The Anglo-Saxons and Their World

I proudly dedicate this book to my dear Professor Dr. Pooyan Changizi, whose
unswerving support, exhortative guidelines and comprehensive instructions
inspire theory into action!

Contents
Foreword and Acknowledgments VI
List of Illustrations VII
Part I: On Anglo-Saxon Roots and Traditions
Anglo-Saxons and Their World 1
The Anglo-Saxon World: The Migration and the Germanic Past 6
Anglo-Saxon Roots: Pessimism and Comradeship 10
Part II: On Beowulf
An Introductory Note 15
Adumbrating Beowulf 17
Great Authors of the Western Literary Tradition: Beowulf 22
Plot
1. Synopsis and an In-depth Textual Analysis 27
2. The Story Behind the Story 35
3. List of Characters 36
Maps, Figures, and Plates
1. Character Map 38
2. Scandinavia in Beowulf’s Day 39
3. Beowulf’s Geography 40
4. Manuscripts 41
Genealogy, Nomenclature, and Genesis
1. Genealogies 47
2. Beowulf’s Name 49
3. The Genesis of Beowulf 51
Religion
1. Religion in Beowulf 55
2. Christian and Pagan Values Blend 55
Style and Structure
1. Poetic Structure 57
2. The Epic Quality 61
3. Symbols in The world of The Poem 65
Myth and Legend
1. German Origin, Mythical Meaning, and Poetic Value 68
2. Beowulf: The Fortunate Survivor 73

Modern Adaptations of Beowulf
1. Books 76
2. Graphic Arts 82
3. Films 84
Part III: Terminology
Historical and Literary Terminology 87
Selected Bibliography 98

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Foreword and Acknowledgments
This book is the end result of my extensive researches carried out on and into the lone survivor
of a genre of Old English long epics, Beowulf—a painstakingly laborious, yet pleasurable task
through the journey of which I discovered, unearthed, gleaned, and absorbed a great wealth of
previously-unknown-to-me information about Old English Literature in general and Beowulf
in particular.
First, I would like to express my great appreciation to my dear friend Mahdi Javidshad for his
invaluable suggestions, constant encouragements, and true inspiration; without the brotherly
advice and assistance of whom, I would not have been able to positively shape and cultivate
my academic pursuits and engagements. Further, I would like to thank Dr. Omid Azadi for his
practical instructions on and assistance with the selected bibliography. I am also grateful to Dr.
Amirhossein Vafa whose kind demeanor, decolonial thinking, and liberal attitudes have been
definitive to my critical worldliness.
Finally, the deepest and sincerest gratitude of mine is expressed to Dr. Pooyan Changizi to
whom, incomparable, I owe an inexpressible debt of gratitude. His unflagging support and
intellectual enlightenment will never be forgotten.
Amirhossein Nemati
Shiraz University
Shiraz, Iran November 2017

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List of Illustrations
Map
Character Map 38
Scandinavia in Beowulf’s Day 39
Beowulf’s Geography 40
Plates
1. The Beowulf-manuscript, fol. 129r (Beowulf, lines 1–21) 13 41
2. The Beowulf-manuscript, fol. 95r (Wonders, sections 13–15) 42
3. The Beowulf-manuscript, fol. 95v (Wonders, sections 15–16) 43
4. The Beowulf-manuscript, fol. 128v (Letter, section 41) 44
5. The Beowulf-manuscript, fol. 160r (Beowulf, lines 1352b–1377a) 45
6. The Beowulf-manuscript, fol. 189A (197) r (Beowulf, lines 2655b–2682a) 46
Genealogies
I. The Danes, Swedes, Frisians, and Heathobards 47
II. The Geats and Wægmundings 48

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“The Anglo-Saxons and Their World”
Lectured by Professor Michael D.C. Drout
Michael D.C. Drout is Professor of English and Director of the Center for the Study of the
Medieval at Wheaton College, Norton, Massachusetts, where he teaches Old and Middle
English, Science Fiction and the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. Drout is the author of How Tradition
Works, Tradition and Influence in Anglo-Saxon Literature, Drout’s Quick and Easy Old English,
and How to Think: the Liberal Arts and their Enduring Value, and he is co-author of Beowulf
Unlocked: New Evidence from Lexomic Analysis. He edited J.R.R. Tolkien’s Beowulf and the
Critics and the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia and co-edited Transitional States: Cultural Change,
Tradition and Memory in Medieval England. One of the founders and a co-editor of the journal
Tolkien Studies, he has published widely on Tolkien, fantasy and science fiction, and medieval
studies.
On ussera ealdfædera dagum lifdon mihtige cyningas, bealde rincas. Hie begeaton ðis
land and hit gesetton. Fela geara ðæræfter wæron hie gefulwode and gehwurfon
Cristnan. Þa wunon hie wið ða hæð-nan. Manige boceras brohton wisdom in on land.
Swete songas sungon þa scopas on healle. Nu sindon we hiera ierfan. Gif we nyllað
dolu beon, uton leornian ða Westseaxna ðeode.
In the days of our ancestors lived mighty kings, bold warriors. They took this land and
settled it. Many years afterwards they were baptized and converted to Christianity. Then
they fought against heathens. Many scholars brought wisdom into the land. Sweet songs
sung the poets in the hall. Now we are their heirs. If we do not wish to be foolish, let us
learn the West-Saxon tongue.
The passage above is from a somewhat old-fashioned textbook of Old English. It is pretty
oversimplified, but there’s nothing in there that is obviously wrong, and it gives us a good idea
both of the language of the Anglo-Saxons and their history and culture. And even this short
passage shows that there are many good reasons for studying the Anglo-Saxons. They are not
just the physical ancestors of many people in England, America, Australia, South Africa, and
New Zealand, but they are the cultural and linguistic ancestors of millions more people
throughout the world. Their language was the source of Modern English, and understanding a
bit about it explains why English is the way it is. Their culture laid the foundations upon which
so much has been built, even though, obviously, the world has changed substantially.
The Anglo-Saxons are also the most fascinating culture in medieval Europe, a remarkable and
unique blending of Germanic, Latin, Celtic, and homegrown material. Their art, literature,
architecture, and culture are simply intrinsically interesting. But also a deep understanding of
the Anglo-Saxons is extremely important for understanding our current cultural situation. From
the Protestant Reformation polemicists to Thomas Jefferson, who wanted to put the Anglo-

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Saxon warriors Hengest and Horsa on the Great Seal, to the Victorians who readopted the
Anglo-Saxons, to racists and Nazis who appropriated Anglo-Saxons identity, to J.R.R. Tolkien,
who changed popular perception, to contemporary struggles over identity, over English
language and culture, the Anglo-Saxons are extremely important. In this course, we will be
learning who the Anglo-Saxons actually were, and then, toward the end of the course, we will
see what other people have done with them.
Angles, Saxons and Jutes
In its entry for the year 449, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle tells us:
Her Mauricius Ualentines onfengon rice ricsodon winter. On hiera dagum Hengest
Horsa from Wyrtgeorne geleaþade Bretta kyninge gesohton Bretene on þam staþe þe is
genemnedYpwinesfleot, ærest Brettum to fultume, ac hie eft on hie fuhton. Se cing het
hi feohtan agien Pihtas, hi swa dydan sige hæfdan swa hwar swa hi comon. Hi ða sende
to Angle heton heom sendan mare fultum heom seggan Brytwalana nahtnesse ðæs
landes cysta. Hy ða sendan heom mare fultum. Þa comon þa menn of þrim mægþum
Germanie, of Ealdseaxum, of Anglum, of Iotum. Of Iotum comon Cantware Wihtware,
þæt ys seo mæið ðe nu eardað on Wiht, ðæt cynn on Westsexum þe man gyt hæt Iutna
cyn. Of Ealdseaxon comon Eastsexa Suðsexa WestSexan. Of Angle comon, se a siððan
stod westi betwyx Iutum Seaxum, Eastengla, Midelangla, Mearca ealle Norðhymbra.
This year Martianus and Valentinian received the kingdom and reigned for seven years.
In their days the Hengest and Horsa were invited here by King Vortigern, and they
came to Britain in three longships, landing at Ebbesfleet. King Vortigern gave them
territory in the south-east of this land, on the condition that they fight the Picts. This
they did, and had victory wherever they went. They then sent to Angle, commanded
more aid, and commanded that they should be told of the Britons’ worthlessness and
the choice nature of their land. They soon sent hither a greater host to help the others.
Then came the men of three Germanic tribes: Old Saxons; Angles; and Jutes. Of the
Jutes come the people of Kent and the Isle of Wight; that is the tribe which now lives
on Wight, and that race among the West Saxons which men even now call Jutish. Of
the Old Saxons come the East Saxons, South Saxons, and West Saxons. Of the
Angles—the country they left has since stood empty between Jutes and Saxons—come
the East Anglians, Middle Anglians, Mercians, and all the Northumbrians.
This is the “official story” of the arrival in England of three Germanic tribes, the Angles,
Saxons, and Jutes. There may be elements of truth in this story, but it also works very well as
a foundation myth of Anglo-Saxon England. But for that myth to make sense, we need to go
back to the very beginnings of recorded history in the northwest of Europe. The settlement of
the British Isles goes back into very deep time, beyond the scope of this course, but we know
that there were Neolithic people living there in very ancient times indeed. Then Celtic peoples
arrived and controlled the islands. In 55 B.C., Julius Caesar led invasions of Britain, connecting
it to the Roman Empire (though there were no permanent Roman settlements until quite a while
later). In 43 and 44 A.D., a true Roman invasion led by Claudius brought about a permanent
Roman presence in Britain and the eventual creation of the Romano-British, a blending of the
Celtic peoples who had already been in Britain with the Roman occupiers. The Romano-British
spoke Latin and were integrated into the Western Roman Empire.

