Beowulf, Orality and the Anglo-Saxon Conversion

Beowulf, Orality and the Anglo-Saxon Conversion

Richard N. Fahey
College of Arts and Sciences Honors Thesis
University of Vermont
May, 1 2008

Introduction

Beowulf, the famous tale recorded in Old English, is a metrically intricate work of art and the longest poem written in the impressive Anglo-Saxon vernacular tradition, which was the largest in early medieval Europe and was derived heavily from an oral culture. The story begins with the mythic founding of the Shieldings, when Sclyd Shefing as an infant arrives in Denmark on a ship filled with gold. After a brief mention of Scyld’s many noble deeds, the poet tells of his funeral ship which carried his body out to sea in a boat full of treasure, a great honor. The reader is then whisked away to Heorot, the mighty hall of the Shielding king, Hrothgar “the Wise.” This lord is a great ring-giver, and men flock to his ranks, but soon Heorot comes under attack by a villainous fiend, the monstrous cannibal named Grendel. This monster is labeled a descendant of Cain, the biblical slayer of his brother Abel. For this antisocial action Grendel and all his kin are banished and roam the swamplands and wilds of Denmark.
This ogre both hates and loves the hall, and from the wilderness, Grendel hears the song-tales in the hall and the sweet sound of the lyre. Alone in the marshes, he envies the men within, and the merrymaking drives him mad so he makes his first murderous journey to Heorot. For many nights Grendel assaults the Danish (Shielding) hall, but cannot approach Hrothgar’s golden throne, for God himself repells the fiend. Still he tears warriors asunder, carrying off dozens in his mighty arms to feast on later in his murky lair. The distressed Hrothgar, helpless in his old age, seeks advice, and many of the boldest knights come to his defense, but it is all in vain. Grendel now rules Heorot.
In the far off court of Hygelac, word has reached the ears of Beowulf, and so the Geatish warrior enlists a war-band, and crosses the treacherous ocean to the land of the Shieldings to slay the terrible Grendel. A Danish coast-guard questions Beowulf, but quickly accepts his aid and leads him to Heorot. Beowulf states his name and is recognized by Hrothgar as a fierce and noble warrior. The hero then enters the hall and gives an account of his heroic deeds, declaring in the end that he will fight the monstrous Grendel. Hrothgar tells of his friendly relations with Beowulf’s elders, and tells of the destruction which Grendel wreaked.
They all feast and drink merrily in the hall, until Unferth, an alleged Danish kin-slayer, begins to question Beowulf’s valor and doubt his deeds. Beowulf sharply corrects him, telling of his journey with a friend across the ocean and his battles with nine venomous sea-serpents. Unferth concedes, and Beowulf reaffirms his oath to defeat their terrible enemy. Wealhtheow, Hrothgar’s queen, graces the banquet and bears the cup to the men before darkness covers the land and brings the ogre to their hall. Hrothgar then leaves the hall in Beowulf’s keeping, after another boast from the hero. Beowulf refuses weapons and he and his retinue of Geats take rest as they wait for Grendel’s approach. The monstrous fiend strikes again, killing a Geatish warrior before grappling with Beowulf. Never before had Grendel met his match, and Beowulf “the Strong” rips his arm from his body sending the ogre fleeing into the moors and fulfilling his oath to Hrothgar.
There is then much rejoicing and tales are sung of Beowulf’s courage in the hall of Hrothgar and then other Germanic stories are told such as the tale of “Sigmund the Dragon-slayer.” Hrothgar adopts Beowulf, and places Grendel’s arm as a trophy on the wall. The hall is repaired, and they feast in celebration as gifts are presented to Beowulf and his Geatish companions, while listening to Danish tales of old. That night the Danes soundly sleep, yet there is another threat lurking in the night, Grendel’s mother, an elf-witch. She avenges her evil son, killing one of Hrothgar’s greatest vassals. That morning Beowulf is summoned, and swears to repay Grendel’s mother for her night’s work. Beowulf arms himself, and journeys to her den, an underwater cavern. He dives in and does battle with her, striking her head from her neck with an old giant’s sword found in this dank cave. He finds the wounded Grendel lying there as well and takes both his head and arm as a prize.
He returns to Heorot, where he is thought to be dead, and again is praised and endowed with treasure by the wise Danish king. After feasting and resting, the Geats embark on a voyage home. When Beowulf and his company arrive in their native realm, they are welcomed in Hygelac’s hall. First the hero tells of the events in Denmark, and then presents the gifts of Hrothgar to his lord, King Hygelac. In return, Hygelac bestows land on Beowulf and gives him the mightiest sword in his treasury. Beowulf serves his lord well, but as time passes Hygelac falls, and the kingdom is passed to Beowulf. He rules well for fifty years protecting his people, until one the day a dragon comes. A greedy thief had snuck into the monster’s treasure-hoard and stole a chalice from the heap. Once awoken, the dragon notices the burglary and begins to terrorize the countryside, burning villages to the ground. Beowulf then remembers his service as a counselor to Hygelac’s heir, Heardred, who was slain in a Swedish feud, which Beowulf settled after assuming the throne. With his realm in need, the old king rises once again to the challenge and decides to meet this terrible wyrm in combat and swears that he will slay this foe if it is the last thing he does.
He marches with loyal thanes to the mouth of the dragon’s den, where the fiery terror engages the mighty lord. The two enemies meet in a violent struggle, and Beowulf breaks his sword on the dragon’s tough scales. In return, the serpent fatally wounds the mighty king with its venomous fangs. One of the thanes, Wiglaf, rushes to aid his king in his final hour, and together the two warriors slay the dragon. As Beowulf lies dying, he instructs Wiglaf to raid the hoard and then orders his men to build a monument to him so for all who sail by the Geatish coast to see evermore. As Beowulf said, so was it done, and Wiglaf scolds those who broke their oaths to Beowulf. Wiglaf foresees impending attacks on the Geats, and takes up the responsibility of kingship. He goes with seven thanes to get the treasure from the hoard, and as the pyre burns, his people lament at the fall of the mightiest of warriors, their former king, Beowulf.
There is no source quite like the Beowulf manuscript, as it is the longest poem and the only epic composed in Old English which has survived to the modern era, and thus is central to any understanding of Anglo-Saxon literature. But what can it tell the historian about the mentality or worldview that produced it? This tale is about the adventures of the Geatish cultural hero who accomplishes great deeds and slays the mightiest of monsters. The text has been deemed a great many things: from a wild folktale to an anthropological document, a poor mimicry of Vergil’s Aeneid to a metric and poetic masterpiece of the Middle Ages, a complete work of fiction to a useful historical document, even a Christian allegory or an authentic oral narrative of the Germanic tribes. For many years scholars interpreted the tale as no more than a fantastic fable with little to offer, until the groundbreaking article of 1937 by J.R.R Tolkien, entitled, Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics. In this writing Tolkien argued for taking Beowulf on its own terms not in competition with Latin or Greek poetry, and against focusing primarily on the historical digressions as the only source of legitimate information in the story. He acknowledged the historical value of this manuscript, while understanding its limitations, saying that, “in places [there is] poetry so powerful, that it quite overshadows the historical content, and is largely independent even of the most important historical facts that research has discovered.” His focus on the literary masterpiece and sophisticated rhythmic structure of the poem made many scholars take a second glance at this text. It was this apology that revitalized interest in this old text, and moved the medievalist community toward a better comprehension of the tale, but almost always in discussion of literature.
This new interest, however, raised new questions, and fueled old ones. Debates about the date of the poem’s composition, the background of the Beowulf-poet and even the number of scribes continue to rage on, complicating any attempt to read Beowulf as historical evidence. Since no one definitive answer can be given to exactly where the Beowulf-poet drew his influences, never mind how many of him there actually were, or when he composed the manuscript, many historians have chosen to respectfully ignore the poem when discussing the Anglo-Saxon conversion, leaving this tale for English seminars. The goal of this paper is to break down this separation between scholars of medieval literature and history and to uncover a new way of understanding Beowulf through an innovative interdisciplinary approach. The paper begins quite traditionally, first determining the most likely date of the poem’s composition, and then establishing the leading ecclesiastical ideas during the Conversion Era in Anglo-Saxon England, framing the religious context during which the poet wrote. A discussion of the deep historical value which lies within oral narratives follows, after which the paper will explore a brief overview of the oral nature and likely origin of Beowulf. By applying an anthropological approach, more commonly a tool of historians of African, American Indian, and Aboriginal cultures, and in conjunction with historical knowledge of Old English and medieval Anglo-Saxon culture, the paper firmly places Beowulf as an oral tradition. Finally, this paper uses an investigation of the monsters within Beowulf to offer an anthropological analysis and provide further insight into the complexity of conversion and some of the cultural ideals of pre-Christian Anglo-Saxons.
There is no doubt that Beowulf is an extremely complex medieval document, and for any who wish to move toward a better understanding of the text, the first important question becomes context and thus the debate of the dating of the manuscript must be resolved. Beowulf is a narrative which affords medievalists a rare blend of pagan and Christian ideology. This fusion between the old Germanic tribal traditions and the newer mission of Western Christianity, speaks not only to an original composition not long after the English conversion, near the so-called “age of Bede” or “Mercian Supremacy,” but also to the complexity of such a time and the ways in which newly converted Christians were understanding their pagan ancestors in the seventh and eighth centuries.
Much of what we know of this time period, the very beginning of the vernacular literary tradition in Anglo-Saxon England, and the manner in which Christianity spread across the island, comes from prominent church leaders. Perhaps the two most influential of their day were “the Venerable” Bede, (d. 735 CE) often referred to as the first English historian, and Alcuin “of York,” (d. 803 CE) who is known as the first school master, as he was the educator at Charlemagne’s school at Aachen. The religious sentiments of the Roman Church, and its views on salvation and paganism, are essential in understanding the historical context of this complex age of change. Often history books (and even medieval history introductions) leave understanding this complicated transitional era in English history to these two individuals, who are deeply invested in an exclusively Christian reality thus painting the picture of an almost clean conversion. This wishful projection, far more simplistic than is plausible, allows a mere two men, monastics of extreme and radical piety, to speak for the entirety of a nation. This has been noted by medievalist Karen Jolly in her study of Anglo-Saxon popular religion, “representatives of this formal religion, the missionaries, reformers, and church historians, present conversion as a dramatic shift in religion orientation, a radical transformation in belief—a definition that is still common today.” In regard to the many Christian elf-charms which are recorded by late Anglo-Saxon vernacular writers, she states that, “these narratives also suggest that it was a dynamic process stretched over time involving a great deal of cultural assimilation between the imported Romano-Christian religion and the native folklife of the various ‘Germanic’ peoples settling in Europe,” demonstrating the problem of subscribing too closely to the dominant Christian historical narrative so commonly ascribed to the Middle Ages.
There are obvious dangers to this practice, since men such as Alcuin and Bede only accurately represent the most educated and most deeply invested in Christianity, and indeed through sources, such as Beowulf, we can perhaps begin to get a fuller picture. Yet, it would be equally as dangerous to ignore the perspectives of men like Alcuin and Bede, whose ideas helped to shape the development of England and Europe evermore. Through close examination of their writings the sentiments of these two men are revealed, demonstrating exactly how they perceived salvation and the so-called heathens, who were indeed their own ancestors. Establishing this context is important in knowing the prescribed official church stance on themes addressed in Beowulf, namely how Christians understood their own pagan grandparents and also for understanding the sources from where traditional historians draw much of their information about the era. These two men seem to embody the Church’s ideas in Britain and even on the continent during their lives. Therefore a close reading of their writing is imperative for having a sense of the world in which the Beowulf-poet lived and wrote, and perhaps even help to better comprehend why he chose to record, in his words, this oral poem.
Beowulf, though it should in no way be seen as a purely pagan story, is certainly an oral narrative originating in pre-Christian Germanic tribal culture, as this paper will show. By comparing this Old English poem to oral narratives from around the world, from the American Indian tribes, to the Norse and Celtic myths, and including also the epic tales of Vergil and Homer, the nature and function of Beowulf becomes much clearer. This is not to say that oral cultures around the world are, at all, the same. However, the stories of cultural morality which arise from such societies embody a certain formula, and include many historical digressions as a means of remembering the past and to guiding listeners toward proper social behavior and the communal ethos, even as specific cultural values vary drastically from culture to culture. Though this barely scratches the surface and gives but a peek at the seemingly endless evidence linking Beowulf and the entire epic tradition with cultural hero stories, a comparative analysis of various oral narratives places the poem firmly into the genre of monster-slaying tales, which too, seem to serve a specific cross-cultural function. Historians of American Indian culture, as well as scholars of African and Aboriginal history have utilized oral traditions as an effective and fruitful means of obtaining otherwise unreachable information into a past which was never formally recorded. This suggests then that applying comparative and interdisciplinary analytic tools used by scholars of oral traditions may yield new insights in Beowulf and the time from whence the poem emerged.
It is tempting to write Beowulf off as a work of pure fantastic fiction, or leave it to scholars of literature to discuss and debate. In doing so, medievalists sacrifice one of the most important sources in comprehending the complexity of the English conversion. In Beowulf, as with many oral narratives, the monsters are central and reveal important cultural information. Yet to many, these creatures are often a sign of fiction and fantasy, and thus discredit significant tales which embody cultural ethos and give deep insight into societies long since passed. Traditional historians seem to have ignored this type of evidence in the study of European history from some delusional feeling that there is enough knowledge from other more traditional sources to understand all of Western history accurately without resorting to vernacular poetry. Such a notion, obviously, could not be further from the truth. Does a tale of an impossibly strong cultural hero of the past have less to offer than the impossibly pious and miraculous saints’ lives from which we ascertain much of orthodox medieval history? On the contrary, this story can truly tell us something valuable about the way in which pre-Christians saw themselves and also about how the recently converted English were processing the drastic spiritual change which they experienced.
The Christian overtones are prevalent within the text, told as if from the voice of the poet, yet in an almost dramatic irony, which leaves the characters within the tale totally unaware. The tone of the Beowulf-poet is indeed quite sympathetic to these noble pagans, making a subtle statement about his views on his ancestors as differing from that of the British church fathers. Furthermore, the Christian references within the narrative are minimal, and allude not to Christ but rather to the Old Testament. In fact, the allusions are themselves to Christian mythology, involving fate and God’s strife with the giants of old, a theme also familiar to Germanic pagan religion. The main focus is on the creation of these giants and monstrous creatures, Grendel’s kind, through an act of extreme antisocial behavior. To many cultures, and certainly to many tribal communities, honor, respect, and loyalty to one’s family and leader are perhaps the most important morals of society, and thus the kin slaying of Abel, an action which the tribal Germans also abhorred, bred these terrible monsters who threaten mankind. This similarity between the Old Testament of the Bible, and also the Germanic mythologies is a point of agreement, pagan and Christian alike. Indeed it is in passages such as these in which one can see the fusion of the two world views which occurred during this contentious time.
This inserted Christianity bridges, and perhaps serves to validate, both world views, though clearly Beowulf is a tale set in the wyrd lens of the pre-Christian Anglo-Saxons. It is important to remember also that not all English churchmen outlined paganism entirely in evil terms. When Pope Gregory himself sent the first papal authority to Kent, Bishop Augustine, he instructed the bishop to take their folk practices and beliefs and fuse them with the messages of Christ. As is the case when almost any two religions meet, rather than one conquering the other, the two often mesh to form what is essentially a new religion, sharing ideals from both belief systems, a phenomenon which scholars of religions call syncretism. As voodoo is a combination of Yoruban African practices and French Catholicism, and Chinese Buddhism becomes infused with Daoist ideals during the Tang dynasty, so too Anglo-Saxon England experiences a similar synthesis. For example, Yule, the winter solstice festival of light, became Christmas, complete with fir tree and holly. Likewise, Ostara, the spring equinox fertility festival became Easter, complete with bunnies and eggs. It was very likely this amiable attitude, which the church first took in England brought about peaceful conversion through synthesis, and the Beowulf-poet seems to be a descendant of this line of thinking.
Though oral traditions evolve and are interpreted by every generation through which they pass, keeping them ever contemporary and applicable, many of their ideas, morals, and social instructions remain, as the message is what keeps the tale alive. The ethical and prescriptive elements found in Beowulf demonstrate the key functions for which these tales are told. So it is not surprising, nor should we fear the contemporary Christian context in which the poet places this Germanic tale, for such is the evolving nature of all oral narratives. Still, the story is undoubtedly far older, and thus can provide some profound insight into a pre-Christian world view; its values, customs and warrior ethos. Understanding this earlier morality may explain the origin of medieval ideals of chivalry, fealty to one’s lord, and warrior ethics which remain prominent throughout the Middle Ages. Even more valuable is the ability of this heroic tale to reflect popular society and thus provides information as to what was going on at the ground level of the Anglo-Saxon conversion. If Beowulf is indeed an oral narrative, then it speaks volumes as to how Anglo-Saxons continued to find value in Germanic tribal culture in a post conversion world. Through anthropological analysis of this poem, the historian can begin to better understand the slow process of conversion and gain access to popular ideas between the sixth and eleventh century.

