CHAPTER II · Part 1

CHAPTER II

THE NON-HISTORICAL ELEMENTS

SECTION I. THE GRENDEL FIGHT.

When we come to the story of Beowulf's struggle with Grendel, with Grendel's mother, and with the dragon, we are faced by difficulties much greater than those which meet us when considering that background of Danish or Geatic history in which these stories are framed.

In the first place, it is both surprising and confusing that, in the prologue, before the main story begins, _another_ Beowulf is introduced, the son of Scyld Scefing. Much emphasis is laid upon the upbringing and youthful fame of this prince, and the glory of his father. Any reader would suppose that the poet is going on to tell of _his_ adventures, when suddenly the story is switched off, and, after brief mention of this Beowulf's son, Healfdene, we come to Hrothgar, the building of Heorot, Grendel's attack, and the voyage of Beowulf the Geat to the rescue.

Now "Beowulf" is an exceedingly rare name. The presence of the earlier Beowulf, Scyld's son, seems then to demand explanation, and many critics, working on quite different lines, have arrived independently at the conclusion that either the story of Grendel and his mother, or the story of the dragon, or both stories, were originally told of the son of Scyld, and only afterwards transferred to the Geatic hero. This has indeed been generally accepted, almost from the beginning of {42} Beowulf criticism[83]. Yet, though possible enough, it does not admit of any demonstration.

Now Beowulf, son of Scyld, clearly corresponds to a Beow or Beaw in the West Saxon genealogy. In this genealogy Beow is always connected with Scyld and Scef, and in some versions the relations are identical with those given in _Beowulf_: Beow, son of Scyld, son of Scef, in the genealogies[84], corresponding to Beowulf, son of Scyld Scefing, in our poem. Hence arose the further speculation of many scholars that the hero who slays the monsters was originally called, not Beowulf, but Beow, and that he was identical with the hero in the West Saxon pedigree; in other words, that the original story was of a hero Beow (son of Scyld) who slew a monster and a dragon: and that this adventure was only subsequently transferred to Beowulf, prince of the Geatas.

This is a theory based upon a theory, and some confirmation may reasonably be asked, before it is entertained. As to the dragon-slaying, the confirmatory evidence is open to extreme doubt. It is dealt with in Section VII (Beowulf-Frotho), below. As to Grendel, one such piece of confirmation there is. The conquering Angles and Saxons seem to have given the names of their heroes to the lands they won in England: some such names--'Wade's causeway,' 'Weyland's smithy'--have survived to modern times. The evidence of the Anglo-Saxon charters shows that very many which have now been lost existed in England prior to the Conquest. Now in a Wiltshire charter of the year 931, we have _B[=e]owan hammes hecgan_ mentioned not far from a _Grendles mere_. This has been claimed as evidence that the story of Grendel, with Beow as his adversary, was localized in Wiltshire in the reign of Athelstan, and perhaps had been localized there since the settlement four centuries previously. Until recently this was accepted as definitely {43} proving that the Beowulf-Grendel story was derived from an ancient Beow-myth. Yet one such instance of name-association is not conclusive. We cannot leave out of consideration the possibility of its being a mere chance coincidence, especially considering how large is the number of place names recorded in Old English charters. Of late, people have become more sceptical in drawing inferences from proper names, and quite recently there has been a tendency entirely to overlook the evidence of the charter, by way of making compensation for having hitherto overrated it.

All that can be said with certainty is that it _is_ remarkable that a place named after Beowa should be found in the immediate proximity of a "Grendel's lake," and that this fact supports the possibility, though it assuredly does not prove, that in the oldest versions of the tale the monster queller was named Beow, not Beowulf. But it is only a possibility: it is not grounded upon any real evidence.

These crucial references occur in a charter given by Athelstan at Luton, concerning a grant of land at Ham in Wiltshire to his thane Wulfgar. [See Birch, _Cartularium Saxonicum_, 1887, vol. II, p. 363.]

... Ego Aedhelstanus, rex Anglorum ... quandam telluris particulam meo fideli ministro Wulfgaro ... in loco quem solicolae _oet Hamme_ vocitant tribuo ... Praedicta siquidem tellus his terminis circumcincta clarescit....

dhonne nordh ofer d[=u]ne on m[=e]os-hlinc westeweardne; dhonne ad[=u]ne on dh[=a] yfre on b[=e]owan hammes hecgan, on br[=e]meles sceagan [=e]asteweardne; dhonne on dh[=a] bl[=a]can gr[=ae]fan; dhonne nordh be dh[=e]m ondh[=e]afdan t[=o] dh[=ae]re scortan d[=i]c b[=u]tan [=a]nan aecre; dhonne t[=o] fugelmere t[=o] dh[=a]n wege; ondlong weges t[=o] ottes forda; dhonon t[=o] wudumere; dhonne t[=o] dh[=ae]re r[=u]wan hecgan; dhaet on langan hangran; dhonne on grendles mere; dhonon on dyrnan geat....

Ambiguous as this evidence is, I do not think it can be dismissed as it is by Lawrence (_Pub. Mod. Lang. Assoc. Amer._ XXIV, 252) and Panzer (_Beowulf_, 397), who both say "How do we know that it is not the merest chance?" It _may_ of course be chance: but this does not justify us in basing an argument upon the assumption that it _is_ the merest chance. Lawrence continues: "Suppose one were to set up a theory that there was a saga-relation between Scyld and Bikki, and offered as proof the passage in the charter for the year 917 in which there are mentioned, as in the same district, _scyldes treow_ and _bican sell_.... How much weight would this carry?"

The answer surely is that the occurrence of the two names together in the charter would, by itself, give no basis whatever for starting such a theory: but if, on other grounds, the theory were likely, then the occurrence of the two names together would certainly have some corroborative value. Exactly how much, it is impossible to say, because we cannot estimate the element of chance, and we cannot {44} be certain that the _grendel_ and the _beowa_ mentioned are identical with our Grendel and our Beowulf.

Miller has argued [_Academy_, May 1894, p. 396] that _grendles_ is not a proper name here, but a common noun signifying "drain," and that _grendles mere_ therefore means "cesspool."

