CHAPTER II
THE NON-HISTORICAL ELEMENTS
Section I. The Grendel Fight.
When we come to the story of Beowulf's struggle with Grendel, with Grendel's mother, and with the dragon, we are faced by difficulties much greater than those which meet us when considering that background of Danish or Geatic history in which these stories are framed.
In the first place, it is both surprising and confusing that, in the prologue, before the main story begins, another Beowulf is introduced, the son of Scyld Scefing. Much emphasis is laid upon the upbringing and youthful fame of this prince, and the glory of his father. Any reader would suppose that the poet is going on to tell of his adventures, when suddenly the story is switched off, and, after brief mention of this Beowulf's son, Healfdene, we come to Hrothgar, the building of Heorot, Grendel's attack, and the voyage of Beowulf the Geat to the rescue.
Now "Beowulf" is an exceedingly rare name. The presence of the earlier Beowulf, Scyld's son, seems then to demand explanation, and many critics, working on quite different lines, have arrived independently at the conclusion that either the story of Grendel and his mother, or the story of the dragon, or both stories, were originally told of the son of Scyld, and only afterwards transferred to the Geatic hero. This has indeed been generally accepted, almost from the beginning of
Beowulf criticism[[83]]. Yet, though possible enough, it does not admit of any demonstration.
Now Beowulf, son of Scyld, clearly corresponds to a Beow or Beaw in the West Saxon genealogy. In this genealogy Beow is always connected with Scyld and Scef, and in some versions the relations are identical with those given in Beowulf: Beow, son of Scyld, son of Scef, in the genealogies[[84]], corresponding to Beowulf, son of Scyld Scefing, in our poem. Hence arose the further speculation of many scholars that the hero who slays the monsters was originally called, not Beowulf, but Beow, and that he was identical with the hero in the West Saxon pedigree; in other words, that the original story was of a hero Beow (son of Scyld) who slew a monster and a dragon: and that this adventure was only subsequently transferred to Beowulf, prince of the Geatas.
This is a theory based upon a theory, and some confirmation may reasonably be asked, before it is entertained. As to the dragon-slaying, the confirmatory evidence is open to extreme doubt. It is dealt with in Section VII (Beowulf-Frotho), below. As to Grendel, one such piece of confirmation there is. The conquering Angles and Saxons seem to have given the names of their heroes to the lands they won in England: some such names—'Wade's causeway,' 'Weyland's smithy'—have survived to modern times. The evidence of the Anglo-Saxon charters shows that very many which have now been lost existed in England prior to the Conquest. Now in a Wiltshire charter of the year 931, we have Bēowan hammes hecgan mentioned not far from a Grendles mere. This has been claimed as evidence that the story of Grendel, with Beow as his adversary, was localized in Wiltshire in the reign of Athelstan, and perhaps had been localized there since the settlement four centuries previously. Until recently this was accepted as definitely
proving that the Beowulf-Grendel story was derived from an ancient Beow-myth. Yet one such instance of name-association is not conclusive. We cannot leave out of consideration the possibility of its being a mere chance coincidence, especially considering how large is the number of place names recorded in Old English charters. Of late, people have become more sceptical in drawing inferences from proper names, and quite recently there has been a tendency entirely to overlook the evidence of the charter, by way of making compensation for having hitherto overrated it.
All that can be said with certainty is that it is remarkable that a place named after Beowa should be found in the immediate proximity of a "Grendel's lake," and that this fact supports the possibility, though it assuredly does not prove, that in the oldest versions of the tale the monster queller was named Beow, not Beowulf. But it is only a possibility: it is not grounded upon any real evidence.
These crucial references occur in a charter given by Athelstan at Luton, concerning a grant of land at Ham in Wiltshire to his thane Wulfgar. [See Birch, Cartularium Saxonicum, 1887, vol. II, p. 363.]
... Ego Æðelstanus, rex Anglorum ... quandam telluris particulam meo fideli ministro Wulfgaro ... in loco quem solicolae œt Hamme vocitant tribuo ... Praedicta siquidem tellus his terminis circumcincta clarescit....
ðonne norð ofer dūne on mēos-hlinc westeweardne; ðonne adūne on ðā yfre on bēowan hammes hecgan, on brēmeles sceagan ēasteweardne; ðonne on ðā blācan grǣfan; ðonne norð be ðēm ondhēafdan tō ðǣre scortan dīc būtan ānan æcre; ðonne tō fugelmere tō ðān wege; ondlong weges tō ottes forda; ðonon tō wudumere; ðonne tō ðǣre rūwan hecgan; ðæt on langan hangran; ðonne on grendles mere; ðonon on dyrnan geat....
Ambiguous as this evidence is, I do not think it can be dismissed as it is by Lawrence (Pub. Mod. Lang. Assoc. Amer. XXIV, 252) and Panzer (Beowulf, 397), who both say "How do we know that it is not the merest chance?" It may of course be chance: but this does not justify us in basing an argument upon the assumption that it is the merest chance. Lawrence continues: "Suppose one were to set up a theory that there was a saga-relation between Scyld and Bikki, and offered as proof the passage in the charter for the year 917 in which there are mentioned, as in the same district, scyldes treow and bican sell.... How much weight would this carry?"
The answer surely is that the occurrence of the two names together in the charter would, by itself, give no basis whatever for starting such a theory: but if, on other grounds, the theory were likely, then the occurrence of the two names together would certainly have some corroborative value. Exactly how much, it is impossible to say, because we cannot estimate the element of chance, and we cannot be certain that the grendel and the beowa mentioned are identical with our Grendel and our Beowulf.
Miller has argued [Academy, May 1894, p. 396] that grendles is not a proper name here, but a common noun signifying "drain," and that grendles mere therefore means "cesspool."
Now "grindle" is found in modern dialect and even in Middle English[[85]] in the sense of "a narrow ditch" or "gutter," but I doubt if it can be proved to be an Old English word. Evidence would rather point to its being an East Anglian corruption of the much more widely spread drindle, or dringle, used both as a verb "to go slowly, to trickle," and as "a small trickling stream." And even if an O.E. grendel as a common noun meaning "gutter" were authenticated, it seems unlikely to me that places were named "the fen," "the mere," "the pit," "the brook"—"of the gutter." There is no ground whatever for supposing the existence of an O.E. grendel = "sewer," or anything which would lead us to suppose grendles mere or gryndeles sylle to mean "cesspool[[86]]." Surely it is probable, knowing what we do of the way in which the English settlers gave epic names to the localities around their settlements, that these places were named after Grendel because they seemed the sort of place where his story might be localized—like "Weyland's smithy" or "Wade's causeway": and that the meaning is "Grendel's fen," "mere," "pit" or "brook."
Again, both Panzer and Lawrence suggest that the Beowa who gave his name to the ham may have been, not the hero, but "an ordinary mortal called after him" ... "some individual who lived in this locality." But, among the numerous English proper names recorded, can any instance be found of any individual named Beowa? And was it in accordance with the rules of Old English nomenclature to give to mortals the names of these heroes of the genealogies[[87]]?
Recent scepticism as to the "Beow-myth" has been largely due to the fact that speculation as to Beow had been carried too far. For example, because Beow appeared in the West Saxon genealogy, it had been assumed that the Beow-myth belonged essentially to the Angles and Saxons. Yet Beow would seem to have been also known among Scandinavians. For in somewhat later days Scandinavian genealogists, when they had made the acquaintance of the Anglo-Saxon pedigrees, noted that Beow had a Scandinavian counterpart in a hero whom they called Bjar[[88]]. That something was known in the north of this Bjar is proved by the Kálfsvísa, that same catalogue of famous heroes and their horses which we have already found giving us the counterparts of Onela and Eadgils. Yet this dry reference serves to show that Bjar must once have been sufficiently famous to have a horse specially his own[[89]]. Whether the fourteenth century Scandinavian who made Bjar the Northern equivalent of Beow was merely guessing, we unfortunately cannot tell. Most probably he was, for there is reason to think that the hero corresponding to Beow was named, not Bjár, but Byggvir[[90]]: a correspondence intelligible to modern philologists as in agreement with phonetic law, but naturally not obvious to an Icelandic genealogist. But however this may be, the assumption that Beow was peculiarly the hero of Angles and Saxons seems hardly justified.
Again, since Beow is an ancestor of Woden, it was further assumed that he was an ancient god, and that in the story of his adventures we had to deal with a nature-myth of a divine deliverer who saved the people from Grendel and his mother, the personified powers of the stormy sea. It is with the name of Müllenhoff, its most enthusiastic and ablest advocate, that this "mythological theory" is particularly associated. That Grendel is fictitious no one, of course, would deny. But Müllenhoff and his school, in applying the term "mythical" to those portions of the Beowulf story for which no historical explanation could be found, meant that they enshrined nature-myths. They thought that those elements in heroic poetry which could not be referred back to actual fact must be traced to ancient stories in which were recorded the nation's belief about the sun and the gods: about storms and seasons.
The different mythological explanations of Beowulf-Beowa and Grendel have depended mainly upon hazardous etymological explanations of the hero's name. The most popular is Müllenhoff's interpretation. Beaw is the divine helper of man in his struggle with the elements. Grendel represents the stormy North Sea of early spring, flooding and destroying the habitations of men, till the god rescues them: Grendel's mother represents the depths of the ocean. But in the autumn the power of the god wanes: the dragon personifies the coming of the wild weather: the god sinks in his final struggle to safeguard the treasures of the earth for his people[[91]]. Others, remembering that Grendel dwells in the fen, see in him rather a demon of the sea-marsh than of the sea itself: he is the pestilential swamp[[92]], and the hero a wind which drives him away[[93]]. Or, whilst Grendel still represents the storms, his antagonist is a "Blitzheros[[94]]." Others, whilst hardly ranking Beowulf as
a god, still see an allegory in his adventures, and Grendel must be a personification either of an inundation[[95]], or of the terror of the long winter nights[[96]], or possibly of grinding at the mill, the work of the enslaved foe[[97]].
Such explanations were till recently universally current: the instances given above might be increased considerably.
Sufficient allowance was not made for the influence upon heroic poetry of the simple popular folk-tale, a tale of wonder with no mythological or allegorical meaning. Now, of late years, there has been a tendency not only to recognize but even to exaggerate this influence: to regard the hero of the folk-tale as the original and essential element in heroic poetry[[98]]. Though this is assuredly to go too far, it is but reasonable to recognize the fairy tale element in the O.E. epic.
We have in Beowulf a story of giant-killing and dragon-slaying. Why should we construct a legend of the gods or a nature-myth to account for these tales? Why must Grendel or his mother represent the tempest, or the malaria, or the drear long winter nights? We know that tales of giant-killers and dragon-slayers have been current among the people of Europe for thousands of years. Is it not far more easy to regard the story of the fight between Beowulf and Grendel merely as a fairy tale, glorified into an epic[[99]]?
Those students who of late years have tried thus to elucidate the story of Beowulf and Grendel, by comparison with folk-tales, have one great advantage over Müllenhoff and the "mythological" school. The weak point of Müllenhoff's view was that the nature-myth of Beow, which was called in to explain the origin of the Beowulf story as we have it, was itself only an assumption, a conjectural reconstruction. But the various popular tales in which scholars have more recently tried to find parallels to Beowulf have this great merit, that
they do indubitably exist. And as to the first step—the parallel between Beowulf and the Grettis saga—there can, fortunately, be but little hesitation.
Section II. The Scandinavian Parallels—Grettir and Orm.