The Dating of Beowulf

In order to link the worldview of the Beowulf-poet to a specific historical context, it is essential to establish the time and place which produced the poem. Unfortunately, the dating of Beowulf is a controversial topic. Indeed, some medievalists claim that, “the date of the original composition will be forever debated,” and that, “we cannot decide when between the fifth and eleventh century, the poem was composed.” The earliest scholarship on Beowulf tended to favor an early date. The first opinion was voiced by Grimur Thorkelin and came off the press in 1815, claiming that the text provided, “an understanding of our people’s religion and poetry… as well as a narrative of their activities in the third and fourth century.” However, N. F. S. Grundtvig identified the historical Hygelac, a Germanic king, who is the lord of Beowulf and all Geats in this medieval poem. Thus Grundtvig reached, “the conclusion that events described in the poem could be dated between 515 and 530, and put any date prior to the mid-sixth century out of the question.”
The historical consensus amongst early twentieth-century medievalists quickly became that, “the poem was composed at some time during the life of Bede, the great Northern English teacher, biographer and historian who died in 735.” The linguistic structure of the poem, the range of historical information found therein from the fourth to the eighth century, and the literary explosion in Mercia at that time have all traditionally led historians of the era to assume Beowulf was composed sometime during the lives of the Venerable Bede and Alcuin of York or very shortly thereafter. For example, Ritchie Girvan, “had published a set of three lectures re-examining linguistic, cultural, historical, and folkloric evidence to support a date of composition in the second half of the seventh century.” Medievalist W. W. Lawrence reaffirmed likely date of composition in 1928 stating, “The commonly accepted dating in the age of Bede remains unshaken.” Medievalists arrived at this conclusion through linguistic evidence, as demonstrated by Lorenz Morsbach who, “applied another dating criterion directly to Beowulf. On the basis of comparison of debatable early texts, he felt that he had solid evidence that the loss of the final u after long root syllable and of postcolonial h before vowels occurred close to the year 700 and that Beowulf therefore had to have been composed after that date.”
A relative consensus was reached only a few years later, agreeing upon the eighth century or the so-called “age of Bede.” Often in discussing the dating of Beowulf, linguistic evidence has been crucial. For example, scholars such as Levin L. Schuking and, “in 1929 Alois Brandl again accepted the merewioingas [meaning ‘sea-viking’] reading as indication not only a date of composition around 700, but a Mercian origin as well.” Aside from linguistics, historical knowledge and general logic also have been employed by medievalists as a means of answering the date question, “discussed in 1948 by Sune Lindqvist, who accepted a date for Beowulf of ca. 700 and felt the poem could have been composed to honour the Uffingas, ‘ a branch of the Royal House of Uppsala and descendants of Wiglaf.’” The style and metrics of this poem seems to mark the eighth century as the latest plausible date of Beowulf’s composition.
However, doubt began to creep in, as we see in the case of scholar C. L. Wrenn who in 1950, “started out with a precise date of c. 700, moving three years later to a somewhat less precise ‘before 750.’” Moreover, “In 1951 Dorothy Whitlock urged scholars to reconsider whether Beowulf should be assigned to the ‘age of Bede’ — not ‘that the poem could not have been composed then, but merely that it need not have been.” However the consensus remained, and as Tom Shippey accurately stated in the early 1970s, “Virtually no one now thinks of Beowulf as post-825.” This is directly preceded by academic literature on the topic which further supports Shippey’s statement, and “in 1978 alone Patrick Wormald and W.F. Bolton each published an extensive commentary on the background of the poem, assuming an eighth-century date of composition.” This remained the case throughout the 1980s and into the following decade, during which time, “No editor, translator, or commentator could be found firmly committed to a date outside the range of 650-800.” Nevertheless, as we approach the modern day, an era of critique and dissension, many have revised their position even further. For example, Seamus Heany moved from a secure belief in eighth-century composition, to a more open minded disposition, ranging the date of the original text anywhere between the seventh and eleventh century. Also, translator Michael Alexander who in 1973 asserted, “Beowulf was probably first assumed its present shape in the eighth century,” almost twenty years later states simply that the work, “was in existence before the death of King Alfred in 899.”
Though not many in number, a few prominent medievalists such as Roberta Frank do argue that a later dating seems more logically accurate. In 2007 she published an article in Speculum, calling herself and the other preachers of a later date, “The fearsome five—Alexander C. Murray, Ray Page, Eric Stanley, Walter Goffart,” a group that, “stalked our elusive quarry to the end of the ninth and beginning of the tenth century.” Like many of her fellow Beowulf-daters, Frank relies heavily on linguistics, but she ends up using the malleability of language to prove it as inconclusive on the topic. Still other medievalists believe that the poem is purely a product of the eleventh century from which the only surviving manuscript of the tale dates. Historical logic once again is brought into the debate, this time by dissenting scholars, who assert that, “Anglo-Saxon poems like Beowulf might have emerged during the reign of Knut the Great as an aesthetic aftermath of the Danish Conquest.” This is due to thriving art of Nordic storytelling and poetry during that time, and “the subject-matter of Beowulf is thoroughly Scandinavian, and may well have been composed by an Anglo Saxon poet who grew up on Danelaw. The poem begins with a dedicatory salute to the founding of Knut’s royal Scylding dynasty.”
Scholar John Niles first agreed that, “Beowulf was composed sometime between the sixth- and seventh-century conversion of the English to Christianity,” but he changed his mind and moved the date later to around the time of Danelaw, as he continued in his studies. However, if the poem was purely a product of this era then one would imagine the cultural hero to be Danish not Geatish, perhaps the courageous stories of Scyld Scefing or wise Hrothgar. In terms of a classical epic such as the Aeneid it is clear that Vergil was engaging in ancient propaganda to an extent, for Aeneas, the protagonist is directly linked to ruling authority. This famous Latin epic poem is historical perceived as a function of Vergil’s mind working with other recorded myths and of course the Homeric epics. This, however, is not the case in Beowulf. Instead, the Danes are in need of aid, and the twisted court counselor Unferth, indeed even an alleged kin-slayer, who challenges Beowulf is also of Danish descent. Beowulf reveals him saying, “you were a man-slayer, killed you brothers, closest kinsmen for which you must suffer damnation in the depth, clever as you are,” marking him as dark and twisted because of his action. This Danish inferiority is manifest in the Geatish hero’s reply to the sharp of words Unferth in regards their inability to deal with Grendel, “he has found that he need not from your people, the Victory-Shieldings, dread too great a feud, nor fierce thrashing of sword-edges. He takes his toll, has no mercy for the Danish people, he lusts for feasting, slays and devours, and expects no retaliation from any of the Spear-Danes. But I will show him this very night, the courage and strength of the Geats.” This passage, while again emphasizing revenge, courage and strength, also stresses Beowulf’s Geatish ancestry.
Niles’ point is still well heard as an explanation for why this tale remained alive during the ninth century, for it may have been told primarily because it could help to unite Anglo-Saxon and Danes under a somewhat common Germanic heritage. However, because the Danish involvement is minimal and this unity is by no means the primary message of Beowulf, it is likely not closely tied with its original composition. The poem must have been around earlier and it seems to have been circulating and even composed during the era of conversion or shortly thereafter. If this is true, then Beowulf survived the Middle Ages and was preserved, copied or even altered again in later centuries because it contained the right side characters, validated the right lineages, and held values which still remained culturally important for, “the creative ethnicity with which the poem shapes its source materials makes sense in this early – and mid-tenth-century context as an expression of the ideology of nationhood that was emerging at that time,” but is almost certainly a much older tale.
It is logical that ruling lords of Danish descent in the tenth century would have valued this tale and that they would even use it as propaganda legitimizing their rule. However, that is no reason to conclude its original composition was at this time. Thus it seems Beowulf may have more likely been one of the pagan tales copied in the eighth century which Alcuin condemns, since it is not Knut’s Danish ancestors, neither Scyld nor Hrothgar, who are the cultural heroes in the text, but rather the Geatish Beowulf who proves his worth. However, the era of Danelaw is likely to be the exact reason why Beowulf was copied and adapted in the eleventh century. Although it is always possible that the only surviving Beowulf manuscript was in fact the first recording of the story, the detail of pagan lineages, and the heavy handed social and cultural Germanic warrior ethos takes up as much, if not more, of the text than the exciting battle scenes, and so, it seems irrational to credit the eleventh century scribe as the original Beowulf-poet.
The age of Bede theory as the relative time of composition, or slightly thereafter, never disappeared entirely as demonstrated by a comment from Ted Irving in 1989, “I think Beowulf is (or was originally) an eighth-century Mercian court poem.” But then in the early 1990s, a new linguistic lens from which to view the dating of Beowulf was developed by Robert D. Fulk, who after looking at patterns and gathering linguistic evidence concluded, “Beowulf almost certainly was not composed after ca. 725 if Mercian in origin, or after ca. 825 if Northumbrian.” Fulk himself, moreover, believed that although the origin could not definitively be determined, “what evidence there is suggests that it is Mercian.” This innovative analytical method has begun to recruit many to his side, based on the evidence he discerned using what is known as ‘Kaluza’s Law.’ This dating system was supported by many including Michael Lapidge, and Stephen Evans who labels the text as quite early due to, “the poet’s utter and unequivocal adherence to Kaluza’s Law.” Thus medievalists such as Robert Bjork warn those who believe in a later dating that Fulk’s analysis is, “the most recent, meticulously argued, and seemingly reliable test for (relatively) absolute dating.”
In fact, by 2004 the impact of Fulk’s work was setting in and scholars have come to view it as the most authentic answer to the dating question of Beowulf. As Dennis Cronan states, “Fulk’s dating has recently been further strengthened by Michael Lapidge, who has recently argued that the patterns of letter confusion in the Beowulf manuscript indicate an archetype ‘in Anglo Saxon set minuscule script, written before 750.” Likewise, that very year Richard Marsden also concluded that because the Anglo Saxon script found in Beowulf, “was only in use until 750,” logically the poem could not have been originally composed any later than that date. Ultimately, though the debate will no doubt continue as it has for centuries, taking all things into account, the most plausible dating is still viewed by the majority of medievalists as being from the so-called age of Bede.
The political and religious history of this period is thus crucial to understand the world of the Beowulf-poet. We will begin two hundred-years before, when Roman political authority in Britain collapsed as the empire in the west fell into ruin. Pope Gregory “the Great” in 597 CE sent Bishop Augustine to bring Roman Christianity to the kingdom of Kent. This man was the founder of the faith in Anglo-Saxon England. Augustine achieved much success because he allowed for syncretization to occur and encouraged pagan practices which were congruent with Christian ideology. He even took pagan solstice and equinox celebrations and attach a new Christian meaning to these holy days, “that days of dedication or birthdays of holy martyrs of whom the relics be there placed, they make them bowers of branches of trees about the said churches which have been changed from temples.” In an effort to convert the Anglo-Saxons the church emphasized overlap between the worldviews. The Venerable Bede himself wrote that Pope Gregory “the Great” directed Augustine not to destroy the pagan temples but rather, “the temples of the idols in the said country ought not to be broken; but the idols alone which be in them; that holy water be made and sprinkled about the same temples, constructed altars and relics placed for if the said temples be well built.” Even the pagan practice of animal sacrifice was not abandoned but rather to be altered to meet a Christian worldview, encouraging that converted Christian kings continue still, “hold solemn feast together after a religious sort, and that they no more sacrifice animals to the veil but kill them to the refreshing of themselves to the praise of God, and render thanks to the Giver of all things for their abundance.” Indeed it seems paganism, at least at first, was incorporated into Christianity rather than placed in opposition to it.
Augustine went first to Kent where the lord of the realm, King Ethelbert, quickly became a Christian convert and allowed the monks to reside safely within his kingdom. He was the bretwalda, the highest king in Anglo-Saxon England, and wrote a series of laws, dooms which discuss Germanic tradition through this new spiritual lens, judging many pagan practices. King Ethelbert died in 616 CE and the bretwaldaship passed to East Anglia to the pagan King Renald who ruled over Kent, Essex and his homeland of East Anglia. Thus the Christian mission shifted to Northumbria.
Northumbria was the recently unified realms of Bernicia and Deira and was founded by the Bernician warlord King Elthelfrith who won a series of victories over the Celts, Scots and Anglo-Britain Deira and died in 616 CE. Edwin became king in 616 CE after killing Ethelfrith, and went on to be a victorious king who led many successful military campaigns and rules until 633 CE. King Edwin was warlike and dominated Anglo-Saxon England. Thus his conversion was significant in the writings of Bede and in the Christianization of England. Like the Merovingian King Clovis and Ethelbert of Kent, Edwin had a Christian wife who is believed to have urged him toward the one true Christian God. King Edwin was also beckoned toward the Christian faith in a letter from the pope himself. At a royal council of 627 CE Edwin and his counselors accepted Christianity in its Roman form, “as the council concluded, the chief priest of the heathen gods is reported to have embraced the new religion and, with him, King Edwin himself. The Roman Church had won a notable triumph in a remote but powerful land,” and thus the faith was said to have spread through the kingdom free all it touched from damnation.
In 633 CE a terrible event befell Edwin and the ruler of Northumbria was slain by the pagan King Penda of Mercia. When Northumbria lay in ruins the Bernician princes Oswald and Oswy won the throne by defeating the Mercians and the Welsh bringing with them Celtic Christianity from Scotland. Under the patronage of King Oswald who reigned from 634-642 CE Celtic Christianity was established and flourished in Northumbria and continued to under his successor King Oswy who ruled until 670 CE. Northumbria above all received a prominent blend of Celtic and Roman Christianty and experienced a level of synergy. Celtic missionary St. Aidan founded the famous monastery at Lindisfarne known as the center of Celtic Christianity and culture within England, where tales of Ingeld were still being recorded during the life of Alcuin. Even though Celtic learning was deeply ingrained in Anglo-Saxon culture, Roman Christianity gradually expanded and came to be the dominant influence in the creation of English Catholicism. Perhaps because of how highly organized the Roman church was, or because of the influence of Augustine’s mission, whatever the case the final victory of Roman Christianity was the synod in 664 CE at the abbey of Whitby in the presences, of king Oswy which really ended the struggle between the two forms of Christian faith. Clergy came from every corner of Britain, and Roman Christianity was made the official religion of England, when Columba, the founder of Celtic Christianity, was trumped by the Saint Peter who is said to be the rock of the Roman church, thus founding the Roman papacy itself. This led to an explosion of writing and learning often referred to as the Northumbrian Renaissance, represented often by the work of Venerable Bede.
Northumbria did not remain on top for long, and soon Mercia is said to have converted and in doing so rose above the other kingdoms. During much of his reign, King Penda exercised control over the kingdoms at his borders, including Wessex and East Anglia, and because of his remarkable success he was among the most feared pagan rulers, whom Bede associates with the devil. Though Penda was pagan, his son Wulfhere was Christian and heir to the throne, ruling Mercia from 658-675 CE. Though King Wulfhere followed his mother’s faith he had his father’s taste for power, and was equally as ambitious. The king shared his predecessor’s drive for control and bent all others to his will causing Mercian growth which ushered in a new era in Anglo-Saxon England, often referred to by modern scholars as the Mercian Supremacy. It was during this golden age of Mercia that Alcuin “of York” took center stage as a leading church authority and was employed by Charlemagne, the first Frankish king crowned by the pope and given the title Holy Roman Emperor. Alcuin was his person scribe and school master at his palace complex in Aachen, guiding his lord during the numerous Frankish campaigns and conversion efforts against the pagan Saxons. The following two Mercian monarchs, Ethelbald and Offa, were kings of great power and influence, and created an administrative system and central organization of an unprecedented scale, documenting the hides of most Anglo-Saxons south of the Humber River. King Offa is often perceived as being allied and in communication with Charlemagne, himself. By the end of Offa’s reign in 796 CE the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms had converted, or at least their rulers had, and at this point the historical narrative tends to proclaim England as firmly Christian, granting success to Augustine’s mission. Yet, this was a period of extreme religious change and exchange in the British Isles, with various forms of Christian and pagan ideas circling. It was a time when many certainly would have vividly remembered pre-Christian England and the process of conversion was still fresh and indeed ongoing. We turn now to an investigation of the ecclesiastical ideas which shape the traditional historical narrative of conversion