Now "grindle" is found in modern dialect and even in Middle English[85] in the sense of "a narrow ditch" or "gutter," but I doubt if it can be proved to be an Old English word. Evidence would rather point to its being an East Anglian corruption of the much more widely spread _drindle_, or _dringle_, used both as a verb "to go slowly, to trickle," and as "a small trickling stream." And even if an O. E. _grendel_ as a common noun meaning "gutter" were authenticated, it seems unlikely to me that places were named "the fen," "the mere," "the pit," "the brook"--"of the gutter." There is no ground whatever for supposing the existence of an O. E. _grendel_ = "sewer," or anything which would lead us to suppose _grendles mere_ or _gryndeles sylle_ to mean "cesspool[86]." Surely it is probable, knowing what we do of the way in which the English settlers gave epic names to the localities around their settlements, that these places were named after Grendel because they seemed the sort of place where his story might be localized--like "Weyland's smithy" or "Wade's causeway": and that the meaning is "Grendel's fen," "mere," "pit" or "brook."

Again, both Panzer and Lawrence suggest that the Beowa who gave his name to the _ham_ may have been, not the hero, but "an ordinary mortal called after him" ... "some individual who lived in this locality." But, among the numerous English proper names recorded, can any instance be found of any individual named Beowa? {45} And was it in accordance with the rules of Old English nomenclature to give to mortals the names of these heroes of the genealogies[87]?

Recent scepticism as to the "Beow-myth" has been largely due to the fact that speculation as to Beow had been carried too far. For example, because Beow appeared in the West Saxon genealogy, it had been assumed that the Beow-myth belonged essentially to the Angles and Saxons. Yet Beow would seem to have been also known among Scandinavians. For in somewhat later days Scandinavian genealogists, when they had made the acquaintance of the Anglo-Saxon pedigrees, noted that Beow had a Scandinavian counterpart in a hero whom they called Bjar[88]. That something was known in the north of this Bjar is proved by the _K['a]lfsv['i]sa_, that same catalogue of famous heroes and their horses which we have already found giving us the counterparts of Onela and Eadgils. Yet this dry reference serves to show that Bjar must once have been sufficiently famous to have a horse specially his own[89]. Whether the fourteenth century Scandinavian who made Bjar the Northern equivalent of Beow was merely guessing, we unfortunately cannot tell. Most probably he was, for there is reason to think that the hero corresponding to Beow was named, not _Bj['a]r_, but _Byggvir_[90]: a correspondence intelligible to modern philologists as in agreement with phonetic law, but naturally not obvious to an Icelandic genealogist. But however this may be, the assumption that Beow was peculiarly the hero of Angles and Saxons seems hardly justified.

{46}

Again, since Beow is an ancestor of Woden, it was further assumed that he was an ancient god, and that in the story of his adventures we had to deal with a nature-myth of a divine deliverer who saved the people from Grendel and his mother, the personified powers of the stormy sea. It is with the name of Muellenhoff, its most enthusiastic and ablest advocate, that this "mythological theory" is particularly associated. That Grendel is fictitious no one, of course, would deny. But Muellenhoff and his school, in applying the term "mythical" to those portions of the _Beowulf_ story for which no historical explanation could be found, meant that they enshrined _nature-myths_. They thought that those elements in heroic poetry which could not be referred back to actual fact must be traced to ancient stories in which were recorded the nation's belief about the sun and the gods: about storms and seasons.

The different mythological explanations of Beowulf-Beowa and Grendel have depended mainly upon hazardous etymological explanations of the hero's name. The most popular is Muellenhoff's interpretation. Beaw is the divine helper of man in his struggle with the elements. Grendel represents the stormy North Sea of early spring, flooding and destroying the habitations of men, till the god rescues them: Grendel's mother represents the depths of the ocean. But in the autumn the power of the god wanes: the dragon personifies the coming of the wild weather: the god sinks in his final struggle to safeguard the treasures of the earth for his people[91]. Others, remembering that Grendel dwells in the fen, see in him rather a demon of the sea-marsh than of the sea itself: he is the pestilential swamp[92], and the hero a wind which drives him away[93]. Or, whilst Grendel still represents the storms, his antagonist is a "Blitzheros[94]." Others, whilst hardly ranking Beowulf as {47} a god, still see an allegory in his adventures, and Grendel must be a personification either of an inundation[95], or of the terror of the long winter nights[96], or possibly of grinding at the mill, the work of the enslaved foe[97].

Such explanations were till recently universally current: the instances given above might be increased considerably.

Sufficient allowance was not made for the influence upon heroic poetry of the simple popular folk-tale, a tale of wonder with no mythological or allegorical meaning. Now, of late years, there has been a tendency not only to recognize but even to exaggerate this influence: to regard the hero of the folk-tale as the original and essential element in heroic poetry[98]. Though this is assuredly to go too far, it is but reasonable to recognize the fairy tale element in the O. E. epic.

We have in _Beowulf_ a story of giant-killing and dragon-slaying. Why should we construct a legend of the gods or a nature-myth to account for these tales? Why must Grendel or his mother represent the tempest, or the malaria, or the drear long winter nights? We know that tales of giant-killers and dragon-slayers have been current among the people of Europe for thousands of years. Is it not far more easy to regard the story of the fight between Beowulf and Grendel merely as a fairy tale, glorified into an epic[99]?

Those students who of late years have tried thus to elucidate the story of Beowulf and Grendel, by comparison with folk-tales, have one great advantage over Muellenhoff and the "mythological" school. The weak point of Muellenhoff's view was that the nature-myth of Beow, which was called in to explain the origin of the Beowulf story as we have it, was itself only an assumption, a conjectural reconstruction. But the various popular tales in which scholars have more recently tried to find parallels to _Beowulf_ have this great merit, that {48} they do indubitably exist. And as to the first step--the parallel between _Beowulf_ and the _Grettis saga_--there can, fortunately, be but little hesitation.

* * * * *

SECTION II. THE SCANDINAVIAN PARALLELS--GRETTIR AND ORM.

