Paddymac, I've heard people tell stories from Beowulf, and it can be really great in the right tellers hands.

In reference to the thought on th pre-Christian Irish, I would have to disagree. Words become fixed on paper as opposed to in the head where they mutate to fit the situation. In storytelling, one doesn't use the same words as he or she heard the story told. The common term is stripping it down to "the bare bones". It sort of like taking a novel, writing a Cliff's Notes version, and them rebuilding from there. You may use some piece of language the way it was told, but by rebuilding it becomes your story. It's not to say that if you told a chapter of Beowulf, anyone would think you pulled it completly out of your head, but it would be your "Beowulf meets Grendel" at that point. I've heard people tell a story that I had already written off as boring, and draw mw to the edge of my seat with their telling of it.

Slán agat,
Rich