Beowulf is a poem in the Anglo-Saxon language, and, in the alliterative metre of the Anglo-Saxon compositions in general, of unknown date and authorship, of upwards of six thousand lines; a poem which, although preserved in England, and in a form adapted to English hearers subsequent to the conversion of our island to Christianity, is essentially pagan and German—pagan in respect to its superstitions and machinery, and German in respect to the scene of action; for in Germany, and not in England, are all its actions achieved. This being the case, it cannot but tell us something of the ancient Germans; and, as the hero is an Angle, the ancient Germans of whom this something is told, are, more or less, the Angle ancestors of the English in their original continental home.[203]
Much more than this it is unsafe to say. The composition itself is a poem—a romance—an epic. This is against the historical value of its subject-matter. Then, it has taken its present form under the hands of a Christian. This is against its value as cotemporaneous evidence. Thirdly, it has the character, to no small extent, not only of a rhapsody, but of a rhapsody of which the elements are heterogeneous. This is against its value as a piece of Anglicism.
Nick and Grendel—the old Nick of the present English, and Grendel—probably, the Geruthus of Saxo Grammaticus—are the chief supernaturals, demons of the swamp and fen. These best localize the legends in which they appear; for which most parts of Hanover and the Cimbric Chersonesus suit indifferently, the Frisian portions pre-eminently, well. The more exalted mythology of Woden, Thor, and Balder, so generally considered to have been all-pervading in Germany and Scandinavia, finds no place in Beowulf. Our Devil and the Devil's Dam are rough analogues of Nick and Grendel.
Heort is the great palatial hall of Hroðgar, the kingly personage of the poem, Beowulf being the hero. It stands in some part of the Cimbric Chersonese. Seeing in this, as a word, only another form of the name Hartz, I also see in it a proof of the rhapsodical character of the poem,[204] and the heterogeneous character of its elements.
An episode, of which Sigmund is the hero, gives us a narrative in which we have, in an altered form, and an obscure outline, a portion of the Nibelungenlied cycle—an element from the Rhine.
Another gives us an adventure apparently without a hero, or rather an adventure whose hero has no proper name, but only a designating adjective. Considering the indistinct shape which all legends take in Beowulf, I cannot but think that the individual whose name stands in the text as Stearc heart, and in the translation as Strong-heart, is neither more nor less than the great Danish hero Starcather, of a not unlike legend in Saxo.
Danes, Geats, Frisians, and Sweas (Swedes), are the populations with whom the Angles are most brought in contact; and the following extract shews the manner of their mention. The parties, here, are Jutish Danes and Frisians.
1. "Hroðgar's poet after the mead-bench must excite joy in the hall, concerning Finn's descendants, when the expedition came upon them; Healfdene's hero, Hnæf the Scylding, was doomed to fall in Friesland. Hildeburh had at least no cause to praise the fidelity of the Jutes; guiltlessly was she deprived at the war-game of her beloved sons and brothers; one after another they fell wounded with javelins; that was a mournful lady. Not in vain did Hoce's daughter mourn their death, after morning[205] came, when she under the heaven might behold the slaughterer of her son, where he before possessed the most of earthly joys: war took away all Finn's thanes, except only a few, so that he might not on the place of meeting gain any thing by fighting against Hengest, nor defend in war his wretched remnant against the king's thane; but they offered him conditions, that they would give up to him entirely a second palace, a hall, and throne, so that they should halve the power with the sons of the Jutes, and at the gifts of treasure every day Folcwalda's son should honour the Danes, the troops of Hengest should serve them with rings, with hoarded treasures of solid gold, even as much as he would furnish the race of Frisians in the beer-hall. There they confirmed on both sides a fast treaty of peace. Finn strongly, undisputingly, engaged by oath to Hengest, that he would graciously maintain the poor survivors according to the judgment of his Witan, that there no man, either by word or work, should break the peace, nor through hostile machinations ever recall the quarrel, although they, deprived of their prince, must follow the slaughterer of him that gave them rings, since they were so compelled: if, then, any one of the Frisians with insolent speech should make allusion to the deadly feud, that then the edge of the sword should avenge it. The oath was completed, and heaped up gold was borne from the hoard of the warlike Scyldings: the best of warriors was ready upon the pile; at the pile was easy to be seen the mail-shirt coloured with gore, the hog of gold, the boar hard as iron, many a noble crippled with wounds: some fell upon the dead. Then at Hnæf's pile Hildeburh commanded her own son to be involved in flames, to burn his body, and to place him on the pile, wretchedly upon his shoulder the lady mourned; she lamented with songs; the warrior mounted the pile; the greatest of death-fires whirled; the welkin sounded before the mound; the mail-hoods melted; the gates of the wounds burst open; the loathly bite of the body, when the blood sprang forth; the flame, greediest of spirits, devoured all those whom there death took away: of both the people was the glory departed.
"Thence the warriors set out to visit their dwellings, deprived[206] of friends, to see Friesland, their homes and lofty city; Hengest yet, during the deadly-coloured winter, dwelt with Finn, boldly, without casting of lots he cultivated the land, although he might drive upon the sea the ship with the ringed prow; the deep boiled with storms, wan against the wind, winter locked the wave with a chain of ice, until the second year came to the dwellings; so doth yet, that which eternally, happily provideth weather gloriously bright. When the winter was departed, and the bosom of the earth was fair, the wanderer set out to explore, the stranger from his dwellings. He thought the more of vengeance than of his departing over the sea, if he might bring to pass a hostile meeting, since he inwardly remembered the sons of the Jutes. Thus he avoided not death when Hunláf's descendant plunged into his bosom the flame of war, the best of swords; therefore were among the Jutes, known by the edge of the sword, what warriors bold of spirit Finn afterwards fell in with, savage sword-slaughter at his own dwelling; since Guðláf and Osláf after the sea-journey mourned the sorrow, the grim onset: they avenged a part of their loss; nor might the cunning of mood refrain in his bosom, when his hall was surrounded with the men of his foes. Finn also was slain. The king amidst his band, and the queen was taken; the warriors of the Scyldings bore to their ships all the household wealth of the mighty king which they could find in Finn's dwelling, the jewels and carved gems; they over the sea carried the lordly lady to the Danes—led her to their people. The lay was sung, the song of the glee-man, the joke rose again, the noise from the benches grew loud, cupbearers gave the wine from wondrous vessels."
Hengist appears here as a Jute. Another English name, that of Offa, occurs in the following: