Beowulf: An Introduction to the Study of the Poem with a Discussion of the Stories of Offa and Finn

by R. W. Chambers

So, if by "nation" we mean the whole Germanic race, then Germanic poetry is essentially "national." The Huns were the only non-Germanic tribe who were received (for poetical purposes) into Germania. Hunnish chiefs seem to have adopted Gothic manners, and after the Huns had disappeared it often came to be forgotten that they were not Germans. But with this exception the tribes and heroes of Germanic heroic poetry are Germanic.

If, however, by "nation" we understand the different warring units into which the Germanic race was, politically speaking, divided, then Germanic poetry is essentially "international."

This is no theory, but a fact capable of conclusive proof. The chief actors in the old Norse Volsung lays are not Norsemen, but Sigurd the Frank, Gunnar the Burgundian, Atli the Hun. In Continental Germany, the ideal knight of the Saxons in the North and the Bavarians in the South was no native hero, but Theodoric the Ostrogoth. So too in England, whilst Beowulf deals chiefly with Scandinavian heroes, the Finnsburg fragment deals with the Frisian tribes of the North Sea coast: Waldere with the adventures of Germanic chiefs settled in Gaul, Deor with stories of the Goths and of the Baltic tribes, whilst Widsith, which gives us a catalogue of the old heroic tales, shows that amongst the heroes whose names were current in England were men of Gothic, Burgundian, Frankish, Lombard, Frisian, Danish and Swedish race. There is nothing peculiar, then, in the fact that Beowulf celebrates heroes who were not of Anglian birth.

In their old home in Schleswig the Angles had been in the exact centre of Germania: with an outlook upon both the North Sea and the Baltic, and in touch with Scandinavian tribes on the North and Low German peoples on the South. That the Angles were interested in the stories of all the nations which surrounded them, and that they brought these stories with them to England, is certain. It is a mere accident that the one heroic poem which happens to have been preserved at length is almost exclusively concerned with Scandinavian doings. It could easily have happened that the history of the Beowulf MS and the Waldere MS might have been reversed: that the Beowulf might have been cut up to bind other books, and the Waldere preserved intact: in that case our one long poem would have been localized in ancient Burgundia, and would have dealt chiefly with the doings of Burgundian champions. But we should have had no more reason, without further evidence, to suppose the Waldere a translation from the Burgundian than we have, without further evidence, to suppose Beowulf a translation from the Scandinavian.

To deny that Beowulf, as we have it, is a translation from the Scandinavian does not, of course, involve any denial of the Scandinavian origin of the story of Beowulf's deeds. The fact that his achievements are framed in a Scandinavian setting, and that the closest parallels to them have to be sought in Scandinavian lands, makes it probable on a priori grounds that the story had its origin there. On the face of it, Müllenhoff's belief that the story was indigenous among the Angles is quite unlikely. It would seem rather to have originated in the Geatic country. But stories, whether in prose or verse, would spread quickly from the Geatas to the Danes and from the Danes to the Angles.

After the Angles had crossed the North Sea, however, this close intimacy ceased, till the Viking raids again reminded Englishmen, in a very unpleasant way, of their kinsmen across the sea. Now linguistic evidence tends to show that Beowulf belongs to a time prior to the Viking settlement in England, and it is unlikely that the Scandinavian traditions embodied in Beowulf found their way to England just at the time when

communication with Scandinavian lands seems to have been suspended. We must conclude then that all this Scandinavian tradition probably spread to the Angles whilst they were still in their old continental home, was brought across to England by the settlers in the sixth century, was handed on by English bards from generation to generation, till some Englishmen formed the poem of Beowulf as we know it.

Of course, if evidence can be produced that Beowulf is translated from some Scandinavian original, which was brought over in the seventh century or later, that is another matter. But the evidence produced so far is not merely inconclusive, but ludicrously inadequate.

It has been urged[^[228]] by Sarrazin, the chief advocate of the translation theory, that the description of the country round Heorot, and especially of the journey to the Grendel-lake, shows such local knowledge as to point to its having been composed by some Scandinavian poet familiar with the locality. Heorot can probably, as we have seen, be identified with Leire: and the Grendel-lake Sarrazin identifies with the neighbouring Roskilde fjord. But it is hardly possible to conceive a greater contrast than that between the Roskilde fjord and the scenery depicted in ll. 1357 etc., 1408 etc. Seen, as Sarrazin saw it, on a May morning, in alternate sun and shadow, the Roskilde fjord presents a view of tame and peaceful beauty. In the days of Hrothgar, when there were perhaps fewer cultivated fields and more beech forests, the scenery may have been less tame, but can hardly have been less peaceful. The only trace of accurate geography is that Heorot is represented as not on the shore, and yet not far remote from it (ll. 307 etc.). But, as has been pointed out above, we know that traditions of the attack by the Heathobeardan upon Heorot were current in England: and these would be quite sufficient to keep alive, even among English bards, some remembrance of the strategic situation of Heorot with regard to the sea. A man need not have been near Troy, to realize that the town was no seaport and yet near the sea.