The verse in which the story unfolds is, by common consent, the finest writing surviving in Old English, a text that all students of the language and many general readers will want to tackle in the original form. To aid understanding of the Old English, a literal word-by-word translation is printed opposite the edited Old English text and provides a practical key to this Anglo-Saxon masterpiece.
If you are learning Old English, the word-by-word translation will be very useful.