The _Grettis saga_ tells the adventures of the most famous of all Icelandic outlaws, Grettir the strong. As to the historic existence of Grettir there is no doubt: we can even date the main events of his life, in spite of chronological inconsistencies, with some precision. But between the year 1031, when he was killed, and the latter half of the thirteenth century, when his saga took form, many fictitious episodes, derived from folk-lore, had woven themselves around his name. Of these, one bears a great, if possibly accidental, likeness to the Grendel story: the second is emphatically and unmistakably the same story as that of Grendel and his mother. In the first, Grettir stops at a farm house which is haunted by Glam, a ghost of monstrous stature. Grettir awaits his attack alone, but, like Beowulf, lying down. Glam's entry and onset resemble those of Grendel: when Grettir closes with him he tries to get out. They wrestle the length of the hall, and break all before them. Grettir supports himself against anything that will give him foothold, but for all his efforts he is dragged as far as the door. There he suddenly changes his tactics, and throws his whole weight upon his adversary. The monster falls, undermost, so that Grettir is able to draw, and strike off his head; though not till Glam has laid upon Grettir a curse which drags him to his doom.

The second story--the adventure of Grettir at Sandhaugar (Sandheaps)--begins in much the same way as that of Grettir and Glam. Grettir is staying in a haunted farm, from which first the farmer himself and then a house-carl have, on two successive Yuletides, been spirited away. As before, a light burns in the room all night, and Grettir awaits the attack alone, lying down, without having put off his clothes. As before, Grettir and his assailant wrestle down the room, breaking all {49} in their way. But this time Grettir is pulled put of the hall, and dragged to the brink of the neighbouring gorge. Here, by a final effort, he wrenches a hand free, draws, and hews off the arm of the ogress, who falls into the torrent below.

Grettir conjectures that the two missing men must have been pulled by the ogress into the gulf. This, after his experience, is surely a reasonable inference: but Stein, the priest, is unconvinced. So they go together to the river, and find the side of the ravine a sheer precipice: it is ten fathom down to the water below the fall. Grettir lets down a rope: the priest is to watch it. Then Grettir dives in: "the priest saw the soles of his feet, and then knew no more what had become of him." Grettir swims under the fall and gets into the cave, where he sees a giant sitting by a fire: the giant aims a blow at him with a weapon with a wooden handle ("such a weapon men then called a _hefti-sax_"). Grettir hews it asunder. The giant then grasps at another sword hanging on the wall of the cave, but before he can use it Grettir wounds him. Stein, the priest, seeing the water stained with blood from this wound, concludes that Grettir is dead, and departs home, lamenting the loss of such a man. "But Grettir let little space come between his blows till the giant lay dead." Grettir finds the bones of the two dead men in the cave, and bears them away with him to convince the priest: but when he reaches the rope and shakes it, there is no reply, and he has to climb up, unaided. He leaves the bones in the church porch, for the confusion of the priest, who has to admit that he has failed to do his part faithfully.

Now if we compare this with _Beowulf_, we see that in the Icelandic story much is different: for example, in the _Grettis saga_ it is the female monster who raids the habitation of men, the male who stays at home in his den. In this the _Grettis saga_ probably represents a corrupt tradition: for, that the female should remain at home whilst the male searches for his prey, is a rule which holds good for devils as well as for men[100]. {50} The change was presumably made in order to avoid the difficulty--which the _Beowulf_ poet seems also to have realized--that after the male has been slain, the rout of the female is felt to be a deed of less note--something of an anti-climax[101].

The sword on the wall, also, which in the _Beowulf_-story is used by the hero, is, in the _Grettir_-story, used by the giant in his attack on the hero.

But that the two stories are somehow connected cannot be disputed. Apart from the general likeness, we have details such as the escape of the monster after the loss of an arm, the fire burning in the cave, the _hefti-sax_, a word which, like its old English equivalent (_haeft-m[=e]ce_, _Beowulf_, 1457), is found in this story only, and the strange reasoning of the watchers that the blood-stained water must necessarily be due to the hero's death[102].

Now obviously such a series of resemblances cannot be the result of an accident. Either the _Grettir_-story is derived directly or indirectly from the _Beowulf_ epic, more or less as we have it, or both stories are derived from one common earlier source. The scholars who first discovered the resemblance believed that both stories were independently derived from one original[103]. This view has generally been endorsed by later investigators, but not universally[104]. And this is one of the questions which the student cannot leave open, because our view of the origin of the _Grendel_-story will have to depend largely upon the view we take as to its connection with the episode in the _Grettis saga_.

If this episode be derived from _Beowulf_, then we have an interesting literary curiosity, but nothing further. But if it is {51} independently derived from a common source, then the episode in the _saga_, although so much later, may nevertheless contain features which have been obliterated or confused or forgotten in the _Beowulf_ version. In that case the story, as given in the _Grettis saga_, would be of great weight in any attempt to reconstruct the presumed original form of the _Grendel_-story.

The evidence seems to me to support strongly the view of the majority of scholars--that the _Grettir_-episode is not derived from _Beowulf_ in the form in which that poem has come down to us, but that both come from one common source.

It is certain that the story of the monster invading a dwelling of men and rendering it uninhabitable, till the adventurous deliverer arrives, did not originate with Hrothgar and Heorot. It is an ancient and widespread type of story, of which one version is localized at the Danish court. When therefore we find it existing, independently of its Danish setting, the presumption is in favour of this being a survival of the old independent story. Of course it is _conceivable_ that the Hrothgar-Heorot setting might have been first added, and subsequently stripped off again so clean that no trace of it remains. But it seems going out of our way to assume this, unless we are forced to do so[105].

Again, it is certain that these stories--like all the subject matter of the Old English epic--did not originate in England, but were brought across the North Sea from the old home. And that old home was in the closest connection, so far as the passage to and fro of story went, with Scandinavian lands. Nothing could be intrinsically more probable than that a story, current in ancient Angel and carried thence to England, should also have been current in Scandinavia, and thence have been carried to Iceland.

