Part IV

Appendix

A. A POSTSCRIPT ON MYTHOLOGY IN BEOWULF

(1) Beowulf the Scylding and Beowulf son of Ecgtheow

It is now ten years since Prof. Lawrence attacked the mythological theories which, from the time when they were first enunciated by Kemble and elaborated by Müllenhoff, had wielded an authority over Beowulf scholars which was only very rarely disputed^[523].

Whilst in the main I agree with Prof. Lawrence, I believe that there is an element of truth in the theories of Kemble. It would, indeed, be both astonishing and humiliating if we found that a view, accepted for three-quarters of a century by almost every student, had no foundation. What is really remarkable is, not that Kemble should have carried his mythological theory too far, but that, with the limited information at his disposal, he at once saw certain aspects of the truth so clearly.

The mythological theories involve three propositions:

(a) That some, or all, of the supernatural stories told of Beowulf the Geat, son of Ecgtheow (especially the Grendel-struggle and the dragon-struggle), were originally told of Beowulf the Dane, son of Scyld, who can be identified with the Beow or Beaw^[524] of the genealogies.

(b) That this Beow was an ancient "god of agriculture and fertility."

Now (c) would not necessarily follow, even granting (a) and (b); for though a hero of story be an ancient god, many of his most popular adventures may be later accretion. However, these two propositions (a) and (b) would, together, establish a very strong probability that the Grendel-story and the dragon-story were ancient culture-myths, and would entitle to a sympathetic hearing those who had such an interpretation of them to offer.

That Beow is an ancient "god of agriculture and fertility," I believe to be substantially true. We shall see that a great deal of evidence, unknown to Kemble and Müllenhoff, is now forthcoming to show that there was an ancient belief in a corn-spirit Beow: and this Beow, whom we find in the genealogies as son of Scyld or Sceldwa and descendant of Sceaf, is pretty obviously identical with Beowulf, son of Scyld Scefing, in the Prologue of Beowulf.

So far as the Prologue is concerned, there is, then, almost certainly a remote mythological background. But before we can claim that this background extends to the supernatural adventures attributed to Beowulf, son of Ecgtheow, we must prove our proposition (a): that these adventures were once told, not of Beowulf, son of Ecgtheow, but of Beowulf or Beow, son of Scyld.

When it was first suggested, at the very beginning of Beowulf-criticism, that Beowulf was identical with the Beow of the genealogies, it had not been realized that there were in the poem two persons named Beowulf: and thus an anonymous scholar in the Monthly Review of 1816^[525], not knowing that Beowulf the slayer of Grendel is (at any rate in the poem as it stands) distinct from Beowulf, son of Scyld, connected both with Beow, son of Scyld, so initiating a theory which, for almost a century, was accepted as ascertained fact.

Kemble's identification was probably made independently of the work of this early scholar. Unlike him, Kemble, of course, realized that in our poem Beowulf the Dane, son of Scyld, is a person distinct from, is in fact not related to, Beowulf son of Ecgtheow. But he deliberately identified the two: he thought that two distinct traditions concerning the same hero had been amalgamated: in one of these traditions Beowulf may have been represented as son of Scyld, in the other as son of Ecgtheow, precisely as the hero Gunnar or Gunter is in one tradition son of Gifica (Giuki), in another son of Dankrat.

Of course such duplication as Kemble assumed is conceivable. Kemble might have instanced the way in which one and the same hero reappears in the pages of Saxo Grammaticus, with somewhat different parentage or surroundings, as if he were a quite different person. The Lives of the Two Offas present another parallel: the adventures of the elder Offa have been transferred to the younger, so that, along with much that is historical or semi-historical, we have much in the Life of Offa II that is simply borrowed from the story of Offa I. In the same way it is conceivable that reminiscences of the mythical adventures of the elder Beowulf (Beow) might have been mingled with the history of the acts of the younger Beowulf, king of the Geatas. A guarantee of the intrinsic reasonableness of this theory lies in the fact that recently it has been put forward again by Dr Henry Bradley. But it is not enough that a theory should be conceivable, and be supported by great names. I cannot see that there is any positive evidence for it at all.

The arguments produced by Kemble are not such as to carry conviction at the present day. The fact that Beowulf the Geat, son of Ecgtheow, "is represented throughout as a protecting and redeeming being" does not necessarily mean that we must look for some god or demigod of the old mythology—Frey or Sceaf or Beow—with whom we can identify him. This characteristic is strongly present in many Old English monarchs and magnates of historic, Christian, times: Oswald or Alfred or Byrhtnoth. Indeed, it might with much plausibility be argued that we are to see in this "protecting" character of the hero evidence of Christian rather than of heathen influence^[526].

Nor can we argue anything from the absence of any historic record of a king Beowulf of the Geatas; our records are too scanty to admit of argument from silence: and were such argument valid, it would only prove Beowulf fictitious, not mythological—no more necessarily an ancient god than Tom Jones or Mr Pickwick.

There remains the argument of Dr Bradley. He points out that

"The poem is divided into numbered sections, the length of which was probably determined by the size of the pieces of parchment of which an earlier exemplar consisted. Now the first fifty-two lines, which are concerned with Scyld and his son Beowulf, stand outside this numbering. It may reasonably be inferred that there once existed a written text of the poem that did not include these lines. Their substance, however, is clearly ancient. Many difficulties will be obviated if we may suppose that this passage is the beginning of a different poem, the hero of which was not Beowulf the son of Ecgtheow, but his Danish namesake^[527]."

In this Bradley sees support for the view that "there were circulated in England two rival poetic versions of the story of the encounters with supernatural beings: the one referring them to Beowulf the Dane" [of this the Prologue to our extant poem would be the only surviving portion, whilst] "the other (represented by the existing poem) attached them to the legend of the son of Ecgtheow."

But surely many objections have to be met. Firstly, as Dr Bradley admits, the mention of Beowulf the Dane is not confined to the Prologue; this earlier Beowulf "is mentioned at the beginning of the first numbered section" and consequently Dr Bradley has to suppose that "the opening lines of this section have undergone alteration in order to bring them into connection with the prefixed matter." And why should we assume that the "passus" of Beowulf correspond to pieces of parchment of various sizes of which an earlier exemplar consisted? These "passus" vary in length from 43 lines to 142, a disproportion by no means extraordinary for the sections of one and the same poem, but very awkward for the pages of one and the same book, however roughly constructed. One of the "passus" is just twice the average length, and 30 lines longer than the one which comes next to it in size. Ought we to assume that an artificer would have made his book clumsy by putting in this one disproportionate page, when, by cutting it in two, he could have got two pages of just about the size he wanted? Besides, the different "passus" do not seem to me to show signs of having been caused by such mechanical reasons as the dimensions of the parchment upon which they were written. On the contrary, the 42 places where sections begin and end almost all come where a reader might reasonably be expected to pause: 16 at the beginning or end of a speech: 18 others at a point where the narrative is resumed after some digression or general remark. Only eight remain, and even with these, there is generally some pause in the narrative at the point indicated. In only two instances does a "passus" end at a flagrantly inappropriate spot; in one of these there is strong reason to suppose that the scribe may have caused the trouble by beginning with a capital where he had no business to have done so^[528]. Generally, there seems to be some principle governing the division of chapter from chapter, even though this be not made as a modern would have made it. But, if so, is there anything extraordinary in the first chapter, which deals with events three generations earlier than those of the body of the poem, being allowed to stand outside the numbering, as a kind of prologue?

The idea of a preface or prologue was quite familiar in Old English times. The oldest MSS^[529] of Bede's History have, at the end of the preface, Explicit praefatio incipiunt capitula. So we have in one of the two oldest MSS^[530] of the Pastoral Care "Ðis is seo forespræc." On the other hand, the prologue or preface might be left without any heading or colophon, and the next chapter begin as No. I. This is the case in the other MS of the Pastoral Care^[531]. Is there, then, such difficulty in the dissertation on the glory of the ancient Danish kings being treated as what, in fact, it is: a prologue or preface; and being, as such, simply left outside the numbering?

Still less can we argue for the identification of our hero, the son of Ecgtheow, with Frotho, and through him with Beow, from the supposed resemblances between the dragon fights of Beowulf and Frotho. Such resemblances have been divined by Sievers, but we have seen that it is the dissimilarity, not the resemblance, of the two dragon fights which is really noteworthy^[532].

To prove that Beow was the original antagonist of Grendel there remains, then, only the mention in the charter of a Grendles mere near a Bēowan hamm^[533]. Now this was not known to Kemble at the time when he formed his theory that the original slayer of Grendel was not Beowulf, but Beow. And if the arguments upon which Kemble based his theory had been at all substantial, this charter would have afforded really valuable support. But the fact that two names occur near each other in a charter cannot confirm any theory, unless that theory has already a real basis of its own.

(2) Beow

Therefore, until some further evidence be discovered, we must regard the belief that the Grendel and the dragon stories were originally myths of Beow, as a theory for which sufficient evidence is not forthcoming.

But note where the theory breaks down. It seems indisputable that Beowulf the Dane, son of Scyld Scefing, is identical with Beo(w) of the genealogies: for Beo(w) is son of Scyld^[534] or Sce(a)ldwa^[535], who is a Scefing. But here we must stop. There is, as we have seen, no evidence that the Grendel or dragon adventures were transferred from him to their present hero, Beowulf the Geat, son of Ecgtheow. It would, of course, be quite possible to accept such transference, and still to reject the mythological interpretation of these adventures, just as it would be possible to believe that Gawain was originally a sun-hero, whilst rejecting the interpretation as a sun-myth of any particular adventure which could be proved to have been once told concerning Gawain. But I do not think we need even concede, as Boer^[536] and Chadwick^[537] do, that adventures have been transferred from Beowulf the Dane to Beowulf the Geat. We have seen that there is no evidence for such transference, however intrinsically likely it may be. Till evidence is forthcoming, it is useless to build upon Kemble's conjecture that Beowulf the Scylding sank into Beowulf the Wægmunding^[538].

But it is due to Kemble to remember that, while he only put this forward as a tentative conjecture, what he was certain about was the identity of Beowulf the Scylding with Beow, and the divinity of these figures. And here all the evidence seems to justify him.

"The divinity of the earlier Beówulf," Kemble wrote, "I hold for indisputable.... Beo or Beow is... in all probability a god of agriculture and fertility.... It strengthens this view of the case that he is the grandson of Sceáf, manipulus frumenti, with whom he is perhaps in fact identical^[539]."

Whether or no Beow and Sceaf were ever identical, it is certain that Beow (grain) the descendant of Sceaf (sheaf) suggests a corn-myth, some survival from the ancient worship of a corn-spirit.

Now bēow, 'grain, barley,' corresponds to Old Norse bygg, just as, corresponding to O.E. trīewe, we have O.N. tryggr, or corresponding to O.E. glēaw, O.N. glǫggr. Corresponding to the O.E. proper name Bēow, we might expect an O.N. name, the first letters in which would be Bygg(v)-.

And pat he comes, like the catastrophe of the Old Comedy. When Loki strode into the Hall of Ægir, and assailed with clamour and scandal the assembled gods and goddesses, there were present, among the major gods, also Byggvir and his wife Beyla, the servants of Frey, the god of agriculture and fertility. Loki reviles the gods, one after the other: at last he exchanges reproaches with Frey. To see his lord so taunted is more than Byggvir can endure, and he turns to Loki with the words:

Know thou, that were my race such as is that of Ingunar-Frey, and if I had so goodly a seat, finer than marrow would I grind thee, thou crow of ill-omen, and pound thee all to pieces^[540].

Byggvir is evidently no great hero: he draws his ideas from the grinding of the homely hand-mill, with which John Barleycorn has reason to be familiar:

A miller used him worst of all,

For he crushed him between two stones^[541].

Loki, who has addressed by name all the other gods, his acquaintances of old, professes not to know who is this insignificant being: but his reference to the hand-mill shows that in reality he knows quite well:

What is that little creature that I see, fawning and sneaking and snuffling: ever wilt thou be at the ears of Frey, and chattering at the quern^[542].

Byggvir replies with a dignity which reminds us of the traditional characteristics of Sir John Barleycorn, or Allan O'Maut. For:

Uskie-bae ne'er bure the bell

Sae bald as Allan bure himsel^[543].

Byggvir adopts the same comic-heroic pose:

Byggvir am I named, and all gods and men call me hasty; proud am I, by reason that all the children of Odin are drinking ale together^[544].

But any claims Byggvir may make to be a hero are promptly dismissed by Loki:

Hold thou silence, Byggvir, for never canst thou share food justly among men: thou didst hide among the straw of the hall: they could not find thee, when men were fighting^[545].

Now the taunts of Loki, though we must hope for the credit of Asgard that they are false, are never pointless. And such jibes as Loki addresses to Byggvir would be pointless, if applied to one whom we could think of as in any way like our Beowulf. Later, Beyla, wife of Byggvir, speaks, and is silenced with the words "Hold thy peace—wife thou art of Byggvir." Byggvir must have been a recognized figure of the old mythology^[546], but one differing from the monster-slaying Beow of Müllenhoff's imagination.

Byggvir is a little creature (et lítla), and we have seen above^[547] that Scandinavian scholars have thought that they have discovered this old god in the Pekko who "promoted the growth of barley" among the Finns in the sixteenth century, and who is still worshipped among the Esthonians on the opposite side of the gulf as a three year old child; the form Pekko being derived, it is supposed, from the primitive Norse form *Beggwuz. This is a corner of a very big subject: the discovery, among the Lapps and Finns, of traces of the heathendom of the most ancient Teutonic world, just as Thomsen has taught us to find in the Finnish language traces of Teutonic words in their most antique form.

The Lappish field has proved the most successful hunting ground^[548]: among the Finns, apart from the Thunder-god, connection with Norse beliefs is arguable mainly for a group of gods of fruitfulness^[549]. The cult of these, it is suggested, comes from scattered Scandinavian settlers in Finland, among whom the Finns dwelt, and from whom they learnt the worship of the spirits of the seed and of the spring, just as they learnt more practical lessons. First and foremost among these stands Pekko, whom we know to have been especially the god of barley, and whose connection with Beow or Byggvir (*Beggwuz) is therefore a likely hypothesis enough^[550]. Much less certain is the connection of Sämpsä, the spirit of vegetation, with any Germanic prototype; he may have been a god of the rush-grass^[551] (Germ. simse). Runkoteivas or Rukotivo was certainly the god of rye, and the temptation to derive his name from Old Norse (rugr-tivorr, "rye-god") is great^[552]. But we have not evidence for the worship among Germanic peoples of such a rye-god, as we have in the case of the barley-god Byggvir-Beow. These shadowy heathen gods, however, do give each other a certain measure of mutual support.

And, whether or no Pekko be the same as Byggvir, his worship is interesting as showing how the spirit of vegetation may be honoured among primitive folk. His worshippers, the Setukese, although nominally members of the Greek Orthodox Church, speak their own dialect and often hardly understand that of their Russian priests, but keep their old epic and lyric traditions more than almost any other section of the Finnish-Esthonian race. Pekko, who was honoured among the Finns in the sixteenth century for "promoting the growth of barley," survives among the present-day peasantry around Pskoff, not only as a spirit to be worshipped, but as an actual idol, fashioned out of wax in the form of a child, sometimes of a three year old child. He lives in the corn-bin, but on certain occasions is carried out into the fields. Not everyone can afford the amount of wax necessary for a Pekko—in fact there is usually only one in a village: he lodges in turn with different members of his circle of worshippers. He holds two moveable feasts, on moonlight nights—one in spring, the other in autumn. The wax figure is brought into a lighted room draped in a sheet, there is feasting, with dancing hand in hand, and singing round Pekko. Then they go out to decide who shall keep Pekko for the next year—his host is entitled to special blessing and protection. Pekko is carried out into the field, especially to preside over the sowing^[553].

I doubt whether, in spite of the high authorities which support it, we can as yet feel at all certain about the identification of Beow and Pekko. But I think we can accept with fair certainty the identification of Beow and Byggvir. And we can at any rate use Pekko as a collateral example of the way in which a grain-spirit is regarded. Now in either case we find no support whatever for the supposition that the activities of Beow, the spirit of the barley, could, or would, have been typified under the guise of battles such as those which Beowulf the Geat wages against Grendel, Grendel's mother, and the dragon. In Beowulf the Geat we find much that suggests the hero of folk-tale, overlaid with much that belongs to him as the hero of an heroic poem, but nothing suggestive of a corn-myth. On the other hand, so long as we confine ourselves to Beow and his ancestor Sceaf, we are in touch with this type of myth, however remotely. The way that Sceaf comes over the sea, as recorded by William of Malmesbury, is characteristic. That "Sheaf" should be, in the language of Müllenhoff, "placed in a boat and committed to the winds and waves in the hope that he will return new-born in the spring" is exactly what we might expect, from the analogy of harvest customs and myths of the coming of spring.

In Sætersdale, in Norway, when the ice broke up in the spring, and was driven ashore, the inhabitants used to welcome it by throwing their hats into the air, and shouting "Welcome, Corn-boat." It was a good omen if the "Corn-boats" were driven high and dry up on the land^[554]. The floating of the sheaf on a shield down the Thames at Abingdon^[555] reminds us of the Bulgarian custom, in accordance with which the venerated last sheaf of the harvest was floated down the river^[556]. But every neighbourhood is not provided with convenient rivers, and in many places the last sheaf is merely drenched with water. This is an essential part of the custom of "crying the neck."

The precise ritual of "crying the neck" or "crying the mare" was confined to the west and south-west of England^[557]. But there is no such local limitation about the custom of drenching the last sheaf, or its bearers and escort, with water. This has been recorded, among other places, at Hitchin in Hertfordshire^[558], in Cambridgeshire^[559], Nottinghamshire^[560], Pembrokeshire^[561], Wigtownshire^[562] as well as in Holstein^[563], Westphalia^[564], Prussia^[565], Galicia^[566], Saxon Transsylvania^[567], Roumania^[568] and perhaps in ancient Phrygia^[569].

Now it is true that drenching the last sheaf with water, as a rain charm, is by no means the same thing as floating it down the river, in the expectation that it will come again in the spring. But it shows the same sense of the continued existence of the corn-spirit. That the seed, when sown, should be sprinkled with water as a rain charm (as is done in places) seems obvious and natural enough. But when the last sheaf of the preceding harvest is thus sprinkled, to ensure plenteous rain upon the crops of next year, we detect the same idea of continuity which we find expressed when Sceaf comes to land from over the sea: the spirit embodied in the sheaf of last year's harvest returning, and bringing the renewed power of vegetation.

The voyage of the Abingdonian sheaf on the Thames was conducted upon a shield, and it may be that the "vessel without a rower" in which "Sheaf" came to land was, in the original version, a shield. There would be precedent for this. The shield was known by the puzzling name of "Ull's ship" in Scaldic poetry, presumably because the god Ull used his shield as a boat. Anyway, Scyld came to be closely connected with Sceaf and Beow. In Ethelwerd he is son of the former and father of the latter: but in the Chronicle genealogies five names intervene between Scyld and Sceaf, and the son of Sceaf is Bedwig, or as he is called in one version, Beowi. Bedwig and Beowi are probably derived from Beowius, the Latinized form of Beow. A badly formed o might easily be mistaken for a d, and indeed Beowius appears in forms much more corrupt. In that case it would appear that while some genealogies made Beow the son of Scyld, others made him son of Sceaf, and that the compiler of the pedigree got over the difficulty in the usual way, by adding the one version to the other^[570].

But all this is very hypothetical; and how and when Scyld came to be connected with Sceaf and with Beow we cannot with any certainty say. At any rate we find no trace of such connection in Danish traditions of the primitive King Skjold of the Danes. But we can say, with some certainty, that in Beowulf the Dane, the son of Scyld Scefing, in our poem, we have a figure which is identical with Beow, son of Scyld or of Sceldwa and descendant of Sceaf, in the genealogies, and that this Beow is likely to have been an ancient corn-spirit, parallel to the Scandinavian Byggvir. That amount of mythology probably does underlie the Prologue to Beowulf, though the author would no doubt have been highly scandalized had he suspected that his pattern of a young prince was only a disguised heathen god. But I think that any further attempt to proceed, from this, to mythologize the deeds of Beowulf the Great, is pure conjecture, and probably quite fruitless conjecture.

I ought not to conclude this note without reference to the admirable discussion of this subject by Prof. Björkman in Englische Studien^[571]. This, with the elucidation of other proper names in Beowulf, was destined to be the last big contribution to knowledge made by that ripe and good scholar, whose premature loss we all deplore; and it shows to the full those qualities of wide knowledge and balanced judgment which we have all learnt to admire in him.

B. GRENDEL

It may be helpful to examine the places where the name of Grendel occurs in English charters.

A.D. 708. Grant of land at Abbots Morton, near Alcester, co. Worcester, by Kenred, King of the Mercians, to Evesham (extant in a late copy).

Ǣrest of grindeles pytt on wīðimære; of wīðimære on þæt rēade slōh... of ðēre dīce on þene blace pōl; of þām pōle æfter long pidele in tō þām mersce; of þām mersce þā æft on grindeles pytt^[572].

The valley of the Piddle Brook is about a mile wide, with hills rising on each side till they reach a height of a couple of hundred feet above the brook. The directions begin in the valley and run "From Grindel's 'pytt' to the willow-mere; from the willow-mere to the red morass"; then from the morass the directions take us up the hill and along the lea, where they continue among the downs till we again make our descent into the valley, "from the ditch to the black pool, from the pool along the Piddle brook to the marsh, and from the marsh back to Grindel's 'pytt.'" In modern English a "pit" is an artificial hole which is generally dry: but the word is simply Latin puteus, "a well," and is used in this sense in the Gospel translations. Here it is a hole, and we may be sure that, with the willow-mere and the red slough on the one side, and the black pool and the marsh on the other, the hole was full of water.

A.D. 739. Grant of land at Creedy, co. Devon, by Æthelheard, King of Wessex, to Bishop Forthhere.

of doddan hrycge on grendeles pyt; of grendeles pytte on ifigbearo (ivy-grove)...^[573].

The spot is near the junction of the rivers Exe and Creedy, with Dartmoor in the distance. The neighbourhood bears uncanny names, Cāines æcer, egesan trēow. If, as has been suggested by Napier and Stevenson, a trace of this pit still survives in the name Pitt farm, the mere must have been in the uplands, about 600 feet above sea level.

A.D. 931. Grant of land at Ham in Wiltshire by Athelstan to his thane Wulfgar. Quoted above, p. 43. It is in this charter that on Bēowan hammes hecgan, on Grendles mere^[574] occur. "Grendel pits or meres" are in most other cases in low-lying marshy country: but this, like (perhaps) the preceding one, is in the uplands—it must have been a lonely mere among the hills, under Inkpen Beacon.

Circa A.D. 957. A list of boundaries near Battersea^[575].

Ðis synd ðā landgemǣre tō Batriceseie. Ǣrst at hēgefre; fram hēgefre to gætenesheale; fram gæteneshæle to gryndeles syllen; fram gryndeles sylle to russemere; fram ryssemere to bælgenham....

All this is low-lying land, just south of the Thames. Hēgefre is on the river; Bælgenham is Balham, co. Surrey. "From Grendel's mire to the rushy mere" harmonizes excellently with what we know of the swampy nature of this district in early times.

A.D. 958. Grant of land at Swinford, on the Stour, co. Stafford, by King Eadred to his thane Burhelm^[576].

Ondlong bæces wið neoþan eostacote; ondlong dīces in grendels-mere; of grendels-mere in stāncōfan; of stāncōfan ondlong dūne on stiran mere....

A.D. 972. Confirmation of lands to Pershore Abbey (Worcester) by King Edgar^[577].

of Grindles bece swā þæt gemǣre ligð....

A.D. 972. Extract from an account of the descent of lands belonging to Westminster, quoting a grant of King Edgar^[578].

andlang hagan to grendeles gatan æfter kincges mearce innan brægentan....

The property described is near Watling Street, between Edgware, Hendon, and the River Brent. It is a low-lying district almost surrounded by the hills of Hampstead, Highgate, Barnet, Mill Hill, Elstree, Bushey Heath and Harrow. The bottom of the basin thus formed must have been a swamp^[579]. What the "gate" may have been it is difficult to say. A foreign scholar has suggested that it may have been a narrow mountain defile or possibly a cave^[580]: but this suggestion could never have been made by anyone who knew the country. The "gate" is likely to have been a channel connecting two meres—or it might have been a narrow piece of land between them—one of those enge ānpaðas which Grendel and his mother had to tread. Anyway, there is nothing exceptional in this use of "gate" in connection with a water-spirit. Necker, on the Continent, also had his "gates." Thus there is a "Neckersgate Mill" near Brussels, and the name "Neckersgate" used also to be applied to a group of houses near by, surrounded by water^[581].

All the other places clearly point to a water-spirit: two meres, two pits, a mire and a beck: for the most part situated in low-lying country which must in Anglo-Saxon times have been swampy. All this harmonizes excellently with the fenfreoðo of Beowulf (l. 851). Of course it does not in the least follow that these places were named after the Grendel of our poem. It may well be that there was in England a current belief in a creature Grendel, dwelling among the swamps. Von Sydow has compared the Yorkshire belief in Peg Powler, or the Lancashire Jenny Greenteeth. But these aquatic monsters are not exactly parallel; for they abide in the water, and are dangerous only to those who attempt to cross it, or at any rate venture too near the bank^[582], whilst Grendel and even his mother are capable of excursions of some distance from their fastness amid the fens.

Of course the mere-haunting Grendel may have been identified only at a comparatively late date with the spirit who struggles with the hero in the house, and flees below the earth in the folk-tale.

At any rate belief in a Grendel, haunting mere and fen, is clearly demonstrable for England—at any rate for the south and west of England: for of these place-names two belong to the London district, one to Wiltshire, one to Devonshire, two to Worcester and one to Stafford. The place-name Grendele in Yorkshire is too doubtful to be of much help. (Domesday Book, I, 302.) It is the modern village Grindale, four miles N.W. of Bridlington. From it, probably, is derived the surname Grindle, Grindall (Bardsley).

Abroad, the nearest parallel is to be found in Transsylvania, where there is a Grändels môr among the Saxons of the Senndorf district, near Bistritz. The Saxons of Transsylvania are supposed to have emigrated from the neighbourhood of the lower Rhine and the Moselle, and there is a Grindelbach in Luxemburg which may possibly be connected with the marsh demon^[583].

Most of the German names in Grindel- or Grendel- are connected with grendel, "a bar," and therefore do not come into consideration here^[584]: but the Transsylvanian "Grendel's marsh^[585]," anyway, reminds us of the English "Grendel's marsh" or "mere" or "pit." Nevertheless, the local story with which the Transsylvanian swamp is connected—that of a peasant who was ploughing with six oxen and was swallowed up in the earth—is such that it requires considerable ingenuity to see any connection between it and the Beowulf-Grendel-tale^[586].

The Anglo-Saxon place-names may throw some light upon the meaning and etymology of "Grendel^[587]." The name has generally been derived from grindan, "to grind"; either directly^[588], because Grendel grinds the bones of those he devours, or indirectly, in the sense of "tormentor^[589]." Others would connect with O.N. grindill, "storm," and perhaps with M.E. gryndel, "angry^[590]."

It has recently been proposed to connect the word with grund, "bottom": for Grendel lives in the mere-grund or grund-wong and his mother is the grund-wyrgin. Erik Rooth, who proposes this etymology, compares the Icelandic grandi, "a sandbank," and the common Low German dialect word grand, "coarse sand^[591]." This brings us back to the root "to grind," for grand, "sand" is simply the product of the grinding of the waves^[592]. Indeed the same explanation has been given of the word "ground^[593]."

However this may be, the new etymology differs from the old in giving Grendel a name derived, not from his grinding or tormenting others, but from his dwelling at the bottom of the lake or marsh^[594]. The name would have a parallel in the Modern English grindle, grundel, German grundel^[595], a fish haunting the bottom of the water.

The Old English place-names, associating Grendel as they do with meres and swamps, seem rather to support this.

As to the Devonshire stream Grendel (now the Grindle or Greendale Brook), it has been suggested that this name is also connected with the root grand, "gravel," "sand." But, so far as I have been able to observe, there is no particular suggestion of sand or gravel about this modest little brook. If we follow the River Clyst from the point where the Grindle flows into it, through two miles of marshy land, to the estuary of the Exe, we shall there find plenty. But it is clear from the charter of 963 that the name was then, as now, restricted to the small brook. I cannot tell why the stream should bear the name, or what, if any, is the connection with the monster Grendel. We can only note that the name is again found attached to water, and, near the junction with the Clyst, to marshy ground.

Anyone who will hunt Grendel through the shires, first on the 6-in. ordnance map, and later on foot, will probably have to agree with the Three Jovial Huntsmen

This huntin' doesn't pay,

But we'n powler't up an' down a bit, an' had a rattlin' day.

But, if some conclusions, although scanty, can be drawn from place-names in which the word grendel occurs, nothing can be got from the numerous place-names which have been thought to contain the name Bēow. The clearest of these is the on Bēowan hammes hecgan, which occurs in the Wiltshire charter of 931. But we can learn nothing definite from it: and although there are other instances of strong and weak forms alternating, we cannot even be quite certain that the Beowa here is identical with the Beow of the genealogies^[596].

The other cases, many of which occur in Domesday Book are worthless. Those which point to a weak form may often be derived from the weak noun bēo, "bee": "The Anglo-Saxons set great store by their bees, honey and wax being indispensables to them^[597]."

Bēas brōc, Bēas feld (Bewes feld) occur in charters: but here a connection with bēaw, "horsefly," is possible: for parallels, one has only to consider the long list of places enumerated by Björkman, the names of which are derived from those of beasts, birds, or insects^[598]. And in such a word as Bēolēah, even if the first element be bēow, why may it not be the common noun "barley," and not the name of the hero at all?

No argument can therefore be drawn from such a conjecture as that of Olrik, that Bēas brōc refers to the water into which the last sheaf (representing Beow) was thrown, in accordance with the harvest custom, and in the expectation of the return of the spirit in the coming spring^[599].

C. THE STAGES ABOVE WODEN IN THE WEST-SAXON GENEALOGY

The problems to which this pedigree gives rise are very numerous, and some have been discussed above. There are four which seem to need further discussion.

(I) A "Sceafa" occurs in Widsith as ruling over the Longobards. Of course we cannot be certain that this hero is identical with the Sceaf of the genealogy. Now there is no one in the long list of historic or semi-historic Longobard kings, ruling after the tribe had left Scandinavia, who bears a name at all similar. It seems therefore reasonable to suppose that Sceafa, if he is a genuine Longobard king at all, belongs to the primitive times when the Longobardi or Winnili dwelt in "Scadan," before the historic or semi-historic times with which our extant list deals. And Old English accounts, although making Sceaf an ancestor of the Saxon kings, are unanimous in connecting him with Scani or Scandza.

Some scholars^[600] have seen a serious difficulty in the weak form "Sceafa," as compared with "Sceaf." But we have the exactly parallel cases of Horsa^[601] compared with Hors^[602], and Hrǣdla^[603] compared with Hrǣdel^[604], Hrēðel. Parallel, but not quite so certain, are Sceldwa^[605] and Scyld^[606], Gēata^[607] and Gēat^[608], Bēowa^[609] and Bēaw, Bēo(w)^[610].

I do not think it has ever been doubted that the forms Hors and Horsa, or Hrēðel and Hrǣdla, relate to one and the same person. Prof. Chadwick seems to have little or no doubt as to the identity of Scyld and Sceldwa^[611], or Bēo and Bēowa^[612]. Why then should the identity of Scēaf and Scēafa be denied because one form is strong and the other weak^[613]? We cannot demonstrate the identity of the figure in the genealogies with the figure in Widsith; but little difficulty is occasioned by the weak form.

(II) Secondly, the absence of the name Scēaf from the oldest MS of the Chronicle (the Parker MS, C.C.C.C. 173) has been made the ground for suggesting that when that MS was written (c. 892) Sceaf had not yet been invented (Möller, Volksepos, 43; Symons in Pauls Grdr. (2), III, 645; Napier, as quoted by Clarke, Sidelights, 125). But Sceaf, and the other names which are omitted from the Parker MS, are found in the other MSS of the Chronicle and the allied pedigrees, which are known to be derived independently from one and the same original. Now, unless the names were older than the Parker MS, they could not appear in so many independent transcripts. For, even though these transcripts are individually later, their agreement takes us back to a period earlier than that of the Parker MS itself^[614].

An examination of the different versions of the genealogy, given on pp. 202-3, above, and of the tree showing the connection between them, on p. 315, will, I think, make this clear.

The versions of the pedigree given in the Parker MS of the Chronicle, in Asser and in Textus Roffensis I, all contain the stages Friþuwald and Friþuwulf. Asser and Roff. I are connected by the note about Gēata: but Roff. I is not derived from that text of Asser which has come down to us, as that text has corrupted Fin and Godwulf into one name and has substituted Seth for Scēaf ["Seth, Saxonice Sceaf": Florence of Worcester]. Roff. I is free from both these corruptions.

Ethelwerd is obviously connected with a type of genealogy giving the stages Friþuwald and Friþuwulf, but differs from all the others in giving no stages between Scyld and Scēf.

None of the other versions contain the names Friþuwald and Friþuwulf. They are closely parallel, but fall into groups showing special peculiarities.

MSS Tib. A. VI and Tib. B. I of the Chronicle show only trifling differences of spelling. The MSS belong respectively to about the years 1000 and 1050, and are both derived from an Abingdon original of about 977^[615].

MS Cott. Tib. B. IV is derived from a copy of the Chronicle sent North about 892^[616].

MS Cott. Tib. B. V and Textus Roffensis II are closely connected, but neither is derived from the other. For Roff. II preserves Teþwa and Hwāla, who are lost in Tib. B. V; Tib. B. V preserves Iterman, who is corrupted in Roff. II. Both Tib. B. V and Roff. II carry the pedigree down to Edgar, mentioning his three sons Ēadweard and Ēadmund and Æþelred æðelingas syndon Ēadgāres suna cyninges. The original therefore apparently belongs to some date before 970, when Edmund died (cf. Stevenson's Asser, 158, note).

Common features of MS Cott. Tib. B. V and Roff. II are (1) Eat(a) for Geat(a), (2) the omission of d from Scealdwa, and (3) the expression se Scēf, "this Scef." Features (1) and (3) are copied in the Icelandic pedigrees. Scealdwa is given correctly there, but the Icelandic transcriber could easily have got it from Scealdwaging above. The Icelandic was, then, ultimately derived either from Tib. B. V or from a version so closely connected as not to be worth distinguishing.

Accordingly Cott. Tib. B. V, Textus Roffensis II, Langfeðgatal and Flateyarbók form one group, pointing to an archetype c. 970.

The pedigrees can accordingly be grouped on the system shown on the opposite page^[617].

(III) Prof. Chadwick, in his Origin of the English Nation, draws wide deductions from the fact that the Danes traced the pedigree of their kings back to Skjold, whilst the West-Saxons included Sceldwa (Scyld) in their royal pedigree:

"Since the Angli and the Danes claimed descent from the same ancestor, there can be no doubt that the bond was believed to be one of blood^[618]."

This belief, Prof. Chadwick thinks, went back to exceedingly early times^[619], and he regards it as well-founded:

"It is true that the Angli of Britain seem never to have included themselves among the Danes, but the reason for this may be that the term Dene (Danir) had not come into use as a collective term before the invasion of Britain^[620]."

Doubtless the fact that the name of a Danish king Scyld or Sceldwa is found in a pedigree of West-Saxon kings, as drawn up at a period certainly not later than 892, points to a belief, at that date, in some kind of a connection. But we have still to ask: How close was the connection supposed to be? And how old is the belief?

Firstly as to the closeness of the connection. Finn also occurs in the pedigree—possibly the Frisian king: Sceaf occurs, possibly, though not certainly, a Longobard king. Noah and Adam occur; are we therefore to suppose that the compiler of the Genealogy believed his kings to be of one blood with the Hebrews? Certainly he did: but only remotely, as common descendants of Noah. And the occurrence of Sceldwa and Sceaf and Finn in the genealogies—granting the identity of these heroes with Skjold of the Danes, Sceafa of the Longobards and Finn of the Frisians, might only prove that the genealogist believed in their common (Germanic) race.

Secondly, how old is the belief? The Anglian genealogies (Northumbrian, Mercian and East Anglian), as reproduced in the Historia Brittonum and in the Vespasian MS, form part of what is doubtless, as is said above, the oldest extant English historical document. But in this document there is no mention of Scyld. Indeed, it contains no pedigree of the West-Saxon kings at all. From whatever cause, the West-Saxon genealogy is not extant from so early a date as are the pedigrees of the Northumbrian, Mercian, East Anglian and Kentish kings^[621]. Still, this may well be a mere accident, and I am not prepared to dispute that the pedigree which traces the West-Saxon kings to Woden dates back, like the other genealogies connecting Old English kings with Woden, to primitive and heathen times. Now the West-Saxon pedigree is found in many forms: some which trace the royal house only to Woden, and some which go beyond Woden and contain a list of names by which Woden is connected with Sceaf, and then with Noah and Adam.

(1) The nucleus of the whole pedigree is to be found in the names between Cynric or Cerdic and Woden. These occur in every version. The pedigree in this, its simplest form, is found twice among the entries in the Chronicle which deal with the events of heathen times, under 552 and 597. These names fall into verse:

[Cynrīc Cerdicing], Cerdic Elesing,

Elesa Esling, Esla GiWising,

GiWis Wīging, Wīg Frēawining,

Frēawine Friðugāring, Friðugār Bronding,

Brond Bǣldæging, Bǣldæg Wōdening.

Like the mnemonic lists in Widsith, these lines are probably very old. Their object is clearly to connect the founder of the West-Saxon royal house with Woden. Note, that not only do the names alliterate, but the alliteration is perfect. Every line attains double alliteration in the first half, with one alliterating word only in the second half. The lines must go back to times when lists of royal ancestors, both real and imaginary, had to be arranged in correct verse; times when such things were recorded by memory rather than by writing. They are pre-literary, and were doubtless chanted by retainers of the West-Saxon kings in heathen days.

(2) An expanded form of this genealogy occurs in MSS C.C.C.C. 183 and Cotton Tib. B. V. Woden is here furnished with a father Frealaf. We know nothing of any Frealaf as father of the All-Father in heathen days, though Frealaf is found in this capacity in other genealogies written down in the ages after the conversion. Frealaf breaks the correct alliterative system. In both MSS the pedigree is brought down to King Ine (688-726): both MSS are ultimately, no doubt, derived from a list current in the time of that king, that is to say less than a century after the conversion of Wessex.

(3) A further expansion, which Prof. Napier has held on linguistic grounds^[622] to have been written down as early as 750, is incorporated in a genealogical and chronological note regarding the West-Saxon kings, which is extant in many MSS^[623]. In its present form this genealogical note is a recension, under Alfred, of a document coming down to the death of his father Æthelwulf. It traces the pedigree of Æthelwulf to Cerdic, but it keeps this district from the rhythmical nucleus, in which it traces Cerdic to Woden, and no further.

(4) Then, in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, under the year 855, the pedigree is given in its most elaborate form. There the genealogy of Æthelwulf is traced in one unbroken series, not merely through Cerdic to Woden, but from Woden through a long line of Woden's ancestors, including Frealaf, Geat, Sceldwa and Sceaf, to Noah and Adam.

It has been noted above^[624] that none of the Chronicle pedigrees stop at Sceaf. The Chronicle, in the stages above Woden, recognizes as stopping places only Geat (Northumbrian pedigree, anno 547) or Adam (West-Saxon pedigree, anno 855).

(5) The Chronicle of Ethelwerd (c. 1000) does, however, stop at Scef^[625]. Now it has been argued that Ethelwerd's pedigree is merely abbreviated from the pedigree in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under 855, and that, in making Scef the final stage, and in what he tells us about that hero, Ethelwerd is merely adapting what he had read in Beowulf about Scyld^[626]. But this seems hardly possible. Ethelwerd, it is true, borrows most of his facts from the Chronicle, from Bede, and other known sources: but there are some passages which show that he had access to a source now lost. Ethelwerd was a member of the West-Saxon royal house, and he wrote his Chronicle for a kinswoman, Matilda, in order, as he says, to explain their common stock and race. They were both descended from Æthelwulf, the chronicler being great-great-grandson of Æthelred, and the lady to whom he dedicates his work being great-great-granddaughter of Alfred. So he writes to tell "who and whence were their kin, so far as memory adduces, and our parents have taught us." Accordingly, though he begins his Chronicle with the Creation, the bulk of it is devoted to the deeds of his or Matilda's ancestors. Is it credible that he would have cut out all the stages in their common pedigree between Scyld and Scef, that he would have sacrificed all the ancestors of Scef, thus severing relations with Noah and Adam, and that he would have attributed to Scef the story which in Beowulf is attributed to Scyld, all this simply in order to bring his English pedigree into some harmony with what is told about the Danish pedigree in Beowulf—a poem of which we have no evidence that he had ever heard?

To suppose him to have done this, is to make him sacrifice, without any reason, just that part of the pedigree in the Chronicle under 855 which, from all we know of Ethelwerd, was most likely to have interested him: that which connected his race with Noah and Adam. Further, it is to suppose him to have reproduced just those stages in the pedigree which on critical grounds modern scholars can show to be the oldest, and to have modified or rejected just those which on critical grounds modern scholars can show to be later accretion. When Brandl supposes Ethelwerd to have produced his pedigree by comparing together merely the materials which have come down to us to-day, namely Beowulf and the Chronicle, he is, in reality, attributing to him the mind and acumen of a modern critic. An Anglo-Saxon alderman could only have detected and rejected the additions by using some material which has not come down to us. What more natural than that Ethelwerd, who writes as the historian of the West-Saxon royal family, should have known of a family pedigree which traced the line up to Sceaf and his arrival in the boat, and that he should have (rightly) thought this to be more authoritative than the pedigree in the Chronicle under the year 855, which had been expanded from it? Prof. Chadwick, it seems to me, is here quite justified in holding that Ethelwerd had "acquired the genealogy from some unknown source, in a more primitive form than that contained in the Chronicle^[627]."

But, because the source of Ethelwerd's pedigree is more primitive than that contained in the Chronicle under the year 855, it does not follow that it goes back to heathen times. Wessex had been converted more than two centuries earlier.

We are now in a position to make some estimate of the antiquity of Scyld and Sceaf in the West-Saxon pedigree. The nucleus of this pedigree is to be found in the verses connecting Cynric and Cerdic with Woden. (Even as late as Æthelwulf and Alfred this nucleus is often kept distinct from the later, more historic stages connecting Cerdic with living men.) Pedigrees of other royal houses go to Woden, and many stop there; however, in times comparatively early, but yet Christian, we find Woden provided with five ancestors: later, Ethelwerd gives him ten: the Chronicle gives him twenty-five. It is evidently a process of accumulation.