The Grettis saga tells the adventures of the most famous of all Icelandic outlaws, Grettir the strong. As to the historic existence of Grettir there is no doubt: we can even date the main events of his life, in spite of chronological inconsistencies, with some precision. But between the year 1031, when he was killed, and the latter half of the thirteenth century, when his saga took form, many fictitious episodes, derived from folk-lore, had woven themselves around his name. Of these, one bears a great, if possibly accidental, likeness to the Grendel story: the second is emphatically and unmistakably the same story as that of Grendel and his mother. In the first, Grettir stops at a farm house which is haunted by Glam, a ghost of monstrous stature. Grettir awaits his attack alone, but, like Beowulf, lying down. Glam's entry and onset resemble those of Grendel: when Grettir closes with him he tries to get out. They wrestle the length of the hall, and break all before them. Grettir supports himself against anything that will give him foothold, but for all his efforts he is dragged as far as the door. There he suddenly changes his tactics, and throws his whole weight upon his adversary. The monster falls, undermost, so that Grettir is able to draw, and strike off his head; though not till Glam has laid upon Grettir a curse which drags him to his doom.
The second story—the adventure of Grettir at Sandhaugar (Sandheaps)—begins in much the same way as that of Grettir and Glam. Grettir is staying in a haunted farm, from which first the farmer himself and then a house-carl have, on two successive Yuletides, been spirited away. As before, a light burns in the room all night, and Grettir awaits the attack alone, lying down, without having put off his clothes. As before, Grettir and his assailant wrestle down the room, breaking all
in their way. But this time Grettir is pulled put of the hall, and dragged to the brink of the neighbouring gorge. Here, by a final effort, he wrenches a hand free, draws, and hews off the arm of the ogress, who falls into the torrent below.
Grettir conjectures that the two missing men must have been pulled by the ogress into the gulf. This, after his experience, is surely a reasonable inference: but Stein, the priest, is unconvinced. So they go together to the river, and find the side of the ravine a sheer precipice: it is ten fathom down to the water below the fall. Grettir lets down a rope: the priest is to watch it. Then Grettir dives in: "the priest saw the soles of his feet, and then knew no more what had become of him." Grettir swims under the fall and gets into the cave, where he sees a giant sitting by a fire: the giant aims a blow at him with a weapon with a wooden handle ("such a weapon men then called a hefti-sax"). Grettir hews it asunder. The giant then grasps at another sword hanging on the wall of the cave, but before he can use it Grettir wounds him. Stein, the priest, seeing the water stained with blood from this wound, concludes that Grettir is dead, and departs home, lamenting the loss of such a man. "But Grettir let little space come between his blows till the giant lay dead." Grettir finds the bones of the two dead men in the cave, and bears them away with him to convince the priest: but when he reaches the rope and shakes it, there is no reply, and he has to climb up, unaided. He leaves the bones in the church porch, for the confusion of the priest, who has to admit that he has failed to do his part faithfully.
Now if we compare this with Beowulf, we see that in the Icelandic story much is different: for example, in the Grettis saga it is the female monster who raids the habitation of men, the male who stays at home in his den. In this the Grettis saga probably represents a corrupt tradition: for, that the female should remain at home whilst the male searches for his prey, is a rule which holds good for devils as well as for men[[100]].
The change was presumably made in order to avoid the difficulty—which the Beowulf poet seems also to have realized—that after the male has been slain, the rout of the female is felt to be a deed of less note—something of an anti-climax[[101]].
The sword on the wall, also, which in the Beowulf-story is used by the hero, is, in the Grettir-story, used by the giant in his attack on the hero.
But that the two stories are somehow connected cannot be disputed. Apart from the general likeness, we have details such as the escape of the monster after the loss of an arm, the fire burning in the cave, the hefti-sax, a word which, like its old English equivalent (hæft-mēce, Beowulf, 1457), is found in this story only, and the strange reasoning of the watchers that the blood-stained water must necessarily be due to the hero's death[[102]].
Now obviously such a series of resemblances cannot be the result of an accident. Either the Grettir-story is derived directly or indirectly from the Beowulf epic, more or less as we have it, or both stories are derived from one common earlier source. The scholars who first discovered the resemblance believed that both stories were independently derived from one original[[103]]. This view has generally been endorsed by later investigators, but not universally[[104]]. And this is one of the questions which the student cannot leave open, because our view of the origin of the Grendel-story will have to depend largely upon the view we take as to its connection with the episode in the Grettis saga.
If this episode be derived from Beowulf, then we have an interesting literary curiosity, but nothing further. But if it is
independently derived from a common source, then the episode in the saga, although so much later, may nevertheless contain features which have been obliterated or confused or forgotten in the Beowulf version. In that case the story, as given in the Grettis saga, would be of great weight in any attempt to reconstruct the presumed original form of the Grendel-story.
The evidence seems to me to support strongly the view of the majority of scholars—that the Grettir-episode is not derived from Beowulf in the form in which that poem has come down to us, but that both come from one common source.
It is certain that the story of the monster invading a dwelling of men and rendering it uninhabitable, till the adventurous deliverer arrives, did not originate with Hrothgar and Heorot. It is an ancient and widespread type of story, of which one version is localized at the Danish court. When therefore we find it existing, independently of its Danish setting, the presumption is in favour of this being a survival of the old independent story. Of course it is conceivable that the Hrothgar-Heorot setting might have been first added, and subsequently stripped off again so clean that no trace of it remains. But it seems going out of our way to assume this, unless we are forced to do so[[105]].
Again, it is certain that these stories—like all the subject matter of the Old English epic—did not originate in England, but were brought across the North Sea from the old home. And that old home was in the closest connection, so far as the passage to and fro of story went, with Scandinavian lands. Nothing could be intrinsically more probable than that a story, current in ancient Angel and carried thence to England, should also have been current in Scandinavia, and thence have been carried to Iceland.
Other stories which were current in England in the eighth century were also current in Scandinavia in the thirteenth. Yet this does not mean that the tales of Hroar and Rolf, or of Athils and Ali, were borrowed from English epic accounts of Hrothgar and Hrothulf, or Eadgils and Onela. They were part of the common inheritance—as much so as the strong verbs
or the alliterative line. Why then, contrary to all analogy, should we assume a literary borrowing in the case of the Beowulf-Grettir-story? The compiler of the Grettis saga could not possibly have drawn his material from a MS of Beowulf[[106]]: he could not have made sense of a single passage. He conceivably might have drawn from traditions derived from the Old English epic. But it is difficult to see how. Long before his time these traditions had for the most part been forgotten in England itself. One of the longest lived of all, that of Offa, is heard of for the last time in England at the beginning of the thirteenth century. That a Scandinavian sagaman at the end of the century could have been in touch, in any way, with Anglo-Saxon epic tradition seems on the whole unlikely. The Scandinavian tradition of Offa, scholars are now agreed[[107]], was not borrowed from England, and there is no reason why we should assume such borrowing in the case of Grettir.
The probability is, then, considerable, that the Beowulf-story and the Grettir-story are independently derived from one common original.
And this probability would be confirmed to a certainty if we should find that features which have been confused and half obliterated in the O.E. story become clear when we turn to the Icelandic. This argument has lately been brought forward by Dr Lawrence in his essay on "The Haunted Mere in Beowulf[[108]]." Impressive as the account of this mere is, it does not convey any very clear picture. Grendel's home seems sometimes to be in the sea: and again it seems to be amid marshes, moors and fens, and again it is "where the mountain torrent goes down under the darkness of the cliffs—the water below the ground (i.e. beneath overhanging rocks)."
This last account agrees admirably with the landscape depicted in the Grettis saga, and the gorge many fathoms deep through which the stream rushes, after it has fallen over the precipice; not so the other accounts. These descriptions are
best harmonized if we imagine an original version in which the monsters live, as in the Grettis saga, in a hole under the waterfall. This story, natural enough in a Scandinavian country, would be less intelligible as it travelled South. The Angles and Saxons, both in their old home on the Continent and their new one in England, were accustomed to a somewhat flat country, and would be more inclined to place the dwelling of outcast spirits in moor and fen than under waterfalls, of which they probably had only an elementary conception. "The giant must dwell in the fen, alone in the land[[109]]."
Now it is in the highest degree improbable that, after the landscape had been blurred as it is in Beowulf, it could have been brought out again with the distinctness it has in the Grettis saga. To preserve the features so clearly the Grettir-story can hardly be derived from Beowulf: it must have come down independently.
But if so, it becomes at once of prime importance. For by a comparison of Beowulf and Grettir we must form an idea of what the original story was, from which both were derived.
Another parallel, though a less striking one, has been found in the story of Orm Storolfsson, which is extant in a short saga about contemporary with that of Grettir, Ormsþáttr Stórólfssonar[[110]], in two ballads from the Faroe Islands[[111]] and two from Sweden[[112]].
It is generally asserted that the Orm-story affords a close parallel to the episodes of Grendel and his mother. I cannot find close resemblance, and I strongly suspect that the repetition of the assertion is due to the fact that the Orm-story has not been very easily accessible, and has often been taken as read by the critics.
But, in any case, it has been proved that the Orm-tale borrows largely from other sagas, and notably from the Grettis saga itself[[113]]. Before arguing, therefore, from any parallel, it must first be shown that the feature in which Orm resembles
Beowulf is not derived at second hand from the Grettis saga. One such feature there is, namely Orm's piety, which he certainly does not derive from Grettir. In this he with equal certainty resembles Beowulf. According to modern ideas, indeed, there is more of the Christian hero in Beowulf than in Orm.
Now Orm owes his victory to the fact, among other things, that, at the critical moment, he vows to God and the holy apostle St Peter to make a pilgrimage to Rome should he be successful. In this a parallel is seen to the fact that Beowulf is saved, not only by his coat of mail, but also by the divine interposition[[114]]. But is this really a parallel? Beowulf is too much of a sportsman to buy victory by making a vow when in a tight place. Gǣð ā wyrd swā hīo scel[[115]] is the exact antithesis of Orm's pledge.
However, I have given in the Second Part the text of the Orm-episode, so that readers may judge for themselves the closeness or remoteness of the parallel.
The parallel between Grettir and Beowulf was noted by the Icelander Gudbrand Vigfússon upon his first reading Beowulf (see Prolegomena to Sturlunga saga, 1878, p. xlix: Corpus Poeticum Boreale, II, 501: Icelandic Reader, 1879, 404). It was elaborately worked out by Gering in Anglia, III, 74-87, and it is of course noticed in almost every discussion of Beowulf. The parallel with Orm was first noted by Schück (Svensk Literaturhistoria, Stockholm, 1886, etc., I, 62) and independently by Bugge (P.B.B. XII, 58-68).
The best edition of the Grettis saga is the excellent one of Boer (Halle, 1900), but the opinions there expressed as to the relationship of the episodes to each other and to the Grendel story have not received the general support of scholars.
Section III. Bothvar Bjarki.
We have seen that there are in Beowulf two distinct elements, which never seem quite harmonized: firstly the historic background of the Danish and Geatic courts, with their chieftains, Hrothgar and Hrothulf, or Hrethel and Hygelac: and secondly the old wives' fables of struggles with ogres and dragons. In the story of Grettir, the ogre fable appears—unmistakably connected with the similar story as given in Beowulf, but with
no faintest trace of having ever possessed any Danish heroic setting.
Turning back to the Saga of Rolf Kraki, we do find against that Danish setting a figure, that of the hero Bothvar Bjarki, bearing a very remarkable resemblance to Beowulf.
Bjarki, bent on adventure, leaves the land of the Gautar (Götar), where his brother is king, and reaches Leire, where Rolf, the king of the Danes, holds his court; [just as Beowulf, bent on adventure, leaves the land of the Geatas (Götar) where his uncle is king, and reaches Heorot, where Hrothgar and Hrothulf (Rolf) hold court].
Arrived at Leire, Bjarki takes under his protection the despised coward Hott, whom Rolf's retainers have been wont to bully. The champions at the Danish court [in Beowulf one of them only—Unferth] prove quarrelsome, and they assail the hero during the feast, in the Saga by throwing bones at him, in Beowulf only by bitter words. The hero in each case replies, in kind, with such effect that the enemy is silenced.
