of one of these slayers paces the hall, proud of his arms, boasts of the slaughter and wears the precious sword which thou by right shouldst wield[[47]]."

Such a reminder as this no Germanic warrior could long resist. So, Beowulf thinks, the young Dane will be slain; Ingeld will cease to take joy in his bride; and the old feud will break out afresh.

That it did so we know from Widsith, and from the same source we know that this Heathobard attack was repulsed by the combined strength of Hrothgar and his nephew Hrothulf.

But the tragic figure of Ingeld, hesitating between love for his father and love for his wife, between the duty of vengeance and his plighted word, was one which was sure to attract the interest of the old heroic poets more even than those of the victorious uncle and nephew. In the eighth century Alcuin, the Northumbrian, quotes Ingeld as the typical hero of song. Writing to a bishop of Lindisfarne, he reproves the monks for their fondness for the old stories about heathen kings, who are now lamenting their sins in Hell: "in the Refectory," he says, "the Bible should be read: the lector heard, not the harper: patristic sermons rather than pagan songs. For what has Ingeld to do with Christ[[48]]?" This protest testifies eloquently to the popularity of the Ingeld story, and further evidence is possibly afforded by the fact that few heroes of story seem to have had so many namesakes in Eighth Century England.

What is emphasized in Beowulf is not so much the struggle in the mind of Ingeld as the stern, unforgiving temper of the grim old warrior who will not let the feud die down; and this is the case also with the Danish versions, preserved to us in the Latin of Saxo Grammaticus. In two songs (translated by Saxo into "delightful sapphics") the old warrior Starcatherus stirs up Ingellus to his revenge:

"Why, Ingeld, buried in vice, dost thou delay to avenge thy father? Wilt thou endure patiently the slaughter of thy righteous sire?...

Whilst thou takest pleasure in honouring thy bride, laden with gems, and bright with golden vestments, grief torments us, coupled with shame, as we bewail thine infamies.

Whilst headlong lust urges thee, our troubled mind recalls the fashion of an earlier day, and admonishes us to grieve over many things.

For we reckon otherwise than thou the crime of the foes, whom now thou holdest in honour; wherefore the face of this age is a burden to me, who have known the old ways.

By nought more would I desire to be blessed, if, Froda, I might see those guilty of thy murder paying the due penalty of such a crime[[49]]."

Starkath came to be one of the best-known figures in Scandinavian legend, the type of the fierce, unrelenting warrior. Even in death his severed head bit the earth: or according to another version "the trunk fought on when the head was gone[[50]]." Nor did the Northern imagination leave him there. It loved to follow him below, and to indulge in conjectures as to his bearing in the pit of Hell[[51]].

Who the Heathobeardan were is uncertain. It is frequently argued that they are identical with the Longobardi; that the words Heatho-Bard and Long-Bard correspond, just as we get sometimes Gar-Dene, sometimes Hring-Dene. (So Heyne; Bremer in Pauls Grdr. (2) III, 949 etc.) The evidence for this is however unsatisfactory (see Chambers, Widsith, 205). Since the year 186 A.D. onwards the Longobardi were dwelling far inland, and were certainly never in a position from which an attack upon the Danes would have been practicable. If, therefore, we accept the identification of Heatho-Bard and Long-Bard, we must suppose the Heathobeardan of Beowulf to have been not the Longobardi of history, but a separate portion of the people, which had been left behind on the shores of the Baltic, when the main body went south. But as we have no evidence for any such offshoot from the main tribe, it is misleading to speak of the Heathobeardan as identical with the Longobardi: and although the similarity of one element in the name suggests some primitive relationship, that relationship may well have been exceedingly remote[[52]].

It has further been proposed to identify the Heathobeardan with the Heruli[[53]]. The Heruli came from the Scandinavian district, overran Europe, and became famous for their valour, savagery, and value as light-armed troops. If the Heathobeardan are identical with the Heruli, and if what we are told of the customs of the Heruli is true, Freawaru was certainly to be pitied. The Heruli were accustomed to put to death their sick and aged: and to compel widows to commit suicide.

The supposed identity of the Heruli with the Heathobeardan is however very doubtful. It rests solely upon the statement of Jordanes that they had been driven from their homes by the Danes (Dani ... Herulos propriis sedibus expulerunt). This is inconclusive, since the growth of the Danish power is likely enough to have led to collisions with more than one tribe. In fact Beowulf tells us that Scyld "tore away the mead benches from many a people." On the other hand the dissimilarity of names is not conclusive evidence against the identification, for the word Heruli is pretty certainly the same as the Old English Eorlas, and is a complimentary nick-name applied by the tribe to themselves, rather than their original racial designation.

Nothing, then, is really known of the Heathobeardan, except that evidence points to their having dwelt somewhere on the Baltic[[54]].

The Scandinavian sources which have preserved the memory of this feud have transformed it in an extraordinary way. The Heathobeardan came to be quite forgotten, although maybe some trace of their name remains in Hothbrodd, who is represented as the foe of Roe (Hrothgar) and Rolf (Hrothulf). When the Heathobeardan were forgotten, Froda and Ingeld were left without any subjects, and naturally came to be regarded, like Healfdene and the other kings with whom they were associated in story, as Danish kings. Accordingly the tale developed in Scandinavian lands in two ways. Some documents, and especially the Icelandic ones[[55]], represent the struggle as a feud between two branches of the Danish royal house. Even here there is no agreement who is the usurper and who the victim, so that sometimes it is Froda and sometimes Healfdene who is represented as the traitor and murderer.

But another version[[56]]—the Danish—whilst making Froda and Ingeld into Danish kings, separates their story altogether from that of Healfdene and his house: in this version the quarrel is still thought of as being between two nations, not as between the rightful heir to the throne and a treacherous and relentless usurper. Accordingly the feud is such as may be, at any rate temporarily, laid aside: peace between the contending parties is not out of the question. This version therefore preserves much more of the original character of the story, for it remains the tale of a young prince who, willing to marry into the house of his ancestral foes and to forgive and forget the old feud, is stirred by his more unrelenting henchman into taking vengeance for his father. But, owing to the prince having come to be represented as a Dane, patriotic reasons have suggested to the Danish poets and historians a quite different conclusion to the story. Instead of being routed, Ingeld, in Saxo, is successful in his revenge.

See Neckel, Studien über Froði in Z.f.d.A. XLVIII, 182: Heusler, Zur Skiöldungendichtung in Z.f.d.A. XLVIII, 57: Olrik, Skjoldungasaga, 1894, 112 [30]; Olrik, Heltedigtning, II, 11 etc.: Olrik, Sakses Oldhistorie, 222-6: Chambers, Widsith, pp. 79-81.]

Section VI. Hrothulf.