Now, if the name of Scyld had occurred in the portion of the pedigree which traces the West-Saxon kings up to Woden, it would possess sufficient authority to form the basis of an argument. But Scyld, like Heremod, Beaw and Sceaf, occurs in the fantastic development of the pedigree, by which Woden is connected up with Adam and Noah. The fact that these heroes occur above Woden makes it almost incredible that their position in the pedigree can go back to heathen times. Those who believed in Woden as a god can hardly have believed at the same time that he was a descendant of the Danish king Scyld. This difficulty Prof. Chadwick admits: "It is difficult to believe that in heathen times Woden was credited with five generations of ancestors, as in the Frealaf-Geat list." Still less is it credible that he was credited with 25 generations of ancestors, as in the Frealaf-Geat-Sceldwa-Sceaf-Noe-Adam list.

The obvious conclusion seems to me to be that the names above Woden were added in Christian times to the original list, which in heathen times only went back to Woden, and which is still extant in this form. A Christian, rationalizing Woden as a human magician, would have no difficulty in placing him far down the ages, just as Saxo Grammaticus does^[628]. Obviously Noe-Adam must be an addition of Christian times, and the same seems to me to apply to all the other names above Woden, which, though ancient and Germanic, are not therefore ancient and Germanic in the capacity of ancestors of Woden.

And even if these extraordinary ancestors of Woden were really believed in in heathen times, they cannot have been regarded as the special property of any one nation. For it was never claimed that the West-Saxon kings had any unique distinction in tracing their ancestry to Woden, such as would give them a special claim upon Woden's forefathers. How then can the ancient belief (if indeed it were an ancient belief) that Woden was descended from Scyld, King of Denmark, prove that the Anglo-Saxons regarded themselves as specially related to the Danes? For any such relationship derived through Woden must have been shared by all descendants of the All-Father.

Prof. Chadwick avoids this difficulty by supposing that Woden did not originally occur in the pedigree, but is a later insertion^[629]. But how can this be so when, of the two forms in which the West-Saxon pedigree appears, one (and, so far as our evidence goes, much the older one) traces the kings to Woden and stops there. The object of this pedigree is to connect the West-Saxon kings with Woden. The expanded pedigrees, which carry on the line still further, from Woden to Sceldwa, Sceaf and Adam, though very numerous, are all traceable to one, or at most two, sources. It is surely not the right method to regard Woden as an interpolation (though he occurs in that portion of the pedigree which is common to all versions, some of which we can probably trace back to primitive times), and to regard as the original element Scyld and Sceaf (though they form part of the continuation of the pedigree found only in, at most, two families of MSS which we cannot trace back beyond the ninth century).

Besides, there is the strongest external support for Woden in the very place which he occupies in the West-Saxon pedigree. That pedigree is traced in all its texts up to one Baldæg and his father Woden. Those texts which further give Woden's ancestry make him a descendant of Frealaf—they generally make Woden son of Frealaf, though some texts insert an intermediate Frithuwald.

Now the very ancient Northumbrian pedigree also goes up, by a different route, to "Beldæg," and gives him Woden for a father. In some versions (e.g. the Historia Brittonum) the Northumbrian pedigree stops there: in others (e.g. the Vespasian MS) Woden has a father Frealaf. How then can it be argued, contrary to the unanimous evidence of all the dozen or more MSS of the West-Saxon pedigree, that Woden, standing as he does between his proper father and his proper son, is an interpolation? There is no evidence whatsoever to support such an argument, and everything to disprove it.

The fact that Sceaf, Sceldwa and Beaw occur above Woden, that some versions of the pedigree stop at Woden, and that in heathen times presumably all must have stopped when they reached the All-Father, seems to me a fatal argument—not against the antiquity of the legends of Sceaf, Sceldwa, and Beaw, but against the antiquity of these characters in the capacity (given to them in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle) of ancestors of the West-Saxon kings, and against the vast deduction concerning the origin of the English nation which Prof. Chadwick draws from this supposed antiquity.

(IV) Precisely the same argument—that Sceaf, Sceldwa and Beaw are found above Woden in the pedigree of the English kings, and are not likely to have occupied that place in primitive heathen times, is fatal to the attempt to draw from this pedigree any argument that the myths of these heroes were specially and exclusively Anglo-Saxon. The argument of Müllenhoff and other scholars for an ancient, purely Anglo-Saxon Beowa-myth^[630] falls, therefore, to the ground.

D. EVIDENCE FOR THE DATE OF BEOWULF. THE RELATION OF BEOWULF TO THE CLASSICAL EPIC

A few years ago there was a tendency to exaggerate the value of grammatical forms in fixing the date of Old English poetry, and attempts were made to arrange Old English poems in a chronological series, according to the exact percentage of "early" to "late" forms in each. There has now been a natural reaction against the assumption that, granting certain forms to be archaic, these would necessarily be found in a percentage diminishing exactly according to the dates of composition of the various poems in which they occur. The reaction has now gone to the other extreme, and grammatical facts are in danger of being regarded as not being "in any way valid or helpful indications of dates^[631]."

Schücking^[632], in an elaborate recent monograph on the date of Beowulf, rejects the grammatical evidence as valueless, and proceeds to date the poem about two centuries later than has usually been held, placing its composition at the court of some christianized Scandinavian monarch in England, about 900 A.D.

But it surely does not follow that, because grammatical data have been misused, therefore no use can be made of them. And, if Beowulf was composed about the year 900, from stories current among the Viking settlers, how are we to account for the fact that the proper names in Beowulf are given, not in the Scandinavian forms of the Viking age, nor in corruptions of such forms, but in the correct English forms which we should expect, according to English sound laws, if the names had been brought over in the sixth century, and handed down traditionally^[633]?

For example, King Hygelac no doubt called himself Hugilaikaz. The Chochilaicus of Gregory of Tours is a good—if uncouth—shot at reproducing this name. The name became, in Norse, Hugleikr and in Danish Huglek (Hugletus in Saxo): traditional kings so named are recorded, though it is difficult to find that they have anything in common with the King Hygelac in Beowulf^[634]. Had the name been introduced into England in Viking times, we should expect the Scandinavian form, not Hygelāc^[635].

Even in the rare cases where the character in Beowulf and his Scandinavian equivalent bear names which are not phonologically identical, the difference does not point to any corruption such as might have arisen from borrowing in Viking days^[636]. We have only to contrast the way in which the names of Viking chiefs are recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, to be convinced that the Scandinavian stories recorded in Beowulf are due to contact during the age when Britain was being conquered, not during the Viking period three or four centuries later^[637].

And the arguments from literary and political history, which Schücking adduces to prove his late date, seem to me to point in exactly the opposite direction, and to confirm the orthodox view which would place Beowulf nearer 700 than 900.

Schücking urges that, however highly we estimate the civilizing effect of Christianity, it was only in the second half of the seventh century that England was thoroughly permeated by the new faith. Can we expect already, at the beginning of the eighth century, a courtly work, showing, as does Beowulf, such wonderful examples of tact, modesty, unselfishness and magnanimity? And this at the time when King Ceolwulf was forced by his rebellious subjects to take the cowl. For Schücking^[638], following Hodgkin^[639], reminds us how, in the eighth century, out of 15 Northumbrian kings, five were dethroned, five murdered; two abdicated, and only three held the crown to their death; and how at the end of the century Charlemagne called the Northumbrian Angles "a perfidious and perverse nation, murderers of their lords."

But surely, at the base of all this argument, lies the same assumption which, as Schücking rightly holds, vitiates so many of the grammatical arguments; the assumption that development must necessarily be in steady and progressive proportion. We may take Penda as a type of the unreclaimed heathen, and Edward the Confessor of the chaste and saintly churchman; but Anglo-Saxon history was by no means a development in steady progression, of diminishing percentages of ruffianism and increasing percentages of saintship.

The knowledge of, and interest in, heathen custom shown in Beowulf, such as the vivid accounts of cremation, would lead us to place it as near heathen times as other data will allow. So much must be granted to the argument of Prof. Chadwick^[640]. But the Christian tone, so far from leading us to place Beowulf late, would also lead us to place it near the time of the conversion. For it is precisely in these times just after the conversion, that we get the most striking instances in all Old English history of that "tact, modesty, generosity, and magnanimity" which Schücking rightly regards as characteristic of Beowulf.

King Oswin (who was slain in 651) was, Bede tells us, handsome, courteous of speech and bearing, bountiful both to great and lowly, beloved of all men for his qualities of mind and body, so that noblemen came from all over England to enter his service—yet of all his endowments gentleness and humility were the chief. We cannot read the description without being reminded of the words of the thegns in praise of the dead Beowulf. Indeed, I doubt if Beowulf would have carried gentleness to those around him quite so far as did Oswin. For Oswin had given to Bishop Aidan an exceptionally fine horse—and Aidan gave it to a beggar who asked alms. The king's mild suggestion that a horse of less value would have been good enough for the beggar, and that the bishop needed a good horse for his own use, drew from the saint the stern question "Is that son of a mare dearer to thee than the Son of God?" The king, who had come from hunting, stood warming himself at the fire, thinking over what had passed; then he suddenly ungirt his sword, gave it to his squire, and throwing himself at the feet of the bishop, promised never again to grudge anything he might give in his charities.

Of course such conduct was exceptional in seventh century Northumbria—it convinced Aidan that the king was too good to live long, as indeed proved to be the case. But it shows that the ideals of courtesy and gentleness shown in Beowulf were by no means beyond the possibility of attainment—were indeed surpassed by a seventh century king. I do not know if they could be so easily paralleled in later Old English times.

And what is true from the point of view of morals is true equally from that of art and learning. In spite of the misfortunes of Northumbrian kings in the eighth century, the first third of that century was "the Golden Age of Anglo-Saxon England^[641]." And not unnaturally, for it had been preceded by half a century during which Northumbria had been free both from internal strife and from invasion. The empire won by Oswiu over Picts and Scots in the North had been lost at the battle of Nectansmere: but that battle had been followed by the twenty years reign of the learned Aldfrid, whose scholarship did not prevent him from nobly retrieving the state of the kingdom^[642], though he could not recover the lost dominions.

Now, whatever we may think of Beowulf as poetry, it is remarkable for its conscious and deliberate art, and for the tone of civilization which pervades it. And this half century was distinguished, above any other period of Old English history, precisely for its art and its civilization. Four and a half centuries later, when the works of great Norman master builders were rising everywhere in the land, the buildings which Bishop Wilfrid had put up during this first period of conversion were still objects of admiration, even for those who had seen the glories of the great Roman basilicas^[643].

Nor is there anything surprising in the fact that this "golden age" was not maintained. On the contrary, it is "in accordance with the phenomena of Saxon history in general, in which seasons of brilliant promise are succeeded by long eras of national eclipse. It is from this point of view quite in accordance with natural likelihood that the age of conversion was one of such stimulus to the artistic powers of the people that a level of effort and achievement was reached which subsequent generations were not able to maintain. The carved crosses and the coins certainly degenerate in artistic value as the centuries pass away, and the fine barbaric gold and encrusted work is early in date^[644]."

Already in the early part of the eighth century signs of decay are to be observed. At the end of his Ecclesiastical History, Bede complains that the times are so full of disturbance that one knows not what to say, or what the end will be. And these fears were justified. A hundred and forty years of turmoil and decay follow, till the civilization of the North and the Midlands was overthrown by the Danes, and York became the uneasy seat of a heathen jarl.

How it should be possible to see in these facts, as contrasted with the Christian and civilized tone of Beowulf, any argument for late date, I cannot see. On the contrary, because of its Christian civilization combined with its still vivid, if perhaps not always quite exact, recollection of heathen customs, we should be inclined to put Beowulf in the early Christian ages.

A further argument put forward for this late date is the old one that the Scandinavian sympathies of Beowulf show it to have been composed for a Scandinavian court, the court, Schücking thinks, of one of the princes who ruled over those portions of England which the Danes had settled^[645]. Of course Schücking is too sound a scholar to revive at this time of day the old fallacy that the Anglo-Saxons ought to have taken no interest in the deeds of any but Anglo-Saxon heroes. But how, he asks, are we to account for such enthusiasm for, such a burning interest in, a people of alien dialect and foreign dynasty, such as the Scyldings of Denmark?

The answer seems to me to be that the enthusiasm of Beowulf is not for the Danish nation as such: on the contrary, Beowulf depicts a situation which is most humiliating to the Danes. For twelve years they have suffered the depredations of Grendel; Hrothgar and his kin have proved helpless: all the Danes have been unequal to the need. Twice at least this is emphasized in the most uncompromising, and indeed insulting, way^[646]. The poet's enthusiasm is not, then, for the Danish race as such, but for the ideal of a great court with its body of retainers. Such retainers are not necessarily native born—rather is it the mark of the great court that it draws men from far and wide to enter the service, whether permanently or temporarily, even as Beowulf came from afar to help the aged Hrothgar in his need.

It is this ideal of personal valour and personal loyalty, rather than of tribal patriotism, which pervades Beowulf, and which certainly suits the known facts of the seventh and early eighth centuries. The bitterest strife in England in the seventh century had been between the two quite new states of Northumbria and Mercia, both equally of Anglian race. Both these states had been built up by a combination of smaller units, and not without violating the old local patriotisms of the diverse elements from which they had been formed. At first, at any rate, no such thing as Northumbrian or Mercian patriotism can have existed. Loyalty was personal, to the king. Neither the kingdom nor the comitatus was homogeneous. We have seen that Bede mentions it as a peculiar honour to a Northumbrian prince that from all parts of England nobles came to enter his service. We must not demand from the seventh or eighth century our ideals of exclusive enthusiasm for the land of one's birth, ideals which make it disreputable for a "mercenary" to sell his sword. The ideal is, on the contrary, loyalty to a prince whose service a warrior voluntarily enters. And the Danish court is depicted as a pattern of such loyalty—before the Scyldings began to work evil^[647], by the treason of Hrothulf.

Further, the fact that the Danish court at Leire had been a heathen one might be matter for regret, but it would not prevent its being praised by an Englishman about 700. For England was then entirely Christian. In the process of conversion no single Christian had, so far as we know, been martyred. There had been no war of religion. If Penda had fought against Oswald, it had been as the king of Mercia against the king of Northumbria. Penda's allies were Christian, and he showed no antipathy to the new faith^[648]. So that at this date there was no reason for men to feel any deep hostility towards a heathendom which had been the faith of their grandfathers, and with which there had never been any embittered conflict.

But in 900 the position was quite different. For more than a generation the country had been engaged in a life-and-death struggle between two warring camps, the "Christian men" and the "heathen men." The "heathen men" were in process of conversion, but were liable to be ever recruited afresh from beyond the sea. It seems highly unlikely that Beowulf could have been written at this date, by some English poet, for the court of a converted Scandinavian prince, with a view perhaps, as Schücking suggests, to educating his children in the English speech. In such a case the one thing likely to be avoided by the English poet, with more than two centuries of Christianity behind him, would surely have been the praise of that Scandinavian heathendom, from which his patron had freed himself, and from which his children were to be weaned. The martyrdom of S. Edmund might have seemed a more appropriate theme^[649]. The tolerant attitude towards heathen customs, and the almost antiquarian interest in them, very justly, as it seems to me, emphasized by Schücking^[650], is surely far more possible in a.d. 700 than in A.D. 900. For between those dates heathendom had ceased to be an antiquarian curiosity, and had become an imminent peril.

If those are right who hold that Beowulf is no purely native growth, but shows influence of the classical epic, then again it is easier to credit such influence about the year 700 than 900. At the earlier date we have scholars like Aldhelm and Bede, both well acquainted with Virgil, yet both interested in vernacular verse. It has been urged, as a reductio ad absurdum of the view which would connect Beowulf with Virgil, that the relation to the Odyssey is more obvious than that to the Æneid. Perhaps, however, some remote and indirect connection even between Beowulf and the Odyssey is not altogether unthinkable, about the year 700. At the end of the seventh century there was a flourishing school of Greek learning in England, under Hadrian and the Greek Archbishop Theodore, both "well read in sacred and in secular literature." In 730 their scholars were still alive, and, Bede tells us, could speak Greek and Latin as correctly as their native tongue. Bede himself knew something about the Iliad and the Odyssey. Not till eight centuries have passed, and we reach Grocyn and Linacre, was it again to be as easy for an Englishman to have a first-hand knowledge of a Greek classic as it was about the year 700. What scholarship had sunk to by the days of Alfred, we know: and we know that all Alfred's patronage did not produce any scholar whom we can think of as in the least degree comparable to Bede.

So that from the point of view of its close touch with heathendom, its tolerance for heathen customs, its Christian magnanimity and gentleness, its conscious art, and its learned tone, all historic and artistic analogy would lead us to place Beowulf in the great age—the age of Bede.

This has brought us to another question—more interesting to many than the mere question of date. Are we to suppose any direct connection between the classical and the Old English epic?

As nations pass through their "Heroic Age," similar social conditions will necessarily be reflected by many similarities in their poetry. In heroic lays like Finnsburg or Hildebrand or the Norse poems, phrases and situations may occur which remind us of phrases and situations in the Iliad, without affording any ground for supposing classical influence direct or indirect.

But there is much more in Beowulf than mere accidental coincidence of phrase or situation.

A simple-minded romancer would have made the Æneid a biography of Æneas from the cradle to the grave. Not so Virgil. The story begins with mention of Carthage. Æneas then comes on the scene. At a banquet he tells to Dido his earlier adventures. Just so Beowulf begins, not with the birth of Beowulf and his boyhood, but with Heorot. Beowulf arrives. At the banquet, in reply to Unferth, he narrates his earlier adventures. The Beowulf-poet is not content merely to tell us that there was minstrelsy at the feast, but like Virgil or Homer, he must give an account of what was sung. The epic style leads often to almost verbal similarities. Jupiter consoling Hercules for the loss of the son of his host says:

stat sua cuique dies, breve et inreparabile tempus

omnibus est vitae; sed famam extendere factis

hoc virtutis opus^[651].

In the same spirit and almost in the same words does Beowulf console Hrothgar for the loss of his friend:

Ūre ǣghwylc sceal ende gebīdan

worolde līfes; wyrce sē þe mōte

dōmes ǣr dēaþe; þæt biþ drihtguman

unlifgendum æfter sēlest.

On the other hand, though we are often struck by the likeness in spirit and in plan, it must be allowed that there is no tangible or conclusive proof of borrowing^[652]. But the influence may have been none the less effective for being indirect: nor is it quite certain that the author, had he known his Virgil, would necessarily have left traces of direct borrowing. For the deep Christian feeling, which has given to Beowulf its almost prudish propriety and its edifying tone, is manifested by no direct and dogmatic reference to Christian personages or doctrines.

I sympathize with Prof. Chadwick's feeling that a man who knew Virgil would not have disguised his knowledge, and would probably have lacked both inclination and ability to compose such a poem as Beowulf^[653]. But does not this feeling rest largely upon the analogy of other races and ages? Is it borne out by such known facts as we can gather about this period? The reticence of Beowulf with reference to Christianity does not harmonize with one's preconceived ideas; and Bishop Aldhelm gives us an even greater surprise. Let anyone read, or try to read, Aldhelm's Epistola ad Acircium, sive liber de septenario et de metris. Let him then ask himself "Is it possible that this learned pedant can also have been the author of English poems which King Alfred—surely no mean judge—thought best of all he knew?" These poems may of course have been educated and learned in tone. But we have the authority of King Alfred for the fact that Aldhelm used to perform at the cross roads as a common minstrel, and that he could hold his audiences with such success that they resorted to him again and again^[654]. Only after he had made himself popular by several performances did he attempt to weave edifying matter into his verse. And the popular, secular poetry of Aldhelm, his carmen triviale, remained current among the common people for centuries. Nor was Aldhelm's classical knowledge of late growth, something superimposed upon an earlier love of popular poetry, for he had studied under Hadrian as a boy^[655]. Later we are told that King Ine imported two Greek teachers from Athens for the help of Aldhelm and his school^[656]; this may be exaggeration.

Everything seems to show that about 700 an atmosphere existed in England which might easily have led a scholarly Englishman, acquainted with the old lays, to have set to work to compose an epic. Even so venerable a person as Bede, during his last illness, uttered his last teaching not, as we should expect on a priori grounds, in Latin hexameters, but in English metre. The evidence for this is conclusive^[657]. But, at a later date, Alcuin would surely have condemned the minstrelsy of Aldhelm^[658]. Even King Alfred seems to have felt that it needed some apology. It would have rendered Aldhelm liable to severe censure under the Laws of King Edgar^[659]; and Dunstan's biographer indignantly denies the charge brought against his hero of having learnt the heathen songs of his forefathers^[660].

The evidence is not as plentiful as we might wish, but it rather suggests that the chasm between secular poetry and ecclesiastical learning was more easily bridged in the first generations after the conversion than was the case later.

But, however that may be, it assuredly does not give any grounds for abandoning the old view, based largely upon grammatical and metrical considerations, which would make Beowulf a product of the early eighth century, and substituting for it a theory which would make our poem a product of mixed Saxon and Danish society in the early tenth century.

E. THE "JUTE-QUESTION" REOPENED

The view that the Geatas of Beowulf are the Jutes (Iuti, Iutae) of Bede (i.e. the tribe which colonized Kent, the Isle of Wight and Hampshire) has been held by many eminent scholars. It was dealt with only briefly above (pp. 8-9) because I thought the theory was now recognized as being no longer tenable. Lately, however, it has been maintained with conviction and ability by two Danish scholars, Schütte and Kier. It therefore becomes necessary once more to reopen the question, now that the only elaborate discussion of it in the English language favours the "Jute-theory," especially as Axel Olrik gave the support of his great name to the view that "the question is still open^[661]" and that "the last word has not been said concerning the nationality of the Geatas^[662]."

As in most controversies, a number of rather irrelevant side issues have been introduced^[663], so that from mere weariness students are sometimes inclined to leave the problem undecided. Yet the interpretation of the opening chapters of Scandinavian history turns upon it.

Supporters of the "Jute-theory" have seldom approached the subject from the point of view of Old English. Bugge^[664] perhaps did so: but the "Jute-theory" has been held chiefly by students of Scandinavian history, literature or geography, like Fahlbeck^[665], Steenstrup^[666], Gering^[667], Olrik^[668], Schütte^[669] and Kier^[670]. But, now that the laws of Old English sound-change have been clearly defined, it seldom happens that anyone who approaches the subject primarily as a student of the Anglo-Saxon language holds the view that the Geatas are Jutes.

And this is naturally so: for, from the point of view of language, the question is not disputable. The Gēatas phonologically are the Gautar (the modern Götar of Southern Sweden). It is admitted that the words are identical^[671]. And, equally, it is admitted that the word Gēatas cannot be identical with the word Iuti, Iutae, used by Bede as the name of the Jutes who colonized Kent^[671]. Bede's Iuti, Iutae, on the contrary, would correspond to a presumed Old English *Īuti or *Īutan^[672], current in his time in Northumbria. This in later Northumbrian would become Īote, Īotan (though the form Īute, Īutan might also survive). The dialect forms which we should expect (and which we find in the genitive and dative) corresponding to this would be: Mercian, Ēote, Ēotan; Late West-Saxon, Ȳte, Ȳtan (through an intermediate Early West-Saxon *Īete, *Īetan, which is not recorded).

If, then, the word Gēatas came to supplant the correct form Īote, Īotan (or its Mercian and West-Saxon equivalents Ēote, Ēotan, Ȳte, Ȳtan), this can only have been the result of confusion. Such confusion is, on abstract grounds, conceivable: it is always possible that the name of one tribe may come to be attached to another. "Scot" has ceased to mean "Irishman," and has come to mean "North Briton"; and there is no intrinsic impossibility in the word Gēatas having been transferred by Englishmen, from the half-forgotten Gautar, to the Jutes, and having driven out the correct name of the latter, Īote, Īotan. For example, there might have been an exiled Geatic family among the Jutish invaders, which might have become so prominent as to cause the name Gēatas to supplant the correct Īote, Ēote, etc. But, whoever the Geatas may have been, Beowulf is their chief early record: indeed, almost all we know of their earliest history is derived from Beowulf. In Beowulf, therefore, if anywhere, the old names and traditions should be remembered. The word Gēat occurs some 50 times in the poem. The poet obviously wishes to use other synonyms, for the sake of variety and alliteration: hence we get Weder-Gēatas, Wederas, Sǣ-Gēatas, Gūð-Gēatas. Now, if these Geatas are the Jutes, how comes it that the poet never calls them such, never speaks of them under the correct tribal name of Ēote, etc., although this was the current name at the time Beowulf was written, and indeed for centuries later?

For, demonstrably, the form Ēote, etc., was recognized as the name of the Jutes till at least the twelfth century. Then it died out of current speech, and only Bede's Latin Iuti (and the modern "Jute" derived therefrom) remained as terms used by the historians. The evidence is conclusive:

(a) Bede, writing about the time when Beowulf, in its present form, is supposed to have been composed, uses Iuti, Iutae, corresponding to a presumed contemporary Northumbrian *Īuti, *Īutan.

(b) In the O.E. translation of Bede, made in Mercia perhaps two centuries after Bede's time, we do indeed in one place find "Geata," "Geatum" used to translate "Iutarum," "Iutis," instead of the correctly corresponding Mercian form "Eota," "Eotum." Only two MSS are extant at this point. But since both agree, and since they belong to different types, it is probable that "Geata" here is no mere copyist's error, but is due to the translator himself^[673]. But, later, when the translator has to render Bede's "Iutorum," he gives, not "Geata," but the correct Mercian "Eota." There can be no possible doubt here, for five MSS are extant at this point, and all give the correct form—four in the Mercian, "Eota," whilst one gives the West-Saxon equivalent, "Ytena."

Now the Gēata-passage in the Bede translation is the chief piece of evidence which those who would explain the Geatas of Beowulf as "Jutes" can call: and it does not, in fact, much help them. What they have to prove is that the Beowulf-poet could consistently and invariably have used Gēatas in the place of Ēote. To produce an instance in which the two terms are both used by the same translator is very little use, when what has to be proved is that the one term had already, at a much earlier period, entirely ousted the other.

All our other evidence is for the invariable use of the correct form Īote, Īotan, etc. in Old English.

(c) The passage from Bede was again translated, and inserted into a copy of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which was sent quite early to one of the great abbeys of Northumbria^[674]. In this, "Iutis, Iutarum" is represented by the correct Northumbrian equivalent, "Iutum," "Iotum"; "Iutna."

(d) This Northumbrian Chronicle, or a transcript of it, subsequently came South, to Canterbury. There, roughly about the year 1100, it was used to interpolate an Early West-Saxon copy of the Chronicle. Surely at Canterbury, the capital of the old Jutish kingdom, people must have known the correct form of the Jutish name, whether Gēatas or Īote. We find the forms "Iotum," "Iutum"; "Iutna."

(e) Corresponding to this Northumbrian (and Kentish) form Īote, Mercian Ēote, the Late West-Saxon form should be Ȳte. Now MS Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, 41, gives us "the Wessex version of the English Bede" and is written by a scribe who knew the Hampshire district^[675]. In this MS the "Eota" of the Mercian original has been transcribed as "Ytena," "Eotum" as "Ytum," showing that the scribe understood the tribal name and its equivalent correctly. This was about the time of the Norman Conquest, but the name continued to be understood till the early twelfth century at least. For Florence of Worcester records that William Rufus was slain in Noua Foresta quae lingua Anglorum Ytene nuncupatur; and in another place he speaks of the same event as happening in prouincia Jutarum in Noua Foresta^[676], which shows that Florence understood that "Ytene" was Ȳtena land, "the province of the Jutes."

It comes, then, to this. The "Jute-hypothesis" postulates not only that, at the time Beowulf was composed, Gēatas had come to mean "Jutes," but also that it had so completely ousted the correct old name Īuti, Īote, Ēote, Ȳte, that none of the latter terms are ever used in the poem as synonyms for Beowulf's people^[677]. Yet all the evidence shows that Īuti etc. was the recognized name when Bede wrote, and we have evidence at intervals showing that it was so understood till four centuries later. But not only was Īuti, Īote never superseded in O.E. times; there is no real evidence that Gēatas was ever generally used to signify "Jutes." The fact that one translator in one passage (writing probably some two centuries after Beowulf was composed) uses "Geata," "Geatum," where he should have used "Eota," "Eotum," does not prove the misnomer to have been general—especially when the same translator subsequently uses the correct form "Eota."

I do not think sufficient importance has been attached to what seems (to me) the vital argument against the "Jute-theory." It is not merely that Gēatas is the exact phonological equivalent of Gautar (Götar) and cannot be equivalent to Bede's Iuti. This difficulty may be got over by the assumption that somehow the Iuti, or some of them, had adopted the name Gēatas: and we are not in a position to disprove such assumption. But the advocates of the "Jute-theory" have further to assume that, at the date when Beowulf was written, the correct name Iuti (Northumbrian Īote, Mercian Ēote, West-Saxon Ȳte) must have so passed into disuse that it could not be once used as a synonym for Beowulf's people, by our synonym-hunting poet. And this assumption we are in a position to disprove.

The Jute-theory would therefore still be untenable on the ground of the name, even though it were laboriously proved that, from the historical and geographical standpoint, there was more to be said for it than had hitherto been recognized. But even this has not been proved: quite the reverse. As I have tried to show above, historical and geographical considerations, though in themselves not absolutely conclusive, point emphatically to an identification with the Götar, rather than with the Jutes^[678].

The relations of Beowulf and the Geatas with the kings of Denmark and of Sweden are the constant topic of the poem. Now the land of the Götar was situated between Denmark and Sweden. But if the Geatas be Jutes, their neighbours were the Danes on the east and the Angles on the south; farther away, across the Cattegat lay the Götar, and beyond these the Swedes. If the Geatas be Jutes, why should their immediate neighbours, the Angles, never appear in Beowulf as having any dealings with them? And why, above all, should the Götar never be mentioned, whilst the Swedes, far to the north, play so large a part? Even if Swedes and Götar had at this time been under one king, the Götar could not have been thus ignored, seeing that, owing to their position, the brunt of the fighting must have fallen on them^[679]. But we know that the Götar were independent. The strictly contemporary evidence of Procopius shows quite conclusively that they were one of the strongest of the Scandinavian kingdoms^[680]. How then could warfare be carried on for three generations between Jutes and Swedes without concerning the Götar, whose territory lay in between?

Again, in the "Catalogue of Kings" in Widsith, the Swedes are named with their famous king Ongentheow. The Jutes (Ȳte) are also mentioned, with their king. And their king is not Hrethel, Hæthcyn, Hygelac or Heardred, but a certain Gefwulf, whose name does not even alliterate with that of any known king of the Geatas^[681].

Again, in the (certainly very early) Book on Monsters, Hygelac is described as Huiglaucus qui imperavit Getis. Now Getis can mean Götar^[682], but can hardly mean Jutes.

The geographical case against the identification of Geatas and Götar depends upon the assumption that the western sea-coast of the Götar in ancient times must have coincided with that of West Gothland (Vestra-Götland) in mediæval and modern times. Now as this coast consists merely of a small strip south of the river Götaelv, it is argued that the Götar could not be the maritime Geatas of Beowulf, capable of undertaking a Viking raid to the mouth of the Rhine. But the assumption that the frontiers of the Götar about A.D. 500 were the same as they were a thousand years later, is not only improbable on a priori grounds, but, as Schück has shown^[683], can be definitely disproved. Adam of Bremen, writing in the eleventh century, speaks of the river Gothelba (Götaelv) as running through the midst of the peoples of the Götar. And the obvious connection between the name of the river and the name of the people seems to make it certain that Adam is right, and that the original Götar must have dwelt around the river Götaelv. But, if so, then they were a maritime folk: for the river Götaelv is merely the outlet which connects Lake Wener with the sea, running a course almost parallel with the shore and nowhere very distant from it^[684]. But even when Adam wrote, the Götar to the north of the river had long been politically subject to Norway^[685]: and the Heimskringla tells us how this happened.

Harold Fairhair, King of Norway (a contemporary of King Alfred), attacked them: they had staked the river Götaelv against him, but he moored his ships to the stakes^[686] and harried on either shore: he fought far and wide in the country, had many battles on either side of the river, and finally slew the leader of the Götar, Hrani Gauzki (the Götlander). Then he annexed to Norway all the land north of the river and west of Lake Wener. Thenceforward the Götaelv was the boundary between Norway and West Gothland, though the country ultimately became Swedish, as it now is. But it is abundantly clear from the Heimskringla that Harold regarded as hostile all the territory north of the Götaelv, and between Lake Wener and the sea^[687] (the old Ránriki and the modern Bohuslän).

But, if so, then the objection that the Götar are not a sufficiently maritime people becomes untenable. For precisely to this region belong the earliest records of maritime warfare to be found in the north of Europe, possibly the earliest in Europe. The smooth rocks of Bohuslän are covered with incised pictures of the Bronze age: and the favourite subject of these is ships and naval encounters. About 120 different pictures of ships and sea fights are reproduced by one scholar alone^[688]. And at the present day this province of Göteborg and Bohus is the most important centre in Sweden both of fishery and shipping. Indeed, more than one quarter of the total tonnage of the modern Swedish mercantile marine comes from this comparatively tiny strip of coast^[689].

It is surely quite absurd to urge that the men of this coast could not have harried the Frisians in the manner in which Hygelac is represented as doing. And surely it is equally absurd to urge that the people of this coast would not have had to fear a return attack from the Frisians, after the downfall of their own kings. The Frisians seem to have been "the chief channel of communication between the North and West of Europe^[690]" before the rise of the Scandinavian Vikings, and to have been supreme in the North Sea. The Franks were of course a land power, but the Franks, when in alliance with the Frisians, were by no means helpless at sea. Gregory of Tours tells us that they overthrew Hygelac on land, and then in a sea fight annihilated his fleet. Now the poet says that the Geatas may expect war when the Franks and Frisians hear of Beowulf's fall. The objection that, because they feared the Franks, the Geatas must have been reachable by land, depends upon leaving the "and Frisians" out of consideration.

"Now we may look for a time of war" says the messenger "when the fall of our king is known among the Franks and Frisians": then he gives a brief account of the raid upon the land of the Frisians and concludes: "Ever since then has the favour of the Merovingian king been denied us^[691]." What is there in this to indicate whether the raiders came from Jutland, or from the coast of the Götar across the Cattegat, 50 miles further off? The messenger goes on to anticipate hostility from the Swedes^[692]. To this, at any rate, the Götar were more exposed than the Jutes. Further, he concludes by anticipating the utter overthrow of the Geatas^[693]: and the poet expressly tells us that these forebodings were justified^[694]. There must therefore be a reference to some famous national catastrophe. Now the Götar did lose their independence, and were incorporated into the Swedish kingdom. When did the Jutes suffer any similar downfall at the hands of either Frisians, Franks, or Swedes?

The other geographical and historical arguments urged in favour of the Jutes, when carefully scrutinized, are found either equally indecisive, or else actually to tell against the "Jute-theory." Schütte^[695] thinks that the name "Wederas" (applied in Beowulf to the Geatas) is identical with the name Eudoses (that of a tribe mentioned by Tacitus, who may^[696] have dwelt in Jutland). But this is impossible phonologically: Wederas is surely a shortened form of Weder-Gēatas, "the Storm-Geatas." Indeed, we have, in favour of the Götar-theory, the fact that the very name of the Wederas survives on the Bohuslän coast to this day, in the Wäder Öar and the Wäder Fiord.

Advocates of the "Jute-theory" lay great stress upon the fact that Gregory of Tours and the Liber Historiae Francorum call Hygelac a Dane^[697]: Dani cum rege suo Chochilaico. Now, when Gregory wrote in the sixth century, either the Jutes were entirely distinct from, and independent of, the Danes, or they were not. If they were distinct, how do Gregory's words help the "Jute-theory"? He must be simply using "Dane," like the Anglo-Saxon historians, for "Scandinavian." But if the Jutes were not distinct from the Danes, then we have an argument against the "Jute-theory." For we know from Beowulf that the Geatas were quite distinct from the Danes^[698], and quite independent of them^[699].

It is repeatedly urged that the Geatas and Swedes fight ofer sǣ^[700]. But sǣ can mean a great fresh-water lake, like Lake Wener, just as well as the ocean^[701]: and as a matter of fact we know that the decisive battle did take place on Lake Wener, in stagno Waener, á Vænis ísi^[702]. Lake Wener is an obvious battle place for Götar and Swedes. They were separated by the great and almost impassable forests of "Tived" and "Kolmård," and the lake was their simplest way of meeting^[703]. But it does not equally fit Jutes and Swedes.

It is repeatedly objected that the Götar are remote from the Anglo-Saxons^[704]. Possibly: but remoteness did not prevent the Anglo-Saxons from being interested in heroes of the Huns or Goths or Burgundians or Longobards, who were much more^[705] distant. And the absence of any direct connection between the history of the Geatas and the historic Anglo-Saxon records, affords a strong presumption that the Geatas were a somewhat alien people. If the people of Beowulf, Hygelac, and Hrethel, were the same people as the Jutes who colonized Kent and Hampshire, why do we never, in the Kentish royal genealogies or elsewhere, find any claim to such connection? The Mercians did not so forget their connection with the old Offa of Angel, although a much greater space of time had intervened. The fact that we have no mention among the ancestors of Beowulf and Hygelac of any names which we can connect with the Jutish genealogy affords, therefore, a strong presumption that they belonged to some other tribe.

The strongest historical argument for the "Jute-theory" was that produced by Bugge. The Ynglinga tal represents Ottar (who is certainly the Ohthere of Beowulf) as having fallen in Vendel, and this Vendel was clearly understood as being the district of that name in North Jutland. The body of this Swedish king was torn asunder by carrion birds, and he was remembered as "the Vendel-crow," a mocking nickname which pretty clearly goes back to primitive times. Other ancient authors attributed this name, not to Ottar, but to his father, who can be identified with the Ongentheow of Beowulf. This would seem to indicate that the hereditary foes of Ongentheow and the Swedish kings of his house were, after all, the Jutes of Vendel.

But Knut Stjerna has shown that the Vendel from which "Ottar Vendel-crow" took his name was probably not the Vendel of Jutland at all, but the place of that name north of Uppsala, famous for the splendid grave-finds which show it to have been of peculiar importance during our period^[706]. And subsequent research has shown that a huge grave-mound, near this Vendel, is mentioned in a record of the seventeenth century as King Ottar's mound, and is still popularly known as the mound of Ottar Vendel-crow^[707]. But, if so, this story of the Vendel-crow, so far from supporting the "Jute-hypothesis," tells against it: nothing could be more suitable than Vendel, north of Uppsala, as the "last ditch" to which Ongentheow retreated, if we assume his adversaries to have been the Götar: but it would not suit the Jutes so well.

An exploration of the mound has proved beyond reasonable doubt that it was raised to cover the ashes of Ottar Vendel-crow, the Ohthere of Beowulf^[708]. That Ohthere fell in battle against the Geatas there is nothing, in Beowulf or elsewhere, to prove. But the fact that his ashes were laid in mound at Vendel in Sweden makes it unlikely that he fell in battle against the Jutes, and is quite incompatible with what we are told in the Ynglinga saga of his body having been torn to pieces by carrion fowl on a mound in Vendel in Jutland. It now becomes clear that this story, and the tale of the crow of wood made by the Jutlanders in mockery of Ottar, is a mere invention to account for the name Vendel-crow: the name, as so often, has survived, and a new story has grown up to give a reason for the name.

What "Vendel-crow" originally implied we cannot be quite sure. Apparently "Crow" or "Vendel-crow" is used to this day as a nickname for the inhabitants of Swedish Vendel. Ottar may have been so called because he was buried (possibly because he lived) in Vendel, not, like other members of his race, his son and his father, at Old Uppsala. But however that may be, what is clear is that, as the name passed from the Swedes to those Norwegian and Icelandic writers who have handed it down to us, Vendel of Sweden was naturally misunderstood as the more familiar Vendel of Jutland. Stjerna's conjecture is confirmed. The Swedish king's nickname, far from pointing to ancient feuds between Jute and Swede, is shown to have nothing whatsoever to do with Jutland.

It appears, then, that Gēatas is phonologically the equivalent of "Götar," but not the equivalent of "Jutes"; that what we know of the use of the word "Jutes" (Īote, etc.) in Old English makes it incredible that a poem of the length of Beowulf could be written, concerning their heroes and their wars, without even mentioning them by their correct name; that in many respects the geographical and historical evidence fits the Götar, but does not fit the Jutes; that the instances to the contrary, in which it is claimed that the geographical and historical evidence fits the Jutes but does not fit the Götar, are all found on examination to be either inconclusive or actually to favour the Götar.

F. BEOWULF AND THE ARCHÆOLOGISTS

The peat-bogs of Schleswig and Denmark have yielded finds of the first importance for English archæology. These "moss-finds" are great collections, chiefly of arms and accoutrements, obviously deposited with intention. The first of these great discoveries, that of Thorsbjerg, was made in the heart of ancient Angel: the site of the next, Nydam, also comes within the area probably occupied by either Angles or Jutes; and most of the rest of the "moss-finds" were in the closest neighbourhood of the old Anglian home. The period of the oldest deposits, as is shown by the Roman coins found among them, is hardly before the third century A.D., and some authorities would make it considerably later.

An account of these discoveries will be found in Engelhardt's Denmark in the Early Iron Age^[709], 1866: a volume which summarizes the results of Engelhardt's investigations during the preceding seven years. He had published in Copenhagen Thorsbjerg Mosefund, 1863; Nydam Mosefund, 1865. Engelhardt's work at Nydam was interrupted by the war of 1864: the finds had to be ceded to Germany, and the exploration was continued by German scholars. Engelhardt consoled himself that these "subsequent investigations... do not seem to have been carried on with the necessary care and intelligence," and continued his own researches within the narrowed frontiers of Denmark, publishing two monographs on the mosses of Fünen: Kragehul Mosefund, 1867; Vimose Fundet, 1869.

These deposits, however, obviously belong to a period much earlier than that in which Beowulf was written: indeed most of them certainly belong to a period earlier than that in which the historic events described in Beowulf occurred; so that, close as is their relation with Anglian civilization, it is with the civilization of the Angles while still on the continent.

The Archæology of Beowulf has been made the subject of special study by Knut Stjerna, in a series of articles which appeared between 1903 and his premature death in 1909. A good service has been done to students of Beowulf by Dr Clark Hall in collecting and translating Stjerna's essays^[710]. They are a mine of useful information, and the reproductions of articles from Scandinavian grave-finds, with which they are so copiously illustrated, are invaluable. The magnificent antiquities from Vendel, now in the Stockholm museum, are more particularly laid under contribution^[711]. Dr Clark Hall added a most useful "Index of things mentioned in Beowulf^[712]," well illustrated. Here again the illustrations, with few exceptions, are from Scandinavian finds.

