ABSTRACT

Now we read the following in the third chapter of the third book of the history of Gregory of Tours: [cites the familiar passage from Gregory, Historia Francorum III/3, about the death of Chochilaichus King of the Danes, His ita gestis…omnemque rapinam terrae restituit.]

From another source [in a footnote Leo for the first time cites the later passage from the Liber Historiae Francorum ch. 19 (for which see Chambers 1959:3), indicating its dependence on Gregory, see further Introduction, p. 24] we know that the district plundered on this occasion by the Danes was the district of the Chattuarii (if we write the name with the strong Frankish guttural) or Hattuarii; and that in it the Danes had reached the Maas. The time of the event is set at from 512 to 520; and in some respects the latest assumption is the likeliest. Now what we find about Hygelac in the poem of Beowulf corresponds quite exactly with these reports appearing in authors belonging to the Frankish kingdom. Relevant to this is what is

treasure, the precious stones, across the sea, the mighty king; his soul departed thence in the throng of the Franks; a people bold in battle plundered the body, the Geats in the end lost the place of slaughter. [In two long notes Leo explains Francna fæðm and quotes lines 1202-1214a, with translation. He then goes on to discuss the three further mentions of Hygelac’s raid in the poem, noting the mention of Hetware=Attoarii, Franks and Hugas. On p. 11 he concludes:]

In this way the report of the poem and that of the Frankish historians resolve themselves in a quite unforced way into an entirely mutually comprehensible whole, and there is really no doubt about their historical meaning, indeed purely historical attitude. [Goes on to argue that Hygelac’s wife Hygd became Offa’s wife after her first husband’s death, and to note briefly the correspondences between Beowulf, the Hrolfs saga kraka, and Saxo Grammaticus, bk 7.]

[Section II, ‘Mythical Content’, runs from pp. 18-47, passage cited on pp. 18-19:]

Kemble (in the preface to his translation of the poem, which appears as postscript to the preface of his edition of the poem [i.e. item 37 above]), and J.Grimm (in his review of the German version of this preface [i.e. item 35 above: but Kemble 1836 and 1837 are different in scope and purpose]) have dealt with the mythic meaning of many a feature of the Beowulf-poem. Before I myself enter into the mythical substance of our poem, let me be allowed to remark that the poem has clearly undergone a reworking by a Christian hand, which has inserted the descent of the evil Eoten Grendel from Cain, has here and there given the mode of thought a Christian colouring, and has obliterated the names of heathen gods. As meanwhile the sequence of events has nowhere been disturbed by this reworking, and as the latter seems really to have been only very superficial, the ancient heathendom still looks through everywhere. The boar-insignia of the Geats, like the boar-sacrifice which accompanies the cremation of Finn’s son, stand out as clear memories of the cult of Frouwo; similarly the Brisinga mene (v. 2399) as clear memory of the cult of Frouwa. Passages such as v. 3106 ff. refer directly to Wuotan [quotes and translates lines 1553b-1555a]. In short, apart from some additions and apart from the obliteration of the names of heathen gods, the poem has hardly undergone any change from this side, and so stands out for us as a true picture of the thought and the understanding of life of the world of heathen Germany. For it is clear that the poem did not, as people supposed for a long time, come from Denmark to Germany, from this: that the most characteristic traits of the Nordic world of legend are here quite missing: that even from the geographical side only the Cymbric peninsula appears clearly; the Danish islands and Sweden, however, retreat in the same proportion as the Frankish and Frisian lands of the lower Rhine become prominent. However, as from the

only a round indication of a long reign); and since Hygelac, as we saw above, was probably killed at Kuik between 515 and 520, the poem would have been able to arise at the earliest after 580, that is, in the very last times of the settlement of German emigrants in Britain. This would also best explain why the historical traits, which in the poem are applied to the mythical lower stratum, have been preserved so sharp and unaltered; that is to say that the poetry, uprooted from its native soil, lost its natural growth, and was fixed in England in a similar way and for similar reasons as with the Nordic legends in Iceland. [Repeats Grimm and Kemble on Scyld and Sceaf, Boerinus and ‘the older Beowulf, and attempts at length to relate this story to the Volsungs, Siegfried and the story of the ‘Swan Knight’, ending with the poem’s references to Sigemund and Heremod.]

[Section III, ‘The Geographical Statements of the Beowulf-poem’ runs from pp. 48-60, passage cited on pp. 48-9.]

If we have already had to recognise the historical data which the Beowulf-story contains as highly interesting, the geographical ones are yet far more important.