Wow, well, Queensryche when I want melancholy, philosophical inspiration. When I'm not writing, 80's music fits the bill. If I killing background noise and digging into a story though, Hans Zimmer, Danny Elfman, pretty much any movie score will thrust me into another world. Peter Gabriel's...
There are some great renditions of excerpts from Beowulf in Anglo-Saxon (the language of the original manuscript written about 300-500 years after the main thrust of the viking expansion, if I recall accurately) on youtube. Also of the Lord's Prayer. They are often performed by scholars who...