Two weighty arguments as to the origin of Beowulf have been based upon archæology. In the first place it has been urged by Dr Clark Hall that:

"If the poem is read in the light of the evidence which Stjerna has marshalled in the essays as to the profusion of gold, the prevalence of ring-swords, of boar-helmets, of ring-corslets, and ring-money, it becomes clear how strong the distinctively Scandinavian colouring is, and how comparatively little of the mise-en-scène must be due to the English author^[713]."

Equally, Prof. Klaeber finds in Stjerna's investigations a strong argument for the Scandinavian character of Beowulf^[714].

Now Stjerna, very rightly and naturally, drew his illustrations of Beowulf from those Scandinavian, and especially Swedish, grave-finds which he knew so well: and very valuable those illustrations are. But it does not follow, because the one archæologist who has chosen to devote his knowledge so wholeheartedly to the elucidation of Beowulf was a Scandinavian, using Scandinavian material, that therefore Beowulf is Scandinavian. This, however, is the inference which Stjerna himself was apt to draw, and which is still being drawn from his work. Stjerna speaks of our poem as a monument raised by the Geatas to the memory of their saga-renowned king^[715], though he allows that certain features of the poem, such as the dragon-fight^[716], are of Anglo-Saxon origin.

Of course, it must be allowed that accounts such as those of the fighting between Swedes and Geatas, if they are historical (and they obviously are), must have originated from eyewitnesses of the Scandinavian battles: but I doubt if there is anything in Beowulf so purely Scandinavian as to compel us to assume that any line of the story, in the poetical form in which we now have it, was necessarily composed in Scandinavia. Even if it could be shown that the conditions depicted in Beowulf can be better illustrated from the grave-finds of Vendel in Sweden than from English diggings, this would not prove Beowulf Scandinavian. Modern scientific archæology is surely based on chronology as well as geography. The English finds date from the period before 650 A.D., and the Vendel finds from the period after. Beowulf might well show similarity rather with contemporary art abroad than with the art of earlier generations at home. For intercourse was more general than is always realized. It was not merely trade and plunder which spread fashions from nation to nation. There were the presents of arms which Tacitus mentions as sent, not only privately, but with public ceremony, from one tribe to another^[717]. Similar presentations are indicated in Beowulf^[718]; we find them equally at the court of the Ostrogothic Theodoric^[719]; Charles the Great sent to Offa of Mercia unum balteum et unum gladium huniscum^[720]; according to the famous story in the Heimskringla, Athelstan sent to Harold Fairhair of Norway a sword and belt arrayed with gold and silver; Athelstan gave Harold's son Hakon a sword which was the best that ever came to Norway^[721]. It is not surprising, then, if we find parallels between English poetry and Scandinavian grave-finds, both apparently dating from about the year 700 A.D. But I do not think that there is any special resemblance, though, both in Beowulf and in the Vendel graves, there is a profusion lacking in the case of the simpler Anglo-Saxon tomb-furniture.

Let us examine the five points of special resemblance, alleged by Dr Clark Hall, on the basis of Stjerna's studies.

"The profusion of gold." Gold is indeed lavishly used in Beowulf: the golden treasure found in the dragon's lair was so bulky that it had to be transported by waggon. And, certainly, gold is found in greater profusion in Swedish than in English graves: the most casual visitor to the Stockholm museum must be impressed by the magnificence of the exhibits there. But, granting gold to have been rarer in England than in Sweden, I cannot grant Stjerna's contention that therefore an English poet could not have conceived the idea of a vast gold hoard^[722]; or that, even if the poet does deck his warriors with gold somewhat more sumptuously than was actually the case in England, we can draw any argument from it. For, if the dragon in Beowulf guards a treasure, so equally does the typical dragon of Old English proverbial lore^[723]. Beowulf is spoken of as gold-wlanc, but the typical thegn in Finnsburg is called gold-hladen^[724]. The sword found by Beowulf in the hall of Grendel's mother has a golden hilt, but the English proverb had it that "gold is in its place on a man's sword^[725]." Heorot is hung with golden tapestry, but gold-inwoven fabric has been unearthed from Saxon graves at Taplow, and elsewhere in England^[726]. Gold glitters in other poems quite as lavishly as in Beowulf, sometimes more so. Widsith made a hobby of collecting golden bēagas. The subject of Waldere is a fight for treasure. The byrnie of Waldere^[727] is adorned with gold: so is that of Holofernes in Judith^[728], so is that of the typical warrior in the Elene^[729]. Are all these poems Scandinavian?

"The prevalence of ring-swords." We know that swords were sometimes fitted with a ring in the hilt^[730]. It is not clear whether the object of this ring was to fasten the hilt by a strap to the wrist, for convenience in fighting (as has been the custom with the cavalry sword in modern times) or whether it was used to attach the "peace bands," by which the hilt of the sword was sometimes fixed to the scabbard, when only being worn ceremonially^[731]. The word hring-mǣl, applied three times to the sword in Beowulf, has been interpretated as a reference to these "ring-swords," though it is quite conceivable that it may refer only to the damascening of the sword with a ringed pattern^[732]. Assuming that the reference in Beowulf is to a "ring-sword," Stjerna illustrates the allusion from seven ring-swords, or fragments of ring-swords, found in Sweden. But, as Dr Clark Hall himself points out (whilst oddly enough accepting this argument as proof of the Scandinavian colouring of Beowulf) four ring-swords at least have been found in England^[733]. And these English swords are real ring-swords; that is to say, the pommel is furnished with a ring, within which another ring moves (in the oldest type of sword) quite freely. This freedom of movement seems, however, to be gradually restricted, and in one of these English swords the two rings are made in one and the same piece. In the Swedish swords, however, this restriction is carried further, and the two rings are represented by a knob growing out of a circular base. Another sword of this "knob"-type has recently been found in a Frankish tomb^[734], and yet another in the Rhineland^[735]. It seems to be agreed among archæologists that the English type, as found in Kent, is the original, and that the Swedish and continental "ring-swords" are merely imitations, in which the ring has become conventionalized into a knob^[736]. But, if so, how can the mention of a ring-sword in Beowulf (if indeed that be the meaning of hring-mǣl) prove Scandinavian colouring? If it proved anything (which it does not) it would tend to prove the reverse, and to locate Beowulf in Kent, where the true ring-swords have been found.

"The prevalence of boar-helmets." It is true that several representations of warriors wearing boar-helmets have been found in Scandinavia. But the only certainly Anglo-Saxon helmet yet found in England has a boar-crest^[737]; and this is, I believe, the only actual boar-helmet yet found. How then can the boar-helmets of Beowulf show Scandinavian rather than Anglo-Saxon origin?

"The prevalence of ring-corslets." It is true that only one trace of a byrnie, and that apparently not of ring-mail, has so far been found in an Anglo-Saxon grave. (We have somewhat more abundant remains from the period prior to the migration to England: a peculiarly fine corslet of ring-mail, with remains of some nine others, was found in the moss at Thorsbjerg^[738] in the midst of the ancient Anglian continental home; and other ring-corslets have been found in the neighbourhood of Angel, at Vimose^[739] in Fünen.) But, for the period when Beowulf must have been composed, the ring-corslet is almost as rare in Scandinavia as in England^[740]; the artist, however, seems to be indicating a byrnie upon many of the warriors depicted on the Vendel helm (Grave 14: seventh century). Equally, in England, warriors are represented on the Franks Casket as wearing the byrnie: also the laws of Ine (688-95) make it clear that the byrnie was by no means unknown^[741]. Other Old English poems, certainly not Scandinavian, mention the ring-byrnie. How then can the mention of it in Beowulf be a proof of Scandinavian origin?

"The prevalence of ring-money." Before minted money became current, rings were used everywhere among the Teutonic peoples. Gold rings, intertwined so as to form a chain, have been found throughout Scandinavia, presumably for use as a medium of exchange. The term locenra bēaga (gen. plu.) occurs in Beowulf, and this is interpreted by Stjerna as "rings intertwined or locked together^[742]." But locen in Beowulf need not have the meaning of "intertwined"; it occurs elsewhere in Old English of a single jewel, sincgim locen^[743]. Further, even if locen does mean "intertwined," such intertwined rings are not limited to Scandinavia proper. They have been found in Schleswig^[744]. And almost the very phrase in Beowulf, londes ne locenra bēaga^[745], recurs in the Andreas. The phrase there may be imitated from Beowulf, but, equally, the phrase in Beowulf may be imitated from some earlier poem. In fact, it is part of the traditional poetic diction: but its occurrence in the Andreas shows that it cannot be used as an argument of Scandinavian origin.

Whilst, therefore, accepting with gratitude the numerous illustrations which Stjerna has drawn from Scandinavian grave-finds, we must be careful not to read a Scandinavian colouring into features of Beowulf which are at least as much English as Scandinavian, such as the ring-sword or the boar-helmet or the ring-corslet.

There is, as is noted above, a certain atmosphere of profusion and wealth about some Scandinavian grave-finds, which corresponds much more nearly with the wealthy life depicted in Beowulf than does the comparatively meagre tomb-furniture of England. But we must remember that, after the spread of Christianity in the first half of the seventh century, the custom of burying articles with the bodies of the dead naturally ceased, or almost ceased, in England. Scandinavia continued heathen for another four hundred years, and it was during these years that the most magnificent deposits were made. As Stjerna himself points out, "a steadily increasing luxury in the appointment of graves" is to be found in Scandinavia in these centuries before the introduction of Christianity there. When we find in Scandinavia things (complete ships, for example) which we do not find in England, we owe this, partly to the nature of the soil in which they were embedded, but also to the continuance of such burial customs after they had died out in England.

Helm and byrnie were not necessarily unknown, or even very rare in England, simply because it was not the custom to bury them with the dead. On the other hand, the frequent mention of them in Beowulf does not imply that they were common: for Beowulf deals only with the aristocratic adherents of a court, and even in Beowulf fine specimens of the helm and byrnie are spoken of as things which a king seeks far and wide to procure for his retainers^[746]. We cannot, therefore, argue that there is any discrepancy. However, if we do so argue, it would merely prove, not that Beowulf is Scandinavian as opposed to English, but that it is comparatively late in date. Tacitus emphasizes the fact that spear and shield were the Teutonic weapons, that helmet and corslet were hardly known^[747]. Pagan graves show that at any rate they were hardly known as tomb-furniture in England in the fifth, sixth, and early seventh centuries. The introduction of Christianity, and the intercourse with the South which it involved, certainly led to the growth of pomp and wealth in England, till the early eighth century became "the golden age of Anglo-Saxon England."

It might therefore conceivably be argued that Beowulf reflects the comparative abundance of early Christian England, as opposed to the more primitive heathen simplicity; but to argue a Scandinavian origin from the profusion of Beowulf admits of an easy reductio ad absurdum. For the same arguments would prove a heathen, Scandinavian origin for the Andreas, the Elene, the Exodus, or even for the Franks Casket, despite its Anglo-Saxon inscription and Christian carvings.

However, though the absence of helm and byrnie from Anglo-Saxon graves does not prove that these arms were not used by the living in heathen times, one thing it assuredly does prove: that the Anglo-Saxons in heathen times did not sacrifice helm and byrnie recklessly in funeral pomp. And this brings us to the second argument as to the origin of Beowulf which has been based on archæology.

Something has been said above of this second contention^[748]—that the accuracy of the account of Beowulf's funeral is confirmed in every point by archæological evidence: that it must therefore have been composed within living memory of a time when ceremonies of this kind were still actually in use in England: and that therefore we cannot date Beowulf later than the third or fourth decade of the seventh century.

To begin with; the pyre in Beowulf is represented as hung with helmets, bright byrnies, and shields. Now it is impossible to say exactly how the funeral pyres were equipped in England. But we do know how the buried bodies were equipped. And (although inhumation cemeteries are much more common than cremation cemeteries) all the graves that have been opened have so far yielded only one case of a helmet and byrnie being buried with the warrior, and one other very doubtful case of a helmet without the byrnie. Abroad, instances are somewhat more common, but still of great rarity. For such things could ill be spared. Charles the Great forbade the export of byrnies from his dominions. Worn by picked champions fighting in the forefront, they might well decide the issue of a battle. In the mounds where we have reason to think that the great chiefs mentioned in Beowulf, Eadgils or Ohthere, lie buried, any trace of weapons was conspicuously absent among the burnt remains. Nevertheless, the belief that his armour would be useful to the champion in the next life, joined perhaps with a feeling that it was unlucky, or unfair on the part of the survivor to deprive the dead of his personal weapons, led in heathen times to the occasional burial of these treasures with the warrior who owned them. The fifth century tomb of Childeric I, when discovered twelve centuries later, was found magnificently furnished—the prince had been buried with treasure and much equipment^[749], sword, scramasax^[750], axe, spear. But these were his own. Similarly, piety might have demanded that Beowulf should be burnt with his full equipment. But would the pyre have been hung with helmets and byrnies? Whose? Were the thegns asked to sacrifice theirs, and go naked into the next fight in honour of their lord? If so, what archæological authority have we for such a custom in England?

Then the barrow is built, and the vast treasure of the dragon (which included "many a helmet^[751]") placed in it. Now there are instances of articles which have not passed through the fire being placed in or upon or around an urn with the cremated bones^[752]. But is there any instance of the thing being done on this scale—of a wholesale burning of helmets and byrnies followed by a burial of huge treasure? If so, one would like to know when, and where. If not, how can it be argued that the account in Beowulf is one of which "the accuracy is confirmed in every point by archæological or contemporary literary evidence?" Rather we must say, with Knut Stjerna, that it is "too much of a good thing^[753]."

For the antiquities of Anglo-Saxon England, the student should consult the Victoria County History. The two splendid volumes of Professor G. Baldwin Brown on Saxon Art and Industry in the Pagan Period^[754] at length enable the general reader to get a survey of the essential facts, for which up to now he has had to have recourse to innumerable scattered treatises. The Archæology of the Anglo-Saxon Settlements by Mr E. Thurlow Leeds will also be found helpful.

Side-lights from the field of Teutonic antiquities in general can be got from Prof. Baldwin Brown's Arts and Crafts of our Teutonic Forefathers, 1910, and from Lindenschmit's Handbuch der deutschen Alterthumskunde, I. Theil: Die Alterthümer der Merovingischen Zeit (Braunschweig, 1880-89), a book which is still indispensable. Hoops' Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde, Strassburg, 1911-19, 4 vols., includes a large number of contributions of the greatest importance to the student of Beowulf, both upon archæological and other subjects. By the completion^[755] of this most valuable work, amid heart-breaking difficulties, Prof. Hoops has placed all students under a great obligation.

Much help can be got from an examination of the antiquities of Teutonic countries other than England. The following books are useful—for Norway: Gustafson (G.), Norges Oldtid, 1906; for Denmark: Müller (S.), Vor Oldtid, 1897; for Sweden: Montelius (O.), Civilization of Sweden in Heathen Times, 1888, Kulturgeschichte Schwedens, 1906; for Schleswig: Mestorf (J.), Vorgeschichtliche Alterthümer aus Schleswig; for the Germanic nations in their wanderings on the outskirts of the Roman Empire: Hampel (J.), Alterthümer des frühen Mittelalters in Ungarn, 3 Bde, 1905; for Germanic remains in Gaul: Barrière-Flavy (M. C.), Les Arts industriels des peuples barbares de la Gaule du V^me au VIII^me siècle, 3 tom. 1901.

Somewhat popular accounts, and now rather out of date, are the two South Kensington handbooks: Worsaae (J. J. A.), Industrial Arts of Denmark, 1882, and Hildebrand (H.), Industrial Arts of Scandinavia, 1883.

Scandinavian Burial Mounds

The three great "Kings' Mounds" at Old Uppsala were explored between 1847 and 1874: cremated remains from them can be seen in the Stockholm Museum. An account of the tunnelling, and of the complicated structure of the mounds, was given in 1876 by the Swedish State-Antiquary^[756]. From these finds Knut Stjerna dated the oldest of the "Kings' Mounds" about 500 A.D.^[757], and the others somewhat later. Now, as we are definitely told that Athils (Eadgils) and the two kings who figure in the list of Swedish monarchs as his grandfather and great-grandfather (Aun and Egil) were "laid in mound" at Uppsala^[758], and as the chronology agrees, it seems only reasonable to conclude that the three Kings' Mounds were raised over these three kings^[759].

That Athils' father Ottar (Ohthere) was not regarded as having been buried at Uppsala is abundantly clear from the account given of his death, and of his nickname Vendel-crow^[760]. A mound near Vendel north of Uppsala is known by his name. Such names are often the result of quite modern antiquarian conjecture: but that such is not the case here was proved by the recent discovery that an antiquarian survey (preserved in MS in the Royal Library at Stockholm) dating from 1677, mentions in Vendel "widh Hussby, [en] stor jorde högh, som heeter Otters högen^[761]." An exploration of Ottar's mound showed a striking similarity with the Uppsala mounds. The structure was the same, a cairn of stones covered over with earth; the cremated remains were similar, there were abundant traces of burnt animals, a comb, half-spherical draughts with two round holes bored in the flat side, above all, there was in neither case any trace of weapons. In Ottar's mound a gold Byzantine coin was found, pierced, having evidently been used as an ornament. It can be dated 477-8; it is much worn, but such coins seldom remained in the North in use for a century after their minting^[762]. Ottar's mound obviously, then, belongs to the same period as the Uppsala mounds, and confirms the date attributed by Stjerna to the oldest of those mounds, about 500 A.D.

Weapons

For weapons in general see Lehmann (H.), Über die Waffen im angelsächsischen Beowulfliede, in Germania, XXXI, 486-97; Keller (May L.), The Anglo-Saxon weapon names treated archæologically and etymologically, Heidelberg, 1906 (Anglistische Forschungen, XV: cf. Holthausen, Anglia, Beiblatt, XVIII, 65-9, Binz, Litteraturblatt, XXXI, 98-100); ‡Wagner (R.), Die Angriffswaffen der Angelsächsischen, Diss., Königsberg; and especially Falk (H.), Altnordische Waffenkunde, in Videnskapsselskapets Skrifter, Hist.-Filos. Klasse, 1914, Kristiania.

The Sword. The sword of the Anglo-Saxon pagan period (from the fifth to the seventh century) "is deficient in quality as a blade, and also... in the character of its hilt^[763]." In this it contrasts with the sword found in the peat-bogs of Schleswig from an earlier period: "these swords of the Schleswig moss-finds are much better weapons^[764]," as well as with the later Viking sword of the ninth or tenth century, which "is a remarkably effective and well-considered implement^[765]." It has been suggested that both the earlier Schleswig swords and the later Viking swords (which bear a considerable likeness to each other, as against the inferior Anglo-Saxon sword) are the product of intercourse with Romanized peoples^[766], whilst the typical Anglo-Saxon sword "may represent an independent Germanic effort at sword making^[767]." However this may be, it is noteworthy that nowhere in Beowulf do we have any hint of the skill of any sword-smith who is regarded as contemporary. A good sword is always "an old heirloom," "an ancient treasure^[768]." The sword of Wiglaf, which had belonged to Eanmund, or the sword with which Eofor slays Ongentheow, are described by the phrase ealdsweord eotenisc, as if they were weapons of which the secret and origin had been lost—indeed the same phrase is applied to the magic sword which Beowulf finds in the hall of Grendel's mother.

The blade of these ancestral swords was sometimes damascened or adorned with wave-like patterns^[769]. The swords of the Schleswig moss-finds are almost all thus adorned with a variegated surface, as often are the later Viking swords; but those of the Anglo-Saxon graves are not. Is it fanciful to suggest that the reference to damascening is a tradition coming down from the time of the earlier sword as found in the Nydam moss? A few early swords might have been preserved among the invaders as family heirlooms, too precious to be buried with the owner, as the product of the local weapon-smith was.

See, for a full discussion of the sword in Beowulf, Stjerna, Hjälmar och svärd i Beovulf (Studier tillägnade O. Montelius, Stockholm, pp. 99-120 = Essays, transl. Clark Hall, pp. 1-32). The standard treatise on the sword, Den Yngre Jernalders Sværd, Bergen, 1889, by A. L. Lorange, deals mainly with a rather later period.

The Helmet. The helmet found at Benty Grange in Derbyshire in 1848 is now in the Sheffield Museum^[770]: little remains except the boar-crest, the nose-piece, and the framework of iron ribs radiating from the crown, and fixed to a circle of iron surrounding the brow (perhaps the frēawrāsn of Beowulf, 1451). Mr Bateman, the discoverer, described the helmet as "coated with narrow plates of horn, running in a diagonal direction from the ribs, so as to form a herring-bone pattern; the ends were secured by strips of horn, radiating in like manner as the iron ribs, to which they were riveted at intervals of about an inch and a half: all the rivets had ornamented heads of silver on the outside, and on the front rib is a small cross of the same metal. Upon the top or crown of the helmet, is an elongated oval brass plate, upon which stands the figure of an animal, carved in iron, now much rusted, but still a very good representation of a pig: it has bronze eyes^[771]." Helmets of very similar construction, but without the boar, have been found on the Continent and in Scandinavia (Vendel, Grave 14, late seventh century). The continental helmets often stand higher^[772] than the Benty Grange or Vendel specimens, being sometimes quite conical (cf. the epithet "war-steep," heaðo-stēap, Beowulf). Many of the continental helmets are provided with cheek-protections, and these also appear in the Scandinavian representations of warriors on the Torslunda plates and elsewhere. These side pieces have become detached from the magnificent Vendel helmet, which is often shown in engravings without them^[773], but they can be seen in the Stockholm Museum^[774]. If it ever possessed them, the Benty Grange helmet has lost these side pieces. Such cheek-protections are, however, represented, together with the nose-protection, on the head of one of the warriors depicted on the Franks Casket. In the Vendel helms, the nose-pieces were connected under the eyes with the rim of the helmet, so as to form a mask^[774]; the helmet in Beowulf is frequently spoken of as the battle-mask^[775].

Both helmet and boar-crest were sometimes gold-adorned^[776]: the golden boar was a symbol of the god Freyr: some magic protective power is still, in Beowulf^[777], felt to adhere to these swine-likenesses, as it was in the days of Tacitus^[778].

In Scandinavia, the Torslunda plates show the helmet with a boar-crest: the Vendel helmet has representations of warriors whose crests have an animal's head tailing off to a mere rim or roll: this may be the walu or wala which keeps watch over the head in Beowulf^[779]. The helmet was bound fast to the head^[780]; exactly how, we do not know.

See Lehmann (H.), Brünne und Helm im ags. Beowulfliede (Göttingen Diss., Leipzig; cf. Wülker, Anglia, VIII, Anzeiger, 167-70; Schulz, Engl. Stud., IX, 471); Hoops' Reallexikon, s.v. Helm; Baldwin Brown, III, 194-6; Falk, Altnord. Waffenkunde, 155-73; Stjerna, Hjälmar och svärd, 1907, as above: but the attempt of Stjerna to arrange the helmets he depicts in a chronological series is perilous, and depends on a dating of the Benty Grange helmet which is by no means generally accepted.

The Corslet. This in Beowulf is made of rings^[781], twisted and interlaced by hand^[782]. As stated above, the fragments of the only known Anglo-Saxon byrnie were not of this type, but rather intended to have been sewn "upon a doublet of strong cloth^[783]." Byrnies were of various lengths, the longer ones reaching to the middle of the thigh (byrnan sīde, Beow. 1291, cf. loricæ longæ, síðar brynjur).

See Falk, 179; Baldwin Brown, III. 194.

The Spear. Spear and shield were the essential Germanic weapons in the days of Tacitus, and they are the weapons most commonly found in Old English tombs. The spear-shaft has generally decayed, analysis of fragments surviving show that it was frequently of ash^[784]. The butt-end of the spear was frequently furnished with an iron tip, and the distance of this from the spear-head, and the size of the socket, show the spear-shaft to have been six or seven feet long, and three-quarters of an inch to one inch in diameter.

See Falk, 66-90; Baldwin Brown, III, 234-41.

The Shield. Several round shields were preserved on the Gokstad ship, and in the deposits of an earlier period at Thorsbjerg and Nydam. These are formed of boards fastened together, often only a quarter of an inch thick, and not strengthened or braced in any way, bearing out the contemptuous description of the painted German shield which Tacitus puts into the mouth of Germanicus^[785]. It was, however, intended that the shield should be light. It was easily pierced, but, by a rapid twist, the foe's sword could be broken or wrenched from his hand. Thus we are told how Gunnar gave his shield a twist, as his adversary thrust his sword through it, and so snapped off his sword at the hilt^[786]. The shield was held by a bar, crossing a hole some four inches wide cut in the middle. The hand was protected by a hollow conical boss or umbo, fixed to the wood by its brim, but projecting considerably. In England the wood of the shield has always perished, but a large number of bosses have been preserved. The boss seems to have been called rond, a word which is also used for the shield as a whole. In Beowulf, 2673, Gifts of Men, 65, the meaning "boss" suits rond best, also in rand sceal on scylde, fæst fingra gebeorh (Cotton. Gnomic Verses, 37-8). But the original meaning of rand must have been the circular rim round the edge, and this meaning it retains in Icelandic (Falk, 131). The linden wood was sometimes bound with bast, whence scyld (sceal) gebunden, lēoht linden bord (Exeter Gnomic Verses, 94-5).

See Falk (126-54); Baldwin Brown, III, 196-204; Pfannkuche (K.), Der Schild bei den Angelsachsen, Halle Dissertation, 1908.

The Bow is a weapon of much less importance in Beowulf than the spear. Few traces of the bow have survived from Anglo-Saxon England, though many wooden long-bows have been preserved in the moss-finds in a remarkably fine state. They are of yew, some over six feet long, and in at least one instance tipped with horn. The bow entirely of horn was, of course, well known in the East, and in classical antiquity, but I do not think traces of any horn-bow have been discovered in the North. It was a difficult weapon to manage, as the suitors of Penelope found to their cost. Possibly that is why Hæthcyn is represented as killing his brother Herebeald accidentally with a horn-bow: he could not manage the exotic weapon.

See Falk, 91-103; Baldwin Brown, III, 241.

The Hall

It may perhaps be the fact that in the church of Sta. Maria de Naranco, in the north of Spain, we have the hall of a Visigothic king driven north by the Mohammedan invasion. But, even if this surmise^[787] be correct, the structure of a stone hall of about 750 A.D. gives us little information as to the wooden halls of early Anglo-Saxon times. Heorot is clearly built of timber, held together by iron clamps^[788]. These halls were oblong, and a famous passage in Bede^[789] makes it clear that, at any rate at the time of the Conversion, the hall had a door at both ends, and the fire burnt in the middle. (The smoke escaped through a hole in the roof, through which probably most of the light came, for windows were few or none.) The Finnsburg Fragment also implies two doors. Further indications can be drawn from references to the halls of Norse chiefs. The Scandinavian hall was divided by rows of wooden pillars into a central nave and side aisles. The pillars in the centre were known as the "high-seat pillars." Rows of seats ran down the length of the hall on each side. The central position, facing the high-seat pillars and the fire, was the most honourable. The place of honour for the chief guest was opposite: and it is quite clear that in Beowulf also the guest did not sit next his host^[790].

Other points we may note about Heorot, are the tapestry with which its walls are draped^[791], and the paved and variegated floor^[792]. Unlike so many later halls, Heorot has a floor little, if anything, raised above the ground: horses can be brought in^[793].

In later times, in Iceland, the arrangement of the hall was changed, and the house consisted of many rooms; but these were formed, not by partitioning the hall, but by building several such halls side by side: the stufa or hall proper, the skáli or sleeping hall, etc.

See M. Heyne, Ueber die Lage und Construction der Halle Heorot, Paderborn, 1864, where the scanty information about Heorot is collected, and supplemented with some information about Anglo-Saxon building. For the Icelandic hall see Valtyr Guðmundsson, Privatboligen på Island i Sagatiden, København, 1889. This has been summarized, in a more popular form, in a chapter on Den islandske Bolig i Fristatstiden, contributed by Guðmundsson to Rosenberg's Træk af Livet paa Island i Fristatstiden, 1894 (pp. 251-74). Here occurs the picture of an Icelandic hall which has been so often reproduced—by Olrik, Holthausen, and in Beowulf-translations. But it is a conjectural picture, and we can by no means assume all its details for Heorot. Rhamm's colossal work is only for the initiated, but is useful for consultation on special points (Ethnographische Beiträge zur Germanischslawischen Altertumskunde, von K. Rhamm, 1905-8. I. Die Grosshufen der Nordgermanen; II. Urzeitliche Bauernhöfe). For various details see Hoops' Reallexikon, s.v. flett; Neckel in P.B.B. XLI, 1916, 163-70 (under edoras); Meiringer in I.F., especially XVIII, 257 (under eoderas); Kaufmann in Z.f.d.Ph. XXXIX, 282-92.

Ships

In a tumulus near Snape in Suffolk, opened in 1862, there were discovered, with burnt bones and remains thought to be of Anglo-Saxon date, a large number of rivets which, from the positions in which they were found, seemed to give evidence of a boat 48 feet long by over nine feet wide^[794]. A boat, similar in dimensions, but better preserved, was unearthed near Bruges in 1899, and the ribs, mast and rudder removed to the Gruuthuuse Museum^[795].

Three boats were discovered in the peat-moss at Nydam in Schleswig in 1863, by Engelhardt. The most important is the "Nydam boat," clinker-built (i.e. with overlapping planks), of oak, 77 feet [23.5 m.] long, by some 11 [3.4 m.] broad, with rowlocks for fourteen oars down each side. There was no trace of any mast. Planks and framework had been held together, partly by iron bolts, and partly by ropes of bast. The boat had fallen to pieces, and had to be laboriously put together in the museum at Flensborg. Another boat was quite fragmentary, but a third boat, of fir, was found tolerably complete. Then the war of 1864 ended Engelhardt's labours at Nydam.

The oak-boat was removed to Kiel, where it now is.

The fir-boat was allowed to decay: many of the pieces of the oak-boat had been rotten and had of necessity been restored in facsimile, and it is much less complete than might be supposed from the numerous reproductions, based upon the fine engraving by Magnus Petersen. The rustic with a spade, there depicted as gazing at the boat, is apt to give a wrong impression that it was dug out intact^[796].

Such was, however, actually the case with regard to the ship excavated from the big mound at Gokstad, near Christiania, by Nicolaysen, in 1880. This was fitted both as a rowing and sailing ship; it was 66 feet [20.1 m.] long on the keel, 78 feet [23.8 m.] from fore to aft and nearly 17 feet [5.1 m.] broad, and was clinker-built, out of a much larger number of oaken planks than the Nydam ship. It had rowlocks for sixteen oars down each side, the gunwale was lined with shields, some of them well preserved, which had been originally painted alternately black and yellow. The find owed its extraordinary preservation to the blue clay in which it was embedded. Its discoverer wrote, with pardonable pride: "Certain it is that we shall not disinter any craft which, in respect of model and workmanship, will outrival that of Gokstad^[797]."

Yet the prophecy was destined to prove false: for on Aug. 8, 1903, a farmer came into the National Museum at Christiania to tell the curator, Prof. Gustafson, that he had discovered traces of a boat on his farm at Oseberg. Gustafson found that the task was too great to be begun so late in the year: the digging out of the ship, and its removal to Christiania, occupied from just before Midsummer to just before Christmas of 1904. The potter's clay in which the ship was buried had preserved it, if possible, better than the Gokstad ship: but the movement of the soft subsoil had squeezed and broken both ship and contents. The ship was taken out of the earth in nearly two thousand fragments. These were carefully numbered and marked: each piece was treated, bent back into its right shape, and the ship was put together again plank by plank, as when it was first built. With the exception of a piece about half a yard long, five or six little bits let in, and one of the beams, the ship as it stands now consists of the original woodwork. Two-thirds of the rivets are the old ones. Till his death in 1915 Gustafson was occupied in treating and preparing for exhibition first the ship, and then its extraordinarily rich contents: a waggon and sledges beautifully carved, beds, chests, kitchen utensils which had been buried with the princess who had owned them. A full account of the find is only now being published^[798].

The Oseberg ship is the pleasure boat of a royal lady: clinker-built, of oak, exquisitely carved, intended not for long voyages but for the land-locked waters of the fiord, 70½ feet [21.5 m.] long by some 16½ feet [5 m.] broad. There are holes for fifteen oars down each side, and the ship carried mast and sail.

The upper part of the prow had been destroyed, but sufficient fragments have been found to show that it ended in the head of a snake-like creature, bent round in a coil. This explains the words hringed-stefna^[799], hring-naca^[800], wunden-stefna^[801], used of the ship in Beowulf. A similar ringed prow is depicted on an engraved stone from Tjängvide, now in the National Historical Museum at Stockholm. This is supposed to date from about the year 1000^[802].

The Gokstad and Oseberg ships, together with the ship of Tune, a much less complete specimen (unearthed in 1867, and found like the others on the shore of the Christiania fiord) owe their preservation to the clay, and the skill of Scandinavian antiquaries. Yet they are but three out of thousands of ship- or boat-burials. Schetelig enumerates 552 known instances from Norway alone. Often traces of the iron rivets are all that remain.

Ships preserved from the Baltic coast of Germany can be seen at Königsberg, Danzig and Stettin; they are smaller and apparently later; the best, that of Brösen, was destroyed.

The seamanship of Beowulf is removed by centuries from that of the (? fourth or fifth century) Nydam boat, which not only has no mast or proper keel, but is so built as to be little suited for sailing. In Beowulf the sea is a "sail-road," the word "to row" occurs only in the sense of "swim," sailing is assumed as the means by which Beowulf travels between the land of the Geatas and that of the Danes. Though he voyages with but fourteen companions, the ship is big enough to carry back four horses. How the sail may have been arranged is shown in many inscribed stones of the eighth to the tenth centuries: notably those of Stenkyrka^[803], Högbro^[804], and Tjängvide^[805].

The Oseberg and Gokstad ships are no doubt later than the composition of Beowulf. But it is when looking at the Oseberg ship, especially if we picture the great prow like the neck of a swan ending in a serpent's coil, that we can best understand the words of Beowulf

flota fāmī-heals fugle gelīcost,

wunden-stefna,

well rendered by Earle "The foamy-necked floater, most like to a bird—the coily-stemmed."

See Boehmer (G. H.), Prehistoric Naval Architecture of the North of Europe, Report of the U.S. National Museum for 1891 (now rather out of date); Guðmundsson (V.), Nordboernes Skibe i Vikinge- og Sagatiden, København, 1900; [*]Schnepper, Die Namen der Schiffe u. Schiffsteile im Altenglischen (Kiel Diss.), 1908; Falk (H.), Altnordisches Seewesen (Wörter u. Sachen, IV, Heidelberg, 1912); Hoops' Reallexikon, s.v. Schiff.

G. LEIRE BEFORE ROLF KRAKI

That Leire was the royal town, not merely of Rolf Kraki, but of Rolf's predecessors as well, is stated in the Skjoldunga Saga, extant in the Latin abstract of Arngrim Jonsson: Scioldus in arce Selandiae Hledro sedes posuit, quae et sequentium plurimorum regum regia fuit (ed. Olrik, København, 1894, p. 23 [105]). Similarly we are told in the Ynglinga Saga, concerning Gefion, Hennar fekk Skjǫldr, sonr Óðins; þau bjoggu at Hleiðru (Heimskringla, udgivne ved F. Jónsson, København, I, 15 [cap. V]).

Above all, it is clear from the Annales Lundenses that, in the twelfth century, Dan, Ro (Hrothgar) and Haldan (Healfdene) were traditionally connected with Leire, and three of the grave mounds there were associated with these three kings. See the extract given above, pp. 204-5, and cf. p. 17.

H. BEE-WOLF AND BEAR'S SON

The obvious interpretation of the name Bēowulf is that suggested by Grimm^[806], that it means "wolf, or foe, of the bee." Grimm's suggestion was repeated independently by Skeat^[807], and further reasons for the interpretation "bee-foe" have been found by Sweet^[808] (who had been anticipated by Simrock^[809] in some of his points), by Cosijn^[810], Sievers^[811], von Grienberger^[812], Panzer^[813] and Björkman^[814].

From the phonological point of view the etymology is a perfect one, but many of those who were convinced that "Beowulf" meant "bee-foe" had no satisfactory explanation of "bee-foe" to offer^[815]. Others, like Bugge, whilst admitting that, so far as the form of the words goes, the etymology is satisfactory, rejected "bee-foe" because it seemed to them meaningless^[816].

Yet it is very far from meaningless. "Bee-foe" means "bear." The bear has got a name, or nickname, in many northern languages from his habit of raiding the hives for honey. The Finnish name for bear is said to be "honey-hand": he is certainly called "sweet-foot," sötfot, in Sweden, and the Old Slavonic name, "honey-eater," has come to be accepted in Russian, not merely as a nickname, but as the regular term for "bear."

And "bear" is an excellent name for a hero of story. The O.E. beorn, "warrior, hero, prince" seems originally to have meant simply "bear." The bear, says Grimm, "is regarded, in the belief of the Old Norse, Slavonic, Finnish and Lapp peoples, as an exalted and holy being, endowed with human understanding and the strength of twelve men. He is called 'forest-king,' 'gold-foot,' 'sweet-foot,' 'honey-hand,' 'honey-paw,' 'honey-eater,' but also 'the great,' 'the old,' 'the old grandsire^[817].'" "Bee-hunter" is then a satisfactory explanation of Bēowulf: while the alternative explanations are none of them satisfactory.

Many scholars have been led off the track by the assumption that Beow and Beowulf are to be identified, and that we must therefore assume that the first element in Beowulf's name is Bēow—that we must divide not Bēo-wulf but Bēow-ulf, "a warrior after the manner of Beow^[818]." But there is no ground for any such assumption. It is true that in ll. 18, 53, "Beowulf" is written where we should have expected "Beowa." But, even if two words of similar sound have been confused, this fact affords no reason for supposing that they must necessarily have been in the first instance connected etymologically. And against the "warrior of Beow" interpretation is the fact that the name is recorded in the early Northumbrian Liber Vitae under the form "Biuuulf^[819]." This name, which is that of an early monk of Durham, is presumably the same as that of the hero of our poem, though it does not, of course, follow that the bearer of it was named with any special reference to the slayer of Grendel. Now Biuuulf is correct Northumbrian for "bee-wolf," but the first element in the word cannot stand for Bēow^[820], unless the affinities and forms of that word are quite different from all that the evidence has hitherto led us to believe. So much at least seems certain. Besides, we have seen that Byggvir is taunted by Loki precisely with the fact that he is no warrior. If we can estimate the characteristics of the O.E. Beow from those of the Scandinavian Byggvir, the name "Warrior after the manner of Beow" would be meaningless, if not absurd. Bugge^[821], relying upon the parallel O.N. form Bjólfr^[822], which is recorded as the name of one of the early settlers in Iceland^[823], tried to interpret the word as Bœjólfr "the wolf of the farmstead," quoting as parallels Heimulf, Gardulf. But Bjólfr itself is best interpreted as "Bee-wolf^[824]." And admittedly Bugge's explanation does not suit the O.E. Bēowulf, and necessitates the assumption that the word in English is a mere meaningless borrowing from the Scandinavian: for Bēowulf assuredly does not mean "wolf of the farmstead^[825]."

Neither can we take very seriously the explanation of Sarrazin and Ferguson^[826] that Bēowulf is an abbreviation of Beadu-wulf, "wolf of war." Our business is to interpret the name Bēowulf, or, if we cannot, to admit that we cannot; not to substitute some quite distinct name for it, and interpret that. Such theories merely show to what straits we may be reduced, if we reject the obvious etymology of the word.

And there are two further considerations, which confirm, almost to a certainty, this obvious interpretation of "Beowulf" as "Bee-wolf" or "Bear." The first is that it agrees excellently with Beowulf's bear-like habit of hugging his adversaries to death—a feature which surely belongs to the original kernel of our story, since it is incompatible with the chivalrous, weapon-loving trappings in which that story has been dressed^[827]. The second is that, as I have tried to show, the evidence is strongly in favour of Bjarki and Beowulf being originally the same figure^[828]: and Bjarki is certainly a bear-hero^[829]. His name signifies as much, and in the Saga of Rolf Kraki we are told at length how the father of Bjarki was a prince who had been turned by enchantment into a bear^[830].

If, then, Beowulf is a bear-hero^[831], the next step is to enquire whether there is any real likeness between his adventures at Heorot and under the mere, and the adventures of the hero of the widely-spread "Bear's Son" folk-tale. This investigation has, as we have seen above^[832], been carried out by Panzer in his monumental work, which marks an epoch in the study of Beowulf.

Panzer's arguments in favour of such connection would, I think, have been strengthened if he had either quoted textually a number of the more important and less generally accessible folk-tales, or, since this would have proved cumbersome, if he had at least given abstracts of them. The method which Panzer follows, is to enumerate over two hundred tales, and from them to construct a story which is a compound of them all. This is obviously a method which is liable to abuse, though I do not say that Panzer has abused it. But we must not let a story so constructed usurp in our minds the place of the actual recorded folk-tales. Folk-tales, as Andrew Lang wrote long ago, "consist of but few incidents, grouped together in a kaleidoscopic variety of arrangements." A collection of over two hundred cognate tales offers a wide field for the selection therefrom of a composite story. Further, some geographical discrimination is necessary: these tales are scattered over Europe and Asia, and it is important to keep constantly in mind whether a given type of tale belongs, for example, to Greece or to Scandinavia.

A typical example of the Bear's son tale is Der Starke Hans in Grimm^[833]. Hans is brought up in a robber's den: but quite apart from any of the theories we are now considering, it has long been recognized that this is a mere toning down of the original incredible story, which makes a bear's den the nursery of the strong youth^[834]. Hans overcomes in an empty castle the foe (a mannikin of magic powers) who has already worsted his comrades Fir-twister and Stone-splitter. He pursues this foe to his hole, is let down by his companions in a basket by a rope, slays the foe with his club and rescues a princess. He sends up the princess in the basket; but when his own turn comes to be pulled up his associates intentionally drop the basket when halfway up. But Hans, suspecting treason, has only sent up his club. He escapes by magic help, takes vengeance on the traitors, and weds the princess.

In another story in Grimm^[835], the antagonist whom the hero overcomes, but does not in this case slay, is called the Earthman, Dat Erdmänneken. This type begins with the disappearance of the princesses, who are to the orthodox number of three; otherwise it does not differ materially from the abstract given above. Grimm records four distinct versions, all from Western Germany.

