ABSTRACT

There is a minor character in the Beowulf-poem, the king’s spokesman Hunferd. His place in the hall is right in front of the high-seat; ‘he sat at the feet of the lord of the Skjoldungs’, as it says several times (l. 500, 116[6]). His nature is one of envy; ‘for it displeased him, that any other man in middle-earth should do greater deeds under heaven than he himself.’ His past is one in which he killed his own brothers. He makes a speaking appearance only once, that is at the evening meal before the fight with Grendel, when he makes a derogatory address to Beowulf, but receives a calm and dignified answer.