The Legacy of Bede and Alcuin
Views on Salvation and the Pagan

When considering the conversion time in Anglo-Saxon England we are faced with extremely limited sources, and thus have only pieces of a larger historical picture, though there is no doubt this island experienced a religious blending of Roman Christianity, Celtic Christianity and Germanic paganism. The famous churchmen of the age, namely “the Venerable” Bede and Alcuin of York, have given modern historians much of what has become historically accepted about the era which most likely gave birth to Beowulf. It has been long held that both monastics, and also the church in general terms, had strict guidelines in regard to the salvation of the soul, and that these men engaged in what they saw as a spiritual contest being fought between Christian and pagan. To some extent Bede, and most certainly Alcuin, were trying to replace the oral, poetic, vernacular, pagan stories with another narrative, one that was Latin, literate, Christian and in prose. This narrative gave the Anglo-Saxon tribes a new history, “for it was Bede’s purpose to narrate the miraculous rise of Christianity in Britain and its crucial role of imposing coherence and purpose on the chaos of human events. In Bede’s hands the history of the Britons and Anglo-Saxons, and the rise of Christianity among them acquired shape and direction,” making them a nation united by the Christian faith and before that merely a people waiting to be Christianized. Bede’s version of English history was adopted by Christian missionaries and monastics across Britain and even on the continent itself, a rival to the Germanic heroic historical account of events.
While most medievalists traditionally have concluded that the churchmen took a hard stance against any non-Christian, there are those who would contend that these monastics might condone or even encourage the recording of secular, vernacular literature such as Beowulf. This is precisely the opinion advocated by revisionist historian, W. F. Bolton, who points out that, “Alcuin observes that the pagan thinkers held three things necessary to rule a people and to achieve the greatest personal integrity: ‘the ornament of wisdom, the commendation of study, the efficacy of learning,’” suggesting that Alcuin’s admiration and love for the literature is thus attached to this ancient literary tradition in addition to the newer Christian tradition which he loved most dearly and judged to be right. He goes even further then to suggest that these sentiments apply also to Germanic heroic poems because, “Alcuin knew, respected, and relished non-Christian literature,” and because, “In Alcuin’s program, the students recapitulate the history of Western civilization by studying pagan literature before Christian,” in the exact format established by Bede in writing his English history, by first starting with the pagan lineages.
Still, does this mean that Alcuin or Bede condoned the recording of new pagan literature and heroic poetry centuries after the eruption of Christianity? As noted by a contemporary medievalist, Patrick Wormald, in a review of Bolton’s work, “It is true that Alcuin’s condemnations of classical literature are matched by an evident familiarity with Virgil and admiration for him, but that is a very different and familiar problem; there is nothing whatsoever to suggest a similar admiration for Germanic poetry or that Alcuin would have seen Virgil and the Beowulf-poet in the same light.” Thus Wormald upholds the stance of traditional medieval historians, that in his condemnation of pagans, “Alcuin is representing the tradition of monastic and canonical hostility to the cultivation of secular literature,” a tradition in part forged by his predecessor for, “Bede writes that he had received his gift from God, and hence, ‘he could compose no frivolous and futile poetry at all, but only those things that pertained to religion suited his pious tongue.’” Ultimately, though he acknowledged that, “western writers like Augustine and Gregory were never prepared to assert that God had condemned all pagans.” Nevertheless, Wormald retains the view that the prevalent eighth-century ecclesiastical English opinion, “emphatically opposed the indulgent celebration of pagan virtue,” and that both Alcuin and Bede saw the recording of pagan tales as blasphemy and their heathen ancestors as doomed to the inferno. The visions of Pope Gregory the Great and the Venerable Bede represent two radically different interpretations of paganism, though they both were indeed considered pious Christians leaders themselves. It seems, however, that since Ecclesiastical History was written the church in Britain adhered firmly to Bede’s new historical narrative after the Anglo-Saxon conversion was deemed complete and the unification of the various kingdoms under the Christian faith.
A more complete understanding of why Bede documented the pagan “English” kings or how Alcuin regarded classical Roman pagans could shine light on this debate, and provide insight to the historical narrative created and affirmed by these two ecclesiastics. Was their stance less harsh than is often accepted by scholars, or is there another way to understand the motivations of these churchmen and how they saw their work in the newly Christian world? Though Bede does record the history of kingship before conversion came to Anglo-Saxon England, perhaps because of a lingering respect for his pagan ancestors, however, it seems that they are included primarily to set up the events of Christian conversion. Likewise, Alcuin’s respect for classical Roman pagans seems fueled by his personal love for Latin literature, and his admiration of this “civilized” culture and their ancient literary tradition. Ultimately, these two church founders do not seem to show any sympathy for Germanic pagans, those who to them are beyond the grace of God, rather it seems their goal is to unify Britain and indeed all of Europe under their new faith and the Christian historical narrative crafted by Bede.
Often known as the first British historian, ‘the Venerable’ Bede, was likely born in 672 CE and became the leading voice of the church throughout the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England while he was alive. Traditionally he has been accepted as a man who speaks for an era, to which scholar Ruby Davis subscribes calling, “Bede the foremost scholar of his day in Western Europe, a man in whom ‘the whole learning of his age seemed to be summed up.” In viewing himself as a historian, Bede consciously attempted to formulate and instill a new Christian narrative both in an effort to unify the various Anglo-Saxon realms into one “English Nation,” and supplant the older narrative of Germanic tribal history for “Bede powerfully reinforced in the minds of his contemporaries the concept of a gens Anglorum—an ‘English people.’ At a time when England was divided into numerous individual kingdoms and loyalties were limited to one’s clan or local lord, Bede conceived the notion of a single English race and made it the subject of history.” This ideas of England as one was an overt aim of Bede’s history, and long after his death but certainly as a result of Bede’s ecclesiastical guidance this vision of England became reality in the century to come.
Bede lived during a time when the Christian conversion was catching on like wildfire throughout the British Isles and, “his history was embroidered with visions and other miraculous events, for as a Christian believer he accepted the possibility of miracles.” Yet, he began his writings with a brief overview of their pagan past describing, “three of the more mighty nations of Germany, that is, the Saxons, the Angles and the Jutes,” even tracing lineages back to pagan deities, “And they were sons of Wictgils, whose father was Witta, whose father was Wecta, whose father was Woden, of whose issue the royal house of many provinces had their origin.” These names, Wictgils and Witta, are the Latin equivalents Hengest and Horsa, the two proclaimed founders of Anglo-Saxon England, and thus Wictgils is the very same Hengest which is alluded to in Beowulf.
In spite of this Bede writes of the evil heathen barbarian attacks on Rome and tells of Saint Alban, a preacher who spreads the grace and glory of God and was beaten for saying to a pagan judge, “these sacrifices which you offer up unto demons, neither can help them that are subject unto them, nor obtain for their worshipers their desires or prayers. Nay, rather, whosoever shall do sacrifice to these idols shall receive for his reward eternal pains by infernal flame.” By showing the people baptism, Alban amazed even the judge and Bede wrote that his conversion “yielded their souls to the joys of the heavenly city when their warfare was accomplished.” This dramatic conversion reinforced Bede’s Christian narrative by highlighting the power of the word of God and also it demonstrates that once that word reached Anglo-Saxon ears it opened their hearts to the one true faith.
This term Bede uses, ‘warfare’ demonstrates how this monastic views conversion, as a battle for souls, a mentality very much in tune with traditional Anglo-Saxon warrior ethos. In the mind of Bede, it seems clear that pagan spirits are lost to the pits of hell, and that it was not until the coming of Augustine that England, “that barbarous, savage and unbelieving nation,” was brought “the greater glory of eternal reward to follow.” This war for souls waged on, and the Christian missionaries are written to have, “prayed to the Lord both for their own eternal salvation and that of them as well to whom and for whose sake they had come thither,” proving themselves devoted to the defending of men’s spirits from the diabolical clutches of Satan. Even in this understanding of Christianity there is evidence of Germanic tribal cultural values. The language used by Bede reflects this worldview, awarding God the protective and dutiful title of Domino “Lord” instead of Pater “Father” as was more traditional in Roman Christianity. His condemnation of pagan culture can be seen in his writing about the marriage of Edwin saying, “it was not lawful for a Christian virgin to be given for wife to a pagan, lest the faith and sacraments of the King of Heaven might be profaned by the company of such a king as knew not at all the worshiping of the true God,” again drawing a clear line which dooms pagans to damnation, aligning them with the devil.
Fear is a tool often employed by the missionaries of Christ, and Bede writes of the pagan King Eadbald, “when he heard that for his own salvation’s sake the bishop had suffered so grievous beating of the apostle of Christ, he feared greatly; and so having cursed all worship of idols, and renouncing his unlawful marriage, he embraced the faith of Christ and was baptized,” and thus he joined the ranks of converted kings looking for the light at the end of the tunnel, the kingdom of heaven. Baptism, like faith and conversion, became another means by which the English may escape the evil grip of Satan. Bede records the work of Bishop Wilfird in Sussex stating that, “he instructed them all in the faith of Christ and cleansed them in the water of baptism,” and it is by this act that their souls are released from hell for, “all whom when by baptizing he did deliver from the bondage of the devil, by giving them their freedom he also loosened them from the yoke of Man’s bondage.” It is true that according to Bede, one could be, “illuminated with the reward of eternity by the regeneration of holy baptism,” and here we see that even in the later writings of Bede the battle for souls is far from concluded. In fact this monastic sets the stage for an ongoing struggle against unbelievers which would linger in England even unto the witch hunts of the Renaissance.
He even records an instance of what he calls a relapse to idolatry after the death of Sabert, king of the East Saxons, “who departed to the everlasting kingdoms left his three sons, which had remained yet pagan, heirs of his temporal kingdom of earth; and these began straightway and openly to follow idolatry.” The war of souls is not yet won, and is seen by Bede as an ongoing struggle, writing that, “these kings, which had driven from them the preachers of truth, were not long enslaved to the worship of demons without punishment.” This hard stance leaves very little room for tolerance, and while Bede acknowledges that the transition to the Christian faith was not exactly seamless, in his mind salvation came only through, “faith and conversion though, it is said, the king much rejoiced, yet he would force none to become Christian, but only embrace the believers with a closer affection, as being fellow-citizens with him of the heavenly kingdom,” because he was taught that eternal glory and “the service of Christ must be voluntary and not forced.” Perhaps because of this mentality, England was converted rather peacefully, quite the opposite of the religious campaigns of Charlemagne on the continent.
Bede builds much of his new Christian history by focusing on the conversion of the king, and salvation is a concern referenced constantly throughout his work. Still, we see the opinions of Bede most clearly in his chapter to the abbot, Mellitus, about heathen temples stating, “it is necessary that they be altered from the worshiping of demons into the service of the true God; that whiles the people do not see these, their said temples spoiled, they may forsake their error of heart and be moved with more readiness to haunt their wonted place to the knowledge and honor of the true God.” The monastic goes on to write about how “they make them bowers of branches of trees about the said churches which have been changed from temples, and hold solemn feast together after a religion sort; but kill them to the refreshing of themselves to the praise of God.” Later, in a letter to Ethelbert, Bede addressed the king saying, “seek with speed to set forth the Christian faith to the people subject unto you, increase the zeal of your righteousness in their conversion, set yourself against the worshiping of idols, overthrow the building of their temples, edify the manners of your subjects by the great purity of your life,” for though the king may have converted to this new faith, it is always a much a slower process in converting the people.
Bede continues to express throughout his books that only conversion and faith will bring salvation for the soul, thus leaving fallen pagans to roast in the great inferno. This repeated rhetoric emphasizes the dire need for all the “English people” to turn to this new religion for the sake of their eternal spirits, and helped to construct his Christian narrative. According to Bede, it is the word of God, which delivers a soul from torment, “by receiving the celestial words and the manifest showing forth of miracles beside, the excellence of the God’s wisdom is poured into it by the terror of that same divine nature it is so earnestly desires to come to the grace of eternity.” This he plainly asserted in his telling of Pope Gregory, whom he calls “high bishop over the whole world and was made governor to the Churches long since converted to the belief of the truth, he made our nation a Church of Christ, which had been ever till that time the bound slave of idols.” Bede claims it was, “by his diligence he converted our nation, that is the English, from the power of Satan to the faith of Christ,” and also that of the first bishop of Canterbury, Augustine, painting a picture of simple and total conversion of the English people, ignoring the syncretism of the two faiths, which Gregory himself encouraged, and that there were still many practicing pagans during his life. Bede writes that the first bishop was, “strengthened of God by working of miracles, won over Ethelbert the king and his people from the worship of idols to the faith of Christ, and so fulfilling in peace the days of his office,” once again demonstrating the importance of his conversion, and also the official Church understanding of the dark fate which awaits all unbelieving pagans. Still this dramatic royal conversion is not necessarily at all congruent with what may have been going on at the popular level. During Bede’s life the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were experiencing a blending of Celtic Scottish Christianity brought by the Northumbrian kings with traditional Roman Christianity as brought by Augustine. This variation within his own faith signified disunity, never mind the lingering pagan culture, which remained heavily engrained with Anglo-Saxon tribal worldview.
A letter from Pope Boniface perhaps most directly addresses the question of Bede’s view on his pagan ancestors. In this letter the Pope writes to convert a king, instructing that he “loath idols, and their worship, and despising the fond foolishness of their temples and the deceitful enticements of soothsaying, ye may not believe in God the Father Almighty, and His Son Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost,” and that by, “believing so ye may be loosed by the power of the holy and inseparable Trinity from the bonds and captivity of the devil, and be enabled to be made partaker of life everlasting.” Here Boniface outlines the ideas perpetuated by Bede and the ecclesiastical leaders to follow in writing, “that abandoning the thoughts of demons and driving from you the enticement of the poisoned enemy that is full of deceit, ye may be born again by water and the Holy Ghost to Him in Whom ye have believed and by the help of His bountifulness may dwell with Him in the brightness of everlasting glory,” setting this stern precedent in church thought evermore.
Only slightly later was Alcuin, a monastic originally from Northumbria, who lived from 732 until 804 CE. He rose to become a church leader, following in the Christian literary traditions begun by his predecessor Bede, and became the leading ecclesiastical interpreter for the first Frankish Holy Roman Emperor, Charlemagne. As such, he has come to represent the contemporary “official” stance of the Church in England and the Carolingian Empire to most modern medievalists. In his letters Alcuin outlines ecclesiastical requirements for the salvation of Christians and pagans and the importance of Christian values toward that eternal peace. He, like Bede, is a pioneer of European Christianity, bringing this new faith from the intellectual revival of Bede’s Northumbria in the west to the Frankish Kingdom where he is appointed school master at the first official school in medieval Europe at Aachen, and plays a spiritual role in the conversion of Saxony behind the sword of Charlemagne. Likely due to his deep love for the literary arts which came with Christianity, Alcuin also possessed an admiration for classical Roman pagan writers, yet his respect for the classical pagans was limited to their early literary tradition and “civilized” culture. In his writings he labels Germanic pagans as heathens destined for damnation who are both allied with and act as the forces of the devil. Thus Alcuin wishes to wipe pagan culture from all the converted kingdoms, perhaps because he lived on the very edge of conversion, and experienced pagan assaults on early European Christendom from all angles.
As was true of his predecessor, salvation is at the very forefront of Alcuin’s mind. He discusses it constantly and states in a letter to Cenwulf, King of Mercia, “Whatever is done here will be judged there. All goodness will be crowned with eternal reward, and all wickedness damned to eternal torment.” He emphasizes good pious acts such as chastity, generosity, devoted agreement to obey and, “Carefully keep the rule of the monastic life which the most holy fathers Benedict and Ceolfrid laid down for you, that you may earn with them the reward of eternal blessing.” Thus when the Vikings ravage the monastery at Lindisfarne, Alcuin writes to the local bishop, Higbald, “The punishment that has been inflicted on your monastery must serve your eternal salvation. You have a stronger defence in the mending of your conduct,” as a means of encouraging piety in a monastery known to be recording pagan folk tales. This attack on the spiritual action of both the bishop and the monks is an overt effort to stamp out pre-Germanic history and reaffirm Bede’s Christian narrative.
Alcuin uses the Old Testament as the source of this logic stating, “Learn carefully the traditions of catholic teachers and make every effort to grasp the principles of the catholic faith, for ‘without faith it is impossible to please God.'(Heb11.6)” Pleasing God is the path to Christian salvation, and to Alcuin this also included the literary tradition as he states, “Let men be heard reading in your houses, not playing in the street; let the counsels of salvation be heard among your elders, not drunkenness which is a very pit of hell to those who serve God.” Literature, in the eyes of Alcuin, was one of the most precious gifts Christianity had to offer, destined to stamp out and replace the earlier oral traditions of Anglo-Saxon England alongside the heathen idolatry of Germanic paganism.
All pagans seem to be damned to Hell from the perspective of this influential monastic. It is for this reason that he condemns the same monks at Lindisfarne for recording tales about renowned pagan kings asking, “What has Ingeld to do with Christ? The house is narrow, and will not be able to hold both. The celestial king wishes not to have communion with pagans and forgotten kings, held name by name, for the Eternal King reigns in Heaven, while the forgotten pagan king wails in the Inferno.” While most of these ecclesiastically outlawed stories of pagan antiquity have not survived into the modern day, Beowulf-poet mentions this very Germanic king in his poem. Ingeld was often known as “Son of Frodo” and is called by this name in a section which again emphasizes female cup-bearing, “I heard the men give her the name Freawaru when she passed to those heroes the gem-studded chalice. She, young and adorned in gold, has been promised to the noble Ingeld, son of Froda.” He is referred to later by his proper name when after an oath was broken, an act considered awful according to pagan Anglo-Saxon ethos, “a passionate hatred built up within Ingeld.” These allusions to this pagan hero make this poem literally an example of the type of Germanic tale which Alcuin is referring.
This element alone makes Beowulf is an extremely important historical document in understanding the conversion of pagan Europe to Christianity. For this reason Alcuin’s condemnation has been noted by Beowulf scholars, for it demonstrates that even the clergy were engaging in this blending of the two religions, never mind what went on with laity at the ground level. This passage further exposes Alcuin’s true sentiments as he continues to unrelentingly attack the pagan tradition, and affirm Bede’s Christian historical narrative. Alcuin commends his lord, Charlemagne, who is converting the pagan Saxons at the edge of his sword, stating that those he “turned from the worship of idols to know the true God by your good care, follow you as you stand in happy case before the judgment seat of our Lord Jesus Christ and your reward of eternal joy is increased through them all.” He approves the Emperor’s Holy war and states, “With what generous devotion to the spread of the name of Christ you have worked to soften the hardness of the unhappy Saxon people with counsel on true salvation! But divine election does not seem yet to have been accorded to them, so many of them still remain in the filth of their evil ways, to share the devil’s damnation.” This passage expresses the churchman’s beliefs in regards to paganism, and demonstrates the struggle of converting these deemed “stubborn folk” perhaps due to the stern and violent tactics employed by Charlemagne, in contrast to the peaceful and syncretistic instructions of Pope Gregory to supplant paganism spiritually through a fusion of the two faiths.
Although Alcuin quotes from many classical pagan writers from antiquity, and endorses the study of these author’s writings saying, “Nor is the knowledge of worldly literature to be despised,” he never expresses that there is any hope of salvation for these ancient sages and plainly says, “one of the old poets, in writing in practice of the ideal rulers of the Roman Empire, said if I remember rightly, ‘To spare his subjects and defeat the proud,’ (Verg. Aen. IV 854) a line which St. Augustine expounded with much praise in his ‘City of God’ (I.6). Yet we should heed the teaching of gospel more than the poetry of Vergil.” He seems then to quote from these philosophers and poets because of his love of language arts. However, in following in the spirit of Augustine, he proclaims, “For that which is ennobled by the teaching of our Lord Christ surpasses all academic education; that which had only Plato’s teaching owed its reputation to the seven arts, while ours is enriched by the seven-fold Spirit and so excels all earthly wisdom.” Alcuin’s admiration for pagans extends only to the seemingly wise writers who lived before Christ. He harbored no sympathy or love for the pagans of his day, whom he saw as sinful people indulging in the vices of the devil. Although both were labeled pagan even in Alcuin’s own day, the two were entirely different societies which have relatively few cultural similarities. On the one hand are the classical pagans which this school master admired, studied and appreciated and on the other the warrior, oral Germanic pagans whose traditions Alcuin desired to erase entirely and put behind them alongside their old fading religion.
W.F. Bolton insinuates that Alcuin would not only admire, but encourage the recording of Germanic pagan heroic tales. The revisionist historian observes a criticism of impious Christians by Alcuin, “if the pagans can practice virtue without the benefit of revelation, how much more should the Christians?” He concludes that this leaves Alcuin with respect not just for classical pagans but also for Germanic pagans, despite that, Alcuin is here referring specifically to Rome and Greece, for the monk wrote further down that, “in the histories of the ancients it is read that almost everywhere in the cities there was asylum as a refuge for criminals. And this was among the pagans! How much more among Christians for the sake of mercy?” Yet Bolton still goes on to state, as if fact, long disputed ideas such as seeing, “in Beowulf an allegorization of Christ the Savior,” and that, “makes the poem so clearly an anonymous saint’s life, the example only of a virtuous pagan and his doom,” despite that major themes of the Old English poem include slaying, treasure and ring-giving, devotion to one’s secular lord, and the pursuit of personal glory. Concluding that Beowulf is a saint’s life seems utterly ridiculous, as it bears all the marks of an oral narrative, though both saint’s lives and hero tales are the stories of ideal members of the community, thus functioning similar on a societal level.
Still, none of these values are in any way truly Christian, and thus while the Beowulf-poet was likely himself Christian, it seems quite a stretch to conclude that Beowulf represents Christ or even a saint. While Bolton’s language analysis proves Alcuin may have appreciated the complexity of this epic poem, there is no evidence whatsoever to assume he would condone any recording of Germanic pagan poem, especially with his condemnation of the Lindisfarne monks for doing just that, which he claims brought divine punishment, namely the vicious raid by the pagan Vikings on their monastery. While there is no doubt that Christian teachers such as, Jerome, Paul and others were all preachers, who utilized the classical authors, “They were erudite and their use of heretics and of pagan philosophers and poets was to serve their didactic ends.” This soft spot for classical pagan authors, held by some of the most prominent church leaders including Alcuin, is an undeniable truth and, “According to his biographer, Alcuin as a youth loved Virgil better than Psalms, but soon came to reckon his preference a sin.” Still, there is absolutely nothing in any of his writings which indicates that Germanic tales, even ones as complex as Beowulf, would ever have been condoned by the churchman, never mind admired, as Bolton seems to conclude.
In reviewing the books of Bede and letters of Alcuin, it seems that the argument presented by Bolton falls to a preponderance of evidence contradicting his assertions. Though churchmen, such as Alcuin, often found the language arts to be of the utmost importance, their primary function was the spread of God’s word, and the conversion of the pagan people of Europe, not to encourage the recording of their tribal tales. Despite the fact that, “Alcuin was obviously extremely familiar with Vergil’s works,” this admiration for this literature in no way translates to him desiring the recording of pre-Christian Germanic oral narratives which were still certainly orally circulating in his own day. In reading the Latin writings of these two men, the more commonly accepted understanding of these monastics, facilitated also by historian Patrick Wormald that, “Alcuin is representing the tradition of monastic and canonical hostility to the cultivation of secular literature in ecclesiastical context,” seems to prove true. Wormald acknowledges, of course, that all of England did not fit nicely into this model, but as for Bede, “It does not look as though he favoured the cultivation of anything other than directly religious verse,” as can also be concluded about Alcuin.
Wormald makes his own assertions as well, and rather than attempting to bridge the minds of Alcuin and the Beowulf-poet, he claims foremost, “that Bede is only one impression, not necessarily the most representative, of what was going on in seventh- and eighth-century England,” and also that perhaps “Beowulf can tell us as much about the world in which it originated as Bede.” To this medievalist, Alcuin’s suspicions were voiced because even, “Englishmen in the Church were evidently listening to literature of the Ingeld type patronizing the harpists, whose stock in trade such stories were,” indicating that the converted Anglo-Saxons, “had taken with some enthusiasm to the professions of monk and bishop, but without bothering to abandon traditional patterns of behavior,” despite what leading church figures such as Alcuin and Bede dictated. Clearly Wormald does not believe in a black and white world, where all recently converted Christians abandoned their ancestors as quickly and definitively as Bede and Alcuin. As Wormald suggests, this a time much more complex than many historians realize, but “by examining the traditions which Alcuin was articulating, to show that, on both counts, Beowulf would probably have been considered every bit as unsuitable as any poem about Ingeld.” It appears that regardless of the likely less radical popular opinions on their pagan past, these two great church leaders were secure in their distaste of the pagan world, and certain of the bleak fate which awaited those who kept to their old pagan ways.
While no medieval historian would contend that either Bede or Alcuin believed that their pagan ancestors would be welcomed guests at the gates of heaven, the conclusions to which W.F. Bolton arrives prove speculative, and are based on weak and minimal evidence. The idea that because Bede and Alcuin taught classical pagan authors, or because Alcuin had a tendency toward these ancient pagans in no way means that they would appreciate Germanic heroic pagan tales, such as Beowulf. In fact this notion is quite contrary to the vast majority of facts, and actually the evidence seems to suggest an opposite reality. It appears instead that both these English churchmen saw Germanic pagan antiquity as a demonic black stain on their history, which they hoped to see entirely erased from all corners of Europe and replaced with the salvation of Christianity. These churchmen both insist that only Latin, Christian, written traditions are acceptable. Though these men severely distain pagan stories, the real problem is that monks like those at Lindisfarne are recording oral, pagan traditions. It is this very kind of pagan narrative which Alcuin attempts to silence with his condemnation, for it seems in his mind that Vergil, as Latin literature, can be controlled by the learned, while Ingeld, as oral vernacular poetry, threatens the Christian narrative which he subscribes to and therefore must be silenced. In sharp contrast, the Beowulf-poet, through his writing, represents a very different, much more heroic and virtuous perspective on their pagan past, firmly demonstrating the varying sentiments of the converted Anglo-Saxons in regards to their ancestry at this time, even amongst the clergy. Now let us begin to recover the oral tradition and move to a better understanding of the alternative pagan perspective found therein, which demonstrates a very different historical narrative in regards to the Anglo-Saxon conversion, varying greatly from church history and the picture painted by Bede and Alcuin.