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But as that Western Empire weakened, and even before Rome fell (traditionally the Fall of
Rome is dated to 476), the Legions were withdrawn from Britain (410). Then, the non-
Romanized Celtic people, Scots (the contemporary name for the Irish), Picts (who lived in the
north in what is now Scotland), and others began to try to take the wealth and power held by
the Romano-British. Then the remnants of Roman Britain led by King Vortigern sent across
the sea for help from the Saxons, Germanic tribes in southern Denmark and Northern Germany.
Led by two brothers, named Hengest and Horsa (both of whose names mean “horse”), these
tribes came to England to help King Vortigern but soon turned on the Romano-British and
conquered everything for their own.
There were, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Venerable Bede tell us, three major groupings:
The Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes. The Jutes settled the far east portion of England, Kent,
and the Isle of Wight. The Angles took the more north and eastern part, Northumbria and East
Anglia, and also Mercia, in the middle. The Saxons took the south and the west of England.
This is when Anglo-Saxon history really begins, from just before 500 until the Norman
Conquest of 1066.
It will help us throughout the course to keep in mind a time-line of Anglo-Saxon history. My
former student, John Walsh, realized that the acronym MCGVR gives us a handy reference for
the Anglo-Saxon centuries:
M = Migration of tribes to England, 500–600
C = Conversion to Christianity, 600–700
G = Golden Age of Anglo-Saxon culture, 700-–800
V = Viking Raids and destruction of Anglo-Saxon culture, 800–900
R = Reform and Rebuilding of Anglo-Saxon culture, 900–1000
There is no simple mnemonic device for the last half-century of Anglo-Saxon culture, but from
1000 to 1066 is the period of Anglo-Danish rule and the end of the Anglo-Saxon period.
Each of these periods will get one or more lectures on its own, but right now we want to build
up the big picture of Anglo-Saxon history and culture to give us a guide through the rest of the
material.
Migration: During this time, Germanic tribes crossed the sea to England and settled the
countryside, which may have been somewhat depopulated due either to plague,
economic collapse in the post-Roman period, or conquest.
Conversion: Although Christianity had existed in the British Isles since the Roman
period, from the end of the sixth century and throughout the seventh, England was
converted by missionaries from both Rome and Ireland and eventually became
officially Christian.
Golden Age: For over a century England was one of the intellectual and cultural hot
spots of Europe. English monasteries and nunneries were centers of learning and book
production. The climate was warm, and England was rich.
Viking Raids: Riches and undefended monasteries were a target for Viking invaders
from Denmark and Norway. They raided, pillaged, and burned England for many
summers before sending entire armies to occupy the land and settle it with Danes and

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Norwegians. All native English kings and kingdoms but one were destroyed in this time
period.
Reform: At the end of the Viking period, King Alfred the Great saved England from
complete Viking domination and began the rebuilding of the country. Alfred’s grandson
Athelstan made England among the most powerful nations in Europe and began a
process of Church reform that continued for many years. England was unique in having
a culture that was now focused on learning in the vernacular (in English) rather than in
Latin.
End: King Athelred’s inept leadership eventually led to the fall of England, first to
Danish kings and then to William the Conqueror, a prince of Normandy.
The larger narrative that you can see in the history of Anglo-Saxon England is the continued
mixing and integration of various disparate elements into one people. The Anglo-Saxons are
what the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes turned into after they migrated to England, intermarried
with the Romano-British, converted to Christianity, were invaded by the Vikings, intermarried
with the Danish settlers, reformed themselves, were conquered by Danes, rebuilt their
kingdom, and were finally conquered by the French. They were people who spoke the Anglo-
Saxon language. They were people who lived in a land of Celtic place-names, with Roman
ruins, with Germanic legends and stories and language, with Christian churches and Latin
learning. They thought England was specially singled out by Pope Gregory the Great, and by
God, but they also were well aware of their inferiority to the Romans who had come before
them and of their marginal place at the edge of Europe. And then, after the Norman Conquest,
they were the regular people of England and were Anglo-Norman, until 1214, when King John
(you know him as the Prince John of Robin Hood fame, the brother of Richard the Lion-
Hearted) lost the English hold over Normandy. At that point, the language of Norman French
was no longer official and English became again the language of the kingdom, but the Anglo-
Saxons were mostly a memory.
There things stood until Henry VIII and the Protestant Reformation. Henry hated Protestants
and brutally repressed them, but ended up breaking the Church away from Rome and dissolving
the monasteries between 1536 and 1541. There was a massive loss of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts
and material culture (what had survived the Conquest), but Protestants and others suddenly
were interested in Anglo-Saxon because they thought that they could find historical precedent
in England for the things they wanted to do. So there was a recovery of Old English language
and the development of a new respect for the Anglo-Saxon kings, particularly Alfred.
The English civil war (1643–1651) caused the destruction of even more precious manuscripts
and the destruction of the physical remains of most of the great saints and kings of the Anglo-
Saxon period, but again, scholars were drawn to understand the language and history of their
ancestors. The Anglo-Saxons became important for ideas about England.
Across the Atlantic, a number of years later, Thomas Jefferson thought America should be
Anglo-Saxon. Later still “Anglo-Saxon” became a shorthand for separating previous settlers in
America from later immigrants (even though a lot of the people who called themselves or were
labeled Anglo-Saxon were Scots-Irish), and after the American Civil War, the phrase the
“Anglo-Saxon Race” was used for racist purposes.

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Back in Europe, Anglo-Saxons and their origin and identity became important in the struggles
surrounding Germany, Denmark, and France. The Victorians were also interested in adopting
“Anglo-Saxon” for their history. The Victorians approved of Anglo-Saxon ancestry, as it
marked England as being different from the continental powers. Ideas of national identity and
language were of course tied in to both World Wars, and although the National Socialist
Workers Party in Germany did not explicitly use the Anglo-Saxons, they did invoke a
Germanic past, linking up this supposed Pan-Germanic past with justifications for conquest
and racism. Thus, for several decades after the war, the Anglo-Saxons ended up tarred with
racist and Nazi associations. However, since the 1990s there has been renewed interest in the
real (as opposed to the manufactured) Anglo-Saxon past, and Anglo-Saxons have been
portrayed positively in major films, such as Peter Jackson’s adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The
Lord of the Rings.
In summary, the Anglo-Saxons were Germanic people who migrated to England, converted to
Christianity, and were in cultural and political control for about five hundred years. During that
time, they absorbed Latin culture, clashed with and absorbed other, but Northern, Germanic
cultures, developed art and literature and architecture and theology, fell back down almost to
collapse, built up again, were conquered but kept their language and culture, were conquered
again and lost much, and then had their ideas and culture and language (changed as they were)
spread in time and place. They were important in their own day, and they are still very
important now.

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“The Anglo-Saxon World—The Migration and the Germanic Past”
Lectured by Professor Michael D.C. Drout
Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum,
þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.
Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum,
monegum mægþum, meodosetla ofteah,
egsode eorlas. Syððan ærest wearð
feasceaft funden, he þæs frofre gebad,
weox under wolcnum, weorðmyndum þah,
oðþæt him æghwylc þara ymbsittendra
ofer hronrade hyran scolde,
gomban gyldan. þæt wæs god cyning!
Lo! We have heard of the valor of the spear danes in the elder days, of the kings of the
people, how those noble ones accomplished great deeds. Often Shild Scefing scourged
his enemies of many nations, overturned their mead benches, terrified earls. After he
had first become found in a powerless state; he overcame that, grew under the heavens
and increased in worth until every one of his neighbors across the whale-road had to
submit to him and give him gold. That was a good king!
Just as the Mediterranean Sea is the center of the classical world, the North Sea is the center of
the Migration-period world. Tribes and peoples conquered and were conquered, moved to seek
new land or living space or tribute and plunder. They fought, made alliances and built
settlements. And nearly everything they did is lost to history, because they were not literate.
We can try to piece together several centuries of lost history through heroic stories, a few
chronicles in Latin, and archaeological finds. But these times are what used to be called the
Dark Ages, and although we do not use that pejorative terminology any more, much indeed is
dark to us, history lost forever or reduced to a few tantalizing hints. Nevertheless, we can
extract some information from the scraps and hints and try to reconstruct some of the
background of the Anglo-Saxons in the Germanic North both before and soon after they came
to England.
The Migration period, in our shorthand, from 500 to 600, but really going back to the middle
of the fifth century or even further, is the “Heroic Age” for most of the Northern cultures, the
time in which myths and legends are set. This era was studied deeply—and in some ways
invented—by European scholars interested in creating a past for their own nations. Anglo-
Saxon was so important to these scholars, from Germany and Denmark as well as from.
England, because it was the oldest literature that we had that was not in Latin but was from
Europe. That is why the poem Beowulf, which I quoted at the beginning of this chapter, is so
important even though the poem was copied in the tenth century and never mentions England
or the English. Beowulf still gives us more information about the Migration era than just about
any text in any language. But it is incredibly difficult to separate historical fact (or at least
historical legend) from myth, from magic and from monsters in Beowulf. Even those first
eleven lines are full of disputed words and passages that are very important for our
understanding of the early history of the Germanic north.

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Beowulf begins with a great king, Scyld Scefing, whose name may mean “Shield, son of Sheaf”
(that is, weapon, son of agriculture). This may make him mythological, but the Scyldings (the
descendants of Scyld) turn out to be important to a whole variety of peoples and dynasties
around the North Sea. There are Scyldings everywhere, always associated in one way or
another with Denmark. Likewise, the various peoples mentioned in Beowulf seem to be
consistent with the actual history we find elsewhere.
The most famous example is Beowulf’s uncle, Hygelac. In the nineteenth century, the great
scholar N.F.S. Grundtvig noticed that the name Hygelac, in Anglo-Saxon, was the same as the
name “Chochilaicus” in a Latin manuscript by Gregory of Tours. Gregory says that Hygelac
led a raid in the year 516 into Frisia, that Hygelac was killed, and that his bones were so huge
that they were left on an island in the river and people came and stared at them. In Beowulf, we
learn that Beowulf’s uncle Hygelac led a raid into Frisia and gets killed in similar circumstances
(though there is nothing about giant bones). It does seem that Beowulf is preserving tradition
from a very long time back. And the more we investigate, the more it seems that there was a
consistent set of stories about the Migration period. Whether these stories are based on fact is
harder to determine, but the more we physically dig things up with archaeology, the more we
find that are consistent in surprising ways.
Another example from Beowulf helps us create a coherent picture of what may have been going
on before and during the time the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes got to England. This is the
Finnsburg episode. In the poem, after Beowulf kills Grendel, the first monster, there is a large
celebration, and a poet sings a song about a failed peace-making attempt in Frisia. Explaining
this complicated story sheds a lot of light on the underlying kinship and lordship relationships
in Anglo-Saxon England.
Finn is king of the Frisians, who live in the present-day Netherlands. They have been at war
with the Danes, from Denmark. To try to settle this war, Hoc, the king of the Danes, marries
his daughter, Hildeburh, to Finn. Hildeburh has a son and it seems like the war is over: the two
kingdoms are joined in the person of the son, and everything is good.
Hnæf, the son of King Hoc and the next king of the Danes, is Hildeburh’s brother. He and his
men go to Frisia, from Denmark, to visit Hildeburh and her husband Finn. It may be that the
son of Hildeburh and Finn has been along with Hnæf, though this is not entirely clear.
Hnæf’s right-hand man is named Hengest, but he is apparently not a Dane, but a Jutish
mercenary who is serving Hnæf. At some point, a fight breaks out, and Hildeburh’s son, who
in his person unified the Danes and the Frisians, is killed, and so is Hnæf, the leader of the
Danes. But the two sides, Danes and Frisians, are evenly matched and neither can overcome
the other. So they propose a truce. The Danes, who are now being led by Hengest (even though
he is not a Dane), agree to spend the winter in Finn’s hall and not kill anyone. Finn agrees to
treat them the same as he does his own men, giving treasure to both equally. There is a funeral
for Hnæf and the dead son, and Hildeburh—sister of Hnæf and mother of the dead son—
mourns, but the truce holds until spring.
But there is a problem. Hengest and his men are now serving the person who is responsible for
killing their lord. They have a duty to avenge him, but they have also sworn an oath not to kill
any Frisians. This is the kind of damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t situation that the
Anglo-Saxons loved to think about. Then spring comes and the Danes are going to leave, but

