ABSTRACT

There is a certain unfortunate symbolism in the fact that the first known reference to Beowulf is in effect a nil return. On 28 August 1700 George Hickes (1642-1715) wrote to his then assistant and collaborator Humfrey Wanley (1672-1726) that ‘I can find nothing yet of Beowulph’ (see Sisam 1953:276). He was clearly replying to an inquiry from Wanley, probably one which announced Wanley’s discovery of the poem; but this announcement has not survived. A few years later, on 28 August 1704 Wanley wrote along presumably similar lines to the Swedish scholar Erik Benzelius (1675-1743), and remarked (Heyworth 1989:239):

some years ago I found a Tract in the Cottonian Library (omitted in Dr Smiths Catalogue) written in Dano-Saxon Poetry, and describing some Wars between Beowulf a King of the Danes of the Family of the Scyldingi, and some of your Suedish Princes. Pray, Dear Sir, have you any Histories about such a King & such Wars? If you have, be pleas’d to let me have notice of it.