A Literary History of the English People, from the Origins to the Renaissance

by J. J. Jusserand

These strong men lend themselves willingly, as do their kin over the sea, to the ebb and flow of powerful contrary feelings, and rush body and soul from the extreme of joy to the acme of sorrow. The mild sérénité, enjoyed by men with classical tendencies was to them unknown, and the word was one which no Norman Conquest, no Angevin rule, no "Augustan" imitation, could force into the language; it was unwanted, for the thing was unknown. But they listen with unabated pleasure, late in the period, to the story of heroic deeds performed on the Continent by men of their own race, whose mind was shaped like theirs, and who felt the same feelings. The same blood and soul sympathy which animates them towards their own King Æthelstan, lord of earls, ring-giver of warriors—not a myth that one, not a fable his deeds—warms the songs they devote to King Waldhere of Aquitaine, to the Scandinavian warrior Beowulf, and to others, probably, who belonged to the same Germanic stock. Not a word of England or the Angles is said in those poems; still they were popular in England. The Waldhere song, of which some sixty lines have been preserved, on two vellum leaves discovered in the binding of an old book, told the story of the hero's flight from Attila's Court with his bride Hildgund and a treasure (treasures play a great part in those epics), and of his successive fights with Gunther and Hagen while crossing the Vosges. These warriors, after this one appearance, vanish altogether from English literature, but their literary life was continued on the Continent; their fate was told in Latin in the tenth century by a monk of St. Gall, and again they had a part to play in the German "Nibelungenlied." Beowulf, on the contrary, Scandinavian as he was, is known only through the Anglo-Saxon poet. In "Beowulf," as in "Waldhere," feelings, speeches, manners, ideal of life are the same as with the heroes of the "Corpus Poeticum Boreale." The whole obviously belongs to the same group of nations.[54]

The strange poem of "Beowulf,"[55] the most important monument of Anglo-Saxon literature, was discovered at the end of the last century, in a manuscript written about the year 1000,[56] and is now preserved in the British Museum. Few works have been more discussed; it has been the cause of literary wars, in which the learned men of England, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, France, and America have taken part; and peace is not yet signed.

This poem, like the old Celtic tales, is a medley of pagan legends, which did not originally concern Beowulf in particular,[57] and of historical facts, the various parts, after a separate literary life, having been put together, perhaps in the eighth century, perhaps later, by an Anglo-Saxon Christian, who added new discrepancies in trying to adapt the old tale to the faith of his day. No need to expatiate on the incoherence of a poem formed of such elements. Its heroes are at once pagan and Christian; they believe in Christ and in Weland; they fight against the monsters of Scandinavian mythology, and see in them the descendants of Cain; historical facts, such as a battle of the sixth century, mentioned by Gregory of Tours, where the victory remained to the Frankish ancestor,[58] are mixed up with tales of fantastic duels below the waves.

According to a legend partly reproduced in the poem, the Danes had no chief. They beheld one day a small ship on the sea, and in it a child, and with him one of those ever-recurring treasures. They saw in this mysterious gift a sign from above, and took the child for their ruler; "and he was a good king." When that king, Scyld, died, they placed him once more on a bark with treasures, and the waters bore him away, no one ever knew whither.

One of his successors, Hrothgar,[59] who held his court, like the Danish kings of to-day, in the isle of Seeland, built in his old age a splendid hall, Heorot, wherein to feast his warriors and distribute rings among them. They drank merrily there, while the singer sang "from far-off ages the origin of men." But there was a monster named Grendel, who lived in the darkness of lonely morasses. He "bore impatiently for a season to hear each day joyous revelry loud-sounding in the hall, where was the music of the harp, and the clear piercing song" of the "scôp." When night came, the fiend "went to visit the grand house, to see how the Ring-Danes after the beer-drinking had settled themselves in it. Then found he therein a crowd of nobles (æthelinga) asleep after the feast; they knew no care."[60] Grendel removed thirty of them to his lair, and they were killed by "that dark pest of men, that mischief-working being, grim and greedy, savage and fierce." Grendel came again and "wrought a yet worse deed of murder." The thanes ceased to care much for the music and glee of Heorot. "He that escaped from that enemy kept himself ever afterwards far off in greater watchfulness."

Higelac, king of the Geatas (who the Geatas were is doubtful; perhaps Goths of Gothland in Sweden, perhaps Jutes of Jutland[61]), had a nephew, Beowulf, son of Ecgtheow, of the royal Swedish blood, who heard of the scourge. Beowulf went with his companions on board a ship; "the foamy-necked cruiser, hurried on by the wind, flew over the sea, most like to a bird," and followed "the path of the swans." For the North Sea is the path of the swans as well as of the whales, and the wild swan abounds to this day on the coasts of Norway.[62] Beowulf landed on the Danish shore, and proposed to Hrothgar to rid him of the monster.

