ABSTRACT

First I will consider very briefly the Icelandic form of the legend. Orm, son of the Icelander Storolf, was very big and at an early age and when only 7 as strong as the strongest men. His father did not like him because he would do no work. His father called him slyttinn (idle). Grettir too, the other Icelander to whom the Grendel-legend has been transferred, is scolded by his father as mannkrǽfa ‘useless person’; he attributes to his son slen ‘laziness’. Compare with this what is told of Beowulf l. 2183-8: ‘For a long time he was disregarded by the Geats; he was considered to be idle (sleac) and useless’. This similarity argues that Müllenhoff and Möller are wrong to strike out l. 2183 ff. as not genuine. Müllenhoff maintains (1869:219) that the lines ‘stand in the starkest contrast to the whole presentation of the first lay, especially to Beowulf’s own words 408 f., hæbbe ic mærða fela ongunnen on geogoðe [“I have carried out many famous deeds in youth”] and to the episode of

196 ff.:

se wæs moncynnes mægenes strengest on þæm dæge þysses lifes

[‘he was the greatest in strength of mankind in the days of this life’]. Orm lifts with his little finger a great cauldron full of sand which a certain

Melkof, who had the strength of six men, lifted with one hand. Almost the same strength, therefore, is attributed to him as to Beowulf. It is expressly stated only in l. 379 ff. that Beowulf possesses the strength of thirty men. But what is told in 2361 ff. points to the same thing, that Beowulf carries off thirty panoplies after the fight with the Franks and Frisians and has therefore killed thirty men. Ettmüller, Müllenhoff and Möller have here once again taken out a genuine feature of the legend by deleting l. 377-81.