There can, then, hardly be a doubt that there actually was such a king as Eadgils: and some of the charred bones which still lie within the gigantic "King's mounds" at Old Uppsala may well be his[[14]]. And, though they are not quite so well authenticated, there can also be little doubt as to the historic existence of Onela, Ohthere, and even of Ongentheow.
The Swedish Kings.
The account in the Ynglinga saga of the fight between Onela and Eadgils is as follows:
Aðils konungr átti deilur miklar við konung þann, er Áli hét inn upplenzki: hann var ór Nóregi. Þeir áttu orrostu á Vænis ísi; þar fell Áli konungr en Aðils hafði sigr; frá þessarri orrostu er langt sagt í Skjǫldunga sǫgu. (Ynglinga saga in Heimskringla, ed. Jónsson, Kjøbenhavn, 1893, I, 56.)
The Skjoldunga saga here mentioned is an account of the kings of Denmark. It is preserved only in a Latin abstract.
Post haec ortis inter Adilsum illum Sveciae regem et Alonem Opplandorum regem in Norvegia, inimicitiis, praelium utrinque indicitur: loco pugnae statuto in stagno Waener, glacie jam obducto. Ad illud igitur se viribus inferiorem agnoscens Rolphonis privigni sui opem implorat, hoc proposito praemio, ut ipse Rolpho tres praeciosissimas res quascunque optaret ex universo regno Sveciae praemii loco auferret: duodecim autem pugilum ipsius quilibet 3 libras auri puri, quilibet reliquorum bellatorum tres marcas argenti defecati. Rolpho domi ipse reses pugilos suos duodecim Adilso in subsidium mittit, quorum etiam opera is alioqui vincendus, victoriam obtinuit. Illi sibi et regi propositum praemium exposcunt, negat Adilsus, Rolphoni absenti ullum deberi praemium, quare et Dani pugiles sibi oblatum respuebant, cum regem suum eo frustrari intelligerent, reversique rem, ut gesta est, exponunt. (See Skjoldungasaga i Arngrim Jonssons Udtog, udgiven af Axel Olrik, Kjøbenhavn, 1894, p. 34 [116].)
There is also a reference to this battle on the ice in the Kálfsvísa, a mnemonic list of famous heroes and their horses. It is noteworthy that in this list mention is made of Vestein, who is perhaps the Wihstan of our poem, and of Biar, who has been thought (very doubtfully) to correspond to the O.E. Beaw.
Dagr reiþ Drǫsle en Dvalenn Móþne...
Ále Hrafne es til íss riþo,
enn annarr austr und Aþilse
grár hvarfaþe geire undaþr.
Bjǫrn reiþ Blakke en Biarr Kerte,
Atle Glaume en Aþils Slungne...
Lieder der Edda, ed. Symons and Gering, i, 221-2.
"Ale was on Hrafn when they rode to the ice: but another horse, a grey one, with Athils on his back, fell eastward, wounded by the spear." This, as Olrik points out, appears to refer to a version of the story in which Athils had his fall from his horse, not at a ceremony at Uppsala, but after the battle with Ali. (Heltedigtning, I, 203-4.)
For various theories as to the early history of the Swedish royal house, as recorded in Beowulf, see Weyhe, König Ongentheows Fall, in Engl. Stud., xxxix, 14-39; Schück, Studier i Ynglingatal (1905-7); Stjerna, Vendel och Vendelkråka, in A.f.n.F. XXI, 71, etc.
The Geatas.