But despite the fame and splendour of the Danish court, it has long been subject to the attacks of a strange monster[[116]]—a winged beast whom no iron will bite [just as Grendel is immune from swords[[117]]]. Bjarki [like Beowulf[[118]]] is scornful at the inability of the Danes to defend their own home: "if one beast can lay waste the kingdom and the cattle of the king." He goes out to fight with the monster by night, accompanied only by Hott. He tries to draw his sword, but the sword is fast in its sheath: he tugs, the sword comes out, and he slays the beast with it. This seems a most pointless incident: taken in connection with the supposed invulnerability of the foe, it looks like the survival of some episode in which the hero was unwilling [as in Beowulf's fight with Grendel[[119]]] or unable [as in Beowulf's fight with Grendel's mother[[120]]] to slay the foe
with his sword. Bjarki then compels the terrified coward Hott to drink the monster's blood. Hott forthwith becomes a valiant champion, second only to Bjarki himself. The beast is then propped up as if still alive: when it is seen next morning the king calls upon his retainers to play the man, and Bjarki tells Hott that now is the time to clear his reputation. Hott demands first the sword, Gullinhjalti, from Rolf, and with this he slays the dead beast a second time. King Rolf is not deceived by this trick; yet he rejoices that Bjarki has not only himself slain the monster, but changed the cowardly Hott into a champion; he commands that Hott shall be called Hjalti, after the sword which has been given him. We are hardly justified in demanding logic in a wild tale like this, or one might ask how Rolf was convinced of Hott's valour by what he knew to be a piece of stage management on the part of Bjarki. But, however that may be, it is remarkable that in Beowulf also the monster Grendel, though proof against all ordinary weapons, is smitten when dead by a magic sword of which the golden hilt[[121]] is specially mentioned.
In addition to the undeniable similarity of the stories of these heroes, a certain similarity of name has been claimed. That Bjarki is not etymologically connected with Bēowulf or Bēow is clear: but if we are to accept the identification of Beowulf and Beow, remembering that the Scandinavian equivalent of the latter is said to be Bjár, the resemblance to Bjarki is obvious. Similarity of sound might have caused one name to be substituted for another[[122]]. This argument obviously depends upon the identification Bēow = Bjár, which is extremely doubtful: it will be argued below that it is more likely that Bēow = Byggvir[[123]].
But force remains in the argument that the name Bjarki (little bear) is very appropriate to a hero like the Beowulf of
our epic, who crushes or hugs his foe to death instead of using his sword; even if we do not accept explanations which would interpret the name "Beowulf" itself as a synonym for "Bear."
It is scarcely to be wondered at, then, that most critics have seen in Bjarki a Scandinavian parallel to Beowulf. But serious difficulties remain. There is in the Scandinavian story a mass of detail quite unparallelled in Beowulf, which overshadows the resemblances. Bjarki's friendship, for example, with the coward Hott or Hjalti has no counterpart in Beowulf. And Bjarki becomes a retainer of King Rolf and dies in his service, whilst Beowulf never comes into direct contact with Hrothulf at all; the poet seems to avoid naming them together. Still, it is quite intelligible that the story should have developed on different lines in Scandinavia from those which it followed in England, till the new growths overshadowed the original resemblance, without obliterating it. After nearly a thousand years of independent development discrepancies must be expected. It would not be a reasonable objection to the identity of Gullinhjalti with Gyldenhilt, that the word hilt had grown to have a rather different meaning in Norse and in English; subsequent developments do not invalidate an original resemblance if the points of contact are really there.
But, allowing for this independent growth in Scandinavia, we should naturally expect that the further back we traced the story the greater the resemblance would become.
This brings us to the second, serious difficulty: that, when we turn from the Saga of Rolf Kraki—belonging in its present form perhaps to the early fifteenth century—to the pages of Saxo Grammaticus, who tells the same tale more than two centuries earlier, the resemblance, instead of becoming stronger, almost vanishes. Nothing is said of Bjarki coming from Gautland, or indeed of his being a stranger at the Danish court: nothing is said of the monster having paid previous visits, visits repeated till king Rolf, like Hrothgar, has to give up all attempt at resistance, and submit to its depredations. The monster, instead of being a troll, like Grendel, becomes a commonplace bear. All Saxo tells us is that "He [Biarco, i.e. Bjarki] met a great bear in a thicket and slew it with a spear, and bade his
comrade Ialto [i.e. Hjalti] place his lips to the beast and drink its blood as it flowed, that he might become stronger."
Hence the Danish scholar, Axel Olrik, in the best and most elaborate discussion of Bjarki and all about him, has roundly denied any connection between his hero and Beowulf. He is astonished at the slenderness of the evidence upon which previous students have argued for relationship. "Neither Beowulf's wrestling match in the hall, nor in the fen, nor his struggle with the firedrake has any real identity, but when we take a little of them all we can get a kind of similarity with the latest and worst form of the Bjarki saga[[124]]." The development of Saxo's bear into a winged monster, "the worst of trolls," Olrik regards as simply in accordance with the usual heightening, in later Icelandic, of these early stories of struggles with beasts, and of this he gives a parallel instance.
Some Icelandic ballads on Bjarki (the Bjarka rímur), which were first printed in 1904, were claimed by Olrik as supporting his contention. These ballads belong to about the year 1400. Yet, though they are thus in date and dialect closely allied to the Saga of Rolf Kraki and remote from Saxo Grammaticus, they are so far from supporting the tradition of the Saga with regard to the monster slain, that they represent the foe first as a man-eating she-wolf, which is slain by Bjarki, then as a grey bear [as in Saxo], which is slain by Hjalti after he has been compelled to drink the blood of the she-wolf. We must therefore give up the winged beast as mere later elaboration; for if the Bjarki ballads in a point like this support Saxo, as against the Saga which is so closely connected with them by its date and Icelandic tongue, we must admit Saxo's version here to represent, beyond dispute, the genuine tradition.
Accordingly the attempt which has been made to connect Bjarki's winged monster with Beowulf's winged dragon goes overboard at once. But such an attempt ought never to have been made at all. The parallel is between Bjarki and the Beowulf-Grendel episode, not between Bjarki and the Beowulf-dragon episode, which ought to be left out of consideration. And the monstrous bear and the wolf of the Rímur are not so
dissimilar from Grendel, with his bear-like hug, and Grendel's mother, the 'sea-wolf[[125]].'
The likeness between Beowulf and Bjarki lies, not in the wingedness or otherwise of the monsters they overthrow, but in the similarity of the position—in the situation which places the most famous court of the North, and its illustrious king, at the mercy of a ravaging foe, till a chance stranger from Gautland brings deliverance. And here the Rímur support, not Saxo, but the Saga, though in an outworn and faded way. In the Rímur Bjarki is a stranger come from abroad: the bear has made previous attacks upon the king's folds.
Thus, whilst we grant the wings of the beast to be a later elaboration, it does not in the least follow that other features in which the Saga differs from Saxo—the advent of Bjarki from Gautland, for instance—are also later elaboration.
And we must be careful not to attach too much weight to the account of Saxo merely because it is earlier in date than that of the Saga. The presumption is, of course, that the earlier form will be the more original: but just as a late manuscript will often preserve, amidst its corruptions, features which are lost in much earlier manuscripts, so will a tradition. Saxo's accounts are often imperfect[[126]]. And in this particular instance, there is a want of coherency and intelligibility in Saxo's account, which in itself affords a strong presumption that it is imperfect.
What Saxo tells us is this:
At which banquet, when the champions were rioting with every kind of wantonness, and flinging knuckle-bones at a certain Ialto [Hjalti] from all sides, it happened that his messmate Biarco [Bjarki] through the bad aim of the thrower received a severe blow on the head. But Biarco, equally annoyed by the injury and the insult, sent the bone back to the thrower, so that he twisted the front of his head to the back and the back to the front, punishing the cross-grain of the man's temper by turning his face round about.
But who were this "certain Hjalti" and Bjarki? There seems to be something missing in the story. The explanation [which Saxo does not give us, but the Saga does] that Bjarki has come from afar and taken the despised Hott-Hjalti under his
protection, seems to be necessary. Why was Hjalti chosen as the victim, at whom missiles were to be discharged? Obviously [though Saxo does not tell us so], because he was the butt of the mess. And if Bjarki had been one of the mess for many hours, his messmates would have known him too well to throw knuckle-bones either at him or his friend. This is largely a matter of personal feeling, but Saxo's account seems to me pointless, till it is supplemented from the Saga[[127]].
And there is one further piece of evidence which seems to clinch the whole matter finally, though its importance has been curiously overlooked, by Panzer and Lawrence in their arguments for the identification, and by Olrik in his arguments to the contrary.
We have seen above how Beowulf "became a friend" to Eadgils, helping him in his expedition against King Onela of Sweden, and avenging, in "chill raids fraught with woe," cealdum cearsīðum, the wrongs which Onela had inflicted upon the Geatas. We saw, too, that this expedition was remembered in Scandinavian tradition. "They had a battle on the ice of Lake Wener; there King Ali fell, and Athils had the victory. Concerning this battle there is much said in the Skjoldunga saga." The Skjoldunga saga is lost, but the Latin extracts from it give some information about this battle[[128]]. Further, an account of it is preserved in the Bjarka rímur, probably derived from the lost Skjoldunga saga. And the Bjarka rímur expressly mention Bjarki as helping Athils in this battle against Ali on the ice of Lake Wener[[129]].
Olrik does not seem to allow for this at all, though of course aware of it. The other parallels between Bjarki and Beowulf he believes to be mere coincidence. But is this likely?
To recapitulate: In old English tradition a hero comes from the land of the Geatas to the royal court of Denmark, where Hrothgar and Hrothulf hold sway. This hero is received in none too friendly wise by one of the retainers, but
puts his foe to shame, is warmly welcomed by the king, and slays by night a monster which has been attacking the Danish capital and against which the warriors of that court have been helpless. The monster is proof against all swords, yet its dead body is mutilated by a sword with a golden hilt. Subsequently this same hero helps King Eadgils of Sweden to overthrow Onela.
We find precisely the same situation in Icelandic tradition some seven centuries later, except that not Hrothgar and Hrothulf, but Hrothulf (Rolf) alone is represented as ruling the Danes, and the sword with the golden hilt has become a sword named "Golden-hilt." It is conceivable for a situation to have been reconstructed in this way by mere accident, just as it is conceivable that one player may have the eight or nine best trumps dealt him. But it does not seem advisable to base one's calculations, as Olrik does, upon such an accident happening.
The parallel of Bjarki and Beowulf seems to have been first noted by Gisli Brynjulfsson (Antiquarisk Tidsskrift, 1852-3, p. 130). It has been often discussed by Sarrazin (Beowulf Studien, 13 etc., 47: Anglia, IX, 195 etc.: Engl. Stud. xvi, 79 etc., XXIII, 242 etc., XXXV, 19 etc.). Sarrazin's over-elaborated parallels form a broad target for doubters: it must be remembered that a case, though it may be discredited, is not invalidated by exaggeration. The problem is of course noted in the Beowulf studies of Müllenhoff (55), Bugge (P.B.B. XII, 55) and Boer (Die Beowulfsage, II, in Arkiv f. nord. filol. XIX, 44 etc.) and discussed at length and convincingly by Panzer (364-386) and Lawrence (Pub. Mod. Lang. Assoc. Amer. XXIV, 1909, 222 etc.). The usual view which accepts some relationship is endorsed by all these scholars, as it is by Finnur Jónsson in his edition of the Hrólfs Saga Kraka og Bjarkarímur (København, 1904, p. xxii).
Ten Brink (185 etc.) denied any original connection, on the ground of the dissimilarity between Beowulf and the story given by Saxo. Any resemblances between Beowulf and the Hrólfs Saga he attributed to the influence of the English Beowulf-story upon the Saga.
