Beowulf: Fact or Fiction?

There was one question I had about Beowulf.  Is this a story that was meant to be taken as fact, as the creation stories and others we have studied, or was this story simply a fictional narrative that was told for enjoyment?  It seems like most of the texts that we have read so far have been somewhat religious or have had a “deeper” meaning than what was on the surface of the stories, and I was wondering if Beowulf fell into this category.  I did a little research, and I was never able to nail down how the story was supposed to be read.  I don’t think it is a religious text at all, because it does not seem to have any religious elements.  But it does have some elements of the supernatural.  Grendel and his mother are “monsters,” and there is also the dragon that Beowulf fights later on in the story.  And the fact that Beowulf has this “superhuman” strength, and is able to defeat these supernatural beings, I believe also lends itself to the fact of this story being fiction.

I read that some of the characters in Beowulf may have had real life inspiration, but Beowulf himself was probably just completely made up.  The setting of Beowulf however is definitely real.  The story takes place in northern Europe.  Northern Europe at the time of the story was populated by the Danes, the Swedes, and the Geats.  All these factors I believe contribute to my conclusion that Beowulf is simply a fictional story that was made to be read/told for entertainment purposes only.  Although I’m sure there are lessons that could be learned from the tale of Beowulf, I don’t believe that the original writer/teller of the story meant it to be a religious or even factual text.