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some warriors just cannot stand the humiliation of not avenging their lord any more. Fighting
breaks out and this time the Danes are completely victorious. They kill all the Frisians,
including King Finn, steal all his treasure, and go back to Denmark with Hildeburh.
This is complicated but relatively straightforward. But now we are going to be a little more
speculative and link this literary material to the Migration era (the ideas here come from J.R.R.
Tolkien, a great scholar of Beowulf long before he wrote The Lord of the Rings).
Why is Hengest, a Jute, Hnæf’s right-hand man and not some Dane? And why do the Danes
win in the spring when they were so evenly tied in the early winter? Tolkien proposes that there
were Jutish mercenaries serving on both sides, with the Danes and the Frisians. So there are
three ethnic groups or tribes, but only two sides: Danes and their Jutes, led by Hengest, and
Frisians and their Jutes, led by Finn. Why were the Jutes there at all, and why in two groups
rather than representing their own tribe? Because, at this time in the early migration period, the
Jutes are being squeezed out of their territory by the expanding Danes to the north and the
Franks to the south. The Frisians are also in trouble, but they are trying to protect themselves
by allying with the Danes (which is why their king, Finn, marries the daughter of the Danish
king). So the Danes have expanded south into the Danish peninsula and pretty much defeated
the Jutes, and the surviving warriors of the Jutes are serving as mercenaries both to Danes and
Frisians.
The idea is that Hengest, after this whole disaster of diplomacy and the death of the son who is
supposed to join the kingdoms of the Danes and Frisians, manages to convince some of the
Jutes on the Frisian side to switch to his side and then, when the fight does break out, they help
to massacre the remaining Frisians. Then (and here’s where Tolkien makes a big leap, but one
that makes sense), Hengest brings Hildeburh back to Denmark but is really no longer welcome,
having been part of the botched peaceful voyage. So Hengest takes his band of Jutes, and
perhaps some Danes, and heads over the sea from Denmark to England and settles there. This
reconstruction is, of course, Tolkien linking things up that are just hints and names, but it has
the benefit of making more sense than other proposed explanations.
Remember that the leader of the Anglo-Saxon “migration” is named Hengest in the historical
sources. Traditionally this Hengest is thought to have nothing to do with Beowulf, but if Tolkien
is right, we can then see a possibly more reasonable explanation than the whole “invitation”
story of the migration. Peoples were migrating around the North Sea. The Jutes had been
displaced. Some of their warriors, led by Hengest, migrated to England to seek greener pastures
than they were finding in continental Europe. We cannot prove such speculation given the
present state of our knowledge, but there are other hints that some consistent body of
knowledge (a body or traditional stories or even real history) is behind the poems.
Another example of this consistency may be found in a poem in the Exeter Book called
“Widsith,” in which a traveler lists, at tedious length, all the places and peoples that he has
seen.
Ic wæs mid Hunum ond mid Hreðgotum,
mid Sweom ond mid Geatum ond mid Suþdenum.
Mid Wenlum ic wæs ond mid Wærnum ond mid wicingum.
Mid Gefþum ic wæs ond mid Winedum ond mid Gefflegum
Mid Englum ic wæs ond mid Swæfum ond mid ænenum.

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Mid Seaxum ic wæs ond Sycgum ond mid Sweordwerum.
Mid Hronum ic wæs ond mid Deanum ond mid Heaþoreamum.
Mid þyringum ic wæs ond mid þrowendum,
ond mid Burgendum, þær ic beag geþah;
This is basically a pretty accurate list of the peoples around the North Sea at this time period.
Since Widsith was not written down, as far as we know, until the tenth century, and since there
are not a lot of good historical sources that the poet could have drawn on, we are inclined to
think he knew a lot of stories. Of direct relevance to Beowulf is this part:
Hroþwulf ond Hroðgar heoldon lengest
sibbe ætsomne suhtorfædran,
siþþan hy forwræcon wicinga cynn
ond Ingeldes ord forbigdan,
forheowan æt Heorote Heaðobeardna þrym.
Hrothulf and Hrothgar, uncle and nephew, held for a long time companionship/peace
together after they had driven off the kin of the Vikings and crushed the vanguard of
Ingeld and defeated the Heathobards at Heorot.
This section of Widsith appears to refer to the part of Beowulf where Hrothgar is jointed with
his nephew Hrothulf at the hall of Heorot. Other sources, including Saxo Grammaticus, who
was a Dane but wrote in Latin, suggest that someone named Hrothulf would end up killing
Hrothgar’s son and taking over the kingdom. This same Hrothulf is probably Rolf Kraki, the
King Arthur of Denmark. Again, it requires some speculation, but it seems possible to make
the stories fit together with the fragmentary history.
So around the North Sea in the migration period we find conflict, movement of whole peoples,
alliances and their failure, and people packing up from farmland that may have been inundated
by the sea (and so at least temporarily too salty to grow regular crops) and moving to England.
It is important to note that Britain, even in 1080, was still not up to even half of its Roman-
times population, so there was room for people to settle, and given that the peoples on the
continent were growing and expanding, others appear to have been pushed out toward England.
The archaeology supports this hypothesis to some degree. We can track Anglo-Saxon-Jutish
burials as they start on the coast and move up the waterways into England over the course of
the sixth century, moving along the Thames valley, from East Anglia into the interior, north
from Kent and the south. We also get the idea, though from somewhat unreliable sources, like
Gildas, a historian, that the remaining British kingdoms were relatively weak, even in Wales,
where Roman culture held on longer, and by around 570 there were enough English (Angles,
Saxons, Jutes) to form some kind of grouping of tribes to fight against the British. The big
question is how much of this was conquest and how much was filling a vacuum, but regardless
of the background reasons, we do know that by the end of the sixth century, the Angles, Saxons,
and Jutes were established all throughout England and were thinking of themselves as one
ethnic group and one language, though not as one people. The Migration had come to an end.

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“Anglo-Saxon Roots—Pessimism and Comradeship”
Lectured by Professor John Sutherland
John Sutherland is Lord Northcliffe Professor Emeritus of Modern English Literature at UCL
("emeritus" being Latin for "scrapheap" and "Northcliffe" journalistic shorthand for "you cannot
be serious"). He currently teaches at the California Institute of Technology and is the author of
twenty-odd books, mainly on books of a more important kind than his own.
Scope: We shall begin with a brief look at some of the ideas embodied in the phrase “English
literature.” Of course, literature existed long before England did and before printing. We’ll look
at the characteristics of Anglo-Saxon poetry, specifically, alliteration, half-lines, and a pattern
of four stresses per line, as we read Caedmon’s Hymn, The Seafarer, and portions of Beowulf.
This poetry also gives us some idea of the overriding mood of Anglo-Saxon oral literature, a
worldview of tough pessimism tempered by the virtues of comradeship. We close with an in-
depth look at Beowulf, the foundational text of English literature and a text that we modern
readers can enjoy and connect with, centuries after it was written.
I. The phrase “English literature” is so familiar that we rarely feel impelled to unpack it.
But if we pause to consider what we mean by English literature, it’s anything but
simple.
 Of course, literature existed before England. Literature also existed in the form of
oral epics, elegies, and ballads before these things were printed in books.
 English literature is not the same thing as literature in English. American literature,
for example, is not simply English literature written and published in the United
States.
 In 2005, the listeners of the BBC radio program Today voted William Shakespeare
the greatest Briton who had ever lived. It was believed that he most embodied the
soul of Britain.
1. Linguists have said that a language is a dialect with an army behind it, and one
might adapt that quip by defining literature as writing with a national state
behind it. More importantly, literature is embedded in the nation, as the heart is
embedded in the body.
2. In the wide-ranging remarks found in these lectures, it is not merely the words
on the page that we shall be considering, but the United Kingdom itself in its
most revealing aspect, its inner self, its soul.
 In The Poetics, Aristotle, our first great literary critic, makes the claim that literature
is truer than history. History, the chronicle of events that actually happened, is
shackled to the accidental and incidental. Literature, however, can penetrate to the
heart of the human condition. It can generalize. It can extract the truth.
II. We will begin with the first milestones on the long, winding path of English literature—
primarily the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf but also some other works of poetry.

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 Karl Marx wondered how a society as primitive as Periclean Athens could produce
literature as sophisticated as Oedipus Rex.
1. Marx offered by way of explanation his law of uneven development. Primitive,
preindustrial communities can produce perfect works of art, as perfect as
anything we can produce.
2. Most people coming to Beowulf experience a similar reaction. We wonder how
such a complex and, in its own terms, perfect work of literary art could be
produced by a primitive tribal community.
 Much ancient English literature has been lost or exists only in fragments, but we
can recover some aspects of how it was put together.
1. The greatest work of the early period of English literature was the creation of
minstrels or scops.
2. Early literature was sung, recited, or spoken, not written or printed.
3. Oral literature is fragile, and it presumes a different author-audience
relationship. It is literature of the ear as much as the eye.
4. Typically, oral literature is a communal, not a private, experience.
 The first text on which the structure of English literature rests—Beowulf—dates
from around the 6th
century, during the Dark Age that fell after the exodus of the
Romans from the British Isles. This period was too chaotic for literature, which
requires a certain stability.
1. The Romans left, however, one monument behind them, the Latin language,
used by the one beacon of light and learning in these dark times, the church.
The church was tolerant, although not entirely sympathetic, to pagan literature.
2. During this same time, England was under invasion by the Angles, Saxons,
Jutes, Danes, and Vikings. These newcomers brought with them a tribal, oral
literature.
3. Of course, the Christian missionaries who came to England brought with them
the Bible, and inevitably, long-rooted pagan traditions collided with Christian
orthodoxies.
4. The result was a kind of clash of civilizations that would energize and cross-
fertilize language and literature up until 1066, when the Normans came to
England.
III. The church was the foundational institution in these early centuries, based on
monasteries and abbeys.
 These communities encompassed farms, schools, and vineyards and were supported
by taxes or tithes. Within their walls, monasteries were sites of higher learning.
Above all, these communities were, until the bureaucratic Normans came in the
11th century, the nation’s chroniclers.
 The institutional language of the church was Latin; nonetheless, the primal text in
English literature, Caedmon’s Hymn, is in the vernacular.
 The Venerable Bede (672/73–735), a monk at the Northumbrian monastery of Saint
Peter in the 8th century, tells us about Caedmon in his Ecclesiastical History.
1. Caedmon was an Anglo-Saxon herdsman, working in the fields around the
monastery at Whitby. He was illiterate and ignorant of the art of song. After
supper, when the harp was passed around among the herdsmen to entertain one
another, Caedmon would slink away.