For Olrik's emphatic denial of any connection at all, see Danmarks Heltedigtning, I, 134 etc. (This seems to have influenced Brandl, who expresses some doubt in Pauls Grdr. (2) ii. 1. 993.) For arguments to the contrary, see Heusler in A.f.d.A. XXX, 32, and especially Panzer and Lawrence as above.
The parallel of Gullinhjalti and gyldenhilt was first noted tentatively by Kluge (Engl. Stud. XXII, 145).
Section IV. Parallels from Folklore.
Hitherto we have been dealing with parallels to the Grendel story in written literature: but a further series of parallels, although much more remote, is to be found in that vast store of old wives' tales which no one till the nineteenth century took the trouble to write down systematically, but which certainly go back to a very ancient period. One particular tale, that of the Bear's Son[[130]] (extant in many forms), has been instanced as showing a resemblance to the Beowulf-story. In this tale the hero, a young man of extraordinary strength, (1) sets out on his adventures, associating with himself various companions; (2) makes resistance in a house against a supernatural being, which his fellows have in vain striven to withstand, and succeeds in mishandling or mutilating him. (3) By the blood-stained track of this creature, or guided by him in some other manner, the hero finds his way to a spring, or hole in the earth, (4) is lowered down by a cord and (5) overcomes in the underworld different supernatural foes, amongst whom is often included his former foe, or very rarely the mother of that foe: victory can often only be gained by the use of a magic sword which the hero finds below. (6) The hero is left treacherously in the lurch by his companions, whose duty it was to have drawn him up...
Now it may be objected, with truth, that this is not like the Beowulf-story, or even particularly like the Grettir-story. But the question is not merely whether it resembles these stories as we possess them, but whether it resembles the story which must have been the common origin of both. And we have only to try to reconstruct from Beowulf and from the Grettis saga a tale which can have been the common original of both, to see that it must be something extraordinarily like the folk-tale outlined above.
For example, it is true that the departure of the Danes homeward because they believe that Beowulf has met his death in the water below, bears only the remotest resemblance to the deliberate treachery which the companions in the folk-tale mete out to the hero. But when we compare the Grettir-story, we see there that a real breach of trust is involved, for there the priest Stein leaves the hero in the lurch, and abandons the rope by which he should have drawn Grettir up. This can hardly be an innovation on the part of the composer of the Grettis saga, for he is quite well disposed towards Stein, and has no motive for wantonly attributing treachery to him. The innovation presumably lies in the Beowulf-story, where Hrothgar and his court are depicted in such a friendly spirit that no disreputable act can be attributed to them, and consequently Hrothgar's departure home must not be allowed in any way to imperil or inconvenience the hero. A comparison of the Beowulf-story with the Grettir-story leads then to the conclusion that in the oldest version those who remained above when the hero plunged below were guilty of some measure of disloyalty in ceasing to watch for him. In other words we see that the further we track the Beowulf-story back, the more it comes to resemble the folk-tale.
And our belief that there is some connection between the folk-tale and the original of Beowulf must be strengthened when we find that, by a comparison of the folk-tale, we are able to explain features in Beowulf which strike us as difficult and even absurd: precisely as when we turn to a study of Shakespeare's sources we often find the explanation of things that puzzle us: we see that the poet is dealing with an unmanageable source, which he cannot make quite plausible. For instance: when Grendel enters Heorot he kills and eats the first of Beowulf's retinue whom he finds: no one tries to prevent him. The only explanation which the poet has to offer is that the retinue are all asleep[[131]]—strange somnolence on the part of men who are awaiting a hostile attack, which they expect will be fatal to them all[[132]]. And Beowulf at any rate is not asleep. Yet he calmly watches whilst his henchman is
both killed and eaten: and apparently, but for the accident that the monster next tackles Beowulf himself, he would have allowed his whole bodyguard to be devoured one after another.
But if we suppose the story to be derived from the folk-tale, we have an explanation. For in the folk-tale, the companions and the hero await the foe singly, in succession: the turn of the hero comes last, after all his companions have been put to shame. But Beowulf, who is represented as having specially voyaged to Heorot in order to purge it, cannot leave the defence of the hall for the first night to one of his comrades. Hence the discomfiture of the comrade and the single-handed success of the hero have to be represented as simultaneous. The result is incongruous: Beowulf has to look on whilst his comrade is killed.
Again, both Beowulf and Grettir plunge in the water with a sword, and with the deliberate object of shedding the monster's blood. Why then should the watchers on the cliff above assume that the blood-stained water must necessarily signify the hero's death, and depart home? Why did it never occur to them that this deluge of blood might much more suitably proceed from the monster?
But we can understand this unreason if we suppose that the story-teller had to start from the deliberate and treacherous departure of the companions, whilst at the same time it was not to his purpose to represent the companions as treacherous. In that case some excuse must be found for them: and the blood-stained water was the nearest at hand[[133]].
Again, quite independently of the folk-tale, many Beowulf scholars have come to the conclusion that in the original version of the story the hero did not wait for a second attack from the mother of the monster he had slain, but rather, from a natural and laudable desire to complete his task, followed the monster's tracks to the mere, and finished him and his mother below. Many traits have survived which may conceivably point to an original version of the story in which Beowulf (or the figure corresponding to him) at once plunged down
in order to combat the foe corresponding to Grendel. There are unsatisfactory features in the story as it stands. For why, it might be urged, should the wrenching off of an arm have been fatal to so tough a monster? And why, it has often been asked, is the adversary under the water sometimes male, sometimes female? And why is it apparently the blood of Grendel, not of his mother, which discolours the water and burns up the sword, and the head of Grendel, not of his mother, which is brought home in triumph? These arguments may not carry much weight, but at any rate when we turn to the folk-tale we find that the adventure beneath the earth is the natural following up of the adventure in the house, not the result of any renewed attack.
In addition, there are many striking coincidences between individual versions or groups of the folk-tale on the one hand and the Beowulf-Grettir story on the other: yet it is very difficult to know what value should be attached to these parallels, since there are many features of popular story which float around and attach themselves to this or that tale without any original connection, so that it is easy for the same trait to recur in Beowulf and in a group of folk-tales, without this proving that the stories as a whole are connected[[134]].
The hero of the Bear's son folk-tale is often in his youth unmanageable or lazy. This is also emphasized in the stories both of Grettir and of Orm: and though such a feature was uncongenial to the courtly tone of Beowulf, which sought to depict the hero as a model prince, yet it is there[[135]], even though only alluded to incidentally, and elsewhere ignored or even denied[[136]].
Again, the hero of the folk-tale is very frequently (but not necessarily) either descended from a bear, nourished by a bear, or has some ursine characteristic. We see this recurring in certain traits of Beowulf such as his bear-like method of hugging
his adversary to death. Here again the courtly poet has not emphasized his hero's wildness[[137]].
Again, there are some extraordinary coincidences in names, between the Beowulf-Grettir story and the folk-tale. These are not found in Beowulf itself, but only in the stories of Grettir and Orm. Yet, as the Grettir-episode is presumably derived from the same original as the Beowulf-episode, any original connection between it and the folk-tale involves such connection for Beowulf also. We have seen that in Grettis saga the priest Stein, as the unfaithful guardian of the rope which is to draw up the hero, seems to represent the faithless companions of the folktale. There is really no other way of accounting for him, for except on this supposition he is quite otiose and unnecessary to the Grettir-story: the saga-man has no use for him. And his name confirms this explanation, for in the folk-tale one of the three faithless companions of the hero is called the Stone-cleaver, Steinhauer, Stenkløver, or even, in one Scandinavian version, simply Stein[[138]].
Again, the struggle in the Grettis saga is localized at Sandhaugar in Barthardal in Northern Iceland. Yet it is difficult to say why the saga-teller located the story there. The scenery, with the neighbouring river and mighty waterfall, is fully described: but students of Icelandic topography assert that the neighbourhood does not at all lend itself to this description[[139]]. When we turn to the story of Orm we find it localized on the island Sandey. We are forced to the conclusion that the name belongs to the story, and that in some early version this was localized at a place called Sandhaug, perhaps at one of the numerous places in Norway of that name. Now turning to one of the Scandinavian versions of the folk-tale, we find that the descent into the earth and the consequent struggle is localized in en stor sandhaug[[140]].
On the other hand, it must be remembered that if a collection is made of some two hundred folk-tales, it is bound to contain, in addition to the essential kernel of common tradition, a vast amount of that floating material which tends to associate itself with this or that hero of story. Individual versions or groups of versions of the tale may contain features which occur also in the Grendel-story, without that being any evidence for primitive connection. Thus we are told how Grendel forces open the door of Heorot. In a Sicilian version of the folk-tale the doors spring open of themselves as the foe appears. This has been claimed as a parallel. But, as a sceptic has observed, the extraordinary thing is that of so slight a similarity (if it is entitled to be called a similarity) we should find only one example out of two hundred, and have to go to Sicily for that[[141]].
The parallel between the Beowulf-story and the "Bear's son" folk-tale had been noted by Laistner (Das Rätsel der Sphinx, Berlin, 1889, II, 22 etc.): but the prevalent belief that the Beowulf-story was a nature-myth seems to have prevented further investigation on these lines till Panzer independently (p. 254) undertook his monumental work.
Yet there are other features in the folk-tale which are entirely unrepresented in the Beowulf-Grettir story. The hero of the folk-tale rescues captive princesses in the underworld (it is because they wish to rob him of this prize that his companions leave him below); he is saved by some miraculous helper, and finally, after adopting a disguise, puts his treacherous comrades to shame and weds the youngest princess. None of these elements[[142]] are to be found in the stories of Beowulf, Grettir, Orm or Bjarki, yet they are essential to the fairy tale[[143]].
So that to speak of Beowulf as a version of the fairy tale is undoubtedly going too far. All we can say is that some early story-teller took, from folk-tale, those elements which suited his purpose, and that a tale, containing many leading features found in the "Bear's son" story, but omitting many of the leading motives of that story, came to be told of Beowulf and of Grettir[[144]].
Section V. Scef and Scyld.
Our poem begins with an account of the might, and of the funeral, of Scyld Scefing, the ancestor of that Danish royal house which is to play so large a part in the story. After Scyld's death his retainers, following the command he had given them, placed their beloved prince in the bosom of a ship, surrounded by many treasures brought from distant lands, by weapons of battle and weeds of war, swords and byrnies. Also they placed a golden banner high over his head, and let the sea bear him away, with soul sorrowful and downcast. Men could not say for a truth, not the wisest of councillors, who received that burden.
Now there is much in this that can be paralleled both from the literature and from the archaeological remains of the North. Abundant traces have been found, either of the burial or of the burning of a chief within a ship. And we are told by different authorities of two ancient Swedish kings who, sorely wounded, and unwilling to die in their beds, had themselves placed upon ships, surrounded by weapons and the bodies of the slain. The funeral pyre was then lighted on the vessel, and the ship sent blazing out to sea. Similarly the dead body of Baldr was put upon his ship, and burnt.
Haki konungr fekk svá stór sár, at hann sá, at hans lífdagar mundu eigi langir verða; þá lét hann taka skeið, er hann átti, ok lét hlaða dauðum mǫnnum, ok vápnum, lét þá flytja út til hafs ok leggja stýri í lag ok draga upp segl, en leggja eld í tyrvið ok gera bál á skipinu; veðr stóð af landi; Haki var þá at kominn dauða eða dauðr, er hann var lagiðr á bálit; siglði skipit síðan loganda út í haf, ok var þetta allfrægt lengi síðan.
(King Haki was so sore wounded that he saw that his days could not be long. Then he had a warship of his taken, and loaded with dead men and weapons, had it carried out to sea, the rudder shipped, the sail drawn up, the fir-tree wood set alight, and a bale-fire made on the ship. The wind blew from the land. Haki was dead or nearly dead, when he was placed on the pyre. Then the ship sailed blazing out to sea; and that was widely famous for a long time after.)
