ABSTRACT

The poem, as it lies before us in the original with the literal Latin translation, is admittedly of no outstanding value considered as a poetic work, but is also not without really poetic passages, and is especially significant as a monument of the thought and language of its time, and as a contribution to the older history of the Scandinavian peoples. One can give this judgement on the work even without understanding Icelandic or Anglo-Saxon. We must leave it to others to judge the fidelity of the translation provided by the editor. But while we accord that all our trust, we cannot however agree completely with the opinion of the deserving editor about the age of the poem. We do not confuse the age of the manuscript with the age of the poem itself, and we also distinguish clearly the latter from the age of the historical legends which it preserves. Beowulf, the East-Danish, or to speak in the more recent fashion, the Swedish hero of the poem may, if it could be proved, belong to the fourth century. With regard to this it is also to be considered that two Beowulfs are named in the poem itself, an older and a younger, whom the editor has also distinguished in the list of contents. The Beowulf who according to Suhm’s Critical History of Denmark [Thorkelin’s ref., Suhm 1803] is supposed to have lived in the fourth century might then be someone even older of the same name. But according to Mr Thorkelin’s reading of the poem, the poet himself is thought to speak as an eye-witness of some of the recorded events. Accordingly he too is supposed to have lived in the fourth century. The editor thinks the poem may have come to England during the reign of Alfred the Great, who had Norse heroic poems collected and translated into the Anglo-Saxon dialect. The passages in the poem which betray an author who was obviously a Christian and therefore could not very well have lived in Denmark before the year 1000, would then in the editor’s opinion

poet speaks in a way as an eye-witness of what is told; and in so far as we understand the text from the translation, this poet says nowhere explicitly that he was present at any of the recorded events. And is it at all likely that such a poem in the runic script, which the Scandinavians used up to the introduction of Christianity, would have come to England? It seems to us that the riddles would all be solved in the most natural way if we suppose that the poem-created out of a very ancient Danish legend, perhaps from heroic lays that had been sung on English soil by those very Danes against whom Alfred had to fight for his throne, perhaps not until Canute the Great, at the beginning of the eleventh century sole ruler of Denmark, Norway and England-is the work of a Christian poet, that is either of an Anglo-Saxon, who may then have lived already at the time of Alfred, or of a Dane who had received the Christian faith under King Canute and adopted in England the Anglo-Saxon dialect, which cannot have been very different from the Danish of the time. On this assumption the poem would remain old enough to be remarkable in this respect alone. In this way it is also easily explained how the Christian poet was able to exploit an ancient legend from the times of Nordic heathendom in precisely the way he did. The mythology of the Edda belonged to the legend, but the legend’s Christian poet changed the heathen gods into devils, as had then been the custom among converters of the heathen since the time of the Church Fathers. Through this Christian interpretation of heathendom something singular emerged in the poetry itself. The well-known Loki, the Typhon of Norse mythology, appears in this poem as Grendel; but this very prince of Hell, according to the Asa-myths, is in this historical poem also a chieftain of the barbaric Jutes or Jutlanders, who are conquered by Beowulf; or rather, Grendel, chief of the Jutes, is the incarnation of the Grendel of Hell, i.e. the mythical Loki. When Eddic myth is further touched on in this poem, the Christian observation is always inserted that the heathens believed in such gods. The author of the poem must also have had some cloudy hints about Greek mythology, for he speaks of the giants, whom he then throws together with the Jutes or original heathen inhabitants of the North. In general the whole poem resembles a dark cloud formation, whose parts flow into each other so that only here and there does a more distinct outline appear. The question now is, how far can it interest historical researchers and the students of aesthetics? The Scandinavian peoples of Germanic stock are in the poem all called Danes. They are divided into North-Danes (North-Dena) i.e. Norwegians; East-Danes (East-Dena) i.e. Swedes, who are also called Goths (Geaten); South-Danes (Suth-Dena) i.e. the islanders, who are still called Danes today; and West-Danes ( West-Dena) in the north of Jutland. These West-Danes or Skyldings are however distinguished from the inhabitants of south Jutland, the actual Jutes (Eothene), the Danes’ mortal enemies, according to the poem descendants of Cain the parricide. The same name (Eothene or Eoten) also includes the Frisians (Fresene), confederates of the Jutes, without doubt the ancestors

attacked by Grendel the Jute during the celebration of a great banquet. Beowulf, a Swedish or Gothic prince, comes to his aid, sent with a fleet by Higelak, the Skylfing king of the Swedes or East-Danes; he is the real hero of the poem. Among the enemies of these Skylfings there also appears Hugo, a king of the Franks. The king of the Frisians is called Fin. Beowulf defeats the Jutes, slays their godless king Grendel, who however comes to life again, and has to be killed a second time; is equally successful against the Frisians; is royally rewarded by Hrodgar, and after his return co-regent with, then successor to King Higelak; rules for fifty years, builds a new capital, wages still more victorious wars by land and sea; dies in the end of a wound received in battle with a poisonous dragon, and is given ceremonious funeral. In whatever way the poet may have adapted the legend, or however much it may have moved away on its own from historical truth, the narrative does always point to real events, which at the least lie closer to the actual historical period of the North than do the poems of the Edda. Among the features of cultural history, it deserves especially to be noted that in the festivities the singers (Scope) are always present, and that even the king Hrodgar, already an elderly gentleman, still sings youthfully to the harp (hearpe). In general a beautiful striving for ennoblement shines out from the rudeness of these people. These traits of cultural portrayal which the poem contains would much enhance the aesthetic interest of the whole, if the composition were not so obscure and the style so aphoristic that one can only with difficulty find and hold on to the thread. There is no epic machinery in the poem; for it is only a poetical figure that the evil Grendel also represents Loki. Mermaids (Mere-Wyf) appear once, also a ghost. There are allusions to the Eddic mythology here and there. But whether the whole of it possesses a really poetic tone cannot be determined from a translation like the one we have here before us. We cannot also form a judgement on the effect of the verse, for according to the editor’s account there is no division into verse-lines in the old manuscript. The editor has therefore arranged them in short lines on the basis of his knowledge of Norse metrics. The start sounds like this [quotes the first two lines and translates: ‘In what way in the prehistory of the Danes the people raised the kings’ praise…’]. The prevailing metre sems to have something of the nature of strophe about it, roughly like this: u-/u-u//u-//u-u//u-etc.