The versions of this widespread story which are most easily accessible to English readers are likely to prejudice such readers against Panzer's view. The two versions in Campbell's Popular Tales of the West Highlands^[836], or the version in Kennedy's Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts^[837] are not of a kind to remind any unprejudiced reader strongly of Beowulf, or of the Grettir-story either. Indeed, I believe that from countries so remote as North Italy or Russia parallels can be found which are closer than any so far quoted from the Celtic portions of the British Isles. Possibly more Celtic parallels may be forthcoming in the future: some striking ones at any rate are promised^[838].

So, too, the story of the "Great Bird Dan" (Fugl Dam^[839]), which is accessible to English readers in Dasent's translation^[840], is one in which the typical features have been overlaid by a mass of detail.

A much more normal specimen of the "Bear's son" story is found, for example, in a folk-tale from Lombardy—the story of Giovanni dell' Orso^[841]. Giovanni is brought up in a bear's den, whither his mother has been carried off. At five, he has the growth of a man and the strength of a giant. At sixteen, he is able to remove the stone from the door of the den and escape, with his mother. Going on his adventures with two comrades, he comes to an empty palace. The comrades are defeated: it becomes the turn of Giovanni to be alone. An old man comes in and "grows, grows till his head touched the roof^[842]." Giovanni mortally wounds the giant, who however escapes. They all go in search of him, and find a hole in the ground. His comrades let Giovanni down by a rope. He finds a great hall, full of rich clothes and provision of every kind: in a second hall he finds three girls, each one more beautiful than the other: in a third hall he finds the giant himself, drawing up his will^[843]. Giovanni kills the giant, rescues the damsels, and, in spite of his comrades deserting the rope, he escapes, pardons them, himself weds the youngest princess and marries his comrades to the elder ones.

I cannot find in this version any mention of the hero smiting the giant below with a magic sword which he finds there, as suggested by Panzer^[844]. But even without this, the first part of the story has resemblances to Beowulf, and still more to the Grettir-story.

There are many Slavonic variants. The South Russian story of the Norka^[845] begins with the attack of the Norka upon the King's park. The King offers half his kingdom to whomsoever will destroy the beast. The youngest prince of three watches, after the failure of his two elder brothers, chases and wounds the monster, who in the end pulls up a stone and disappears into the earth. The prince is let down by his brothers, and, with the help of a sword specially given him in the underworld, and a draught of the water of strength, he slays the foe, and wins the princesses. In order to have these for themselves, the elder brothers drop what they suppose to be their youngest brother, as they are drawing him up: but it is only a stone he has cautiously tied to the rope in place of himself. The prince's miraculous return in disguise, his feats, recognition by the youngest princess, the exposure of the traitors, and marriage of the hero, all follow in due course^[846].

A closer Russian parallel is that of Ivashko Medvedko^[847]. "John Honey-eater" or "Bear." John grows up, not by years, but by hours: nearly every hour he gains an inch in height. At fifteen, there are complaints of his rough play with other village boys, and John Bear has to go out into the world, after his grandfather has provided him with a weapon, an iron staff of immense weight. He meets a champion who is drinking up a river: "Good morning, John Bear, whither art going?" "I know not whither; I just go, not knowing where to go." "If so, take me with you." The same happens with a second champion whose hobby is to carry mountains on his shoulder, and with a third, who plucks up oaks or pushes them into the ground. They come to a revolving house in a dark forest, which at John's word stands with its back door to the forest and its front door to them: all its doors and windows open of their own accord. Though the yard is full of poultry, the house is empty. Whilst the three companions go hunting, the river-swallower stays in the house to cook dinner: this done, he washes his head, and sits at the window to comb his locks. Suddenly the earth shakes, then stands still: a stone is lifted, and from under it appears Baba Yaga driving in her mortar with a pestle: behind her comes barking a little dog. A short dialogue ensues, and the champion, at her request, gives her food; but the second helping she throws to her dog, and thereupon beats the champion with her pestle till he becomes unconscious; then she cuts a strip of skin from his back, and after eating all the food, vanishes. The victim recovers his senses, ties up his head with a handkerchief, and, when his companions return, apologizes for the ill-success of his cooking: "He had been nearly suffocated by the fumes of the charcoal, and had had his work cut out to get the room clear." Exactly the same happens to the other champions. On the fourth day it is the turn of John Bear, and here again the same formulas are repeated. John does the cooking, washes his head, sits down at the window and begins to comb his curly locks. Baba Yaga appears with the usual phenomena, and the usual dialogue follows, till she begins to belabour the hero with her pestle. But he wrests it from her, beats her almost to death, cuts three strips from her skin, and imprisons her in a closet. When his companions return, they are astonished to find dinner ready. After dinner they have a bath, and the companions try not to show their mutilated backs, but at last have to confess. "Now I see why you all suffered from suffocation," says John Bear. He goes to the closet, takes the three strips cut from his friends, and reinserts them: they heal at once. Then he ties up Baba Yaga by a cord fastened to one foot, and they all shoot at the cord in turn. John Bear hits it, and cuts the string in two; Baba Yaga falls to the earth, but rises, runs to the stone from under which she had appeared, lifts it, and vanishes. Each of the companions tries in turn to lift the stone, but only John can accomplish it, and only he is willing to go down. His comrades let him down by a rope, which however is too short, and John has to eke it out by the three strips previously cut from the back of Baba Yaga. At the bottom he sees a path, follows it, and reaches a palace where are three beautiful maidens, who welcome him, but warn him against their mother, who is Baba Yaga herself: "She is asleep now, but she keeps at her head a sword. Do not touch it, but take two golden apples lying on a silver tray, wake her gently, and offer them to her. As soon as she begins to eat, seize the sword, and cut her head off at one blow." John Bear carries out these instructions, and sends up the maidens, two to be wives to his companions, and the youngest to be his own wife. This leaves the third companion wifeless and, in indignation, he cuts the rope when the turn comes to pull John up. The hero falls and is badly hurt. [John has forgotten, in this version, to put his iron club into the basket instead of himself—indeed he has up to now made no use of his staff.] In time the hero sees an underground passage, and makes his way out into the white world. Here he finds the youngest maiden, who is tending cattle, after refusing to marry the false companion. John Bear follows her home, slays his former comrades with his staff, and throws their bodies on the field for the wild beasts to devour. He then takes his sweetheart home to his people, and weds her.

The abstract given above is from a translation made by one of my students, Miss M. Steine, who tells me that she had heard the tale in this form many times from her old nurse "when we were being sent to sleep, or sitting round her in the evening." I have given it at this length because I do not know of any accessible translation into any Western language.

Panzer enumerates two hundred and two variants of the story: and there are others^[848]. But there is reason in the criticism that what is important for us is the form the folk-tale may have taken in those countries where we must look for the original home of the Beowulf-story^[849]. The Mantuan folk-tale may have been carried down to North Italy from Scandinavia by the Longobards: who can say? But Panzer's theory must stand or fall by the parallels which can be drawn between the Beowulf-Grettir-story on the one hand, and the folk-tales as they have been collected in the countries where this story is native: the lands, that is to say, adjoining the North Sea.

Now it is precisely here that we do find the most remarkable resemblances: in Iceland, the Faroes, Norway, Denmark, Jutland, Schleswig, and the Low German lands as far as the Scheldt.

An Icelandic version exists in an unprinted MS at Reykjavik^[850] which can be consulted in a German translation^[851]. In this version a bear, who is really an enchanted prince, carries off a princess. He resumes his human form and weds the princess, but must still at times take the bear's form. His child, the Bear-boy (Bjarndreingur), is to be kept in the house during the long periods when the enchanted husband is away. But at twelve years old the Bear-boy is too strong and unmanageable, bursts out, and slays a bear who turns out to be his father. His mother's heart is broken, but Bear-boy goes on his adventures, and associates with himself three companions, one of whom is Stein. They build a house in the wood, which is attacked by a giant, and, as usual, the companions are unable to withstand the attacks. Bear-boy does so, ties the giant's hands behind his back, and fastens him by his beard. But the giant tears himself free. As in Beowulf, Bear-boy and his companions follow the track by the drops of blood, and come to a hole. Stein is let some way down, the other companions further, but only Bear-boy dares to go to the bottom. There he finds a weeping princess, and learns that she, and her two sisters, have been carried off by three giants, one of whom is his former assailant. He slays all three, and sends their heads up, together with the maidens and other treasures. But his companions desert the rope, and he has to climb up unaided. In the end he weds the youngest princess.

The story from the Faroe Islands runs thus:

Three brothers lived together and took turns, two to go out fishing, and one to be at home. For two days, when the two elder brothers were at home, came a giant with a long beard (Skeggjatussi) and ate and drank all the food. Then comes the turn of the despised youngest brother, who is called in one version Øskudólgur—"the one who sits and rakes in the ashes"—a kind of male Cinderella. This brother routs the giant, either by catching his long beard in a cleft tree-trunk, or by branding him in the nose with a hot iron. In either case the mutilated giant escapes down a hole: in one version, after the other brothers come home, they follow him to this hole by the track of his blood. The two elder brothers leave the task of plunging down to the youngest one, who finds below a girl (in the second version, two kidnapped princesses). He finds also a magic sword hanging on the wall, which he is only able to lift when he has drunk a magic potion. He then slays the giant, rescues the maiden or maidens, is betrayed in the usual way by his brothers: in the one version they deliberately refuse to draw him up: in the other they cut the rope as they are doing so: but he is discreetly sending up only a big stone. The hero is helped out, however, by a giant, "Skræddi Kjálki" or "Snerkti risi," and in the end marries the princess^[852].

In the Norwegian folk-tale the three adventurers are called respectively the Captain, the Lieutenant and the Soldier. They search for the three princesses, and watch in a castle, where the Captain and Lieutenant are in turn worsted by a strange visitor—who in this version is not identical with the troll below ground who guards the princesses^[853]. When the turn of the Soldier comes, he seizes the intruder (the man, as he is called).

"Ah no, Ah no, spare my life," said the man, "and you shall know all. East of the castle is a great sandheap, and down in it a winch, with which you can lower yourself. But if you are afraid, and do not dare to go right down, you only need to pull the bell rope which you will find there, and up you will come again. But if you dare venture so far as to come to the bottom, there stands a flask on a shelf over the door: you must drink what is in it: so will you become so strong that you can strike the head off the troll of the mountain. And by the door there hangs a Troll-sword, which also you must take, for no other steel will bite on his body."

When he had learnt this, he let the man go. When the Captain and the Lieutenant came home, they were not a little surprised to find the Soldier alive. "How have you escaped a drubbing," said they, "has not the man been here?" "Oh yes, he is quite a good fellow, he is," said the Soldier, "I have learnt from him where the princesses are," and he told them all. They were glad when they heard that, and when they had eaten, they went all three to the sandheap.

As usual, the Captain and the Lieutenant do not dare to go to the bottom: the hero accomplishes the adventure, is (as usual) betrayed by his comrades, but is saved because he has put a stone in the basket instead of himself, and in the end is rescued by the interposition of "Kløverhans."

What is the explanation of the "sandheap" (sandhaug) I do not know. But one cannot forget that Grettir's adventure in the house, followed by his adventure with the troll under the earth, is localized at Sandhaugar. This may be a mere accident; but it is worth noting that in following up the track indicated by Panzer we come across startling coincidences of this kind. As stated above, it can hardly be due to any influence of the Grettis Saga upon the folk-tale^[854]. The likeness between the two is too remote to have suggested a transference of such details from the one story to the other.

We find the story in its normal form in Jutland^[855]. The hero, a foundling, is named Bjørnøre (Bear-ears). There is no explanation offered of this name, but we know that in other versions of the story, where the hero is half bear and half man, his bear nature is shown by his bear's ears. "Bear-ears" comes with his companions to an empty house, worsts the foe (the old man, den gamle) who has put his companions to shame, and fixes him by his beard in a cloven tree. The foe escapes nevertheless; they follow him to his hole: the companions are afraid, but "Bear-ears" is let down, finds the enemy on his bed, and slays him. The rest of the story follows the usual pattern. "Bear-ears" rescues and sends up the princesses, his comrades detach the rope, which however is hauling up only the hero's iron club. He escapes miraculously from his confinement below, and returns to marry the youngest princess. In another Danish version, from the South of Zealand^[856], the hero, "Strong Hans" (nothing is said about his bear-origin), comes with his companions to a magnificent but empty castle. The old witch worsts his comrades and imprisons them under the trap-door: but Hans beats her and rescues them, though the witch herself escapes. Hans is let down, rescues the princesses, is betrayed by his comrades (who, thinking to drop him in drawing him up, only drop his iron club), and finally weds the third princess.

A little further South we have three versions of the same tale recorded for Schleswig-Holstein^[857]. The hero wins his victory below by means of "a great iron sword" (en grotes ysernes Schwäert) which he can only wield after drinking of the magic potion.

From Hanover comes the story of Peter Bär^[858], which shows all the familiar features: from the same district came some of Grimm's variants. Others were from the Rhine provinces: but the fullest version of all comes from the Scheldt, just over the Flemish border. The hero, Jean l'Ourson, is recovered as a child from a bear's den, is despised in his youth^[859], but gives early proof of his strength. He defends an empty castle un superbe château, when his companion has failed, strikes off an arm^[860] of his assailant Petit-Père-Bidoux, chases him to his hole, un puits vaste et profond. He is let down by his companion, but finding the rope too short, plunges, and arrives battered at the bottom. There he perceives une lumière qui brillait au bout d'une longue galerie^[861]. At the end of the gallery he sees his former assailant, attended by une vieille femme à cheveux blancs, qui semblait âgée de plus de cent ans, who is salving his wounded arm. The hero quenches the light (which is a magic one) smites his foe on the head and kills him, and then rekindles the lamp^[862]. His companion above seeks to rob him of the two princesses he has won, by detaching the rope. Nevertheless, he escapes, weds the good princess, and punishes his faithless companion by making him wed the bad one.

The white-haired old woman is not spoken of as the mother of the foe she is nursing, and it may be doubted whether she is in any way parallel to Grendel's mother. The hero does not fight her: indeed it is she who, in the end, enables him to escape. Still the parallels between Jean l'Ourson and Beowulf are striking enough. Nine distinct features recur, in the same order, in the Beowulf-story and in this folk-tale. It needs a more robust faith than I possess to attribute this solely to chance.

Unfortunately, this French-Flemish tale is found in a somewhat sophisticated collection. Its recorder, as Sainte-Beuve points out in his letter introductory to the series^[863], uses literary touches which diminish the value of his folk-tales to the student of origins. Any contamination from the Beowulf-story or the Grettir-story is surely improbable enough in this case: nevertheless, one would have liked the tale taken down verbatim from the lips of some simple-minded narrator as it used to be told at Condé on the Scheldt.

But if we take together the different versions enumerated above, the result is, I think, convincing. Here are eight versions of one folk-tale taken as representatives from a much larger number current in the countries in touch with the North Sea: from Iceland, the Faroes, Norway, Jutland, Zealand, Schleswig, Hanover, and the Scheldt. The champion is a bear-hero (as Beowulf almost certainly is, and as Bjarki quite certainly is); he is called, in Iceland, Bjarndreingur, in Jutland, Bjørnøre, in Hanover, Peter Bär, on the Scheldt Jean l'Ourson. Like Beowulf, he is despised in his youth (Faroe, Scheldt). In all versions he resists his adversary in an empty house or castle, after his comrades have failed. In most versions of the folk-tale this is the third attack, as it is in the case of Grettir at Sandhaugar and of Bjarki: in Beowulf, on the contrary, we gather that Heorot has been raided many times. The adversary, though vanquished, escapes; in one version after the loss of an arm (Scheldt): they follow his track to the hole into which he has vanished, sometimes, as in Beowulf, marking traces of his blood (Iceland, Faroe, Schleswig). The hero always ventures down alone, and gets into an underworld of magic, which has left traces of its mysteriousness in Beowulf. In one tale (Scheldt) the hero sees a magic lamp burning below, just as he sees the fire in Beowulf or the Grettis Saga. He overcomes either his original foe, or new ones, often by the use of a magic sword (Faroe, Norway, Schleswig); this sword hangs by the door (Norway) or on the wall (Faroe) as in Beowulf. After slaying his foe, the hero rekindles the magic lamp, in the Scheldt fairy tale, just as he kindles a light in the Grettis Saga, and as the light flashes up in Beowulf after the hero has smitten Grendel's mother. The hero is in each case deserted by his companions: a feature which, while it is marked in the Grettis Saga, can obviously be allowed to survive in Beowulf only in a much softened form. The chosen retainers whom Beowulf has taken with him on his journey could not be represented as unfaithful, because the poet is reserving the episode of the faithless retainers for the death of Beowulf. To have twice represented the escort as cowardly would have made the poem a satire upon the comitatus, and would have assured it a hostile reception in every hall from Canterbury to Edinburgh. But there is no doubt as to the faithlessness of the comrade Stein in the Grettis Saga. And in Zealand, one of the faithless companions is called Stenhuggeren (the Stone-hewer), in Schleswig Steenklöwer, in Hanover Steinspieler, whilst in Iceland he has the same name, Stein, which he has in the Grettis Saga.

The fact that the departure home of the Danes in Beowulf is due to the same cause as that which accounts for the betrayal of his trust by Stein, shows that in the original Beowulf-story also this feature must have occurred, however much it may have become worn down in the existing epic.

I think enough has been said to show that there is a real likeness between a large number of recorded folk-tales and the Beowulf-Grettir story. The parallel is not merely with an artificial, theoretical composite put together by Panzer. But it becomes equally clear that Beowulf cannot be spoken of as a version of these folk-tales. At most it is a version of a portion of them. The omission of the princesses in Beowulf and the Grettis Saga is fundamental. With the princesses much else falls away. There is no longer any motive for the betrayal of trust by the watchers. The disguise of the hero and his vengeance are now no longer necessary to the tale.

It might be argued that there was something about the three princesses which made them unsatisfactory as subjects of story. It has been thought that in the oldest version the hero married all three: an awkward episode where a scop had to compose a poem for an audience certainly monogamous and most probably Christian. The rather tragic and sombre atmosphere of the stories of Beowulf and Grettir fits in better with a version from which the princesses, and the living happily ever afterwards, have been dropped. On the other hand, it might be argued that the folk-tale is composite, and that the source from which the Beowulf-Grettir-story drew was a simpler tale to which the princesses had not yet been added.

And there are additions as well as subtractions. Alike in Beowulf and in the Grettis Saga, the fight in the house and the fight below are associated with struggles with monsters of different sex. The association of "The Devil and his Dam" has only few and remote parallels in the "Bear's-son" folk-tale.

But Panzer has, I think, proved that the struggle of Beowulf in the hall, and his plunging down into the deep, is simply an epic glorification of a folk-tale motive.

I. THE DATE OF THE DEATH OF HYGELAC.

Gregory of Tours mentions the defeat of Chochilaicus (Hygelac) as an event of the reign of Theudoric. Now Theudoric succeeded his father Chlodoweg, who died 27 Nov. 511. Theudoric died in 534. This, then, gives the extreme limits of time; but as Gregory mentions the event among the first occurrences of the reign, the period 512-520 has generally been suggested, or in round numbers about 515 or 516.

Nevertheless, we cannot attach much importance to the mere order followed by Gregory^[864]. He may well have had no means of dating the event exactly. Of much more importance than the order, is the fact he records, that Theudoric did not defeat Chochilaicus in person, but sent his son Theudobert to repel the invaders.

Now Theudobert was born before the death of his grandfather Chlodoweg. For Gregory tells us that Chlodoweg left not only four sons, but a grandson Theudobert, elegantem atque utilem^[865]: utilem cannot mean that, at the time of the death of Chlodoweg, Theudobert was of age to conduct affairs of state, for Chlodoweg was only 45 at death^[866]. The Merovingians were a precocious race; but if we are to allow Theudobert to have been at least fifteen before being placed in charge of a very important expedition, and Chlodoweg to have been at least forty before becoming a grandfather, the defeat of Hygelac cannot be put before 521; and probability would favour a date five or ten years later.

There is confirmation for this. When Theudobert died, in 548, he left one son only, quite a child and still under tutelage^[867]; probably therefore not more than twelve or thirteen at most. We know the circumstances of the child's birth. Theudobert had been betrothed by his father Theudoric to a Longobardic princess, Wisigardis^[868]. In the meantime he fell in love with the lady Deoteria^[869], and married her^[870]. The Franks were shocked at this fickleness (valde scandalizabantur), and Theudobert had ultimately to put away Deoteria^[871], although they had this young son (parvulum filium), who, as we have seen, could hardly have been born before 535, and possibly was born years later. Theudobert then married the Longobardic princess, in the seventh year after their betrothal. So it cannot have been much before 530 that Theudobert's father was first arranging the Longobardic match. A king is not likely to have waited to find a wife for a son, upon whom his dynasty was to depend, till fifteen years after that son was of age to win a memorable victory^[872].

Bibliography of Beowulf and Finnsburg

I remember it was with extreme difficulty that I could bring my master to understand the meaning of the word opinion, or how a point could be disputable; because reason taught us to affirm or deny only where we are certain; and beyond our knowledge we cannot do either. So that controversies, wranglings, disputes, and positiveness in false or dubious propositions are evils unknown among the Houyhnhnms.... He would laugh that a creature pretending to reason should value itself upon the knowledge of other people's conjectures, and in things, where that knowledge, if it were certain, could be of no use....

I have often since reflected what destruction such a doctrine would make in the libraries of Europe.

Gulliver's Travels.

The following items are (except in special cases) not included in this bibliography:

(a) Articles dealing with single passages in Beowulf, or two passages only, in cases where they have already been recorded under the appropriate passage in the footnotes to the text, or in the glossary, of my revision of Wyatt's edition.

(b) Articles dealing with the emendation or interpretation of single passages, in cases where such emendations have been withdrawn by their author himself.

(d) Purely personal protests (e.g., P.B.B. XXI, 436), however well founded, in which no point of scholarship is any longer involved.

Books dealing with other subjects, but illustrating Beowulf, present a difficulty. Such books may have a value for Beowulf students, even though the author may never refer to our poem, and have occasionally been included in previous bibliographies. But, unless Beowulf is closely concerned, these books are not usually mentioned below: such enumeration, if carried out consistently, would clog a bibliography already all too bulky. Thus, Siecke's Drachenkämpfe does not seem to come within the scope of this bibliography, because the author is not concerned with Beowulf's dragon.

Obviously every general discussion of Old English metre must concern itself largely with Beowulf: for such treatises the student is referred to the section Metrik of Brandl's Bibliography (Pauls Grdr.); and, for Old English heroic legend in general, to the Bibliography of my edition of Widsith.

Many scholars, e.g. Heinzel, have put into their reviews of the books of others, much original work which might well have formed the material for independent articles. Such reviews are noted as "weighty," but it must not be supposed that the reviews not so marked are negligible; unless of some value to scholarship, reviews are not usually mentioned below.

The title of any book, article or review which I have not seen and verified is denoted by the sign ‡.

SUMMARY

§ 1. Periodicals.

§ 2. Bibliographies.

§ 3. The MS and its transcripts.

§ 4. Editions.

§ 5. Concordances, etc.

§ 6. Translations (including early summaries).

§ 7. Textual criticism and interpretation.

§ 8. Questions of literary history, date and authorship. Beowulf in the light of history, archæology^[873], heroic legend, mythology and folk-lore.

§ 9. Style and Grammar.

§ 10. Metre.

§ 1. PERIODICALS

The periodicals most frequently quoted are:

A.f.d.A. = Anzeiger für deutsches Alterthum. Berlin, 1876 etc.

A.f.n.F. = Arkiv för nordisk Filologi. Christiania, Lund, 1883 etc. Quoted according to the original numbering.

Anglia. Halle, 1878 etc.

Archiv = Herrigs Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Litteraturen. Elberfeld, Braunschweig, 1846 etc. Quoted according to the original numbering.

D.L.Z. = Deutsche Literatur-Zeitung. Berlin, 1880 etc.

Engl. Stud. = Englische Studien. Heilbronn, Leipzig, 1877 etc.

Germania. Wien, 1856-92.

I.F. = Indogermanische Forschungen. Strassburg, 1892 etc.

J.(E.)G.Ph. = Journal of (English and) Germanic Philology. Bloomington, Urbana, 1897 etc.

Lit. Cbl. = Literarisches Centralblatt. Leipzig, 1851 etc.

Literaturblatt für germanische und romanische Philologie. Heilbronn, Leipzig, 1880 etc.

M.L.N. = Modern Language Notes. Baltimore, 1886 etc. Quoted by the page, not the column.

M.L.R. = The Modern Language Review. Cambridge, 1906 etc.

Mod. Phil. = Modern Philology. Chicago, 1903 etc.

Morsbachs Studien zur englischen Philologie. Halle, 1897 etc.

P.B.B. = Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache u. Litteratur. Halle, 1874 etc.

Pub. Mod. Lang. Assoc. Amer. = Publications of the Modern Language Association of America. Baltimore, 1889 etc.

Z.f.d.A. = Zeitschrift für deutsches Alterthum. Leipzig, Berlin, 1841 etc.

Z.f.d.Ph. = Zachers Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie. Halle, 1869 etc.

Z.f.ö.G. = Zeitschrift für die österreichischen Gymnasien. Wien, 1850 etc.

The titles of other periodicals are given with sufficient fulness for easy identification.

§ 2. BIBLIOGRAPHIES

Bibliographies have been published from time to time as a supplement to Anglia; also in the Jahresbericht über...german. Philologie; by Garnett in his Translation, 1882 etc.; and will be found in

Wülker's Grundriss (with very useful abstracts), 1885, pp. 245 etc.

Clark Hall's Translation, 1901, 1911.

Holthausen's Beowulf, 1906, 1909, 1913, 1919.

Brandl's Englische Literatur, in Pauls Grdr.(2), II, 1015-24 (full, but not so reliable as Holthausen's).

Sedgefield's Beowulf, 1910, 1913 (carefully selected).

An excellent critical bibliography of Beowulf-translations up to 1903 is that of Tinker: see under § 6, Translations.

§ 3. THE MS AND ITS TRANSCRIPTS

Beowulf fills ff. 129 (132)a to 198 (201)b of the British Museum MS Cotton Vitellius A. XV.

Beowulf is written in two hands, the first of which goes to l. 1939. This hand was identified by Prof. Sedgefield (Beowulf, Introduction, p. xiv, footnote) with that of the piece immediately preceding Beowulf in the MS, and by Mr Kenneth Sisam, in 1916, with that of all three immediately preceding pieces: the Christopher fragment, the Wonders of the East, and the Letter of Alexander on the Wonders of India. The pieces preceding these, however (the Soliloquies of S. Augustine, the Gospel of Nicodemus, Salomon and Saturn), are certainly not in the same hand, and their connection with the Beowulf-MS is simply due to the bookbinder.

From l. 1939 to the end, Beowulf is written in a second hand, thicker and less elegant than the first. This second hand seems to be clearly identical with that in which the poem of Judith, immediately following Beowulf, is written. This was pointed out by Sievers in 1872 (Z.f.d.A. XV, 457), and has never, I think, been disputed (cf. Sisam, p. 337; Förster, p. 31). Nevertheless the two poems have probably not always formed one book. For the last page of Beowulf was apparently once the last page of the volume, to judge from its battered condition, whilst Judith is imperfect at the beginning. And there are trifling differences, e.g. in the frequency of the use of contractions, and the form of the capital H.

This identity of the scribe of the second portion of Beowulf and the Judith scribe, together with the identity (pointed out by Mr Sisam) of the scribe of the first portion of Beowulf and the scribe of the three preceding works, is important. A detailed comparison of these texts will throw light upon the characteristics of the scribes.

That the three preceding works are in the same hand as that of the first Beowulf scribe was again announced, independently of Mr Sisam, by Prof. Max Förster, in 1919. Sievers had already in 1871 arrived at the same result (see Förster, p. 35, note) but had not published it.

It seems to me in the highest degree improbable that the Beowulf-MS has lost its ending, as Prof. Förster thinks (pp. 82, 88). Surely nothing could be better than the conclusion of the poem as it stands in the MS: that the casual loss of a number of leaves could have resulted in so satisfactory a conclusion is, I think, not conceivable. Moreover, the scribe has crammed as much material as possible into the last leaf of Beowulf, making his lines abnormally long, and using contractions in a way he does not use them elsewhere. The only reason for this must be to avoid running over into a new leaf or quire: there could be no motive for this crowded page if the poem had ever run on beyond it.

There is pretty general agreement that the date of the Beowulf-MS is about the year 1000, and that it is somewhat more likely to be before that date than after.

The Beowulf-MS was injured in the great Cottonian fire of 1731, and the edges of the parchment have since chipped away owing to the damage then sustained. Valuable assistance can therefore be derived from the two transcripts now preserved in the Royal Library of Copenhagen, made in 1787, when the MS was much less damaged.

A. Poema anglosaxonicum de rebus gestis Danorum... fecit exscribi Londini A.D. MDCCLXXXVII Grimus Johannis Thorkelin.

B. Poema anglosaxonicum de Danorum rebus gestis... exscripsit Grimus Johannis Thorkelin. Londini MDCCLXXXVII.

The first description of the Beowulf-MS is in 1705 by H. Wanley (Librorum Septentrionalium... Catalogus, pp. 218—19, Oxoniæ, forming vol. II of Hickes' Thesaurus). Two short extracts from the MS are given by Wanley. He describes the poem as telling of the wars quæ Beowulfus quidam Danus, ex regio Scyldingorum stirpe ortus, gessit contra Sueciæ regulos. The text was printed by Thorkelin in 1815, and the MS was collated by Conybeare, who in his Illustrations (1826) issued 19 pages of corrections of Thorkelin. These corrections were further corrected by J. M. Kemble in 1837 (Letter to M. Francisque Michel, in Michel's Bibliothèque Anglo-Saxonne, pp. 20, 51-8). Meantime Kemble's text had been issued in 1833, based upon his examination of the MS. The MS was also seen by Thorpe (in 1830: Thorpe's text was not published till 1855) and by Grundtvig (pub. 1861). A further collation was that of E. Kölbing in 1876 (Zur Beóvulf-handschrift, Archiv, LVI, 91-118). Kölbing's collation proves the superiority of Kemble's text to Grundtvig's. Line for line transcripts of the MS were those of Holder, Wülker and Zupitza:

1881 Holder, A. Beowulf. Bd. I. Abdruck der Handschrift. Freiburg u. Tübingen. (‡1881, from collation made in 1875.) Reviews: Kölbing, Engl. Stud. VII, 488; Kluge, Literaturblatt, 1883, 178; Wülker, Lit. Cbl. 1882, 1035-6.

1882. 2 Aufl.

1895. 3 Aufl. Reviews: Dieter, Anglia, Beiblatt, VI, 260-1; Brandl, Z.f.d.A. XL, 90.

1881 Wülker, R. P. Beowulf: Text nach der handschrift, in Grein's Bibliothek, I, 18-148.

1882 Zupitza, J. Beowulf. Autotypes of the unique Cotton MS. Vitellius A XV; with a transliteration and notes. Early English Text Society, London. Reviews: Trautmann, Anglia, VII, Anzeiger, 41; Kölbing, Engl. Stud. VII, 482 etc.; Varnhagen, A.f.d.A. X, 304; Sievers, Lit. Cbl. 1884, 124.

Further discussion of the MS by

1890 Davidson, C. Differences between the scribes of Beowulf. M.L.N. V, 43-4; McClumpha, C., criticizes the above, M.L.N. V, 123; reply by Davidson, M.L.N. V, 189-90.

1910 Lamb, Evelyn H. "Beowulf": Hemming of Worcester. Notes and Queries, Ser. XI, vol. I, p. 26. (Worthless. An assertion, unsupported by any evidence, that both the hands of the Beowulf MS are those of Hemming of Worcester, who flourished c. 1096.)

1916 Sisam, K. The Beowulf Manuscript. M.L.R. XI, 335-7. (Very important. Gives results of a scrutiny of the other treatises in MS Vitellius A. XV (see above) and shows, among other things, that the Beowulf MS, before reaching the hands of Sir Robert Cotton, was (in 1563) in those of Lawrence Nowell, the Elizabethan Anglo-Saxon scholar.)

1919 Förster, Max. Die Beowulf-Handschrift, Leipzig, Berichte der Sächs. Akad. der Wissenschaften, Bd. 71. (An excellent and detailed discussion of the problems of the MS, quite independent of that of Mr Sisam, whose results it confirms.) Review: Schröder, Z.f.d.A. LVIII, 85-6.

1920 Rypins, S. I. The Beowulf Codex. Mod. Phil. XVII, 541-8 (promising further treatment of the problems of the MS).

The MS of Finnsburg has been lost. See above, p. 245.

§ 4. EDITIONS OF BEOWULF AND FINNSBURG

1705 Hickes, G. Linguarum Vett. Septentrionalium Thesaurus. Oxoniæ. (Vol. I, 192-3, text of Finnsburg Fragment.)

1814 Conybeare, J. J. The Battle of Finsborough, in Brydges' British Bibliographer, vol. IV, pp. 261-7; No. XV (Text, Latin translation, and free verse paraphrase in English: some brief notes).

1815 Thorkelin, G. J. De Danorum rebus gestis secul. III et IV. Poëma Danicum dialecto Anglo-Saxonica. (Copenhagen, with Lat. transl.) Reviews: See § 7, Textual Criticism, 1815, Grundtvig; also Dansk Litteratur-Tidende, 1815, 401-32, 437-46, 461-2 (defending Thorkelin against Grundtvig); Iduna, vii, 1817, 133-59; Monthly Review, LXXXI, 1816, 516-23; ‡Jenaische Literatur-Zeitung, 1816, Ergänzungsblätter, 353-65 (summary in Wülker's Grundriss, p. 252); Outzen in Kieler Blätter, 1816, see § 8, below.

1817 Rask, R. K. Angelsaksisk sproglære. Stockholm (pp. 163-6 contain Beowulf, ll. 53-114, with commentary).

1820 Text of Finnsburg, given by Grundtvig in Bjowulfs Drape, pp. xl-xlv.

1826 Text of Finnsburg, and of large portions of Beowulf, given in Conybeare's Illustrations. See § 5, Translations.

1833 Kemble, J. M. Beowulf, the Travellers Song, and the Battle of Finnesburh, edited with a glossary... and an historical preface. London.

1835. Second edit.

1847 Schaldemose, F. Beo-wulf og Scopes Widsið... med Oversættelse. Kjøbenhavn. (Follows Kemble's text of 1835: Text and transl. of Finnsburg also given, pp. 161-4.) 1851, Reprinted.

1849 Klipstein, L. F. Analecta Anglo-Saxonica. New York. (Selections from Beowulf, II, 227-61: Text of Finnsburg, 426-7.)

1850 Ettmüller, L. Engla and Seaxna scopas and bōceras. Quedlinburg u. Leipzig. (Text of large portions of Beowulf, with Finnsburg, pp. 95-131.)

1855 Thorpe, B. The A.S. poems of Beowulf, the scop or gleeman's tale, and Finnesburg, with a literal translation... Oxford. ‡1875, Reprinted.

1857 Grein, C. W. M. Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Poesie, I. Göttingen (pp. 255—343, Beóvulf, Ueberfall in Finnsburg).

1861-4. Bd. III, IV. Sprachschatz.

1861 Rieger, M. Alt- u. angelsächsisches Lesebuch. Giessen. (Der Kampf zu Finnsburg, pp. 61-3: aus dem Beovulf, 63-82.)

1861 Grundtvig, N. F. S. Beowulfes Beorh eller Bjovulfs-Drapen. Kiöbenhavn, London. (The Finnsburg Fragment is inserted in the text of Beowulf, after l. 1106.)

1863 Heyne, M. Beovulf, mit ausführlichem Glossar. Paderborn. (Anhang: Der Ueberfall in Finnsburg.) Reviews: Grein, Lit. Cbl. 1864, 137—8; Holtzmann, Germania, VIII, 506-7.

1868. ‡2 Aufl. Review: Rieger, Z.f.d.Ph. II, 371-4.

1873. 3 Aufl. Review: Sievers, Lit. Cbl. 1873, 662-3, brief but severe.

1879. 4 Aufl. [in this, Kölbing's collation of 1876 was utilized; see p. 82]. Reviews: Brenner, Engl. Stud. IV, 135-9; Gering, Z.f.d.Ph. XII, 122-5.

1867 Grein, C. W. M. Beovulf, nebst den Fragmenten Finnsburg u. Valdere. Cassel u. Göttingen.

1875 Ettmüller, L. Carmen de Beóvulfi, Gautarum regis, rebus praeclare gestis atque interitu, quale fuerit antequam in manus interpolatoris, monachi Vestsaxonici, inciderat. (Zürich. University Programme. The additions of the "interpolator" being omitted, the edition contains 2896 lines only.) Reviews: Schönbach, A.f.d.A. III, 36-46; ‡Suchier, Jenaer Literatur-Zeitung, XLVII, 1876, 732.

1876 Arnold, T. Beowulf, with a translation, notes and appendix. London. Reviews (unfavourable): Sweet, Academy, X, 1876, 588; Wülker, Lit. Cbl. 1877, 665-6, and Anglia, I, 177-86.

1879 Wülker, R. P. Kleinere angelsächsische Dichtungen. Halle, Leipzig. (Finnsburg, pp. 6-7.)

1883 Möller, H. Das altenglische Volksepos in der ursprünglichen strophischen Form. I. Abhandlungen. II. Texte. Kiel. (Containing only those parts of the Finn-story and of Beowulf which Möller regarded as "genuine," in strophic form.) Reviews: Heinzel, A.f.d.A. X, 215-33 (important); Schönbach, Z.f.ö.G. XXXV, 37-46.

1883 Wülker, R. P. Das Beowulfslied, nebst den kleineren epischen... stücken. Kassel. (In the second edit. of Grein's Bibliothek der ags. Poesie.) Review: Kölbing, Engl. Stud. VII, 482 etc.

1883 Harrison, J. A. and Sharp, R. Beowulf. Boston, U.S.A. (‡1883, on the basis of Heyne's edition; with Finnsburg.) Reviews: York Powell, Academy, XXVI, 1884, 220-1; reply by Harrison, 308-9; by York Powell, 327; Kölbing, Engl. Stud. VII, 482; Bright, Literaturblatt, 1884, 221—3.

1892. Third edit.

1894. Fourth edit. Reviews: Wülker, Anglia, Beiblatt, V, 65-7; Glöde, Engl. Stud. XX, 417-18.

1884 Holder, A. Beowulf, II. Berichtigter Text u. Wörterbuch. Freiburg u. Tübingen. Reviews: York Powell, Academy, XXVI, 1884, 220-1; Wülker, Lit. Cbl. 1885, 1008-9; Krüger, Literaturblatt, 1884, 468-70.

1899. 2 Aufl. [with suggestions of Kluge and Cosijn]. Reviews: Trautmann, Anglia, Beiblatt, X, 257; Wülfing, Engl. Stud. XXIX, 278-9; Holthausen, Literaturblatt, 1900, 60-2 (important corrections).

1888 Heyne, M. and Socin, A. [Fifth edit. of Heyne's text.] Paderborn u. Münster. Reviews: Koeppel, Engl. Stud. XIII, 466-72; Heinzel, A.f.d.A. XV, 189-94; Sievers, Z.f.d.Ph. XXI, 354-65 (very important corrections); Schröer, Literaturblatt, 1889, 170-1.

1898. 6 Aufl. Reviews: Trautmann, Anglia, Beiblatt, X, 257; Holthausen, Anglia, Beiblatt, X, 265; Sarrazin, Engl. Stud. XXVIII, 408-10; Jantzen, Archiv, CIII, 175-6.

1903. 7 Aufl. Reviews: Holthausen, Anglia, Beiblatt, XVIII, 193-4; Klaeber, the same, 289-91; Kruisinga, Engl. Stud. XXXV, 401-2; v. Grienberger, Z.f.ö.G. LVI, 744-61 (very full); E. Kock, A.f.n.F. XXII, 215 (brief).

1894 Wyatt, A. J. Beowulf, edited with textual footnotes, index of proper names, and glossary. (Text of Finnsburg.) Cambridge. Reviews: Bradley, Academy, XLVI, 1894, 69-70; Wülker, Anglia, Beiblatt, V, 65-7; Brenner, Engl. Stud. XX, 296; Zupitza, Archiv, XCIV, 326-9.

1898. Second edit. Reviews: Trautmann, Anglia, Beiblatt, X, 257; Sarrazin, Engl. Stud. XXVIII, 407-8.

1902 Kluge, F. Angelsächsisches Lesebuch. 3 Aufl. Halle. (XXX. Der Überfall von Finnsburuh, pp. 127-8.)

1903 Trautmann, M. Finn u. Hildebrand. Bonner Beiträge, VII. (Text, translation and comment on the Episode and Fragment.) Reviews: Binz, Z.f.d.Ph. XXXVII, 529-36; Jantzen, Die Neueren Sprachen, XI, 543-8; Neue philol. Rundschau, 1903, 619-21 (signed -tz-? Jantzen). Some additional notes by Trautmann, "Nachträgliches zu Finn u. Hildebrand" appeared in Bonner Beiträge, XVII, 122.

1904 Trautmann, M. Das Beowulflied... das Finn-Bruchstück u. die Waldhere-Bruchstücke. Bearbeiteter Text u. deutsche Übersetzung. Bonner Beiträge, XVI. Reviews: Klaeber, M.L.N. XX, 83-7 (weighty); Eckhardt, Engl. Stud. XXXVII, 401-3; Schücking, Archiv, CXV, 417-21; Barnouw, Museum, XIV, 96-8; Neue philologische Rundschau (? by Jantzen), 1905, 549-50.

1905-6 Holthausen, F. Beowulf nebst dem Finnsburg-Bruchstück. I. Texte. II. Einleitung, Glossar u. Anmerkungen. Heidelberg. Reviews: Lawrence, J.E.G.Ph. VII, 125-9; Klaeber, M.L.N. XXIV, 94-5; Schücking, Engl. Stud. XXXIX, 94-111 (weighty); Deutschbein, Archiv, CXXI, 162-4; v. Grienberger, Z.f.ö.G. 1908, LIX, 333-46 (giving an elaborate list of etymological parallels); Barnouw, Museum, XIV, 169-70; Wülker, D.L.Z. 1906, 285-6; ‡Jantzen, Neue philologische Rundschau, 1907, 18.

1908-9. 2 Aufl., nebst den kleineren Denkmälern der Heldensage, Finnsburg, Waldere, Deor, Widsith, Hildebrand. Reviews: Eichler, Anglia, Beiblatt, XXI, 129-33; XXII, 161-5; Schücking, Engl. Stud. XLII, 108-11; Brandl, Archiv, CXXI, 473, CXXIV, 210; Binz, Literaturblatt, XXXII, 1911, 53-5: see also Koeppel, Anglia, Beiblatt, XXIII, 297.

