Indeed, in the whole of our
early national poetry, there is no reference to persons who are
known to have lived in Britain.
early national poetry, there is no reference to persons who are
known to have lived in Britain.
Cambridge History of English Literature - 1908 - v01
591), a person who broached a theme of con-,
tention is said to "unbind the runes of war. ” In the poem called
Daniel (l. 741), the mysterious and terrible writing on the wall of
Belshazzar's palace is described as a rune. In the Dialogue of
Salomon and Saturn there is a curious travesty of an old
heathen spell. In treating of the powers and virtues of the Pater
Noster, the poet gradually inserts all the runes that serve to make
up the prayer, each, however, being accompanied by the corre-
sponding Latin capital letter. Thereupon he advises every man
to sing the Pater Noster before drawing his sword against a
hostile band of men, and also to put the fiends to flight by means
of God's word; otherwise they will stay his hand when he has
to defend his life, and bewitch his weapon by cutting on it fatal
letters and death signs. We could scarcely wish for a better
illustration of the way in which Christianity combated the old
beliefs, substituting the Pater Noster for the ancient heathen war-
spell, reading a new meaning into the old rites and shifting to
fiends and devils the power of making runes of victory or of death,
a power formerly in the hands of pagan gods.
When used as ordinary writing characters, without any taint of
magic, runes appear to have met with more tolerant treatment.
The earliest inscriptions extant in this country consist mainly
of proper names, in most cases those of the owners of the engraved
article. The Thames sword, for instance, bears, in addition to the
runic alphabet, the name of its owner, Beagnop. Again, Beowulf
is represented as finding in Grendel's cave a sword of ancient work-
manship, with rune-staves on the hilt, giving the name of the warrior
for whom the sword had first been made. Similarly, an eighth
century ring bears, partly in runic, partly in Roman, characters, the
legend “Æpred owns me, Eanred engraved me. " There are also
references in Old English literature to the use of runes as a
means of communication. We are reminded of the rúna-kefli of
the Icelandic sagas on reading the little poem called The Husband's .
* The Old English version renders this by alysendlecan rúne, “ loosening runes. "
» Ed. Kemble, pp. 14 and 99.
## p. 12 (#32) ##############################################
I 2
Runes and Manuscripts
Message (see p. 39), where a staff, inscribed with runes, is supposed
to convey to a wife the message of her lord, bidding her cross the
sea in search of the distant country where he had found gold and
land. But still more important are those inscriptions which have
actually survived and which are mainly found on stone monuments.
They are confined almost exclusively to the north, and the greater
number of them belong to the seventh and eighth centuries, for
absolutely no inscriptions have survived from the first one hundred
and fifty years subsequent to the English invasion. These inscrip-
tions are almost all due to Christian influence. Chief among these
monuments, so far as English literature is concerned, are the
Ruthwell Cross in Dumfriesshire, possibly dating back to the
eighth century? , on which are inscribed extracts from The Dream
of the Rood, and the Bewcastle Column in Cumberland, probably
erected to the memory of Alchfrith, son of the Northumbrian
king Oswy (642–670).
Runic inscriptions have, moreover, been discovered on coins
and various other objects, the most important being the beautiful
Clermont or Franks casket. The top and three of the sides are
now in the British Museum, the fourth side is in the Museo
Nazionale at Florence. The casket is made of whalebone, and
the scenes carved on it represent an episode from the Weland-
saga, the adoration of the Magi, Romulus and Remus nursed by
the she-wolf and, lastly, a fight between Titus and the Jews. The
carving on the Florence fragment is still unexplained. The legends
engraved around these episodes are intended to represent the
capture of the whale and to elucidate the carving. On linguistic
grounds it has been thought probable that the casket was made
in Northumbria at the beginning of the eighth century.
In several Old English MSS, runes are found in isolated cases,
for instance in Beowulf, and in the Durham Ritual. In the riddles
of the Exeter Book the occasional introduction of runes sometimes
helps to solve the mystery of the enigma, and sometimes increases
the obscurity of the passage. Occasionally a poet or scribe will
< record his name by means of a runic acrostic introduced into the
4. text. Thus, the poems Crist, Juliana, Elene and the Vercelli
fragment. bear the runic signature of their author, Cynewulf.
Runes went out of use during the ninth and tenth centuries.
Their place had, however, been usurped long before that period by
the Roman alphabet, which the English received from the early
1 But see A. S. Cook, The Dream of the Rood, Oxford, 1905, pp. ix ft.
? Napier, English Misc. p. 380.
## p. 13 (#33) ##############################################
Roman Alphabet in England
13
Irish missionaries. The advent of Christianity and the beginnings
of English literature are intimately connected, for the missionary
and the Roman alphabet travelled together, and it was owing to
the Christian scribe that the songs and sagas, the laws and customs,
the faith and the proverbial wisdom of our forefathers, were first
recorded and preserved. It is, indeed, difficult to realise that,
before the conversion of the English to Christianity, during the
sixth and seventh centuries, the whole, or, at all events, by far the
greater part, of the intellectual wealth of the nation was to be
sought on the lips of the people, or in the retentive memory of
the individual, and was handed down from generation to generation
by means of song and recitation. Caesar relates ? how this was the
case in Gaul, where the accumulated wisdom of the Druids, their
religion and their laws, were transmitted by oral tradition alone,
since they were forbidden to put any part of their lore into writing,
although, for other purposes, the Greek alphabet was used. What
wonder if the young Gauls who served their apprenticeship to the
Druids had, as Caesar says, to learn "a great number of verses,”
and often to stay as long as twenty years before they had exhausted
their instructors' store of learning.
Before entering, however, on the history of the Irish alphabet
in England, it may be of interest to note that an even earlier
attempt had been made to introduce Roman characters among
the English. This was due to the efforts of Augustine and his
missionaries, who established a school of handwriting in the south
of England, with Canterbury as a probable centre. A Psalter
of about A. D. 700, now in the Cottonian collection of the British
Museum, and a few early copies of charters constitute, however,
the only evidence of its existence that survives. From these we
learn that the type of alphabet taught was the Roman rustic
capital, though of a somewhat modified local character. This
paucity of records makes it seem likely that the school of the
Roman missionaries had but a brief period of existence, and
wholly failed to influence the native hand.
Not so, however, with the Irish school of writing in the north.
The Irish alphabet was founded on the Roman half-uncial hand,
manuscripts of this type having been brought over to Ireland
by missionaries, perhaps during the fifth century. Owing to the
isolated position of the island and the consequent absence of
extraneous influence, a strongly characteristic national hand de-
veloped, which ran its uninterrupted course down to the late
1 De Bello Gallico, v, 14.
## p. 14 (#34) ##############################################
14
Runes and Manuscripts
Middle Ages. This hand was at first round in character and of
great clearness, beauty and precision; but, at an early period, a
modified, pointed variety of a minuscule type developed out of it,
used for quicker and less ornamental writing.
In the seventh century Northumbria was Christianised by Irish
missionaries, who founded monasteries and religious settlements
throughout the north. What, then, more natural than that these
zealous preachers of the Word should teach their disciples not only
the Word itself, but also how to write it down in characters
pleasing to the Almighty, and not in rude and uncouth signs which
conveyed all the power and magic of the heathen gods? Thus it
came to pass that the English of the north learnt the exquisite
penmanship of the Irish, and proved themselves such apt pupils
that they soon equalled their former masters. In fact, the earliest
specimens of the Northumbrian hand can scarcely be distinguished
from their Irish models.
In course of time, moreover, the English threw off the con-
ventions and restraints which fettered the Irish hand and developed
a truly national hand, which spread throughout England, and which,
in grace of outline and correctness of stroke, even surpassed its
prototype.
As might have been expected, the English adopted both the
round and pointed varieties of their Irish teachers. One of the
earliest and most beautiful examples of the former is The Book of
Durham or The Lindisfarne Gospels', written about A. D. 700 by
Eadfrith, bishop of Lindisfarne. And, as a specimen of the latter,
may be mentioned a fine copy of Bede's Ecclesiastical History
in the University Library of Cambridge, written not long after 730,
which possesses an additional interest as preserving one of the
earliest pieces of poetry in the English language, The Hymn of
Caedmon, in the original Northumbrian dialect. The pointed
hand branched off into a number of local varieties and was
extensively used down to the tenth century, when it became
influenced by the French or Carolingian minuscule. Towards
the end of the century all Latin MSS were, as a matter of
fact, written in foreign characters, whereas the English hand
came to be exclusively used for writing in the vernacular. For
instance, a Latin charter would have the body of the text in the
French minuscule, but the English descriptions or boundaries of
the property to be conveyed would be written in the native hand.
After the conquest, the native hand gradually disappeared, the
Brit. Mus. Cotton Nero, D. 4.
## p. 15 (#35) ##############################################
Materials for Writing
15
only traces of it left being the adoption by the foreign alphabets
of the symbols P, 3, Þ (/) to express the peculiarly English sounds
for which they stood. The rune p, however, fell into disuse about
the beginning of the fourteenth century, its place having been
taken by uu (vv) or w; while 8 (th) occurs occasionally as late as
the end of the same century. Of far superior vitality were p and 3,
the former bearing a charmed life throughout Middle English
times, though, in the fifteenth century and later, þ often appeared
in the degenerated form of y, while 3 was retained in order to
represent spirant sounds, afterwards denoted by y or gh.
During the late twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the
history of English handwriting was practically that of the various
Latin hands of the French school. The fifteenth century finally
witnessed the dissolution of the medieval book-hand of the
minuscule type, the many varieties of it being apparent in the
types used by the early printers. The legal or charter-hand,
introduced with the Conquest, was, however, not superseded by
the printing-presses, but ran an undisturbed though ever varying
course down to the seventeenth century, when its place was taken
by the modern current hand, fashioned on Italian models. A late
variety still lingers on, however, in the so-called chancery-hand
seen in the engraved writing of enrolments and patents.