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2. According to Bede, Caedmon was given the art of song in a dream. He went on
to become a zealous monk and an inspirational religious poet in his own Anglo-
Saxon tongue. The hymn we have is his only surviving work.
 How could the Dark Ages produce something so impressively literary as this hymn?
Further, how could it be produced, not from the mouth of some privileged noble or
prince of the church, but by an ordinary laboring man, who had no claim to
education at all?
1. Anglo-Saxon literature is principally poetic, largely because its continuity
depended on the scop or the singer.
2. This poetry does not use rhyme, nor does it obey the complicated metrics of
Latin prosody. It is composed in half-lines, units that make memorization easier,
and these half-lines are divided by a silent pause or caesura, a “cut.” The poetry
is alliterative, meaning that the first letter or consonant of every word meets
with the next consonant of the next word.
3. This poetry is organized around stress, not syllables.
a. Consider the line “This is the house that Jack built” from an English nursery
rhyme. In reciting the line, an English speaker will stress two words and
understress the rest: “This is the house that Jack built.”
b. A 10-syllable line (pentameter), as spoken in English, will divide naturally
into two half-lines, each containing two stresses. For example: “To be or
not to be, that is the question.”
c. Half-lines and organization by two stresses per half-line are found in both
English and American poetry to the present day. These features give the
poetry its “Englishness.”
IV. The poetry of Anglo-Saxon England, the period roughly from the 8th to the 11th
centuries, falls into distinct genres, or styles, including hymns or secular songs; elegies,
that is, short poems of poignant loss; riddles and other minor works; and of course,
epics, such as Beowulf.
 Elegies are less heroic than stoic. They celebrate suffering nobly borne. In two of
the greatest of them, The Wanderer and The Seafarer, the singers are men who have
lost their ring-givers (thegn, or chief), and with that, their communities.
1. The great modernist poet Ezra Pound gave us a beautiful translation of The
Seafarer that is true to both the alliteration and the two-stress half-line of the
original.
2. In this translation, note the compound “bitter breast-cares,” the technical term
for which is a kenning. As we’ll see, these are a prime feature of Anglo-Saxon
poetry.
 As the lines from these poems testify, the invaders who came from Friesland and
northern Germany brought, along with their swords and chain mail, a somber view
of life, a kind of tough pessimism.
1. A line in Beowulf sums up this overriding mood: “Wyrd bith full aread,” “Fate
will be fulfilled.”
2. For these pioneers, life was a constant battle against the elements, monsters,
their fellow men, and nature. But in that battle, it was believed, the greatness of
humanity would shine brightest.

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3. We see this view in the late heroic Anglo-Saxon poem, The Battle of Maldon,
which recounts an 11thcentury invasion by the Viking heathens. The English
are defeated in this battle, but they go down with defiance and courage.
 Not all Anglo-Saxon verse was somber. We have a whole library of verse riddles
from what must have been an Anglo-Saxon joke book.
1. Riddle 82, written in verse, asks readers to identify a creature with one eye, two
feet, 1,200 heads, a back and a belly, two hands, two arms, two shoulders, one
neck, and two sides.
2. What was this strange creature? A one-eyed garlic seller.
 This poetry had more than one mood, but the strongest moods are found in the epic
narratives, which also convey an overwhelming sense of the virtue of comradeship,
based on the sword.
V. We have Beowulf, the only surviving Anglo-Saxon or Germanic epic, in something like
the form in which it was first recited as a result of an almost miraculous series of
accidents.
 Beowulf was composed for recitation, probably in the 6th century, by pagan
newcomers from the northeast. It was handed down through generations of
minstrels until it was transcribed by a monk, who couldn’t resist interpolating
Christian doctrine at various points.
 The 3,000-line narrative is divided into two parts; the first part is twice as long as
the second.
1. Beowulf is a Geat, a member of a tribe in what is now Sweden. He is a mighty
warrior, not yet a king but destined to be one.
2. In the first part of the epic, Beowulf comes to Denmark to help Hrothgar, king
of the Scyldings, whose great hall has been terrorized by a monster, Grendel,
for 12 years. Beowulf defeats both Grendel and the monster’s mother, and there
follows feasting, drinking, and treasure giving before Beowulf sails back to his
own people.
3. In the second part of the epic, which takes place many years later, Beowulf is
king of the Geats, but now his kingdom is being terrorized by a dragon. Beowulf
slays the dragon but is mortally wounded, and the poem ends with Beowulf’s
burial.
 Readers who come to Beowulf for the first time usually have two very different
reactions. The first is incomprehension; the language is so foreign that it jars. The
second reaction is just the opposite. Even for someone who has not read the poem,
it seems familiar, largely because of the echoes of the work we see in the writing of
J. R. R. Tolkien.
 The opening three lines of the poem appear below, first in Anglo-Saxon English,
then in Seamus Heaney’s 2002 translation. Keep in mind the features of Anglo-
Saxon poetry discussed earlier: half-lines, alliteration, and the four stresses per line.
Hwæt! We Gardena / in geardagum, þeodcyninga, / þrym gefrunon, hu ða æþelingas
/ ellen fremedon.
So. The Spear Danes, in Days gone by And the kings who ruled them, had courage
and greatness. We have heard of those princes’ heroic campaigns.
1. The first word in the Anglo-Saxon, Hwæt is our word “what,” used here to
attract attention and impose silence.

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2. The “Spear Danes” tells listeners what tribes are involved in the story. This will
be a historical chronicle, recounting great deeds in the past, among a society
known, if only by reputation.
3. We know that the audience is upper class from the references to æþelingas,
“princes,” and their “heroic campaigns.”
4. Most impressive in these lines is the poetry. In the first line, the word
geardagum (meaning “yore-days” or “days of yore”) contains the essence of
Anglo-Saxon verse. Anglo-Saxon compresses into one compound noun, or
kenning, a concept that Heaney must translate into four words.
5. The rugged economy of Anglo-Saxon represents its highest linguistic
achievement, along with its ability to create new words, neologisms. The
creative writer, we may say, remakes language. And in so doing, he or she
serves a vital function for society as a whole. It is thanks to such writers that
language lives in its best and most precious form.
 Clearly, the Beowulf poet, whoever he was, was talking to people who were part of
his own community. There was common ground between them—just as there is for
us, to some extent, in reading the poem hundreds of years later.
1. Literature is a time machine. It can take us back and connect us with people
who are no longer here. It is, in the best sense, a conversation with the dead.
2. In fact, this is the reason we read and study literature and the reason that it lives
for us.
3. This living quality of literature—the fact that it is still animated over
centuries—makes it worth our time and effort and makes a historical approach
to literature valuable.

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“An Introductory Note on Beowulf”
By Harold Bloom
Harold Bloom is an American literary critic widely known for his original theories on the creation
of literature, particularly poetry. Harold Bloom is the author of many books, including The
Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages, Agon: Towards a Theory of Revisionism,
The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry, Wallace Stevens: The Poems of Our Climate,
Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, How to Read and Why, Stories and Poems for
Extremely Intelligent Children of All Ages, Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary
Creative Minds, A Map of Misreading, and Hamlet: Poem Unlimited. He is also co-editor with
Lionel Trilling of Romantic Poetry and Prose and Victorian Poetry and Prose.
The Old English epic Beowulf may have been written during the first half of the eighth century,
or it may have been composed at about the year 1000, which is the date of the manuscript.
Either way, it was written in a Christian Britain, but one with many memories of the pagan
past. Is Beowulf a Christian poem? Just barely; in any case, it has a profoundly elegiac relation
to its Germanic origins. Though the nameless poet of this heroic epic must have been at least
ostensibly Christian, Beowulf eschews any mention of Jesus Christ, and all its biblical
references are to the Old Testament. The prime human virtue exalted in the poem is courage;
Beowulf fights primarily for fame, for the glory of becoming the prime Germanic hero, and
secondarily he battles for gain, for treasure he can give away, so as to show his largess at
bestowing gifts. Grendel and his even nastier mother are descendants of Cain, but they are not
described as being enemies of Christ. Even the dragon of the poem’s conclusion is by no means
identified with the dragon of Revelation. Perhaps aesthetic tact governs the poet of Beowulf:
his hero’s virtues have nothing to do with salvation, and everything to do with warlike courage.
When Beowulf’s people, at the epic’s conclusion, lament the death of their lord—“They said
that among the world’s kings, he was the mildest and gentlest of men, most kind to his people
and most eager for praise”—mildness, gentleness, and kindness are hardly Christian, since they
never are exercised toward Beowulf’s human enemies, and that praise for which the hero was
“most eager” is purely Germanic. Since the audience of Beowulf was definitely Christian, what
were the motives of the poet?
One valid answer may be nostalgia, most brilliantly expressed by Ian Duncan:
As Beowulf progresses, the monumental records of past origins grow ambiguous and
dark, from the bright mythic-heroic genealogies and creation songs of the opening,
through the annals of ancient strife carved on the golden hilt from the Grendel hall, to
the dragon hoard itself, a mysterious and sinister, possibly accursed relic, signifying
racial extinctions. But Beowulf seems to recognize . . . that his affinity with the dragon
has extended to a melancholy kinship. …

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Hence the dark conclusion, where the dragon and the hero expire together. All of the poem
then is a beautiful fading away of Germanic origins, presumably into the light of a Christian
common day. An even subtler reading is offered by Fred C. Robinson, who sees the poem as a
blend of pagan heroism and Christian regret. This double perspective does seem to be a
prominent feature of Beowulf and reminds me of the double perspective of the Aeneid, a poem
at once Augustan and Epicurean. But does Beowulf conclude with the triumph of the Christian
vision? God’s glory as a creator is extolled in the poem, but nowhere are we told of God’s
grace. Instead, there are tributes, despairing but firm, to fate, hardly a Christian power. Though
the beliefs of the writer of Beowulf doubtless were Christian, his poetic sympathies
pragmatically seem to reside in the heroic past.

