syþðan morgen cōm
ðā hēo under swegle gesēon meahte, etc.
[452] l. 36. The swords flash swylce eal Finnsburuh fȳrenu wǣre, "as if all Finnsburg were afire." I think we may safely argue from this that the swords are flashing near Finnsburg. It would be just conceivable that the poet's mind travels back from the scene of the battle to Finn's distant home: "the swords made as great a flash as would have been made had Finn's distant capital been aflame": but this is a weak and forced interpretation, which we have no right to assume, though it may be conceivable.
[453] Beowulf, ll. 1125-7. I doubt whether it is possible to explain the difficulty away by supposing that "the warriors departing to see Friesland, their homes and their head-town" simply means that Finn's men, "summoned by Finn in preparation for the encounter with the Danes, return to their respective homes in the country," and that "hēaburh is a high sounding epic term that should not be pressed." This is the explanation offered by Klaeber (J.E.G.Ph. VI, 193) and endorsed by Lawrence (Pub. Mod. Lang. Assoc. Amer. XXX, 401). But it seems to me taking a liberty with the text to interpret hēaburh (singular) as the "respective homes in the country" to which Finn's warriors resort on demobilisation. And the statement of ll. 1125-7, that the warriors departed from the place of combat to see Friesland, seems to necessitate that such place of combat was not in Friesland. Klaeber objects to this (surely obvious) inference: "If we are to infer [from ll. 1125-7] that Finnsburg lies outside Friesland proper, we might as well conclude that Dyflen (Dublin) is not situated in Ireland according to the Battle of Brunanburh (gewitan him þā Norðmenn ... Dyflen sēcan and eft Īraland)." But how could anyone infer this from the Brunanburh lines? What we are justified in inferring, is, surely, that the site of the battle of Brunanburh (from which the Northmen departed to visit Ireland and Dublin) was not identical with Dublin, and did not lie in Ireland. And by exact parity of reason, we are justified in arguing that Finnsburg, the site of the first battle in which Hnæf fell (from which site the warriors depart to visit Friesland and the hēaburh) was not identical with the hēaburh, and did not lie in Friesland. Accordingly the usual view, that Finnsburg is situated outside Friesland, seems incontestable. See Bugge (P.B.B. XII, 29-30), Trautmann (Finn und Hildebrand, 60) and Boer (Z.f.d.A. XLVII, 137). Cf. Ayres (J.E.G.Ph. XVI, 294).
[455] So Brandl, 984, and Heinzel.
[456] Or just as the attack on the Danes began at night, we might suppose (as does Trautmann) that it equally culminated in a night assault five days later. There would be obvious advantage in night fighting when the object was to storm a hall: Flugumýrr was burnt by night, and so was the hall of Njal. So, too, was the hall of Rolf Kraki. It would be, then, on the morning after this second night assault, that Hildeburh found her kinsfolk dead.
[457] Beowulf, l. 1831: cf. l. 409.
[458] Leo (Beowulf, 1839, 67), Müllenhoff (Nordalbingische Studien, I, 157), Rieger (Lesebuch; Z.f.d.Ph. III, 398-401), Dederich (Studien, 1877, 96-7), Heyne (in his fourth edition) and in recent times Holthausen have interpreted eoten as a common noun "giant," "monster," and consequently "foe" in general. But they have failed to produce any adequate justification for interpreting eoten as "foe," and Holthausen, the modern advocate of this interpretation, has now abandoned it. Grundtvig (Beowulfes Beorh, 1861, pp. 133 etc.) and Möller (Volksepos, 97 etc.) also interpret "giant," Möller giving an impossible mythological explanation, which was, at the time, widely followed.