Ynglinga Saga, Kap. 23, in Heimskringla, udg. af Finnur Jónsson, København, 1893, vol. I, p. 43.
The Skjoldunga Saga gives a story which is obviously connected with this. King Sigurd Ring in his old age asked in marriage the lady Alfsola; but her brothers scorned to give her to an aged man. War followed; and the brothers, knowing that they could not withstand the hosts of Sigurd, poisoned their sister before marching against him. In the battle the brothers were slain, and Sigurd badly wounded.
Qui, Alfsola funere allato, magnam navim mortuorum cadaveribus oneratam solus vivorum conscendit, seque et mortuam Alfsolam in puppi collocans navim pice, bitumine et sulphure incendi jubet: atque sublatis velis in altum, validis a continente impellentibus ventis, proram dirigit, simulque manus sibi violentas intulit; sese ... more majorum suorum regali pompa Odinum regem (id est inferos) invisere malle, quam inertis senectutis infirmitatem perpeti....
Skjoldungasaga i Arngrim Jónssons udtog, udgiven af Axel Olrik, Kjøbenhavn, 1894, Cap. XXVII, p. 50 [132].
So with the death of Baldr.
En æsirnir tóku lík Baldrs ok fluttu til sævar. Hringhorni hét skip Baldrs; hann var allra skipa mestr, hann vildu goðin framm setja ok gera þar á bálfǫr Baldrs ... þá var borit út á skipit lík Baldrs,... Oðinn lagði á bálit gullhring þann, er Draupnir heitir ... hestr Baldrs var leiddr á bálit með ǫllu reiði.
(But the gods took the body of Baldr and carried it to the sea-shore. Baldr's ship was named Hringhorni: it was the greatest of all ships and the gods sought to launch it, and to build the pyre of Baldr on it.... Then was the body of Baldr borne out on to the ship.... Odin laid on the pyre the gold ring named Draupnir ... and Baldr's horse with all his trappings was placed on the pyre.)
Snorra Edda: Gylfaginning, 48; udg. af Finnur Jónsson, København, 1900.
We are justified in rendering setja skip fram by "launch": Olrik (Heltedigtning, I, 250) regards Baldr's funeral as a case of the burning of a body in a ship on land. But it seems to me, as to Mr Chadwick (Origin, 287), that the natural meaning is that the ship was launched in the sea.
But the case of Scyld is not exactly parallel to these. The ship which conveyed Scyld out to sea was not set alight. And the words of the poet, though dark, seem to imply that it was intended to come to land somewhere: "None could say who received that freight."
Further, Scyld not merely departed over the waves—he had in the first instance come over them: "Not with less treasure did they adorn him," says the poet, speaking of the funeral rites, "than did those who at the beginning sent him forth alone over the waves, being yet a child."
Scyld Scefing then, like Tennyson's Arthur, comes from the unknown and departs back to it.
The story of the mysterious coming over the water was not confined to Scyld. It meets us in connection with King Scef, who was regarded, at any rate from the time of Alfred, and possibly much earlier, as the remotest ancestor of the Wessex kings. Ethelwerd, a member of the West Saxon royal house, who compiled a bombastic Latin chronicle towards the end of the tenth century, traces back the pedigree of the kings of Wessex to Scyld and his father Scef. "This Scef," he says, "came to land on a swift boat, surrounded by arms, in an island of the ocean called Scani, when a very young child. He was unknown to the people of that land, but was adopted by them as if of their kin, well cared for, and afterwards elected king[[145]]." Note here, firstly, that the story is told, not of Scyld Scefing, but of Scef, father of Scyld. Secondly, that although Ethelwerd is speaking of the ancestor of the West Saxon royal house, he makes him come to land and rule, not in the ancient homeland of continental Angeln, but in the "island of Scani," which signifies what is now the south of Sweden, and perhaps also the Danish islands[[146]]—that same land of Scedenig which is mentioned in Beowulf as the realm of Scyld. The tone of the narrative is, so far as we can judge from Ethelwerd's dry summary, entirely warlike: Scef is surrounded by weapons.
In the twelfth century the story is again told by William of Malmesbury. "Sceldius was the son of Sceaf. He, they say, was carried as a small boy in a boat without any oarsman to a certain isle of Germany called Scandza, concerning which
Jordanes, the historian of the Goths, speaks. He was sleeping, and a handful of corn was placed at his head, from which he was called 'Sheaf.' He was regarded as a wonder by the folk of that country and carefully nurtured; when grown up he ruled in a town then called Slaswic, and now Haithebi—that region is called ancient Anglia[[147]]."
William of Malmesbury was, of course, aware of Ethelwerd's account, and may have been influenced by it. Some of his variations may be his own invention. The substitution of the classical form Scandza for Ethelwerd's Scani is simply a change from popular to learned nomenclature, and enables the historian to show that he has read something of Jordanes. The alteration by which Malmesbury makes Sceaf, when grown up, rule at Schleswig in ancient Angel, may again be his own work—a variant added in order to make Sceaf look more at home in an Anglo-Saxon pedigree.
But William of Malmesbury was, as we shall see later, prone to incorporate current ballads into his history, and after allowing for what he may have derived from Ethelwerd, and what he may have invented, there can be no doubt that many of the additional details which he gives are genuine popular poetry. Indeed, whilst the story of Scyld's funeral is very impressive in Beowulf, it is in William's narrative that the story of the child coming over the sea first becomes poetic.
Now since even the English historians connected this tale with the Danish territory of Scani, Scandza, we should expect to find it again on turning to the records of the Danish royal house. And we do find there, generally at the head of the pedigree[[148]], a hero—Skjold—whose name corresponds, and whose relationship to the later Danish kings shows him to be the same as the Scyld Scefing of Beowulf. But neither Saxo Grammaticus, nor any other Danish historian, knows anything of
Skjold having come in his youth or returned in his death over the ocean.
How are we to harmonize these accounts?
Beowulf and Ethelwerd agree in representing the hero as "surrounded by arms"; William of Malmesbury mentions only the sheaf; the difference is weighty, for presumably the spoils which the hero brings with him from the unknown, or takes back thither, are in harmony with his career. Beowulf and Ethelwerd seem to show the warrior king, William of Malmesbury seems rather to be telling the story of a semi-divine foundling, who introduces the tillage of the earth[[149]].
In Beowulf the child is Scyld Scefing, in Ethelwerd and William of Malmesbury he is Sceaf, father of Scyld.
Beowulf, Ethelwerd and William of Malmesbury agree in connecting the story with Scedenig, Scani or Scandza, yet the two historians and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle all make Sceaf the ancestor of the West Saxon house. Yet we have no evidence that the English were regarded as having come from Scandinavia.
The last problem admits of easy solution. In heathen times the English traced the pedigree of most of their kings to Woden, and stopped there. For higher than that they could not go. But a Christian poet or genealogist, who had no belief in Woden as a god, would regard the All Father as a man—a mere man who, by magic powers, had made the heathen believe he was a god. To such a Christian pedigree-maker Woden would convey no idea of finality; he would feel no difficulty in giving this human Woden any number of ancestors. Wishing to glorify the pedigree of his king, he would add any other distinguished and authentic genealogies, and the obvious place for these would be at the end of the line, i.e., above Woden. Hence we have in some quite early (not West Saxon) pedigrees, five names given as ancestors of Woden. These five names end in Geat or Geata, who was apparently regarded as a god, and was possibly Woden under another name[[150]]. Somewhat later, in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, under
the year 855, we have a long version of the West Saxon pedigree with yet nine further names above Geat, ending in Sceaf. Sceaf is described as a son of Noah, and so the pedigree is carried back to Adam, 25 generations in all beyond Woden[[151]]. But it is rash to assume with Müllenhoff that, because Sceaf comes at the head[[152]] of this English pedigree, Sceaf was therefore essentially an English hero. All these later stages above Woden look like the ornate additions of a later compiler. Some of the figures, Finn, Sceldwa, Heremod, Sceaf himself, we have reason to identify with the primitive heroes of other nations.
The genealogist who finally made Sceaf into a son born to Noah in the ark, and then carried the pedigree nine stages further back through Noah to Adam, merely made the last of a series of accretions. It does not follow that, because he made them ancestors of the English king, this compiler regarded Noah, Enoch and Adam as Englishmen. Neither need he have so regarded Sceaf or Scyld[[153]] or Beaw. In fact—and this has constantly been overlooked—the authority for Sceaf, Scyld and Beaw as Anglo-Saxon heroes is but little stronger than the authority for Noah and Adam in that capacity. No manuscript exists which stops at Scyld or Sceaf. There is no version which goes beyond Geat except that which goes up to Adam. Scyld, Beaw, Sceaf, Noah and Adam as heroes of English mythology are all alike doubtful.
We must be careful, however, to define what we mean when we regard these stages of the pedigree as doubtful. They are doubtful in so far as they are represented as standing above Woden in the Anglo-Saxon pedigree, because it is incredible that, in primitive and heathen times, Woden was credited with a dozen or more forefathers. The position of these names in the pedigree is therefore doubtful. But it is only their connection with the West Saxon house that is unauthentic. It does not follow that the names are, per se, unauthentic. On the contrary, it is because the genealogist had such implicit belief in the authenticity of the generations
from Noah to Adam that he could not rest satisfied with his West Saxon pedigree till he had incorporated these names. They are not West Saxon, but they are part of a tradition much more ancient than any pedigree of the West Saxon kings. And the argument which applies to the layer of Hebrew names between Noah and Adam applies equally to the layer of Germanic names between Woden and Sceaf. From whatever branch of the Germanic race the genealogist may have taken them, the fact that he placed them where he did in the pedigree is a proof of his veneration for them. But we must not without evidence claim them as West Saxon or Anglo-Saxon: we must not be surprised if evidence points to some of them being connected with other nations—as Heremod, for example, with the Danes[[154]].
More difficult are the other problems. William of Malmesbury tells the story of Sceaf, with the attributes of a culture-hero: Beowulf, four centuries earlier, tells it of Scyld, a warrior hero: Ethelwerd tells it of Sceaf, but gives him the warrior attributes of Scyld[[155]] instead of the sheaf of corn.
The earlier scholars mostly agreed[[156]] in regarding Malmesbury's attribution of the story to Sceaf as the original and correct version of the story, in spite of its late date. As a representative of these early scholars we may take Müllenhoff[[157]]. Müllenhoff's love of mythological interpretation found ample scope in the story of the child with the sheaf, which he, with considerable reason, regarded as a "culture-myth." Müllenhoff believed the carrying over of the attributes of a god to a line of his supposed descendants to be a common feature of myth—the descendants representing the god under another name. In accordance with this view, Scyld could be explained as an "hypostasis" of his father or forefather Sceaf, as a figure further explaining him and representing him, so that in the end the tale of the boat arrival came to be told, in Beowulf, of Scyld instead of Sceaf.
Recent years have seen a revolt against most of Müllenhoff's theories. The view that the story originally belonged to Sceaf has come to be regarded with a certain amount of impatience as "out of date." Even so fine a scholar as Dr Lawrence has expressed this impatience:
"That the graceful story of the boy sailing in an open boat to the land of his future people was told originally of Sceaf ... needs no detailed refutation at the present day.
"The attachment of the motive to Sceaf must be, as an examination of the sources shows, a later development[[158]]."
Accordingly the view of recent scholars has been this: That the story belongs essentially to Scyld. That, as the hero of the boat story is obviously of unknown parentage, we must interpret Scefing not as "son of Sceaf" but as "with the sheaf" (in itself a quite possible explanation). That this stage of the story is preserved in Beowulf. That subsequently Scyld Scefing, standing at the head of the pedigree, came to be misunderstood as "Scyld, son of Sceaf". That consequently the story, which must be told of the earlier ancestor, was thus transferred from Scyld to his supposed father Sceaf—the version which is found in Ethelwerd and William of Malmesbury.