Turning to the materials used for writing in medieval England,
we gain at once a connecting link with the runic alphabet, since the
wooden tablet, the bóc, again appears, though in a somewhat
different fashion. A thin coating of wax was now spread over the
surface, and the writing was scratched on it with a pointed instru- -
ment of metal or bone which, in Old English, was known as graef.
and, in the later centuries, by the French term poyntel. The use -
of these tablets was widely spread in the Middle Ages ; they
served for the school-boy's exercises and for bills and memoranda
of every description, for short letters and rough copies—for any-
thing that was afterwards to be copied out, more carefully, on
vellum. In German illuminated MSS poets are represented as
writing their songs and poems on waxen tablets, and, as early as the
sixth century, The Rule of St Benet makes provision for the
distribution of tablets and styles to monks. There is, also, evidence
of the use of these tablets by Irish monks, who, it may be supposed,
would introduce them to their English pupils. And, consequently,
we find that Aldhelm, who died in 709, writes a riddle of which
the answer is “tablet”-a fact which presupposes a knowledge
of the existence of tablets among his contemporaries. Again, in
## p. 16 (#36) ##############################################
16
Runes and Manuscripts
Ethelwold's Benedictionale of the tenth century, Zacharias (Luke,
i, 3) is represented as writing on a waxen tablet?
In the twelfth century we learn concerning Anselm, archbishop
of Canterbury (+1109), that he was in the habit of making the first
sketch of his works on waxen tablets; and, in The Canterbury
Tales, Chaucer relates how the summoner's "fellow" had "a pair of
tables all of ivory, and a poyntel ypolished fetisly. ”
Far more important, practical and durable as writing material,
however, was parchment or vellum, the use of which prevailed
throughout the Middle Ages. The Old English name for this was
bóc-fel, literally "book-skin," replaced in Middle English by the
French terms parchment and velin (vellum). These terms, origin-
ally, were not interchangeable, vellum being, as its name indicates,
prepared from calf-skins, parchment from sheep-skins.
At first, the evidence goes to show that monasteries had to
prepare their own parchment, either by the help of the monks
themselves or of laymen engaged for the purpose. Later, how-
ever, the parchment-makers took their place as ordinary crafts-
men, and supplied religious and other houses with the necessary
material. Thus we find that, in the year 1300, Ely bought five
dozen parchments and as many vellums, and, about half a century
later, no less than seventy and thirty dozen respectively, in order
to supply the want of writing material for a few years only. Vellum
was, at times, magnificently coloured, the text being, in such cases,
inscribed in letters of gold or silver. The most famous example
- is the Codec argenteus at Upsala Archbishop Wilfrid of York
(664–709) is said to have possessed the four Gospels written
on purple vellum in letters of purest gold, a fact which his
biographer records as little short of the marvellous. In the British
Museum there remains to this day an Old English MS of the
Gospels, the first leaves of which are written in golden letters on
purple vellum.
Apart from these éditions de luxe which, naturally, must have
been of enormous cost, ordinary working parchment was a very
expensive writing material, and it is small wonder if, on that
account, it gradually had to give way before a new and less costly
material. It appears that, from times immemorial, the manufac-
ture of paper from linen rags and hemp was known to the Chinese,
1 Archaeol. XXIV, pl. 27.
: From Hamlet, v, 1 it appears, however, as if Shakespeare was unaware of this
difference: “Is not parchment made of sheep-skins? ”—“Ay, my lord, and of calf-skins
too. "
• Royal, 1, E. 6.
## p. 17 (#37) ##############################################
Manuscripts and Scribes 17
who, apparently, taught their art to the Arabs, since paper was
exported by that pation at an early date. In the twelfth century,
paper was known in Spain and Italy, and thence it spread slowly
northwards, though it did not come into more general use until
the fourteenth century. In the fifteenth century, paper manuscripts
were very frequent in England, as can be assumed from the great
number still remaining in public and private libraries.
For writing, both on parchment and on paper, the quill was
used, known in Old English times as feder, in Middle English by
the French term penne. The existence of the quill as an imple-
ment of writing is proved by one of the oldest Irish MSS, where
St John the Evangelist is represented holding a quill in his hand.
Again, Aldhelm has a riddle on penna, in the same way as he had
one on the tablet. Other necessary implements for writing and
preparing a MS were a lead for ruling margins and lines, a ruler,
a pair of compasses, scissors, a puncher, an awl, a scraping-knife
and, last, but not least, ink, which was usually kept in a horn, either
held in the hand by the scribe, or placed in a specially provided
hole in his desk. In Old English times it was known, from its
colour, as blaec, but, after the Conquest, the French term enque, our
modern English ink, was adopted. The terms horne and ink-horne
are both found in old glossaries.
When the body of the text was finally ready, the sheets were
passed to the corrector, who filled the office of the modern proof-
reader, and from him to the rubricator, who inserted, in more or
less elaborate designs, and in striking colours, the rubrics and
initials for which space had been left by the scribe. The pieces
of parchment were then passed to the binder, who, as a rule,
placed four on each other and then folded them, the result being a
quire of eight leaves or sixteen pages. The binding was generally
strong and solid in character: leather was used for the back and
wooden boards for the sides, which were usually covered with
parchment or leather or velvet. Thus was established the form
and fashion of the book as we know it, whether written or printed.
Beside the book-form, parchment was also made up into rolls,
which were especially used for chronological writings and deeds of
various kinds? .
The men who wrote both roll and book, and to whose patience
and devotion we owe much of our knowledge of the times gone by,
were, at first, the monks themselves; it being held that copying,
especially of devotional books, was a work pleasing to God and one
Cf. the term "Master of the Rolls. "
E. L. I. CII. II.
2
## p. 18 (#38) ##############################################
18
Runes and Manuscripts
of the best possible ways in which men, separated from the world,
could labour.
Gradually, however, there grew up a professional class of
scribes, whose services could be hired for money, and who can be
proved to have been employed at an early period in the monasteries
of England and abroad. Nuns were also well versed in writing.
Moreover, where schools were attached to monasteries the alumni
were early pressed into service, at all events to copy out books
needed for their own instruction.
The cloister was the centre of life in the monastery, and in the
cloister was the workshop of the patient scribe. It is hard to
realise that the fair and seemly handwriting of these manuscripts
was executed by fingers which, on winter days, when the wind
howled through the cloisters, must have been numbed by the icy
cold. It is true that, occasionally, little carrells or studies in
the recesses of the windows were screened off from the main walk
of the cloister, and, sometimes, a small room or cell would be
partitioned off for the use of a single scribe. This room would
then be called the scriptorium, but it is unlikely that any save the
oldest or most learned of the community were afforded this luxury.
In these scriptoria of various kinds the earliest annals and chronicles
in the English language were penned, in the beautiful and pains-
taking forms in which we know them.
There is no evidence for the existence of buildings specially
set apart for libraries until the later Middle Ages. Books were
stored in presses, placed either in the church or in convenient
places within the monastic buildings. These presses were then
added to as need arose, or, perhaps, a small room was set apart
for the better preserving of the precious volumes. Books were
frequently lost through the widespread system of lending both
to private persons and to communities, and, though bonds were
solemnly entered into for their safe return, neither anathema
nor heavy pledges seemed sufficient to ensure the return of the
volumes.
But all losses through lending, or fire, or pillage, were as
nothing compared with the utter ruin and destruction that over-
took the literature of England, as represented by the written
remains of its past, when the monasteries were dissolved. By
what remains we can estimate what we have lost, and lost irre-
vocably; but the full significance of this event for English literary
culture will be discussed in a later chapter.
## p. 19 (#39) ##############################################
CHAPTER III
EARLY NATIONAL POETRY
ined
THE poetry of the Old English period is generally grouped in
two main divisions, national and Christian. To the former are
assigned those poems of which the subjects are drawn from
English, or rather Teutonic, tradition and history or from the
customs and conditions of English life; to the latter those which
deal with Biblical matter, ecclesiastical traditions and religious by
subjects of definitely Christian origin. The line of demarcation
is not, of course, absolutely fixed. Most of the national poems
in their present form contain Christian elements, while English
influence often makes itself felt in the presentation of Biblical
or ecclesiastical subjects. But, on the whole, the division is a
satisfactory one, in spite of the fact that there are a certain
number of poems as to the classification of which some doubt
may be entertained.
We are concerned here only with the earlier national poems.
With one or two possible exceptions they are anonymous, and we
have no means of assigning to them with certainty even an ap-
proximate date. There can be little doubt, however, that they all
belong to times anterior to the unification of England under king
Alfred (A. D. 886). The later national poetry does not begin until
the reign of Aethelstan.
With regard to the general characteristics of these poems one
or two preliminary remarks will not be out of place. First, there is
some reason for believing that, for the most part, they are the work
of minstrels rather than of literary men. In two cases, Widsith
and Deor, we have definite statements to this effect, and from
Bede's account of Caedmon we may probably infer that the early
Christian poems had a similar origin. Indeed, it is by no means
clear that any of the poems were written down very early. Scarcely
any of the MSS date from before the tenth century and, though
they are doubtless copies, they do not betray traces of very archaic
orthography. Again, it is probable that the authors were, as a rule,
attached to the courts of kings or, at all events, to the retinues of
2–2
## p. 20 (#40) ##############################################
20
Early National Poetry
persons in high position. For this statement also we have no
positive evidence except in the cases of Widsith and Deor ; but it
is favoured by the tone of the poems. Some knowledge of music
and recitation seems, indeed, to have prevailed among all classes.
Just as in Beowulf not only Hrothgar's bard but even the king
himself is said to have taken part among others in the recitation of
stories of old time, so Bede, in the passage mentioned above, relates
how the harp was passed round at a gathering of villagers, each
one of whom was expected to produce a song. But the poems
which survived, especially epic poems, are likely to have been the
work of professional minstrels, and such persons would naturally
be attracted to courts by the richer rewards—both in gold and
land—which they received for their services. It is not only in
Old English poems that professional minstrels are mentioned.
From Cassiodorus (Variarum, II, 40 f. ) we learn that Clovis begged
Theodric, king of the Ostrogoths, to send him a skilled harpist.
