The fragment is significant as rare evidence of contemporaneous helmets, and also for its discovery in Gevninge, an outpost that is possibly connected to the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf.

It would have been part of a decorated "crested helmet", the type of headgear that was common to England and Scandinavia from the sixth through eleventh centuries AD.

Gevninge is three kilometres (1.9 mi) upriver from Lejre, a one-time centre of power believed to be the setting for Heorot, the fabled mead hall to which the poetical hero Beowulf journeys in search of the monster Grendel.

This mirrors Beowulf's experience on his way to Heorot, for upon disembarking he is met with a mounted lookout whose job it is "to watch the waves for raiders, and danger to the Danish shore."

[17] In the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf, a story about kings and nobles that partly takes place in Denmark, helmets are mentioned often, and in ways that indicate their significance.

[22][5] Yet a soldier guarding Gevninge, a riverside outpost on the way to the major city of Lejre, would have to be trustworthy, and perhaps also connected to the king by family or loyalty.

[22][13] The fragment was discovered in 2000 with the use of a metal detector during a minor excavation in Gevninge, a Viking Age settlement and modern-day village in Denmark to the west of Roskilde.

[25][26] The excavation was in response to the planned construction of houses on an undeveloped hectare of land in the middle of the village, but it unexpectedly revealed a farmstead with several buildings.

Gewat him þa to waroðe wicge ridan þegn Hroðgares, þrymmum cwehte mægenwudu mundum, meþelwordum frægn:

le wæs endesæta, ægwearde heold, þe on land Dena laðra nænig mid scipherge sceðþan ne meahte.

Næfre ic maran geseah eorla ofer eorþan ðonne is eower sum, secg on searwum; nis þæt seldguma, wæpnum geweorðad, næfne him his wlite leoge, ænlic ansyn.

Nu ic eower sceal frumcyn witan, ær ge fyr heonan, leassceaweras, on land Dena furþur feran.

Nu ge feorbuend, mereliðende, minne gehyrað anfealdne geþoht: Ofost is selest to gecyðanne hwanan eowre cyme syndon."

The watchman is a "noble warrior"[42] (guð-beorna[43]) who, after listening to Beowulf's explanation of his voyage, directs his men to watch the hero's boat and offers to escort him to king Hrothgar.