Other stories which were current in England in the eighth century were also current in Scandinavia in the thirteenth. Yet this does not mean that the tales of Hroar and Rolf, or of Athils and Ali, were borrowed from English epic accounts of Hrothgar and Hrothulf, or Eadgils and Onela. They were part of the common inheritance--as much so as the strong verbs {52} or the alliterative line. Why then, contrary to all analogy, should we assume a literary borrowing in the case of the _Beowulf-Grettir_-story? The compiler of the _Grettis saga_ could not possibly have drawn his material from a MS of _Beowulf_[106]: he could not have made sense of a single passage. He conceivably _might_ have drawn from traditions _derived_ from the Old English epic. But it is difficult to see how. Long before his time these traditions had for the most part been forgotten in England itself. One of the longest lived of all, that of Offa, is heard of for the last time in England at the beginning of the thirteenth century. That a Scandinavian sagaman at the end of the century could have been in touch, in any way, with Anglo-Saxon epic tradition seems on the whole unlikely. The Scandinavian tradition of Offa, scholars are now agreed[107], was not borrowed from England, and there is no reason why we should assume such borrowing in the case of Grettir.

The probability is, then, considerable, that the _Beowulf_-story and the _Grettir_-story are independently derived from one common original.

And this probability would be confirmed to a certainty if we should find that features which have been confused and half obliterated in the O. E. story become clear when we turn to the Icelandic. This argument has lately been brought forward by Dr Lawrence in his essay on "The Haunted Mere in _Beowulf_[108]." Impressive as the account of this mere is, it does not convey any very clear picture. Grendel's home seems sometimes to be in the sea: and again it seems to be amid marshes, moors and fens, and again it is "where the mountain torrent goes down under the darkness of the cliffs--the water below the ground (i.e. beneath overhanging rocks)."

This last account agrees admirably with the landscape depicted in the _Grettis saga_, and the gorge many fathoms deep through which the stream rushes, after it has fallen over the precipice; not so the other accounts. These descriptions are {53} best harmonized if we imagine an original version in which the monsters live, as in the _Grettis saga_, in a hole under the waterfall. This story, natural enough in a Scandinavian country, would be less intelligible as it travelled South. The Angles and Saxons, both in their old home on the Continent and their new one in England, were accustomed to a somewhat flat country, and would be more inclined to place the dwelling of outcast spirits in moor and fen than under waterfalls, of which they probably had only an elementary conception. "The giant must dwell in the fen, alone in the land[109]."

Now it is in the highest degree improbable that, after the landscape had been blurred as it is in _Beowulf_, it could have been brought out again with the distinctness it has in the _Grettis saga_. To preserve the features so clearly the _Grettir_-story can hardly be derived from _Beowulf_: it must have come down independently.

But if so, it becomes at once of prime importance. For by a comparison of _Beowulf_ and _Grettir_ we must form an idea of what the original story was, from which both were derived.

Another parallel, though a less striking one, has been found in the story of Orm Storolfsson, which is extant in a short saga about contemporary with that of Grettir, _Ormsth['a]ttr St['o]r['o]lfssonar_[110], in two ballads from the Faroe Islands[111] and two from Sweden[112].

It is generally asserted that the _Orm_-story affords a close parallel to the episodes of Grendel and his mother. I cannot find close resemblance, and I strongly suspect that the repetition of the assertion is due to the fact that the _Orm_-story has not been very easily accessible, and has often been taken as read by the critics.

But, in any case, it has been proved that the _Orm_-tale borrows largely from other sagas, and notably from the _Grettis saga_ itself[113]. Before arguing, therefore, from any parallel, it must first be shown that the feature in which Orm resembles {54} Beowulf is not derived at second hand from the _Grettis saga_. One such feature there is, namely Orm's piety, which he certainly does not derive from Grettir. In this he with equal certainty resembles Beowulf. According to modern ideas, indeed, there is more of the Christian hero in Beowulf than in Orm.

Now Orm owes his victory to the fact, among other things, that, at the critical moment, he vows to God and the holy apostle St Peter to make a pilgrimage to Rome should he be successful. In this a parallel is seen to the fact that Beowulf is saved, not only by his coat of mail, but also by the divine interposition[114]. But is this really a parallel? Beowulf is too much of a sportsman to buy victory by making a vow when in a tight place. _G[=ae]dh [=a] wyrd sw[=a] h[=i]o scel_[115] is the exact antithesis of Orm's pledge.

However, I have given in the Second Part the text of the _Orm_-episode, so that readers may judge for themselves the closeness or remoteness of the parallel.

The parallel between Grettir and Beowulf was noted by the Icelander Gudbrand Vigf['u]sson upon his first reading _Beowulf_ (see _Prolegomena to Sturlunga saga_, 1878, p. xlix: _Corpus Poeticum Boreale_, II, 501: _Icelandic Reader_, 1879, 404). It was elaborately worked out by Gering in _Anglia_, III, 74-87, and it is of course noticed in almost every discussion of _Beowulf_. The parallel with Orm was first noted by Schueck (_Svensk Literaturhistoria_, Stockholm, 1886, _etc._, I, 62) and independently by Bugge (_P. B. B._ XII, 58-68).

The best edition of the _Grettis saga_ is the excellent one of Boer (Halle, 1900), but the opinions there expressed as to the relationship of the episodes to each other and to the Grendel story have not received the general support of scholars.

* * * * *

SECTION III. BOTHVAR BJARKI.

We have seen that there are in _Beowulf_ two distinct elements, which never seem quite harmonized: firstly the historic background of the Danish and Geatic courts, with their chieftains, Hrothgar and Hrothulf, or Hrethel and Hygelac: and secondly the old wives' fables of struggles with ogres and dragons. In the story of Grettir, the ogre fable appears--unmistakably connected with the similar story as given in _Beowulf_, but with {55} no faintest trace of having ever possessed any Danish heroic setting.

Turning back to the _Saga of Rolf Kraki_, we _do_ find against that Danish setting a figure, that of the hero Bothvar Bjarki, bearing a very remarkable resemblance to Beowulf.

Bjarki, bent on adventure, leaves the land of the Gautar (Goetar), where his brother is king, and reaches Leire, where Rolf, the king of the Danes, holds his court; [just as Beowulf, bent on adventure, leaves the land of the Geatas (Goetar) where his uncle is king, and reaches Heorot, where Hrothgar and Hrothulf (Rolf) hold court].

Arrived at Leire, Bjarki takes under his protection the despised coward Hott, whom Rolf's retainers have been wont to bully. The champions at the Danish court [in _Beowulf_ one of them only--Unferth] prove quarrelsome, and they assail the hero during the feast, in the _Saga_ by throwing bones at him, in _Beowulf_ only by bitter words. The hero in each case replies, in kind, with such effect that the enemy is silenced.