Again, Priscus, in the account of his visit to Attila’, describes how,
at the evening feast, two men, whom probably we may regard as
professional minstrels, came forward and sang of the king's victories
and martial deeds. Some of the warriors, he says, had their fighting
spirit roused by the melody, while others, advanced in age, burst
into tears, lamenting the loss of their strength—a passage which
bears rather a striking resemblance to Beowulf's account of the
feast in Hrothgar's hall.
1
It is customary to classify the early national poems in two
groups, epic and elegiac. The former, if we may judge from
Beowulf, ran to very considerable length, while all the extant
specimens of the latter are quite short. There are, however, one or
two poems which can hardly be brought under either of these
heads, and it is probably due to accident that most of the shorter
poems which have come down to us are of an elegiac character.
The history of our national epic poetry is rendered obscure
by the fact that there is little elsewhere with which it may be
compared. We need not doubt that it is descended ultimately
from the songs in which the ancients were wont to celebrate deeds
of famous men, such as Arminius; but, regarding the form of these
songs, we are unfortunately without information. The early national
epic poetry of Germany is represented only by a fragment of
67 lines, while the national poetry of the north, rich as it is,
1 E. Müller, Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, sv, p. 92.
* CL Tacitus, Ann. 1, 88.
## p. 21 (#41) ##############################################
Teutonic Epic Poetry
21
contains nothing which can properly be called epic. It cannot,
therefore, be determined with certainty, whether the epos was
known to the English before the invasion or whether it arose
in this country, or, again, whether it was introduced from abroad
in later times. Yet the fact is worth noting that all the poems
of which we have any remains deal with stories relating to
continental or Scandinavian lands.
Indeed, in the whole of our
early national poetry, there is no reference to persons who are
known to have lived in Britain. Kögel put forward the view that
epic poetry originated among the Goths, and that its appear-
ance in the north-west of Europe is to be traced to the harpist
who was sent to Clovis by Theodric, king of the Ostrogoths.
Yet the traditions preserved in our poems speak of professional
minstrels before the time of Clovis. The explanation of the
incident referred to may be merely that minstrelsy had attained
greater perfection among the Goths than elsewhere. Unfortunately
Gothic poetry has wholly perished.
Although definite evidence is wanting, it is commonly held that
the old Teutonic poetry was entirely strophic. Such is the case
with all the extant Old Norse poems, and there is no reason for
thinking that any other form of poetry was known in the north.
Moreover, in two of the earliest Old English poems, Widsith and
Deor, the strophes may be restored practically without alteration
of the text. An attempt has even been made to reconstruct
Beowulf in strophic form ; but this can only be carried out by
dealing with the text in a somewhat arbitrary manner. In
Beowulf, as indeed in most Old English poems, new sentences
and even new subjects begin very frequently in the middle of the
verse. The effect of this is, of course, to produce a continuous
metrical narrative, which is essentially foreign to the strophic type
of poetry. Further, it is not to be overlooked that all the strophic
poems which we possess are quite short. Even Atlamál, the
longest narrative poem in the Edda, scarcely reaches one eighth
of the length of Beowulf. According to another theory epics
were derived from strophic lays, though never actually composed
in strophic form themselves. This theory is, of course, by no means
open to such serious objections. It may be noted that, in some of
the earliest Old Norse poems, e. g. Helgakviða Hundingsbana II. ·
and Helgakviða Hiörvarðssonar, the strophes contain only speeches,
while the connecting narrative is given, quite briefly, in prose.
Such pieces might very well serve as the bases of epic poems. The
greater length of the latter may, then, be accounted for by the
## p. 22 (#42) ##############################################
22
Early National Poetry
substitution of detailed descriptions for the short prose passages,
by the introduction of episodes drawn from other sources and
perhaps also by the combination of two or more lays in one poem.
In any such process, however, the original materials must have been
largely transformed.
By far the most important product of the national epos is
Beowulf, a poem of 3183 lines, which has been preserved practically
n a MS of the tenth century, now in the British Museum.
It will be convenient at the outset to give a brief summary of its
contents.
The poem opens with a short account of the victorious Danish
king Scyld Scefing, whose obsequies are described in some detail.
His body was carried on board a ship, piled up with arms and
treasures. The ship passed out to sea, and none knew what
became of it (11. 1–52). The reigns of Scyld's son and grandson,
Beowulf and Healfdene, are quickly passed over, and we are next
brought to Hrothgar, the son of Healfdene. He builds a splendid
hall, called Heorot, in which to entertain his numerous retinue
(II. 53—100). His happiness is, however, destroyed by Grendel,
a monster sprung from Cain, who attacks the hall by night and
devours as many as thirty knights at a time. No one can with-
stand him, and, in spite of sacrificial offerings, the ball has to
remain empty (ll. 101–193). When Grendel's ravages have lasted
twelve years, Beowulf, a nephew of Hygelac, king of the Geatas,
and a man of enormous strength, determines to go to Hrothgar's
assistance. He embarks with fourteen companions and, on reaching
the Danish coast, is directed by the watchman to Hrothgar's abode
(IL. 194—319). The king, on being informed of his arrival, relates
how he had known and befriended Ecgtheow, Beowulfs father.
Beowulf states the object of his coming, and the visitors are invited
to feast (11. 320—497). During the banquet Beowulf is taunted by
Hunferth (Unferth), the king's “ orator," with having failed in a
swimming contest against a certain Breca. He replies, giving a
different version of the story, according to which he was successful
(11. 498–606). Then the queen (Wealhtheow) fills Beowulf's cup,
and he announces his determination to conquer or die. As night
draws on, the king and his retinue leave the hall to the visitors
(IL 607–665). They go to sleep, and Beowulf puts off his armour,
declaring that he will not use his sword. Grendel bursts into the
hall and devours one of the knights. Beowulf, however, seizes him
by the arm, which he tears off after a desperate struggle, and the
## p. 23 (#43) ##############################################
Beowulf: Summary of the Poem
23
monster takes to flight, mortally wounded (11. 665—833) Beowulf
displays the arm, and the Danes come to express their admiration
of his achievement. They tell stories of heroes of the past, of
Sigemund and his nephew Fitela and of the Danish prince Heremod'.
Then Hrothgar himself arrives, congratulates Beowulf on his victory
and rewards him with rich gifts (11. 834–1062). During the feast
which follows, the king's minstrel recites the story of Hnaef and
Finn (11. 1063—1159), to which we shall have to return later. The
queen comes forward and, after addressing Hrothgar together
with his nephew and colleague Hrothwulf, thanks Beowulf and
presents him with a valuable necklace (1l. 1160–1232). This neck-
lace, it is stated (U. 1202—1214), was afterwards worn by Hygelac
and fell into the bands of the Franks at his death. Hrothgar and
Beowulf now retire, but a number of knights settle down to sleep
in the hall. During the night Grendel's mother appears and
carries off Aeschere, the king's chief councillor (IL. 1233—1306).
Beowulf is summoned and the king, overwhelmed with grief, tells
him what has happened and describes the place where the monsters
were believed to dwell. Beowulf promises to exact vengeance
(11. 1306—1396). They set out for the place, a pool overshadowed
with trees, but apparently connected with the sea. Beowulf
plunges into the water and reaches a cave, where he has a
desperate encounter with the monster. Eventually he succeeds in
killing her with a sword which he finds in the cave. He then
comes upon the corpse of Grendel and cuts off its head With this
he returns to his companions, who had given him up for lost
(1L. 1397–1631). The head is brought in triumph to the palace,
and Beowulf describes his adventure. The king praises his
exploit and contrasts his spirit with that of the unfortunate prince
Heremod. From this he passes to a moralising discourse on the
evils of pride (1632–1784). On the following day Beowulf bids
farewell to the king. They part affectionately, and the king
rewards him with further gifts. Beowulf and his companions
embark and return to their own land (1785–1921). The virtues
of Hygd, the young wife of Hygelac, are praised, and she is
contrasted with Thrytho, the wife of Offa, who, in her youth, had
displayed a murderous disposition (11. 1922–1962). Beowulf
greets Hygelac and gives him an account of his adventures. Part
of his speech, however, is taken up with a subject which, except for
a casual reference in 11 83—85, has not been mentioned before,
1 For these persons cf. the Old Norse poem Hyndlulió, strophe 2, Völsunga Saga
cap. 7–10, etc.
## p. 24 (#44) ##############################################
24
Early National Poetry
namely, the relations between Hrothgar and his son-in-law Ingeld,
prince of the Heathobeardan. Ingeld's father, Froda, had been
slain by the Danes and he was constantly incited by an old
warrior to take vengeance on the son of the slayer. Then Beowulf
hands over to Hygelac and Hygd the presents which Hrothgar and
Wealhtheow had given him, and Hygelac in turn rewards him with
a sword and with a large share in the kingdom (11. 1963—2199).
A long period is now supposed to elapse. Hygelac has fallen,
and his son Heardred has been slain by the Swedes. Then
Beowulf has succeeded to the throne and reigned gloriously for
fifty years (Il. 2200—2210). In his old age the land of the Geatas
is ravaged and his own home destroyed by a fire-spitting dragon
which, after brooding for three hundred years over the treasure of
men long since dead, has had its lair robbed by a runaway slave.
Beowulf, greatly angered, resolves to attack it (IL. 2210—2349).
Now comes a digression referring to Beowulfs past exploits, in the
course of which we learn that he had escaped by swimming when
Hygelac lost his life in the land of the Frisians. On his return
Hygd offered him the throne, but he refused it in favour of the
young Heardred. The latter, however, was soon slain by the
Swedish king Onela, because he had granted asylum to his nephews,
Eanmund and Eadgils, the sons of Ohthere. Vengeance was obtained
by Beowulf later, when he supported Eadgils in a campaign which
led to the king's death (1l. 2349—2396). Beowulf now approaches
the dragon's lair. He reflects on the past history of his family.