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“Adumbrating Beowulf”
Lectured by Professor Grant L. Voth
Dr. Grant L. Voth is Professor Emeritus at Monterey Peninsula College in California. He earned
his M.A. in English Education from St. Thomas College in St. Paul, MN, and his Ph.D. in English
from Purdue University. Throughout his distinguished career, Professor Voth has earned a host
of teaching awards and accolades, including the Allen Griffin Award for Excellence in Teaching,
and he was named Teacher of the Year by the Monterey Peninsula College Students'
Association. He is the author of insightful scholarly books and articles on subjects ranging from
Shakespeare to Edward Gibbon to modern American fiction, and he wrote many of the official
study guides for the BBC's acclaimed project, The Shakespeare Plays.
Scope: This part deals with the Germanic heroic poem, Beowulf. After a summary review of
its story, we shall, as a way of opening up the poem for readers, suggest three different readings
of Beowulf: a nostalgic tribute to a heroic and pagan past age and culture; the poem as an
extended meditation on the destructive nature of the perpetual internecine fighting that
characterized Germanic cultures; and the poem as deeply influenced by Christian values and
concerned with community and the ways community is fostered and destroyed. We conclude
with the reminder that all of good literature is capable of multiple interpretations—part of its
appeal and its ability is to stimulate response and thought.
Outline
I. Beowulf seems to have come from southern Sweden to England with the Angles,
Saxons, and Jutes, who started arriving in the 5th century C.E.
 It seems to have survived orally for several centuries before being written down
somewhere between the 8th
and 10th centuries C.E.
 It survives in a single manuscript which was damaged in a fire.
II. The plot of the poem has three climaxes with each featuring a great fight between
Beowulf and a monster; but the poem includes a great deal of other material as well.
 A great portion of the poem is given over to feasts and celebrations.
 Beowulf digresses off into about 10 other stories from Germanic history and
legend—stories which are only allusively referred to, so we need footnotes to help
us sort them out.
 Beowulf shares features with other epic poems we have discussed.
1. Like Gilgamesh, Achilles, Odysseus, and Arjuna, Beowulf is a hero, larger and
stronger than other men but nevertheless mortal.
2. Like Gilgamesh and Odysseus, Beowulf must deal with monsters of more-than-
human size and strength.

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3. Like virtually all the heroes we have considered, Beowulf is eager to win fame
and be remembered in song and story after his death.
4. Like the other epic heroes in this course, he helps us understand the values of
Germanic culture and especially the virtues of a great chieftain.
III. Like all good literature, this poem is capable of being read and understood in different
ways. We will focus on three interpretations to illustrate the flavor of the debate and
explore some of the poem’s possibilities.
 One of the most famous readings of the poem is by J. R. R. Tolkien, author of The
Lord of the Rings trilogy.
1. Tolkien argues that Beowulf is essentially a pre-Christian poem with a few
inadvertent Christian details, unavoidable because the poem was written by a
Christian looking back at a pre-Christian past with admiration and some
nostalgia
2. The poem’s definition of a “good king” is solidly Germanic, emphasizing
fighting, winning treasure, and being remembered after one’s death.
3. Beowulf’s principal enemies—trolls and dragons—are creatures from
Germanic mythology associated with cold, darkness, and the wilderness; they
are enemies of human values and achievements, and they reflect the hostile
environments from which Germanic people came.
4. Beowulf’s death during his battle with the dragon is no surprise; for these
Germanic peoples, all stories end in death and destruction, as does their
mythology about the world itself. What makes Beowulf a hero is that he takes
the dragon with him when he dies.
5. Beowulf’s death means the destruction of his people—another reminder of the
gloomy Germanic world view that is underscored by a favorite device of the
poet: understatement.
 Another reading sees the poem as a meditation on the futility of tribal warfare and
the Germanic love of fighting.
1. Most of the digressions—and all of them that can be accurately identified—are
about inter-tribal feuds, most of which end badly.
2. Beowulf’s own people know what lies ahead for them now that their protector
is gone.
3. Paradoxically, violence can only be controlled with violence, which merely
perpetuates the vicious cycle.
4. In this reading, the monsters are not symbols of a hostile universe but of a social
sickness that pervades the whole culture. They can be killed, but the violence
goes on.
 A reading by John D. Niles sees the poem permeated with the Christian values that
Tolkien found only on its margins.
1. This reading sees the poem’s concern as that of community, which accounts for
the emphasis on feasts, ceremonial speeches, and gift exchanges—the values
for which Beowulf fights.
2. The poem opens with an account of how a thriving community is founded, and
it ends with an account of how one is destroyed: Beowulf’s tribe will fall
because his people did not support him in his fight with the dragon.

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3. The digressions are about the ways anger, pride, self-will, or the breaking of
oaths can destroy a society. The monsters are symbols for these dangers; they
live outside the community and are without language, ceremony, or gift
exchange.
4. Beowulf comes to the Danish court to help Hrothgar because of a reciprocal
network of obligations; in the first two monster fights, the emphasis is on the
celebration of bonds after the fights, not the fights themselves.
5. Wiglaf, who stands beside Beowulf in his last battle with the dragon,
demonstrates that heroism binds communities together and is preserved through
loyalty. Three speeches at the end of the poem confirm these values.
6. For Niles, the poem is not about heroism per se, but about how leaders need to
act if society is to be held together. All gifts are merely loans from God; it is
how gifts are used that matters, and the digressions reiterate this point.
 Beowulf, like all good literature, demonstrates its richness by the number of
different readings it can support.
1. It can be a poem about humankind’s losing battle with the universe.
2. It can be a meditation on the futility of a culture that defines itself in terms of
war.
3. It can be an analysis of the uses and misuses of heroism within the human
community.
IV. Beowulf represents the end of our study of epic heroes and serves as a transition point
for future works.
 We have seen epic heroes who are individualistic, who fight for causes outside
themselves, who dedicate their actions to God or the gods, who fight against other
heroes, and who fight against monsters.
 Although many heroes in later literature borrow traits from the ones we have
studied, we will modify our definitions to discuss the heroism of future characters.
 We will also encounter stories of ordinary people doing ordinary things.
 Over time, we will see that storytelling becomes more artful, sophisticated, and
complicated.
V. A Few more General Notes on Beowulf and its Anonymous Poet:
Beowulf
 is the oldest of the great long poems written in English.
 is at the very root of the great tree of English language and literature.
 is a work of an anonymous 8th
century Anglian poet who fused Scandinavian history
and pagan mythology with Christian elements.
 is about 3000 (3182) lines. It is about a Scandinavian prince named Beowulf.
 opens with a brief account of some of the great heroes of Norse history and legend,
setting the stage for a narrative that establishes BW place among these men of valor.
 ‘s principal story is divided into three segments, with brief interludes linking them.
 may have been composed more than twelve hundred years ago, in the first half of
eighth century, although some scholars would place it as late as the tenth century.
 ‘s title has been assigned by modern editors, for the manuscripts do not normally
give any indication of title or authorship.

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 was originally composed in the dialect of what was then Mercia, the Midlands of
England today.
 may be the lone survivor of a genre of Old English long epics, but it must have been
a remarkable and difficult work even in its own day.
Beowulf’s Poet
 was reviving the heroic language, style, and pagan world of ancient Germanic oral
poetry, a world that was already remote for his contemporaries and that is stranger
to the modern reader, in many respects, than the epic world of Homer and Virgil.
 imagines such oral performances by having King Hrothgar's court poet recite a
heroic lay at a feast celebrating Beowulf's defeat of Grendel.
 ‘s elliptical references to quasi-historical and legendary material show his audience
was still familiar with many old stories, the outlines of which we can only infer,
sometimes with the help of later analogous tales in other Germanic languages.
 is now widely believed to have been a Christian and that his poem reflects well-
established Christian tradition.
 ‘s elegiac tone may be informed by something more than the duty to “praise a prince
whom he holds dear / and cherish his memory when that moment comes / when he
has to be convoyed from his bodily home”
VI. General Analysis
 References to the New Testament are notably absent, but Hrothgar and Beowulf
often speak of God as though their religion is monotheistic.
 Although Hrothgar and Beowulf are portrayed as morally upright and enlightened
pagans, they fully espouse and frequently affirm the values of Germanic heroic
poetry.
 The relationship between kinsmen was also of deep significance to this society. If
one of his kinsmen had been slain, a man had a moral obligation either to kill the
slayer or to exact the payment of wergild (man-price) in compensation.
 The failure to take revenge or to exact compensation was considered shameful.
 The young Beowulf's attempt to comfort the bereaved old king by invoking the code
of vengeance may be one of several instances of the poet's ironic treatment of the
tragic futility of the never-ending blood feuds.
 In the first major episode, the young Beowulf, a noble from Geatland (southern
Sweden), leads a party of his countrymen to Denmark. His intent is to rescue the
Danish King Hrothgar and his household from a fierce monster, Grendel. This
demon has been terrorizing the population in series of nightly visits to Heorot,
Hrothgar’s palace, dismembering and devouring warriors in the king’s service.
 Beowulf is going to achieve this glory in order to be remembered throughout the
time because this world is the real world in pagan ideology.
 In Beowulf:
 Lord (Hero-King) vs. Thanes (Retainers)
 The characters, and its original audience, wanted glory, the immortality of good
fame, to remain alive human memory across time and space.

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 Glory is usually connected with heroism in battle or with generosity.
 Treasure was the outwards manifestation of glory.
 Such visible wealth advertised a warrior’s worth and a people’s strength.
 There are Pagan qualities such as bloodlust, war, vengeance instead of kindness
(which is a Christian quality).

