@potpie Of these 2 hands, they basically divide thematically—the 1st hand covers Grendel and his Mother, the 2nd covers the Dragon. As of this moment, we are done with the easy stuff. Turns out™ the scribal divide happens before the dragon-fight, before the 50-year gap, right in the middle of Hygelac's welcome home to Beowulf after he left Hrothgar, 3 lines into a page (on the back side of a page from the 1st hand), in the middle of a sentence clause—but breaking from line to line. 2/5

@potpie The second hand, by most paleographic accounts, is the more old-fashioned of the two, which may (or may not) indicate that the second scribe was older than the first scribe. And the second hand occasionally emends the first hand's language. At the same time, the second hand is less consistent with the spelling of names (but remember, spelling was as often "just how it sounds" than not). 3/5

@potpie Beowulf is included in a whole codex of other works; the works that come before Beowulf (Life of St. Christopher, The Wonders of the East, The Letter from Alexander to Aristotle) are all written down by the first hand, and the work that comes after Beowulf (Judith) is written down by the second hand. There may have been a work between Beowulf and Judith that's now lost. Also, Judith doesn't begin or end cleanly. 4/5

@potpie Basically, that's the weirdness—which led Kevin Kiernan (1981) to even speculate that the second scribe may be the actual real author, which would make the manuscript is the holograph (original-original). That's a bit too far for most people. Still, Kiernan's work on the manuscript itself is widely praised as invaluable. For anything else, [ask Mr. Owl](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBwJHXqryh0). 5/5

@potpie (Also, I’m twenty years out of date on Beowulf scholarship, so take everything with that grain of salt) 6/5