ABSTRACT

The first half of the word as it stands cannot well be anything other than the substantive beo=‘bee’. But what sense is there in the combination ‘bee-hater’? Are we to have recourse to the violent process of conjectural emendation, or to explain the word as it is? I have no hesitation in accepting the latter alternative, and I explain ‘bee-hater’ simply as an epithet of the bear, whose love of honey has long been proverbial in all countries. Beowulf in the same way is simply the ‘wolf’ or ‘spoiler’ of the bees, in short, a ‘bear’, not as implying any uncouthness of behaviour, but as a flattering comparison with the lion of the north-the hive-plundering bear.