the west wall of that funeral barrow, archaeologists discovered the metal ornaments and bits of the wooden frame of a lyre in a beaver-skin bag. The instrument itself is kept with the other treasures of Sutton Hoo, at the British Museum:
http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_image.aspx?image=k27316.jpg&retpage=20736