Haethcyn, king of the Geatas, had accidentally killed his brother
Herebeald, and their father, Hrethel, died of grief in consequence.
His death was followed by war with the Swedes, in which first
Haethcyn and then the Swedish king Ongentheow (Onela's father)
were slain. When Hygelac, the third brother, perished among the
Frisians, Daeghrefn, a warrior of the Hugas, was crushed to death
by the hero himself (1l. 2397—2509). Beowulf orders his men to
wait outside while he enters the dragon's barrow alone. He is
attacked by the dragon, and his sword will not bite. Wiglaf, one of
his companions, now comes to the rescue; but the rest, in spite of
his exhortations, flee into a wood. As the dragon darts forward
again Beowulf strikes it on the head; but his sword breaks, and the
dragon seizes him by the neck. Wiglaf succeeds in wounding it,
and Beowulf, thus getting a moment's respite, finishes it off with his
knife (11. 2510—2709). But the hero is mortally wounded. At his
request Wiglaf brings the treasure out of the lair. Beowulf gives
him directions with regard to his funeral, presents him with his
## p. 25 (#45) ##############################################
Beowulf and Scandinavian Traditions 25
armour and necklace and then dies (1l. 2709—2842). The cowardly
knights now return and are bitterly upbraided by Wiglaf (IL. 2842
2891). A messenger brings the news to the warriors who have
been waiting behind. He goes on to prophesy that, now their
heroic king has fallen, the Geatas must expect hostility on all sides.
With the Franks there bas been no peace since Hygelac's un-
fortunate expedition against the Frisians and Hetware, while the
Swedes cannot forget Ongentheow's disaster, which is now described
at length. The warriors approach the barrow and inspect the
treasure which has been found (11. 2891—3075). Wiglaf repeats
Beowulfs instructions, the dragon is thrown into the sea and the
king's body burnt on a great pyre. Then a huge barrow is
constructed over the remains of the pyre, and all the treasure
taken from the dragon's lair is placed in it. The poem ends with
an account of the mourning and the proclamation of the king's
virtues by twelve warriors who ride round the barrow.
Many of the persons and events mentioned in Beowulf are
known to us also from various Scandinavian records, especially
Saxo’s Danish History, Hrólfs Saga Kraka, Ynglinga Saga
(with the poem Ynglingatal) and the fragments of the lost
Skiöldunga Saga. Scyld, the ancestor of the Scyldungas (the
Danish royal family), clearly corresponds to Skiöldr, the ancestor
of the Skiöldungar, though the story told of him in Beowulf does
not occur in Scandinavian literature. Healfdene and his sons
Hrothgar and Halga are certainly identical with the Danish king
Halfdan and his sons Hróarr (Roe) and Helgi ; and there can
be no doubt that Hrothwulf, Hrothgar's nephew and colleague,
is the famous Hrólfr Kraki, the son of Helgi. Hrothgar's elder
brother Heorogar is unknown, but his son Heoroweard may be
identical with Hiörvarðr, the brother-in-law of Hrólfr. It has been
plausibly suggested also that Hrethric, the son of Hrothgar, may be
the same person as Hroerekr (Roricus), who is generally represented
as the son or successor of Ingialdr. The name of the Heathobeardan
is unknown in the north, unless, possibly, a reminiscence of it is
preserved in Saxo’s Hothbroddus, the name of the king who slew
Roe. Their princes Froda and Ingeld, however, clearly correspond
to Fróði (Frotho IV) and his son Ingialdr, who are represented as
kings of the Danes. Even the story of the old warrior who incites
Ingeld to revenge is given also by Saxo ; indeed, the speaker
(Starcatherus) is one of the most prominent figures in his history.
Again, the Swedish prince Eadgils, the son of Ohthere, is certainly
identical with the famous king of the Svear, Aðils, the son of
## p. 26 (#46) ##############################################
26
Early National Poetry
Ottarr, and his conflict with Onela corresponds to the battle on
lake Vener between Aðils and Ali. The latter is described as
a Norwegian; but this is, in all probability, a mistake arising from
his surname hinn Upplenzki, which was thought to refer to the
Norwegian Upplönd instead of the Swedish district of the same
name. The other members of the Swedish royal family, Ongentheow
and Eanmund, are unknown in Scandinavian literature. The same
remark applies, probably, to the whole of the royal family of the
Geatas, except, perhaps, the hero himself. On the other hand, most
of the persons mentioned in the minor episodes or incidentally-
Sigemund and Fitela, Heremod, Eormenric, Hama, Offa-are more
or less well known from various Scandinavian authorities, some
also from continental sources.
With the exception of Ynglingatal, which dates probably from
the ninth century, all the Scandinavian works mentioned above are
quite late and, doubtless, based on tradition. Hence they give us
no means of fixing the dates of the kings whose doings they
record-unless one can argue from the fact that Harold the Fair-
haired, who appears to have been born in 850, claimed to be
descended in the eleventh generation from Aðils. Indeed, we have
unfortunately no contemporary authorities for Swedish and Danish
history before the ninth century. Several early Frankish writings,
however, refer to a raid which was made upon the territories of the
Chattuarii on the lower Rhine about the year 520. The raiders
were defeated by Theodberht, the son of Theodric I, and their
king, who is called Chohilaicus (Chlochilaicus) or Huiglaucus, was
killed. This incident is, without doubt, to be identified with the
disastrous expedition of Hygelac against the Franks, Hetware
(Chattuarii) and Frisians, to which Beowulf contains several
references. We need not hesitate, then, to conclude that most of
the historical events mentioned in Beowulf are to be dated within
about the first three decades of the sixth century.
In Gregory of Tours's Historia Francorum (III, 3) and in the
Gesta Regum Francorum (cap. 19) the king of the raiders is
described as rex Danorum; in the Liber Monstrorum? however as
rex Getarum. As Getarum can hardly be anything but a corruption
of Beowulf's Geatas the latter description is doubtless correct.
The Geatas are, in all probability, to be identified with the Gautar
of Old Norse literature, i. e. the people of Götaland in the south of
Sweden. It may be mentioned that Procopius, a contemporary
of Theodberht, in his description (Goth. 11, 15) of “Thule,” i. e.
Berger de Xivrey, Traditions Tératowgiques, p. 12.
## p. 27 (#47) ##############################################
Beowulf: Personality of the Hero
27
arrival in the bare skaldske in the
Scandinavia, speaks of the Götar (Gautoi) as a very numerous
nation.
The hero himself still remains to be discussed. On the whole,
though the identification is rejected by many scholars, there seems
to be good reason for believing that he was the same person
as Böðvarr Biarki, the chief of Hrólfr Kraki's knights. In Hrólfs
Saga Kraka, Biarki is represented as coming to Leire, the Danish
royal residence, from Götaland, where his brother was king.
Shortly after his arrival he killed an animal demon (a bear, accord-
ing to Saxo), which was in the habit of attacking the king's farm-
yard at Yule. Again, according to Skaldskaparmal, cap. 44 (from
Skiöldunga Saga), he took part with Aðils in the battle against
Ali. In all these points his history resembles that of Beowulf. It
appears from Hrólfs Saga Kraka that Biarki had the faculty of
changing into a bear. And Beowulf's method of fighting, especially
in his conflict with Daegbrefn, may point to a similar story. On
the other hand, the latter part of Biarki's career is quite different
from that of Beowulf. He stayed with Hrólfr to the end and
shared the death of that king. But the latter part of Beowulfs
life can hardly be regarded as historical. Indeed, his own exploits
throughout are largely of a miraculous character.
There is another Scandinavian story, however, which has a very
curious bearing on the earlier adventures of Beowulf. This is
a passage in Grettis Saga (cap. 64 ff. ), in which the hero is repre-
sented as destroying two demons, male and female. The scene is
laid in Iceland; yet so close are the resemblances between the two
stories, in the character of the demons, in the description of the
places they inhabit and in the methods by which the hero deals
with them, as well as in a number of minor details, that it is
impossible to ascribe them to accident. Now Grettir seems to be
a historical person who died about the year 1031. The presumption
is, then, that an older story has become attached to his name. But
there is nothing in the account that gives any colour to the idea
that it is actually derived from the Old English poem. More
probably the origin of both stories alike is to be sought in a folk-
tale, and, just as the adventures were attributed in Iceland to the
historical Grettir, so in England, and, possibly, also in Denmark, at
an earlier date they were associated with a historical prince of the
Götar. From the occurrence of the local names Beowanham and
Grendles mere in a Wiltshire charter some scholars have inferred
that the story was originally told of a certain Beowa, whom they
* Kemble, Cod. Dipl. 353.
## p. 28 (#48) ##############################################
28
Early National Poetry
have identified with Beaw or Beo, the son of Scyld (Sceldwea)
in the West Saxon genealogy. But since this person is, in all
probability, identical with the first (Danish) Beowulf of the poem,
and since the name Beowa may very well be a shortened form of
Beowulf, while the other names are obscure, the inference seems
to be of somewhat doubtful value. On the whole there is, perhaps,
more to be said for the view that the association of Beowulf with
the folk-tale arose out of some real adventure with an animal.
This, however, must remain largely a matter of speculation. The
fight with the dragon is, of course, a common motive in folk-tales.
An attempt has been made to show that Beowulf's adventure has
a specially close affinity with a story told by Saxo of the Danish
king Frotho I. But the resemblance between the two stories is
not very striking.
With regard to the origin and antiquity of the poem it is
impossible to arrive at any definite conclusions with certainty.
