Dave Barry, on Beowulf:
"If my memory serves me correctly (and I believe it does, because I am
copying this from the encyclopedia) Beowulf is an Old English epic poem
concerning a hero who freed the court of the Danish king Hrothgar from the
ravages of the ogre Grendel and Grendel's mother and thus became king of the
Geats. This raises questions, including: Why would anybody want to be king
of the Geats? I mean, the word 'Geat' sounds like an insult, doesn't it? As
in: 'Some stupid Geat put salami in the disk drive!' (Let me state, before I
get a bunch of hate mail, that I myself am two-thirds Geatish.)"