The identification of Geatas and Götar has been accepted by the great majority of scholars, although Kemble wished to locate the Geatas in Schleswig, Grundtvig in Gotland, and Haigh in England. Leo was the first to suggest the Jutes: but the "Jute-hypothesis" owes its currency to the arguments of Fahlbeck (Beovulfsqvädet såsom källa för nordisk fornhistoria in the Antiqvarisk Tidskrift för Sverige, VIII, 2, 1). Fahlbeck's very inconclusive reasons were contested at the time by Sarrazin (23 etc.) and ten Brink (194 etc.) and the arguments against them have lately been marshalled by H. Schück (Folknamnet Geatas i den fornengelska dikten Beowulf, Upsala, 1907). It is indeed difficult to understand how Fahlbeck's theory came to receive the support it has had from several scholars (e.g. Bugge, P.B.B. XII, 1 etc.; Weyhe, Engl. Stud., XXXIX, 38 etc.; Gering). For his conclusions do not arise naturally from the O.E. data: his whole argument is a piece of learned pleading, undertaken to support his rather revolutionary speculations as to early Swedish history. These speculations would have been rendered less probable had the natural interpretation of Geatas as Götar been accepted. The Jute-hypothesis has recently been revived, with the greatest skill and learning, by Gudmund Schütte (Journal of English and Germanic Philology, XI, 574 etc.). But here again I cannot help suspecting that the wish is father to the thought, and that the fact that that eminent scholar is a Dane living in Jutland, has something to do with his attempt to locate the Geatas there. No amount of learning will eradicate patriotism.
The following considerations need to be weighed:
(1) Geatas etymologically corresponds exactly with O.N. Gautar, the modern Götar. The O.E. word corresponding to Jutes (the Iutae of Bede) should be, not Geatas, but in the Anglian dialect Eote, Iote, in the West Saxon Iete, Yte.
Now it is true that in one passage in the O.E. translation of Bede (I, 15) the word "Iutarum" is rendered Geata: but in the other (IV, 16) "Iutorum" is rendered Eota, Ytena. And this latter rendering is supported (a) by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Iotum, Iutna) and (b) by the fact that the current O.E. word for Jutes was Yte, Ytan, which survived till after the Norman conquest. For the name Ytena land was used for that portion of Hampshire which had been settled by the Jutes: William Rufus was slain, according to Florence of Worcester, in Ytene (which Florence explains as prouincia Jutarum).
From the purely etymological point of view the Götar-hypothesis, then, is unimpeachable: but the Jute-hypothesis is unsatisfactory, since it is based upon one passage in the O.E. Bede, where Jutarum is incorrectly rendered Geata, whilst it is invalidated by the other passage in the O.E. Bede, by the Chronicle and by Florence of Worcester, where Jutorum is correctly translated by Ytena, or its Anglian or Kentish equivalent Eota, Iotna.
(2) It is obvious that the Geatas of Beowulf were a strong and independent power—a match for the Swedes. Now we learn from Procopius that in the sixth century the Götar were an independent and numerous nation. But we have no equal evidence for any similar preponderant Jutish power in the sixth century. The Iutae are indeed a rather puzzling tribe, and scholars have not even been able to agree where they dwelt.
The Götar on the other hand are located among the great nations of Scandinavia both by Ptolemy (Geog. II, 11, 16) in the second century and by Procopius (Bell. Gott. II, 15) in the sixth. When we next get clear information (through the Christian missionaries) both Götar and Swedes have been united under one king. But the Götar retained their separate laws, traditions, and voice in the selection of the king, and they were constantly asserting themselves during the Middle Ages. The title of the king of Sweden, rex Sveorum Gothorumque, commemorates the old distinction.
From the historical point of view, then, the Götar comply with what we are told in Beowulf of the power of the Geatas much better than do the Jutes.
(3) Advocates of the Jute-hypothesis have claimed much support from the geographical argument that the Swedes and Geatas fight ofer sǣ (e.g. when Beowulf and Eadgils attack Onela, 2394). But the term sǣ is just as appropriate to the great lakes Wener and Wetter, which separated the Swedes from the Götar, as it is to the Cattegatt. And we have the evidence of Scandinavian sources that the battle between Eadgils and Onela actually did take place on the ice of lake Wener (see above, p. [6]). Moreover the absence of any mention of ships in the fighting narrated in ll. 2922-2945 would be remarkable if the contending nations were Jutes and Swedes, but suits Götar and Swedes admirably: since they could attack each other by land as well as by water.
(4) There is reason to think that the old land of the Götar included a great deal of what is now the south-west coast of Sweden[[15]]. Hygelac's capital was probably not far from the modern Göteborg. The descriptions in Beowulf would suit the cliffs of southern Sweden well, but they are quite inapplicable to the sandy dunes of Jutland.
Little weight can, however, be attached to this last argument, as the cliffs of the land of the Geatas are in any case probably drawn from the poet's imagination.