From investigations which have been made into its linguistic and
metrical characteristics the majority of scholars hold that it was
originally composed in a northern or midland dialect-though it
has been preserved only in West Saxon form—and that it is
at least as old as any other considerable piece of Old English
poetry which we possess. The question of antiquity, however, is
complicated by the doubt which is commonly felt as to the unity of
the poem. Moreover, it cannot be denied that this feeling of doubt
is, at least to some extent, justified. In its present form the poem
must date from Christian times as it contains a considerable
number of passages of distinctly Christian character. On the
other hand, the relationships of the various Danish and Swedish
kings can hardly have been remembered otherwise than in a more
or less stereotyped form of words for more than a generation after
their lifetime.
tention is said to "unbind the runes of war. ” In the poem called
Daniel (l. 741), the mysterious and terrible writing on the wall of
Belshazzar's palace is described as a rune. In the Dialogue of
Salomon and Saturn there is a curious travesty of an old
heathen spell. In treating of the powers and virtues of the Pater
Noster, the poet gradually inserts all the runes that serve to make
up the prayer, each, however, being accompanied by the corre-
sponding Latin capital letter. Thereupon he advises every man
to sing the Pater Noster before drawing his sword against a
hostile band of men, and also to put the fiends to flight by means
of God's word; otherwise they will stay his hand when he has
to defend his life, and bewitch his weapon by cutting on it fatal
letters and death signs. We could scarcely wish for a better
illustration of the way in which Christianity combated the old
beliefs, substituting the Pater Noster for the ancient heathen war-
spell, reading a new meaning into the old rites and shifting to
fiends and devils the power of making runes of victory or of death,
a power formerly in the hands of pagan gods.
When used as ordinary writing characters, without any taint of
magic, runes appear to have met with more tolerant treatment.
The earliest inscriptions extant in this country consist mainly
of proper names, in most cases those of the owners of the engraved
article. The Thames sword, for instance, bears, in addition to the
runic alphabet, the name of its owner, Beagnop. Again, Beowulf
is represented as finding in Grendel's cave a sword of ancient work-
manship, with rune-staves on the hilt, giving the name of the warrior
for whom the sword had first been made. Similarly, an eighth
century ring bears, partly in runic, partly in Roman, characters, the
legend “Æpred owns me, Eanred engraved me. " There are also
references in Old English literature to the use of runes as a
means of communication. We are reminded of the rúna-kefli of
the Icelandic sagas on reading the little poem called The Husband's .
* The Old English version renders this by alysendlecan rúne, “ loosening runes. "
» Ed. Kemble, pp. 14 and 99.
## p. 12 (#32) ##############################################
I 2
Runes and Manuscripts
Message (see p. 39), where a staff, inscribed with runes, is supposed
to convey to a wife the message of her lord, bidding her cross the
sea in search of the distant country where he had found gold and
land. But still more important are those inscriptions which have
actually survived and which are mainly found on stone monuments.
They are confined almost exclusively to the north, and the greater
number of them belong to the seventh and eighth centuries, for
absolutely no inscriptions have survived from the first one hundred
and fifty years subsequent to the English invasion. These inscrip-
tions are almost all due to Christian influence. Chief among these
monuments, so far as English literature is concerned, are the
Ruthwell Cross in Dumfriesshire, possibly dating back to the
eighth century? , on which are inscribed extracts from The Dream
of the Rood, and the Bewcastle Column in Cumberland, probably
erected to the memory of Alchfrith, son of the Northumbrian
king Oswy (642–670).
Runic inscriptions have, moreover, been discovered on coins
and various other objects, the most important being the beautiful
Clermont or Franks casket. The top and three of the sides are
now in the British Museum, the fourth side is in the Museo
Nazionale at Florence. The casket is made of whalebone, and
the scenes carved on it represent an episode from the Weland-
saga, the adoration of the Magi, Romulus and Remus nursed by
the she-wolf and, lastly, a fight between Titus and the Jews. The
carving on the Florence fragment is still unexplained. The legends
engraved around these episodes are intended to represent the
capture of the whale and to elucidate the carving. On linguistic
grounds it has been thought probable that the casket was made
in Northumbria at the beginning of the eighth century.
In several Old English MSS, runes are found in isolated cases,
for instance in Beowulf, and in the Durham Ritual. In the riddles
of the Exeter Book the occasional introduction of runes sometimes
helps to solve the mystery of the enigma, and sometimes increases
the obscurity of the passage. Occasionally a poet or scribe will
< record his name by means of a runic acrostic introduced into the
4. text. Thus, the poems Crist, Juliana, Elene and the Vercelli
fragment. bear the runic signature of their author, Cynewulf.
Runes went out of use during the ninth and tenth centuries.
Their place had, however, been usurped long before that period by
the Roman alphabet, which the English received from the early
1 But see A. S. Cook, The Dream of the Rood, Oxford, 1905, pp. ix ft.
? Napier, English Misc. p. 380.
## p. 13 (#33) ##############################################
Roman Alphabet in England
13
Irish missionaries. The advent of Christianity and the beginnings
of English literature are intimately connected, for the missionary
and the Roman alphabet travelled together, and it was owing to
the Christian scribe that the songs and sagas, the laws and customs,
the faith and the proverbial wisdom of our forefathers, were first
recorded and preserved. It is, indeed, difficult to realise that,
before the conversion of the English to Christianity, during the
sixth and seventh centuries, the whole, or, at all events, by far the
greater part, of the intellectual wealth of the nation was to be
sought on the lips of the people, or in the retentive memory of
the individual, and was handed down from generation to generation
by means of song and recitation. Caesar relates ? how this was the
case in Gaul, where the accumulated wisdom of the Druids, their
religion and their laws, were transmitted by oral tradition alone,
since they were forbidden to put any part of their lore into writing,
although, for other purposes, the Greek alphabet was used. What
wonder if the young Gauls who served their apprenticeship to the
Druids had, as Caesar says, to learn "a great number of verses,”
and often to stay as long as twenty years before they had exhausted
their instructors' store of learning.
Before entering, however, on the history of the Irish alphabet
in England, it may be of interest to note that an even earlier
attempt had been made to introduce Roman characters among
the English. This was due to the efforts of Augustine and his
missionaries, who established a school of handwriting in the south
of England, with Canterbury as a probable centre. A Psalter
of about A. D. 700, now in the Cottonian collection of the British
Museum, and a few early copies of charters constitute, however,
the only evidence of its existence that survives. From these we
learn that the type of alphabet taught was the Roman rustic
capital, though of a somewhat modified local character. This
paucity of records makes it seem likely that the school of the
Roman missionaries had but a brief period of existence, and
wholly failed to influence the native hand.
Not so, however, with the Irish school of writing in the north.
The Irish alphabet was founded on the Roman half-uncial hand,
manuscripts of this type having been brought over to Ireland
by missionaries, perhaps during the fifth century. Owing to the
isolated position of the island and the consequent absence of
extraneous influence, a strongly characteristic national hand de-
veloped, which ran its uninterrupted course down to the late
1 De Bello Gallico, v, 14.
## p. 14 (#34) ##############################################
14
Runes and Manuscripts
Middle Ages. This hand was at first round in character and of
great clearness, beauty and precision; but, at an early period, a
modified, pointed variety of a minuscule type developed out of it,
used for quicker and less ornamental writing.
In the seventh century Northumbria was Christianised by Irish
missionaries, who founded monasteries and religious settlements
throughout the north. What, then, more natural than that these
zealous preachers of the Word should teach their disciples not only
the Word itself, but also how to write it down in characters
pleasing to the Almighty, and not in rude and uncouth signs which
conveyed all the power and magic of the heathen gods? Thus it
came to pass that the English of the north learnt the exquisite
penmanship of the Irish, and proved themselves such apt pupils
that they soon equalled their former masters. In fact, the earliest
specimens of the Northumbrian hand can scarcely be distinguished
from their Irish models.
In course of time, moreover, the English threw off the con-
ventions and restraints which fettered the Irish hand and developed
a truly national hand, which spread throughout England, and which,
in grace of outline and correctness of stroke, even surpassed its
prototype.
As might have been expected, the English adopted both the
round and pointed varieties of their Irish teachers. One of the
earliest and most beautiful examples of the former is The Book of
Durham or The Lindisfarne Gospels', written about A. D. 700 by
Eadfrith, bishop of Lindisfarne. And, as a specimen of the latter,
may be mentioned a fine copy of Bede's Ecclesiastical History
in the University Library of Cambridge, written not long after 730,
which possesses an additional interest as preserving one of the
earliest pieces of poetry in the English language, The Hymn of
Caedmon, in the original Northumbrian dialect. The pointed
hand branched off into a number of local varieties and was
extensively used down to the tenth century, when it became
influenced by the French or Carolingian minuscule. Towards
the end of the century all Latin MSS were, as a matter of
fact, written in foreign characters, whereas the English hand
came to be exclusively used for writing in the vernacular. For
instance, a Latin charter would have the body of the text in the
French minuscule, but the English descriptions or boundaries of
the property to be conveyed would be written in the native hand.
After the conquest, the native hand gradually disappeared, the
Brit. Mus. Cotton Nero, D. 4.
## p. 15 (#35) ##############################################
Materials for Writing
15
only traces of it left being the adoption by the foreign alphabets
of the symbols P, 3, Þ (/) to express the peculiarly English sounds
for which they stood. The rune p, however, fell into disuse about
the beginning of the fourteenth century, its place having been
taken by uu (vv) or w; while 8 (th) occurs occasionally as late as
the end of the same century. Of far superior vitality were p and 3,
the former bearing a charmed life throughout Middle English
times, though, in the fifteenth century and later, þ often appeared
in the degenerated form of y, while 3 was retained in order to
represent spirant sounds, afterwards denoted by y or gh.
During the late twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the
history of English handwriting was practically that of the various
Latin hands of the French school. The fifteenth century finally
witnessed the dissolution of the medieval book-hand of the
minuscule type, the many varieties of it being apparent in the
types used by the early printers. The legal or charter-hand,
introduced with the Conquest, was, however, not superseded by
the printing-presses, but ran an undisturbed though ever varying
course down to the seventeenth century, when its place was taken
by the modern current hand, fashioned on Italian models. A late
variety still lingers on, however, in the so-called chancery-hand
seen in the engraved writing of enrolments and patents.