But despite the fame and splendour of the Danish court, it has long been subject to the attacks of a strange monster[116]--a winged beast whom no iron will bite [just as Grendel is immune from swords[117]]. Bjarki [like Beowulf[118]] is scornful at the inability of the Danes to defend their own home: "if one beast can lay waste the kingdom and the cattle of the king." He goes out to fight with the monster _by night_, accompanied only by Hott. He tries to draw his sword, but the sword is fast in its sheath: he tugs, the sword comes out, and he slays the beast with it. This seems a most pointless incident: taken in connection with the supposed invulnerability of the foe, it looks like the survival of some episode in which the hero was unwilling [as in Beowulf's fight with Grendel[119]] or unable [as in Beowulf's fight with Grendel's mother[120]] to slay the foe {56} with his sword. Bjarki then compels the terrified coward Hott to drink the monster's blood. Hott forthwith becomes a valiant champion, second only to Bjarki himself. The beast is then propped up as if still alive: when it is seen next morning the king calls upon his retainers to play the man, and Bjarki tells Hott that now is the time to clear his reputation. Hott demands first the sword, Gullinhjalti, from Rolf, and with this he slays the dead beast a second time. King Rolf is not deceived by this trick; yet he rejoices that Bjarki has not only himself slain the monster, but changed the cowardly Hott into a champion; he commands that Hott shall be called Hjalti, after the sword which has been given him. We are hardly justified in demanding logic in a wild tale like this, or one might ask how Rolf was convinced of Hott's valour by what he knew to be a piece of stage management on the part of Bjarki. But, however that may be, it is remarkable that in _Beowulf_ also the monster Grendel, though proof against all ordinary weapons, is smitten _when dead_ by a magic sword of which the _golden hilt_[121] is specially mentioned.

In addition to the undeniable similarity of the stories of these heroes, a certain similarity of name has been claimed. That _Bjarki_ is not etymologically connected with _B[=e]owulf_ or _B[=e]ow_ is clear: but if we are to accept the identification of Beowulf and Beow, remembering that the Scandinavian equivalent of the latter is said to be _Bj['a]r_, the resemblance to _Bjarki_ is obvious. Similarity of sound might have caused one name to be substituted for another[122]. This argument obviously depends upon the identification _B[=e]ow_ = _Bj['a]r_, which is extremely doubtful: it will be argued below that it is more likely that _B[=e]ow_ = _Byggvir_[123].

But force remains in the argument that the name Bjarki (little bear) is very appropriate to a hero like the Beowulf of {57} our epic, who crushes or hugs his foe to death instead of using his sword; even if we do not accept explanations which would interpret the name "Beowulf" itself as a synonym for "Bear."

It is scarcely to be wondered at, then, that most critics have seen in Bjarki a Scandinavian parallel to Beowulf. But serious difficulties remain. There is in the Scandinavian story a mass of detail quite unparallelled in _Beowulf_, which overshadows the resemblances. Bjarki's friendship, for example, with the coward Hott or Hjalti has no counterpart in _Beowulf_. And Bjarki becomes a retainer of King Rolf and dies in his service, whilst Beowulf never comes into direct contact with Hrothulf at all; the poet seems to avoid naming them together. Still, it is quite intelligible that the story should have developed on different lines in Scandinavia from those which it followed in England, till the new growths overshadowed the original resemblance, without obliterating it. After nearly a thousand years of independent development discrepancies must be expected. It would not be a reasonable objection to the identity of _Gullinhjalti_ with _Gyldenhilt_, that the word _hilt_ had grown to have a rather different meaning in Norse and in English; subsequent developments do not invalidate an original resemblance if the points of contact are really there.

But, allowing for this independent growth in Scandinavia, we should naturally expect that the further back we traced the story the greater the resemblance would become.

This brings us to the second, serious difficulty: that, when we turn from the _Saga of Rolf Kraki_--belonging in its present form perhaps to the early fifteenth century--to the pages of Saxo Grammaticus, who tells the same tale more than two centuries earlier, the resemblance, instead of becoming stronger, almost vanishes. Nothing is said of Bjarki coming from Gautland, or indeed of his being a stranger at the Danish court: nothing is said of the monster having paid previous visits, visits repeated till king Rolf, like Hrothgar, has to give up all attempt at resistance, and submit to its depredations. The monster, instead of being a troll, like Grendel, becomes a commonplace bear. All Saxo tells us is that "He [Biarco, i.e. Bjarki] met a great bear in a thicket and slew it with a spear, and bade his {58} comrade Ialto [i.e. Hjalti] place his lips to the beast and drink its blood as it flowed, that he might become stronger."

Hence the Danish scholar, Axel Olrik, in the best and most elaborate discussion of Bjarki and all about him, has roundly denied any connection between his hero and Beowulf. He is astonished at the slenderness of the evidence upon which previous students have argued for relationship. "Neither Beowulf's wrestling match in the hall, nor in the fen, nor his struggle with the firedrake has any real identity, but when we take a little of them all we can get a kind of similarity with the latest and worst form of the Bjarki saga[124]." The development of Saxo's bear into a winged monster, "the worst of trolls," Olrik regards as simply in accordance with the usual heightening, in later Icelandic, of these early stories of struggles with beasts, and of this he gives a parallel instance.

Some Icelandic ballads on Bjarki (the _Bjarka r['i]mur_), which were first printed in 1904, were claimed by Olrik as supporting his contention. These ballads belong to about the year 1400. Yet, though they are thus in date and dialect closely allied to the _Saga of Rolf Kraki_ and remote from Saxo Grammaticus, they are so far from supporting the tradition of the _Saga_ with regard to the monster slain, that they represent the foe first as a man-eating she-wolf, which is slain by Bjarki, then as a grey bear [as in Saxo], which is slain by Hjalti after he has been compelled to drink the blood of the she-wolf. We must therefore give up the winged beast as mere later elaboration; for if the Bjarki ballads in a point like this support Saxo, as against the _Saga_ which is so closely connected with them by its date and Icelandic tongue, we must admit Saxo's version here to represent, beyond dispute, the genuine tradition.