(5) If we accept the identification Beowulf = Bjarki (see below, pp. [60]-1) a further argument for the equation of Geatas and Götar will be found in the fact that Bjarki travels to Denmark from Gautland just as Beowulf from the land of the Geatas; Bjarki is the brother of the king of the Gautar, Beowulf the nephew of the king of the Geatas.
(6) No argument as to the meaning of Geatas can be drawn from the fact that Gregory calls Chlochilaicus (Hygelac) a Dane. For it is clear from Beowulf that, whatever else they may have been, the Geatas were not Danes. Either, then, Gregory must be misinformed, or he must be using the word Dane vaguely, to cover any kind of Scandinavian pirate.
(7) Probably what has weighed most heavily (often perhaps not consciously) in gaining converts to the "Jute-hypothesis" has been the conviction that "in ancient times each nation celebrated in song its own heroes alone." Hence one set of scholars, accepting the identification of the Geatas with the Scandinavian Götar, have argued that Beowulf is therefore simply a translation from a Scandinavian Götish original. Others, accepting Beowulf as an English poem, have argued that the Geatas who are celebrated in it must therefore be one of the tribes that settled in England, and have therefore favoured the "Jute theory." But the a priori assumption that each Germanic tribe celebrated in song its own national heroes only is demonstrably incorrect[[16]].
But in none of the accounts of the warfare of these Scandinavian kings, whether written in Norse or monkish Latin, is there mention of any name corresponding to that of Beowulf, as king of the Geatas. Whether he is as historic as the other kings with whom in our poem he is brought into contact, we cannot say.
It has been generally held that the Beowulf of our poem is compounded out of two elements: that an historic Beowulf, king of the Geatas, has been combined with a mythological figure Beowa[[17]], a god of the ancient Angles: that the historical achievements against Frisians and Swedes belong to the king, the mythological adventures with giants and dragons to the god. But there is no conclusive evidence for either of these presumed component parts of our hero. To the god Beowa we shall have to return later: here it is enough to note that the current assumption that there was a king Beowulf of the Geatas lacks confirmation from Scandinavian sources.
And one piece of evidence there is, which tends to show that Beowulf is not an historic king at all, but that his adventures have been violently inserted amid the historic names of the kings of the Geatas. Members of the families in Beowulf which we have reason to think historic bear names which alliterate the one with the other. The inference seems to be that it was customary, when a Scandinavian prince was named in the Sixth Century, to give him a name which had an initial letter similar to that of his father: care was thus taken that metrical difficulties should not prevent the names of father and son being linked together in song[[18]]. In the case of Beowulf himself, however, this rule breaks down. Beowulf seems an intruder
into the house of Hrethel. It may be answered that since he was only the offspring of a daughter of that house, and since that daughter had three brothers, there would have been no prospect of his becoming king, when he was named. But neither does his name fit in with that of the other great house with which he is supposed to be connected. Wiglaf, son of Wihstan of the Wægmundingas, was named according to the familiar rules: but Beowulf, son of Ecgtheow, seems an intruder in that family as well.
This failure to fall in with the alliterative scheme, and the absence of confirmation from external evidence, are, of course, not in themselves enough to prove that the reign of Beowulf over the Geatas is a poetic figment. And indeed our poem may quite possibly be true to historic fact in representing him as the last of the great kings of the Geatas; after whose death his people have nothing but national disaster to expect[[19]]. It would be strange that this last and most mighty and magnanimous of the kings of the Geatas should have been forgotten in Scandinavian lands: that outside Beowulf nothing should be known of his reign. But when we consider how little, outside Beowulf, we know of the Geatic kingdom at all, we cannot pronounce such oblivion impossible.
What tells much more against Beowulf as a historic Geatic king is that there is always apt to be something extravagant and unreal about what the poem tells us of his deeds, contrasting with the sober and historic way in which other kings, like Hrothgar or Hygelac or Eadgils, are referred to. True, we must not disqualify Beowulf forthwith because he slew a dragon[[20]]. Several unimpeachably historical persons have done this: so sober an authority as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle assures us that fiery dragons were flying in Northumbria as late as A.D. 793[[21]].