One apparent advantage of this theory is that the oldest version, that of Beowulf, is accepted as the correct and original one, and the much later versions of the historians Ethelwerd and William of Malmesbury are regarded as subsequent corruptions. This on the surface seems eminently reasonable. But let us look closer. Scyld Scefing in Beowulf is to be interpreted "Scyld with the Sheaf." But Beowulf nowhere mentions the sheaf as part of Scyld's equipment. On the contrary, we gather that the hero is connected rather with prowess in war. It is the same in Ethelwerd. It is not till William of Malmesbury that the sheaf comes into the story. So that the interpretation of Scefing as "with the sheaf" assumes the accuracy of William of Malmesbury's story even in a point where it receives no support from the Beowulf version. In other words this theory does the very thing to avoid doing which it was called into being[[159]].
Besides this, there are two fundamental objections to the theory that Sceaf is a late creation, a figure formed from the misunderstanding of the epithet Scefing applied to Scyld. One portion of the poem of Widsith consists of a catalogue of ancient kings, and among these occurs Sceafa, ruling the Langobards. Now portions of Widsith are very ancient, and this catalogue in which Sceafa occurs is almost certainly appreciably older than Beowulf itself.
Secondly, the story of the wonderful foundling who comes over the sea from the unknown and founds a royal line, must ex hypothesi be told of the first in the line, and we have seen that it is Sceaf, not Scyld, who comes at the head of the Teutonic names in the genealogy in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
Now we can date this genealogy fairly exactly. It occurs under the year 855, and seems to have been drawn up at the court of King Æthelwulf. In any case it cannot be later than the latter part of Alfred's reign. This takes us back to a period when the old English epic was still widely popular. A genealogist at Alfred's court must have known much about Old English story.
These facts are simply not consistent with the belief that Sceaf is a late creation, a figure formed from a misunderstanding of the epithet Scefing, applied to Scyld[[160]].
To arrive at any definite conclusion is difficult. But the following may be hazarded.
It may be taken as proved that the Scyld or Sceldwa of the genealogists is identical with the Scyld Scefing of Beowulf. For Sceldwa according to the genealogy is also ultimately a Sceafing, and is the father of Beow; Scyld is Scefing and is father of Beowulf[[161]].
It is equally clear that the Scyld Scefing of Beowulf is identical with the Skjold of the Danish genealogists and historians. For Scyld and Skjold are both represented as the founder and head of the Danish royal house of Scyldingas or Skjoldungar, and as reigning in the same district. Here, however, the resemblance ceases. Beowulf tells us of Scyld's marvellous coming and departure. The only Danish authority who tells us much of Skjold is Saxo Grammaticus, who records how as a boy Skjold wrestled successfully with a bear and overcame champions, and how later he annulled unrighteous laws, and distinguished himself by generosity to his court. But the Danish and English accounts have nothing specifically in common, though the type they portray is the same—that of a king from his youth beloved by his retainers and feared by neighbouring peoples, whom he subdues and makes tributary. It looks rather as if the oldest traditions had had little to say about this hero beyond the typical things which might be said of any great king; so that Danes and English had each supplied the deficiency in their own way.
Now this is exactly what we should expect. For Scyld-Skjold is hardly a personality: he is a figure evolved out of the name Scyldingas, Skjoldungar, which is an old epic title for the Danes. Of this we may be fairly certain: the Scyldingas did not get their name because they were really descended from Scyld, but Scyld was created in order to provide an eponymous father to the Scyldingas[[162]]. In just the same way
tradition also evolved a hero Dan, from whom the Danes were supposed to have their name. Saxo Grammaticus has combined both pedigrees, making Skjold a descendant of Dan; but usually it was agreed that nothing came before Skjold, that he was the beginning of the Skjoldung line[[163]]. At first a mere name, we should expect that he would have no characteristic save that, like every respectable Germanic king, he took tribute from his foes and gave it to his friends. He differs therefore from those heroic figures like Hygelac or Guthhere (Gunnar) which, being derived from actual historic characters, have, from the beginning of their story, certain definite features attached to them. Scyld is, in the beginning, merely a name, the ancestor of the Scyldings. Tradition collects round him gradually.
Hence it will be rash to attach much weight to any feature which is found in one account of him only. Anything we are told of Scyld in English sources alone is not to be construed as evidence as to his original story, but only as to the form that story assumed in England. When, for example, Beowulf tells us that Scyld is Scefing, or that he is father of Beowulf, it will be very rash of us to assume that these relationships existed in the Danish, but have been forgotten. This is, I think, universally admitted[[164]]. Yet the very scholars who emphasize this, have assumed that the marvellous arrival as a child, in a boat, surrounded by weapons, is an essential feature of Scyld's story. Yet the evidence for this is no better and no worse than the evidence for his relationship to Sceaf or Beow—it rests solely on the English documents. Accordingly it only shows what was told about Scyld in England.
Of course the boat arrival might be an original part of the story of Scyld-Skjold, which has been forgotten in his native
country, but remembered in England. But I cannot see that we have any right to assert this, without proof.
What we can assert to have been the original feature of Scyld is this—that he was the eponymous hero king of the Danes. Both Beowulf and the Scandinavian authorities agree upon that. The fact that his name (in the form Sceldwa) appears in the genealogy of the kings of Wessex is not evidence against a Danish origin. The name appears in close connection with that of Heremod, another Danish king, and is merely evidence of a desire on the part of the genealogist of the Wessex kings to connect his royal house with the most distinguished family he knew: that of the Scyldingas, about whom so much is said in the prologue to Beowulf.
Neither do the instances of place-names in England, such as Scyldes treow, Scildes well, prove Scyld to have been an English hero. They merely prove him to have been a hero who was celebrated in England—which the Prologue to Beowulf alone is sufficient to show to have been the case. For place-names commemorating heroes of alien tribes are common enough[[165]] on English ground.
So much at least is gained. Whatever Müllenhoff[[166]] and his followers constructed upon the assumption that Scyld was an essentially Anglo-Saxon hero goes overboard. Scyld is the ancestor king of the Danish house—more than this we can hardly with safety assert.
Now let us turn to the figure of Sceaf. This was not necessarily connected with Scyld from the first.
The story of Sceaf first meets us in its completeness in the pages of William of Malmesbury. And William of Malmesbury is a twelfth century authority; by his time the Old English courtly epics had died out—for they could not have long survived the Norman Conquest and the overthrow of Old English court life. But the popular tradition[[167]] remained, and
a good many of the old stories, banished from the hall, must have lingered on at the cross-roads—tales of Wade and Weyland, of Offa and Sceaf. For songs, sung by minstrels at the cross roads, William of Malmesbury is good evidence, and he owns to having drawn information from similar popular sources[[168]]. William's story, then, is evidence that in his own day there was a tradition of a mythical king Sheaf who came as a child sleeping in a ship with a sheaf of corn at his head How old this tradition may be, we cannot say. Ethelwerd knew the story, though he has nothing to say of the sheaf. But we have seen that when we get back to the ninth century, and the formation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, at a court where we may be sure the old English heroic stories were still popular, it is Sceaf and not Sceldwa who is regarded as the beginning of things—the king whose origin is so remote that he is the oldest Germanic ancestor one can get back to[[169]]: "he was born in Noah's ark."
Whether or no Noah's ark was chosen as Sceaf's birthplace because legend represented him as coming in a boat over the water, we cannot tell. But the place he occupies, with only the Biblical names before him, as compared with Sceldwa the son of Heremod, clearly marks Sceaf rather than Sceldwa as the hero who comes from the unknown. Turning now to the catalogue of kings in Widsith, probably the oldest extant piece of Anglo-Saxon verse, some generations more ancient than Beowulf, we find a King Sceafa, who ruled over the Langobards. Finally, in Beowulf itself, although the story is told of Scyld, nevertheless this Scyld is characterized as Scefing. If this means "with the sheaf," then the Beowulf-story stands convicted of imperfection, of needing explanation outside itself from the
account which William of Malmesbury wrote four centuries later. If it means "son of Sceaf," why should a father be given to Scyld, when the story demands that he should come from the unknown? Was it because, if the boat story was to be attributed to Scyld, it was felt that this could only be made plausible by giving him some relation to Sceaf?
When we find an ancient king bearing the extraordinary name of "Sheaf," it is difficult not to connect this with the honour done to the sheaf of corn, survivals of which have been found in different parts of England. In Herrick's time, the sheaves of corn were still kissed as they were carried home on the Hock-cart, whilst
Some, with great
Devotion, stroke the home-borne wheat.
Professor Chadwick argues, on the analogy of Prussian and Bulgarian harvest customs, that the figure of the "Harvest Queen" in the English ceremony is derived from a corn figure made from the last sheaf, and that the sheaf was once regarded as a religious symbol[[170]]. But the evidence for this is surely even stronger than would be gathered from Professor Chadwick's very cautious statement. I suppose there is hardly a county in England from Kent to Cornwall and from Kent to Northumberland, where there is not evidence for honour paid to the last sheaf—an honour which cannot be accounted for as merely expressing the joy of the reapers at having got to the end of their task. In Kent "a figure composed of some of the best corn" was made into a human shape: "this is afterwards curiously dressed by the women, and adorned with paper trimmings cut to resemble a cap, ruffles, handkerchief, etc., of the finest lace. It is brought home with the last load of corn[[171]]." In Northumberland and Durham a sheaf known as the "Kern baby" was made into the likeness of a human figure, decked out and brought home in triumph with dancing and singing[[172]]. But the most striking form of the sheaf ceremony is found in the honour done to the "Neck" in the West of England.
... After the wheat is all cut, on most farms in the north of Devon the harvest people have a custom of "crying the neck." I believe that this practice is seldom omitted on any large farm in that part of the country. It is done in this way. An old man, or someone else well acquainted with the ceremonies used on the occasion (when the labourers are reaping the last field of wheat), goes round to the shocks and sheaves, and picks out a little bundle of all the best ears he can find; this bundle he ties up very neat and trim, and plats and arranges the straws very tastefully. This is called "the neck" of wheat, or wheaten-ears. After the field is cut out, and the pitcher once more circulated, the reapers, binders, and the women, stand round in a circle. The person with "the neck" stands in the centre, grasping it with both his hands. He first stoops and holds it near the ground, and all the men forming the ring take off their hats, stooping and holding them with both hands towards the ground. They then all begin at once in a very prolonged and harmonious tone to cry "the neck!" at the same time slowly raising themselves upright, and elevating their arms and hats above their heads; the person with "the neck" also raising it on high. This is done three times. They then change their cry to "wee yen!"—"way yen!"—which they sound in the same prolonged and slow manner as before, with singular harmony and effect, three times. This last cry is accompanied by the same movements of the body and arms as in crying "the neck." ...
... After having thus repeated "the neck" three times, and "wee yen" or "way yen" as often, they all burst out into a kind of loud and joyous laugh, flinging up their hats and caps into the air, capering about and perhaps kissing the girls. One of them then gets "the neck," and runs as hard as he can down to the farm-house, where the dairy-maid, or one of the young female domestics, stands at the door prepared with a pail of water. If he who holds "the neck" can manage to get into the house, in any way, unseen or openly, by any other way than the door at which the girl stands with the pail of water, then he may lawfully kiss her; but, if otherwise, he is regularly soused with the contents of the bucket. On a fine still autumn evening, the "crying of the neck" has a wonderful effect at a distance, far finer than that of the Turkish muezzin, which Lord Byron eulogizes so much, and which he says is preferable to all the bells in Christendom. I have once or twice heard upwards of twenty men cry it, and sometimes joined by an equal number of female voices. About three years back, on some high grounds, where our people were harvesting, I heard six or seven "necks" cried in one night, although I know that some of them were four miles off[[173]].
