ABSTRACT

It would be even more popular if the episodes were distributed in a better way, but it is a risky business to improve on old works, like moving old trees, and the child does not care a bit about the rules of art. Incidentally it goes without saying that my partiality for Denmark, which I shall never deny, is evident in my contemplation of the poem Bjovulf; but even so I dare say that the rescue of Denmark from the clutches of the troll ought to give pleasure all over the North, for Danish is the female element of the Nordic area, an element that a group of peoples could no more do without than could a circle of friends for its enjoyment and true education; and it is only when Dana is cheerful and awake that she joins the North as a shield-maiden, but as soon as the troll manages to send her to sleep, as so often happens, she sinks down to become a German slave-maiden, which is not beneficial to the North, while her liberation is evidently more to the credit of the Goth [i.e. Beowulf] than of the Danes [see Haarder 1975:82-4 for comment on this image]. It is to be hoped, therefore, that the awareness of a basic interdependence may stimulate the weakened feeling of ancient kinship among the three small nations, that they may vie with each other without envy in honouring the spirit of the North with natural giant-strides and combine their efforts in warding off any foreign rule, not least that of the scholars under which we go mouldy like the ancient treasure lying for three centuries under the gold-dragon! If that came true, not only the poem of Bjovulf, which was made by none of us, would be gladly accepted as common property, but works of art of much greater maturity within the spirit of the North would emerge from under our hands.