1912-13. 3 Aufl.

1914-19. 4 Aufl. Reviews: Binz, Literaturblatt, XLI, 1920, 316-17; Fischer, Engl. Stud. LIV, 404-6.

1908 Schücking, L. L. Beowulf [8th edit. of Heyne's text]. Paderborn. Reviews: Lawrence, M.L.N. XXV, 155-7; Klaeber, Engl. Stud. XXXIX, 425-33 (weighty); Imelmann, D.L.Z. 1909, 995 (contains important original contributions); v. Grienberger, Z.f.ö.G. LX, 1089; Boer, Museum, XVI, 139 (brief).

1910. 9 Aufl. Reviews: Sedgefield, Engl. Stud. XLIII, 267-9; F. Wild, Z.f.ö.G. LXIV, 153-5.

1913. 10 Aufl. Reviews: Klaeber, Anglia, Beiblatt, XXIV, 289-91; Engl. Stud. XLIX, 424; ‡Degenhart, Blätter f. gymnasialschulwesen, LI, 130; E. A. Kock, A.f.n.F. XXXII, 222-3; Holthausen, Z.f.d.Ph. XLVIII, 127-31 (weighty).

1918. 11, 12 Aufl. Reviews: Björkman, Anglia, Beiblatt, XXX, 121-2, 180; Fischer, Engl. Stud. LIII, 338-9.

1910 Sedgefield, W. J. Beowulf, edited with Introduction, Bibliography, Notes, Glossary and Appendices. Manchester. Reviews: Thomas, M.L.R. VI, 266-8; Lawrence, J.E.G.Ph. X, 633-40; Wild, Anglia, Beiblatt, XXIII, 253-60; Klaeber, Engl. Stud. XLIV, 119-26; Brandl, Archiv, CXXVI, 279.

1913. Second edit. Reviews: M.L.R. IX, 429; Lawrence, J.E.G.Ph. XIV, 609-13; Klaeber, Anglia, Beiblatt, XXV, 166-8.

1912 Text of the Finn episode given in Meyer, W., Beiträge zur Geschichte der Eroberung Englands durch die Angelsachsen.

1914 Chambers, R. W. Beowulf with the Finnsburg Fragment, ed. by A. J. Wyatt. New edition, revised. Cambridge. Reviews: Jones, M.L.R. XI, 230-1: Lawrence, J.E.G.Ph. XIV, 609-13; Bright, M.L.N. XXXI, 188-9; Schücking, Engl. Stud. LV, 88-100.

1915 Dickins, B. Runic and Heroic Poems (Text of Finnsburg with Notes). Cambridge. Review: Mawer, M.L.R. XII, 82-4.

1917 Mackie, W. L. The Fight at Finnsburg (Introduction, Text and Notes). J.E.G.Ph. XVI, 250-73.

1919 Schücking, L. L. Kleines angelsächsisches Dichterbuch. [Includes Finnsburg Fragment, Finnsburg Episode and "Beowulf's Return" (ll. 1888-2199).] Reviews: Binz, Literaturblatt, XLI, 1920, pp. 315-16; Imelmann, D.L.Z. XL, 1919, 423-5; Fischer, Engl. Stud. LIV, 1920, 302-3.

1920 Text of Finnsburg Fragment and Episode, with commentary, in Imelmann's "Forschungen zur altenglischen Poesie."

An edition of Beowulf by Prof. F. Klaeber is in the press.

§ 5. CONCORDANCES, etc.

1896 Holder, A. Beowulf, vol. IIb, Wortschatz. Freiburg. Review: Brandl, A.f.d.A. XXIII, 107.

1911 Cook, A. S. Concordance to Beowulf. Halle. Reviews: Klaeber, J.E.G.Ph. XI, 277-9; Garnett, Amer. Jnl. Philol. XXXIII, 86-7.

§ 6. TRANSLATIONS (INCLUDING EARLY SUMMARIES)

1881 Wülker, R. P. Besprechung der Beowulfübersetzungen, Anglia, IV, Anzeiger, 69-80.

1886 Gummere, F. B. The translation of Beowulf, and the relations of ancient and modern English verse, Amer. Jour. of Phil. VII, 46-78. (A weighty argument for translation into "the original metre.")

1891 Garnett, J. M. The translation of A.S. poetry, Pub. Mod. Lang. Assoc. Amer. VI, 95-105. (Agreeing in the main with Gummere.)

1897 Frye, P. H. The translation of Beowulf, M.L.N. XII, 79-82. (Advocating blank verse.)

1898 Fulton, E. On translating A.S. poetry, Pub. Mod. Lang. Assoc. Amer. XIII, 286-96. (Recommending an irregular four-accent line.)

1903 Garnett, J. M. Recent translations of O.E. poetry, Pub. Mod. Lang. Assoc. Amer. XVIII, 445-58.

1903 Tinker, C. B. The translations of Beowulf. A critical bibliography. Yale Studies in English. New York. Reviews: Klaeber, J.E.G.Ph. V, 116-8; Binz, Anglia, Beiblatt, XVI, 291-2.

1909 Child, G. C. "Gummere's Oldest English Epic," M.L.N. XXIV, 253-4. (A criticism advocating prose translation.)

1910 Gummere, F. B. Translation of Old English Verse, M.L.N. XXV, 61-3. (Advocating alliterative verse.) Reply by Child, M.L.N. XXV, 157-8. See also reviews of Gummere, under year 1909, below.

1918 Leonard, W. E. Beowulf and the Niebelungen couplet, Univ. of Wisconsin Studies in Language and Literature, II, 99-152.

1805 Turner, Sharon. History of the manners... poetry... and language of the Anglo-Saxons. London. (From p. 398 to p. 408 is a summary, with translations, of Beowulf, Prol.-VIII. Turner was misled as to the subject of the poem, because a leaf had been misplaced in the MS, so that the account of the fighting between Grendel and Beowulf (ll. 740-82) occurred immediately after l. 91. The struggle between Beowulf and an (unnamed) adversary being thus made to follow the account of Hrothgar's court at Heorot, Turner was led to suppose that the poem narrated the attempt of Beowulf to avenge on Hrothgar the feud for a homicide he had committed. "The transition," Turner not unreasonably complains, "is rather violent." The correct placing of the shifted leaf is due to Thorkelin.)

1815 Thorkelin, G. J. [Latin version in his edition, q.v.] The reviewers gave summaries of the poem, with translations of portions of it: English in the Monthly Review, LXXXI, 1816, 516-23 (less inaccurate than Turner's summary); Danish in the Dansk Litteratur-Tidende, 1815, 401-32, 437-46, and by Grundtvig in the Nyeste Skilderie (see below, § 7); Swedish in Iduna, VII, 1817, 133-59.

1819 Grundtvig, N. F. S. Stykker af Skjoldung-Kvadet eller Bjovulfs Minde, Dannevirke, IV, 234-62.

1820 Grundtvig, N. F. S. Bjowulfs Drape, Kjøbenhavn. (Free rhymed translation of Beowulf: Finnsburg rendered into short lines, unrhymed: Introduction and most important critical notes.) Review: J. Grimm in Gött. Anzeigen, 1823 = Kleinere Schriften, IV, 178-86. For second edit., see 1865.

1820 Turner, Sharon. History of the Anglo-Saxons... third edit. London. (Vol. III, pp. 325-48, contains a summary, with translations, of the earlier part of the poem, much less inaccurate than that of 1805.)

1826 Conybeare, J. J. Illustrations of Anglo-Saxon poetry. London. (Pp. 35-136 contain a summary of Beowulf, with blank verse transl. and the corresponding text in A.S. and Latin; pp. 175-82, Finnsburg, text with transl. into Latin and into English verse.)

1832 Grundtvig, N. F. S. Nordens mythologi. Anden Udgave. Kiöbenhavn. (Pp. 571-94 give a summary of the Beowulf-stories. This was, of course, wanting in the first edit. of 1808.)

1837 Kemble, J. M. Translation... with... glossary, preface and notes. London. (The "postscript to the preface" in which Kemble supplemented and corrected the "Historical Preface" to his edition of 1833, is the basis of the mythological explanations of Beowulf as an Anglian god, Beowa.)

1839 Leo, H. [Summary with translation of extracts.] See § 8, below.

1840 Ettmüller, L. Beowulf, stabreimend übersetzt, mit Einleitung und Anmerkungen (Finnsburg, pp. 36-8). Zürich.

1845 Longfellow, H. W. The Poets and Poetry of Europe. Philadelphia. (Pp. 8-10 contain transl. of extracts from Beowulf.)

1847 Schaldemose, F. [Danish transl. of Beowulf and Finnsburg, in his edit., q.v.]

1849 Wackerbarth, A. D. Beowulf, translated into English verse. London. (Imitation of Scott's metre.)

1855 Thorpe, B. [In his edit., q.v.]

1857 Uhland, L. [Prose transl. of Finnsburg.] Germania, II, 354-5.

1857 Grein, C. W. M. Dichtungen der Angelsachsen, stabreimend übersetzt. Göttingen. (Vol. I, pp. 222—308, Beowulf, trans. into alliterative verse.)

1883. 2 Aufl. [Incorporating Grein's manuscript corrections, seen through the press by Wülker.] Cassel. Review: Krüger, Engl. Stud. VIII, 139—42.

1859 Simrock, K. Beowulf übersetzt u. erläutert. Stuttgart u. Augsburg. (Alliterative verse: Finnsburg Fragment inserted after l. 1124.)

1859 Sandras, G. S. De carminibus anglo-saxonicis Caedmoni adjudicatis. Paris. (Pp. 8—10 contain extract from Beowulf and Latin transl.)

1861 Haigh, D. H. (Prose transl. of Finnsburg.) In Anglo-Saxon Sagas, pp. 32—3, q.v.

1863 Heyne, M. Beowulf übersetzt. Paderborn. (Blank verse.) Review: Holtzmann, Germania, VIII, 506—7.

1897—8. 2 Aufl. Paderborn. Reviews: Holthausen, Archiv, CIII,

373—6; Wülker, Anglia, Beiblatt, IX, 1; Jantzen, Engl. Stud. XXV,

271—3; Löhner, Z.f.ö.G. XLIX, 563.

1915. 3 Aufl. Paderborn.

1865 Grundtvig, N. F. S. Bjovulfs-Drapen. Anden Udgave.

1872 von Wolzogen, H. Beovulf aus dem ags. Leipzig. (Verse.)

1876 Arnold, T. [In his edit., q.v.]

1877 Botkine, L. Beowulf traduite en français. Havre. (Prose: some omissions.) Review: Körner, Engl. Stud. II, 248—51.

1881 Zinsser, G. Der Kampf Beowulfs mit Grendel [vv. 1—836] als Probe einer metrischen Uebersetzung. Saarbrücken. Reviews: Archiv, LXVIII, 446; Krüger, Engl. Stud. VII, 370—2.

1881 Lumsden, H. W. Beowulf... transl. into modern rhymes. London. (Some omissions.) Reviews: Athenæum, April 1881, p. 587; Garnett, Amer. Jour. of Phil. II, 355—61; Wülker, Anglia, IV, Anzeiger, 69—80.

1883. ‡Second edit. Review: York Powell, Academy, XXVI, 1884, pp. 220—1.

1882 Schuhmann, G. Beovulf, antichissimo poema epico de' popoli germanici. Giornale Napoletano di filosofia e lettere. Anno IV, vol. 7, 25—36, 175—190. (A summary only.)

1882 Garnett, J. M. Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg, translated. Boston, U.S.A. Reviews: Nation (New York), No. 919, 1883; Harrison, Amer. Jour. of Phil. IV, 84—6, reply by Garnett, 243—6; Schipper, Anglia, VI, Anzeiger, 120—4; Krüger, Engl. Stud. VIII, 133—8, and (second edit.) IX, 151; Bright, Literaturblatt, 1883, 386—7.

1885. Second edit., revised.

1900. Fourth edit.

1883 Grion, Giusto. Beovulf, poema epico anglòsassone del VII secolo, tradotto e illustrato. In the Atti della reale Accademia Lucchese, XXII. (First Italian translation.) Review: Krüger, Engl. Stud. IX, 64—77.

1889 ‡Wickberg, R. Beowulf, en fornengelsk hjältedikt översatt. Westervik.

1914. ‡Second edit. Upsala. Review: Kock, A.f.n.F. XXXII, 223—4.

1892 Hall, John Lesslie. Beowulf translated. (Verse, with notes.) Boston, U.S.A. Reviews: M.L.N. VII, 128, 1892 (brief mention); Miller, Viking Club Year Book, I, 91—2; Holthausen, Anglia, Beiblatt, IV, 33—6; Glöde, Engl. Stud. XIX, 257—60.

1893. ‡Student's edit.

1892 (1891) Earle, John. The deeds of Beowulf. Oxford. (Prose translation, somewhat spoilt by its artificial and sometimes grotesque vocabulary; very valuable introduction, with summary of the controversy to date, and notes.) Reviews: Athenæum, 1 Oct. 1892; Koeppel, Engl. Stud. XVIII, 93-5 (fair, though rather severe).

1893 Hoffmann, P. Beówulf... aus dem angelsächsischen übertragen. Züllichau. (In the measure of the Nibelungenlied; ind. Finnsburg.) Reviews (mostly unfavourable): Shipley, M.L.N. IX, 121-3, 1894; Wülker, Anglia, Beiblatt, V, 67; Wülker, Lit. Cbl. 1894, p. 1930; Glöde, Engl. Stud. XIX, 412-5; ‡Detter, Öster. Literaturblatt, V, 9; ‡Marold, Deut. Literaturblatt, XXIII, 332.

1900. ‡Second edit. Hannover.

1895 Morris, W. and Wyatt, A. J. The Tale of Beowulf. Kelmscott Press, Hammersmith. (Verse: archaic vocabulary.)

1898. New edit. Review: Hulme, M.L.N. XV, 22-6, 1900.

1896 Simons, L. Beówulf... vertaald in stafrijm en met inleiding en aanteekeningen. Gent (Koninklijke vlaamsche Academie). Reviews: Glöde, Engl. Stud. XXV, 270-1; Uhlenbeck, Museum (Groningen), V, 217-8.

1898 Steineck, H. Altenglische Dichtungen (Beowulf, Elene, u.a.) in wortgetreuer Übersetzung. Leipzig. (Prose, line for line.) Reviews: Binz, Anglia, Beiblatt, IX, 220-2; Holthausen, Archiv, CIII, 376-8 (both very unfavourable).

1901 Hall, J. R. Clark. Beowulf and the fight at Finnsburg. A translation into modern English prose. London. Reviews: Athenæum, 1901, July, p. 56; Academy, LX, 1901, 342; Stedman, Viking Club Year Book, III, 72-4; Tinker, J.E.G.Ph. IV, 379-81; Holthausen, Anglia, Beiblatt, XIII, 225-8; Dibelius, Archiv, CIX, 403-4; Vietor, Die neueren Sprachen, XI, 439; Wülker, Lit. Cbl. 1902, 30-1 ("sehr zu empfehlen").

1911 (q.v.). New edit., with considerable additions.

1902 Tinker, C. B. Beowulf translated out of the Old English. New York. (Prose.) Reviews: Klaeber, J.E.G.Ph. V, 91-3; Holthausen, Anglia, Beiblatt, XIV, 7.

1903 ‡Björkman, E. Swedish transl. (prose) of Beowulf, Part II (in Schück's Världslitteraturen, with introd. by Schück).

1903-4 Trautmann, M., in his editions, q.v.

1904 Child, C. G. Beowulf and the Finnesburh Fragment translated. London and Boston. Reviews: Grattan, M.L.R. III, 303-4 ("a good prose translation which steers an even course between pseudo-archaisms and modern colloquialisms"); Miller, Viking Club Year Book, I, 91-2; Klaeber, Anglia, Beiblatt, XVI, 225-7; Brandl, Archiv, CXXI, 473.

1904 ‡Hansen, A. Transl. into Danish of Beowulf, ll. 491-924, Danske Tidsskrift.

1905 Vogt, P. Beowulf... übersetzt. Halle. (Text rearranged according to theories of interpolation: Finnsburg Fragment translated, following Möller's text.) Reviews: Binz, Anglia, Beiblatt, XXI, 289-91; Eichler, Z.f.ö.G. LVII, 908-10; Klaeber, Archiv, CXVII, 408-10: Jantzen, Lit. Cbl. 1906, 257-8.

1906 Gering, H. Beowulf nebst dem Finnsburg-Bruchstück übersetzt. Heidelberg. (Verse.) Reviews: Lawrence, J.E.G.Ph. VII, 129-33 ("thoroughly scholarly"); Jantzen, Lit. Cbl. 1907, 64-5; Ries, A.f.d.A. XXXIII, 143-7; Binz, Literaturblatt, XXXI, 397-8 ("Fliessend und ungezwungen, sinngetreu..."); ‡Zehme, Monatsschrift, XIV, 597-600; v. Grienberger, Z.f.ö.G. 1908, LIX, 423-8.

1914. 2 Aufl.

1907 Huyshe, W. Beowulf... translated into... prose ("Appendix: The Fight at Finn's burgh"). London. ("Translation," to quote Clark Hall, "apparently such as might have been compiled from previous translations by a person ignorant of Ags. Some original mistakes.") Reviews: Athenæum, 1907, II, 96 ("Mr Huyshe displays sad ignorance of Old English... but an assiduous study of the work of his predecessors has preserved him from misrepresenting seriously the general sense of the text"); Notes and Queries, Ser. X, vol. VIII, 58; Garnett, Amer. Jnl. Philol. XXIX, 344-6; Klaeber, Anglia, Beiblatt, XIX, 257.

1909 Gummere, F. B. The oldest English Epic. Beowulf, Finnsburg, Waldere, Deor and the German Hildebrand, translated in the original metres. New York. Reviews: Athenæum, 1909, II, 151; Trautmann, Anglia, Beiblatt, XXXIII, 353-60 (metrical debate); Sedgefield, Engl. Stud. XLI, 402-3 (discussing possibility of reproducing in Mod. Eng. the Old Eng. alliterative verse-rhythm); Derocquigny, Revue Germanique, VI, 356-7; see also above, p. 390.

1910 Hansen, Adolf. Bjovulf, oversat af A. Hansen, og efter hans død gået efter og fuldført samt forsynet med en inledning og en oversættelse af brudstykket om kampen i Finsborg, af Viggo Julius von Holstein Rathlou; udgivet ved Oskar Hansen. København og Kristiania. An account of this translation, by v. Holstein Rathlou, in Tilskueren, June, 1910, pp. 557-62; Review: Olrik, Danske Studier, 1910, 112-13.

1911 Clark Hall, J. R. Beowulf and the Finnsburg Fragment. A translation into Modern English Prose. London. Reviews: Mawer, M.L.R. VI, 542 ("probably the best working translation that we have, enriched by a valuable introduction and excellent appendices"); Academy, 1911, I, 225-6; Björkman, Engl. Stud. XLIV, 127-8; Archiv, CXXVI, 492-3; Binz, Literaturblatt, XXXII, 232.

1912 Pierquin, H. Le poème Anglo-Saxon de Beowulf. (An extraordinary piece of work; the version mainly follows Kemble's text, which is reproduced, but with many misprints: Kemble's Saxons in England is translated by way of introduction. The Finnsburg Fragment is included.) Reviews: Academy, 1912, II, 509-10 (seems to regard Pierquin as author of Les Saxons en Angleterre); Sedgefield, M.L.R. VIII, 550-2; Klaeber, Anglia, Beiblatt, XXIV, 138-9; Imelmann, D.L.Z. XXXIV (1913), 1062-3 (very unfavourable); ‡Luick, Mitt. d. inst. f. österr. gesch.-forsch. XXXVI, 401; ‡Barat, Moyen Âge, XXVI (see. ser. XVII), 298-302.

1913 Kirtlan, E. J. The Story of Beowulf. London. (A fair specimen of the less scholarly translations; nicely got up and not exceedingly incorrect.) Reviews: Athenæum, 1914, II, 71; Klaeber, Anglia, Beiblatt, XXVII, 129-31.

1914 Clark Hall, J. R. Beowulf: a metrical translation. Cambridge. (Not so successful as the same writer's prose translation.) Reviews: Sedgefield, M.L.R. X, 387-9 (discussing the principles of metrical translation); Klaeber, Anglia, Beiblatt, XXVI, 170-2.

1915 Olivero, F. Traduzioni dalla Poesia Anglo-sassone. Bari. (Pp. 73-119, extracts from Beowulf.) Review: M.L.R. XI, 509.

1916 ‡Benedetti, A. La canzone di Beowulf, poema epico anglo-sassone del VI secolo. Versione italiana, con introduzione e note. Palermo.

1918 Leonard, W. E. [Specimen, Passus IX, of forthcoming transl., in the measure of the Nibelungenlied.] In Univ. of Wisconsin Studies, II, 149-52; see above.

A translation of Beowulf into the Norwegian "landsmaal," by H. Rytter, will appear shortly.

Popular paraphrases of Beowulf are not included in the above list. An account will be found in Tinker's Translations of those of E. H. Jones (in Cox's Popular Romances, 1871); J. Gibb, 1881-4; Wägner-MacDowall, 1883 etc.; Miss Z. A. Ragozin, 1898, 1900; A. J. Church, 1898; Miss C. L. Thomson, 1899, 1904. Mention may also be made of those of ‡F. A. Turner, 1894; H. E. Marshall, 1908; T. Cartwright, 1908; Prof. J. H. Cox, 1910. An illustrated summary of the Beowulf story was issued by Mr W. T. Stead in his penny "Books for the Bairns." The versions of Miss Thomson and Prof. Cox are both good. The paraphrase in the Canadian Monthly, II, 83 (1872), attributed in several bibliographies to Earle, is assuredly not the work of that scholar: it is an inaccurate version based upon Jones. An account will be found in Tinker of the German paraphrase of Therese Dahn, 1883 etc.; mention may also be made of those of J. Arnheim, 1871; ‡ F. Bässler, sec. edit. 1875 (praised highly by Klaeber in J.E.G.Ph. V, 118).

§ 7. TEXTUAL CRITICISM AND INTERPRETATION

1815 Grundtvig, N. F. S. Et Par Ord om det nys udkomne angelsaxiske Digt. Nyeste Skilderie af Kjøbenhavn, No. 60 etc., cols. 945, 998, 1009, 1025, 1045; Nok et Par Ord om Bjovulfs Drape, 1106, 1121, 1139 (comment upon Thorkelin's text and translation).

1815 Thorkelin, G. J. Reply to Grundtvig in Nyeste Skilderie, cols. 1057, 1073. (There were further articles in the same magazine, but they were purely personal.)

1820 Grundtvig, N. F. S. Emendations to Thorkelin's text, added to Bjowulfs Drape, 267-312.

1826 Conybeare, J. J. Illustrations of Anglo-Saxon poetry. London. (Beowulf and "Finnsborough," pp. 30-182.)

1859 Bouterwek, K. W. Zur Kritik des Beowulfliedes, Z.f.d.A. XI, 59-113.

1859 Dietrich, F. Rettungen, Z.f.d.A. XI, 409-20.

1863 Holtzmann, A. Zu Beowulf, Germania, VIII, 489-97. (Incl. Finnsburg.)

1865 Grein, C. W. M. Zur Textkritik der angelsächsischen Dichter: Finnsburg, Germania, X, 422.

1868-9 Bugge, Sophus. Spredte iagttagelser vedkommende de oldengelske digte om Beówulf og Waldere; Tidskrift for Philologi og Pædagogik, VIII, 40-78 and 287-307 (incl. Finnsburg, 304-5). Important.

1871 Rieger, M. Zum Beowulf, Z.f.d.Ph. III, 381-416.

1873 Bugge, S. Zum Beowulf, Z.f.d.Ph. IV, 192-224.

1880 Kölbing, E. Kleine Beiträge (Beowulf, 168, 169), Engl. Stud. III, 92 etc.

1882 Kluge, F. Sprachhistorische Miscellen (Beowulf, 63, 1027, 1235, 1267), P.B.B. VIII, 532-5.

1882 Cosijn, P. J. Zum Beowulf, P.B.B. VIII, 568-74.

1883 Sievers, E. Zum Beowulf, P.B.B. IX, 135-44, 370.

1883 Kluge, F. Zum Beowulf, P.B.B. IX, 187-92.

1883 Krüger, Th. Zum Beowulf, P.B.B. IX, 571-8.

1889 Miller, T. The position of Grendel's arm in Heorot, Anglia, XII, 396-400.

1890 Joseph, E. Zwei Versversetzungen im Beowulf, Z.f.d.Ph. XXII, 385-97.

1891 Schröer, A. Zur texterklärung des Beowulf, Anglia, XIII, 333-48.

1891-2 Cosijn, P. J. Aanteekeningen op den Beowulf. Leiden. (Important.) Reviews: Lübke, A.f.d.A. XIX, 341-2; Holthausen, Literaturblatt, 1895, p. 82.

1892 Sievers, E. Zur texterklärung des Beowulf, Anglia, XIV, 133-46.

1895 Bright, J. W. Notes on the Beowulf (ll. 30, 306, 386-7, 623, 737), M.L.N. X, 43-4.

1899 Trautmann, M. Berichtigungen, Vermutungen und Erklärungen zum Beowulf (ll. 1-1215). Bonner Beiträge zur Anglistik, II, 121-92. Reviews: Binz, Anglia, Beiblatt, XIV, 358-60; Holthausen, Literaturblatt, 1900, 62-4 (important). See Sievers, P.B.B. XXVII, 572; XXVIII, 271.

1901 Klaeber, F. A few Beowulf notes (ll. 459, 847 etc., 1206, 3024 etc., 3171); M.L.N. XVI, 14-18.

1902 Klaeber, F. Zum Beowulf (497-8; 1745-7), Archiv, CVIII, 368-70.

1902 Klaeber, F. Beowulf's character, M.L.N. XVII, 162.

1903 Krackow, O. Zu Beowulf, 1225, 2222, Archiv, CXI, 171-2.

1904 Bryant, F. E. Beowulf, 62, M.L.N. XIX, 121-2.

1904 Abbott, W. C. Hrothulf, M.L.N. XIX, 122-5. (Abbott suggests that Hrothulf is the name—missing in whole or part from l. 62—of the husband of the daughter of Healfdene. This suggestion is quite untenable, for many reasons: Hrothulf (Rolf Kraki) is a Dane, and the missing husband is a Swede: but the article led to a long controversy between Bryant and Klaeber; see M.L.N. XX, 9-11; XXI, 143, 255; XXII, 96, 160. Klaeber is undoubtedly right.)

1904 Krapp, G. B. Miscellaneous Notes: Scūrheard; M.L.N. XIX, 234.

1904 Sievers, E. Zum Beowulf, P.B.B. XXIX, 305-31. (Criticism of Trautmann's emendations.)

1904 Kock, E. A. Interpretations and Emendations of Early English Texts: III (Beowulf), Anglia, XXVII, 218-37.

1904 Sievers, E. Zum Beowulf (l. 5, Criticism of Kock), P.B.B. XXIX, 560-76. Reply by Kock, Anglia, XXVIII (1905), 140-2.

1905 Trautmann, M. Auch zum Beowulf: ein gruss an herren Eduard Sievers, Bonner Beiträge zur Anglistik, XVII, 143-74. (Reply to Sievers' criticism of Trautmann's conjectural emendations.) Review: Klaeber, M.L.N. XXII, 252.

1905 Swiggett, G. L. Notes on the Finnsburg fragment, M.L.N. XX, 169-71.

1905 Klaeber, F. Notizen zur texterklärung des Beowulf, Anglia, XXVIII, 439-47 (incl. Finnsburg); Zum Beowulf, the same, 448-56.

1905 Klaeber, F. Bemerkungen zum Beowulf, Archiv, CXV, 178-82. (Incl. Finnsburg.)

1905 Holthausen, F. Beiträge zur Erklärung des altengl. epos. I, Zum Beowulf; II, Zum Finnsburg-fragment; Z.f.d.Ph. XXXVII, 113-25.

1905-6 Klaeber, F. Studies in the Textual Interpretation of "Beowulf," Mod. Phil. III, 235-66, 445-65 (Most important).

1906 Child, C. G. Beowulf, 30, 53, 132 (i.e. 1323), 2957, M.L.N. XXI, 175-7, 198-200.

1906 Horn, W. Textkritische Bemerkungen (Beowulf, 69 etc.), Anglia, XXIX, 130-1.

1906 Klaeber, F. Notizen zum Beowulf, Anglia, XXIX, 378-82.

1907 Klaeber, F. Minor Notes on the Beowulf, J.E.G.Ph. VI, 190-6.

1908 Tinker, C. B. Notes on Beowulf, M.L.N. XXIII, 239-40.

1908 Klaeber, F. Zum Beowulf, Engl. Stud. XXXIX, 463-7.

1909 Klaeber, F. Textual Notes on Beowulf, J.E.G.Ph. VIII, 254-9.

1910 von Grienberger, T. Bemerkungen zum Beowulf, P.B.B. XXXVI, 77-101. (Incl. Finnsburg.)

1910 Sievers, E. Gegenbemerkungen zum Beowulf, P.B.B. XXXVI, 397-434. (Incl. Finnsburg.)

1910 Sedgefield, W. J. Notes on "Beowulf," M.L.R. V, 286-8.

1910 Trautmann, M. Beiträge zu einem künftigen "Sprachschatz der altenglischen Dichter," Anglia, XXXIII, 276-9 (gedræg).

1911 Blackburn, F. A. Note on Beowulf, 1591-1617, Mod. Phil. IX, 555-66. (Argues that a loose leaf has been misplaced and the order of events thus disturbed.)

1911 Klaeber, F. Zur Texterklärung des Beowulf, vv. 767, 1129, Anglia, Beiblatt, XXII, 372-4.

1912 Hart, J. M. Beowulf, 168-9, M.L.N. XXVII, 198.

1912-14 Grein, C. W. M. Sprachschatz der angelsächsischen dichter. Unter mitwirkung von F. Holthausen neu herausgegeben von J. J. Köhler. Heidelberg. Reviews: Trautmann, Anglia, Beiblatt, XXIV, 36-43; Schücking, Engl. Stud. XLIX, 113-5.

1915 Chambers, R. W. The "Shifted leaf" in Beowulf, M.L.R. X, 37-41. (Points out that the alleged "confused order of events" is that also followed in the Grettis saga.)

1916 Green, A. The opening of the episode of Finn in Beowulf, Pub. Mod. Lang. Assoc. Amer. XXXI, 759-97.

1916 Bright, J. W. Anglo-Saxon umbor and seld-guma, M.L.N. XXXI, 82-4; Beowulf, 489-90, M.L.N. XXXI, 217-23.

1917 Green, A. An episode in Ongenþeow's fall, M.L.R. XII, 340-3.

1917 Hollander, L. M. Beowulf, 33, M.L.N. XXXII, 246-7. (Suggests the reading ītig.)

1917 Holthausen, F. Zu altenglischen Denkmälern—Beowulf, 1140, Engl. Stud. LI, 180.

1918 Hubbard, F. G. Beowulf, 1598, 1996, 2026: uses of the impersonal verb geweorþan, J.E.G.Ph. XVII, 119.

1918 Kock, E. A. Interpretations and emendations of early English Texts: IV, Beowulf, Anglia, XLII, 99-124. (Important.)

1918 ‡Kock, E. A. Jubilee Jaunts and Jottings, in the Lunds univ. årsskrift, N. F. avd. I, bd. 14, nr. 26 (Festskrift vid... 250-årsjubileum). Reviews: Holthausen, Anglia, Beiblatt, XXX, 1-5; Klaeber, J.E.G.Ph. XIX, 409-13.

1919 Moore, Samuel. Beowulf Notes (Textual), J.E.G.Ph. XVIII, 205-16.

1919 Klaeber, F. Concerning the functions of O.E. geweorðan, J.E.G.Ph. XVIII, 250-71. (Cf. paper of Prof. Hubbard above, by which this was suggested.)

1919 Klaeber, F. Textual notes on "Beowulf," M.L.N. XXXIV, 129-34.

1919 Brown, Carleton. Beowulf, 1080-1106, M.L.N. XXXIV, 181-3.

1919 Brett, Cyril. Notes on passages of Old and Middle English, M.L.R. XIV, 1-9.

1919-20 Kock, E. A. Interpretations and emendations of Early English Texts: V (Incl. Beowulf, 2030, 2419-24); VI (Incl. Beowulf 24, 154-6, 189-90, 1992-3, 489-90, 581-3, 1745-7, 1820-1, 1931-2, 2164); VII (Incl. Beowulf, 1230, 1404, 1553-6); Anglia, XLIII, 303-4; XLIV, 98 etc., 245 etc.

1920 Bryan W. F. Beowulf Notes (303-6, 532-4, 867-71), J.E.G.Ph. XIX, 84-5.

§ 8. QUESTIONS OF LITERARY HISTORY, DATE AND AUTHORSHIP: BEOWULF IN THE LIGHT OF HISTORY, ARCHÆOLOGY, HEROIC LEGEND, MYTHOLOGY AND FOLKLORE

Notes

[1] The exact equivalent to Hrōðgar is found in O.N., in the form Hróðgeirr. The by-form Hróarr, which is used of the famous Danish king, is due to a number of rather irregular changes, which can however be paralleled. The Primitive Germanic form of the name would have been *Hrōþugaisaz: for the loss of the g at the beginning of the second element we may compare Aðils with Ēadgils (Noreen, Altisländische Grammatik, 1903, § 223); for the loss of ð before w compare Hrólfr with Hrōðwulf (Noreen, § 222); for the absence of R- umlaut in the second syllable, combined with loss of the g, compare O.N. nafarr with O.E. nafugār (Noreen, § 69).

[2] Corresponding to O.N. Aðils we should expect O.E. Æðgils, Æðgisl. The form Ēadgils may be due to confusion with the famous Eadgils, king of the Myrgingas, who is mentioned in Widsith. The name comes only once in Beowulf (l. 2392) and may owe its form there to a corruption of the scribe. That the O.E. form is corrupt seems more likely than that the O.N. Aðils, so well known and so frequently recorded, is a corruption of Auðgisl.

[3] It must be remembered that the sound changes of the Germanic dialects have been worked out so minutely that it is nearly always possible to decide quite definitely whether two names do or do not exactly correspond. Only occasionally is dispute possible [e.g. whether Hrothgar is or is not phonetically the exact equivalent of Hroarr].

[4] See below, pp. 8-10.

[5] Chochilaicus, which appears to be the correct form, corresponds to Hygelac (in the primitive form Hugilaikaz) as Chlodovechus to Hludovicus.

[6] The passages in Beowulf referring to this expedition are:

1202 etc.. Frisians (adjoining the Hetware) and Franks mentioned as the foes.

2354 etc. Hetware mentioned.

2501 etc. Hugas (= Franks) and the Frisian king mentioned.

2914 etc. Franks, Frisians, Hugas, Hetware and "the Merovingian" mentioned.

[7] The identification of Chochilaicus with Hygelac is the most important discovery ever made in the study of Beowulf, and the foundation of our belief in the historic character of its episodes. It is sometimes attributed to Grundtvig, sometimes to Outzen. It was first vaguely suggested by Grundtvig (Nyeste Skilderie af Kjøbenhavn, 1815, col. 1030): the importance of the identification was worked out by him fully, two years later (Danne-Virke, II, 285). In the meantime the passage from Gregory had been quoted by Outzen in his review of Thorkelin's Beowulf (Kieler Blätter, iii, 312). Outzen's reference was obviously made independently, but he failed to detect the real bearing of the passage upon Beowulf. Credit for the find accordingly belongs solely to Grundtvig.

[8] Ongentheow is mentioned in Widsith (l. 31) as a famous king of the Swedes. Many of the kings mentioned in the same list can be proved to be historical, and the reference in Widsith therefore supports Ongentheow's historic character, but is far, in itself, from proving it.

[9] Strictly Anganþér. See Heusler, Heldennamen in mehrfacher Lautgestalt, Z.f.d.A. LII, 101.

[10] ll. 2382-4.

[11] ll. 2612-9.

[12] Whether it be accuracy or accident, these names Ottar and Athils come just at that place in the list of the Ynglinga tal which, when we reckon back the generations, we find to correspond to the beginning of the sixth century. And this is the date when we know from Beowulf that they should have been reigning.

[13] But the accounts are quite inconsistent. Saxo (ed. Holder, pp. 56-7) implies a version in which Athils was deposed, if not slain, by Bothvar Bjarki, which is quite at variance with other information given by Saxo.

[14] Unless they are among the fragments carried off to the Stockholm Museum. Little of interest was found in these mounds when they were opened: everything had been too thoroughly burnt.

[15] See Schück, Folknamnet Geatas, 22 etc.

[16] See below, p. 98 and Appendix (E); The "Jute-Question."

[17] See below, pp. 45 etc.

[18] Olrik (Heltedigtning, I, 22 etc.). The Danish house—Healfdene, Heorogar, Hrothgar, Halga, Heoroweard, Hrethric, Hrothmund, Hrothulf: the Swedish—Ongentheow, Onela, Ohthere, Eanmund, Eadgils: the Geatic—Hrethel, Herebeald, Hætheyn, Hygelac, Heardred. The same principle is strongly marked in the Old English pedigrees.

[19] ll. 3018 etc.

[20] As is done, e.g., by Schück (Studier i Beowulf-sagan, 27).

[21] "Dragon fights are more frequent, not less frequent, the nearer we come to historic times": Olrik, Heltedigtning, I, 313. The dragon survived much later in Europe than has been generally recognized. He was flying from Mount Pilatus in 1649. (See J. J. Scheuchzer, Itinera per Helvetiae Alpinas regiones, 1723, III, p. 385.) The same authority quotes accounts of dragons authenticated by priests, his own contemporaries, and supplies many bloodcurdling engravings of the same.

[22] Cf. on this point Klaeber in Anglia, XXXVI (1912) p. 190.

[23] l. 2382.

[24] l. 2393.

[25] Of course, even if Beowulf's reign over the Geatas is not historic, this does not exclude the possibility of his having some historic foundation.

[26] Attempts at working out the chronology of Beowulf have been made by Gering (in his translation) and by Heusler (Archiv, CXXIV, 9-14). On the whole the chronology of Beowulf is self-consistent, but there are one or two discrepancies which do not admit of solution.

[27] l. 468.

[28] l. 2161.

[29] Widsith, l. 46.

[30] Beowulf, l. 2160. Had Hrothulf been a son of Heorogar he could not have been passed over in silence here. Neither can Hrothulf be Hrothgar's sister's son: for since the sister married the Swedish king, Hrothulf would in that case be a Swedish prince, and presumably would be living at the Swedish court, and bearing a name connected by alliteration with those of the Swedish, not the Danish house. Besides, had he been a Swedish prince, he must have been heard of in connection with the dynastic quarrels of the Swedish house.

[31] ll. 1163-5.

[32] ll. 1188-91.

[33] ll. 1180 etc.

[34] Doubts are expressed, for example, in Trap's monumental topographical work (Kongeriket Danmark, II, 328, 1898).

[35] For example Sweyn Aageson (c. 1200) had no doubt that the little village of Leire near Roskilde was identical with the Leire of story: Rolf Kraki, occisus in Lethra, qvae tunc famosissima Regis extitit curia, nunc autem Roskildensi vicina civitati, inter abjectissima ferme vix colitur oppida. Svenonis Aggonis Historia Regum Daniae, in Langebek, I, 45.

[36] Ro... patrem vero suum Dan colle apud Lethram tumulavit Sialandie ubi sedem regni pro eo pater constituit, qvam ipse post eum divitiis multiplicibus ditavit. In the so-called Annales Esromenses, in Langebek, I, 224. Cf. Olrik, Heltedigtning, I, 188, 194. For further evidence, see Appendix (G) below.

[37] We must not think of Heorot as an isolated country seat. The Royal Hall would stand in the middle of the Royal Village, as in the case of the halls of Attila (Priscus in Möller's Fragmenta, IV, 85) or Cynewulf (A.S. Chronicle, Anno 755).

[38] Lethram pergitur, quod oppidum, a Roluone constructum eximiisque regni opibus illustratum, ceteris confinium prouinciarum urbibus regie fundacionis et sedis auctoritate prestabat. Saxo, Book II (ed. Holder, p. 58).

[39] His cognitis Helgo filium Roluonem Lethrica arce conclusit, heredis saluti consulturus (p. 52).

[40] A Roe Roskildia condita memoratur. Saxo, Book II (ed. Holder, p. 51). Roe's spring, after being a feature of the town throughout the ages, is now (owing perhaps to its sources having been tapped by a neighbouring mineral-water factory) represented only by a pump in a market-garden.

[41] I owe this paragraph to information kindly supplied me by Dr Sofus Larsen, librarian of the University Library, Copenhagen.

[42] It was once believed that, in prehistoric times, the sea came up to Leire also (Forchhammer, Steenstrup and Worsaae: Undersøgelser i geologisk-antiqvarisk Retning, Kjøbenhavn, 1851). A most exact scrutiny of the geology of the coast-line has proved this to be erroneous. (Danmarks geologiske Undersøgelse I.R. 6. Beskrivelse til Kaartbladene Kjøbenhavn og Roskilde, af K. Rørdam, Kjøbenhavn, 1899.)

[43] The presence at Leire of early remains makes it tempting to suppose that it may have been from very primitive times a stronghold or sacred place. It is impossible here to examine these conjectures, which would connect Heorot ultimately with the "sacred place on the isle of the ocean" mentioned by Tacitus. The curious may be referred to Much in P.B.B. XVII, 196-8; Mogk in Pauls Grdr. (2) III, 367; Kock in the Swedish Historisk Tidskrift, 1895, 162 etc.; and particularly to the articles by Sarrazin: Die Hirsch Halle in Anglia, XIX, 368-91, Neue Beowulfstudien (Der Grendelsee) in Engl. Stud. XLII, 6-15.

[44] This seems to me much more probable than, as Olrik supposes, that Froda fell in battle against Healfdene (Skjoldungasaga, 162 [80]).

[45] Saga of Rolf Kraki, cap. IV.

[46] Olrik wishes to read the whole of this account, not as a prediction in the present future tense, but as a narrative of past events in the historic present. (Heltedigtning, I, 16; II, 38.) Considering the rarity of the historic present idiom in Old English poetry, this seems exceedingly unlikely.

[47] ll. 2047-2056.

[48] Verba dei legantur in sacerdotali convivio; ibi decet lectorem audiri, non citharistam, sermones patrum, non carmina gentilium. Quid Hinieldus cum Christo? See Jaffé's Monumenta Alcuiniana (Bibliotheca Rer. Germ. VI), Berlin, 1873, p. 357; Epistolae, 81.

[49] Saxo, Book VI (ed. Holder, 205, 212-13).