Hrothgar does not conceal from his guests the terrible danger they are running: "Often have boasted the sons of battle, drunken with beer, over their cups of ale, that they would await in the beer-hall, with their deadly sharp-edged swords, the onset of Grendel. Then in the morning, when the daylight came, this mead-hall, this lordly chamber, was stained with gore, all the bench-floor drenched in blood, the hall in carnage...." The Geatas persist in their undertaking, and they are feasted by their host: "Then was a bench cleared for the sons of the Geatas, to sit close together in the beer-hall; there the stout-hearted ones went and sat, exulting clamorously. A thane attended to their wants, who carried in his hands a chased ale-flagon, and poured the pure bright liquor."

Night falls; the Geat and his companions remain in the hall and "bow themselves to repose." Grendel the "night walker came prowling in the gloom of night ... from his eyes there issued a hideous light, most like to fire. In the hall he saw many warriors, a kindred band, sleeping all together, a group of clansmen. Then he laughed in his heart." He did not tarry, but seized one of the sleepers, "tore him irresistibly, bit his flesh, drank the blood from his veins, swallowed him by large morsels; soon had he devoured all the corpse but the feet and hands." He then finds himself confronted by Beowulf. The fight begins under the sounding roof, the gilded seats are overthrown, and it was a wonder the hall itself did not fall in; but it was "made fast with iron bands." At last Grendel's arm is wrenched off, and he flees towards his morasses to die.

While Beowulf, loaded with treasure, returns to his own country, another scourge appears. The mother of Grendel wishes to avenge him, and, during the night, seizes and eats Hrothgar's favourite warrior. Beowulf comes back and reaches the cave of the fiends under the waters; the fight is an awful one, and the hero was about to succumb, when he caught sight of an enormous sword forged by the giants. With it he slays the foe; and also cuts off the head of Grendel, whose body lay there lifeless. At the contact of this poisonous blood the blade melts entirely, "just like ice, when the Father looseneth the bonds of frost, unwindeth the ropes that bind the waves."

Later, after having taken part in the historic battle fought against the Franks, in which his uncle Higelac was killed, Beowulf becomes king, and reigns fifty years. In his old age, he has to fight for the last time, a monster, "a fierce Fire-drake," that held a treasure. He is victorious; but sits down wounded on a stone, feeling that he is about to die. "Now go thou quickly, dear Wiglaf," he says to the only one of his companions who had come to his rescue, "to spy out the hoard under the hoar rock; ... make haste now that I may examine the ancient wealth, the golden store, may closely survey the brilliant cunningly-wrought gems, that so I may the more tranquilly, after seeing the treasured wealth, quit my life, and my country, which I have governed long." Bowls and dishes, a sword "shot with brass," a standard "all gilded, ... locked by strong spells," from which issued "a ray of light," are brought to him. He enjoys the sight; and here, out of love for his hero, the Christian compiler of the story, after having allowed him to satisfy so much of his heathen tastes, prepares him for heaven, and makes him utter words of gratitude to "the Lord of all, the King of glory, the eternal Lord"; which done, Beowulf, a heathen again, is permitted to order for himself such a funeral as the Geatas of old were accustomed to: "Rear a mound, conspicuous after the burning, at the headland which juts into the sea. That shall, to keep my people in mind, tower up on Hrones-ness, that seafaring men may afterwards call it Beowulf's Mound, they who drive from far their roaring vessels over the mists of the floods." Wiglaf vainly tries to revive him with water; and addressing his unworthy companions, who then only dare to come out of the wood, expresses gloomy forebodings as to the future of his country: "Now may the people expect a time of strife, as soon as the king's fall shall become widely known to the Franks and Frisians.... To us never after [the quarrel in which Higelac died] was granted the favour of the Merovingians (Mere-Wioinga). Nor do I expect at all any peace or faith from the Swedish people...." The serpent is thrown "over the wall-cliff; they let the waves take, the flood close upon, the keeper of the treasures." A mound is built on the hill, "widely visible to seafaring men.... They placed on the barrow rings and jewels, ... they let the earth hold the treasure of earls, the gold in the sand where it now yet remaineth, as useless to men as it [formerly] was."[63] They ride about the mound, recounting in their chants the deeds of the dead: "So mourned the people of the Geatas, his hearth-companions, for their lord's fall; said that he was among world-kings the mildest and the kindest of men, most gracious to his people and most desirous of praise."