Accordingly the attempt which has been made to connect Bjarki's winged monster with Beowulf's winged dragon goes overboard at once. But such an attempt ought never to have been made at all. The parallel is between Bjarki and the Beowulf-Grendel episode, not between Bjarki and the Beowulf-dragon episode, which ought to be left out of consideration. And the monstrous bear and the wolf of the _R['i]mur_ are not so {59} dissimilar from Grendel, with his bear-like hug, and Grendel's mother, the 'sea-wolf[125].'

The likeness between Beowulf and Bjarki lies, not in the wingedness or otherwise of the monsters they overthrow, but in the similarity of the position--in the situation which places the most famous court of the North, and its illustrious king, at the mercy of a ravaging foe, till a chance stranger from Gautland brings deliverance. And here the _R['i]mur_ support, not Saxo, but the _Saga_, though in an outworn and faded way. In the _R['i]mur_ Bjarki is a stranger come from abroad: the bear has made previous attacks upon the king's folds.

Thus, whilst we grant the wings of the beast to be a later elaboration, it does not in the least follow that other features in which the _Saga_ differs from Saxo--the advent of Bjarki from Gautland, for instance--are also later elaboration.

And we must be careful not to attach too much weight to the account of Saxo merely because it is earlier in date than that of the _Saga_. The presumption is, of course, that the earlier form will be the more original: but just as a late manuscript will often preserve, amidst its corruptions, features which are lost in much earlier manuscripts, so will a tradition. Saxo's accounts are often imperfect[126]. And in this particular instance, there is a want of coherency and intelligibility in Saxo's account, which in itself affords a strong presumption that it _is_ imperfect.

What Saxo tells us is this:

At which banquet, when the champions were rioting with every kind of wantonness, and flinging knuckle-bones at a certain Ialto [Hjalti] from all sides, it happened that his messmate Biarco [Bjarki] through the bad aim of the thrower received a severe blow on the head. But Biarco, equally annoyed by the injury and the insult, sent the bone back to the thrower, so that he twisted the front of his head to the back and the back to the front, punishing the cross-grain of the man's temper by turning his face round about.

But who were this "certain Hjalti" and Bjarki? There seems to be something missing in the story. The explanation [which Saxo does not give us, but the _Saga_ does] that Bjarki has come from afar and taken the despised Hott-Hjalti under his {60} protection, seems to be necessary. Why was Hjalti chosen as the victim, at whom missiles were to be discharged? Obviously [though Saxo does not tell us so], because he was the butt of the mess. And if Bjarki had been one of the mess for many hours, his messmates would have known him too well to throw knuckle-bones either at him or his friend. This is largely a matter of personal feeling, but Saxo's account seems to me pointless, till it is supplemented from the _Saga_[127].

And there is one further piece of evidence which seems to clinch the whole matter finally, though its importance has been curiously overlooked, by Panzer and Lawrence in their arguments for the identification, and by Olrik in his arguments to the contrary.

We have seen above how Beowulf "became a friend" to Eadgils, helping him in his expedition against King Onela of Sweden, and avenging, in "chill raids fraught with woe," _cealdum cears[=i]dhum_, the wrongs which Onela had inflicted upon the Geatas. We saw, too, that this expedition was remembered in Scandinavian tradition. "They had a battle on the ice of Lake Wener; there King Ali fell, and Athils had the victory. Concerning this battle there is much said in the _Skjoldunga saga_." The _Skjoldunga saga_ is lost, but the Latin extracts from it give some information about this battle[128]. Further, an account of it _is_ preserved in the _Bjarka r['i]mur_, probably derived from the lost _Skjoldunga saga_. And the _Bjarka r['i]mur_ expressly mention Bjarki as helping Athils in this battle against Ali on the ice of Lake Wener[129].

Olrik does not seem to allow for this at all, though of course aware of it. The other parallels between Bjarki and Beowulf he believes to be mere coincidence. But is this likely?

To recapitulate: In old English tradition a hero comes from the land of the Geatas to the royal court of Denmark, where Hrothgar and Hrothulf hold sway. This hero is received in none too friendly wise by one of the retainers, but {61} puts his foe to shame, is warmly welcomed by the king, and slays by night a monster which has been attacking the Danish capital and against which the warriors of that court have been helpless. The monster is proof against all swords, yet its dead body is mutilated by a sword with a golden hilt. Subsequently this same hero helps King Eadgils of Sweden to overthrow Onela.

We find precisely the same situation in Icelandic tradition some seven centuries later, except that not Hrothgar and Hrothulf, but Hrothulf (Rolf) alone is represented as ruling the Danes, and the sword with the golden hilt has become a sword named "Golden-hilt." It is _conceivable_ for a situation to have been reconstructed in this way by mere accident, just as it is conceivable that one player may have the eight or nine best trumps dealt him. But it does not seem advisable to base one's calculations, as Olrik does, upon such an accident happening.

The parallel of Bjarki and Beowulf seems to have been first noted by Gisli Brynjulfsson (_Antiquarisk Tidsskrift_, 1852-3, p. 130). It has been often discussed by Sarrazin (_Beowulf Studien_, 13 _etc._, 47: _Anglia_, IX, 195 _etc._: _Engl. Stud._ XVI, 79 _etc._, XXIII, 242 _etc._, XXXV, 19 _etc._). Sarrazin's over-elaborated parallels form a broad target for doubters: it must be remembered that a case, though it may be discredited, is not invalidated by exaggeration. The problem is of course noted in the Beowulf studies of Muellenhoff (55), Bugge (_P. B. B._ XII, 55) and Boer (_Die Beowulfsage_, II, in _Arkiv f. nord. filol._ XIX, 44 _etc._) and discussed at length and convincingly by Panzer (364-386) and Lawrence (_Pub. Mod. Lang. Assoc. Amer._ XXIV, 1909, 222 _etc._). The usual view which accepts some relationship is endorsed by all these scholars, as it is by Finnur J['o]nsson in his edition of the _Hr['o]lfs Saga Kraka og Bjarkar['i]mur_ (Koebenhavn, 1904, p. xxii).