The account given by Mrs Bray of the Devonshire custom, in her letters to Southey, is practically identical with this[[174]]. We have plenty of evidence for this ceremony of "Crying the Neck" in the South-Western counties in Somersetshire[[175]], in Cornwall[[176]], and in a mutilated form in Dorsetshire[[177]].
On the Welsh border the essence of the ceremony consisted in tying the last ears of corn—perhaps twenty—with ribbon, and severing this "neck" by throwing the sickle at it from some distance. The custom is recorded in Cheshire[[178]], Shropshire[[179]], and under a different name in Herefordshire[[180]]. The term "neck" seems to have been known as far afield as Yorkshire and the "little England beyond Wales"—the English-speaking colony of Pembrokeshire[[181]].
Whether we are to interpret the expression "the Neck," applied to the last sheaf, as descended from a time when "the corn spirit is conceived in human form, and the last standing corn is a part of its body—its neck[[182]] ..." or whether it is merely a survival of the Scandinavian word for sheaf—nek or neg[[183]], we have here surely evidence of the worship of the sheaf. "In this way 'Sheaf' was greeted, before he passed over into a purely mythical being[[184]]."
I do not think these "neck" customs can be traced back beyond the seventeenth century[[185]]. Though analogous usages are recorded in England (near Eton) as early as the sixteenth century[[186]], it was not usual at that time to trouble to record such things.
The earliest document bearing upon the veneration of the sheaf comes from a neighbouring district, and is contained in the Chronicle of the Monastery of Abingdon, which tells how in the time of King Edmund (941-946) a controversy arose as to the right of the monks of Abingdon to a certain portion of land adjoining the river. The monks appealed to a judgment of God to vindicate their claim, and this took the shape of
placing a sheaf, with a taper on the top, upon a round shield and letting it float down the river, the shield by its movements hither and thither indicating accurately the boundaries of the monastic domain. At last the shield came to the field in debate, which, thanks to the floods, it was able to circumnavigate[[187]].
Professor Chadwick, who first emphasized the importance of this strange ordeal[[188]], points out that although the extant MSS of the Chronicle date from the thirteenth century, the mention of a round shield carries the superstition back to a period before the Norman Conquest. Therefore this story seems to give us evidence for the use of the sheaf and shield together as a magic symbol in Anglo-Saxon times. "An ordeal by letting the sheaf sail down the river on a shield was only possible at a time when the sheaf was regarded as a kind of supernatural being which could find the way itself[[189]]."
But a still closer parallel to the story of the corn-figure coming over the water is found in Finnish mythology in the person of Sämpsä Pellervoinen. Finnish mythology seems remote from our subject, but if the figure of Sämpsä was borrowed from Germanic mythology, as seems to be thought[[190]], we are justified in laying great weight upon the parallel.
Readers of the Kalewala will remember, near the beginning, the figure of Sämpsä Pellervoinen, the god of Vegetation. He does not seem to do much. But there are other Finnish
poems in his honour, extant in varying versions[[191]]. It is difficult to get a collected idea from these fragmentary records, but it seems to be this: Ahti, the god of the sea, sends messengers to summon Sämpsä, so that he may bring fertility to the fields. In one version, first the Winter and then the Summer are sent to arouse Sämpsä, that he may make the crops and trees grow. Winter—
Took a foal swift as the spring wind,
Let the storm wind bear him forward,
Blew the trees till they were leafless,
Blew the grass till it was seedless,
Bloodless likewise the young maidens.
Sämpsä refuses to come. Then the Summer is sent with better results. In another version Sämpsä is fetched from an island beyond the sea:
It is I who summoned Sämpsä
From an isle amid the ocean,
From a skerry bare and treeless.
In yet another variant we are told how the boy Sämpsä
Took six grains from off the corn heap,
Slept all summer mid the corn heap,
In the bosom of the corn boat.
Now "It's a long, long way to" Ilomantsi in the east of Finland, where this last variant was discovered. But at least we have evidence that, within the region influenced by Germanic mythology, the spirit of vegetation was thought of as a boy coming over the sea, or sleeping in a boat with corn[[192]].
To sum up:
Sceafa, when the Catalogue of Kings in Widsith was drawn up—before Beowulf was composed, at any rate in its present form—was regarded as an ancient king. When the West Saxon pedigree was drawn up, certainly not much more than a century and a half after the composition of Beowulf, and perhaps much less, Sceaf was regarded as the primitive figure in the pedigree, before whom no one lived save the Hebrew patriarchs. That he was originally thought of as a child,
coming across the water, with the sheaf of corn, is, in view of the Finnish parallel, exceedingly probable, and acquires some confirmation from the Chronicler's placing him in Noah's ark. But the definite evidence for this is late.
Scyld, on the other hand, is in the first place probably a mere eponym of the power of the Scylding kings of Denmark. He may, at a very early date, have been provided with a ship funeral, since later two Swedish kings, both apparently of Danish origin, have this ship funeral accorded to them, and in one case it is expressly said to be "according to the custom of his ancestors." But it seems exceedingly improbable that his original story represented him as coming over the sea in a boat. For, if so, it remains to be explained why this motive has entirely disappeared among his own people in Scandinavia, and has been preserved only in England. Would the Danes have been likely to forget utterly so striking a story, concerning the king from whom their line derived its name? Further, in England, Beowulf alone attributes this story to Scyld, whilst later historians attribute it to Sceaf. In view of the way in which the story of William of Malmesbury is supported by folklore, to regard that story as merely the result of error or invention seems perilous indeed.
On the other hand, all becomes straightforward if we allow that Scyld and Sceaf were both ancient figures standing at the head of famous dynasties. Their names alliterate. What more likely than that their stories should have influenced each other, and that one king should have come to be regarded as the parent or ancestor of the other? Contamination with Scyld would account for Sceaf's boat being stated to have come to land in Scani, Scanza—that Scedeland which is mentioned as the seat of Scyld's rule. Yet this explanation is not necessary, for if Sceaf were an early Longobard king, he would be rightly represented as ruling in Scandinavia[[193]].
Section VI. Beow.
The Anglo-Saxon genealogies agree that the son of Sceldwa (Scyld) is Beow (Beaw, Beo). In Beowulf, he is named not Beow, but Beowulf.
Many etymologies have been suggested for Bēow. But considering that Beow is in some versions a grandson, in all a descendant of Sceaf, it can hardly be an accident that his name is identical with the O.E. word for grain, bēow. The Norse word corresponding to this is bygg[[194]].
Recent investigation of the name is best summed up in the words of Axel Olrik:
"New light has been cast upon the question of the derivation of the name Beow by Kaarle Krohn's investigation of the debt of Finnish to Norse mythology, together with Magnus Olsen's linguistic interpretation. The Finnish has a deity Pekko, concerning whom it is said that he promoted the growth of barley: the Esths, closely akin to the Finns, have a corresponding Peko, whose image—the size of a three-year-old child—was carried out into the fields and invoked at the time of sowing, or else was kept in the corn-bin by a custodian chosen for a year. This Pekko is plainly a personification of the barley; the form corresponding phonetically in Runic Norse would be *beggw- (from which comes Old Norse bygg).
"So in Norse there was a grain *beggw- (becoming bygg) and a corn-god *Beggw- (becoming Pekko). In Anglo-Saxon there was a grain béow and an ancestral Béow. And all four are phonetically identical (proceeding from a primitive form *beuwa, 'barley'). The conclusion which it is difficult to avoid is, that the corn-spirit 'Barley' and the ancestor 'Barley' are one and the same. The relation is the same as that between King Sheaf and the worship of the sheaf: the worshipped corn-being gradually sinks into the background, and comes to be regarded as an epic figure, an early ancestor.
"We have no more exact knowledge of the mythical ideas connected either with the ancestor Beow or the corn-god Pekko. But we know enough of the worship of Pekko to show that he dwelt in the corn-heap, and that, in the spring, he was fetched out in the shape of a little child. That reminds us not a little of Sämpsä, who lay in the corn-heap on the ship, and came to land and awoke in the spring[[195]]."
But it may be objected that this is "harking back" to the old mythological interpretations. After refusing to accept Müllenhoff's assumptions, are we not reverting, through the names of Sceaf and Beow, and the worship of the sheaf, to very much the same thing?
No. It is one thing to believe that the ancestor-king Beow may be a weakened form of an ancient divinity, a mere name surviving from the figure of an old corn-god Beow; it is quite another to assume, as Müllenhoff did, that what we are told about Beowulf was originally told about Beow and that therefore we are justified in giving a mythological meaning to it.
All we know, conjecture apart, about Beow is his traditional relationship to Scyld, Sceaf and the other figures of the pedigree. That Beowulf's dragon fight belonged originally to him is only a conjecture. In confirmation of this conjecture only one argument has been put forward: an argument turning upon Beowulf, son of Scyld—that obscure figure, apparently equivalent to Beow, who meets us at the beginning of our poem.
Beowulf's place as a son of Scyld and father of Healfdene is occupied in the Danish genealogies by Frothi, son of Skjold, and father of Halfdan. It has been urged that the two figures are really identical, in spite of the difference of name. Now Frothi slays a dragon, and it has been argued that this dragon fight shows similarities which enable us to identify it with the dragon fight attributed in our poem to Beowulf the Geat.
The argument is a strong one—if it really is the case that the dragon slain by Frothi was the same monster as that slain by Beowulf the Geat.
Unfortunately this parallel, which will be examined in the next section, is far from certain. We must be careful not to argue in a circle, identifying Beowulf and Frothi because they slew the same dragon, and then identifying the dragons because they were slain by the same hero.
Whilst, therefore, we admit that it is highly probable that Beow (grain) the descendant of Sceaf (sheaf) was originally a corn divinity or corn fetish, we cannot follow Müllenhoff in his bold attribution to this "culture hero" of Beowulf's adventures with the dragon or with Grendel.
Section VII. The house of Scyld and Danish parallels: Heremod-Lotherus and Beowulf-Frotho.
Scyld, although the source of that Scylding dynasty which our poem celebrates, is not apparently regarded in Beowulf as the earliest Danish king. He came to the throne after an interregnum; the people whom he grew up to rule had long endured cruel need, "being without a prince[[196]]." We hear in Beowulf of one Danish king only whom we can place chronologically before Scyld—viz. Heremod[[197]]. The way in which Heremod is referred to would fit in very well with the supposition[[198]] that he was the last of a dynasty; the immediate predecessor of Scyld; and that it was the death or exile of Heremod which ushered in the time when the Danes were without a prince.
Now there is a natural tendency in genealogies for each king to be represented as the descendant of his predecessor, whether he really was so or no; so that in the course of time, and sometimes of a very short time, the first king of a new dynasty may come to be reckoned as son of a king of the preceding line[[199]]. Consequently, there would be nothing surprising if, in another account, we find Scyld represented as a son of Heremod. And we do find the matter represented thus in the West Saxon genealogy, where Sceldwa or Scyld is son of Heremod. Turning to the Danish accounts, however, we do not find any Hermóðr (which is the form we should expect corresponding to Heremōd) as father to Skjold (Scyld). Either no father of Skjold is known, or else (in Saxo Grammaticus) he has a father Lotherus. But, although the names are different, there is some correspondence between what we are told of Lother and what we are told of Heremod. A close parallel has indeed been drawn by Sievers between the whole dynasty: on the one hand Lotherus, his son Skioldus, and his descendant Frotho,
as given in Saxo: and on the other hand the corresponding figures in Beowulf, Heremod, Scyld, and Scyld's son, Beowulf the Dane.
The fixed and certain point here is the identity of the central figure, Skioldus-Scyld. All the rest is very doubtful; not that there are not many parallel features, but because the parallels are of a commonplace type which might so easily recur accidentally.
