The Warrior Christ and the Unarmed Hero.

Christ of B.18 is a warrior with the paradoxical weapons of humility and passivity, as in the OE Dream of the Rood, and is depicted as a young knight of untried potential, unarmed and about to be dubbed, as in romances. The motif of a king eschewing armor as a gesture of defiance appears to be echoed in Dream of the Rood 39a, and is found explicitly in Beowulf’s fight with Grendel, Guthlac A 302-07, and various of the sagas which make up Snorri Sturluson’s Heimskringla.