Ten Brink (185 _etc._) denied any original connection, on the ground of the dissimilarity between _Beowulf_ and the story given by Saxo. Any resemblances between _Beowulf_ and the _Hr['o]lfs Saga_ he attributed to the influence of the English _Beowulf_-story upon the _Saga_.

For Olrik's emphatic denial of any connection at all, see _Danmarks Heltedigtning_, I, 134 _etc._ (This seems to have influenced Brandl, who expresses some doubt in _Pauls Grdr._ (2) II. 1. 993.) For arguments to the contrary, see Heusler in _A.f.d. A._ XXX, 32, and especially Panzer and Lawrence as above.

The parallel of _Gullinhjalti_ and _gyldenhilt_ was first noted tentatively by Kluge (_Engl. Stud._ XXII, 145).

* * * * *

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SECTION IV. PARALLELS FROM FOLKLORE.

Hitherto we have been dealing with parallels to the Grendel story in written literature: but a further series of parallels, although much more remote, is to be found in that vast store of old wives' tales which no one till the nineteenth century took the trouble to write down systematically, but which certainly go back to a very ancient period. One particular tale, that of the Bear's Son[130] (extant in many forms), has been instanced as showing a resemblance to the _Beowulf_-story. In this tale the hero, a young man of extraordinary strength, (1) sets out on his adventures, associating with himself various companions; (2) makes resistance in a house against a supernatural being, which his fellows have in vain striven to withstand, and succeeds in mishandling or mutilating him. (3) By the blood-stained track of this creature, or guided by him in some other manner, the hero finds his way to a spring, or hole in the earth, (4) is lowered down by a cord and (5) overcomes in the underworld different supernatural foes, amongst whom is often included his former foe, or very rarely the mother of that foe: victory can often only be gained by the use of a magic sword which the hero finds below. (6) The hero is left treacherously in the lurch by his companions, whose duty it was to have drawn him up...

Now it may be objected, with truth, that this is not like the _Beowulf_-story, or even particularly like the _Grettir_-story. But the question is not merely whether it resembles these stories as we possess them, but whether it resembles the story which must have been the common origin of both. And we have only to try to reconstruct from _Beowulf_ and from the _Grettis saga_ a tale which can have been the common original of both, to see that it must be something extraordinarily like the folk-tale outlined above.

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For example, it is true that the departure of the Danes homeward because they believe that Beowulf has met his death in the water below, bears only the remotest resemblance to the deliberate treachery which the companions in the folk-tale mete out to the hero. But when we compare the _Grettir_-story, we see there that a real breach of trust is involved, for there the priest Stein leaves the hero in the lurch, and abandons the rope by which he should have drawn Grettir up. This can hardly be an innovation on the part of the composer of the _Grettis saga_, for he is quite well disposed towards Stein, and has no motive for wantonly attributing treachery to him. The innovation presumably lies in the _Beowulf_-story, where Hrothgar and his court are depicted in such a friendly spirit that no disreputable act can be attributed to them, and consequently Hrothgar's departure home must not be allowed in any way to imperil or inconvenience the hero. A comparison of the _Beowulf_-story with the _Grettir_-story leads then to the conclusion that in the oldest version those who remained above when the hero plunged below _were_ guilty of some measure of disloyalty in ceasing to watch for him. In other words we see that the further we track the _Beowulf_-story back, the more it comes to resemble the folk-tale.

And our belief that there is some connection between the folk-tale and the original of _Beowulf_ must be strengthened when we find that, by a comparison of the folk-tale, we are able to explain features in _Beowulf_ which strike us as difficult and even absurd: precisely as when we turn to a study of Shakespeare's sources we often find the explanation of things that puzzle us: we see that the poet is dealing with an unmanageable source, which he cannot make quite plausible. For instance: when Grendel enters Heorot he kills and eats the first of Beowulf's retinue whom he finds: no one tries to prevent him. The only explanation which the poet has to offer is that the retinue are all asleep[131]--strange somnolence on the part of men who are awaiting a hostile attack, which they expect will be fatal to them all[132]. And Beowulf at any rate is not asleep. Yet he calmly watches whilst his henchman is {64} both killed and eaten: and apparently, but for the accident that the monster next tackles Beowulf himself, he would have allowed his whole bodyguard to be devoured one after another.

But if we suppose the story to be derived from the folk-tale, we have an explanation. For in the folk-tale, the companions and the hero await the foe singly, in succession: the turn of the hero comes last, after all his companions have been put to shame. But Beowulf, who is represented as having specially voyaged to Heorot in order to purge it, cannot leave the defence of the hall for the first night to one of his comrades. Hence the discomfiture of the comrade and the single-handed success of the hero have to be represented as simultaneous. The result is incongruous: Beowulf _has_ to look on whilst his comrade is killed.

Again, both Beowulf and Grettir plunge in the water with a sword, and with the deliberate object of shedding the monster's blood. Why then should the watchers on the cliff above assume that the blood-stained water must necessarily signify the _hero's_ death, and depart home? Why did it never occur to them that this deluge of blood might much more suitably proceed from the monster?

But we can understand this unreason if we suppose that the story-teller had to start from the deliberate and treacherous departure of the companions, whilst at the same time it was not to his purpose to represent the companions as treacherous. In that case some excuse _must_ be found for them: and the blood-stained water was the nearest at hand[133].

Again, quite independently of the folk-tale, many _Beowulf_ scholars have come to the conclusion that in the original version of the story the hero did not wait for a second attack from the mother of the monster he had slain, but rather, from a natural and laudable desire to complete his task, followed the monster's tracks to the mere, and finished him and his mother below. Many traits have survived which may conceivably point to an original version of the story in which Beowulf (or the figure corresponding to him) at once plunged down {65} in order to combat the foe corresponding to Grendel. There are unsatisfactory features in the story as it stands. For why, it might be urged, should the wrenching off of an arm have been fatal to so tough a monster? And why, it has often been asked, is the adversary under the water sometimes male, sometimes female? And why is it apparently the blood of Grendel, not of his mother, which discolours the water and burns up the sword, and the head of Grendel, not of his mother, which is brought home in triumph? These arguments may not carry much weight, but at any rate when we turn to the folk-tale we find that the adventure beneath the earth _is_ the natural following up of the adventure in the house, not the result of any renewed attack.