The story of Lother, as given by Saxo, will be found below: the story of Heremod as given in Beowulf is hopelessly obscure—a mere succession of allusions intended for an audience who knew the tale quite well. Assuming the stories of Lother and Heremod to be different versions of one original, the following would seem to be the most likely reconstruction[[200]], the more doubtful portions being placed within round brackets thus ( ):
The old Danish prince [Dan in Saxo] has two sons, one a weakling [Humblus, Saxo] the other a hero [Lotherus, Saxo: Heremod, Beowulf] (who was already in his youth the hope of the nation). But after his father's death the elder was (through violence) raised to the throne: and Lother-Heremod went into banishment. (But under the rule of the weakling the kingdom went to pieces, and thus) many a man longed for the return of the exile, as a help against these evils. So the hero conquers and deposes the weaker brother. But then his faults break forth, his greed and his cruelty: he ceases to be the darling and becomes the scourge of his people, till they rise and either slay him or drive him again into exile.
If the stories of Lother and Heremod are connected, we may be fairly confident that Heremod, not Lother, was the name of the king in the original story.
For Scandinavian literature does know a Hermoth (Hermóðr), though no such adventures are attributed to him as those recorded of Heremod in Beowulf. Nevertheless it is probable that this Hermoth and Heremod in Beowulf are one and the same, because both heroes are linked in some way or other with Sigemund. How these two kings, Heremod and Sigemund, came to be connected, we do not know, but we find this connection recurring again and again[[201]]. This may be
mere coincidence: but I doubt if we are justified in assuming it to be so[[202]].
It has been suggested[[203]] that both Heremod and Sigemund were originally heroes specially connected with the worship of Odin, and hence grouped together. The history of the Scandinavian Sigmund is bound up with that of the magic sword which Odin gave him, and with which he was always victorious till the last fight when Odin himself shattered it.
And we are told in the Icelandic that Odin, whilst he gave a sword to Sigmund, gave a helm and byrnie to Hermoth.
Again, whilst in one Scandinavian poem Sigmund is represented as welcoming the newcomer at the gates of Valhalla, in another the same duty is entrusted to Hermoth.
It is clear also that the Beowulf-poet had in mind some kind of connection, though we cannot tell what, between Sigemund and Heremod.
We may take it, then, that the Heremod who is linked with Sigemund in Beowulf was also known in Scandinavian literature as a hero in some way connected with Sigmund: whether or no the adventures which Saxo records of Lotherus were really told in Scandinavian lands in connection with Hermoth, we cannot say. The wicked king whose subjects rebel against him is too common a feature of Germanic story for us to feel sure, without a good deal of corroborative evidence, that the figures of Lotherus and Heremod are identical.
The next king in the line, Skioldus in Saxo, is, as we have seen, clearly identical with Scyld in Beowulf. But beyond the name, the two traditions have, as we have also seen, but little in common. Both are youthful heroes[[204]], both force neighbouring kings to pay tribute[[205]]; but such things are commonplaces[[206]].
We must therefore turn to the next figure in the pedigree: the son of Skjold in Scandinavian tradition is Frothi (Frotho
in Saxo)[[207]], the son of Scyld in Beowulf is Beowulf the Dane. And Frothi is the father of Halfdan (Haldanus in Saxo) as Beowulf the Dane is of Healfdene. The Frothi of Scandinavian tradition corresponds then in position to Beowulf the Dane in Old English story[[208]].
Now of Beowulf the Dane we are told so little that we have really no means of drawing a comparison between him and Frothi. But a theory that has found wide acceptance among scholars assumes that the dragon fight of Beowulf the Geat was originally narrated of Beowulf the Dane, and only subsequently transferred to the Geatic hero. Theoretically, then, Beowulf the Dane kills a dragon. Now certainly Frotho kills a dragon: and it has been generally accepted[[209]] that the parallels between the dragon slain by Frotho and that slain by Beowulf the Geat are so remarkable as to exclude the possibility of mere accidental coincidence, and to lead us to conclude that the dragon story was originally told of that Beowulf who corresponds to Frothi, i.e. Beowulf the Dane, son of Scyld and father of Healfdene; not Beowulf, son of Ecgtheow, the Geat.
But are the parallels really so close? We must not forget that here we are building theory upon theory. That the Frotho of Saxo is the same figure as Beowulf the Dane in Old English, is a theory, based upon his common relationship to Skiold-Scyld before him and to Haldanus-Healfdene coming after him: that Beowulf the Dane was the original hero of the dragon fight, and that that dragon fight was only subsequently transferred to the credit of Beowulf the Geat, is again a theory. Only if we can find real parallels between the dragon-slaying of Frotho and the dragon-slaying of Beowulf will these theories have confirmation.
Parallels have been pointed out by Sievers which he regards as so close as to justify a belief that both are derived ultimately from an old lay, with so much closeness that verbal resemblances can still be traced.
Unfortunately the parallels are all commonplaces. That Sievers and others have been satisfied with them was perhaps due to the fact that they started by assuming as proved that the dragon fight of Beowulf the Geat belonged originally to Beowulf the Dane[[210]], and argued that since Frotho in Saxo occupies a place corresponding exactly to that of Beowulf the Dane in Beowulf, a comparatively limited resemblance between two dragons coming, as it were, at the same point in the pedigree, might be held sufficient to identify them.
But, as we have seen, the assumption that the dragon fight of Beowulf the Geat belonged originally to Beowulf the Dane is only a theory that will have to stand or fall as we can prove that the dragon fight of Frotho is really parallel to that of Beowulf the Geat, and therefore must have belonged to the connecting link supplied by the Scylding prince Beowulf the Dane. In other words, the theory that the dragon in Beowulf is to be identified with the dragon which in Saxo is slain by Frotho the Danish prince, father of Haldanus-Healfdene, is one of the main arguments upon which we must base the theory that the dragon in Beowulf was originally slain by the Danish Beowulf, father of Healfdene, not by Beowulf the Geat. We cannot then turn round, and assert that the fact that they were both slain by a Danish prince, the father of Healfdene, is an argument for identifying the dragons.
Turning to the dragon fight itself, the following parallels have been noted by Sievers:
(1) A native (indigena) comes to Frotho, and tells him of the treasure-guarding dragon. An informer (melda) plays the same part in Beowulf[[211]].
But a dragon is not game which can be met with every day. He is a shy beast, lurking in desert places. Some informant has very frequently to guide the hero to his
foe[[212]]. And the situation is widely different. Frotho knows nothing of the dragon till directed to the spot: Beowulf's land has been assailed, he knows of the dragon, though he needs to be guided to its exact lair.
(2) Frotho's dragon lives on an island. Beowulf's lives near the sea, and there is an island (ēalond, 2334) in the neighbourhood.
But ēalond in Beowulf probably does not mean "island" at all: and in any case the dragon did not live upon the ēalond. Many dragons have lived near the sea. Sigemund's dragon did so[[213]].
(3) The hero in each case attacks the dragon single-handed.
But what hero ever did otherwise? On the contrary, Beowulf's exploit differs from that of Frotho and of most other dragon slayers in that he is unable to overcome his foe single-handed, and needs the support of Wiglaf.
(4) Special armour is carried by the dragon slayer in each case.
But this again is no uncommon feature. The Red Cross Knight also needs special armour. Dragon slayers constantly invent some ingenious or even unique method. And again the parallel is far from close. Frotho is advised to cover his shield and his limbs with the hides of bulls and kine: a sensible precaution against fiery venom. Beowulf constructs a shield of iron[[214]]: which naturally gives very inferior protection[[215]].
(5) Frotho's informant tells him that he must be of good courage[[216]]. Wiglaf encourages Beowulf[[217]].
But the circumstances under which the words are uttered are entirely different, nor have the words more than a general resemblance. That a man needs courage, if he is going to tackle a dragon, is surely a conclusion at which two minds could have arrived independently.
(6) Both heroes waste their blows at first on the scaly back of the dragon.
But if the hero went at once for the soft parts, there would be no fight at all, and all the fun would be lost. Sigurd's dragon-fight is, for this reason, a one-sided business from the first. To avoid this, Frotho is depicted as beginning by an attack on the dragon's rough hide (although he has been specially warned by the indigena not to do so):
ventre sub imo
esse locum scito quo ferrum mergere fas est,
hunc mucrone petens medium rimaberis anguem[[218]].
(7) The hoard is plundered by both heroes.
But it is the nature of a dragon to guard a hoard[[219]]. And, having slain the dragon, what hero would neglect the gold?
(8) There are many verbal resemblances: the dragon spits venom[[220]], and twists himself into coils[[221]].
Some of these verbal resemblances may be granted as proved: but they surely do not prove the common origin of the two dragon fights. They only tend to prove the common origin of the school of poetry in which these two dragon fights were told. That dragons dwelt in mounds was a common Germanic belief, to which the Cottonian Gnomic verses testify. Naturally, therefore, Frotho's dragon is montis possessor: Beowulf's is beorges hyrde. The two phrases undoubtedly point back to a similar gradus, to a similar traditional stock phraseology, and to similar beliefs: that is all. As well argue that two kings must be identical, because each is called folces hyrde.
These commonplace phrases and commonplace features are surely quite insufficient to prove that the stories are identical—at most they only prove that they bear the impress of one and the same poetical school. If a parallel is to carry weight there must be something individual about it, as there is, for example, about the arguments by which the identity of Beowulf and Bjarki have been supported. That a hero comes from
Geatland (Gautland) to the court where Hrothulf (Rolf) is abiding; that the same hero subsequently is instrumental in helping Eadgils (Athils) against Onela (Ali)—here we have something tangible. But when two heroes, engaged upon slaying a dragon, are each told to be brave, the parallel is too general to be a parallel at all. "There is a river in Macedon: and there is also moreover a river at Monmouth, and there is salmons in both."
And there is a fundamental difference, which would serve to neutralize the parallels, even did they appear much less accidental than they do.
Dragon fights may be classified into several types: two stand out prominently. There is the story in which the young hero begins his career by slaying a dragon or monster and winning, it may be a hoard of gold, it may be a bride. This is the type of story found, for instance, in the tales of Sigurd, or Perseus, or St George. On the other hand there is the hero who, at the end of his career, seeks to ward off evil from himself and his people. He slays the monster, but is himself slain by it. The great example of this type is the god Thor, who in the last fight of the gods slays the Dragon, but dies when he has reeled back nine paces from the "baleful serpent[[222]]."
Now the story of the victorious young Frotho is of the one type: that of the aged Beowulf is of the other. And this difference is essential, fundamental, dominating the whole situation in each case: giving its cheerful and aggressive tone to the story of Frotho, giving the elegiac and pathetic note which runs through the whole of the last portion of Beowulf[[223]]. It is no mere detail which could be added or subtracted by a narrator without altering the essence of the story.
In face of this we must pronounce the two stories essentially and originally distinct. If, nevertheless, there were a large number of striking and specific similarities, we should have to allow that, though originally distinct, the one dragon story had influenced the other in detail. For, whilst each poet who retold the tale would make alterations in detail, and might
import such detail from one dragon story into another, what we know of the method of the ancient story tellers does not allow us to assume that a poet would have altered the whole drift of a story, either by changing the last death-struggle of an aged, childless prince into the victorious feat of a young hero, or by the reverse process.
Those, therefore, who hold the parallels quoted above to be convincing, may believe that one dragon story has influenced another, originally distinct[[224]]. To me, it does not appear that even this necessarily follows from the evidence.
It seems very doubtful whether any of the parallels drawn by Sievers between the stories of Lotherus and Heremod[[225]], Skioldus and Scyld, Frotho and Beowulf, are more than the resemblances inevitable in poetry which, like the Old Danish and the Old English, still retains so many traces of the common Germanic frame in which it was moulded.
Indeed, of the innumerable dragon-stories extant, there is probably not one which we can declare to be really identical with that of Beowulf. There is a Danish tradition which shows many similarities[[226]], and I have given this below, in Part II; but rather as an example of a dragon-slaying of the Beowulf type, than because I believe in any direct connection between the two stories.