Oral Tradition as History

This paper must, at this point, address an important issue which historians have struggled with over the ages, the value of oral narratives. The question becomes, exactly what historical information can be found in these tales? Respected British historian, John Tosh, in his recent book outlining modern historical methods, discusses the importance of oral history and tradition and how such evidence has often been unfairly dismissed by historians in general. Although he does not rely heavily on these sources in his personal academic pursuits, as many historians of oral cultures do, in this text he comes out in strong support for the use of oral narratives in uncovering a more complete understanding of history. He explains that, “oral sources merit more attention than they currently receive from the profession at large, or the wider public. They are, after all, verbal materials, and they share many of the strengths and weakness of written sources – the wealth of detail and nuance of meaning, as well as the distortions of cultural bias and political calculation.” Tosh defines oral history as including a range of sources such as personal interviews and eyewitness accounts, and he notes that,
“Both oral history and oral tradition have been presented as the voice of those who have been denied a proper hearing by the conventional materials of historical research – in one case the bottom tier of industrialized society, in the other the non-European peoples who were at the receiving end of colonialism. In both these areas the vital contribution of oral sources can hardly be denied.”
Tosh points out that “the area in which oral tradition has made the greatest impact on historical knowledge is nineteenth-century African history,” though these stories have also greatly contributed to historical understanding of American Indian, Aboriginal, and many other tribal cultures. Perhaps it is because, “in Africa the nineteenth century was a period of major social change, owing to the spread of long distance trade, the renewed expansion of Islam and – in the south and east,” that it received a good deal of interest from the historic community. Without much in the way of written documents, scholars who aimed to uncover the past of this evolutionary era in African history turned to story-telling and, “as the work of recovering the oral traditions for this period proceeds, historians are greatly enlarging their understanding of these themes and of the circumstance in which Africans confronted the colonial intrusion at the close of the century.” He explains that, “from the historian’s point of view, the great merit of traditions pertaining, say, to the lifetime of the grandparents of today’s elders is that the process of abstraction has not yet gone very far,” thus oral narratives tell quite a bit about both the current generation and also their distantly removed ancestors. In the world of change that was the Anglo-Saxon conversion this would prove to be an important theme in understanding tales inspired, at least in part, by Germanic antiquity, such as Beowulf. This is to say that, “details which meant a great deal to the original participants may have been dropped, and the stories may have been affected by the perspective of hindsight, but the exploits of named individuals and their social world remain clearly visible,” and so a great deal of information lies within these somewhat amorphous tales.
African historian Jan Vansina’s, Oral Tradition as History, discusses oral traditions in great detail, noting the extreme level of variation in the art of story-telling from culture to culture, and emphasizes the performed element of oral traditions and what this means. He asserts that the “best-known situation of performance is the telling of tales,” though oral traditional performances differ significantly in congruence with the society from whence the story emerged for, “the actual technique and rules of performance situations vary.” It is true that in some oral cultures their tradition-bearers seem not to be overly concerned with accuracy but rather ideas in their retelling of tales. All people maintain their history in some fashion and socially appoint the keepers of this record of deep cultural importance, for “with regard to historical accounts, poetry, or epic… some specialists are known to everyone in the community. In many West African states there were griots, professional and casted praise singers and tellers of accounts,” as was true of Greek homers, Celtic bards, Anglo-Saxon scops, and French troubadours, who all seem to be viewed as valuable contributors to society even by many within the elite.
One of the most defining elements of oral traditions is their dynamic nature. These tales of morality are ever-changing, so they often remain in many ways contemporary. As Walter J. Ong’s influential work relates about one particular tribe, “the Gonja were still in contact with their past, tenacious about this contact in their myths, but the part of the past with no immediately discernible relevance to the present had simply fallen away.” Oral narratives are always interpreted by the previous generation and thus ideas which are no longer relevant naturally die out. Although story-telling is a craft which is constantly evolving, Tosh points out that, “traditions which have been glossed time and time again are unlikely to have been changed in every particular,” explaining that, “stories about the distant past may have been moulded to conform to changing social perceptions, but they also carry information which is incidental to the meaning of the text and affords a glimpse of conditions in the past, such as the archaic styles of dress and weaponry, or the arrival of the first exotic goods by long-distance trade from the coast.” Oral narratives are a useful means of passing down some knowledge about history, while also demonstrating the ideals of the community and its cultural worldview.
This historical information provides access to some deeply valuable cultural insight for, as Vansina explains, “a tradition should be seen as a series of successive historical documents all lost except for the last one and usually interpreted by every link in the chain of transmission.” Most importantly oral narratives offer an insider perspective, a creation from within the culture, and they are one of the best ways to observe how people perceive their world at any given time. He contends that, “as sources from the inside oral traditions are invaluable in contributing evidence and correcting basic biases in foreign historical interpretation,” in many cases providing an important historical balance, offsetting the biased interpretations of literary cultures which ultimately many times supplant earlier oral cultures. This analytical outsider bias heavily permeates early documentation of American Indian traditional culture as recorded by Western settlers and also the medieval Christian historical records and general understanding of pagan Germania in general.
The idea of historical fact, and whether it exists at all, has changed drastically over the ages. History was once a relatively coherent single narrative taken as the true account of past events. In recent years a deeper knowledge of language and its function has given rise to the postmodern challenge which encourages questioning this traditional narrative and employing historical methods once considered unorthodox in attempting to perceive a broader and more complete historical understanding. The problem of “truth” has become a serious question for historians, and one which needs answering. Tosh asserts that, “we all interpret the present in the light of models derived from past experience, and oral societies are no exception.” Or as Thomas Spears points out, “the values and assumptions which are manifest in the traditions of the Mijikenda peoples of Kenya relate to circumstances around 1850, before their social system had been disturbed by the new wealth earned by young men from the caravan trade with the coast; the time-lag offers valuable insight into their earlier political culture,” which Tosh stresses as information attainable only through study of oral narratives.
Vansina defines the term saying, “historical truth is also a notion that is culturally specific,” and reminds us that, “in many cultures truth is what is being faithfully repeated as content and has been certified as true by the ancestors,” a theme just as true in literate cultures as in oral ones. Christian saints’ lives, miraculous tales which are heavily relied upon in medieval studies and have produced the commonly held historical narrative of the era, are no less fantastic than Beowulf. Certainly they are as much shaped by the culturally Christian worldview as Beowulf is by tribal Germanic ethos, and yet are held to be true by many in Western society even until the modern day. No historical account is inclusive of all perspectives of the given time and place, and thus it is only through understanding both the fantastic saints’ lives and tales of German antiquity, that one can get a sense of how people made sense of their world during complex conversion of Anglo-Saxon England.
Within some oral cultures, however, accuracy is deeply stressed. For example, “in Polynesia ritual sanctions were brought to bear in case of failure to be word-perfect. When bystanders perceived a mistake the ceremony was abandoned.” An extreme version of this ideal comes from New Zealand where, “it was believed that a single mistake in performance was enough to strike the performer dead.” Vansina notes that, “similar sanctions were found in Hawaii. This implied that when a performer was not struck dead his performance had to be correct,” and discusses a remarkable account of an oral tradition which seems to have circulated in the region while remaining untouched stating, “in Hawaii a hymn of 618 lines was recorded which was identical with a version collected on the neighboring island of Oahu.” Though this by no means proves that oral traditions are always literal, it does clearly demonstrate that, “every performance is new, but every performance presupposes something old: the tale itself.” Due to nature of oral narratives, judging the historical accuracy of any given tale is almost impossible, yet the story which is passed down over the generations, though likely altered, retains at least some of its original meaning and thus even some historical insight into the time and events it describes. Still, historians who debate whether oral narratives are definitively true or false are asking the wrong question, for it is the insider perspective and the implicit message laced within each tale that hold the most historical insight.
Understanding and interpreting oral narratives, the “verbal messages which are reported statements from the past beyond the present generation,” requires some anthropological skill if it is to be done meaningfully. It is the morals and message of these stories which are the most important elements of oral narratives, and “all messages have some intent which has to do with the present, otherwise they would not be told in the present and the tradition would die out. So all messages have another aim besides their possible historical aim.” Since oral traditions are consciously passed on by each generation, “traditions about events are only kept because the events were thought to be important or significant,” and thus these stories mirror society, or at least how the community understands their own history and how the group sees itself in relation to the world. Ideas which are transmitted through oral narratives are aimed at morality and lay the foundation for the society as a whole. These include important historic events which may have caused migration or otherwise affected the group, well regarded cultural figures who save the entire society, or even wicked humans or terrible monsters who embody antisocial behavior. Also, these tales can be politically influential for, “when a list of royal ancestors is recited, the main thrust is to prove that the present king is the rightful incumbent of the throne and that kingship is the rightful and normal political order in that society,” as we see in Vergil’s Aeneid and the Epic of Old Mali. This yields important cultural information and provides a valuable perspective which helps scholars more fully perceive any given historical context.
Another problematic bias the oral historian faces is the word myth. This loaded term prevented serious scholarly work in regard to oral narratives regarded as fables until the development of anthropology. Still many historians, primarily of so-called Western society, avoid these tales despite that, “even stories whose significance seems to be primarily as mythical symbols may yield valid historical inferences. A case in point is the tradition told by the Shambaa of north-east Tanzania about the foundation of their mountain state… oral traditions, like written documents can be witnesses in spite of themselves.” These stories tell quite a bit about the society in which they are told and can hold political messages as well, for “oral traditions likely to survive are those associated with ruling lineages or – in the case of chiefless societies – tribal epics of migration and warfare.” In the scholarly pursuit of history one must observe each artifact and assess its informative value, whether it be a work of art or an epic poem, for historical knowledge may be found even through the study of mythic tales.
Tosh adds oral evidence to his tool belt stating, “The term ‘oral history’ – sometimes used to cover work on oral tradition as well as personal reference – is particularly unfortunate, suggesting as it does a new specialism analogous to diplomatic or economic history. Oral history is not a new branch of history but a new technique – a means of bringing into play new sources to be evaluated alongside written sources and material remains.” He ends by concluding that, “the use of oral evidence by historians began as a means of restoring the particularities of human experience to their central place in historical discourse. A technique, which owes its modern development to sociology and anthropology, has been enlisted in support of an enterprise foreign to the generalizing, theory-oriented nature of those disciplines,” but which if properly utilized, has the potential to uncover otherwise unattainable historical information. Likewise Vansina reminds scholars of history that, “without oral traditions we would know very little about the past of large parts of the world, and we would not know them from the inside,” highlighting the insider perspective as an important function of oral narratives. He emphasizes also that, “where there is no writing or almost none, oral traditions must bear the brunt of historical reconstruction,” yet in any culture with active story-telling these tales can yield insight. Still, this insider evidence is especially fruitful when utilized alongside archaeological evidence and knowledge gained from other historical methods if one hopes to access a complete understanding of the past. A great example of this can be found in the Pawnee hero stories recorded by George Bird Grinnell during the end of the nineteenth century.
Though oral traditions may not always present an overwhelming number of accurate facts, they do give an accurate idea of how a community responds internally to the historical context. The Pawnee tales of the late eighteen-hundreds demonstrate this point. Conventional historical data shows that during this time the Pawnee population and tribal culture had all but died out, and appeared to many as if their doomed fate was sealed. Due to violent struggle with the U.S. military, and a number of serious disease epidemics, it seemed as though time had run out from this proud tribe. Though there were certainly once numerous other narratives told by Pawnee, by the time when Grinnell was scrambling to record the last remnants of a dwindling society, he found that the historical legacy they chose to leave were heroic tales. These hero-stories were constantly retold in this community struggling to survive in the face of Western cultural and military domination, and represent a vision of Pawnee martial morality, which glorifies their traditional culture and portrays values of both brain and brawn as a means to guide young warriors. One can see through these hero-stories how the Pawnee community reacted to their difficult situation, and together with the Western data about disease and war, the larger picture of the Pawnee’s historical struggle comes into focus. Luckily, the tribe recovered from this low point and still exists today, and these warrior tales remains prominent in their culture. This example is in many ways congruent with the Anglo-Saxon conversion, a time when Germanic paganism was indeed dying off. The popular response was, however, to produce tales of warrior ethos and influential cultural heroes, such as Beowulf and the tales of Ingeld recorded by the monks at Lindisfarne, a seemingly similar reaction to that of the Pawnee.
Oral narratives offer a great deal of information to the historian. First and foremost they help to give a sense of the cultural lens, or worldview of those who tell the tale and, “such data testify then to opinions and values held, to mentalities,” and provide scholars a meaningful glimpse into a past historical context. It is important to remember that oral narratives serve the group ethos and one such tale, “usually translates an opinion also held by the community,” even if the historical certainty is questionable. There is, in a sense, a hidden knowledge in these morally charged stories, and these “Tales especially, by creating a lifelike setting, give evidence about situations as they were observed as well as about beliefs concerning situations. For this reason, these sources, which are still very much neglected, can be of great value.” During the early Middle Ages these tales were the closest thing to a popular voice in Europe, “the use of tale and memorized traditions helps a great deal in obtaining less-biased and different sets of data,” and they function as such in many oral cultures today. Tosh agrees with Vansina explaining that, “oral sources are therefore particularly appropriate materials for the exercise of the historian’s traditional critical skills. And they have the further attraction of affording a unique insight into the formation of popular historical consciousness – something that should be of abiding interest to all historians.” Essentially, one of oral narratives’ key functions and historical uses is how they demonstrate the worldview of community from whence it came, and this brings us to Beowulf.
This poem was certainly not nearly as important a literary work as Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, even during the Conversion Era at which time many like tales may have been transcribed. Beowulf survives in only one small manuscript, and was only certainly recorded three hundred years later, in the eleventh century. However, just because Beowulf may not have been a valued work within the learned, elite and piously Christian circles, does not mean that the poem was not more important than Bede’s writings in shaping cultural ideas on popular and secular levels. Despite the huge influence tales of German antiquity may have had on the Anglo-Saxon peasantry, only the very best or very luckiest of these oral narratives ever made it to quill and ink. Though, “there were people of wealth and standing in early medieval England who took an interest in vernacular verse and cultivated its preservation. This task required some dictation, for whether in public performance or in script, poetry like this is an expensive item,” and so they must have been relatively few in number, but a great many more were still continuously circulating orally shaping the cultural ideals primarily on the popular level. Thus the few surviving heroic Anglo-Saxon poem do not accurately represent the significance these poem had on society at large, for any who attended these public performances would have been affected by their message.
Thus Beowulf may have ultimately influenced an even higher percentage of medieval people during the age of Bede than the churchman and his ecclesiastical work for which the era is named. If we observe the Anglo-Saxon epic as important evidence in understanding popular sentiments, then it seems that “rather than reflecting the stable conditions of a single or simple age, Beowulf represents a broad collective response to changes that affected a complex society during a period of major transformation,” namely the Conversion Era. This stems from a seriously important issue which face all historians and which this paper hopes to break down. The issue is the preference of documentation and writing over other historical tools, and it is precisely this, “fundamental and almost inevitable bias with which we favor the written word that can affect our ability to understand a poem like Beowulf, which is rooted in an oral culture and depicts on in fictive guise.” As a historian the charge is to most accurately present a narrative of the past. One must then be careful to avoid catering only to the few authoritative documents left behind largely by the elite, as our primary understanding of a time period such as the age of Anglo-Saxon and Germanic conversion. To best comprehend the reality of this complicated time one must look carefully at the tales at the popular level which seems to suggest a less quick conversion, with many seeking instead to synthesize the two spiritual worldviews as well.