In addition, there are many striking coincidences between individual versions or groups of the folk-tale on the one hand and the _Beowulf-Grettir_ story on the other: yet it is very difficult to know what value should be attached to these parallels, since there are many features of popular story which float around and attach themselves to this or that tale without any original connection, so that it is easy for the same trait to recur in _Beowulf_ and in a group of folk-tales, without this proving that the stories as a whole are connected[134].

The hero of the Bear's son folk-tale is often in his youth unmanageable or lazy. This is also emphasized in the stories both of Grettir and of Orm: and though such a feature was uncongenial to the courtly tone of _Beowulf_, which sought to depict the hero as a model prince, yet it _is_ there[135], even though only alluded to incidentally, and elsewhere ignored or even denied[136].

Again, the hero of the folk-tale is very frequently (but not necessarily) either descended from a bear, nourished by a bear, or has some ursine characteristic. We see this recurring in certain traits of Beowulf such as his bear-like method of hugging {66} his adversary to death. Here again the courtly poet has not emphasized his hero's wildness[137].

Again, there are some extraordinary coincidences in names, between the _Beowulf-Grettir_ story and the folk-tale. These are not found in _Beowulf_ itself, but only in the stories of Grettir and Orm. Yet, as the _Grettir_-episode is presumably derived from the same original as the _Beowulf_-episode, any _original_ connection between it and the folk-tale involves such connection for _Beowulf_ also. We have seen that in _Grettis saga_ the priest Stein, as the unfaithful guardian of the rope which is to draw up the hero, seems to represent the faithless companions of the folktale. There is really no other way of accounting for him, for except on this supposition he is quite otiose and unnecessary to the _Grettir_-story: the saga-man has no use for him. And his name confirms this explanation, for in the folk-tale one of the three faithless companions of the hero is called the Stone-cleaver, _Steinhauer_, _Stenkloever_, or even, in one Scandinavian version, simply _Stein_[138].

Again, the struggle in the _Grettis saga_ is localized at Sandhaugar in Barthardal in Northern Iceland. Yet it is difficult to say why the saga-teller located the story there. The scenery, with the neighbouring river and mighty waterfall, is fully described: but students of Icelandic topography assert that the neighbourhood does _not_ at all lend itself to this description[139]. When we turn to the story of Orm we find it localized on the island Sandey. We are forced to the conclusion that the name belongs to the story, and that in some early version this was localized at a place called Sandhaug, perhaps at one of the numerous places in Norway of that name. Now turning to one of the Scandinavian versions of the folk-tale, we find that the descent into the earth and the consequent struggle is localized in _en stor sandhaug_[140].

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On the other hand, it must be remembered that if a collection is made of some two hundred folk-tales, it is bound to contain, in addition to the essential kernel of common tradition, a vast amount of that floating material which tends to associate itself with this or that hero of story. Individual versions or groups of versions of the tale may contain features which occur also in the _Grendel_-story, without that being any evidence for primitive connection. Thus we are told how Grendel forces open the door of Heorot. In a Sicilian version of the folk-tale the doors spring open of themselves as the foe appears. This has been claimed as a parallel. But, as a sceptic has observed, the extraordinary thing is that of so slight a similarity (if it is entitled to be called a similarity) we should find only one example out of two hundred, and have to go to Sicily for that[141].

The parallel between the _Beowulf_-story and the "Bear's son" folk-tale had been noted by Laistner (_Das Raetsel der Sphinx_, Berlin, 1889, II, 22 _etc._): but the prevalent belief that the _Beowulf_-story was a nature-myth seems to have prevented further investigation on these lines till Panzer independently (p. 254) undertook his monumental work.

Yet there are other features in the folk-tale which are entirely unrepresented in the _Beowulf-Grettir_ story. The hero of the folk-tale rescues captive princesses in the underworld (it is because they wish to rob him of this prize that his companions leave him below); he is saved by some miraculous helper, and finally, after adopting a disguise, puts his treacherous comrades to shame and weds the youngest princess. None of these elements[142] are to be found in the stories of Beowulf, Grettir, Orm or Bjarki, yet they are essential to the fairy tale[143].

{68}

So that to speak of _Beowulf_ as a version of the fairy tale is undoubtedly going too far. All we can say is that some early story-teller took, from folk-tale, those elements which suited his purpose, and that a tale, containing many leading features found in the "Bear's son" story, but omitting many of the leading motives of that story, came to be told of Beowulf and of Grettir[144].

* * * * *

SECTION V. SCEF AND SCYLD.

Our poem begins with an account of the might, and of the funeral, of Scyld Scefing, the ancestor of that Danish royal house which is to play so large a part in the story. After Scyld's death his retainers, following the command he had given them, placed their beloved prince in the bosom of a ship, surrounded by many treasures brought from distant lands, by weapons of battle and weeds of war, swords and byrnies. Also they placed a golden banner high over his head, and let the sea bear him away, with soul sorrowful and downcast. Men could not say for a truth, not the wisest of councillors, who received that burden.

Now there is much in this that can be paralleled both from the literature and from the archaeological remains of the North. Abundant traces have been found, either of the burial or of the burning of a chief within a ship. And we are told by different authorities of two ancient Swedish kings who, sorely wounded, and unwilling to die in their beds, had themselves placed upon ships, surrounded by weapons and the bodies of the slain. The funeral pyre was then lighted on the vessel, and the ship sent blazing out to sea. Similarly the dead body of Baldr was put upon his ship, and burnt.

Haki konungr fekk sv['a] st['o]r s['a]r, at hann s['a], at hans l['i]fdagar mundu eigi langir verdha; th['a] l['e]t hann taka skeidh, er hann ['a]tti, ok l['e]t hladha daudhum m[o,]nnum, ok v['a]pnum, l['e]t th['a] flytja ['u]t til hafs ok leggja st['y]ri {69} ['i] lag ok draga upp segl, en leggja eld ['i] tyrvidh ok gera b['a]l ['a] skipinu; vedhr st['o]dh af landi; Haki var th['a] at kominn daudha edha daudhr, er hann var lagidhr ['a] b['a]lit; sigldhi skipit s['i]dhan loganda ['u]t ['i] haf, ok var thetta allfraegt lengi s['i]dhan.