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“Great Authors of the Western Literary Tradition: Beowulf”
Lectured by Professor Elizabeth Vandiver
Dr. Elizabeth Vandiver is Professor of Classics and Clement Biddle Penrose Professor of Latin
at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. She was formerly Director of the Honors
Humanities program at the University of Maryland at College Park, where she also taught in
the Department of Classics. She completed her undergraduate work at Shimer College and
went on to earn her M.A. and Ph.D. from The University of Texas at Austin. Prior to taking her
position at Maryland, she held visiting professorships at Northwestern University, the University
of Georgia, the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome, Loyola University of New
Orleans, and Utah State University. In 1998, The American Philological Association recognized
her achievements as a lecturer with its Excellence in Teaching Award, the most prestigious
teaching prize given to American classicists. In 2013 she received Whitman College's G.
Thomas Edwards Award for Excellence in Teaching and Scholarship. Her other awards include
the Northwestern University Department of Classics Excellence in Teaching Award and two
University of Georgia Outstanding Honors Professor Awards. Professor Vandiver is the author
of Stand in the Trench, Achilles: Classical Receptions in British Poetry of the Great War and
Heroes in Herodotus: The Interaction of Myth and History. She has also written numerous
articles and has delivered many papers at national and international conferences.
Scope: After some preliminary reflections on the aims of the lecturer and the larger subject of
this set of lecture, we shall turn to Beowulf, a heroic poem of 3,182 lines in vigorous Old
English, a gem without a setting. We do not know who wrote the poem, when it was written,
or who its intended audience was. The poem is pleasingly complex. On the one hand, it is full
of heroism, courage, duty, and honor. On the other hand, it is no less full of foreboding, doom,
transience, and betrayal. Some see the poem as essentially an oral composition comprised of
many earlier tales. Others see it as the product of a literate environment. Some feel that its
structure is immature and incoherent, while others think that its allusive quality is a mark of
sophistication. To some readers, Beowulf provides privileged access to the pagan world of the
northern Germans, while other readers detect in the poem a consistent application of themes of
Christian morality. Since its rediscovery in the 16th century, Beowulf has puzzled and delighted
its readers.
Outline
I. This set of lectures will be delivered by a historian who has taught medieval studies for
more than 30 years and who directs the oldest center for medieval studies in the United
States.
 Literary theory and criticism will not be neglected in these lectures, but historical
context will be emphasized.

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 In any case, before the fairly recent past, historical context and literary antecedents
were as important as critical theory in attempts to understand particular works and
authors.
II. We may begin our explorations with a paradox: The Middle Ages produced a rich and
vast array of literary creations, but “medieval literature” did not exist.
 First of all, medieval people did not know that they were medieval.
1. Only in the 14th century did some thinkers begin to identify themselves closely
with the culture of Greek and Roman antiquity and to disdain the millennium
that separated them from the ancients.
2. One consequence of the reflections of such scholars was the tripartite division
of Western civilization into ancient, medieval, and modern.
3. The Middle Ages—the times in the middle between antiquity and the
moderns— (note the curious plural) were not named explicitly until the 17th
century.
4. The notion that people of the 14th century held of themselves and their world
tells us a lot about them but little about the world they dismissed.
5. For our purposes in these lectures, the term medieval is nothing more than a
convenient frame of reference.
 Second, however we understand the term medieval, it forces us to think about
approximately 1,000 years of history and culture. One should be wary of making
bold generalizations about so much time.
 Third, Europe is a big, complex place. This is true today and it was no less true in
the Middle Ages. One should be wary about generalizing about something that is
allegedly “European.”
 Fourth, literature itself is an elusive term.
1. We shall consider works in prose and in verse; works in English, French,
German, Italian, and Spanish; works purportedly historical and works wholly
imaginary.
2. A medieval motto held that “clericus, id est litteratus” (“a cleric, that is to say,
a literate man”), but we shall consider in detail only a few works written in
Latin, yet we shall certainly be dealing with literate people.
III. Medieval European literature did not emerge entire and pristine at some point in the so-
called Middle Ages. This literature rested on several foundations.
 Particularly in the earlier centuries of the Middle Ages, a vast stock of native stories
and traditions exercised the imaginations and literary gifts of many writers.
 The literatures of Greece and Rome—but especially the latter as Greek was rarely
known—were always models of both story motifs and formal structures.
 The Bible, finally, was a source book of unalterable divine truths, of popular stories,
and of literary forms.
 One theme we shall have to track closely is the use that various medieval writers
made of the sources that were at their disposal.
IV. In order to assess, understand, and enter into medieval European literature, we must
take three crucial steps.
 First, we must clear our minds.
1. We must not assume that medieval people are “just like us.” We are almost better off
imagining ourselves on another planet as we attempt to think about the Middle Ages.
2. We must avoid appeals to dubious concepts, such as “human nature.”

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 Second, we must try to grasp some fundamental aspects of medieval life and culture.
1. Medieval society was based on ideas of rank, hierarchy, and order that seem
alien to our modern, egalitarian values.
2. Christianity was pervasive in medieval culture in ways that seem odd in our
modern, secular world.
3. Theology was “the queen of the sciences,” yet in our times, it seems neither
prominent nor scientific.
 Third, we must acknowledge some of the changes and forces that have made our
world different from that of the Middle Ages.
1. Romanticism created a Middle Ages that never existed as a way of critiquing
the emergence of mass, democratic, urban, industrial society.
2. Darwin, Marx, and Freud—whether one agrees with them particularly or not—
have together dramatically changed our basic views about human character,
behavior, and motivation.
3. Modern science and technology have fundamentally altered the ways we
explain things and where we look for explanations.
V. We start with Beowulf and the beginnings of literature in the British Isles.
 Beowulf is the longest poem surviving from Anglo-Saxon England, but it is by no
means the only work in Old English.
1. Old English is what we call the language of the Angles and Saxons who settled
between 400 and 600 in what later became England.
2. Angles and Saxons came from what is now Denmark and northern Germany
(Saxony).
3. The language is Germanic and closely related to Old Saxon, Old High German, and
Old Dutch.
 Before Old English began being written down, there was Celtic literature in Old
Irish and Old Welsh in the British Isles.
 Together, these Celtic and Old English materials are Europe’s oldest surviving
vernacular literatures.
VI. Beowulf is a deeply enigmatic work.
 We have no idea who wrote it.
 We have only educated guesses as to when it was written.
 It is remarkable that it survives at all.
1. The poem survives in a single manuscript written about 1000.
2. The surviving manuscript was apparently rediscovered by Laurence Nowell in
about 1563.
3. Robert Cotton owned the manuscript in the 17th century, and his library was
severely damaged in a fire in 1731.
4. Scholars have had to reconstruct many aspects of the poem, adding to the
problems we face in understanding it.
VII. Beowulf is a vigorous, fast-paced poem of 3,182 lines. Yale’s Fred Robinson called it
“the chief glory of early Germanic poetry.”
 The poet clearly works with a variety of familiar tales and people, although Beowulf
himself never appears in any other known work.
 The poet could count on a high degree of familiarity on the part of his
readers/listeners. He was dealing with their ancestors and the ancestral world from
which they had come.

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 The basic story may be quickly summarized.
1. Hrothgar, the wise and just king of the Danes, has been ruling well and happily,
celebrating in his magnificent hall, Heorot.
2. A fierce beast, Grendel—the misbegotten offspring of Cain—becomes jealous
of Hrothgar’s merriment and savagely attacks his hall, killing many retainers.
3. Young Beowulf hears of Hrothgar’s plight and, partly to win fame and partly to
acquit an old family debt, travels to Hrothgar’s kingdom to help.
4. Beowulf fights Grendel and wrenches off his arm, but Grendel slinks home to
die in his cave in the mere.
5. Grendel’s mother, who is never named, seeks to avenge her son and wreaks
havoc.
6. Beowulf plunges unto Grendel’s mere and barely manages to defeat Grendel’s
mother.
7. Amidst much celebration, Hrothgar gives Beowulf both his eternal thanks and
boundless treasure.
8. Beowulf, a Geat, returns home, ostensibly to what is now southern Sweden;
recounts his deeds; and gives his treasure to his own king, Hygelac, who endows
Beowulf with, in effect, a sub-kingdom.
9. Eventually, Beowulf succeeds as king and, after 50 years of just rule, sets out to
fight a dragon that has been harrowing his kingdom.
10. Beowulf’s retainers abandon him, but his kinsman Wiglaf helps him to defeat
the dragon, which mortally wounds Beowulf in the fight.
11. Although the poet jumps from the fight with Grendel’s mother to the battle with
the dragon, he introduces many flashbacks to fill in the “history “of the
intervening 50 years. These flashbacks, each one a story of war and betrayal,
generally reveal the fulfillment of various prophecies uttered by characters in
the poem.
 The story is not, therefore, a straightforward narrative but nevertheless has
coherence and closure.
VIII. How do we understand the poem?
 We may look at stylistic devices the poet uses.
1. The poem is constructed in half-lines with consonantal alliteration, as can be
seen in its opening lines:
Hwæt, we gardena In geardagum
þeodcyninga þrym gefrunon
Hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.
(Listen! We have heard of the glory of the Spear-Danes’ kings in the old days, how the
nobles of that people did great deeds.)
2. The poet introduces an “authenticating voice” (“I have heard,” “I learned,”
“They say”) to distance himself from the people in the story (and from his
readers/listeners?).
3. The poem is full of interweaving and recapitulation; for example, Beowulf has
three verbal combats (with a shore-guard, with a sentry, and with Unferth, a
retainer of Hrothgar’s) and three physical battles with beasts.
 We may examine its themes.

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1. Is it Christian or pagan? Why does this matter?
2. Is the poem primitive or sophisticated?
3. Is the poem ironic?
4. What is the point of the poem’s stress on doom, foreboding, and death?
5. Does the poet admire Beowulf?

