I

GENERAL NOTE ON THE POEM

This is the greatest poem that has come down to us from our Teutonic ancestors. Our only knowledge of it is through the unique MS. in the British Museum.

It has already been translated at least eight times as follows:

1. Kemble, 1837.

2. Thorpe and Arnold (with the O.E. Poem accompanying it).

3. Lumsden, 1881 (in ballad form).

4. Garnett, 1883.

5. Earle, 1892.

6. William Morris and A. J. Wyatt, 1895. This is in poetic form, but abounds in archaisms and difficult inversions, and is sometimes not easy to read or indeed to understand.

7. Wentworth Huyshe, 1907.

8. A translation in 1912. Author unknown.

Many of the persons and events of Beowulf are also known to us through various Scandinavian and French works as follows:

SCANDINAVIAN RECORDS.

1. Saxo’s Danish History.

2. Hrólf’s Saga Kraka.

3. Ynglinga Saga (and Ynglinga tál).

4. Skiöldunga Saga.

As instances of identical persons and events:

1. Skiöldr, ancestor of Skiöldungar, corresponds to Scyld the ancestor of Scyldungas.

2. The Danish King Halfdan corresponds to Healfdene.

3. His sons Hroarr and Helgi correspond to Hrothgar and Halga.

4. Hrölf Kraki corresponds to Hrothwulf, nephew of Hrothgar.

5. Frothi corresponds to Froda, and his son Ingialdi to Ingeld.

6. Otarr corresponds to Ohthere, and his son Athils to Eadgils.

With the exception of the Ynglinga tál all these records are quite late, hence they do not afford any evidence for the dates of events mentioned in Beowulf.

Further Scandinavian correspondences are seen in Böthvarr Biarki, the chief of Hrölf Kraki’s knights. He is supposed to correspond to Beowulf. He came to Leire, the Danish royal residence, and killed a demon in animal form. Saxo says it was a bear. This demon attacked the King’s yard at Yule-tide, but Biarki and Beowulf differ as to their future, for Biarki stayed with Hrölf Kraki to the end and died with him.

In the Grettis Saga the hero kills two demons, male and female. It is true that the scene is laid in Iceland, but minor details of scenery, the character of the demons, and other similarities make it impossible to believe the two stories to be different in origin. They both sprang out of a folk-tale associated after ten centuries with Grettis, and in England and Denmark with an historical prince of the Geats.

FRENCH RECORDS

1. Historia Francorum and Gesta Regum Francorum (discovered by Outzen and Leo).

In A.D. 520 a raid was made on the territory of the Chatuarii. Their king Theodberht, son of Theodric I, defeated Chocilaicus, who was killed. This Chocilaicus is identified with the Hygelac of our poem, and the raid with Hygelac’s raid on the Hetware (= Chatuarii), the Franks, and the Frisians. This helps us to estimate the date for Beowulf as having been born somewhere about the end of the fifth century.

2. Historia Francorum, by Gregory of Tours. The author speaks of the raider as the King of the Danes.

3. Liber Monstrorum. In this work the raider is Rex Getarum, King of the Geats, who may correspond with the Geats of our poem. The Geats were the people of Gautland in Southern Sweden. See [Appendix XI].

ORIGIN OF THE ANGLO-SAXON POEM

It was probably written in Northumbrian or Midland, but was preserved in a West Saxon translation.

There would seem to be some justifiable doubt as to the unity of the poem. Though on the whole pagan and primitive in tone, it has a considerable admixture of Christian elements, e.g. on pp. 29 and 30 and pp. 109–112, though the latter passage may be a late interpolation. Generally speaking, the poetry and sentiments are Christian in tone, but the customs are pagan. The author of the article in The Cambridge History of English Literature, vol. i., to whom I owe much, says: ‘I cannot believe that any Christian poet could have composed the account of Beowulf’s funeral.’ One passage is very reminiscent of [Eph. vi. 16], viz. Chapter [XXV]. p. 111; whilst page 25 (lower half) may be compared with Cædmon’s Hymn. There are also references to Cain and Abel and to the Deluge. Of Chapters I.–XXXI. the percentage of Christian elements is four, whilst of the remaining Chapters ([XXXII]. ad fin.) the percentage is ten, due chiefly to four long passages. Note especially that the words in Chapter [II]., ‘And sometimes they went vowing at their heathen shrines and offered sacrifices,’ et seq., are quite inconsistent with the Christian sentiment attributed to Hrothgar later in the poem. ‘It is generally thought,’ says the writer in The Cambridge History of English Literature, ‘that several originally separate lays have been combined into one poem, and, while there is no proof of this, it is quite possible and not unlikely.’

There are in the poem four distinct lays:

1. Beowulf’s Fight with Grendel.

2. Beowulf’s Fight with Grendel’s mother.

3. Beowulf’s Return to the land of the Geats.

4. Beowulf’s Fight with the Dragon.

Competent critics say that probably 1 and 2 ought to be taken together, while Beowulf’s reception by Hygelac (see 3 above) is probably a separate lay. Some scholars have gone much further in the work of disintegration, even attributing one half of the poem to interpolators, whilst others suggest two parallel versions. Summing up, the writer in The Cambridge History of English Literature says: ‘I am disposed to think that a large portion of the poem existed in epic form before the change of faith, and that the appearance of Christian elements in the poem is due to revision. The Christianity of Beowulf is of a singularly indefinite and individual type, which contrasts somewhat strongly with what is found in later Old English poetry. This revision must have been made at a very early date.’

The poem was built up between A.D. 512, the date of the famous raid of Hygelac (Chocilaicus) against the Hetware (Chatuarii), and 752, when the French Merovingian dynasty fell; for, says Arnold, ‘The poem contains not a word which by any human ingenuity could be tortured into a reference to any event subsequent to the fall of the Merovingians’ (A.D. 752).