Beowulf as an Oral Narrative

Stories are told by every culture around the world, whether it be fantastic eye witness accounts, so-called “tall” or “fairy” tales, even ghost stories around the campfire. Similarly, “the Germanic peoples told stories in song from the very ancient times. When some of these became known in the Middle Ages the tradition was already very old and in a state of transition from a purely oral to a fully written poetry.” Even Beowulf alludes to the oral poems told in pagan halls, and Hrothgar himself picks up the harp demonstrates his skill of song-craft. Likewise the deeds of Beowulf are sung in the halls of Heorot and later at his funeral in Geatland, which is certainly from whence this tale originated according to this oral narrative. Proving that Beowulf is an example of an oral tradition is no easy task, however, the poem itself insists on its own oral nature, and that the story is essentially a tale of one heroic Geatish lord of Germanic pagan antiquity. Many modern scholars, primarily of anthropology and religion, have seen oral narratives as repositories of communal traditions and ethical, moral, behavioral standards, and it is this information which Beowulf provides.
Although Beowulf is framed by Christianity, the message remains authentically pagan for, “even if the attitude of the poet is Christian—there seems to be no doubt of that—the fundamental story is a pagan one. It is basically a traditional tale.” The Christian rhetoric, though quite sparse and purely in reference to the Old Testament, serves an important function, for “the biblical elements were properly assimilated into the oral traditional monster-slaying myth near the beginning of the story to set its tone and significance,” in response to the context of conversion. This loose Christian outline helps to bridge the two worldviews, and is perhaps the primary reason why the tale survives at all. Old English poetry, especially that with strong oral tribal roots presents an important and drastic distinction from the views of Alcuin and Bede. However, these poems should not be regarded lightly simply because they are written in the vernacular and associated closely with the peasantry for, “the art of poetry has not always been practiced at the margins of society.” Indeed, “in some times and places, it has been a prized activity conducted close to the centers of social power,” and this was certainly the case in Anglo-Saxon England during the Mercian Supremacy and the age of West-Saxon rule. As Niles points out, poetry was not as we think of it today, written on a page, but was meant to be spoken and even sung.
Two Old English words have been translated to mean poetry. The first is leoþcræft and, “the word specifically denotes metrical composition. The derived noun leoþcræft, literally ‘song-craft,’ denotes ‘the art of poetry, or ‘poetry’ in general,” but is perhaps better understood as the “art of song.” The famous old English poet, Cædmon was well regarded in Bede’s history and, “produced all manner of narrative songs, is said to have been endowed with a special gift in leoþcræft.” The other word from Old English which is translated as poetry is the term giedd. This alternative term is also understood essentially to mean song, but could also be understood as an oral narrative for, “A giedd is not simply a song; it is a sequence of words employed in a register reserved for utterances that were thought to be endowed with special wisdom or power.” Poetry, at least in the British Isles, was a tribal art deeply rooted in sound as, “it is clear that the basic metrical system common to all Germanic peoples was formed in the oral period and was related to Indo-European metrics,” thus it was developed and refined first in pagan antiquity, evolving as it met with Christianity and Mediterranean literacy.
Oral narratives have an amorphous quality, evolving as they are retold again and again always reinterpreted by each generation, if they are chosen to be passed down at all. This allows oral narratives to evolve, and demonstrates that within them is not just information about the time and place in which the story is set, but more importantly about the mindset of those who were continuing to tell them whether it be in a court or tavern. The ultimate purpose of oral narratives, and storytelling in general, is to guide individuals toward a communal ethos through tales and is, “the means by which people represent and structure the world. It not only mirrors reality… it constitutes a parallel version of reality that helps make the world intelligible and navigable.” These stories blur the line between the past, present and the future. They are tales about the past, applied to the present to shape future actions. Often if the cultural relevance is lost, an oral narrative might be discarded, while on the other hand others which may have been less influential in ages past can gain renewed significance if they speak to legitimize kingship or there is a shift in values. It is this pliable nature of oral narratives in general which may help to explain why of all the pagan tales and poems being recorded by monastics during the conversion period in the British Isles and on the continent itself, Beowulf has survived. This heroic story was chosen to be recorded and likely rerecorded throughout the Middle Ages, which was no small feat for an epic poem in an age when writing was often reserved for Christian devotional literature and was no cheap venture.
In cultures without the written word these narratives are the primary means of transmitting ideas about their history, ethos, and even what we might today call religion and worldview a concept defined by Vansina as, “a representation of ultimate reality in all its aspects visible and invisible,” to the younger generations. Oral narratives define tribal people, and indeed in some senses every community. “That oral narrative is and for a long time has been the chief basis of culture itself,” is a position advocated in depth by medievalist John Niles. The narratives emphasized by a group demonstrate their ideological foundation for, “whatever else in the realm of culture we value is to an important degree dependent on the stories that people tell.” Likewise, influential scholar Albert Bates Lord, in a chapter titled “Beowulf and Oral Epic Tradition” says, “Oral traditional epic is not merely entertainment, as it tends to become in the course of time and social change, but has a serious function in society. It contains the ideals and values of the society, as well as regard for the fundamental problems of both community and the individual.” Thus the tales told by any given people significantly shape their society, and can provide insight to the ways in which a particular group imagines itself, and the cultural lens by which it perceives reality.
Beowulf, though undoubtedly recorded in the context of the Anglo-Saxon conversion or perhaps even in a fully Christian English one, seems to embody important elements of pagan Germanic culture and gives at least a brief reflection of their warrior ethos. Niles explains that, “the text bears the clear traces of an oral verse-making technique as well as an oral-traditional mentality,” elevating the poem from a wild folktale or even a great work of early literature, to an anthropologically valuable historical document. The authors were likely monks and the poem was written at earliest in a newly Christian context, so it is framed by this religious perspective. Nevertheless, Beowulf, as with certain other Old English poems like the Wanderer, seems to be primarily an ethically pagan oral narrative, emerging from Germanic tribal culture. Scholars Morton Bloomfield and Charles Dunn express this in their work on early poetry, claiming that, “the basic role of the poet has been to serve as a carrier of tribal wisdom,” essentially marking them as the story tellers who keep alive the oral traditions of their culture. Due to the glorified martial nature of this story, it was likely once aimed at inspiring young men, “for poetry not only gives voice to a given mentality or worldview, it is also a form of play, a mental theater in which issues of worldview are precisely what are at stake,” and this heroic tale perpetuates Germanic warrior ethos and clearly demonstrates social values such as oath-taking, or the keeping of one’s word, the importance of the lord as a ring-giver or distributer of wealth, family loyalty and the avenging of one’s kin, and an understanding that the wyrd wheel of fate is ever turning and affects and guides all that one does.
Certain values appear dominant within the text, and in one passage alone (line 2732b-43a), “strength, restraint, fidelity to one’s sworn word, and loyalty to kindred are the virtues stressed.” In oral narratives themes are consistently repeated throughout the text with the goal of becoming ingrained into the mindset of audience for, “oral tradition frequently duplicates meaningful elements as a subconscious means of making the magic of the tale more powerful.” At the end of this narrative, in the laments and songs of Beowulf’s deeds the poet writes much praise, “they said that of all the kings in the world he was mildest to his men and most valiant, best to his people and most eager for glory,” marking these qualities as admirable and stressing them as good values and the socially proper work of a cultural hero. Often in oral cultures elders are the so-called tradition bearers, they know the stories and essentially are living history books, and wells of tribal knowledge. Age is equated with wisdom because, “in a primarily oral culture, elders naturally command authority and respect, for they are the members of society who are most likely to have gained knowledge over time through their memory of personal experience,” and it is through their accumulated experience that they help guide the ideas and actions of the younger members of the tribe.
In many tales, protection of the community is an important theme and falls primarily on the cultural hero. This concept is prevalent in Old English martial poetry and is summed up in the formulaic title wigendra hleo, which translates as “protector of warriors.” He is essentially the unmatched champion and highest defender in the land. As scholar of oral theory John Miles Foley contends, “it is not simply the fact of ‘protection,’ then, but also and more importantly the ideal type who traditionally embodies the role of protector, that is institutionally referenced by this phrase.” This common Old English phrase describes a “type whose most important quality is the earned stature accorded a figure who has assumed leadership and responsibility over a comitatus of some sort,” the ideal Anglo-Saxon king. This cultural responsibility of a lord as guardian can be found in many Anglo-Saxon poems, demonstrating its importance in guiding warriors and specifically aspiring rulers through the society’s martial ethos. Still, this “is nowhere more evident than in the role wigendra hleo plays in Beowulf,” a text which holds the safety of the community as a central theme.
In the text Beowulf, himself is labeled wigendra hleo, but the idea is first stressed in the opening praise of the mythic Danish king Scyld, which may have even been added at some point to the tale in light of increased Danish significance within Anglo-Saxon England. Of this great lord of men the Beowulf-poet writes, “Often Scyld Scefing seized mead-benches of enemy troops from many tribes; he terrified warriors even though he was once found a helpless child. For him came comfort, he waxed under the sky, prospered in honors, until every last one of the bordering clans beyond the whale-road was made to heed him and pay him gold.” Indeed public defense, and the guarding of a community is no easy task and requires a certain strength which it seems the Danish king Hrothgar no longer possess, for “in the first fight, Beowulf has just recently arrived in Denmark, and even more recently taken over from Hrothgar the responsibility for the safety of the hall and it’s inhabitants,” despite that Hrothgar does seem, in his old weakened age, to have grown in another significant Anglo-Saxon virtue, wisdom. The reoccurring emphasis on protection marks it as an important value and a duty of deep importance, for “like the god cyning Scyld, the paradigmatic chieftain we meet at the beginning of the poem, Beowulf has held the aggressive enemies at bay during his reign; they dare not attack while he lived and served as a bulwark for the Geats,” demonstrating the social value of Beowulf, and the king in general, as protector.
Social action is highlighted clearly throughout the text. Many times in Beowulf the poet explicitly labels action as socially encouraged or discouraged. Repetition is likewise extremely important in storytelling, emphasizing various morals within the tale by repeating these important themes. He describes the actions of Scyld Scefing, the wise Hrothgar and even the aged king Beowulf as admirable ending each with the famous line, “that was a good king!” This oral formulaic pattern is not just a function of Beowulf, for in Widsith a similar phrase is applied to king Guthere stating, “that was no negligent king!” Likewise in Andreas and Juliana God himself receives this formula being titled, “that is a noble king,” and “that is a true king,” respectively. Deor provides an alternative phrase in reference to a tyrant, presenting a negative actualization of this formula, “that was a grim king.” This phenomenon is labeled by Foley as “certifying kingship” and about this formulaic pattern asserts, “the pattern includes an illocutionary or metonymic dimension: in standing syntactically alone, free of necessary grammatical dependence on the surrounding phraseology, this phrase acts as a certifier or marker connoting effective kingship.” Again from the very beginning Beowulf portrays this very theme. “The small capsule on Scyld Scefing’s heroic kingliness during which he praised for keeping enemies at bay and his homeland in order; following the þæt wæs god cyning marker,” shows the importance of this phrase in emphasizing “good kings.”
To the same effect, Beowulf’s funeral procession and lamenting of his thanes was marked by the poet, “as is right and proper,” and instructed correct funerary behavior. The cultural hero, Beowulf, when a youth in Hrothgar’s court embodies the role of a thane and he serves his lord well, accomplishing all that is asked of him and keeping always to his word, and so the poet writes “the king of noble tribe, the warrior king of the Shielding [Hrothgar], kissed and clasped the best thane [Beowulf] by the neck,” and together the two embraced before Beowulf departed from Denmark evermore. The other worthy thane, Wiglaf, when Beowulf is in grim contest with the venomous dragon, thinks, “it is much dearer to me that flame envelope my body limbs along with my gold-giver. It is not thought right by me that we should bear shields back to our yards unless we first with might fell the foe, and guard the life of the warrior-lord.” He is the only one of Beowulf’s men who runs to their lord’s aid in his final struggle. He too is glorified for his valor, and the poet writes “then, I have heard, at the need of his king, the upright [Wiglaf] displayed his natural valor, skill and courage which lay within him,” and names his action as noble and a model for all thanes.
Not only men, but women as well, are given social instruction in Beowulf, and are presented with cultural models, though notably fewer. Wealhtheow, expressed in the text as a virtuous queen performs her societal duties, “Wealhtheow went forth, Hrothgar’s queen, mindful of courtesies, adorned in gold, she greeted the men in the hall and the noble wife gave the cup,” first of course to her husband and then “the lady of the Helmings attended veterans and young soldier to each gave the treasure cup until that time befell that she, ring-adorned queen, a virtuous spirit, bore a mead cup to Beowulf.” Gold and treasure cups are stressed and valued as we see in this passage, obviously representing wealth and power. Another important element of Germanic antiquity is the hall, similar perhaps to the longhouses of many tribes within the Iroquois league of nations, and it is the hall which is the center of society and the place of merriment and joy for the community. It is for this reason that an attack on the hall represents to a pagan audience, and likely also an early medieval one, a most grave threat, “for this people there could be no more grievous loss than that of the hall, with its related activities, the sum of which represented civilization as they knew it.” Thus Beowulf’s defense of Hrothgar’s hall represents the most noble victory of any man, saving the entire community, a model for young Anglo-Saxon warriors to admire and adhere to in pagan antiquity, and was continued to be told in courts and taverns of medieval England.
Likewise, these narratives were really the only way, by which oral cultures recorded their history, passing it down through word of mouth. As Niles explains, in Beowulf, “the poet keeps alive the memory of a great number of kings, heroes, and tribes that figure in the storied past of the peoples of the North.” Thus notions of Anglo-Saxon pre-Christian history are laced throughout the text. Throughout the tale the poet interweaves stories and invokes numerous politically charged names within Germanic culture such as Ingeld, Scyld, Offa, Hygelac, Hengest, Heremod, and Wiglaf. This common practice within oral narratives serves many purposes including remembering history and legitimizing lineages, and can also be observed in Jewish tribal history which gives authority to all three Abrahamic religions. The Old Testament of the Bible contains stories of heroic monster-slaying, perhaps the most known being the underdog battle of little David, destined to be king, and the giant named Goliath. In this tale the meek David defeats his monstrous enemy with a shot from his sling. Though the messages are quite different, and young king David is significantly different than the mighty Beowulf, it is this regal lineage that supports Jesus’ divine authority, for the messianic prophecy of the “Christ”, which claimed this “king of the Jews” would descend from this royal house and be the savior of the Jewish people. Connecting with this lineage fulfilled and old and respected prediction and Jesus’ disciples stressed he saved not just the Jewish people but all of those who believe his word, a notion which remained prominent in the minds of many Christian followers evermore. In essence, Jesus calls upon ancient Jewish tribal traditions to validate his title of messiah, in the same way Augustus connected himself to Aeneas and the numerous references to heroic Germanic kings in Beowulf. Though these peripheral stories have been labeled almost useless digressions by certain scholars of literature, they are indeed quite valuable to a “true” historical narrative and understanding the ways in which Anglo-Saxons saw their own Germanic past and current ruling families.
There are numerous important Danish characters in the tale and the opening lines read, “Lo! we have heard of the glory of the Spear-Danes in the days of old, how the kings of tribes and noble princes showed their valor!” Even the episodes in Heorot would no doubt have resonated positively with the West-Saxon kings who saw themselves as Danish descendants, “the Beowulf poet’s Offa bears the same name as the celebrated historical King Offa who ruled Mercia from 757 to 796,” and he was the first king to see himself as ruling over all of England. Niles even points to these digressions as good indicators as to when Beowulf was composed, placing it later than conversion and in the ninth or tenth century because the poem helped to legitimize royal power, a very common function of many oral narratives. Of Hengest, a character along the sidelines Niles concludes, “as with the merging of Danish and English royal genealogies through the figure of Scyld Scefing, we see an example of creative ethnicity that would have had a unifying effect.” This is true in epic tales such as the Epic of Old Mali which tells the African tale of the “Lion-king” reclaiming his father’s land and founding of the kingdom of Mali, and also the famous Aeneid, which tells of the adventures of the mythical founder of Italy, the exiled Trojan Aeneas. This poem was composed by Vergil when Augustus Caesar ruled, a man often thought of historically as Rome’s greatest emperor and who claimed to be descendant of Aeneas. Although no two poems vary more drastically in style and mode of composition than Beowulf and the Aeneid and “it seems to a classicist as an extraordinary case of wishful thinking to believe that the one influence the other.” The orally trained Beowulf-poet who composed this manuscript gives multiple references to pagan Germanic history and utilizes many examples of tribal Anglo-Saxon oral formulas, while the work of the Roman librarian poet Vergil, “must be perceived through a web of learned allusions,” and “the complex style of Virgil with its intricate word order makes no use of true formulas.” In many ways the epics could not be more different, however, they both certainly could and likely do serve to certifying kingship.
In Niles’s discussion of Beowulf as ritualized discourse, he effectively argues for many of the implicit social structural guidelines found within the poem. He stress that, “oral narrative can thus serve important functions of education and acculturation in the society in which it occurs,” a notion many folklorists and anthropologists have long asserted. For all levels of society these stories are deeply significant and they “tend to be one of the important means by which children absorb the values of adult society and learn to pattern their behavior according to accepted norms. For adults, it confirms the nexus of understanding that constitute their knowledge of the past and of the world around them, their social structure and moral action.” Yet there is one crucial element of the poem, the monstrous, which Niles seems to ignore in his work, Homo Narrans, if not in the rest of his published interdisciplinary study of Beowulf. The lack of attention given to these creatures may be out of fear of entering too deeply into the magical realm from whence cultural heroic tales and oral narratives often arise. Indeed, it is true that the monsters within the poem have helped to mark Beowulf a fantastic and fictitious work and thus a problematic historical source.
Still, if an anthropological approach is to be seen as a valid historical tool, then these fiends must be somewhat important to the tale and must tell something about the communal ethos of this oral culture which expresses monsters within their worldview. Tolkien reminds us in his groundbreaking essay, Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics, that the monsters are central to the poem, though Niles seems not to have made them his focus, choosing instead the more straightforward examples made by definitively human characters. Nevertheless, these monsters can and do teach a great deal about the values and Germanic worldview, while providing a dark sense of the unknown. The cultural ideas which are spawned by these monsters can be observed in their general characteristics and actions, in how the human characters socially interact with them, and also can provide modern insight into what people during this time believed possible.