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“Synopsis and an In-depth Textual Analysis”
All quotations are from Howell D. Chickering Jr.’s 1977 prose translation of Beowulf.
Howell D. Chickering, Jr., is the G. Armour Craig Professor of Language and Literature at
Amherst College. His critical essays, chiefly on medieval English poetry, have appeared in such
journals as The Chaucer Review, Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Journal of
Medieval and Renaissance Studies, The Kenyon Review, Philological Quarterly, PMLA,
Speculum, and Viator.
Beowulf, the longest Anglo-Saxon poem in existence, is a deceptively simple tale about the
adventures of a sixth-century Germanic hero who fights three monsters in what is now
Denmark and Sweden. Beneath this straightforward and, to a modern reader, somewhat
simplistic plot, however, lies a highly structured work filled with historical and legendary
allusions that subtly parallel, contrast, and foreshadow the poem’s action.
The work begins with the funeral of a great king, Scyld Scefing, the legendary founder of the
Danish royal dynasty (lines 1–63). (It will end with the funeral of another great king—Beowulf,
the poem’s protagonist.) According to legend, Scyld was found alone in a boat laden with
treasure when he was a child. Upon his death the Danes honor him by placing his body in
another treasure ship and putting the ship out to sea.
Scyld Scefing’s subjects begin to call themselves the Scyldings and are well ruled by his son
Beowulf (usually referred to as Beow to differentiate him from the hero of the poem). Beow,
in turn, is succeeded by his son Healfdene, who has four children: Heorogar, Hrothgar, Halga,
and a daughter whose name has been lost but who married Onela, a Swedish (or in AngloSaxon
terms, Scylfing) king.
Of these children, Hrothgar is especially successful in battle and becomes ruler of the Scyldings
after Heorogar is killed (lines 64–85). Rulers at this time relied on the allegiance of warrior-
retainers called thanes. Their relationship was embodied in the heroic code, which required of
the thane unbounded courage in battle and absolute loyalty to the ruler. In exchange, a ruler
was expected to protect and provide for his thanes (who, after all, could not support themselves
if they were constantly away fighting). A ruler was supposed to share generously the wealth
taken in conquest, giving lavish gifts to his thanes in reward for their services. In addition, he
provided them with a mead hall—a place to live, with food, drink, and nightly entertainment.
The elderly Hrothgar is a good ruler and builds the largest and most lavish mead hall ever seen,
calling it Heorot. Although the poet alludes to Heorot’s later destruction during a war—the
result of “the sharp-edged hate of [Hrothgar’s] sworn son-in-law”—at this point it is a
welcoming place where the king holds feasts and hands out treasure. Beowulf abounds with

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similar allusions to future sorrows embedded in a joyful present. These references to grim
events to come, which the poet’s original audience would readily recognize, serve one of the
poem’s primary themes: the vicissitudes of life and the impermanence of all human endeavors.
The noise and merriment of the festivities, particularly the song of a scop, or bard, praising
God, proves a torment to one creature—Grendel, a powerful and evil monster who lives as an
outcast on the nearby moors (lines 86–193). Grendel, the poem explains, is a descendant of the
biblical character Cain, who killed his brother Abel and was cursed by God. All malevolent
monsters are Cain’s descendants; like Cain, they strive against God but ultimately in vain.
Enraged by the happy sounds coming from Heorot, Grendel waits for night to fall. Then he
creeps into Heorot, seizes thirty sleeping thanes, and takes “his slaughtered feast of men to his
lair.” The next night, Grendel attacks again, until the frightened thanes abandon Heorot and
sleep elsewhere.
For twelve years, Grendel terrorizes Heorot. Hrothgar is distraught at the deaths of his thanes,
but the monster seems unappeasable. Although the Scyldings use Heorot during the day, at
night Grendel takes up residence in the hall. Hrothgar and his men appeal to their heathen
gods—a practice that Beowulf’s Christian author heartily condemns as ignorance of “God . . .
our protector above, / the King of Glory”—but the “night-evil” continues.
Word of Grendel eventually reaches Beowulf, a thane of the Geat king Hygelac (lines 194–
370). Strictly speaking, Grendel is no concern of the Geats, a group occupying what is today
southern Sweden. But by risking his life in a dangerous battle, Beowulf can win honor
(symbolized by the gold he could expect to be given by Hrothgar) and fame—which, it was
believed, was the only thing that endured beyond this ephemeral life. Beowulf resolves to
destroy the monster and, gathering fourteen fellow warriors, sets off by ship for Denmark. The
ship is spotted by a Scylding watchman, who hurries down to the shore to find out who the
approaching warriors are. Impressed by Beowulf’s strong appearance and his explanation of
why he and his men have come, the guard agrees to conduct the Geats to Heorot.
The well-armed Geats enter the mead hall and sit down on one of the hall’s many benches.
They excite considerable curiosity, and Hrothgar’s herald, Wulfgar, asks them who they are.
Beowulf tells him and asks to speak to Hrothgar. Wulfgar, also impressed by Beowulf’s
appearance, encourages his king to speak to them.
Hrothgar, it is determined, knew Beowulf’s father, Ecgtheow, and has heard that Beowulf has
“the strength of thirty [men] / in his mighty hand-grip.” Hrothgar believes that God, “in the
fullness of mercy,” has sent Beowulf to deliver them from Grendel (lines 371–490). Although
the author has revealed that these characters are not Christian, their religion—despite their
earlier appeal to heathen gods—resembles the monotheism of the Old Testament Jews (rather
than the actual religious beliefs of sixth-century Scandinavians).
Hrothgar agrees to speak with the Geats, and Beowulf introduces himself, reveals his mission,
and gives an account of his previous exploits, including vanquishing a family of giants and
slaughtering sea serpents. Asking Hrothgar’s permission to fight Grendel, Beowulf says that,
like the monster, he will forsake weapons and use only his bare hands. Expressing a decided
fatalism, he declares, “Whoever death takes / will have to trust in the judgment of God.” All
he asks is that Hrothgar send his “war-shirt” to his king, Hygelac, should Grendel triumph. In
agreeing to let Beowulf fight the monster, Hrothgar reveals that he harbored Beowulf’s father

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after Ecgtheow had “struck up a mighty feud / . . . among the Wylfings” by killing a warrior
named Heatholaf, and that Ecgtheow had sworn allegiance to him. Among Germanic
warriors—as the poem’s numerous accounts of blood feuds make clear—vengeance for the
killing of a lord or kinsman was a moral imperative. Thus feuds created even more feuds, and
a warrior without the protection of a lord was extremely vulnerable to acts of retribution.
The Geats and Scyldings sit down to feast before night falls (lines 491–606). A jealous
Scylding, Unferth, “who would not grant that any other man / under the heavens might ever
care more / for famous deeds than he himself,” tries to shame Beowulf. He asks if Beowulf is
the same warrior who once lost a seven-day swimming match to a man named Breca and
declares that he expects similar failure if Beowulf challenges Grendel. Beowulf reveals that he
and Breca did engage in a swimming match—in full armor, no less—but he did not lose.
Rather, after five days at sea, Beowulf was attacked by sea monsters. He slaughtered all nine
and came to shore in Finland—quite a swim from Sweden. Beowulf then chastises Unferth,
declaring, “I never have heard / such struggle, sword-terror, told about you.” He goes on to
recriminate Unferth—and his fellow Scylding warriors—for their lack of courage and ferocity,
which has brought shame to them and made Grendel’s reign of terror possible:
“I’ll tell you a truth . . . :
never would Grendel have done so much harm,
the awesome monster, against your own leader,
shameful in Heorot, if heart and intention,
your great battle-spirit, were sharp as your words.
But he has discovered he need not dread
too great a feud, fierce rush of swords,
not from your people, the ‘Victory-Scyldings.’”
Tonight, Beowulf declares, he will show the monster “the courage and strength / of the Geats
in combat.”
The Scyldings are heartened by Beowulf’s resolve (lines 607–709). Hrothgar’s queen,
Wealhtheow, comes forward and offers the mead cup to all the warriors, including Beowulf.
Evening comes, and the Scyldings retire, leaving the Geats in the hall to face Grendel. Beowulf
strips himself of his armor and weapons, and his retainers go to sleep fully expecting to be
killed in the night. But God, the poet asserts, has granted the Geats “comfort and help, / a
weaving of war-luck.”
Grendel glides into the hall, hoping to find a straggler or two (lines 710–836). Seeing a host of
men, he exults in his luck, expecting to make a meal of them. Beowulf is quietly watching
Grendel when the monster seizes and devours a nearby Geat. Grendel then reaches for Beowulf,
who grabs the monster’s arm in his mighty grip. Grendel quickly realizes that he is in trouble
and attempts to escape, but the two engage in a tremendous fight that, the poem asserts, would
have knocked down a lesser hall.
Beowulf’s men try to hack the monster with their swords, but Grendel is charmed against “all
weapons of battle.” Grendel cannot shake Beowulf’s grasp, however, and Beowulf rips off the
monster’s arm at the shoulder. Mortally wounded, Grendel flees Heorot, never to return.
Beowulf is left with the greater glory—and Grendel’s arm, complete from the shoulder to the
clawlike fingers.

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Morning comes, and the Scyldings are ecstatic to find that Grendel has been vanquished (lines
837–924). Some Scylding warriors follow the tracks of the wounded monster, who has returned
to his den under a lake in the moors. Then they ride back to Heorot, speaking of Beowulf’s
tremendous deed. Along the way, a scop composes a poem celebrating Beowulf’s victory, thus
assuring that word of the hero’s deeds will survive him. The scop goes on to tell the stories of
the heroic Sigemund, who slew a dragon, and the tyrannical Heremod, who killed many of his
own subjects before meeting his end. The Scyldings return to Heorot as Hrothgar enters.
Upon seeing Grendel’s arm, Hrothgar thanks God and promises to love Beowulf as a son (lines
925–1062). Beowulf recounts the events of the night before, leaving the Scyldings, especially
Unferth, appropriately impressed. A tremendous feast is held, during which Hrothgar gives
Beowulf and the other Geats horses, armor, and treasure, including “the largest gold collar /
ever heard of on earth.” That gold collar links the present with the future as the poem reveals
that the Geat king Hygelac will be wearing it when he dies in battle “that time he sought trouble,
stirred up a feud, / a fight with the Frisians, in his pride and daring.” The grisly battlefield and
the joyous celebration in the mead hall are juxtaposed to great effect (“. . . warriors rifled the
corpses / after the battle-harvest. Dead Geats / filled the field. Now cheers for Beowulf rose”),
again emphasizing the vicissitudes of men’s fortunes.
During the celebration, a scop tells the tragic tale of a war between the Danes and the Jutes
(lines 1063–1250). The account is especially sad because Hildeburh, the wife of the Jute king
Finn was also the sister of the Danish king Hnaef. (Princesses often served as “peace-
weavers”—they were given in marriage to rulers of other peoples as a way of settling conflicts.)
But when war broke out between the two peoples, Hildeburh’s brother and son fought on
opposing sides, and both were killed. A short peace followed; then the new Danish king,
Hengest, attacked the Jutes, killed Finn, and took Hildeburh back to Denmark.
After the scop has finished the tragic tale of one queen, another Danish queen, Wealhtheow,
speaks of the unity of her people: “Each noble here is true to the other, / every kind heart death-
loyal to lord.” The irony is keen, for as the poet has implied, the treachery of Wealhtheow’s
nephew Hrothulf will eventually tear apart her family just as Hildeburh’s family was destroyed.
The ominous tone is made more explicit as the thanes settle down in Heorot for the night (lines
1251–1299). One will be killed, the poet reports, because Grendel has a mother. As the thanes
sleep, Grendel’s mother comes to Heorot seeking revenge for the death of her son. Although
not as strong or terrible as Grendel, she bursts into the hall and quickly kills a thane, escaping
with his body—and with Grendel’s arm.
Beowulf is spending the night elsewhere, but when morning comes he goes to Hrothgar’s
chambers and hears the bad news (lines 1300–1382). Hrothgar is distraught at the death of his
thane, Aeschere, who was a trusted counselor. But he knows who committed the dastardly act:
a female monster who had often been seen accompanying Grendel as he stalked the moors and
whose lair is known to be under a lake not far from Heorot. Hrothgar offers Beowulf more
treasure if he will go to the lake and kill the monster.
Beowulf agrees (lines 1383–1472). In a speech that succinctly expresses the warrior’s fatalistic
outlook in the pursuit of renown, Beowulf declares,