Turning to the materials used for writing in medieval England,
we gain at once a connecting link with the runic alphabet, since the
wooden tablet, the bóc, again appears, though in a somewhat
different fashion. A thin coating of wax was now spread over the
surface, and the writing was scratched on it with a pointed instru- -
ment of metal or bone which, in Old English, was known as graef.
and, in the later centuries, by the French term poyntel. The use -
of these tablets was widely spread in the Middle Ages ; they
served for the school-boy's exercises and for bills and memoranda
of every description, for short letters and rough copies—for any-
thing that was afterwards to be copied out, more carefully, on
vellum. In German illuminated MSS poets are represented as
writing their songs and poems on waxen tablets, and, as early as the
sixth century, The Rule of St Benet makes provision for the
distribution of tablets and styles to monks. There is, also, evidence
of the use of these tablets by Irish monks, who, it may be supposed,
would introduce them to their English pupils. And, consequently,
we find that Aldhelm, who died in 709, writes a riddle of which
the answer is “tablet”-a fact which presupposes a knowledge
of the existence of tablets among his contemporaries. Again, in
## p. 16 (#36) ##############################################
16
Runes and Manuscripts
Ethelwold's Benedictionale of the tenth century, Zacharias (Luke,
i, 3) is represented as writing on a waxen tablet?
In the twelfth century we learn concerning Anselm, archbishop
of Canterbury (+1109), that he was in the habit of making the first
sketch of his works on waxen tablets; and, in The Canterbury
Tales, Chaucer relates how the summoner's "fellow" had "a pair of
tables all of ivory, and a poyntel ypolished fetisly. ”
Far more important, practical and durable as writing material,
however, was parchment or vellum, the use of which prevailed
throughout the Middle Ages. The Old English name for this was
bóc-fel, literally "book-skin," replaced in Middle English by the
French terms parchment and velin (vellum). These terms, origin-
ally, were not interchangeable, vellum being, as its name indicates,
prepared from calf-skins, parchment from sheep-skins.
At first, the evidence goes to show that monasteries had to
prepare their own parchment, either by the help of the monks
themselves or of laymen engaged for the purpose. Later, how-
ever, the parchment-makers took their place as ordinary crafts-
men, and supplied religious and other houses with the necessary
material. Thus we find that, in the year 1300, Ely bought five
dozen parchments and as many vellums, and, about half a century
later, no less than seventy and thirty dozen respectively, in order
to supply the want of writing material for a few years only. Vellum
was, at times, magnificently coloured, the text being, in such cases,
inscribed in letters of gold or silver. The most famous example
- is the Codec argenteus at Upsala Archbishop Wilfrid of York
(664–709) is said to have possessed the four Gospels written
on purple vellum in letters of purest gold, a fact which his
biographer records as little short of the marvellous. In the British
Museum there remains to this day an Old English MS of the
Gospels, the first leaves of which are written in golden letters on
purple vellum.
Apart from these éditions de luxe which, naturally, must have
been of enormous cost, ordinary working parchment was a very
expensive writing material, and it is small wonder if, on that
account, it gradually had to give way before a new and less costly
material. It appears that, from times immemorial, the manufac-
ture of paper from linen rags and hemp was known to the Chinese,
1 Archaeol. XXIV, pl. 27.
: From Hamlet, v, 1 it appears, however, as if Shakespeare was unaware of this
difference: “Is not parchment made of sheep-skins? ”—“Ay, my lord, and of calf-skins
too. "
• Royal, 1, E. 6.
## p. 17 (#37) ##############################################
Manuscripts and Scribes 17
who, apparently, taught their art to the Arabs, since paper was
exported by that pation at an early date. In the twelfth century,
paper was known in Spain and Italy, and thence it spread slowly
northwards, though it did not come into more general use until
the fourteenth century. In the fifteenth century, paper manuscripts
were very frequent in England, as can be assumed from the great
number still remaining in public and private libraries.
For writing, both on parchment and on paper, the quill was
used, known in Old English times as feder, in Middle English by
the French term penne. The existence of the quill as an imple-
ment of writing is proved by one of the oldest Irish MSS, where
St John the Evangelist is represented holding a quill in his hand.
Again, Aldhelm has a riddle on penna, in the same way as he had
one on the tablet. Other necessary implements for writing and
preparing a MS were a lead for ruling margins and lines, a ruler,
a pair of compasses, scissors, a puncher, an awl, a scraping-knife
and, last, but not least, ink, which was usually kept in a horn, either
held in the hand by the scribe, or placed in a specially provided
hole in his desk. In Old English times it was known, from its
colour, as blaec, but, after the Conquest, the French term enque, our
modern English ink, was adopted. The terms horne and ink-horne
are both found in old glossaries.
When the body of the text was finally ready, the sheets were
passed to the corrector, who filled the office of the modern proof-
reader, and from him to the rubricator, who inserted, in more or
less elaborate designs, and in striking colours, the rubrics and
initials for which space had been left by the scribe. The pieces
of parchment were then passed to the binder, who, as a rule,
placed four on each other and then folded them, the result being a
quire of eight leaves or sixteen pages. The binding was generally
strong and solid in character: leather was used for the back and
wooden boards for the sides, which were usually covered with
parchment or leather or velvet. Thus was established the form
and fashion of the book as we know it, whether written or printed.
Beside the book-form, parchment was also made up into rolls,
which were especially used for chronological writings and deeds of
various kinds? .
The men who wrote both roll and book, and to whose patience
and devotion we owe much of our knowledge of the times gone by,
were, at first, the monks themselves; it being held that copying,
especially of devotional books, was a work pleasing to God and one
Cf. the term "Master of the Rolls. "
E. L. I. CII. II.
2
## p. 18 (#38) ##############################################
18
Runes and Manuscripts
of the best possible ways in which men, separated from the world,
could labour.
Gradually, however, there grew up a professional class of
scribes, whose services could be hired for money, and who can be
proved to have been employed at an early period in the monasteries
of England and abroad. Nuns were also well versed in writing.
Moreover, where schools were attached to monasteries the alumni
were early pressed into service, at all events to copy out books
needed for their own instruction.
The cloister was the centre of life in the monastery, and in the
cloister was the workshop of the patient scribe. It is hard to
realise that the fair and seemly handwriting of these manuscripts
was executed by fingers which, on winter days, when the wind
howled through the cloisters, must have been numbed by the icy
cold. It is true that, occasionally, little carrells or studies in
the recesses of the windows were screened off from the main walk
of the cloister, and, sometimes, a small room or cell would be
partitioned off for the use of a single scribe. This room would
then be called the scriptorium, but it is unlikely that any save the
oldest or most learned of the community were afforded this luxury.
In these scriptoria of various kinds the earliest annals and chronicles
in the English language were penned, in the beautiful and pains-
taking forms in which we know them.
There is no evidence for the existence of buildings specially
set apart for libraries until the later Middle Ages. Books were
stored in presses, placed either in the church or in convenient
places within the monastic buildings. These presses were then
added to as need arose, or, perhaps, a small room was set apart
for the better preserving of the precious volumes. Books were
frequently lost through the widespread system of lending both
to private persons and to communities, and, though bonds were
solemnly entered into for their safe return, neither anathema
nor heavy pledges seemed sufficient to ensure the return of the
volumes.
But all losses through lending, or fire, or pillage, were as
nothing compared with the utter ruin and destruction that over-
took the literature of England, as represented by the written
remains of its past, when the monasteries were dissolved. By
what remains we can estimate what we have lost, and lost irre-
vocably; but the full significance of this event for English literary
culture will be discussed in a later chapter.
## p. 19 (#39) ##############################################
CHAPTER III
EARLY NATIONAL POETRY
ined
THE poetry of the Old English period is generally grouped in
two main divisions, national and Christian. To the former are
assigned those poems of which the subjects are drawn from
English, or rather Teutonic, tradition and history or from the
customs and conditions of English life; to the latter those which
deal with Biblical matter, ecclesiastical traditions and religious by
subjects of definitely Christian origin. The line of demarcation
is not, of course, absolutely fixed. Most of the national poems
in their present form contain Christian elements, while English
influence often makes itself felt in the presentation of Biblical
or ecclesiastical subjects. But, on the whole, the division is a
satisfactory one, in spite of the fact that there are a certain
number of poems as to the classification of which some doubt
may be entertained.
We are concerned here only with the earlier national poems.
With one or two possible exceptions they are anonymous, and we
have no means of assigning to them with certainty even an ap-
proximate date. There can be little doubt, however, that they all
belong to times anterior to the unification of England under king
Alfred (A. D. 886). The later national poetry does not begin until
the reign of Aethelstan.
With regard to the general characteristics of these poems one
or two preliminary remarks will not be out of place. First, there is
some reason for believing that, for the most part, they are the work
of minstrels rather than of literary men. In two cases, Widsith
and Deor, we have definite statements to this effect, and from
Bede's account of Caedmon we may probably infer that the early
Christian poems had a similar origin. Indeed, it is by no means
clear that any of the poems were written down very early. Scarcely
any of the MSS date from before the tenth century and, though
they are doubtless copies, they do not betray traces of very archaic
orthography. Again, it is probable that the authors were, as a rule,
attached to the courts of kings or, at all events, to the retinues of
2–2
## p. 20 (#40) ##############################################
20
Early National Poetry
persons in high position. For this statement also we have no
positive evidence except in the cases of Widsith and Deor ; but it
is favoured by the tone of the poems. Some knowledge of music
and recitation seems, indeed, to have prevailed among all classes.
Just as in Beowulf not only Hrothgar's bard but even the king
himself is said to have taken part among others in the recitation of
stories of old time, so Bede, in the passage mentioned above, relates
how the harp was passed round at a gathering of villagers, each
one of whom was expected to produce a song. But the poems
which survived, especially epic poems, are likely to have been the
work of professional minstrels, and such persons would naturally
be attracted to courts by the richer rewards—both in gold and
land—which they received for their services. It is not only in
Old English poems that professional minstrels are mentioned.
From Cassiodorus (Variarum, II, 40 f. ) we learn that Clovis begged
Theodric, king of the Ostrogoths, to send him a skilled harpist.