The contrast between this lyrical outburst, and the matter-of-fact speech in which the old warrior in Beowulf eggs on the younger man, is thoroughly characteristic of the difference between Old English and Old Scandinavian heroic poetry. This difference is very noticeable whenever we have occasion to compare a passage in Beowulf with any parallel passage in a Scandinavian poem, and should be carefully pondered by those who still believe that Beowulf is, in its present form, a translation from the Scandinavian.

[50] Saxo, Book VIII (ed. Holder, p. 274); Helga kviþa Hundingsbana, II, 19. See also Bugge, Helge-digtene, 157.

[51] Þáttr Þorsteins Skelks in Flateyarbók (ed. Vigfússon and Unger), I, 416.

[52] Similarly, there is certainly a primitive connection between the names of the Geatas (Gautar) and of the Goths: but they are quite distinct peoples: we should not be justified in speaking of the Geatas as identical with the Goths.

[53] Müllenhoff (Beovulf, 29-32) followed by Much (P.B.B. XVII, 201) and Heinzel (A.f.d.A. XVI, 271). The best account of the Heruli is in Procopius (Bell. Gott. II, 14, 15).

[54] See also Olrik, Heltedigtning, I, 21, 22: Sarrazin in Engl. Stud. XLII, 11: Bugge, Helgi-digtene, 151-63; 181: Chambers, Widsith, p. 82 (note), pp. 205-6.

[55] Saga of Rolf Kraki: Skjoldungasaga.

[56] Best represented in Saxo.

[57] See above, p. 15.

[58] ll. 1180-87.

[59] ll. 1188-91.

[60] ll. 1163-5.

[61] ll. 1017-19.

[62] ll. 45-6.

[63] For a contrary view see Clarke, Sidelights, 100.

[64] Saxo has mistaken a title hnøggvanbaugi for a father's name, (hins) hnøggva Baugs "(son of the) covetous Baug."

[65] Langfeðgatal in Langebek, I, 5. The succession given in Langfeðgatal is Halfdan, Helgi and Hroar, Rolf, Hrærek: it should, of course, run Halfdan, Helgi and Hroar, Hrærek, Rolf. Hrærek has been moved from his proper place in order to clear Rolf of any suspicion of usurpation.

[66] l. 1189.

[67] See Olrik, Episke Love in Danske Studier, 1908, p. 79. Compare the remark of Goethe in Wilhelm Meister, as to the necessity of there being both a Rosencrantz and a Guildenstern (Apprenticeship, Book V, chap. v).

[68] ll. 587-9.

[69] ll. 1165-8.

[70] Perhaps such murder of kin was more common among the aristocratic houses than among the bulk of the population (Chadwick, H.A. 348). In some great families it almost becomes the rule, producing a state of things similar to that in present day Afghanistan, where it has become a proverb that a man is "as great an enemy as a cousin" (Pennell, Afghan Frontier, 30).

[71] This is proposed by Cosijn (Aanteekeningen, 21) and again independently by Lawrence in M.L.N. XXV, 157.

[72] ll. 467-9.

[73] ll. 2155-62.

[74] See Widsith, ed. Chambers, pp. 92-4.

[75] See Rickert, "The Old English Offa Saga" in Mod. Phil. II, esp. p. 75.

[76] The common ascription of the Lives of the Offas to Matthew Paris is erroneous: they are somewhat earlier.

[77] The identification of Fifeldor with the Eider has been doubted, notably by Holthausen, though he seems less doubtful in his latest edition (third edit. II, 178). The reasons for the identification appear to me the following. Place names ending in dor are exceedingly rare. When, therefore, two independent authorities tell us that Offa fought at a place named Fifel-dor or Egi-dor, it appears unlikely that this can be a mere coincidence: it seems more natural to assume that the names are corruptions of one original. But further, the connection is not limited to the second element in the name. For the Eider (Egidora, Ægisdyr) would in O.E. be Egor-dor: and Egor-dor stands to Fifel-dor precisely as egor-stream (Boethius, Metra, XX, 118) does to fifel-stream (Metra, XXVI, 26), "egor" and "fifel" being interchangeable synonyms. See note to Widsith, l. 43 (p. 204). It is objected that the interchange of fifel and egor, though frequent in common nouns, would be unusual in the name of a place. The reply is that the Old English scop may not have regarded it as a place-name. He may have substituted fifel-dor for the synonymous egor-dor, "the monster gate," without realizing that it was the name of a definite place, just as he would have substituted fifel-stream for egor-stream, "the monster stream, the sea," if alliteration demanded the change.

[78] The Deeds of Beowulf, LXXXV.

[79] See below, pp. 105-12, and Appendix (D) below.

[80] Wihtlæg appears in Saxo as Vigletus (Book IV, ed. Holder, p. 105).

[81] Nibelungen Lied, ed. Piper, 328.

[82] Book IV (ed. Holder, p. 102).

[83] Kemble, Beowulf, Postscript IX; followed by Müllenhoff, etc. So, lately, Chadwick (H.A. 126): cf. also Sievers ('Beowulf und Saxo' in the Berichte d. k. sächs. Gesell. d. Wissenschaften, 1895, pp. 180-88); Bradley in Encyc. Brit. III, 761; Boer, Beowulf, 135. See also Olrik, Danmarks Heltedigtning, I, 246. For further discussion see below, Appendix (A).

[84] Beo—Scyld—Scef in Ethelwerd: Beowius—Sceldius—Sceaf in William of Malmesbury. But in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle five generations intervene between Sceaf and his descendant Scyldwa, father of Beaw.

[85] "Item there is vii acres lond lying by the high weye toward the grendyll": Bury Wills, ed. S. Tymms (Camden Soc. XLIX, 1850, p. 31).

[86] I should hardly have thought it worth while to revive this old "cesspool" theory, were it not for the statement of Dr Lawrence that "Miller's argument that the word grendel here is not a proper name at all, that it means 'drain,' has never, to my knowledge, been refuted." (Pub. Mod. Lang. Assoc. Amer. XXIV, 253.)

Miller was a scholar whose memory should be reverenced, but the letter to the Academy was evidently written in haste. The only evidence which Miller produced for grendel standing alone as a common noun in Old English was a charter of 963 (Birch, 1103: vol. III, p. 336): þanon forð eft on grendel: þanon on clyst: grendel here, he asserted, meant "drain": and consequently gryndeles sylle and grendles mere in the other charters must mean "cesspool." But the locality of this charter of 963 is known (Clyst St Mary, a few miles east of Exeter), and the two words exist there as names of streams to this day—"thence again along the Greendale brook, thence along the river Clyst." The Grindle or Greendale brook is no sewer, but a stream some half dozen miles in length which "winds tranquilly through a rich tract of alluvial soil" (Journal of the Archaeol. Assoc. XXXIX, 273), past three villages which bear the same name, Greendale, Greendale Barton and Higher Greendale, under Greendale Bridge and over the ford by Greendale Lane, to its junction with the Clyst. Why the existence of this charming stream should be held to justify the interpretation of Grendel or Gryndel as "drain" and grendles mere as "cesspool" has always puzzled me. Were a new Drayton to arise he might, in a new Polyolbion, introduce the nymph complaining of her hard lot at the hands of scholars in the Hesperides. I hope, when he next visits England, to conduct Dr Lawrence to make his apologies to the lady. Meantime a glance at the "six inch" ordnance map of Devon suffices to refute Miller's curious hypothesis.

[87] It is often asserted that the same Beowa appears as a witness to a charter (Müllenhoff, Beovulf, p. 8: Haak, Zeugnisse zur altenglischen Heldensage, 53). But this rests upon a misprint of Kemble (C.D.S. V, 44). The name is really Beoba (Birch, Cart. Sax. I, 212).

[88] Beaf er ver kollum Biar, in the descent of Harold Fairhair from Adam, in Flateyarbók, ed. Vigfússon and Unger, Christiania, 1859, I, 27. [The genealogy contains many names obviously taken from a MS of the O.E. royal pedigrees, not from oral tradition, as is shown by the miswritings, e.g., Beaf for Beaw, owing to mistaking the O.E. w for f.] "This is no proof," Dr Lawrence urges, "of popular acquaintance with Bjár as a Scandinavian figure." (Pub. Mod. Lang. Assoc. Amer. XXIV, 246.) But how are we to account for the presence of his name among a mnemonic list of some of the most famous warriors and their horses—mention along with heroes like Sigurd, Gunnar, Atli, Athils and Ali, unless Bjar was a well-known figure?

[89] en Bjárr [reið] Kerti. Kortr, "short" (Germ. Kurz), if indeed we are so to interpret it, is hardly an Icelandic word, and seems strange as the name of a horse. Egilsson (Lex. Poet. 1860) suggests kertr, "erect," "with head high" (cf. Kahle in I.F. XIV, 164).

[90] See Appendix (A) below.

[91] Müllenhoff derived Beaw from the root bhū, "to be, dwell, grow": Beaw therefore represented settled dwelling and culture. Müllenhoff's mythological explanation (Z.f.d.A. VII, 419, etc., Beovulf, 1, etc.) has been largely followed by subsequent scholars, e.g., ten Brink (Pauls Grdr. II, 533: Beowulf, 184), Symons (Pauls Grdr. (2), III, 645-6) and, in general outline, E. H. Meyer (Mythol. der Germanen, 1903, 242).

[92] Uhland in Germania, II, 349.

[93] Laistner (Nebelsagen, 88, etc., 264, etc.), Kögel (Z.f.d.A. XXXVII, 274: Geschichte d. deut. Litt. I, 1, 109), and Golther (Handbuch der germ. Mythologie, 1895, 173) see in Grendel the demon of combined storm and pestilence.

[94] E. H. Meyer (Germ. Mythol. 1891, 299).

[95] Mogk (Pauls Grdr. (2), III, 302) regards Grendel as a "water-spirit."

[96] Boer (Ark. f. nord. Filol. XIX, 19).

[97] This suggestion is made (very tentatively) by Brandl, in Pauls Grdr. (2), II, i, 992.

[98] This view has been enunciated by Wundt in his Völkerpsychologie, II, i, 326, etc., 382. For a discussion see A. Heusler in Berliner Sitzungsberichte, XXXVII, 1909, pp. 939-945.

[99] Cf. Lawrence in Pub. Mod. Lang. Assoc. Amer. XXIV, 265, etc., and Panzer's "Beowulf" throughout.

[100] The tradition of "the devil and his dam" resembles that of Grendel and his mother in its coupling together the home-keeping female and the roving male. See E. Lehmann, "Fandens Oldemor" in Dania, VIII, 179-194; a paper which has been undeservedly neglected in the Beowulf bibliographies. But the devil beats his dam (cf. Piers Plowman, C-text, XXI, 284): conduct of which one cannot imagine Grendel guilty. See too Lehmann in Arch. f. Religionswiss. VIII, 411-30: Panzer, Beowulf, 130, 137, etc.: Klaeber in Anglia, XXXVI, 188.

[101] Cf. Beowulf, ll. 1282-7.

[102] There are other coincidences which may be the result of mere chance. In each case, before the adventure with the giants, the hero proves his strength by a feat of endurance in the ice-cold water. And, at the end of the story, the hero in each case produces, as evidence of his victory, a trophy with a runic inscription: in Beowulf an engraved sword-hilt; in the Grettis saga bones and a "rune-staff."

[103] Vigfússon, Corp. Poet. Boreale, II, 502: Bugge, P.B.B. XII, 58.

[104] Boer, for example, believes that Beowulf influenced the Grettis saga (Grettis saga, Introduction, xliii); so, tentatively, Olrik (Heltedigtning, I, 248).

[105] For this argument and the following, cf. Schück, Studier i Beowulfssagan, 21.

[106] Even assuming that a MS of Beowulf had found its way to Iceland, it would have been unintelligible. This is shown by the absurd blunders made when Icelanders borrowed names from the O.E. genealogies.

[107] Cf. Olrik, A. f. n. F., VIII (N.F. IV), 368-75; and Chadwick, Origin, 125-6.

[108] Pub. Mod. Lang. Assoc. Amer. XXVII, 208 etc.

[109] Cotton. Gnomic Verses, ll. 42-3.

[110] Fornmannasǫgur, III, 204-228.

[111] Hammershaimb, Færōiske Kvœder, II, 1855, Nos. 11 and 12.

[112] A. I. Arwidsson, Svenska Fornsånger, 1834-42, Nos. 8 and 9.

[113] Boer, Beowulf, 177-180.

[114] ll. 1553-6.

[115] l. 455.

[116] The attacks have taken place at Yule for two successive years, exactly as in the Grettis saga. [In Beowulf it is, of course, "twelve winters" (l. 147).] Is this mere accident, or does the Grettis saga here preserve the original time limit, which has been exaggerated in Beowulf? If so, we have another point of resemblance between the Saga of Rolf Kraki and the earliest version of the Beowulf story.

[117] Beowulf, ll. 801-5.

[118] Cf. Beowulf, ll. 590-606.

[119] Beowulf, l. 679.

[120] Beowulf, ll. 1508-9, 1524.

[121] It is only in this adventure that Rolf carries the sword Gullinhjalti. His usual sword, as well known as Arthur's Excalibur, was Skofnungr. For Gyldenhilt, whether descriptive, or proper noun, see Beowulf, 1677.

[122] Cf. Symons in Pauls Grdr. (2), III, 649: Züge aus dem anglischen Mythus von Béaw-Biar (Biarr oder Bjár?; s. Symons Lieder der Edda, I, 222) wurden auf den dänischen Sagenhelden (Boðvarr) Bjarki durch Ähnlichkeit der Namen veranlasst, übertragen. Cf. too, Heusler in A.f.d.A. XXX, 32.

[123] See p. 87 and Appendix (A) below.

[124] Heltedigtning, I, 1903, 135-6.

[125] Beowulf, 1518.

[126] See Heusler in Z.f.d.A. XLVIII, 62.

[127] Cf. on this Heusler, Z.f.d.A. XLVIII, 64-5.

[128] Cf. Skjoldunga saga, cap. XII; and see Olrik, Heltedigtning, I, 201-5; Bjarka rímur, VIII.

[129] Similarly Skáldskaparmál, 41 (44).

[130] Bärensohn. Jean l'Ours. The name is given to the group because the hero is frequently (though by no means always) represented as having been brought up in a bear's den. The story summarized above is a portion of Panzer's "Type A." See Appendix (H), below.

[131] ll. 704, 729.

[132] ll. 691-6.

[133] In the Beowulf it was even desirable, as explained above, to go further, and completely to exculpate the Danish watchers.

[134] From the controversial point of view Panzer has no doubt weakened his case by drawing attention to so many of these, probably accidental, coincidences. It gives the critic material for attack (cf. Boer, Beowulf, 14)

[135] ll. 2183 etc.

[136] ll. 408-9.

[137] It comes out strongly in the Bjarki-story.

[138] It can hardly be argued that Stein is mentioned because he was an historic character who in some way came into contact with the historic Grettir: for in this case his descent would have been given, according to the usual custom in the sagas. (Cf. note to Boer's edition of Grettis saga, p. 233.)

[139] P. E. K. Kaalund, Bidrag til en historisk-topografisk Beskrivelse af Island, Kjøbenhavn, 1877, II, 151.

[140] The localization in en stor sandhaug is found in a version of the story to which Panzer was unable to get access (see p. 7 of his Beowulf, Note 2). A copy is to be found in the University Library of Christiania, in a small book entitled Nor, en Billedbog for den norske Ungdom. Christiania, 1865. (Norske Folke-Eventyr... fortalte af P. C. Asbjørnsen, pp. 65-128.)

The sandhaug is an extraordinary coincidence, if it is a mere coincidence. It cannot have been imported into the modern folk-tale from the Grettis saga, for there is no superficial resemblance between the two tales.

[141] Cf. Boer, Beowulf, 14.

[142] Yet both Beowulf and Orm are saved by divine help.

[143] Panzer exaggerates the case against his own theory when he quotes only six versions as omitting the princesses (p. 122). Such unanimity as this is hardly to be looked for in a collection of 202 kindred folk-tales. In addition to these six, the princesses are altogether missing, for example, in the versions Panzer numbers 68, 69, 77: they are only faintly represented in other versions (e.g. 76). Nevertheless the rescue of the princesses may be regarded as the most essential element in the tale.

[144] I cannot agree with Panzer when (p. 319) he suggests the possibility of the Beowulf and the Grettir-story having been derived independently from the folk-tale. For the two stories have many features in common which do not belong to the folk-tale: apart from the absence of the princesses we have the hæft-mēce and the strange conclusion drawn by the watchers from the blood-stained water.

[145] Ipse Scef cum uno dromone advectus est in insula Oceani, quae dicitur Scani, armis circundatus, eratque valde recens puer, & ab incolis illius terrae ignotus; attamen ab eis suscipitur, & ut familiarem diligenti animo eum custodierunt, & post in regem eligunt.

Ethelwerdus, III, 3, in Savile's Rerum Anglicarum Scriptores post Bedam, Francofurti, 1601, p. 842.

[146] See Chadwick, Origin, 259-60.

[147] Sceldius [fuit filius] Sceaf. Iste, ut ferunt, in quandam insulam Germaniae Scandzam, de qua Jordanes, historiographus Gothorum, loquitur, appulsus navi sine remige, puerulus, posito ad caput frumenti manipulo, dormiens, ideoque Sceaf nuncupatus, ab hominibus regionis illius pro miraculo exceptus et sedulo nutritus: adulta aetate regnavit in oppido quod tunc Slaswic, nunc vero Haithebi appellatur. Est autem regio illa Anglia vetus dicta....

William of Malmesbury, De Gestis Regum Anglorum. Lib. II, § 116, vol. I, p. 121, ed. Stubbs, 1887.

[148] Although Saxo Grammaticus has provided some even earlier kings.

[149] Cf. Müllenhoff in Z.f.d.A. VII, 413.

[150] In Grímnismál, 54, Odin gives Gautr as one of his names.

[151] See below.

[152] Excluding, of course, the Hebrew names.

[153] Scyld appears as Scyldwa, Sce(a)ldwa in the Chronicle. The forms correspond.

[154] See Part II.

[155] armis circundatus.

[156] For a list of the scholars who have dealt with the subject, see Widsith, p. 119.

[157] Beovulf, p. 6 etc.

[158] Pub. Mod. Lang. Assoc. Amer. XXIV, 259 etc.

[159] This objection to the Scyld-theory has been excellently expressed by Olrik—at a time, too, when Olrik himself accepted the story as belonging to Scyld rather than Sceaf. "Binz," says Olrik, "rejects William of Malmesbury as a source for the Scyld story. But he has not noticed that in doing so he saws across the branch upon which he himself and the other investigators are sitting. For if William is not a reliable authority, and even a more reliable authority than the others, then 'Scyld with the sheaf' is left in the air." Heltedigtning, I, 238-9, note.

[160] The discussion of Skjold by Olrik (Danmarks Heltedigtning, I, 223-271) is perhaps the most helpful of any yet made, especially in emphasizing the necessity of differentiating the stages in the story. But it must be taken in connection with the very essential modifications made by Dr Olrik in his second volume (pp. 249-65, especially pp. 264-5). Dr Olrik's earlier interpretation made Scyld the original hero of the story: Scefing Olrik interpreted, not as "with the sheaf," but as "son of Scef." To the objection that any knowledge of Scyld's parentage would be inconsistent with his unknown origin, Olrik replied by supposing that Scyld was a foundling whose origin, though unknown to the people of the land to which he came, was well known to the poet. The poet, Dr Olrik thought, regarded him as a son of the Langobardic king, Sceafa, a connection which we are to attribute to the Anglo-Saxon love of framing genealogies. But this explanation of Scyld Scefing as a human foundling does not seem to me to be borne out by the text of Beowulf. "The child is a poor foundling," says Dr Olrik, "he suffered distress from the time when he was first found as a helpless child. Only as a grown man did he get compensation for his childhood's adversity" (p. 228). But this is certainly not the meaning of egsode eorl[as]. It is "He inspired the earl[s] with awe."

[161] See below (App. C) for instances of ancestral names extant both in weak and strong forms, like Scyld, Sceldwa (the identity of which no one doubts) or Sceaf, Sceafa (the identity of which has been doubted).

[162] "As for the name Scyldungas-Skjöldungar, we need not hesitate to believe that this originally meant 'the people' or 'kinsmen of the shield.' Similar appellations are not uncommon, e.g., Rondingas, Helmingas, Brondingas... probably these names meant either 'the people of the shield, the helmet,' etc., or else the people who used shields, helmets, etc., in some special way. In the former case we may compare the Ancile of the Romans and the Palladion of the Greeks; in either case we may note that occasionally shields have been found in the North which can never have been used except for ceremonial purposes." Chadwick, Origin, p. 284: cf. Olrik, Heltedigtning, I, 274.

[163] Sweyn Aageson, Skiold Danis primum didici praefuisse, in Langebek, S.R.D. I, 44.

[164] Olrik, Heltedigtning, I, 246; Lawrence, Pub. Mod. Lang. Assoc. XXIV, 254.

[165] It is odd that Binz, who has recorded so many of these, should have argued on the strength of these place-names that the Scyld story is not Danish, but an ancient possession of the tribes of the North Sea coast (p. 150). For Binz also records an immense number of names of heroes of alien stock—Danish, Gothic or Burgundian—as occurring in England (P.B.B. XX, 202 etc.).

[166] Beovulf, p. 7.

[167] Chadwick, Origin, p. 278.

[168] The scandals about King Edgar (infamias quas post dicam magis resperserunt cantilenae: see Gesta Regum Anglorum, II, § 148, ed. Stubbs, vol. I, p. 165); the story of Gunhilda, the daughter of Knut, who, married to a foreign King with great pomp and rejoicing, nostro seculo etiam in triviis cantitata, was unjustly suspected of unchastity till her English page, in vindication of her honour, slew the giant whom her accusers had brought forward as their champion (Gesta, II, § 188, ed. Stubbs, I, pp. 229, 230); the story of King Edward and the shepherdess, learnt from cantilenis per successiones temporum detritis (Gesta, II, § 138, ed. Stubbs, I, 155). Macaulay in the Lays of Ancient Rome has selected William as a typical example of the historian who draws upon popular song. Cf. Freeman's Historical Essays.

[169] Olrik, Heltedigtning, I, 245.

[170] Origin, pp. 279-281.

[171] Brand, Popular Antiquities, 1813, I, 443.

[172] Henderson, Folklore of the Northern Counties, 87-89.

[173] Hone's Every Day Book, 1827, p. 1170.

[174] The Tamar and the Tavy, I. 330 (1836).

[175] Raymond, Two men o' Mendip, 1899, 259.

[176] Miss M. A. Courtney, Glossary of West Cornwall; T. Q. Couch, Glossary of East Cornwall, s. v. Neck (Eng. Dial. Soc. 1880); Jago, Ancient Language of Cornwall, 1882, s. v. Anek.

[177] Notes and Queries, 4th Ser. XII, 491 (1873).

[178] Holland's Glossary of Chester (Eng. Dial. Soc.), s.v. Cutting the Neck.

[179] Burne, Shropshire Folk Lore, 1883, 371.

[180] "to cry the Mare." Blount, Glossographia, 4th edit. 1674, s.v. mare. Cf. Notes and Queries, 5th Ser. VI, 286 (1876).

[181] Wright, Eng. Dial. Dict., s.v. neck.

[182] Frazer, Spirits of the Corn, 1912, I, 268. The word was understood as = "neck" by the peasants, because "They'm taied up under the chin laike" (Notes and Queries, 5th Ser. X, 51). But this may be false etymology.

[183] Wright, Eng. Dial. Dict. Cf. Notes and Queries, 5th Ser. X, 51.

[184] Heltedigtning, II, 252.

[185] The earliest record of the term "cutting the neck" seems to be found in Randle Holme's Store House of Armory, 1688 (II, 73). It may be noted that Holme was a Cheshire man.

[186] Mannhardt, Mythologische Forschungen, Strassburg, 1884, 326 etc.

[187] Quod dum servi Dei propensius actitarent, inspiratum est eis salubre consilium et (ut pium est credere) divinitus provisum. Die etenim statuto mane surgentes monachi sumpserunt scutum rotundum, cui imponebant manipulum frumenti, et super manipulum cereum circumspectae quantitatis et grossitudinis. Quo accenso scutum cum manipulo et cereo, fluvio ecclesiam praetercurrenti committunt, paucis in navicula fratribus subsequentibus. Praecedebat itaque eos scutum et quasi digito demonstrans possessiones domui Abbendoniae de jure adjacentes nunc huc, nunc illuc divertens; nunc in dextra nunc in sinistra parte fiducialiter eos praeibat, usquedum veniret ad rivum prope pratum quod Beri vocatur, in quo cereus medium cursum Tamisiae miraculose deserens se declinavit et circumdedit pratum inter Tamisiam et Gifteleia, quod hieme et multociens aestate ex redundatione Tamisiae in modum insulae aqua circumdatur.

Chronicon Monasterii de Abingdon, ed. Stevenson, 1858, vol. I, p. 89.

[188] Chadwick, Origin, 278.

[189] Olrik, Heltedigtning, II, 251.

[190] But is this so? "The word Sämpsä (now sämpsykka) 'small rush, scirpus silvaticus, forest rush,' is borrowed from the Germanic family (Engl. semse; Germ. simse)." Olrik, 253. But the Engl. "semse" is difficult to track.

See also note by A. Mieler in Finnisch-Ugrische Forschungen, X, 43, 1910.

[191] Kaarle Krohn, "Sampsa Pellervoinen" in Finnisch-Ugrische Forschungen IV, 231 etc., 1904.

[192] Cf. Olrik, Heltedigtning, II, 252 etc..

[193] I do not understand why Olrik (Heltedigtning, I, 235) declares the coming to land in Scani (Ethelwerd) to be inconsistent with Sceaf as a Longobardic king (Widsith). For, according to their national historian, the Longobardi came from "Scadinavia" [Paul the Deacon, I, 1-7]. It is a more serious difficulty that Paul knows of no Longobardic king with a name which we can equate with Sceaf.

[194] So, corresponding to O.E. trīewe we have Icel. tryggr; to O.E. glēaw, Icel. glǫggr; O.E. scūwa, Icel. skugg-.

[195] Olrik, Heltedigtning, II, 1910, pp. 254-5.

An account of the worship of Pekko will be found in Finnisch-Ugrische Forschungen, VI, 1906, pp. 104-111: Über den Pekokultus bei den Setukesen, by M. J. Eisen. See also Appendix (A) below.

Pellon-Pecko is mentioned by Michael Agricola, Bishop of Åbo, in his translation of the Psalter into Finnish, 1551. It is here that we are told that he "promoted the growth of barley."

[196] l. 15.

[197] That Heremod is a Danish king is clear from ll. 1709 etc. And as we have all the stages in the Scylding genealogy from Scyld to Hrothgar, Heremod must be placed earlier.

[198] Of Grein in Eberts Jahrbuch, IV, 264.

[199] A good example of this is supplied by the Assyrian records, which make Jehu a son of Omri—whose family he had destroyed.

[200] This reconstruction is made by Sievers in the Berichte d. k. sächs. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, 1895, pp. 180-88.

[201] The god Hermóðr who rides to Hell to carry a message to the dead Baldr is here left out of consideration. His connection with the king Hermóðr is obscure.

[202] On this see Dederich, Historische u. geographische Studien, 214; Heinzel in A.f.d.A. XV, 161; Chadwick, Origin, 148; Chadwick, Cult of Othin, 51.

[203] Chadwick, Cult of Othin, pp. 50, etc.

[204] puerulus... pro miraculo exceptus (William of Malmesbury). Cf. Beowulf, l. 7. In Saxo, Skjold distinguishes himself at the age of fifteen.

[205] omnem Alemannorum gentem tributaria ditione perdomuit. Cf. Beowulf, l. 11.

[206] See above, p. 77.

[207] This relationship of Frothi and Skjold is preserved by Sweyn Aageson: Skiold Danis primum didici praefuisse.... A quo primum.... Skioldunger sunt Reges nuncupati. Qui regni post se reliquit haeredes Frothi videlicet & Haldanum. Svenonis Aggonis Hist. Regum Dan. in Langebek, S.R.D. I, 44.

In Saxo Frotho is not the son, but the great grandson of Skioldus—but this is a discrepancy which may be neglected, because it seems clear that the difference is due to Saxo having inserted two names into the line at this point—those of Gram and Hadding. There seems no reason to doubt that Danish tradition really represented Frothi as son of Skjold.

[208] Those who accept the identification would regard Fróði (O.E. Frōda, 'the wise') as a title which has ousted the proper name.

[209] Boer, Ark. f. nord. filol., XIX, 67, calls this theory of Sievers "indisputable."

[210] Sievers, p. 181.

[211] Beowulf, 2405. Cf. 2215, 2281.

[212] So Regin guides Sigurd: Una the Red Cross Knight. The list might be indefinitely extended. Similarly with giants: "Then came to him a husbandman of the country, and told him how there was in the country of Constantine, beside Brittany, a great giant".... Morte d'Arthur, Book V, cap. V.

[213] Beowulf, 895.

[214] l. 2338.

[215] ll. 2570 etc.

[216] intrepidum mentis habitum retinere memento.

[217] ll. 2663 etc.

[218] Cf. Beowulf, 2705: forwrāt Wedra helm wyrm on middan.

[219] Cf. Cotton. Gnomic verses, ll. 26-7: Draca sceal on hlǣwe: frōd, frætwum wlanc.

[220] virusque profundens: wearp wæl-fȳre, 2582.

[221]

implicitus gyris serpens crebrisque reflexus

orbibus et caudae sinuosa volumina ducens

multiplicesque agitans spiras.

Cf. Beowulf, 2567-8, 2569, 2561 (hring-boga), 2827 (wōhbogen).

[222] Volospá, 172-3 in Corpus Poeticum Boreale. I, 200.

[223] Cf. on this Olrik, Heltedigtning, I, 305-15.

[224] Panzer, Beowulf, 313.

[225] A further and more specific parallel between Lotherus and Heremod has been pointed out by Sarrazin (Anglia, XIX, 392). It seems from Beowulf that Heremod went into exile (ll. 1714-15), and apparently mid Eotenum (l. 902) which (in view of the use of the word Eotena, Eotenum, in the Finnsburg episode) very probably means "among the Jutes." A late Scandinavian document tells us that Lotherus... superatus in Jutiam profugit (Messenius, Scondia illustrata, printed 1700, but written about 1620).

[226] Pointed out by Panzer. A possible parallel to the old man who hides his treasure is discussed by Bugge and Olrik in Dania, I, 233-245 (1890-92).

[227] Cf. Ettmüller, Scopas and Boceras, 1850, p. ix; Carmen de Beovvulfi rebus gestis, 1875, p. iii.

[228] P.B.B. XI, 167-170.

[229] Sarrazin, Der Schauplatz des ersten Beowulfliedes (P.B.B. XI, 170 etc.); Sievers, Die Heimat des Beowulfdichters (P.B.B. XI, 354 etc.); Sarrazin, Altnordisches im Beowulfliede (P.B.B. XI, 528 etc.); Sievers, Altnordisches im Beowulf? (P.B.B. XII, 168 etc.)

[230] Beovulf-Studien, 68.

[231] Sarrazin has countered this argument by urging that since the present day Swedes and Danes have better manners than the English, they therefore presumably had better manners already in the eighth century. I admit the premises, but deny the deduction.

[232] Sedgefield, Beowulf (1st ed.), p. 27.

[233] Schück, Studier i Beovulfsagan, 41.

[234] The brief Fata Apostolorum is doubted by Sievers (Anglia, XIII, 24).

[235] Two of these occur twice: hātan heolfre, 1423, 849; nīowan stefne, 1789, 2594; the rest once only, 141, 561, 963, 977, 1104, 1502, 1505, 1542, 1746, 2102, 2290, 2347, 2440, 2482, 2492, 2692. See Barnouw, 51.

[236] 74, 99, 122, 257, 390, 412.

[237] Christ, 510.

[238] Lichtenheld omits 2011, se mǣra mago Healfdenes, inserting instead 1474, where the same phrase occurs, but with a vocative force.

[239] 758, 813, 2011, 2587, 2928, 2971, 2977, 3120.

[240] 1199.

[241] 102, 713, 919, 997, 1016, 1448, 1984, 2255, 2264, 2675, 3024, 3028, 3097.

[242] Saintsbury in Short History of English Literature, I. 3.

[243] Morsbach, 270.

[244] Morsbach, 271.

[245] Chadwick, Heroic Age, 4.

[246] "Thus in place of the expression to widan feore we find occasionally widan feore in the same sense, and even in Beowulf we meet with widan feorh, which is not improbably the oldest form of the phrase. Before the loss of the final -u it [widan feorhu] would be a perfectly regular half verse, but the operation of this change would render it impossible and necessitate the substitution of a synonymous expression. In principle, it should be observed, the assumption of such substitutions seems to be absolutely necessary, unless we are prepared to deny that any old poems or even verses survived the period of apocope." Chadwick, Heroic Age, pp. 46-7.

[247] Heroic Age, 46.

[248] Birch, Cart. Sax. No. 81. See Morsbach, 260.

[249] The most important examples being breguntford (Birch, Cart. Sax. No. 115, dating between 693 and 731; perhaps 705): heffled in the life of St Gregory written by a Whitby monk apparently before 713: -gar on the Bewcastle Column, earlier than the end of the first quarter of the eighth century and perhaps much earlier: and many names in ford and feld in the Moore MS of Bede's Ecclesiastical History (a MS written about 737).

[250] An English Miscellany presented to Dr Furnivall, 370.

[251] Grienberger, Anglia, XXVII, 448.

[252] i.e. flodu ahof might stand for flōd u[p] ăhōf, as is suggested by Chadwick, Heroic Age, 69.

[253] In the Franks casket b already appears as f, and the n of sefu, "seven," has been lost.

[254] Birch, Cart. Sax. No. 45.

[255] Chadwick, Heroic Age, 67: "In personal names we must clearly allow for traditional orthography." Morsbach admits this in another connection (p. 259).

[256] Lübke's preface to Müllenhoff's Beovulf. Both the tendencies specially associated with Müllenhoff's name—the "mythologizing" and the "dissecting"—are due to the influence of Lachmann. It must be frankly admitted that on these subjects Müllenhoff did not begin his studies with an open mind.

[257] "Es ist einfach genug"—Beovulf, 110.

[258] Möller, V.E. 140: cf. Schücking, B.R. 14.

[259] Earle, Deeds of Beowulf, xlix (an excellent criticism of Müllenhoff).

[260] Heusler, Lied u. Epos, 26.

[261] Epic and Romance, Chap. II, § 2.

[262] Ballad and Epic, 311-12.

[263] Beowulfs Rückkehr, 1905.

[264] e.g. Genesis.

[265] Chap. IV, pp. 29-33.

[266] Chap. V, pp. 34-41.

[267] Chap. VI, cf. esp. p. 50.

[268] In the portion which Schücking excludes, we twice have gǣð = gāið (2034, 2055). Elsewhere in the Return we have dōn = dōan (2166) whilst frēa (1934), Hondsciō (2076) need to be considered.

[269] 2069.

[270] 2093.

[271] Satzverknüpfung im Beowulf, 139.

[272] Þȳlǣs = "lest" (1918); ac in direct question (1990); þā occurring unsupported late in the sentence (2192); forþām (1957) [see Sievers in P.B.B. XXIX, 313]; swā = "since," "because" (2184). But Schücking admits in his edition two other instances of forþām (146 and 2645), so this can hardly count.

[273] hȳrde ic as introducing a statement, 62, 2163, 2172; sið ðan ǣrest, 6, 1947.

[274] A similar use of þā, 1078, 1988; cf. 1114, 1125, 2135.

[275] hæbbe, 1928; gēong, 2019.

[276] þurfe, 2495.

[277] Schücking, Chap. VIII.

[278] Cf. Brandl in Herrigs Archiv, CXV, 421 (1905).

[279] e.g. Blackburn in Pub. Mod. Lang. Assoc. Amer. XII, 204-225; Bradley in the Encyc. Brit. III, 760; Chadwick, H.A. 49; Clarke, Sidelights, 10.

[280] Chadwick, in Cambridge History, I, 30.

[281] We may refer especially to the account of Attila's funeral given by Jordanes. [Mr Chadwick's note.]

[282] Chadwick in The Heroic Age, 53.

[283] It is adopted, e.g., by Clarke, Sidelights, 8.

[284] Yet this is very doubtful: see Leeds, Archæology, 27, 74.

[285] Notably in Book VIII (ed. Holder, 264) and Book III (ed. Holder, 74).

[286] 'Fasta fornlämningar i Beowulf,' in Ant. Tidskrift för Sverige, XVIII, 4, 64.

[287] See Schücking, Das angelsächsische Totenklaglied, in Engl. Stud. XXXIX, 1-13.

[288] Blackburn, in Pub. Mod. Lang. Assoc. Amer. Cf. Hart, Ballad and Epic, 175.

[289] Clark Hall, xlvii.

[290] Blackburn, as above, p. 126.

[291] Chadwick, in Cambridge History, I, 30.

[292] Clark Hall, xlvii. See, to the contrary, Klaeber in Anglia, XXXVI, 196.

[293] This point is fully developed by Brandl, 1002-3. As Brandl points out, if we want to find a parallel to the hero Beowulf, saving his people from their temporal and ghostly foes, we must look, not to the other heroes of Old English heroic poetry, such as Waldhere or Hengest, but to Moses in the Old English Exodus. [Since this was written the essentially Christian character of Beowulf has been further, and I think finally, demonstrated by Klaeber, in the last section of his article on Die Christlichen Elemente im Beowulf, in Anglia, XXXVI; see especially 194-199.]

[294] Cf. Beowulf, ll. 180 etc.

[295] Bradley, in Encyc. Brit.

[296] Bradley, in Encyc. Brit. III, 760-1.

[297] Blackburn, 218.

[298] See Finnur Jónsson, Den Norsk-Islandske Skjaldedigtning, B. ii. 473-4.

[299] MS A, followed by Magnússon, makes Glam bláeygðr, "blue-eyed": Boer reads gráeygðr, considering grey a more uncanny colour.

[300] MS A has fon^m or fen^m, it is difficult to tell which. Magnússon reads fenum, "morasses."

[301] Immediately inside the door of the Icelandic dwelling was the anddyri or vestibule. For want of a better word, I translate anddyri by "porch": but it is a porch inside the building. Opening out of this 'porch' were a number of rooms. Chief among which were the skáli or "hall," and the stufa or "sitting room," the latter reached by a passage (gǫng). These were separated from the "porch" by panelling. In the struggle with Glam, Grettir is lying in the hall (skáli), but the panelling has all been broken away from the great cross-beam to which it was fixed. Grettir consequently sees Glam enter the outer door; Glam turns to the skáli, and glares down it, leaning over the cross-beam; then enters the hall, and the struggle begins. See Guðmundssen (V.), Privatbolegen på Island i Sagatiden, 1889.

[302] The partition beams (set-stokkar) stood between the middle of the skáli or hall and the planked daïs which ran down each side. The strength of the combatants is such that the stokkar give way. Grettir gets no footing to withstand Glam till they reach the outer-door. Here there is a stone set in the ground, which apparently gives a better footing for a push than for a pull. So Grettir changes his tactics, gets a purchase on the stone, and at the same time pushes against Glam's breast, and so dashes Glam's head and shoulders against the lintel of the outer-door.

[303] So MS 551 a. Magnússon reads dvaldist þar "he stayed there."

[304] Meaning that an attack by the evil beings would at least break the monotony.

[305] A passage (gǫng) had to be traversed between the door of the room (stufa) and the porch (anddyri).

[306] MSS bælt. Boer reads bolat "hewn down."

[307] A night troll, if caught by the sunrise, was supposed to turn into stone.

[308] Skúta may be acc. of the noun skúti, "overhanging precipice, cave"; or it may be the verb, "hang over." Grettir and his companion see that the sides of the ravine are precipitous (skúta upp) and so clean-cut (meitil-berg: meitill, "a chisel") that they give no hold to the climber. Hence the need for the rope. The translators all take skúta as acc. of skúti, which is quite possible: but they are surely wrong when they proceed to identify the skúti with the hellir behind the waterfall. For this cave behind the waterfall is introduced in the saga as something which Grettir discovers after he has dived beneath the fall, the fall in front naturally hiding it till then.

The verb skúta occurs elsewhere in Grettis saga, of the glaciers overhanging a valley. Boer's attempt to reconstruct the scene appears to me wrong: cf. Ranisch in A.f.d.A. XXVIII, 217.

[309] The old editions read fimm tigir faðma "fifty fathoms": but according to Boer's collation the best MS (A) read X, whilst four of the five others collated give XV (fimtán). The editors seem dissatisfied with this: yet sixty to ninety feet seems a good enough height for a dive.

[310] ok sat þar hjá, not in MS A, nor in Boer's edition.

[311] The two poems are given according to the version of William Morris.

[312] On his first arrival at Leire, Bjarki had been attacked by, and had slain, the watch-dogs (Rímur, IV, 41): this naturally brings him now into disfavour, and he has to dispute with men.

[313] Reading kappana.

[314] The MSS have either Sandeyar or Saudeyar (Sauðeyar). But that Sandeyar is the correct form is shown by the name Sandø, which is given still to the island of Dollsey, where Orm's fight is localized (Panzer, 403).

[315] Literally "she-cat," ketta; but the word may mean "giantess." It is used in some MSS of the Grettis saga of the giantess who attacks Grettir at Sandhaugar.

[316] See Sweet, Oldest English Texts, 1885, p. 170.

[317] See Catalogue of MSS. in the Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge by Montague Rhodes James, Camb., 1912, p. 437.

[318] See Publications of the Palæographical Society, 1880, where a facsimile of part of the Vespasian MS is given. (Pt. 10, Plate 165: subsequently Ser. I, Vol. II.)

[319] So Zimmer, Nennius Vindicatus, Berlin, 1893, pp. 78 etc., and Duchesne (Revue Celtique, XV, 196). Duchesne sums up these genealogies as "un recueil constitué, vers la fin du VII^e siècle, dans le royaume de Strathcluyd, mais complété par diverses retouches, dont la dernière est de 796."

[320] This is shown by one of the supplementary Mercian pedigrees being made to end, both in the Vespasian genealogy and the Historia Brittonum, in Ecgfrith, who reigned for a few months in 796. See Thurneysen (Z.f.d.Ph. XXVIII, 101).

[321] Ed. Mommsen, p. 203.

[322] Anno 626: a similar genealogy will be found in these MSS and in the Parker MS, anno 755 (accession of Offa II).

