The old sword known among men as the relic of Eanmund (son of Ohthere), whom, when a lawless exile, Weohstan had slain in fair fight with weapon’s edge; and from his kindred (magum) had carried off the brown mottled helmet, ringed byrnie, and old mysterious sword; which Onela yielded up to him, his nephew’s war-harness, accoutrement complete. Not a word spake he (Onela) about the feud, although he (Weohstan) had killed his brother’s son. He (Weohstan) retained the spoils for many a year, bill and byrnie, until when his own boy (Wiglaf) was able to claim Eorlscip rank, like his father before him, then gave he to him, before the Geats, armour untold of every sort, after which he gave up life, ripe for the parting journey.
Thus the restrained desire of avengement incidentally is made to find satisfaction at last as regards both the outlawed sons of Ohthere.
After these events the elder branch of the Scyldings passes out of the poet’s interest. The only remaining heroes of the tale are the two Wægmundings—Beowulf and Wiglaf.
A long interval had elapsed between Beowulf’s accession to the chieftainship of his maternal kindred and the final feat of daring which cost him his life. And it was Wiglaf, his nearest paternal kinsman, who in the last tragedy came to his aid bearing the sword of the outlawed Eanmund. Beowulf’s dying words to Wiglaf were: ‘Thou art the last left of our kindred (cynnes) the Wægmundings. Fate has swept into eternity all my kinsmen (mâgas)—eorls among men! I must after them!’ As he comes to the rescue, Wiglaf remembers the honour done to him by Beowulf, who had already passed on to him the hereditary right of the chieftainship of the Wægmundings (2608).
Beowulf as ‘sister’s son’ becomes chief of his maternal kindred.
Why had he done this? If we might tentatively use the clue given by ancient Greek tribal custom to elucidate a Scandinavian case, we should say that on failure of male succession the ‘sister’s son’ of Hygelac had been called back into his mother’s kindred to become its chieftain, leaving Wiglaf, his next of kin on his father’s side, to sustain the chieftainship of his paternal kindred. The right of the maternal uncle, known to have existed under early Greek law, to claim his ‘sister’s son’ if need arose, to perpetuate the mother’s paternal kindred, suggests a similar explanation in Beowulf’s case. Such a right, found as well in the Laws of Manu, may possibly have been inherent in Scandinavian tribal custom also. Such a suggestion would be at least consistent with the fact of Beowulf’s having been brought up from seven years old in the household of his maternal grandfather, and treated by him as a son. It would be in harmony, too, with what Tacitus describes to have been the relation of the ‘sister’s son’ to the avunculus amongst the German tribes, and the peculiar value of the ‘sister’s son’ as a hostage.[60]
Some indirect confirmation of the probable truth of such a suggestion may perhaps be also drawn from the fact that in Beowulf, when a man’s father is no longer living, the poet sometimes seems to describe him as his maternal uncle’s nephew instead of as his father’s son.
Heardred, the young son of Hygelac and Hygd his queen, after his father’s death is spoken of no longer as Hygelac’s son, but as the nephew of Hereric, ‘nefan Hererices’ (2207). Now his paternal uncles were Herebeald and Hæthcyn, and it becomes an almost necessary inference that Hereric was a maternal uncle. Thus:
Hæreth (1929) father of Hygd | +------------+-----------+ | | (Hereric?) Hygd, m. Hygelac uncle of Heardred (2207) | Heardred nephew of Hereric[61] (2207)
So also in the case of Hygelac himself. He was the son of Hrethel. The poet calls him son of Hrethel (1486), and again Hygelac Hrethling (1924). But after Hrethel’s death he calls him ‘Hygelac of the Geats, nephew of Swerting’ (‘Hygelac Geáta nefa Swertinges’) (1204). Here again it seems likely that Swerting was the maternal uncle, though the poet, as in the other case, does not think it needful to explain that it was so. Otherwise, why the change of epithet?