The Heroic Slaying of Monsters
A Germanic Tribal Worldview Reinforced

As an oral source, Beowulf conveys larger cultural values, and the monsters are the best place to see how heroes and villains give lessons to the society hearing the poem in the Anglo-Saxon conversion and thereafter. However, the function of monsters and monster-slaying in Beowulf can only become fully apparent by means of a cross-cultural anthropological analysis, which understands these foes as embodying anti-social behavior and their defeat as necessary for the survival of the whole group, emphasizing communal ethos. Within oral traditions there are themes which occasionally seem to extend cross-culturally, such as ever famous flood stories, trickster tales, and even bungling host narratives. The similarities tell a great deal about humans as a species, while the variations highlight cultural difference. Though from any one culture to the next there are certainly more differences than similarities in their oral narratives and epic poems, there are some undeniable common threads which seem to be features of the human phenomenon of storytelling.
One prominent theme found in tales from countless American Indian tribes is monster slaying narratives where cultural heroes, “take center stage as dragon slayers and giant killers, calling on a wealth of fabulous powers to meet the tests which are strewn in their path in the guise of monsters, ogres, witches, and demons.” In Norse folklore, this trend proves once again true in tales such as the famous Story of Sigurd, a mighty dragon-slayer who defeats a powerful enemy of mankind. As Lord argues, “the subject matter of Beowulf, put most simply—the encounter of a hero with three terrifying monsters—certainly belongs to the lore of a people, and the analogues in Old Norse and other Germanic narratives bear that out.” The doom of mankind is decided by the actions of Beowulf, for he is the destined monster-slayer, and savior of both the Danes and the Geats.
The seemingly fantastic elements within these heroic tales, namely the mythical monsters, have often kept Beowulf out of historical discourse, despite that the poem has continued to thrive in many academic circles, and brought into serious literary discussion largely as result of the article written by medievalist and father of the genre of fantasy, J.R.R. Tolkien. The monsters, perhaps avoided by Niles in an effort not to undermine the serious nature of text, yield as much insight to cultural values as the definitively human characters he discusses such as the cowardly Unferth and the loyal Wiglaf. The monsters are a social construct of the society which fears them. They often embody the very worst qualities according to the particular communal ethos, and explain to the younger generation how not to act, in the same way cultural heroes help to guide these youngsters toward proper action. At other times they seem to represent more simply the destructive forces of nature and the world in general, and it is only in response to this threat that the monster-slaying cultural hero fulfills his destiny as a communal defender. The tribal warrior, or in the case of Beowulf and Anglo-Saxon culture the lord, is charged with the defense of his people, a primary theme stressed continuously within the text. When the king of the Geats perished in a tribal feud, “the wide kingdom passed into Beowulf’s hands. He ruled it well for fifty winters, and grew old and wise as the warden of his realm.” Because of the safety Beowulf provided, his reign was viewed positively; a Germanic value which is perhaps the basis for the chivalrous ideal of the noble martial defender, later emphasized in medieval courtly culture.
Typically in these myths a community is threatened in some way by fearsome enemies who embody extreme antisocial behavior, whether it be disharmony with nature and lack of personal balance, or the acts deemed vile in Anglo-Saxon warrior ethos such as kin slaying, and cannibalism. It is for this reason the archaic Jewish mythology found in the Old Testament was referenced and woven skillfully by the crafty poet in an effort to emphasize the reinforce and Germanic ideal with a similar Christian story thus legitimizing the tale and strengthening his point. These creatures often are greedy and gluttonous, hoarding and snatching up their victims, carrying them off to their lonely lairs as in a Bella Coola myth about a monster known as snanaik who, “took all the other children and threw them on top of him into her basket. After she had done so, she turned homeward,” to devour or enslave them. Then Grendel, in a similar fashion, assaults the hall and bears bodies back to his lair where he feasts on men. In such stories these monsters are often destined to be defeated by a cultural hero, perhaps with the aid of companions or thanes, or perhaps with the help of animals, as is common in African and Native American stories, though it is also the case in tales of tribal Europe.
Though each tale is quite different and reflects the culture from whence it comes, monsters are often brought into being through some act perceived as negative by an elder race of deities. In many cases they are dark creatures of old, such as the Norse giants of Jotunheim, who battle the noble Aesir and Vanir, and the dragon Nidhogg who gnaws at the very roots of the World Tree, Yggdrasil, the source of life and existence in Norse cosmology, as recorded in many Norse Eddas and Sagas of the tenth and eleventh century. Similarly the famous Greek Titans, fought against the Olympians in the ancient times. The Judeo-Christian giants were scorned by the one Creator, as written in Beowulf itself, demonstrating perhaps an overlap between pagan and Christian mythologies, “For he [Cain] slew Abel, and the Lord took no joy, He was hostile and then drove him [Cain] far from mankind, for that wicked crime. Thence the evil forces all awoke, ogres and goblins and orcs, also those giants who for a long time strove against God.” In many ancient and tribal societies, culturally antisocial behavior is often believed to breed terrible monsters which threaten the community’s very existence, a phenomenon known amongst folklorists as “the origins of evil.” This idea is perpetuated not only by so-called polytheistic religions, but also appears in the ancient Hebrew tales of the Abrahamic religions, the same stories which the Beowulf-poet used to bridge the Germanic tribal world view of his ancestors with his new Christian faith.
Creation of monsters on a less cosmic scale is often the result of shameful or antisocial actions of gods or ancestors, as seen when Loki left his faithful wife Sigyn for the giantess Angrboda’s bed for, “Loki and Angrboda had three monstrous offspring. The eldest was the wolf Fenrir; the second was Jormungand, greatest of serpents; and the third was a daughter called Hel,” who stalks the dark land of the dead. Likewise the Navajo monsters found within Dine bahane were formed by imbalance, and in this case the origin of evil came from a period of separation between the first men and women. In this example, after refusing to return to a healthy and functional society of both sexes, both men and women resorted to excessive masturbation. Women who used items, such stones, warmed in the Sun became unintentionally impregnated by him, and spawned many hideous outcasts, enemies of humankind, and so “monsters came to exist in this world, bringing disorder wherever they went. Such creatures were the fruit of transgressions that took place in the fourth world, where the men and women were separated.” These monsters were dark and twisted not because the Sun fathered them, for indeed the Sun intentionally impregnated the two women who would later give birth to the heroes who would slay these foes, but rather the antisocial method by which the monsters were conceived. In Beowulf, the poet recalls of the perceived ancestor of all evil, that “after Cain had put his father’s son, his own brother, to the edge of his sword. Branded as outlaw, gore-marked by this murder, he fled into the wilds, shunned company and joy. And from Cain sprang misbegotten spirits, among them Grendel, the banished and accursed,” stressing the extreme antisocial behavior of this father of all monsters as the source of evil.
Monsters may themselves once have been human, transformed by severe antisocial behavior as is the case with the Weendigo depicted in Ojibway mythology, “A human being could become a Weendigo by his or her own excesses. That was the usual way. But one human being could also transform another into a Weendigo.” Regardless of their origin monsters always represent disconnection from the community and its cultural morality and are often stronger than the mightiest of warriors. These creatures kidnap, rape and feast on humans, either invading the village or swallowing up those who leave its protective borders. Many live in dark lairs, as described in an Iroquois folktale, “In days long past, evil monsters and spirits preyed upon humans. As long as the sun was shining, the monsters hid unseen in deep caves, but on stormy nights they came out of their dens and prowled the earth.” The Wendigo have been compared to the cannibalistic monsters in Beowulf, most notably Grendel, “The unholy creature, grim and greedy was ready immediately savage and fierce, in the resting place grabbing thirty thanes thence afterward he went, exulting with treasure, to his home with the feast of corpses seeking his lair.” However, on rare occasions these monsters do act socially. The monstrous Grendel’s mother emphasizes the cultural value placed on avenging one’s kin for the ogress’, “visit to Heorot is on an errand of revenge for her son’s death,” an ideal upheld by the cultural hero Beowulf, himself, as we have seen earlier.
Many pagan Germanic values like oath-taking and loyalty seem to have been easily assimilated into a Christian worldview. Other virtues within Beowulf do not translate as well, such as the idea of revenge or avengement. The Geatish hero’s second mission for the Danes was to this end, and “Beowulf’s consequent entering of the fray can be viewed as that most Germanic of reactions, revenge for the killing of a retainer or of kin, the same force that drives Grendel’s mother.” In the poem, Beowulf himself stresses this value after he returns from his assault on the den of Grendel and his mother saying, “I plundered this hilt from those fiends, avenged their wicked deeds, the death-slaughter of Danes, as it was fitting to do.” The hero also plainly states of those fallen, “It is better for any man to avenge his friend than to indulge in mourning,” emphasizing a noble martial response to murder in concordance with Germanic warrior ethos. This idea of avengement seems to be what drives the violence within the text. Beowulf meets the dragon in an effort to protect his people and avenge those killed by this fiend. It is not until Beowulf is mortally wounded that, “Wiglaf must formally enter the fray—not simply as a helper but as a hero who will in effect be revenging his lord’s demise.” The Geatish warrior king, to whom in youth no deed was too great, falls in his old age, “according to the natural order of things even for this most extraordinary of heroes, has become the substitute who must give his life so that another hero can succeed,” and Foley points out that “in doing so Beowulf adds another chapter to his heroic biography, a chapter that chronicles not only how he fended off death and helped to save his people, but also how he held temporarily at bay the very thematic pattern that leads to his demise and that makes the overall battle so meaningful.” Thus it is only after the death of a kinsman or friend, that violence is sanctioned and it appears that this value of avengement is what gives noble cause for such aggression, a theme largely demonstrated within the text by the monsters and in response to them.
The Giant as a monstrous category is the villain most commonly encountered in myths of slaying. These monsters are often ambiguously described, and at times even difficult to distinguish from men aside from their inhuman strength and ferocity. Grendel is an example of this archetype, the Old English word æglæca, meaning monster or fearsome one, is used in the text often to describe Grendel, but during his fight with Beowulf the term is applied to the war-hero as well, demonstrating the similar ferocity of both outcast giants and great men. Likewise, both Grendel and his mother are descendants of Cain, and like their kin slaying ancestor are expelled from God’s grace, and as with the Wendigo and other giants, in this narrative Grendel and his kin represent a dark reflection of mankind. These fiends had been spotted on the fringes of society and as the poet explains that, “nobles in the hall speak of it thus, they sometimes have seen two such things stalking the moors, mighty wanderers, huge and ghastly monsters. So far as any man may plainly see, one of them walked in the likeness of a woman; the other a misshapen male, who prowled the marshy wilds in the tracks of an exile, except he was larger than any other man, and was named Grendel in the days of yore.” Creatures of a similar fashion are found in the mythology of the Bella Coola tribe where a giant known as a boq is described which, “somewhat resembles a man, its hands especially and the region around the eyes as being distinctly human. It stands on its hind legs in a stooping posture, its long arms swinging below it’s knees; in height it is greater than the average man. The entire body except the face is covered with long hair; and the growth being most profuse on the chest, which is large corresponding to its great strength.” The cannibalistic family of mighty giants is deeply connected with humanity and in many ways is its inverse.
They are the exiles, they are the monsters, creatures once men, now more like beasts, and feared by the community. Grendel both loathes and loves the hall, and “the mighty creature suffered sharp in the outer darkness pain, for each new day he heard laughter loud in the hall the thrum of the harp melodious chant; clear song of the skilled poet.” Excommunication, or being cut off from the community, commonly meant death in the wilderness and was one of the most extreme of tribal judgments. One Old English poem survives which address this theme, “the anguished wanderer, suffering the calamity of exile from a heroic community.” The Wanderer opens with lines of deep significance and insight: “Often, the outcast awaits the grace and mercy of the Creator for himself, though he, anxious of mind, must travel the paths of exile, across the long ocean; stir the ice-cold sea with his hands; fully determined is fate,” for his destiny will forever be a lonely one. It is these loners, ostracized from society who were feared by those still a part of the community, and thus perhaps perceived as monsters. Such exiles, after enough years of solitude, may indeed forget how to speak or resort to eating raw flesh indiscriminately, even that of other humans.
Like Grendel, he is banished for poor behavior, though the vile act is vaguely described. Whether for simple disloyalty or perhaps even the slaying of his lord, the poet alludes to this crime in deep regret, while describing himself as, “often worry-worn, bereft of my homeland, far from noble kin since once, long ago, I buried my gold-friend with the darkness of soil, and I was thence dejected, winter-sorrowed.” In this somber tale the exiled wanderer has lost all passion and for him, “all joy perished. Moreover he knows who shall do without his beloved friendly lord’s long precepts, then sorrow and sleep together at once often binds the wretched outcast.” As with Grendel the wanderer envies society and dreams of merrymaking once again in a regal hall and, “It seems to him in his mind, that he clasps and kisses his lord of men and on his knee lay hands and his head, as he for a while before, in days of old, had enjoyed gift-thrones. Then again awakens the friendless man, he sees before him only the gray waves bathing the sea-fowls spreading their feathers, and the falling frost and snow mixed with hail,” emphasizing for the outcast there is no going back to the community.
To the Ojibway these outcasts are known as Wendigo, and in the bitter lands of the Koyukon people the exiles are called wildmen who are viewed and approached as animal. These outcasts were banished from their society and in doing so lose their humanity and thus become monsters. If there was a historical Grendel, he would certainly be a so-called wanderer, an exile of some Germanic tribe. Perhaps he was a Jutish outcast, exiled by the third main tribe in England aside from Anglos and Saxons. The Old English word eoten which often is translated as “Jute,” and is utilized within in Beowulf during the interlaced heroic tale of Sigmund to describe how he is, “ambushed in Jutland,” has a double meaning. Eoten also literally translates to mean “giant,” and this definition is also prevalent in Beowulf especially in the origins of weapons and around the dragon’s barrow, when the dying hero “sat in a seat; saw into the giant’s work, how the age-old earth-hall contained within it stone arches, held fast by pillars.” This phrase is mentioned in the Wanderer in discussion of the chaotic nature of worldly reality as, “the Shaper of men lay waste to this world until that he lost revelries of the citizens; the old work of giants’ stood idle.” Also, as we know both giants and Grendel are descended from Cain, and though the tribal Jutes may not intentionally be associated with these monsters, they share the very same word, and are both eotena. This surely connects them on some level, perhaps significantly in the minds of Anglo-Saxons.
In one particularly ambiguous narrative a monster-figure in Ojibway tales is described as, “a warrior one and a half times the size of an ordinary man and with one and a half times the strength, not to speak of his years of experience in battle.” Although clearly somewhat human this warlord targets society, and it is said that “the ruthless, bloodthirsty war chief came into the village from time to time, no one knew when, and made off with whoever he chose, men and women, the old or newborn, victims who were never seen again.” He is a loner who, “stalked the outskirts of the village, falling upon anyone, it didn’t matter whom, who happened to venture alone beyond the confines of the village,” both emphasizing and condemning his antisocial actions and the threat which he poses to the community. This fiend of monstrous strength lurking just outside the safety of the town also bears a strong resemblance to the nature of Grendel and his fearsome mother.
In tales such as these, the giants’ actions threaten the very survival of the community from which the tale derives. However, as with all monsters, giants are almost always most known for devouring humans. A clear example of this can be seen in a Tlingit tale in which, “Long ago there was a giant who loved to kill humans, eat their flesh, and drink their blood. He was especially fond of human hearts. ‘Unless we can get rid of this giant,’ said the people, ‘none of us will be left,’” A different Iroquois myth tells how the “Upholder of Heavens, was disturbed by a great cry of anguish and woe. He looked down from his abode to earth and saw human beings moaning with terror, pursued by horrifying monsters and cruel, man-devouring giants.” After Grendel’s first vicious attack on Heorot, the mighty hall of Hrothgar, the very next day he returned for more blood, “Not was it longer than a single night before he returned to the hall, murdered even more and he mourned not at all for his wicked deeds were too deep in sin.” Clearly the threat of Grendel is very serious and threatens the entire existence of the Danish race,
“Thus one [Grendel] ruled struggled against all that was right until the greatest house stood idle. A great while, twelve winters the lord of the Shieldings suffered, torn by every woe and deep sorrow. So it was told afar, and sons of men sang sadly, that Grendel had long fought against Hrothgar, driven by hatred and committed crimes for many seasons, an endless feud. He wanted no peace, with any mighty man of the Danes, to stop his death-dealing or settle the death-price.”