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“Grieve not, wise king! Better it is for every man to avenge his friend than mourn
overmuch. Each of us must come to the end of his life: let him who may win fame
before death. That is the best memorial for a man after he is gone.”
Hrothgar, Beowulf, and a group of warriors set out for the lake, which is a sinister place in the
middle of a foreboding landscape. When they arrive, they see signs of the previous night’s
carnage: The water is red with blood, and Aeschere’s head is lying nearby. The lake is also
seething with serpents. A Geat bowman kills one with an arrow, and the others haul it ashore
with their spears to reveal its gruesome, monstrous form.
Beowulf is nonetheless undaunted and gathers his armor, including a sword, Hrunting, lent to
him by a repentant Unferth (lines 1473–1590). Beowulf contains many descriptions of famed
swords and their histories. In this warrior culture, a well-made sword was more than a tool—it
was a most prized possession, almost an object of veneration, and was passed down from
generation to generation. Beowulf makes appropriate provisions for his treasure in case of his
death and plunges into the water. Grendel’s mother grabs him and pulls him toward her den, a
cave at the bottom of the lake. Although protected by his armor, he cannot draw his sword and
is beset by serpents. Once in the den, however, and free of the snakeinfested lake, Beowulf
seizes the initiative, striking Grendel’s mother with Hrunting. But the blade does not “bite
through to kill”—the first time, we are told, that “a word could be said against that great
treasure.”
Undaunted by Hrunting’s failure, Beowulf, “battle-furious,” grabs Grendel’s mother by the
shoulder and throws her to the floor. She quickly gets up, knocks him down, and sits on him,
pulling out her knife to finish him off. But her blade cannot penetrate his armor, and Beowulf
gets back onto his feet, at which point, the poet asserts, God decides the struggle in favor of
good. Looking around, Beowulf spots a large ancient sword, “longer and heavier than any other
man / could have carried in the play of war-strokes.” He grabs this “shearer of life-threads,”
draws it, and strikes Grendel’s mother. The sword slices through her neck, killing her. The cave
is then illuminated by a light of mysterious origin, “even as from heaven comes the shining
light / of God’s candle.” Using this light, Beowulf explores the den and finds Grendel’s body,
which he decapitates.
Meanwhile, the warriors standing around the lake see a tremendous amount of blood in the
water and conclude that Beowulf has been killed (lines 1591–1639). The Scyldings return
home, while the Geats maintain a mournful vigil. Beowulf, however, is experiencing even
stranger events below. The blood from the monsters begins to melt the sword “in battle-bloody
icicles” until Beowulf is left with only the jeweled hilt. Taking the hilt and Grendel’s head, he
leaves the den, rises to the surface of the lake, and swims ashore. His men are overjoyed to see
him alive, and they return to Heorot, four of them carrying Grendel’s oversized head on a spear.
At Heorot, Beowulf recounts his adventure and presents Hrothgar with the sword hilt (lines
1640–1884). The king praises Beowulf for his valor but urges him not to become like Heremod,
who began his career as an illustrious warrior and ended it a parsimonious tyrant. In a
sermonlike speech, Hrothgar declares that a hero that God permits to “travel far in delight”—
that is, to enjoy happiness and pleasure for a long time—can easily assume that his good fortune
will last forever. His “portion of arrogance / begins to increase,” and, as he succumbs to the
sins of pride and covetousness, “[h]is future state”—death— “is forgotten, forsworn, and so is
God’s favor.” Hrothgar implores Beowulf to “guard against that awful curse . . . and choose

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the better, eternal gains.” For though his “fame lives now,” “sickness or war . . . or sword’s
swing / thrown spear, or hateful old age” will one day level Beowulf, just as he, Hrothgar, has
been humbled by the twelve years of suffering and sorrow Grendel brought him. After
Hrothgar’s speech, a feast is served, and when night falls, the guests sleep peacefully in Heorot.
The next day Beowulf returns Hrunting to Unferth with thanks and takes his leave of Hrothgar.
The two swear friendship, and Hrothgar gives Beowulf many gifts. With tears running down
his face, the old king clasps Beowulf’s neck and kisses him, expecting “that never again would
they look on each other / as in this brave meeting.” The Geats return to their ship, load their
treasure, and set sail.
They quickly reach their lord’s lands (lines 1885–1962). The poem praises their hall; their king,
Hygelac; and especially their young and generous queen, Hygd, who is compared favorably
with Modthrytho, a fourth-century queen who in her youth had any thane who looked at her
face in the daytime put to death.
Beowulf and his men sit with Hygelac in his hall, and Beowulf recounts his adventures, praising
Hrothgar’s hospitality (lines 1963–2199). Beowulf also discusses the hostilities between
Hrothgar’s Danes and the Heathobards, a people from southern Denmark. Hrothgar is planning
to have his daughter, Freawaru, marry the Heathobard prince Ingeld, in order to ensure peace
between the two peoples. But Beowulf is not convinced that their enmity can be overcome by
such a match. (His caution, as the poem’s original audience would know, is justified. In 520
Ingeld attacked and burned Heorot before being routed by the Danes.)
Beowulf then brings in the treasure he was given by Hrothgar and presents it to Hygelac. In
sharing his booty with his king—as in his conduct on the battlefield and in the mead hall—
Beowulf shows himself to be a paragon of virtue, the poet maintains. He is “ever loyal” to
Hygelac, his lord and kinsman, and generous toward Hygelac’s queen, Hygd, giving her the
gold necklace that Wealhtheow had bestowed on him. He has gained renown in battle but has
“no savage mind”—he never kills “comrades in drink,” reserving for its appropriate use on the
battlefield “the gift / that God [has] given him, the greatest strength / that man ever had.” Yet
in his youth, the poet reveals, Beowulf had shown no signs of future greatness. The Geats “were
convinced he was slow, or lazy, / a coward of a noble.” As a result, “he got little honor, / no
gifts on the mead-bench from the lord of the [Geats].”
Now that he has proved his mettle, however, Beowulf receives ample reward from Hygelac,
who gives him his father’s gold-covered sword—the most prized among the Geats—as well as
land, a hall, and a throne of his own. Beowulf is now a lord.
Several years pass, and Hygelac is killed in battle (lines 2200–2277). His son, Heardred, is also
killed, and the kingdom passes to Beowulf. Beowulf’s rule is a prosperous time that lasts fifty
years, until a fugitive stumbles into a vaulted barrow filled with treasure and—while its
guardian, a dragon, sleeps—makes off with a precious cup.
Under the dragon’s watchful eye, the hoard—the combined wealth of a people destroyed by
war—had been undisturbed for three hundred years (lines 2278–2311). But now, as the fugitive
brings the cup back to his lord as a peace offering, the dragon awakes, sees the intruder’s
footprints, and, checking his treasure, realizes that he has been robbed.

P a g e | 33
Though the dragon (who is not presented as a particularly intelligent creature) has no idea what
the treasure is and certainly cannot use it, the theft angers him. That night he seeks retribution,
burning houses, including Beowulf ’s hall, the “gift-throne of the Geats” (lines 2312–2344).
To Beowulf, this causes “great anguish, pain deep in mind”—in large part because he fears that
it might be divine punishment for some sin he has committed. Though filled “with dark
thoughts strange to his mind,” he promptly readies himself to battle the beast. Realizing that
the traditional wood shield will be of little use against the dragon’s flames, he orders a special
shield of iron made. This will not be enough to save him, for, as the poet reveals, Beowulf is
destined “to reach the end of his sea-faring days, / his life in this world, together with the
serpent.”
As in Beowulf’s younger days, when he singlehandedly fought Grendel and Grendel’s mother,
the old ruler scorns the notion of approaching his enemy “with troops, with a full army”; having
“endured / much violence before, taken great risks / in the smash of battles,” he does not fear
the dragon.
At this point, the poem reflects upon the highlights of Beowulf’s illustrious career before he
became king (lines 2345–2509). After the battle in which Hygelac was killed (which took place
in Frisia, in what is now the Netherlands), Beowulf swam back to southern Sweden, carrying
as trophies the armor of no less than thirty warriors he had slain. He so impressed Hygd that
she offered him the throne over her own son, Heardred. The ever-noble Beowulf turned her
down, however, and supported Heardred “among his people with friendly wisdom, / kept him
in honor, until he grew older, / [and] could rule the Geats.” When a usurper, Onela, seized the
Scylfing throne and exiled the rightful heirs—Eanmund and Eadgils—Heardred gave them
refuge, and Onela attacked his hall and killed Heardred and Eanmund in retaliation. Beowulf
then became the Geat king and supported Eadgils in his successful attempt to retake the
Scylfing throne.
“And so he survived,” the poet says, “every encounter, every awful conflict, / heroic battles,
till that one day / when he had to fight against the worm [dragon].” Having heard how the feud
with the dragon began, Beowulf sets out for the dragon’s lair with eleven retainers, guided
reluctantly by the fugitive who had stolen the cup (lines 2510–2601).
When they reach the lair, Beowulf, his spirit “sad, / restless, death-ripe,” speaks to his men of
events important to his life and to the history of the Geat people. Central to this speech are the
concepts of vengeance and honor. Beowulf recounts the story of how Haethcyn, his uncle,
accidentally killed his own brother Herebeald—an act made all the more horrible because it
could not be avenged, as that would involve murdering a kinsman. Brokenhearted, Hrethel—
who was Haethcyn and Herebeald’s father as well as the king of the Geats—died, and the
Scylfings seized the opportunity to attack the Geats (an event that will presumably happen
again after Beowulf’s death). “My kinsmen and leaders avenged that well,” Beowulf says,
though in the battle Haethcyn, who had assumed the Geat throne, was killed. The next day “the
third brother,” Hygelac, “brought full vengeance / back to the slayer” when Ongentheow, the
Scylfing king, was killed. Beowulf then touches on the exploits he performed in service to
Hygelac, including his slaying of the champion of an enemy people, the Hugas, with his bare
hands. “I wish even now,” he declares, “to seek a quarrel, do a great deed.”
He insists on fighting the dragon alone and commands his men to wait nearby. Although this
demonstrates that Beowulf has not lost his valor or desire for renown, some commentators view

The Anglo-Saxons and Their World

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