Again, Priscus, in the account of his visit to Attila’, describes how,
at the evening feast, two men, whom probably we may regard as
professional minstrels, came forward and sang of the king's victories
and martial deeds. Some of the warriors, he says, had their fighting
spirit roused by the melody, while others, advanced in age, burst
into tears, lamenting the loss of their strength—a passage which
bears rather a striking resemblance to Beowulf's account of the
feast in Hrothgar's hall.
1
It is customary to classify the early national poems in two
groups, epic and elegiac. The former, if we may judge from
Beowulf, ran to very considerable length, while all the extant
specimens of the latter are quite short. There are, however, one or
two poems which can hardly be brought under either of these
heads, and it is probably due to accident that most of the shorter
poems which have come down to us are of an elegiac character.
The history of our national epic poetry is rendered obscure
by the fact that there is little elsewhere with which it may be
compared. We need not doubt that it is descended ultimately
from the songs in which the ancients were wont to celebrate deeds
of famous men, such as Arminius; but, regarding the form of these
songs, we are unfortunately without information. The early national
epic poetry of Germany is represented only by a fragment of
67 lines, while the national poetry of the north, rich as it is,
1 E. Müller, Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, sv, p. 92.
* CL Tacitus, Ann. 1, 88.
## p. 21 (#41) ##############################################
Teutonic Epic Poetry
21
contains nothing which can properly be called epic. It cannot,
therefore, be determined with certainty, whether the epos was
known to the English before the invasion or whether it arose
in this country, or, again, whether it was introduced from abroad
in later times. Yet the fact is worth noting that all the poems
of which we have any remains deal with stories relating to
continental or Scandinavian lands.
Indeed, in the whole of our
early national poetry, there is no reference to persons who are
known to have lived in Britain. Kögel put forward the view that
epic poetry originated among the Goths, and that its appear-
ance in the north-west of Europe is to be traced to the harpist
who was sent to Clovis by Theodric, king of the Ostrogoths.
Yet the traditions preserved in our poems speak of professional
minstrels before the time of Clovis. The explanation of the
incident referred to may be merely that minstrelsy had attained
greater perfection among the Goths than elsewhere. Unfortunately
Gothic poetry has wholly perished.
Although definite evidence is wanting, it is commonly held that
the old Teutonic poetry was entirely strophic. Such is the case
with all the extant Old Norse poems, and there is no reason for
thinking that any other form of poetry was known in the north.
Moreover, in two of the earliest Old English poems, Widsith and
Deor, the strophes may be restored practically without alteration
of the text. An attempt has even been made to reconstruct
Beowulf in strophic form ; but this can only be carried out by
dealing with the text in a somewhat arbitrary manner. In
Beowulf, as indeed in most Old English poems, new sentences
and even new subjects begin very frequently in the middle of the
verse. The effect of this is, of course, to produce a continuous
metrical narrative, which is essentially foreign to the strophic type
of poetry. Further, it is not to be overlooked that all the strophic
poems which we possess are quite short. Even Atlamál, the
longest narrative poem in the Edda, scarcely reaches one eighth
of the length of Beowulf. According to another theory epics
were derived from strophic lays, though never actually composed
in strophic form themselves. This theory is, of course, by no means
open to such serious objections. It may be noted that, in some of
the earliest Old Norse poems, e. g. Helgakviða Hundingsbana II. ·
and Helgakviða Hiörvarðssonar, the strophes contain only speeches,
while the connecting narrative is given, quite briefly, in prose.
Such pieces might very well serve as the bases of epic poems. The
greater length of the latter may, then, be accounted for by the
## p. 22 (#42) ##############################################
22
Early National Poetry
substitution of detailed descriptions for the short prose passages,
by the introduction of episodes drawn from other sources and
perhaps also by the combination of two or more lays in one poem.
In any such process, however, the original materials must have been
largely transformed.
By far the most important product of the national epos is
Beowulf, a poem of 3183 lines, which has been preserved practically
n a MS of the tenth century, now in the British Museum.
It will be convenient at the outset to give a brief summary of its
contents.
The poem opens with a short account of the victorious Danish
king Scyld Scefing, whose obsequies are described in some detail.
His body was carried on board a ship, piled up with arms and
treasures. The ship passed out to sea, and none knew what
became of it (11. 1–52). The reigns of Scyld's son and grandson,
Beowulf and Healfdene, are quickly passed over, and we are next
brought to Hrothgar, the son of Healfdene. He builds a splendid
hall, called Heorot, in which to entertain his numerous retinue
(II. 53—100). His happiness is, however, destroyed by Grendel,
a monster sprung from Cain, who attacks the hall by night and
devours as many as thirty knights at a time. No one can with-
stand him, and, in spite of sacrificial offerings, the ball has to
remain empty (ll. 101–193). When Grendel's ravages have lasted
twelve years, Beowulf, a nephew of Hygelac, king of the Geatas,
and a man of enormous strength, determines to go to Hrothgar's
assistance. He embarks with fourteen companions and, on reaching
the Danish coast, is directed by the watchman to Hrothgar's abode
(IL. 194—319). The king, on being informed of his arrival, relates
how he had known and befriended Ecgtheow, Beowulfs father.
Beowulf states the object of his coming, and the visitors are invited
to feast (11. 320—497). During the banquet Beowulf is taunted by
Hunferth (Unferth), the king's “ orator," with having failed in a
swimming contest against a certain Breca. He replies, giving a
different version of the story, according to which he was successful
(11. 498–606). Then the queen (Wealhtheow) fills Beowulf's cup,
and he announces his determination to conquer or die. As night
draws on, the king and his retinue leave the hall to the visitors
(IL 607–665). They go to sleep, and Beowulf puts off his armour,
declaring that he will not use his sword. Grendel bursts into the
hall and devours one of the knights. Beowulf, however, seizes him
by the arm, which he tears off after a desperate struggle, and the
## p. 23 (#43) ##############################################
Beowulf: Summary of the Poem
23
monster takes to flight, mortally wounded (11. 665—833) Beowulf
displays the arm, and the Danes come to express their admiration
of his achievement. They tell stories of heroes of the past, of
Sigemund and his nephew Fitela and of the Danish prince Heremod'.
Then Hrothgar himself arrives, congratulates Beowulf on his victory
and rewards him with rich gifts (11. 834–1062). During the feast
which follows, the king's minstrel recites the story of Hnaef and
Finn (11. 1063—1159), to which we shall have to return later. The
queen comes forward and, after addressing Hrothgar together
with his nephew and colleague Hrothwulf, thanks Beowulf and
presents him with a valuable necklace (1l. 1160–1232). This neck-
lace, it is stated (U. 1202—1214), was afterwards worn by Hygelac
and fell into the bands of the Franks at his death. Hrothgar and
Beowulf now retire, but a number of knights settle down to sleep
in the hall. During the night Grendel's mother appears and
carries off Aeschere, the king's chief councillor (IL. 1233—1306).
Beowulf is summoned and the king, overwhelmed with grief, tells
him what has happened and describes the place where the monsters
were believed to dwell. Beowulf promises to exact vengeance
(11. 1306—1396). They set out for the place, a pool overshadowed
with trees, but apparently connected with the sea. Beowulf
plunges into the water and reaches a cave, where he has a
desperate encounter with the monster. Eventually he succeeds in
killing her with a sword which he finds in the cave. He then
comes upon the corpse of Grendel and cuts off its head With this
he returns to his companions, who had given him up for lost
(1L. 1397–1631). The head is brought in triumph to the palace,
and Beowulf describes his adventure. The king praises his
exploit and contrasts his spirit with that of the unfortunate prince
Heremod. From this he passes to a moralising discourse on the
evils of pride (1632–1784). On the following day Beowulf bids
farewell to the king. They part affectionately, and the king
rewards him with further gifts. Beowulf and his companions
embark and return to their own land (1785–1921). The virtues
of Hygd, the young wife of Hygelac, are praised, and she is
contrasted with Thrytho, the wife of Offa, who, in her youth, had
displayed a murderous disposition (11. 1922–1962). Beowulf
greets Hygelac and gives him an account of his adventures. Part
of his speech, however, is taken up with a subject which, except for
a casual reference in 11 83—85, has not been mentioned before,
1 For these persons cf. the Old Norse poem Hyndlulió, strophe 2, Völsunga Saga
cap. 7–10, etc.
## p. 24 (#44) ##############################################
24
Early National Poetry
namely, the relations between Hrothgar and his son-in-law Ingeld,
prince of the Heathobeardan. Ingeld's father, Froda, had been
slain by the Danes and he was constantly incited by an old
warrior to take vengeance on the son of the slayer. Then Beowulf
hands over to Hygelac and Hygd the presents which Hrothgar and
Wealhtheow had given him, and Hygelac in turn rewards him with
a sword and with a large share in the kingdom (11. 1963—2199).
A long period is now supposed to elapse. Hygelac has fallen,
and his son Heardred has been slain by the Swedes. Then
Beowulf has succeeded to the throne and reigned gloriously for
fifty years (Il. 2200—2210). In his old age the land of the Geatas
is ravaged and his own home destroyed by a fire-spitting dragon
which, after brooding for three hundred years over the treasure of
men long since dead, has had its lair robbed by a runaway slave.
Beowulf, greatly angered, resolves to attack it (IL. 2210—2349).
Now comes a digression referring to Beowulfs past exploits, in the
course of which we learn that he had escaped by swimming when
Hygelac lost his life in the land of the Frisians. On his return
Hygd offered him the throne, but he refused it in favour of the
young Heardred. The latter, however, was soon slain by the
Swedish king Onela, because he had granted asylum to his nephews,
Eanmund and Eadgils, the sons of Ohthere. Vengeance was obtained
by Beowulf later, when he supported Eadgils in a campaign which
led to the king's death (1l. 2349—2396). Beowulf now approaches
the dragon's lair. He reflects on the past history of his family.
Haethcyn, king of the Geatas, had accidentally killed his brother
Herebeald, and their father, Hrethel, died of grief in consequence.