Along with incredible strength, giants are also known for their unquenchable hunger as illustrated by the Ojibway frost giant, “The Weendigo could never requite either its unnatural lust for human flesh or its unnatural appetite, the bigger it grew, and the bigger it grew, the more it wanted and needed.” Grendel too embodies this endless hunger and his feasting on human corpses marks just how dangerous and savage his fiendish kin are. When he comes for his final rampage this is ever present in the monster’s mind, “He saw many men asleep in the mead-hall, a company of kinsmen quartered around together, then his mind filled with malicious glee, for that terrible ogre intended that, before the day to come, he would rip life from limb in every man, and to feast on their flesh.” This is the fear of his bane, Beowulf, who knows that if the battle goes ill there will be, “no need then to cover my face, Grendel will cover enough with his mouth, if death takes me he will carry my body to a bloody feast, and will dine alone, splash his lair red without mourning; no need for you to worry any longer about my burial!” The cannibalistic gorging on men is central to this monstrous ogre’s nature, and an important antisocial theme in Beowulf, emphasized most notably through Cain and Grendel and his kin.
In continuing the trend, countless monsters in the Dine bahane are describe also as consumers of men, “We dwell in a place where Naayee the Alien Monsters stalk our people. Where we dwell those creatures devour our flesh like grazing herds devour grass. Ye’iitsoh the Big Giant devours our people, and Deelgeed the Horned Monster devours them.” These are the giants and monsters formed by the immoral acts which transpired during the period men and women were separated. One of the giants known as Ye’iitsoh when he sees those come to slay him he even cries, “’How delicious you look! How very delicious.’” There are also female giants of a similar nature, such as the, “Long, long ago–hïlahi’yu–there dwelt in the mountains a terrible ogress, a woman monster, whose food was human livers. She could take on any shape or appearance to suit her purpose,” found in one Cherokee myth. In Beowulf there is also a cannibalistic ogress of malevolent power, known in the text as Grendel’s mother and after making her savage journey, “for the nobles the tides turned drastically, once Grendel’s mother reached the hall. Her onslaught was less only so much as a valkyrie warrior woman is to an armed man.” Though she seems not to be quite as deadly as her ferocious son, Grendel’s mother demonstrates that women too could be monstrous.
This prominent theme of devouring runs through most monster narratives, almost without exception, and many are even specifically named as cannibals such as the Chenoo and the Weendigo and also Grendel. In Beowulf it is written that the, “man-eating monster was a dark death-shadow, hunted and ambushed both young and veteran soldiers, and in the perpetual night held the misty moors, men knew not whither the lurking demon stalks.” The cannibal title attributed to these particular giants is central to what they represent in society. They are the formidable exiles, who seem to have lost the last reminiscence of their sanity in the wilds and thus any morality they once had as a warning to those in society. Grendel is precisely this wandering, lonely exile, and so “a certain one began to do evil, a fiend from Hell. The grim ogre was named Grendel, huge swamp-stalkers, who ruled the moors and fens, and the unblessed and unhappy man dwelt for a while in the den of his monstrous kin, since the Creator had outcast and condemned them for being the kinsmen of Cain,” a passage which literally names Grendel a wer or man. For instance in one Algonquin legend tells of a, “terrible Chenoo, the being who comes from the far, icy north, a creature who is a man grown to be both devil and cannibal,” described also as a “man” yet clearly a monstrous exile who is half starved and frozen. So mighty are these creatures that, “their weapons are the trees themselves, which they uproot with great strength. And this strength depends upon the quantity or size of the piece of ice which makes the heart of the Kewahqu [Chenoo].” Also, poor social behavior can bring about the transformation of a human into a fearsome Chenoo, as with the Weendigo, as told by folklorist Charles Leland, “It is the main point in the Chenoo stories that this horrible being, this most devilish of devils, is at first human.”
It is believed by Ojibway people that the Weendigo is, “A giant cannibal. These manitous came into being in winter and stalked villagers and beset wanderers. Ever hungry, they craved human flesh, which is the only substance that could sustain them.” Thus their very name has been, “roughly translated to mean ‘the evil spirit that devours mankind.’ Around 1860, a German explorer translated Wendigo to mean “cannibal” among the tribes along the Great Lakes.” In a story about a woman who turns into a Wendigo she is led eventually to be, “unable to stand the hunger, she turned on her own family with great strength born of desperation, overcame and bludgeoned her family and then ate them.” Here we see themes of cannibalism, monstrous strength, and kin-slaying, and general deviation from the communal moral code displayed by giants in many different cultures. As a student of history it is important to avoid the modern temptation to assume these monsters as pure fiction, and instead investigate them in terms of real issues and concerns facing tribal societies, where the edges of community truly marked the borders of the unknown past which any form of creature may be lurking, also the relevant fears of cannibalism during the frigid winter, when food may be scarce.
Hoarding is another theme which is found throughout many monster myths, and is prominent in Beowulf. Though more overtly embodied by the monsters in the text, even in the example of a bad king, the miserly Heremod engages in this among other poor behavior for he was “Angry and envious, he bestows no rings to honor his men,” as a good lord should. Greed and selfishness are clear examples of antisocial behavior, and may even get you turned into a Weendigo. A Metis tale indicates, that in the den of a few giants kinfolk lay a heap of artifacts stashed away by the monster family, and the slayer noted after their defeat, “he looked around and saw wonderful things that the monster had taken from their victims: buckskin robes decorated with multicolored porcupine quills, well-made weapons, war bonnets of eagle feathers, and much more,” emphasizing that these giants were both evil and greedy. The monstrous kin of Denmark too engage in hording for when Beowulf enters he sees the great wealth in the lair and, “on the heap he then saw a bright victory-blade, an old sword forged by giants, an indestructible edge, an honor for warriors, the best of weapons, but greater than any other man could bear to battle, the good and gleaming work of giants.” Due to his unmatched strength, Beowulf takes up this blade and with it slays Grendel’s wicked mother, and uses it to gain the head of Grendel himself. In the end, the sword magically melts like ice in the spring. The hero carries off its mighty handle as a trophy yet, “the man of the Weders took nothing more from the dark gift-hall despite that he saw many treasure mounds, except that head and the bright gemmed hilt together,” leaving the ancient hoard to instead receive the gold and gifts of Hrothgar, the proper means for a thane to attain wealth.
A final point of comparison to be made about giant myths is that these monsters are often invulnerable to most weapons and are believed to be invincible unless met by their destined slayer, or perhaps if one knows their soft spot. These giants are frequently made of stone, perhaps to emphasize and explain there power, as can be seen in Iroquois oral traditions, for they believe that “in the early days there existed a malignant race of giants, whose bodies were fashioned out of stone.” A slightly different stone giant figure from Cherokee tales is, “was a wicked cannibal monster called Nûñ’yunu’wï, ‘Dressed in Stone,’” or as he is often referred to, the giant called Stone-coat. He is the kind of giant who, “was always going about the mountains looking for some hunter to kill and eat. It was very hard to escape from him, because his stick guided him like a dog, and it was nearly as hard to kill him, because his whole body was covered with a skin of solid rock. If he came he would kill and eat them all.” Grendel, also his impenetrable hide, a quality the two man-eating monsters share, “But they did not know, those hardened warriors, who engaged in the battle and swung from every side seeking to claim the soul of that sinister slayer, not any iron in the world, nor the best war-blades, which desired harm, touch him, for he had bespelled all victorious weapons, rendering every sword’s edge useless.”
Likewise is the case with fay mother of Grendel, “the terrible witch, the mighty swamp-hag,” and even the sword Hrunting, the mighty heirloom of Ecglaf, could cause her no pain. Though the famous weapon had served many well in days past, “the battle-flame would not bite, to take her life, thus the edge failed its king at need, though before in many hand to hand struggles it often carved through strong helms and doomed coats of mail.” Between their exceptional strength and impenetrable hides these Danish ogres represent a most fearsome communal threat, and require the destined hero, the very best and strongest slayer to dispatch them. They emphasized the tribal and converted Anglo-Saxon fear of what lurks in the wilderness, while validating ideas about fate and the importance of great warriors as guardians of the community.
When it comes to the Dragons as a category, these giant ferocious reptiles are often associated with the natural elements and may breathe fire as is often the case the Norse tales or swim through the water as seen in Vergil’s Aeneid. Both manner of dragon appear appear in Beowulf. Sea-serpents are the first dragons encountered in the text, when Beowulf responses to Unferth saying, “I that with my sword slew nine sea-serpents,” so that, “never again did they trouble the passage of seafaring men across the ocean.” Also when searching for Aeshere’s head the Danish men, “saw strange serpents, sea-dragons. These beasts of the ocean too lay curled upon the rocky cliffs, and often slither off at daybreak to cause sorrowful voyage upon the sail-road, wyrms and wild beasts.” These aquatic monsters clearly represent the dangers of the open ocean to Germanic culture. The seas are an unknown frontier even in our modern day, for we discovered but a few years ago that the legendary giant squid, monstrous Kraken, does indeed exist, though perhaps not precisely as seen in legend. This point is not to suggest the reality of water-dragons lurking in the ocean, but to illustrate that the open waters are still a place of mystery and fear and were perhaps even more so during the Early Middle Ages, especially to a community which voyaged frequently across the sea. Thus incorporation of sea serpents should not lead to the assumption that the tale is nothing more than a fantastic fable.
These huge serpents embody catastrophic forces, perhaps the forces of nature, capable of utter annihilation of a society. They seem not to possess the same unquenchable hunger as giants as seen in giant tales, nor is there really an overwhelming sense that they are particular to eating only humans. Nevertheless the threat posed by these ancient serpents to the human surrounding communities is serious, often endangering their very survival. It is said by the Lakota that, “Unktehi, the great water monster, did not like human beings from the time they were put on this earth. Unktehi was shaped like a giant scaly snake with feet,” and the Cherokee say that “Even to see the Uktena asleep is death.” This idea holds true for the fire-dragon found within Beowulf, when outside the serpent’s den he sees the corpses of many brave men before him who met their end in a battle with this terrible beast. In the end, regardless of dragons’ perhaps typically less chaotic temperaments, these serpents are always vicious creatures that are still quite capable of terrorizing an entire people and devouring any who get in their way. It is this threat to the community at large which all monsters embody, but is perhaps more central with the case of dragons, for these terrible wyrms are not simply failed men as appears to be the case with the exiled kin of Grendel or the fearsome Wendigo, rather they seem to be more of a natural force outside of humanity. Still, at times dragons do act in ways identifiable for humans, and men (or perhaps also women) are required to deal with this threat of impending doom lest the entire community will end in ruin.
This is true also of the, “ferocious fire-dragon,” in Beowulf, who viciously terrorizes the countryside, for he “could no longer lie coiled in the walls, but flew forth in fire, and with striking flames. The onslaught was horrible for the people of the land, as was its ending to be a struggle for their gift-giving guardian.” It is Beowulf’s primary responsibility as king of the Geats to be defender of his domain and protector of his people. There is no nobler quest, nor a more ferocious opponent than a fearsome dragon, and Beowulf accepts this mission and his fate with honor. Once he had awoken, “the terror began to spew flame and burn the bright halls, the fire’s horrible light shown from high. The fiery monster would leave nothing alive where it flew,” similar havoc to the awful devastation a volcano might cause. This dragon’s den is a dark earth-hall, and ancient barrow, a solitary creature asleep and removed from society, as dragons often are, similar to the Cherokee dragon, for “The Uktena used to lie in wait in lonely places to surprise its victims, and especially haunted the dark passes of the Great Smoky mountains.” They too represent very anti-social behavior, and even though they appear less frequently in monster-slaying myths than the cannibalistic giants, both are selfish, lonely creatures of terrible power.
Dragons like hoarding as well, as in a Native American myth from the Metis tribe tale in which Little-Man slays a water serpent and then carries his new wife, “home to his lodge, together with all the treasures which the monster had amassed through robbing and murder.” The hoarding of treasure, locking it away in a lair is the epitome of selfish activity. Just like the tyrant Heremond, the dragon in Beowulf embodies this trait as well, for it comes upon an ancient barrow, filled with riches, and there takes up its lair, “The old night-scorcher found the splendid hoard in the open barrow, that savage burner who seeks burial tombs, that naked fire-dragon flies through the night wrapped in flame; earth-dwellers deeply dreaded him. He did seek out the hoard in the ground, where he watches for many winters the heathen gold; he was not any way better for it.” It was greedy taking from the serpent’s stash which awakes him and a sense causes the dragon’s wrath. The thief engages in stealing from the dragon’s horde and it is this behavior which awakens this mighty foe who was best kept in his slumber and in the spirit of revenge, after mourning his stolen goblet the wyrm had, “since avenged that, though he’d been tricked by the thief’s craft while lying asleep.” This demonstrates how much the miserly monster values its useless wealth, for the wyrm “soon found that some man had disturbed his gold, those high treasures. The hoard-warden waited, maliciously impatient, until evening came, for then the barrow guardian desired vengeance for the precious chalice, a payment of flame,” a punishment which he wreaked upon the nearby village.
In these oral narratives action deemed right by the given tribe or people is reinforced, as has been stressed by this paper. The case of Beowulf includes emphasis on lords as both protectors of their people, and ring-givers, dispensers of wealth to their vassals. In return it demonstrates the importance of a thane to heed his lord’s will and serve him well, mindful always of oath taking and the value in the keeping of one’s word. Within lies insight into warrior culture of the tribal Anglo-Saxons and their values of wisdom, strength and might. Even the respectful way to address one’s lord is given lengthy instruction within the poem, as Beowulf demonstrates in Hrothgar’s court, socially guiding communal behavior through these tales. In one truly epic scene, the hero’s final struggle against the most malevolent of enemies, this evil dragon, all of these themes seem to play out. Beowulf meets the dragon in defense of his kingdom with his armed thanes whom he had gifted well. At first he alone battles the wyrm, however, when the battle turned ill there was one who came to his aid:
“At the need of this king of men, the upright Wiglaf displayed his natural valor, skill and courage which lay within him. He heeded not the serpent’s head, but the hand of the mighty man had been burned when he helped his kinsman, thus he, a warrior in armor, struck the ghastly horror somewhat lower, so that the sword, shining and gold-plated, dove in deep. Once again the king recovered his wits and drew a dagger, bitter and battle-sharp with which he, the defender of the Weders, cleaved the wyrm in two. They felled the fiend — valor reaped its life — he and his noble kinsman had together slain it.”
Wiglaf acted socially, loyally serving his king in his time of need, so that he and his lord were able to defeat this threat to the entire community, the fire-breathing dragon while upholding his oath to his liege. The faithful thane, “advanced through the deadly fumes, bore his war-helmet to aid the lord, said a few words, ‘Beloved Beowulf, accomplish all well, as you in youthful years said, you would not allow during your lifetime for your fame to diminish; now you, single-minded prince, brave in deeds, must guard your life with all your might; I will aid you!’” and, “with this verbal contract Wiglaf has sealed his promise to assist his lord, to be certain, but he has just as surely taken another step along the path to becoming the hero who survives the ‘Battle with the Monster,’” again reaffirming pagan Anglo-Saxon morality. King Beowulf had been a just and wise king, a great ring-giver, and defender of his people and thus when in contest with the grim fire-dragon, “Wiglaf spoke many right words to his companions –in him was a troubled spirit— ‘I recall that time when we took the mead, then we promised our lord in the beer-hall who gave us rings that we would repay him for the golden war-gear, helms and hard swords, if he ever needed us,” and so he decides to fight alongside his lord to the bitter end, and encourages others to do the same. His words are even marked by the Beowulf-poet as right, and thus the proper reaction of a good, loyal thane to his king in need.
Again this illustrates not only a high standard of character toward which one must strive, but also the importance and value of the community. With the noble Wiglaf at his side, Beowulf is able once again achieve victory through strength of arms and fulfill his final oath, for when he first heard of the destruction of Geatland by this fire-dragon “Beowulf swore a vow for the last time saying, ‘I ventured upon many wars in my youth yet I, the old and wise warden of my folk still wish to seek out the fight and to do glorious deeds, if the evil slayer out from the earth-hall attacks me.’” This once again emphasizes the importance of oath-taking and the fulfillment of one’s vow.
In the end, by running to his aid and performing the deeds which are a true thane’s duty, Wiglaf solved Beowulf’s problem of succession. Wiglaf proved himself in that final battle and who better than a fellow dragon-slayer from the same clan to take up the Geatish throne? Indeed, the final monstrous struggle seems to wholly affirm Germanic warrior ethos and reinforces their entire worldview, allowing even the modern reader into the reality which faced tribal Anglo-Saxons, and also into the mind of those who experienced the Christian conversion of the British Isles. The morality portrayed within this tale gives a door into the world-view of the Anglo-Saxons for which it was told, and that of their pre-Christian ancestors, though one certainly must not take it as entirely factual. Rather, in conjunction with the outsider perspectives of traditional history and archeology, this insider point of view provides a more complete picture of this complex time in history along with information about German antiquity. Through action of both the monsters and the heroes in this tale one begins to better understand the inside perspective of Anglo-Saxons around the time of conversion, and age of synthesis and the blending the two worldviews at the popular level.

