3. Liber Monstrorum. In this work the raider is Rex Getarum, King of the Geats, who may correspond with the Geats of our poem. The Geats were the people of Gautland in Southern Sweden. See [Appendix XI].
ORIGIN OF THE ANGLO-SAXON POEM
It was probably written in Northumbrian or Midland, but was preserved in a West Saxon translation.
There would seem to be some justifiable doubt as to the unity of the poem. Though on the whole pagan and primitive in tone, it has a considerable admixture of Christian elements, e.g. on pp. 29 and 30 and pp. 109–112, though the latter passage may be a late interpolation. Generally speaking, the poetry and sentiments are Christian in tone, but the customs are pagan. The author of the article in The Cambridge History of English Literature, vol. i., to whom I owe much, says: ‘I cannot believe that any Christian poet could have composed the account of Beowulf’s funeral.’ One passage is very reminiscent of [Eph. vi. 16], viz. Chapter [XXV]. p. 111; whilst page 25 (lower half) may be compared with Cædmon’s Hymn. There are also references to Cain and Abel and to the Deluge. Of Chapters I.–XXXI. the percentage of Christian elements is four, whilst of the remaining Chapters ([XXXII]. ad fin.) the percentage is ten, due chiefly to four long passages. Note especially that the words in Chapter [II]., ‘And sometimes they went vowing at their heathen shrines and offered sacrifices,’ et seq., are quite inconsistent with the Christian sentiment attributed to Hrothgar later in the poem. ‘It is generally thought,’ says the writer in The Cambridge History of English Literature, ‘that several originally separate lays have been combined into one poem, and, while there is no proof of this, it is quite possible and not unlikely.’
There are in the poem four distinct lays:
1. Beowulf’s Fight with Grendel.
2. Beowulf’s Fight with Grendel’s mother.
3. Beowulf’s Return to the land of the Geats.
4. Beowulf’s Fight with the Dragon.
Competent critics say that probably 1 and 2 ought to be taken together, while Beowulf’s reception by Hygelac (see 3 above) is probably a separate lay. Some scholars have gone much further in the work of disintegration, even attributing one half of the poem to interpolators, whilst others suggest two parallel versions. Summing up, the writer in The Cambridge History of English Literature says: ‘I am disposed to think that a large portion of the poem existed in epic form before the change of faith, and that the appearance of Christian elements in the poem is due to revision. The Christianity of Beowulf is of a singularly indefinite and individual type, which contrasts somewhat strongly with what is found in later Old English poetry. This revision must have been made at a very early date.’