His death was followed by war with the Swedes, in which first
Haethcyn and then the Swedish king Ongentheow (Onela's father)
were slain. When Hygelac, the third brother, perished among the
Frisians, Daeghrefn, a warrior of the Hugas, was crushed to death
by the hero himself (1l. 2397—2509). Beowulf orders his men to
wait outside while he enters the dragon's barrow alone. He is
attacked by the dragon, and his sword will not bite. Wiglaf, one of
his companions, now comes to the rescue; but the rest, in spite of
his exhortations, flee into a wood. As the dragon darts forward
again Beowulf strikes it on the head; but his sword breaks, and the
dragon seizes him by the neck. Wiglaf succeeds in wounding it,
and Beowulf, thus getting a moment's respite, finishes it off with his
knife (11. 2510—2709). But the hero is mortally wounded. At his
request Wiglaf brings the treasure out of the lair. Beowulf gives
him directions with regard to his funeral, presents him with his
## p. 25 (#45) ##############################################
Beowulf and Scandinavian Traditions 25
armour and necklace and then dies (1l. 2709—2842). The cowardly
knights now return and are bitterly upbraided by Wiglaf (IL. 2842
2891). A messenger brings the news to the warriors who have
been waiting behind. He goes on to prophesy that, now their
heroic king has fallen, the Geatas must expect hostility on all sides.
With the Franks there bas been no peace since Hygelac's un-
fortunate expedition against the Frisians and Hetware, while the
Swedes cannot forget Ongentheow's disaster, which is now described
at length. The warriors approach the barrow and inspect the
treasure which has been found (11. 2891—3075). Wiglaf repeats
Beowulfs instructions, the dragon is thrown into the sea and the
king's body burnt on a great pyre. Then a huge barrow is
constructed over the remains of the pyre, and all the treasure
taken from the dragon's lair is placed in it. The poem ends with
an account of the mourning and the proclamation of the king's
virtues by twelve warriors who ride round the barrow.
Many of the persons and events mentioned in Beowulf are
known to us also from various Scandinavian records, especially
Saxo’s Danish History, Hrólfs Saga Kraka, Ynglinga Saga
(with the poem Ynglingatal) and the fragments of the lost
Skiöldunga Saga. Scyld, the ancestor of the Scyldungas (the
Danish royal family), clearly corresponds to Skiöldr, the ancestor
of the Skiöldungar, though the story told of him in Beowulf does
not occur in Scandinavian literature. Healfdene and his sons
Hrothgar and Halga are certainly identical with the Danish king
Halfdan and his sons Hróarr (Roe) and Helgi ; and there can
be no doubt that Hrothwulf, Hrothgar's nephew and colleague,
is the famous Hrólfr Kraki, the son of Helgi. Hrothgar's elder
brother Heorogar is unknown, but his son Heoroweard may be
identical with Hiörvarðr, the brother-in-law of Hrólfr. It has been
plausibly suggested also that Hrethric, the son of Hrothgar, may be
the same person as Hroerekr (Roricus), who is generally represented
as the son or successor of Ingialdr. The name of the Heathobeardan
is unknown in the north, unless, possibly, a reminiscence of it is
preserved in Saxo’s Hothbroddus, the name of the king who slew
Roe. Their princes Froda and Ingeld, however, clearly correspond
to Fróði (Frotho IV) and his son Ingialdr, who are represented as
kings of the Danes. Even the story of the old warrior who incites
Ingeld to revenge is given also by Saxo ; indeed, the speaker
(Starcatherus) is one of the most prominent figures in his history.
Again, the Swedish prince Eadgils, the son of Ohthere, is certainly
identical with the famous king of the Svear, Aðils, the son of
## p. 26 (#46) ##############################################
26
Early National Poetry
Ottarr, and his conflict with Onela corresponds to the battle on
lake Vener between Aðils and Ali. The latter is described as
a Norwegian; but this is, in all probability, a mistake arising from
his surname hinn Upplenzki, which was thought to refer to the
Norwegian Upplönd instead of the Swedish district of the same
name. The other members of the Swedish royal family, Ongentheow
and Eanmund, are unknown in Scandinavian literature. The same
remark applies, probably, to the whole of the royal family of the
Geatas, except, perhaps, the hero himself. On the other hand, most
of the persons mentioned in the minor episodes or incidentally-
Sigemund and Fitela, Heremod, Eormenric, Hama, Offa-are more
or less well known from various Scandinavian authorities, some
also from continental sources.
With the exception of Ynglingatal, which dates probably from
the ninth century, all the Scandinavian works mentioned above are
quite late and, doubtless, based on tradition. Hence they give us
no means of fixing the dates of the kings whose doings they
record-unless one can argue from the fact that Harold the Fair-
haired, who appears to have been born in 850, claimed to be
descended in the eleventh generation from Aðils. Indeed, we have
unfortunately no contemporary authorities for Swedish and Danish
history before the ninth century. Several early Frankish writings,
however, refer to a raid which was made upon the territories of the
Chattuarii on the lower Rhine about the year 520. The raiders
were defeated by Theodberht, the son of Theodric I, and their
king, who is called Chohilaicus (Chlochilaicus) or Huiglaucus, was
killed. This incident is, without doubt, to be identified with the
disastrous expedition of Hygelac against the Franks, Hetware
(Chattuarii) and Frisians, to which Beowulf contains several
references. We need not hesitate, then, to conclude that most of
the historical events mentioned in Beowulf are to be dated within
about the first three decades of the sixth century.
In Gregory of Tours's Historia Francorum (III, 3) and in the
Gesta Regum Francorum (cap. 19) the king of the raiders is
described as rex Danorum; in the Liber Monstrorum? however as
rex Getarum. As Getarum can hardly be anything but a corruption
of Beowulf's Geatas the latter description is doubtless correct.
The Geatas are, in all probability, to be identified with the Gautar
of Old Norse literature, i. e. the people of Götaland in the south of
Sweden. It may be mentioned that Procopius, a contemporary
of Theodberht, in his description (Goth. 11, 15) of “Thule,” i. e.
Berger de Xivrey, Traditions Tératowgiques, p. 12.
## p. 27 (#47) ##############################################
Beowulf: Personality of the Hero
27
arrival in the bare skaldske in the
Scandinavia, speaks of the Götar (Gautoi) as a very numerous
nation.
The hero himself still remains to be discussed. On the whole,
though the identification is rejected by many scholars, there seems
to be good reason for believing that he was the same person
as Böðvarr Biarki, the chief of Hrólfr Kraki's knights. In Hrólfs
Saga Kraka, Biarki is represented as coming to Leire, the Danish
royal residence, from Götaland, where his brother was king.
Shortly after his arrival he killed an animal demon (a bear, accord-
ing to Saxo), which was in the habit of attacking the king's farm-
yard at Yule. Again, according to Skaldskaparmal, cap. 44 (from
Skiöldunga Saga), he took part with Aðils in the battle against
Ali. In all these points his history resembles that of Beowulf. It
appears from Hrólfs Saga Kraka that Biarki had the faculty of
changing into a bear. And Beowulf's method of fighting, especially
in his conflict with Daegbrefn, may point to a similar story. On
the other hand, the latter part of Biarki's career is quite different
from that of Beowulf. He stayed with Hrólfr to the end and
shared the death of that king. But the latter part of Beowulfs
life can hardly be regarded as historical. Indeed, his own exploits
throughout are largely of a miraculous character.
There is another Scandinavian story, however, which has a very
curious bearing on the earlier adventures of Beowulf. This is
a passage in Grettis Saga (cap. 64 ff. ), in which the hero is repre-
sented as destroying two demons, male and female. The scene is
laid in Iceland; yet so close are the resemblances between the two
stories, in the character of the demons, in the description of the
places they inhabit and in the methods by which the hero deals
with them, as well as in a number of minor details, that it is
impossible to ascribe them to accident. Now Grettir seems to be
a historical person who died about the year 1031. The presumption
is, then, that an older story has become attached to his name. But
there is nothing in the account that gives any colour to the idea
that it is actually derived from the Old English poem. More
probably the origin of both stories alike is to be sought in a folk-
tale, and, just as the adventures were attributed in Iceland to the
historical Grettir, so in England, and, possibly, also in Denmark, at
an earlier date they were associated with a historical prince of the
Götar. From the occurrence of the local names Beowanham and
Grendles mere in a Wiltshire charter some scholars have inferred
that the story was originally told of a certain Beowa, whom they
* Kemble, Cod. Dipl. 353.
## p. 28 (#48) ##############################################
28
Early National Poetry
have identified with Beaw or Beo, the son of Scyld (Sceldwea)
in the West Saxon genealogy. But since this person is, in all
probability, identical with the first (Danish) Beowulf of the poem,
and since the name Beowa may very well be a shortened form of
Beowulf, while the other names are obscure, the inference seems
to be of somewhat doubtful value. On the whole there is, perhaps,
more to be said for the view that the association of Beowulf with
the folk-tale arose out of some real adventure with an animal.
This, however, must remain largely a matter of speculation. The
fight with the dragon is, of course, a common motive in folk-tales.
An attempt has been made to show that Beowulf's adventure has
a specially close affinity with a story told by Saxo of the Danish
king Frotho I. But the resemblance between the two stories is
not very striking.
With regard to the origin and antiquity of the poem it is
impossible to arrive at any definite conclusions with certainty.
From investigations which have been made into its linguistic and
metrical characteristics the majority of scholars hold that it was
originally composed in a northern or midland dialect-though it
has been preserved only in West Saxon form—and that it is
at least as old as any other considerable piece of Old English
poetry which we possess. The question of antiquity, however, is
complicated by the doubt which is commonly felt as to the unity of
the poem. Moreover, it cannot be denied that this feeling of doubt
is, at least to some extent, justified. In its present form the poem
must date from Christian times as it contains a considerable
number of passages of distinctly Christian character. On the
other hand, the relationships of the various Danish and Swedish
kings can hardly have been remembered otherwise than in a more
or less stereotyped form of words for more than a generation after
their lifetime.