[323] Zimmer (Nennius Vindicatus, p. 84) argues that this Geta-Woden pedigree belongs to a portion of the Historia Brittonum written down A.D. 685. Thurneysen (Z.f.d.Ph. XXVIII, 103-4) dates the section in which it occurs 679; Duchesne (Revue Celtique, XV, 196) places it more vaguely between the end of the sixth and the beginning of the eighth century; van Hamel (Hoops Reallexikon s.v. Nennius) between much the same limits, and clearly before 705.

[324] Zimmer (p. 275) says A.D. 796; Duchesne (p. 196) A.D. 800; Thurneysen (Zeitschr. f. Celtische Philologie, I, 166) A.D. 826; Skene (Four Ancient Books of Wales, 1868, I, 38) A.D. 858; van Hamel (p. 304) A.D. 820-859. See also Chadwick, Origin, 38.

[325] Bradshaw, Investigations among Early Welsh, Breton and Cornish MSS. in Collected Papers, 466.

[326] See above, p. 196.

[327] Cf. Bretwalda.

[328] The genealogies have recently been dealt with by E. Hackenberg, Die Stammtafeln der angelsächsischen Königreiche, Berlin, 1918; and by Brandl, (Herrig's Archiv, CXXXVII, 1-24). Most of Brandl's derivations seem to me to depend upon very perilous conjectures. Thus he derives Scēfing from the Gr.-Lat. scapha, "a skiff": a word which was not adopted into Old English. This seems to be sacrificing all probability to the desire to find a new interpretation: and, even so, it is not quite successful. For Riley in the Gentleman's Magazine, August, 1857, p. 126, suggested the derivation of the name of Scef from the schiff or skiff in which he came.

[329] For a list of the Icelandic versions, see Heusler, Die gelehrte Urgeschichte im altisländischen Schrifttum, pp. 18-19, in the Abhandlungen d. preuss. Akad., Phil. Hist. Klasse, 1908, Berlin.

[330] The names are given as in the Trinity Roll (T), collated with Corpus (C) and Moseley (M). For Paris (P) I follow Kemble's report (Postscript to Preface, 1837, pp. vii, viii: Stammtafel der Westsachsen, pp. 18, 31). All seem to agree in writing t for c in Steph and Steldius, and in Boerinus, obviously, as Kemble pointed out, r is written by error for ƿ = Beowinus [or Beowius]; Cinrinicius T, Cinrinicus C, Cininicus P, Siuruncius M; Suethedus TCP, Suechedius M; Gethius T, Thecius M, Ehecius CP; Geate T, Geathe CM, Geathus P.

[331] I follow the spelling of the Moseley roll in this note.

[332] Dacia = "Denmark": Dacia and Dania were identified.

[333] uocabitur, Gertz; uocatur, all MSS.

[334] This account of the peaceful reign of Ro is simply false etymology from Danish ro, "rest."

[335] Note that Ro (Hrothgar), the son of Haldanus (Healfdene), is here represented as his father. Saxo Grammaticus, combining divergent accounts, as he often does, accordingly mentions two Roes—one the brother of Haldanus, the other his son. See above, pp. 131-2.

[336] cum piratica classe, Langebek; the MSS have cum pietate (!) with or without classe.

[337] post quem, Holder-Egger, Gertz; postquam, all MSS.

[338] Snyo: the viceroy whom Athisl had placed over the Danes.

[339] in added by Gertz; omitted in all MSS.

[340] A scribal error for transalbinas, "beyond the Elbe."

[341] Assembly.

[342] Island.

[343] I have substituted u for v, and have abandoned spellings like theutones, thezauro, orrifico, charitas, phas (for fas), atlethas, choercuit, iocundum, charum, fœlicissima, nanque, hæreditarii, exoluere.

The actual reading of the 1514 text is abandoned by substituting: p. 130, l. 3 ingeniti for ingenitis (1514); p. 132, l. 22, iacientis for iacentis; p. 134, l. 2, diutinæ for diutiuæ; p. 136, l. 11, fudit for fugit; p. 136, l. 20, ut for aut; p. 137, l. 8, ammirationi for ammirationis; p. 137, l. 16, offert for affert; p. 137, l. 17, Roluoni for Rouolni; p. 137, l. 27, ministerio for ministros; p. 137, l. 33 diuturnus for diuturnius; p. 206, l. 22, diutinam for diutina; p. 207, l. 3, ei for eique; p. 207, l. 5, destituat for deficiat; p. 209, l. 2, latere for latera; p. 209, l. 5, conscisci for concissi; p. 209, l. 14, defoderat for defodera.

[344] Above this heading B has Gesta Offe Regis merciorum.

[345] A repeats sibi after constitueret.

[346] Hic Riganus binomin[i]s fuit. Vocabatur enim alio nomine Aliel. Riganus uero a rigore. Huic erat filius Hildebrandus, miles strenuus, ab ense sic dictus. Hunc uoluit pater promouere: Contemporary rubric in A, inserted in the middle of the sketch representing Riganus demanding the kingdom from Warmundus.

[347] optat, B.

[348] celebri, B; celibri, A.

[349] hoc, B.

[350] ueheementer, A.

[351] ueheementi, A.

[352] eciam, B.

[353] Added in margin in A; not in B.

[354] hec omitted, B.

[355] Added in margin in A; not in B.

[356] dereliquerunt, B.

[357] precipue omitted, B.

[358] ei omitted, B.

[359] Qualmhul vel Qualmweld in margin, A.

[360] planies, A: planicies, perhaps corrected from planies, B.

[361] blodifeld, B.

[362] Gloria triumphi, in margin, A.

[363] tripudium, B; tripuduum, A.

[364] scis, A, B.

[365] menbra, A.

[366] gracias, B.

[367] hosstibus, A.

[368] romotis, A.

[369] congnouerunt, A.

[370] Warmandi, A.

[371] habenas repeated after regni above in A, but cancelled in B.

[372] exaggeret, B.

[373] pulcritudinis, B; pulchritudini, A.

[374] ingnota, A.

[375] euuangelii, B.

[376] consingnatas, A.

[377] from B, written over erasure.

[378] scribitur, B.

[379] Epistola, in margin, A.

[380] incongnita, A.

[381] dicebant, B.

[382] frustratim, A, B.

[383] ossium, B.

[384] congnouit, A.

[385] hoc omitted, B.

[386] congnicione, A.

[387] sui, A.

[388] obtemperare, B.

[389] menbra, A.

[390] qui, AB; quae, Wats.

[391] recongnosce, A.

[392] sancte et dulcissime, B.

[393] ut added above line, A, B.

[394] scenobium, A; the si s erased in B.

[395] deo, B

[396] tuinfreth, B.

[397] scenobio, A; s erased B.

[398] de tirannide Beormredi regis Mercie, B.

[399] fecerat, wanting in A; added in margin, B.

[400] Pinefredum, B; Penefredum, A, but with i above in first case.

[401] uariis repeated, A; second variis cancelled, B.

[402] considerans, B, inserted in margin; omitted, A.

[403] Marcelline, A; Marcell, B.

[404] vixisset, B, inserted in margin; omitted, A.

[405] Alberto, etc. passim, B.

[406] virtutibus, in margin, later hand, A; in B, over erasure.

[407] est in margin, A.

[408] et omitted, B.

[409] innotuerunt, B.

[410] in pietatis manu, B.

[411] premissimis, A.

[412] sinistrum, B.

[413] quam in margin, A; over erasure, B.

[414] Space for cap. left vacant, A.

[415] aucmentum, A.

[416] facinoris, B.

[417] congnouit, A.

[418] celeriter, B.

[419] cum in A is inserted after peruenisset, instead of before: and this was probably the original reading in B, although subsequently corrected.

[420] per, B.

[421] corrected to nullatenus dormire quasi suspectam permisit, B.

[422] Justa Vindicta, A, in margin.

[423] Mr Mackie, in an excellent article on the Fragment (J.E.G.Ph. XVI, 251) objects that my criticism of Hickes' accuracy "is not altogether judicial." Mackie urges that, since the MS is no longer extant, we cannot tell how far the errors are due to Hickes, and how far they already existed in the MS from which Hickes copied.

But we must not forget that there are other transcripts by Hickes, of MSS which are still extant, and from these we can estimate his accuracy. It is no disrespect to the memory of Hickes, a scholar to whom we are all indebted, to recognize frankly that his transcripts are not sufficiently accurate to make them at all a satisfactory substitute for the original MS. Hickes' transcript of the Cottonian Gnomic Verses (Thesaurus, I, 207) shows an average of one error in every four lines: about half these errors are mere matters of spelling, the others are serious. Hickes' transcript of the Calendar (Thesaurus, I, 203) shows an average of one error in every six lines. When, therefore, we find in the Finnsburg Fragment inaccuracies of exactly the type which Hickes often commits, it would be "hardly judicial" to attribute these to the MS which he copied, and to attribute to Hickes in this particular instance an accuracy to which he has really no claim.

Mr Mackie doubts the legitimacy of emending Garulf to Garulf[e]: but we must remember that Hickes (or his printer) was systematically careless as to the final e: cf. Calendar, 15, 23, 41, 141, 144, 171, 210; Gnomic Verses, 45. Other forms in the Finnsburg Fragment which can be easily paralleled by Hickes' miswritings in the Calendar and Gnomic Verses are

Confusion of u and a (Finn. 3, 27, perhaps 44) cf. Gn. 66.

" " c " e (Finn. 12) cf. Cal. 136, Gn. 44.

" " e " æ (Finn. 41) cf. Cal. 44, 73, Gn. 44.

" " e " a (Finn. 22) cf. Cal. 74.

" " eo " ea (Finn. 28) cf. Cal. 121.

" " letters involving long down stroke, e.g., f, s, r, þ, w, p

(Finn. 2, 36) cf. Cal. 97, 142, 180, 181, Gn. 9.

Addition of n (Finn. 22) cf. Cal. 161.

[424] Heimskringla, chap. 220.

[425] It has been suggested that the phrase "Hengest himself" indicates that Hengest is the "war-young king." But surely the expression merely marks Hengest out as a person of special interest. If we must assume that he is one of the people who have been speaking, then it would be just as natural to identify him with the watcher who has warned the king, as with the king himself. The difficulties which prevent us from identifying Hengest with the king are explained below.

[426] Garulf must be an assailant, since he falls at the beginning of the struggle, whilst we are told that for five days none of the defenders fell.

[427] Very possibly Guthere is uncle of Garulf. For Garulf is said to be son of Guthlaf (l. 35) and a Guthere would be likely to be a brother of a Guthlaf. Further, as Klaeber points out (Engl. Stud. XXXIX, 307) it is the part of the uncle to protect and advise the nephew.

[428] Koegel, Geschichte d. deut. Litt. I, i, 165.

[429] Klaeber (Engl. Stud. XXXIX, 308) reminds us that, as there are two warriors named Godric in the Battle of Maldon (l. 325), so there may be two warriors named Guthlaf here. But to this it might possibly be replied that "Godric" was, in England, an exceedingly common name, "Guthlaf" an exceedingly rare one.

[430] Finn is called the bana, "slayer" of Hnæf. But this does not necessarily mean that he slew him with his own hand; it would be enough if he were in command of the assailants at the time when Hnæf was slain. Cf. Beowulf, l. 1968.

[431] The idea that Finn's Frisians are the "North Frisians" of Schleswig has been supported by Grein (Eberts Jahrbuch, IV, 270) and, following him, by many scholars, including recently Sedgefield (Beowulf, p. 258). The difficulties of this view are very many: one only need be emphasized. We first hear of these North Frisians of Schleswig in the 12th century, and Saxo Grammaticus tells us expressly that they were a colony from the greater Frisia (Book XIV, ed. Holder, p. 465). At what date this colony was founded we do not know. The latter part of the 9th century has been suggested by Langhans: so has the end of the 11th century by Lauridsen. However this may be, all the evidence precludes our supposing this North Friesland, or, as Saxo calls it, Fresia Minor, to have existed at the date to which we must attribute the origin of the Finn story. On this point the following should be consulted: Langhans (V.), Ueber den Ursprung der Nordfriesen, Wien, 1879 (most valuable on account of its citation of documents: the latter part of the book, which consists of an attempt to rewrite the Finn story by dismissing as corrupt or spurious many of the data, must not blind us to the value of the earlier portions): Lauridsen, Om Nordfrisernes Indvandring i Sønderjylland, Historisk Tidsskrift, 6 R, 4 B. II, 318-67, Kjøbenhavn, 1893: Siebs, Zur Geschichte der Englisch-Friesischen Sprache, 1889, 23-6: Chadwick, Origin, 94: Much in Hoops Reallexikon, s.v. Friesen; and Bremer in Pauls Grdr. (2), III, 848, where references will be found to earlier essays on the subject.

[432] The theory that Hnæf is a captain of Healfdene is based upon a rendering of l. 1064 which is in all probability wrong.

[433] The view that the Eotenas are the men of Hnæf and Hengest has been held by Thorpe (Beowulf, pp. 76-7), Ettmüller (Beowulf, 1840, p. 108), Bouterwek (Germania, I, 389), Holtzmann (Germania, VIII, 492), Möller (Volksepos, 94-5), Chadwick (Origin, 53), Clarke (Sidelights, 184).

[434] "And therefore, said the King... much more I am sorrier for my good knights' loss, than for the loss of my fair queen. For queens I might have enow: but such a fellowship of good knights shall never be together in no company." Malory, Morte Darthur, Bk. XX, chap. ix.

[435] The argument of Bugge (P.B.B. XII, 37) that the Eotens here (l. 1088) must be the Frisians, is inconclusive: but so is Miss Clarke's argument that they must be Danes (Sidelights, 181), as is shown by Lawrence (Pub. Mod. Lang. Assoc. Amer. XXX, 395).

[436] I say "son" in what follows, without prejudice to the possibility of more than one son having fallen. It in no wise affects the argument.

[437] For example, it might well be said of Achilles, whilst thirsting for vengeance upon the Trojans for the death of Patroclus, that "he could not get the children of the Trojans out of his mind." But surely it would be unintelligible to say that "he could not get the child of the Achaeans out of his mind," meaning Patroclus, for "child of the Achaeans" is not sufficiently distinctive to denote Patroclus. Cf. Boer in Z.f.d.A. XLVII, 134.

[438] In the Skjoldunga Saga [extant in a Latin abstract by Arngrim Jonsson, ed. Olrik, 1894], cap. IV, mention is made of a king of Denmark named Leifus who had six sons, three of whom are named Hunleifus, Oddleifus and Gunnleifus—corresponding exactly to O.E. Hūnlāf, Ordlāf and Gūðlāf. That Hunlaf was well known in English story is proved by a remarkable passage unearthed by Dr Imelmann from MS Cotton Vesp. D. IV (fol. 139 b) where Hunlaf is mentioned together with a number of other heroes of Old English story—Wugda, Hama, Hrothulf, Hengest, Horsa (Hoc testantur gesta rudolphi et hunlapi, Unwini et Widie, horsi et hengisti, Waltef et hame). See Chadwick, Origin, 52: R. Huchon, Revue Germanique, III, 626: Imelmann, in D.L.Z. XXX, 999: April, 1909. This disposes of the translation "Hun thrust or placed in his bosom Lafing, best of swords," which was adopted by Bugge (P.B.B. XII, 33), Holder, ten Brink and Gering. Hun is mentioned in Widsith (l. 33) and in the Icelandic Thulor.

That Guthlaf, Ordlaf and Hunlaf must be connected together had been noted by Boer (Z.f.d.A. XLVII, 139) before this discovery of Chadwick's confirmed him.

[439] The fragment which tells of the fighting in the hall is so imperfect that there is nothing impossible in the assumption, though it is too hazardous to make it.

[440] Cf. Beowulf, ll. 1900 etc.

[441] Das Altenglische Volksepos, 46-99.

[442] C. P. Hansen, Uald' Söld'ring tialen, Møgeltønder, 1858. See Möller, Volksepos, 75 etc.

[443] See Müllenhoff in A.f.d.A. VI, 86.

[444] So Möller, Volksepos, 152.

[445] See Beowulf, ed. Wyatt, 1894, p. 145.

[446] Volksepos, 71 etc.

[447] e.g., Sedgefield, Beowulf, 2nd ed., p. 258. So 1st ed., p. 13 (Hoc being an obvious misprint).

[448] On the poet's use of plural for singular here, see Osthoff, I.F. XX, 202-7.

[449] I have thought it necessary to give fully the reasons why Möller's view cannot be accepted, because in whole or in part it is still widely followed in England. Chadwick (Origin, 53) still interprets "Eotens" as "Danes"; and Sedgefield (Beowulf (2), p. 258) gives Möller's view the place of honour.

[450] The treachery of Finn is emphasized, for example, by Bugge (P.B.B. XII, 36), Koegel (Geschichte d. deut. Litt. 164), ten Brink (Pauls Grdr. (1), II, 545), Trautmann (Finn und Hildebrand, 59), Lawrence (Pub. Mod. Lang. Assoc. Amer. XXX, 397, 430), Ayres (J.E.G.Ph. XVI, 290).

[451]

syþðan morgen cōm

ðā hēo under swegle gesēon meahte, etc.

[452] l. 36. The swords flash swylce eal Finnsburuh fȳrenu wǣre, "as if all Finnsburg were afire." I think we may safely argue from this that the swords are flashing near Finnsburg. It would be just conceivable that the poet's mind travels back from the scene of the battle to Finn's distant home: "the swords made as great a flash as would have been made had Finn's distant capital been aflame": but this is a weak and forced interpretation, which we have no right to assume, though it may be conceivable.

[453] Beowulf, ll. 1125-7. I doubt whether it is possible to explain the difficulty away by supposing that "the warriors departing to see Friesland, their homes and their head-town" simply means that Finn's men, "summoned by Finn in preparation for the encounter with the Danes, return to their respective homes in the country," and that "hēaburh is a high sounding epic term that should not be pressed." This is the explanation offered by Klaeber (J.E.G.Ph. VI, 193) and endorsed by Lawrence (Pub. Mod. Lang. Assoc. Amer. XXX, 401). But it seems to me taking a liberty with the text to interpret hēaburh (singular) as the "respective homes in the country" to which Finn's warriors resort on demobilisation. And the statement of ll. 1125-7, that the warriors departed from the place of combat to see Friesland, seems to necessitate that such place of combat was not in Friesland. Klaeber objects to this (surely obvious) inference: "If we are to infer [from ll. 1125-7] that Finnsburg lies outside Friesland proper, we might as well conclude that Dyflen (Dublin) is not situated in Ireland according to the Battle of Brunanburh (gewitan him þā Norðmenn... Dyflen sēcan and eft Īraland)." But how could anyone infer this from the Brunanburh lines? What we are justified in inferring, is, surely, that the site of the battle of Brunanburh (from which the Northmen departed to visit Ireland and Dublin) was not identical with Dublin, and did not lie in Ireland. And by exact parity of reason, we are justified in arguing that Finnsburg, the site of the first battle in which Hnæf fell (from which site the warriors depart to visit Friesland and the hēaburh) was not identical with the hēaburh, and did not lie in Friesland. Accordingly the usual view, that Finnsburg is situated outside Friesland, seems incontestable. See Bugge (P.B.B. XII, 29-30), Trautmann (Finn und Hildebrand, 60) and Boer (Z.f.d.A. XLVII, 137). Cf. Ayres (J.E.G.Ph. XVI, 294).

[454] See below, p. 289.

[455] So Brandl, 984, and Heinzel.

[456] Or just as the attack on the Danes began at night, we might suppose (as does Trautmann) that it equally culminated in a night assault five days later. There would be obvious advantage in night fighting when the object was to storm a hall: Flugumýrr was burnt by night, and so was the hall of Njal. So, too, was the hall of Rolf Kraki. It would be, then, on the morning after this second night assault, that Hildeburh found her kinsfolk dead.

[457] Beowulf, l. 1831: cf. l. 409.

[458] Leo (Beowulf, 1839, 67), Müllenhoff (Nordalbingische Studien, I, 157), Rieger (Lesebuch; Z.f.d.Ph. III, 398-401), Dederich (Studien, 1877, 96-7), Heyne (in his fourth edition) and in recent times Holthausen have interpreted eoten as a common noun "giant," "monster," and consequently "foe" in general. But they have failed to produce any adequate justification for interpreting eoten as "foe," and Holthausen, the modern advocate of this interpretation, has now abandoned it. Grundtvig (Beowulfes Beorh, 1861, pp. 133 etc.) and Möller (Volksepos, 97 etc.) also interpret "giant," Möller giving an impossible mythological explanation, which was, at the time, widely followed.

[459] Like oxnum, nefenum (cf. Sievers, § 277, Anm. 1).

[460] I do not attach much importance to the argument which might be drawn from the statement of Binz (P.B.B. XX, 185) that the evidence of proper names shows that in the Hampshire district (which was colonized by Jutes) the legend of Finnsburg was particularly remembered. For on the other hand, as Binz points out, similar evidence is markedly lacking for Kent. And why, indeed, should the Jutes have specially commemorated a legend in which their part appears not to have been a very creditable one?

[461] p. 97, note 225.

[462] See above, p. 200. Zimmer, Nennius Vindicatus, 84, assumes that the Kentish pedigree borrowed these names from the Bernician: but there is no evidence for this.

[463] Among those who have so held are Kemble, Thorpe (Beowulf, pp. 76-7), Ettmüller (Beowulf, 1840, p. 23), Bouterwek (Germania, I, 389), Grein (Eberts Jahrbuch, IV, 270), Köhler (Germania, XIII, 155), Heyne (in first three editions), Holder (Beowulf, p. 128), ten Brink (Pauls Grdr. (1), II, 548), Heinzel (A.f.d.A. X. 228), Stevenson (Asser, 1904, p. 169), Schücking (Beowulf, 1913, p. 321), Klaeber (J.E.G.Ph. XIV, 545), Lawrence (Pub. Mod. Lang. Assoc. Amer. XXX, 393), Moorman (Essays and Studies, V, 99), Björkman (Eigennamen im Beowulf, 21).

So too, with some hesitation, Chadwick (Orgin, 52-3): with much more hesitation, Bugge (P.B.B. XII, 37). Whilst this is passing through the press Holthausen has withdrawn his former interpretation eotena, "enemies," in favour of Eotena=Ēotna, "Jutes" (Engl. Stud. LI, 180).

[464] P.B.B. XII, 37.

[465] The cognate of O.E. fǣr (Mod. Eng. "fear") in other Germanic languages, such as Old Saxon and Old High German, has the meaning of "ambush." In the nine places where it occurs in O.E. verse it has always the meaning of a peril which comes upon one suddenly, and is applied, e.g. to the Day of Judgement (twice) or some unexpected flood (three times). In compounds fǣr conveys an idea of suddenness: "fǣr-dēað, repentina mors."

[466] Volksepos, 69.

[467] It has been surmounted in two ways. (1) By altering eaferum to eaferan (a very slight change) and then making fǣr refer to the final attack upon Finn, in which he certainly was on the defensive (Lawrence, 397 etc., Ayres, 284, Trautmann, BB. II, Klaeber, Anglia, XXVIII, 443, Holthausen). (2) By making hīē refer to hæleð Healf-Dena which follows (Green in Pub. Mod. Lang. Assoc. Amer. XXXI, 759-97); but this is forced. See also below, p. 284.

[468] Cf. Tacitus, Germania, XIV.

[469] For examples of this see pp. 278-82 below.

[470] Fragment, 40-1.

[471] See above, p. 30.

[472] Book II (ed. Holder, p. 67).

[473] P.B.B. XII, 34.

[474] For a discussion of the interpretation of the difficult forþringan, see Carlton Brown in M.L.N. XXXIV, 181-3.

[475] J.E.G.Ph. XVI, 291-2.

[476] Ib. 293-4.

[477] I wish I could feel convinced, with Ayres, that the person whom Guthlaf and Oslaf blame for their woes is Hengest rather than Finn. Such an interpretation renders the story so much more coherent; but if the poet really meant this, he assuredly did not make his meaning quite clear.

[478] See below, pp. 276, 288-9.

[479] Ne hūru Hildeburh herian þorfte Eotena trēowe.

[480] Ayres, in J.E.G.Ph. XVI, 286. So Lawrence in a private communication.

[481] ll. 2910, etc.

[482] We can construct the situation from such historical information as we can get from Gregory of Tours and other sources. The author of Beowulf may not have been clear as to the exact relation of the different tribes. We cannot tell, from the vague way he speaks, how much he knew.

[483] I have argued this at some length below, but I do not think anyone would deny it. Bugge recognized it to be true (P.B.B. XII, 29-30) as does Lawrence (392). See below, pp. 288-9.

[484] We can never argue that words are synonymous because they are parallel. Compare Psalm cxiv; in the first verse the parallel words are synonymous, but in the second and third not:

"When Israel came out of Egypt and the house of Jacob from among the strange people" [Israel = house of Jacob: Egypt = strange people].

"Judah was His sanctuary and Israel His dominion." [Judah is only one of the tribes of Israel.]

"The sea saw that and fled: Jordan was driven back." [The Red Sea and Jordan are distinct, though parallel, examples.]

[485] J.E.G.Ph. XVI, 288.

[486] Pub. Mod. Lang. Assoc. Amer. XXX, 430.

[487] Plummer, Two Saxon Chronicles Parallel, II, 47.

[488] Njáls Saga, cap. 45.

[489] Pauls Grdr. (2), II, 524.

[490] Helmhold.

[491] I know of only one parallel for such assumed adoption of a name: that also concerns the Jutes. The Angles, says Bede, dwelt between the Saxons and Jutes: the Jutes must, then, according to Bede, have dwelt north of the Angles, since the Saxons dwelt south. But the people north of the Angles are now, and have been from early times, Scandinavian in speech, whilst the Jutes who settled Kent obviously were not. The best way of harmonizing known linguistic facts with Bede's statement is, then, to assume that Scandinavians settled in the old continental home of these Jutes and took over their name, whilst introducing the Scandinavian speech.

Now many scholars have regarded this as so forced and unlikely an explanation that they reject it, and refuse to believe that the Jutes who settled Kent can have dwelt north of the Angles, in spite of Bede's statement. If we are asked to reject the "Scandinavian-Jute" theory, as too unlikely on a priori grounds, although it is demanded by the express evidence of Bede, it is surely absurd to put forward a precisely similar theory in favour of "Frisian-Jutes" upon no evidence at all.

[492] Koegel (164), Lawrence (382).

[493] Björkman (Eigennamen im Beowulf, 23) interprets the Eotenas as Jutist subjects of Finn. This suggestion was made quite independently of anything I had written, and confirms me in my belief that it is a reasonable interpretation.

[494] Ayres in J.E.G.Ph. XVI, 288.

[495] e.g. Njáls Saga, cap. 144: Laxdæla Saga, cap. 51.

[496] Of course a primitive stage can be conceived at which homicide is regarded as worse than murder. Your brother shoots A intentionally: he must therefore have had good reasons, and you fraternally support him. But you may feel legitimate annoyance if he aims at a stag, and shooting A by mere misadventure, involves you in a blood-feud.

[497] Heimskringla, Ól. Tryggv. K. 111; Saga Olafs Tryggvasonar, K. 70 (Fornmanna Sǫgur, 1835, X.)

[498] Saxo Grammaticus (ed. Holder, p. 67).

[499] Heimskringla, Ól. Tryggv. K. 41.

[500] lýsti vígi á hendr sér. Laxdæla Saga, cap. 49.

[501] Cap. 55.

[502] Cap. 85.

[503] Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, anno 755.

[504] Njáls Saga, cap. 158.

[505] Fragment, ll. 40-1.

[506] p. 213 (ed. Holder).

[507] Finn may perhaps be holding a meeting of chieftains. For similar meetings of chieftains, compare Sǫrla þáttr, cap. 4; Laxdæla Saga, cap. 12; Skáldskaparmál, cap. 47 (50).

[508] There is assuredly a considerable likeness between the Finn story and the Nibelungen story: this has been noted often enough. It is more open to dispute whether the likeness is so great as to justify us in believing that the Nibelungen story is copied from the Finn story, and may therefore safely be used as an indication how gaps in our existing versions of that story may be filled. See Boer in Z.f.d.A. XLVII, 125 etc.

[509] The fact that both sides have suffered about equally facilitates a settlement in the Teutonic feud, just as it does among the Afridis or the Albanians at the present day.

[510] The situation would then be parallel to that in Laxdæla Saga, cap. 60-5, where the boy Thorleik, aged fifteen, is nominally in command of the expedition which avenges his father Bolli, but is only able to accomplish his revenge by enlisting the great warrior Thorgils, who is the real leader of the raid.

[511] Bugge (P.B.B. XII, 36) interpreted this swylce as meaning that sword-bale came upon Finn in like manner as it had previously come upon Hnæf. But this is to make swylce in l. 1146 refer back to the death of Hnæf mentioned (72 lines previously) in l. 1074. Möller (Volksepos, 67) tries to explain swylce by supposing the passage it introduces to be a fragment detached from its context.

[512] f, r, s, þ, w, p (Old English Letters), all letters involving a long down stroke, are constantly confused. For examples, see above, p. 245, and cf. e.g. Beowulf, l. 2882 (fergendra for wergendra); Crist, 12 (cræstga for cræftga); Phoenix, 15 (fnæft for fnæst); Riddles III (IV), 18 (þyran for þywan); XL (XLI), 63 (þyrre for þyrse); XLII (XLIII), 4 (speop for spēow), 11 (wæs for þæs); LVII (LVIII), 3 (rope for rōfe or rōwe), etc.

[513] p. 392.

[514] p. 431.

[515] Nennius Interpretatus, ed. Mommsen (Chronica Minora, III, 179, in Mon. Germ. Hist.)

[516] "De norske oldsager synes at vidne om, at temmelig livlige handelsforbindelser i den ældre jernalder har fundet sted mellem Norge og de sydlige Nordsøkyster." Undset, Fra Norges ældre Jernalder in the Aarbøger for Nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie, 1880, 89-184, esp. p. 173. See also Chadwick, Origin, 93. I am indebted to Chadwick's note for this reference to Undset.

[517] Ravennatis anonymi cosmographia, ed. Pinder et Parthey, Berolini, 1860, pp. 27, 28 (§ I, 11).

[518] The modern Wijk bij Duurstede, not far from Utrecht, on the Lower Rhine.

[519] An account of the numerous coins found among the ruins of the old town will be found in the Forschungen zur deutschen Geschichte, IV (1864), pp. 301-303. They testify to its commercial importance.

[520] So Adam of Bremen, following Alcuin. Concerning "Heiligland" Adam says: "Hanc in vita Sancti Willebrordi Fosetisland appellari discimus, quae sita est in confinio Danorum et Fresonum." Adam of Bremen in Pertz, Scriptores, VII, 1846, p. 369.

[521] Alcuin's Life of Willibrord in Migne (1851)—Alcuini Opera, vol. II, 699-702.

[522] See above, pp. 199-200.

[523] It had been disputed by Skeat, Earle, Boer, and others, but never with such strong reasons.

[524] I use below the form "Beow," which I believe to be the correct one. "Beaw" is the form in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. But as the name of Sceldwa, Beaw's father, is there given in a form which is not West-Saxon (sceld, not scield or scyld), it may well be that "Beaw" is also the Anglian dialect form, if it be not indeed a mere error: and this is confirmed by Beo (Ethelwerd), Beowius (William of Malmesbury), Boerinus (for Beowinus: Chronicle Roll), perhaps too by Beowa (Charter of 931) and Beowi, (MS Cott. Tib. B. IV). For the significance of this last, see pp. 303-4, below, and Björkman in Engl. Stud. LII, 171, Anglia, Beiblatt, XXX, 23.

[525] Vol. LXXXI, p. 517.

[526] It has indeed been so argued by Brandl: "Beowulf... ist nur der Erlöser seines Volkes... und dankt es schliesslich dem Himmel, in einer an den Heiland gemahnenden Weise, dass er die Seinen um den Preis des eigenen Lebens mit Schätzen beglücken konnte." Pauls Grdr. (2), II, l. 1002.

[527] Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th edit., III, 760-1.

[528] l. 2039, where a capital O occurs, but without a section number.

[529] Moore, Namur, Cotton.

[530] Cotton Tiberius B. XI.

[531] Hatton, 20.

[532] See above, pp. 92-7.

[533] See above, pp. 43-4.

[534] Ethelwerd.

[535] Chronicle.

[536] Boer, Beowulf, 135, 143: Arkiv f. nord. Filologi, XIX, 29.

[537] Heroic Age, 126.

[538] Postscript to Preface, p. ix.

[539] Postscript, pp. xi, xiv.

[540] See Lokasenna in Die Lieder der Edda, herausg. von Sijmons u. Gering, I, 134.

Byggvir kvaþ:

"[Veiztu] ef [ek] øþle ǽttak sem Ingunar-Freyr,

ok svá sǽllekt setr,

merge smǽra mølþak [þá] meinkrǫ́ko

ok lemþa alla í liþo."

[541] Lines corresponding to these of Burns are found both in the Scotch ballad recorded by Jamieson, and in the English ballad (Pepys Collection). See Jamieson, Popular Ballads and Songs, 1806, II, 241, 256.

[542]

Loki kvaþ:

"Hvat's þat et lítla, es [ek] þat lǫggra sék,

ok snapvíst snaper?

at eyrom Freys mont[u] ǽ vesa

ok und kvernom klaka."

[543] Jamieson, II, 239. So Burns: "John Barleycorn was a hero bold," and the ballad

John Barleycorn is the wightest man

That ever throve in land.

[544]

Byggvir kvaþ:

"Byggver ek heite, en mik bráþan kveþa

goþ ǫll ok gumar;

því emk hér hróþogr, at drekka Hrópts meger

aller ǫl saman."

[545]

Loki kvaþ:

"þege þú, Byggver! þú kunner aldrege

deila meþ mǫnnom mat;

[ok] þik í flets strae finna né mǫ́tto,

þás vǫ́go verar."

[546] This follows from the allusive way in which he and his wife are introduced—there must be a background to allusions. If the poet were inventing this figure, and had no background of knowledge in his audience to appeal to, he must have been more explicit. Cf. Olsen in Christiania Videnskapsselskapets Skrifter, 1914, II, 2, 107.

[547] p. 87.

[548] See Olrik, "Nordisk og Lappisk Gudsdyrkelse," Danske Studier, 1905, pp. 39-57; "Tordenguden og hans dreng," 1905, pp. 129-46; "Tordenguden og hans dreng i Lappernes myteverden," 1906, pp. 65-9; Krohn, "Lappische beiträge zur germ. mythologie," Finnisch-Ugrische Forschungen, VI, 1906, pp. 155-80.

[549] See Axel Olrik in Festgabe f. Vilh. Thomsen, 1912 (= Finnisch-Ugrische Forschungen, XII, 1, p. 40). Olrik refers therein to his earlier paper on the subject in Danske Studier, 1911, p. 38, and to a forthcoming article in the Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift, which has, I think, never appeared. See also K. Krohn in Göttingische gelehrte Anzeigen, 1912, p. 211. Reviewing Meyer's Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte, Krohn, after referring to the Teutonic gods of agriculture, continues "Ausser diesen agrikulturellen Gottheiten sind aus der finnischen Mythologie mit Hülfe der Linguistik mehrere germanische Naturgötter welche verschiedene Nutzpflanzen vertreten, entdeckt worden: der Roggengott Runkoteivas oder Rukotivo, der Gerstengott Pekko (nach Magnus Olsen aus urnord. Beggw-, vgl. Byggwir) und ein Gott des Futtergrases Sämpsä (vgl. Semse od. Simse, 'die Binse')." See also Krohn, "Germanische Elemente in der finnischen Volksdichtung," Z.f.d.A. LI, 1909, pp. 13-22; and Karsten, "Einige Zeugnisse zur altnordischen Götterverehrung in Finland," Finnisch-Ugrische Forschungen, XII, 307-16.

[550] As proposed by K. Krohn in a publication of the Finnish Academy at Helsingfors which I have not been able to consult, but as to which see Setälä in Finnisch-Ugrische Forschungen, XIII, 311, 424. Setälä accepts the derivation from beggwu-, rejecting an alternative derivation of Pekko from a Finnish root.

[551] This is proposed by J. J. Mikkola in a note appended to the article by K. Krohn, "Sampsa Pellervoinen < Njordr, Freyr?" in Finnisch-Ugrische Forschungen, IV, 231-48. See also Olrik, "Forårsmyten hos Finnerne," in Danske Studier, 1907, pp. 62-4.

[552] See note by K. Krohn, Finnisch-Ugrische Forschungen, VI, 105.

[553] See above, p. 87, and M. J. Eisen, "Ueber den Pekokultus bei den Setukesen," Finnisch-Ugrische Forschungen, VI, 104-11.

[554] See M. Olsen, Hedenske Kultminder i Norske Stedsnavne, Christiania Videnskapsselskapets Skrifter, II, 2, 1914, pp. 227-8.

[555] See above, p. 84.

[556] Mannhardt, Mythologische Forschungen, 332.

[557] In view of the weight laid upon this custom by Olrik as illustrating the story of Sceaf, it is necessary to note that it seems to be confined to parts of England bordering on the "Celtic fringe." See above, pp. 81, etc. Olrik and Olsen quote it as Kentish (see Heltedigtning, II, 252) but this is certainly wrong. Frazer attributes the custom of "crying the mare" to Hertfordshire and Shropshire (Spirits of the Corn, I, 292 = Golden Bough, 3rd edit., VII, 292). In this he is following Brand's Popular Antiquities (1813, I, 443; 1849, II, 24; also Carew Hazlitt, 1905, I, 157). But Brand's authority is Blount's Glossographia, 1674, and Blount says Herefordshire.

[558] Brand, Popular Antiquities, 1849, II, 24.

[559] Frazer in the Folk-Lore Journal, VII, 1889, pp. 50, 51; Adonis, Attis and Osiris, I, 237.

[560] Frazer, Adonis, Attis and Osiris, I, 238 (Golden Bough, 3rd edit.).

[561] Frazer, Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, I, 143-4.

[562] Frazer in the Folk-Lore Journal, VII, 1889, pp. 50, 51.

[563] Mannhardt, Forschungen, 317.

[564] Frazer, Spirits of the Corn, I, 138.

[565] Mannhardt, 323; Fraser, Adonis, I, 238.

[566] Mannhardt, 330.

[567] Mannhardt, 24; Frazer, Adonis, I, 238.

[568] Frazer, Adonis, I, 237.

[569] Frazer, Spirits of the Corn, I, 217.

[570] See Björkman in Anglia, Beiblatt, XXX, 1919, p. 23. In a similar way Sceaf appears twice in William of Malmesbury, once as Sceaf and once as Strephius.

[571] Vol. LII, p. 145.

[572] MS Cott. Vesp. B. XXIV, fol. 32 (Evesham Cartulary). See Birch, Cart. Sax. I, 176 (No. 120); Kemble, Cod. Dipl. III, 376. Kemble prints þæt æft for þā æft (MS "þ¯ æft"). For examples of "þ¯" for þā, see Ælfrics Grammatik, herausg. Zupitza, 1880; 38, 3; 121, 4; 291, 1.

[573] There are two copies, one of the tenth and one of the eleventh century, among the Crawford Collection in the Bodleian. See Birch, Cart. Sax. III,..7 (No. 1331); Napier and Stevenson, The Crawford Collection (Anecdota Oxoniensia), 1895, pp. 1, 3, 50.

[574] MS Cotton Ch. VIII, 16. See Birch, Cart. Sax. II, 363 (No. 677); Kemble, Cod. Dipl. II, 172.

[575] A nearly contemporary copy: Westminster Abbey Charters, III. See Birch, Cart. Sax. III, 189 (No. 994), and W. B. Sanders, Ord. Surv. Facs. II, plate III.

[576] A fourteenth to fifteenth century copy preserved at Wells Cathedral (Registr. Album, f. 289 b). See Birch, Cart. Sax. III, 223 (No. 1023).

[577] MS Cotton Aug. II, 6. See Birch, Cart. Sax. III, 588 (No. 1282).

[578] Brit. Mus. Stowe Chart. No. 32. See Birch, Cart. Sax. III, 605 (No. 1290).

[579] Cf. the Victoria History, Middlesex, II, p. 1.

[580] "Grendeles gate har väl snarast varit någon naturbildning t. ex. ett trångt bergpass eller kanske en grotta": C. W. von Sydow, in an excellent article on Grendel i anglosaxiska ortnamn, in Nordiska Ortnamn: Hyllningsskrift tillägnad A. Noreen, Upsala, 1914, pp. 160-4.

[581] Près du Neckersgat molen, il y avait jadis, antérieurement aux guerres de religion, des maisons entourées d'eau et appelées de hoffstede te Neckersgate: Wauters (A.), Histoire des Environs de Bruxelles, 1852, III, 646.

[582] Peg Powler lived in the Tees, and devoured children who played on the banks, especially on Sundays: Peg o' Nell, in the Ribble, demanded a life every seven years. See Henderson (W.), Notes on the Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties of England, 1879 (Folk-Lore Society), p. 265.

[583] See Kisch (G.), Vergleichendes Wörterbuch der siebenbürgischen und moselfränkischluxemburgischen Mundart, nebst siebenbürgischniederrheinischem Ortsund Familiennamen-verzeichnis (vol. XXXIII, 1 of the Archiv des Vereins f. siebenbürg. Landeskunde, 1905).

[584] See Grindel in Förstemann (E.), Altdeutsches Namenbuch, Dritte Aufl., herausg. Jellinghaus, II, 1913, and in Fischer (H.), Schwäbisches Wörterbuch, III, 1911 (nevertheless Rooth legitimately calls attention to the names recorded by Fischer in which Grindel is connected with bach, teich and moos).

[585] There is an account of this by G. Kisch in the Festgabe zur Feier der Einweihung des neuen evang. Gymnasial Bürger- und Elementar-schulgebäudes in Besztercze (Bistritz) am 7 Oct. 1911; a document which I have not been able to procure.

[586] Such a connection is attempted by W. Benary in Herrig's Archiv, CXXX, 154. Alternative suggestions, which would exclude any connection with the Grendel of Beowulf, are made by Klaeber, in Archiv, CXXXI, 427.

[587] A very useful summary of the different etymologies proposed is made by Rooth in Anglia, Beiblatt, XXVIII (1917), 335-8.

[588] So Skeat, "On the significance of the monster Grendel," Journal of Philology, Cambridge, XV (1886), p. 123; Laistner, Rätsel der Sphinx, 1889, p. 23; Holthausen, in his edition.

[589] So Weinhold in the SB. der k. Akad. Wien, Phil.-Hist. Classe, XXVI, 255.

[590] Cf. Gollancz, Patience, 1913, Glossary. For grindill as one of the synonyms for "storm," see Edda Snorra Sturlusonar, Hafniae, 1852, II, 486, 569.

[591] This will be found in several of the vocabularies of Low German dialects published by the Verein für Niederdeutsche Sprachforschung.

[592] See grand in Falk and Torp, Etymologisk Ordbog, Kristiania, 1903-6.

[593] See Feist, Etymol. Wörterbuch der Gotischen Sprache, Halle, 1909; grunduwaddjus.

[594] With Grendel, thus explained, Rooth would connect the "Earth man" of the fairy-tale "Dat Erdmänneken" (see below, p. 370) and the name Sandhaug, Sandey, which clings to the Scandinavian Grettir- and Orm-stories. We have seen that a sandhaug figures also in one of the Scandinavian cognates of the folk-tale (see above, p. 67). These resemblances may be noted, though it would be perilous to draw deductions from them.

[595] Schweizerisches Idiotikon, II, 1885, p. 776.

[596] See above, pp. 43, etc.; below, p. 311.

[597] Duignan, Warwickshire Place Names, p. 22. Duignan suggests the same etymology for Beoshelle, beos being "the Norman scribe's idea of the gen. plu." This, however, is very doubtful.

[598] Engl. Stud. LII, 177.

[599] Heltedigtning, II, 255. See above, pp. 81-7.

[600] Binz in P.B.B. XX, 148; Chadwick, Origin, 282. So Clarke, Sidelights, 128. Cf. Heusler in A.f.d. A. XXX, 31.

[601] A.-S. Chronicle.

[602] Historia Brittonum.

[603] "hrædlan" (gen.), Beowulf, 454.

[604] "hrædles," Beowulf, 1485.

[605] A.-S. Chronicle.

[606] Beowulf, Ethelwerd.

[607] Geata, Geta, Historia Brittonum; Asser; MS Cott. Tib. A. VI; Textus Roffensis.

[608] A.-S. Chronicle.

[609] Charter of 931.

[610] A.-S. Chronicle, Ethelwerd.

[611] Origin, 273.

[612] Origin, 282.

[613] Some O.H.G. parallels will be found in Z.f.d.A. XII, 260. The weak form Gēata, Mr Stevenson argues, is due to Asser's attempt to reconcile the form Gēat with the Latin Geta with which he identifies it (Asser, pp. 160-161). See also Chadwick, Heroic Age, 124 footnote. Yet we get Gēata in one text of the Chronicle, and in other documents.

[614] This is the view taken by Plummer, who does not seem to regard any solution as possible other than that the names are missing from the Parker MS by a transcriber's slip (see Two Saxon Chronicles Parallel, II, p. xciv).

[615] Plummer, II, pp. xxix, xxxi, lxxxix.

[616] Plummer, II, p. lxxi. Note Beowi for Bedwig.

[617] This table shows the relationship of the genealogies only, not of the whole MSS, of which the genealogies form but a small part. MS-relationships are always liable to fluctuation, as we pass from one part of a MS to another, and for obvious reasons this is peculiarly the case with the Chronicle MSS.

[618] Origin, 295.

[619] Origin, 292.

[620] Origin, 296.

[621] The absence of the West-Saxon pedigree may be due to the document from which the Historia Brittonum and the Vespasian MS derive these pedigrees having been drawn up in the North: Wessex may have been outside the purview of its compiler; though against this is the fact that it contains the Kentish pedigree. But another quite possible explanation is, that Cerdic, with his odd name, was not of the right royal race, but an adventurer, and that it was only later that a pedigree was made up for his descendants, on the analogy of those possessed by the more blue-blooded monarchs of Mercia and Northumbria.

[622] See M.L.N. 1897, XII, 110-11.

[623] It is prefixed to the Parker MS of the Chronicle, and is found also in the Cambridge MS of the Anglo-Saxon Bede (Univ. Lib. Kk. 3. 18) printed in Miller's edition; in MS Cott. Tib. A. III, 178 (printed in Thorpe's Chronicle): and in MS Add. 34652, printed by Napier in M.L.N. 1897, XII, 106 etc. There are uncollated copies in MS C.C.C.C. 383, fol. 107, and according to Liebermann (Herrig's Archiv, CIV, 23) in the Textus Roffensis, fol. 7 b. There is also a fragment, which does not however include the portion under consideration, in MS Add. 23211 (Brit. Mus.) printed in Sweet's Oldest English Texts, p. 179. The statement, sometimes made, that there is a copy in MS C.C.C.C. 41, rests on an error of Whelock, who was really referring to the Parker MS of the Chronicle (C.C.C.C. 173).

[624] p. 73.

[625] See above, p. 70.

[626] Brandl in Herrig's Archiv, CXXXVII, 12-13.

[627] Origin, p. 272.

[628] So Ethelwerd (Lib. I) sees in Woden a rex multitudinis Barbarorum, in error deified. It is the usual point of view, and persists down to Carlyle (Heroes).

[629] Origin, p. 293.

[630] Beowulf, p. 5. For a further examination of this "Beowa-myth" see Appendix A, above.

[631] Cf. Tupper in Pub. Mod. Lang. Assoc. Amer. XXVI, 275.

[632] P.B.B. XLII, 347-410. A theory as to the date of Beowulf, in some respects similar, was put forward by Mone in 1836: Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der teutschen Heldensage, p. 132.

[633] See above, p. 103; and Brandl in Pauls Grdr. (2) II, 1000, where the argument is excellently stated.

[634] See Olrik, Sakses Oldhistorie, 1894, 190-91.

[635] See Björkman, Eigennamen im Beowulf, 77.

[636] Sarrazin's attempt to prove such corruption is an entire failure. Cf. Brandl in Herrig's Archiv, CXXVI, 234; Björkman, Eigennamen im Beowulf, 58 (Heaðo-Beardan).

[637] A few Geatic adventurers may have taken part in the Anglo-Saxon invasion, as has been argued by Moorman (Essays and Studies, V). This is likely enough on a priori grounds, though many of the etymologies of place-names quoted by Moorman in support of his thesis are open to doubt.

[638] P.B.B. XLII, 366-7.

[639] History of England to the Norman Conquest, I, 245.

[640] Heroic Age, 52-6. I have tried to show (Appendix F) that these accounts of cremation are not so archaeologically correct as has sometimes been claimed.

[641] Oman, England before the Norman Conquest, 319.

[642] Bede, Hist. Eccles. IV, 26.

[643] "Nunc qui Roma veniunt idem allegant, ut qui Haugustaldensem fabricam vident ambitionem Romanam se imaginari jurent." William of Malmesbury, Gesta Pontificum, Rolls Series, p. 255.

[644] Baldwin Brown, The Arts in Early England, II, 1903, p. 325.

[645] p. 407.

[646] Beowulf, ll. 201, 601-3.

[647] Cf. Beowulf, l. 1018.

[648] Bede, Eccles. Hist. III, 21.

[649] See Oman, pp. 460, 591, for the honour done to this saint by converted Danes.

[650] p. 393.

[651] Æneid, X, 467-9.

[652] In the two admirable articles by Klaeber (Archiv, CCXVI, 40 etc., 399 etc.) every possible parallel is drawn: the result, to my mind, is not complete conviction.

[653] Chadwick, Heroic Age, 74.

[654] "Litteris itaque ad plenum instructus, nativae quoque linguae non negligebat carmina; adeo ut, teste libro Elfredi, de quo superius dixi, nulla umquam aetate par ei fuerit quisquam. Poesim Anglicam posse facere, cantum componere, eadem apposite vel canere vel dicere. Denique commemorat Elfredus carmen triviale, quod adhuc vulgo cantitatur, Aldelmum fecisse, aditiens causam qua probet rationabiliter tantum virum his quae videantur frivola institisse. Populum eo tempore semibarbarum, parum divinis sermonibus intentum, statim, cantatis missis, domos cursitare solitum. Ideo sanctum virum, super pontem qui rura et urbem continuat, abeuntibus se opposuisse obicem, quasi artem cantitandi professum. Eo plusquam semel facto, plebis favorem et concursum emeritum. Hoc commento sensim inter ludicra verbis Scripturarum insertis, cives ad sanitatem reduxisse." William of Malmesbury, De gestis pontificum Anglorum, ed. Hamilton, Rolls Series, 1870, 336.

[655] "Reverentissimo patri meaeque rudis infantiae venerando praeceptori Adriano." Epist. (Aldhelmi Opera, ed. Giles, 1844, p. 330).

[656] Faricius, Life, in Giles' edition of Aldhelm, 1844, p. 357.

[657] Letter of Cuthbert to Cuthwine, describing Bede's last illness. "Et in nostra lingua, hoc est anglica, ut erat doctus in nostris carminibus, nonnulla dixit. Nam et tunc Anglico carmine componens, multum compunctus aiebat, etc." The letter is quoted by Simeon of Durham, ed. Arnold, Rolls Series, 1882, I, pp. 43-46, and is extant elsewhere, notably in a ninth century MS at St Gall.

[658] "quid Hinieldus cum Christo."

[659] "Þæt ǣnig prēost ne bēo ealuscop, ne on ǣnige wīsan glīwige, mid him sylfum oþþe mid ōþrum mannum"—Thorpe, Ancient Laws and Institutes of England, 1840, p. 400 (Laws of Edgar, cap. 58).

[660] "avitae gentilitatis vanissima didicisse carmina." This charge is dismissed as "scabiem mendacii." Vita Sancti Dunstani, by "B," in Memorials of Dunstan, ed. Stubbs, Rolls Series, 1874, p. 11. Were these songs heroic or magic?

[661] The Heroic Legends of Denmark, New York, 1919, p. 32 (footnote).

[662] Ibid. p. 39.

[663] Thus, much space has been devoted to discussing whether "Gotland," in the eleventh century Cotton MS of Alfred's Orosius, signifies Jutland. I believe that it does; but fail to see how it can be argued from this that Alfred believed the Jutes to be "Geatas." Old English had no special symbol for the semi-vowel J; so, to signify Jōtland, Alfred would have written "Geotland" (Sievers, Gram. §§ 74, 175). Had he meant "Land of the Geatas" he would have written "Geataland" or "Geatland." Surely "Gotland" is nearer to "Geotland" than to "Geatland."

[664] P.B.B. XII, 1-10.

[665] See above, p. 8. Fahlbeck has recently revised and re-stated his arguments.

[666] Danmarks Riges Historie, I, 79 etc.

[667] Beowulf, übersetzt von H. Gering, 1906, p. vii.

[668] See above, also Nordisk Aandsliv, 10, where Olrik speaks of the Geatas as "Jyderne." His arguments as presented to the Copenhagen Philologisk-historisk Samfund are summarized by Schütte, J.E.G. Ph. XI, 575-6. Clausen also supports the Jute-theory, Danske Studier, 1918, 137-49.

[669] J.E.G. Ph. XI, 574-602.

[670] Beowulf, et Bidrag til Nordens Oldhistorie af Chr. Kier, København, 1915.

[671] This is admitted by Bugge, P.B.B. XII, 6. "Geátas... ist sprachlich ein ganz anderer name als altn. Jótar, Jútar, bei Beda Jutae, und nach Beda im Chron. Sax. 449 Jotum, Jutna... Die Geátas... tragen einen namen der sprachlich mit altn. Gautar identisch ist."

[672] From a presumed Prim. Germ. *Eutiz, *Eutjaniz. The word in O.E. seems to have been declined both as an i-stem and an n-stem, the n-stem forms being used more particularly in the gen. plu., just as in the case of the tribal names, Seaxe, Mierce (Sievers, § 264). The Latinized forms show the same duplication, the dat. Euciis pointing to an i-stem, the nom. Euthio to an n-stem, plu. *Eutiones. For a discussion of the relation of the O.E. name to the Danish Jyder, see Björkman in Anglia, Beiblatt, XXVIII, 274-80: "Zu ae. Eote, Yte, dän. Jyder 'Jüten'."

[673] I regard it as simply an error of the translator, possibly because he had before him a text in which Bede's Iutis had been corrupted in this place into Giotis, as it is in Ethelwerd: Cantuarii de Giotis traxerunt originem, Vuhtii quoque. (Bk. I: other names which Ethelwerd draws from Bede in this section are equally corrupt.)

Bede's text runs: (I, 15) Aduenerant autem de tribus Germaniae populis fortioribus, id est Saxonibus, Anglis, Iutis. De Iutarum origine sunt Cantuarii et Victuarii; in the translation: "Comon hi of þrim folcum ðam strangestan Germanie, þæt [is] of Seaxum and of Angle and of Geatum. Of Geata fruman syndon Cantware and Wihtsætan": (IV, 16) In proximam Iutorum prouinciam translati... in locum, qui uocatur Ad Lapidem; "in þa neahmægðe, seo is gecegd Eota lond, in sume stowe seo is nemned Æt Stane" (Stoneham, near Southampton). MS C.C.C.C. 41 reads "Ytena land": see below.

[674] Two Saxon Chronicles, ed. Plummer, 1899. Introduction, pp. lxx, lxxi.

[675] The O.E. version of Bede's Ecclesiastical History, ed. Miller, II, xv, xvi, 1898.

[676] Florentii Wigorn. Chron., ed. Thorpe, II, 45; I, 276.

[677] It cannot be said that this is due to textual corruption in our late copy, for the alliteration constantly demands a G-form, not a vowel-form.

[678] See pp. 8, 9 above, §§ 2-7.

[679] Just as, for example, in Heimskringla: Haraldz saga ins hárfagra, 13-17, the Götar are constantly mentioned, because the kingdom of Sweden is being attacked from their side.

[680] Procopius tells us that there were in Thule (i.e. the Scandinavian peninsula) thirteen nations, each under its own king: βασιλεῖς τέ εἰσι κατὰ ἔθνος ἕκαστον... ὧν ἔθνος ἓν πολυάνθρωπον οἱ Γαυτοί εἰσι (Bell. Gott. ii, 15).

[681] On this alliteration-test, which is very important, see above, pp. 10-11.

[682] Geta was the recognized Latin synonym for Gothus, and is used in this sense in the sixth century, e.g. by Venantius Fortunatus and Jordanes. And the Götar are constantly called Gothi, e.g. in the formula rex Sueorum et Gothorum (for the date of this formula see Söderqvist in the Historisk Tidskrift, 1915: Ägde Uppsvearne rätt att taga och vräka konung); or Saxo, Bk. XIII (ed. Holder, p. 420, describing how the Gothi invited a candidate to be king, and slew the rival claimant, who was supported by the legally more constitutional suffrages of the Swedes); or Adam of Bremen (as quoted below).

[683] Folknamnet Geatas, p. 5 etc.

[684] Speaking of the Götaelv, Adam says "Ille oritur in praedictis alpibus, perque medios Gothorum populos currit in Oceanum, unde et Gothelba dicitur." Adami Canonici Bremensis, Gesta Hamm. eccl. pontificum, Lib. IV, in Migne, CXLVI, 637. Modern scholars are of the opinion that the borrowing has been rather the other way. According to Noreen the river Götaelv (Gautelfr) gets its name as the outflow from Lake Væner. (Cf. O.E. gēotan, gēat, "pour.") Götland (Gautland) is the country around the river, and the Götar (Gautar) get their name from the country. See Noreen, Våra Ortnamn och deras Ursprungliga Betydelse, in Spridda Studier, II, 91, 139.

[685] The Scholiast, in his commentary on Adam, records the later state of things, when the Götar were confined to the south of the river: "Gothelba fluvius a Nordmannis Gothiam separat."

[686] Heimskringla, cap. 17.

[687] "Hann [Haraldr] er úti á herskipum allan vetrinn ok herjar á Ránríki" (cap. 15). "Haraldr konungr fór víða um Gautland herskildi, ok átti þar margar orrostur tveim megin elfarinnar.... Síðan lagði Haraldr konungr land alt undir sik fyrir norðan elfina ok fyrir vestan Væni" (cap. 17). Heimskringla: Haraldz saga ins hárfagra, udgiv. F. Jónsson, København, 1893-1900.

[688] Baltzer (L.), Glyphes des rochers du Bohuslän, avec une préface de V. Rydberg, Gothembourg, 1881. See also Baltzer, Några af de viktigaste Hällristningarna, Göteborg, 1911.

[689] Guinchard, Sweden: Historical and Statistical Handbook, 1914, II, 549.

[690] See Chadwick, Origin, 93; Heroic Age, 51.

[691] ll. 2910-21. See Schütte, 579, 583.

[692] ll. 2922-3007.

[693] ll. 3018-27.

[694] ll. 3029-30.

[695] pp. 575, 581.

[696] The reason for locating the Eudoses in Jutland is that the name has, very hazardously, been identified with that of the Jutes, Eutiones. Obviously this argument could no longer be used, if the Eudoses were the "Wederas."

[697] See e.g. Schütte, 579-80.

[698] Beowulf, 1856.

[699] Beowulf, 1830 etc.

[700] Beowulf, 2394. See Schütte, 576-9.

[701] Sēo ēa þǣr wyrcþ micelne sǣ. Orosius, ed. Sweet, 12, 24.

[702] See above, p. 7.

[703] As Miss Paues, herself a Geat, points out to me.

[704] Kier, 39; Schütte, 582, 591 etc.

[705] See above, pp. 99, 100.

[706] Vendel och Vendelkråka in A.f.n.F. XXI, 71-80: see Essays, trans. Clark Hall, 50-62.

[707] This grave mound is mentioned as "Kong Ottars Hög" in Ättartal för Swea och Götha Kununga Hus, by J. Peringskiöld, Stockholm, 1725, p. 13, and earlier, in 1677, it is mentioned by the same name in some notes of an antiquarian survey. That the name "Vendel-crow" is now attached to it is stated by Dr Almgren. These early references seem conclusive: little weight could, of course, be carried by the modern name alone, since it might easily be of learned origin. The mound was opened in 1914-16, and the contents showed it to belong to about 500 to 550 A.D., which agrees excellently with the date of Ohthere. See two articles in Fornvännen for 1917: an account of the opening of the mound by S. Lindqvist entitled "Ottarshögen i Vendel" (pp. 127-43) and a discussion of early Swedish history in the light of archaeology, by B. Nerman, "Ynglingasagan i arkeologisk belysning" (esp. pp. 243-6). See also Björkman in Nordisk Tidskrift, Stockholm, 1917, p. 169, and Eigennamen im Beowulf, 1920, pp. 86-99.

[708] See Appendix F: Beowulf and the Archæologists, esp. p. 356, below.

[709] By the Early Iron Age, Engelhardt meant from 250 to 450 A.D.: but more recent Danish scholars have placed these deposits in the fifth century, with some overlapping into the preceding and succeeding centuries (Müller, Vor Oldtid, 561; Wimmer, Die Runenschrift, 301, etc.). The Swedish archæologists, Knut Stjerna and O. Almgren, agree with Engelhardt, dating the finds between about 250 and 450 A.D. (Stjerna's Essays, trans. Clark Hall, p. 149, and Introduction, xxxii-iii).

[710] Essays on questions connected with the O.E. poem of Beowulf, trans. and ed. by John R. Clark Hall, (Viking Club), Coventry. (Reviews by Klaeber, J.E.G.Ph. XIII, 167-73, weighty; Mawer, M.L.N. VIII, 242-3; Athenæum, 1913, I, 459-60; Archiv, CXXXII, 238-9; Schütte, A.f.n.F. XXXIII, 64-96, elaborate.)

[711] An account of these was given at the time by H. Stolpe, who undertook the excavation. See his Vendelfyndet, in the Antiqvarisk Tidskrift för Sverige, VIII, 1, 1-34, and Hildebrand (H.) in the same, 35-64 (1884). Stolpe did not live to issue the definitive account of his work, Graffältet vid Vendel, beskrifvet af H. Stolpe och T. J. Arne, Stockholm, 1912.

[712] Also added as an Appendix to his Beowulf translation, 1911.

[713] Clark Hall's Preface to Stjerna's Essays, p. xx.

[714] J.E.G.Ph. XIII, 1914, p. 172.

[715] Essays, p. 239: cf. p. 84.

[716] p. 39.

[717] Germania, cap. XV.

[718] ll. 378, 470.

[719] Cassiodorus, Variae, V, 1.

[720] Walter, Corpus juris Germanici antiqui, 1824, II, 125.

[721] Heimskringla, Haraldz saga, cap. 38-40.

[722] "The idea of a gold hoard undoubtedly points to the earlier version of the Beowulf poem having originated in Scandinavia. No such 'gold period' ever existed in Britain." Essays, p. 147.

[723] Cottonian Gnomic Verses, ll. 26-7.

[724] l. 14.

[725] Exeter Gnomic Verses, l. 126.

[726] Baldwin Brown, III, 385, IV, 640.

[727] B. l. 19.

[728] l. 339.

[729] l. 991.

[730] Cf. Falk, Altnordische Waffenkunde, 28.

[731] I would suggest this as the more likely because, if the ring were inserted for a practical purpose, it is not easy to see why it later survived in the form of a mere knob, which is neither useful nor ornamental. But if it were used to attach the symbolical "peace bands," it may have been retained, in a "fossilized form," with a symbolical meaning.

[732] Most editors indeed do take it in this sense, though recently Schücking has adopted Stjerna's explanation of "ring-sword." In l. 322, Falk (27) takes hring-īren to refer to a "ring-adorned sword," though it may well mean a ring-byrnie.

[733] Actually, I believe, more: for two ring-swords were found at Faversham, and are now in the British Museum. For an account of one of them see Roach Smith, Collectanea Antiqua, 1868, vol. VI, 139. In this specimen both the fixed ring and the ring which moves within it are complete circles. But in the Gilton sword (Archæologia, XXX, 132) and in the sword discovered at Bifrons (Archæologia Cantiana, X, 312) one of the rings no longer forms a complete circle, and in the sword discovered at Sarre (Archæol. Cant. VI, 172) the rings are fixed together, and one of them has little resemblance to a ring at all.

[734] At Concevreux. It is described by M. Jules Pilloy in Mémoires de la Société Académique de St Quentin, 4^e Sér. tom. XVI, 1913; see esp. pp. 36-7.

[735] See Lindenschmit, "Germanisches Schwert mit ungewöhnlicher Bildung des Knaufes," in Die Altertümer unserer heidnischen Vorzeit, V Bd., V Heft, Taf. 30, p. 165, Mainz, 1905.

[736] Salin has no doubt that the Swedish type from Uppland (his figure 252) is later than even the latest type of English ring-sword (the Sarre pommel, 251) which is itself later than the Faversham (249) or Bifrons (250) pommel. See Salin (B.), Die Altgermanische Thierornamentik, Stockholm, 1904, p. 101. The same conclusion is arrived at by Lindenschmit: "Die ursprüngliche Form ist wohl in dem, unter Nr. 249 von Salin abgebildeten Schwertknopf aus Kent zu sehen"; and even more emphatically by Pilloy, who pronounces the Swedish Vendel sword both on account of its "ring" and other characteristics, as "inspirée par un modèle venu de cette contrée [Angleterre]."

[737] The Benty Grange helmet; see below, p. 358.

[738] Depicted by Clark Hall, Stjerna's Essays, p. 258.

[739] Clark Hall's Beowulf, p. 227.

[740] "Von Skandinavien gibt es aus der Völkerwanderungszeit und Wikingerepoche keine archäologischen Anhaltspunkte für das Tragen des Panzers, weder aus Funden noch aus Darstellungen," Max Ebert in Hoops' Reallexikon, III, 395 (1915-16). But surely this is too sweeping. Fragments of an iron byrnie, made of small rings fastened together, were found in the Vendel grave 12 (seventh century). See Graffältet vid Vendel, beskrifvet af H. Stolpe och T. J. Arne, pp. 49, 60, plates xl, xli, xlii.

[741] 54-I. Liebermann, p. 114.

[742] Essays, 34-5.

[743] Elene, 264.

[744] Engelhardt, Denmark in the Early Iron Age, p. 66.

[745] Andreas, 303.

[746] l. 2869.

[747] "Few have corslets and only one here and there a helmet" (Germania, 6). In the Annals (II, 14) Tacitus makes Germanicus roundly deny the use of either by the Germans: non loricam Germano, non galeam.

[748] See above, p. 124.

[749] See Chifflet, J. J., Anastasis Childerici I... sive thesaurus sepulchralis, Antverpiæ, Plantin, 1655.

[750] That both sword and scramasax were buried with Childeric is shown by Lindenschmit, Handbuch, I, 236-9: see also pp. 68 etc.

[751] l. 2762-3.

[752] Worsaae, Nordiske Oldsager, Kjøbenhavn, 1859; see No. 499; Roach Smith, Collectanea Antiqua, 1852, II, 164; Montelius, Antiq. Suéd. 1873, No. 294 (p. 184).

[753] Essays, p. 198. See also above, p. 124. Mr Reginald Smith writes to me: "Unburnt objects with cremated burials in prehistoric times (Bronze, Early and late Iron Ages) are the exception, and are probably accidental survivals from the funeral pyre. In such an interpretation of Beowulf I agree with the late Knut Stjerna, who was an archæologist of much experience."

[754] Forming vols. 3 and 4 of The Arts in Early England, 1903-15.

[755] It was, however, necessary to leave over for a supplementary volume some of the contributions most interesting from the point of view of the archæology of Beowulf: e.g. spatha, speer, schild.

[756] B. E. Hildebrand, Grafhögarne vid Gamla Upsala, Kongl. Vitterhets Historie och Antiqvitets Akademiens Månadsblad, 1875-7, pp. 250-60.

[757] Fasta fornlämningar i Beovulf, in Antiqvarisk Tidskrift för Sverige, XVIII, 48-64.

[758] Heimskringla: Ynglingasaga, cap. 25, 26, 29.

[759] See B. Nerman, Vilka konungar ligga i Uppsala högar? Uppsala, 1913, and the same scholar's Ynglingasagan i arkeologisk belysning, in Fornvännen, 1917, 226-61.

[760] Heimskringla: Ynglingasaga, cap. 27.

[761] A discovery made by Otto v. Friesen in 1910: see S. Lindqvist in Fornvännen, 1917, 129. Two years earlier (1675) "Utters högen i Wändell" is mentioned in connection with an investigation into witchcraft. See Linderholm, Vendelshögens konunganamn, in Namn och Bygd, VII, 1919, 36, 40.

[762] For a preliminary account of the discovery, see Ottarshögen i Vendel, by S. Lindqvist in Fornvännen, 1917, 127-43, and for discussion of the whole subject, B. Nerman, Ottar Vendelkråka och Ottarshögen i Vendel, in Upplands Fornminnesförenings Tidskrift, VII, 309-34.

[763] Baldwin Brown, III, 216.

[764] 213.

[765] 218.

[766] So Baldwin Brown, III, 213; Lorange, Den Yngre Jernalders Sværd, Bergen, 1889, passim.

[767] Baldwin Brown, III, 215.

[768] It is somewhat similar in Norse literature, where swords are constantly indicated as either inherited from of old, or coming from abroad: cf. Falk, 38-41.

[769] Beowulf, 1489, wǣgsweord; cf. Vægir as a sword-name in the Thulur. In ll. 1521, 1564, 2037, hringmǣl may refer to the ring in the hilt, and terms like wunden- are more likely to refer to the serpentine ornament of the hilt. This must be the case with wyrm-fāh (1698) as it is a question of the hilt alone. Stjerna (p. 111 = Essays, 20) and others take āter-tānum fāh (1459) as referring to the damascened pattern (cf. eggjar... eitrdropom innan fáþar; Brot af Sigurðarkviðu). It is suggested however by Falk (p. 17) that tān here refers to an edge welded-on: the Icelandic egg-teinn.

[770] The only certainly Anglo-Saxon helmet as yet discovered: traces of what may have been a similar head-piece were found near Cheltenham: Roach Smith, Collectanea Antiqua, II, 1852, 238.

[771] Coll. Ant. II, 1852, 239; Bateman, Ten Years' Diggings, 30; Catalogue of the Antiquities preserved in the Museum of Thomas Bateman, Bakewell, 1855.

[772] A very good description of these continental "Spangenhelme" is given in the magnificent work of I. W. Gröbbels, Der Reihengräberfund von Gammertingen, München, 1905. These helms had long been known from a specimen (place of origin uncertain) in the Hermitage at Petrograd, and another example, that of Vézeronce, supposed to have been lost in the battle between Franks and Burgundians in 524. Seven other examples have been discovered in the last quarter of a century, including those of Baldenheim (for which see Henning (R.), Der helm von Baldenheim und die verwandten helme des frühen mittelalters, Strassburg, 1907, cf. Kauffmann, Z.f.d.Ph. XL, 464-7) and Gammertingen. They are not purely Germanic, and may have been made in Gaul, or among the Ostrogoths in Ravenna, or further east.

[773] Stjerna, Essays, p. 11 = Studier tillägnade Oscar Montelius af Lärjungar, 1903, p. 104: Clark Hall, Beowulf, 1911, p. 228.

[774] See also Graffältet vid Vendel, beskrifvet af H. Stolpe och T. J. Arne, Stockholm, 1912, pp. 13, 54; Pl. v, xli.

[775] ll. 396, 2049, 2257, 2605; cf. grīmhelm, 334.

[776] 2811, 304, 1111 (cf. Falk, 156).

[777] 1453-4 (cf. Falk, 157-9).

[778] securum etiam inter hostes praestat. Germ. cap. 45.

[779] 1031 (cf. Falk, 158).

[780] 1630, 2723. Cf. Exodus, 174, grīmhelm gespēon cyning cinberge, and Genesis, 444. (See Falk, 166.)

[781] Cf. ll. 1503, 1548, 2260, 2754.

[782] Cf. ll. 322, 551, 1443.

[783] Bateman, Ten Years' Diggings, 1861, p. 32.

[784] Cf. Beowulf, 330, 1772, 2042.

[785] "ne scuta quidem ferro neruoue firmata, sed... tenuis et fucatas colore tabulas," Annals, II, 14; cf. Germania, 6, "scuta tantum lectissimis coloribus distinguunt."

[786] Njáls Saga, cap. XXX.

[787] It is the guess of A. Haupt, Die Älteste Kunst der Germanen, p. 213.

[788] ll. 773-5, 998.

[789] Hist. Eccl. II, 13. The life of man is compared to the transit of a sparrow flying from door to door of the hall where the king sits feasting with his thanes and warriors, with a fire in the midst.

[790] ll. 617-24, 2011-3.

[791] 995.

[792] 725.

[793] 1035 etc.

[794] Proc. Soc. Ant., Sec. Ser. II, 177-82.

[795] Jonckheere (É.), L'origine de la Côte de Flandre et le Bateau de Bruges, Bruges, 1903.

[796] Engelhardt (H. C. C.), Nydam Mosefund, Kjöbenhavn, 1865.

[797] Nicolaysen (N.), Langskibet fra Gokstad, Kristiania, 1882.

[798] Osebergfundet. Udgit av den Norske Stat, under redaktion av A. W. Brøgger, Hj. Falk, H. Schetelig. Bd. I, Kristiania, 1917.

[799] Beowulf, ll. 32, 1131, 1897.

[800] 1862.

[801] 220.

[802] Noreen, Altschwedische Grammatik, 1904, p. 499.

[803] All these places are in Gotland. The Stenkyrka stone is reproduced in Stjerna's Essays, transl. Clark Hall, fig. 24.

[804] The same, fig. 27.

[805] Reproduced in Montelius, Sveriges Historia, p. 283.

[806] Deutsche Mythologie, 3te Ausgabe, 1854, pp. 342, 639.

[807] Academy, XI, 1877, p. 163.

[808] Engl. Stud. II, 314.

[809] Beowulf, p. 177.

[810] Aanteekeningen op den Beowulf, 1892, p. 42.

[811] P.B.B. XVIII, 413.

[812] Z.f.ö.G. LVI, 759.

[813] Beowulf, p. 392.

[814] Engl. Stud. LII, 191. Among the many who have accepted the explanation "bee-wolf," without giving additional reasons, may be mentioned R. Müller, Untersuchungen über die Namen des Liber Vitae, 1901, p. 94.

[815] Both Grimm and Skeat suggested the woodpecker, which feeds upon bees and their larvae: Grimm appealing to classical mythology, Skeat instancing the bird's courage. But nothing seems forthcoming from Teutonic mythology to favour this interpretation. Cosijn, following Sijmons, Z.f.d.Ph. XXIV, 17, thought bees might have been an omen of victory. But there is no satisfactory evidence for this. The term sigewīf applied to the swarming bees in the Charms (Cockayne's Leechdoms, I, 384) is insufficient.

[816] Tidskr. f. Philol. og Pædag. VIII, 289.

[817] Deutsches Wörterbuch, 1854, I, 1122.

[818] "Das compositum Beóvulf, wie Gôzolf, Irminolf, Reginolf, und andre gebildet, zeigt nur einen helden und krieger im geist und sinn oder von der art des Beówa an. Ihm entspricht altn. Biôlfr." (Müllenhoff, in Z.f.d.A. XII, 284.) But certainly this interpretation is impossible for O.N. Biólfr: "warrior of Beowa" would be *Byggulfr, which we nowhere find. See Björkman in Engl. Stud. LII, 191. Müllenhoff at this date, whilst not connecting Bēowulf directly with bēo, "bee," did so connect Bēowa, whom he interpreted as a bee-god or bee-father. But there is no evidence for this, and the w of Bēowa tells emphatically against it. Müllenhoff subsequently abandoned this explanation.

[819] It is actually written Biu^uulf.

[820] Biu in Biuuulf cannot stand for Bēo [older Beu] because in Old Northumbrian iu and eo are rigidly differentiated, as an examination of all the other names in the Liber Vitae shows. As Sievers points out, if Biuuulf is to be derived from *Beuw (w)ulf, then it would afford an isolated and inexplicable case of iu for eo[eu], unique in the Liber Vitae, as in the whole mass of the oldest English texts: "Soll ein zusammenhang mit st. beuwa- stattfinden, so muss man auch diesen stamm für einen urspr. s-stamm erklären, und unser biu- auf die stammform biuwi(z)- nicht auf beuwa(z)- zurückführen." (Sievers, P.B.B. XVIII, 413.) The word however is a neut. wa-stem, whether in O.E. (bēow), Old Saxon (bēo) or Icelandic (bygg): see Sievers, Ags. Grammatik, 3te Aufl. § 250; Gallée, Altsächsische Grammatik, 2te Aufl. § 305; Noreen, Altisländische Grammatik, 3te Aufl. § 356. The word is extant in Old English only in the Glossaries, in the gen. sing., "handful beouaes," etc., and in Old Saxon only in the gen. plu. beuuo. It is thought to have been originally a wu-stem, which subsequently, as e.g. in O.E., passed into a wa-stem. (See Noreen, A.f.n.F. I, 166, arguing from the form begg in the Dalecarlian dialect.) The presumed Primitive Norse form is beggwu, whence the various Scandinavian forms, Icel. bygg, Old Swedish and Old Danish biug(g). See Hellquist in A.f.n.F. VII, 31; von Unwerth, A.f.n.F. XXXIII, 331; Binz, P.B.B. XX, 153; von Helten, P.B.B. XXX, 245; Kock, Umlaut u. Brechung im Aschw. p. 314, in Lunds Universitets årsskrift, Bd. XII. The proper name Byggvir is a ja-stem, but Bēow cannot have been so formed, as a ja-stem would give the form Bēowe. Cosijn (Aanteekeningen, 42) was accordingly justified in pointing to the form Biuuulf as refuting Kögel's attempt to connect Bēowulf with Bēow through a form *Bawiwulf (A.f.d.A. XVIII, 56). Kögel replied with a laboured defence (Z.f.d.A. XXXVII, 268): he starts by assuming that Bēow and Bēowulf are etymologically connected, which is the very point which has to be proved: he has to admit that, if his etymology be correct, the Biuuulf of the Liber Vitae is not the same form as Bēowulf, which is the very point Cosijn urged as telling against his etymology: and even so his etymological explanations depend upon stages which cannot be accepted in the present state of our knowledge (see especially Sievers in P.B.B. XVIII, 413; Björkman in Engl. Stud. LII, 150).

[821] Tidskr. f. Philol og Pædag. VIII, 289.

[822] First pointed out by Grundtvig in Barfod's Brage og Idun, IV, 1841, p. 500, footnote.

[823] "Lodmundr hinn gamli het madr enn annarr. Biólfr fostbrodir hans. Þeir foru til Islands af Vors af Þvlvnesi" (Voss in Norway). See Landnámabók, København, 1900, p. 92.

[824] Noreen, Altisländische Grammatik, 3te Aufl. p. 97. See also Noreen in Festskrift til H. F. Feilberg, 1911, p. 283. Noreen seems to have no doubt as to the explanation of Bjólfr as Bý-olfr, "Bee-wolf."

[825] Bugge, has, however, been followed by Gering, Beowulf, 1906, p. 100.

[826] Ferguson in the Athenæum, June 1892, p. 763: "Beadowulf by a common form of elision (!) would become Beowulf." Sarrazin admits "Freilich ist das eine ungewöhnliche verkürzung" (Engl. Stud. XLII, 19). See also Sarrazin in Anglia, V, 200; Beowulf-Studien, 33, 77; Engl. Stud. XVI, 79.

[827] This incompatibility comes out very strongly in ll. 2499-2506, where Beowulf praises his sword particularly for the services it has not been able to render him.

[828] See above, pp. 60-1.

[829] Olrik, Heltedigtning, I, 140: F. Jónsson, Hrólfs Saga Kraka, 1904, Inledning, XX.

[830] Hrólfs Saga Kraka, cap. 17-20.

[831] The trait is wanting in the Grettis saga: Grettir son of Asmund was too historical a character for such features to be attributed to him.

[832] See pp. 62-7.

[833] No. 166. Translated as "Strong Hans." (Grimm's Household Tales, trans. by M. Hunt, with introduction by A. Lang, 1884.)

[834] As, for example, by Cosquin, Contes populaires de Lorraine, I, 7. A comparison of the different versions in which the "strange theme" is toned down, in a greater or less degree, seems to make this certain.

[835] No. 91.

[836] Edinburgh, 1860, vol. I, No. XVI, "The king of Lochlin's three daughters": vol. III, No. LVIII, "The rider of Grianaig."

[837] London, 1866: p. 43, "The Three Crowns."

[838] Notably by von Sydow.

[839] Asbjørnsen og Moe, Norske Folkeeventyr, Christiania, 1852, No. 3.

[840] Popular Tales from the Norse (third edit., Edinburgh, 1888, p. 382).

[841] Visentini, Fiabe Mantovane, 1879, No. 32, 157-161.

[842] "fino a che col capo tocca le travi." Cf. Glam in the Grettis Saga.

[843] "e qui vede il gigante seduto, che detteva il suo testamento."

[844] p. 153. This is Panzer's version 97.

[845] "A fabulous creature, but zoologically the name Norka (from nora, a hole) belongs to the otter," Ralston, Russian Folk Tales, p. 73.

[846] Afanasief (A. N.), Narodnuiya Russkiya Skazki, Moscow, 1860-63, I, 6. See Ralston, p. 73.

[847] Afanasief, VIII, No. 6.

[848] For example, "Shepherd Paul," in The Folk-Tales of the Magyars, by W. H. Jones and L. L. Knopf, Folk-Lore Society, 1889, p. 244. The latest collection contains its version, 'The Story of Tāling, the Half-boy' in Persian Tales, written down for the first time and translated by D. L. R. and E. O. Lorimer, London, 1919.

[849] Cf. von Sydow in A.f.d.A. XXXV, 126.

[850] Ión Arnason's MSS, No. 536, 4^o.

[851] Rittershaus (A.), Die Neuisländischen Volksmärchen, Halle, 1902, No. 25.

[852] Færøske Folkesagn og Æventyr, ed. by Jakob Jakobsen, 1898-1901, pp. 241-4 (Samfund til Udgivelse af gammel Nordisk Litteratur.)

[853] This folk-tale is given in a small book, to be found in the Christiania University Library, and no doubt elsewhere in Norway: Nor, en Billedbog for den norske Ungdom (Tredie Oplag, Christiania, 1865). Norske Folke-Eventyr og Sagn, fortalte af P. Chr. Asbjørnsen. A copy of the story, slightly altered, occurs in the Udvalgte Eventyr og Sagn for Børn, of Knutsen, Bentsen and Johnsson, Christiania, 1877, p. 58 etc.

[854] pp. 66-7.

[855] Berntsen (K.), Folke-Æventyr, 1873, No. 12, pp. 109-115.

[856] Grundtvig (Sv.), Gamle Danske Minder, 1854, No. 34, p. 33: from Næstved.

[857] Hans mit de ysern Stang', Müllenhoff, Sagen, Märchen u. Lieder... 1845, No. XVI, p. 437.

[858] Colshorn (C. and Th.), Märchen u. Sagen, Hannover, 1854, No. V, pp. 18-30.

[859] Cf. Beowulf, ll. 2183-8.

[860] Cf. Beowulf, ll. 815 etc.

[861] Cf. Beowulf, ll. 1516-17; cf. Grettis Saga, LXVI.

[862] Cf. Grettis Saga, LXVI, hann kveikti ljós; cf. Beowulf, 1570.

[863] Contes du roi Cambrinus, par C. Deulin, Paris, 1874 (I. L'intrépide Gayant). The story is associated with Gayant, the traditional hero of Douai.

[864] Cf. Schmidt, Geschichte der deutschen Stämme, II, 495, 499, note 4.

[865] III, 1.

[866] II, 43.

[867] Παῖς... νέος ἦν κομιδῇ, καὶ ἔτι ὑπὸ παιδοκόμῳ τιθηνούμενος, Agathias, I, 4: parvulus, Gregory, IV, 6.

[868] Gregory, III, 20.

[869] III, 22.

[870] III, 23.

[871] III, 27.

[872] Many recent historians have expressed doubts as to the conventional date, 515, for Hygelac's death. J. P. Jacobsen, in the Danish translation of Gregory (1911) suggested 525-30: following him Severinsen (Danske Studier, 1919, 96) suggested c. 526, as did Fredborg, Det första årtalet i Sveriges historia. L. Schmidt (Geschichte der deutschen Stämme, II, 500, note, 1918) suggested c. 528.

[873] Archæological works bearing less directly upon Beowulf are enumerated in Appendix F; that enumeration is not repeated here.

[874] Most students nowadays will probably agree with v. Sydow's contention that the struggle of Beowulf, first above ground and then below, is a folk-story, one and indivisible, and that therefore there is no reason for attributing the two sections to different authors, as do Boer, Müllenhoff and ten Brink. But that the folk-tale is exclusively Celtic remains to be proved; v. Sydow's contention that Celtic influence is shown in Beowulf by the inhospitable shamelessness of Unferth (compare that of Kai) is surely fanciful. Also the statement that the likeness of Bjarki and Beowulf is confined to the freeing of the Danish palace from a dangerous monster by a stranger from abroad, and that "das sonstige Beiwerk völlig verschieden ist" surely cannot be maintained. As argued above (pp. 54-61) there are other distinct points of resemblance.

v. Sydow's statement no doubt suffers from the brevity with which it is reported, and his forthcoming volume of Beowulf studien will be awaited with interest.

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