Conclusions

Beowulf, the so-called epic poem of the Anglo-Saxons, is more than a magnificent metrical masterpiece, but rather an oral tradition originating long before Augustine brought Christianity to the region. “Certainly various linguistic, metrical and stylistic features of the poem add weight to a dating in the first half of the eighth century. However, the poem will not have reached its early eleventh-century form without modification and addition – and we can scarcely doubt, anyway, that the true origins of the poem lie in generations of oral tradition.” Thus the poem holds important historical information, and can tell modern scholars a great deal about Anglo-Saxon culture from the time the tale originated (perhaps around 500 CE) even until the final composition of the only surviving manuscript in the eleventh-century. The poem yields anthropological insight in regards to the pre-Christian Germanic worldview of Anglo-Saxon England, and even some of their practices, while also demonstrating the vibrant oral nature of this society as well as popular attitudes in England during the Conversion Era until as late as the twelfth-century. Truly, Beowulf provides an alternative perspective on salvation, opposing the Christian narrative advocated by English church fathers, such as Bede and Alcuin. This poem—and in many ways the entire older, oral, Old English, vernacular culture in general—shows the blending of worldviews, and indeed presents a far more complicated understanding of the Anglo-Saxon conversion than told by the traditional historical narrative founded by Bede.
We know very little about Anglo-Saxon tribal belief and practice, and what we do know comes primarily from archeology, early Roman writers, and later medieval documents which clearly have some pre-Christian influence. Christianity brought literacy and those capable of writing tended to be Christian monks who were instructed not to record pagan history, culture or practice explicitly as Alcuin’s condemnation at Lindisfarne demonstrated. Perhaps largely due to the zealous nature of Christianity and later medieval attempts to weed out all corruptions within the faith, we are left with quite a small body of sources that bear any marks of Anglo-Saxon tribal culture. Nevertheless, “the scholar Bede, in his Ecclesiastical History which was completed in the year AD 731, tells us that Hengest and Horsa, the legendary brothers believed to be the first settlers of Kent and of Anglo-Saxon England, were descendents of Woden,” and even in this extremely pious churchman’s worldview Germanic culture and history does seep in a bit.
Archaeology has certainly been some help in accessing historical information such as, “at Yeavering in Northunberland archaeologists have excavated what is believed to be a heathen temple. The site was in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Bernicia.” Yeavering provides historians a great deal of what is known about the pagan rites of the Anglo-Saxons for, “the site had long been a centre of ritual importance. A Bronze Age barrow, surmounted by a tall post was at the eastern end of the site. At the western end a knoll had been used for cremations c.200-1000 B.C.” Likewise, the funerary practices found within the Beowulf speaks to an earlier pagan tradition as it is known to have existed for, “numerous Anglo-Saxon cremation graves have been excavated in England,” along with pagan burial mounds or barrows like the one where the dragon sleeps. Indeed it seems that, “the Beowulf-poet, who describes two cremation funerals, while non-committal about the creed dictating these rites, demonstrates that the rituals were enormously spectacular, sufficiently so to linger in the memory of witnesses and to inspire the imagination of poets long after.” This type of funeral is fitting for a glory seeking, oath-taking, warrior culture that greatly honored those who fell in battle, as emphasized in Beowulf.
However, at this famous archeological site perhaps, “the most spectacular among Edwin’s buildings is a great royal hall over eighty feet long and nearly forty feet wide. Its timber supports were set as much as eight feet into the ground.” This was Edwin’s hall, and therefore was functional during the seventh century. Hollister, a rather traditional English historian, notes that this hall, “reminds one of the description in the celebrated Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf of the hall of King Hrothgar, which was said to have been named “Heorot” and have a gilded roof.” He explains that, “archaeology has even located a constitutional artifact at Yeavering—the outline of a grandstand with a seating capacity in Edwin’s time of some 320, with a platform in front of it on which one can imagine Edwin standing as he addressed and consulted with his great men,” in the very same way lords and thanes meet in the halls of Beowulf.
It is believed that, traditionally, hanging was associated with the cult of Woden, because this deity was said to have been hanged. Since it was Woden, the leader of the Aesir (Germanic deities) his death makes this end quite noble which, “may be useful in explaining an obscure passage in the Old English poem Beowulf, which was probably first written down in the seventh century but contains a lot of older material.” Toward the end of the poem (lines 244-2462) readers, or listeners, are told of the terrible grief suffered by an aged king whose son was killed accidently by his brother. During this digression, another similar tale is invoked which tells of a man whose son had been hanged, thus the historical background of English hangings seems to have been derived from a pre-Christian tribal context.
The armor and weapons mentioned in the poem seem to hold true historical weight as well, “the boar appears often in Anglo-Saxon culture, usually as a protective symbol for warriors. In Beowulf decorative boar-figures are mentioned in relation to helmets, occurring both on cheek-guards and on top (lines 303-4, 1286).” While this detail is often overlooked, “this is no poetic fiction, since gilded boarheads surmount the cheek-pieces of the Sutton Hoo helmet and a realistic figure of a boar, bronze with garnet eyes, stands on the helmet from Benty.” These inclusions in Beowulf demonstrate the poet’s knowledge of older cultural beliefs, and as archeology uncovered, “Interlaced boars of gold and garnet decorate the shoulder-clasps of the royal regalia from Sutton Hoo and three boars appear on the blade of an East Anglian sword.” The Roman writer, Tacitus, sometimes called the first cultural relativist, documented Germania and praised the so-called barbarians in an age when Roman civilization was deemed superior to all others. He highlighted the Germanic use of boar imagery in association with Freyr, the goddess of fertility and mentions that the Germanic tribe called Aestii cultivated crops and worshipped this goddess, in whose honor they wore boar masks, stating, “they worship the Mother of the Gods, and wear images of boars as an emblem of the cult, it is this, instead of the arms and protection of mortals, that renders the goddess’ votary safe, even amidst enemies.” Thus the protective power of this magical symbol may be precisely the reason why they wore the boar on their armor.
This gets us into Scyld, the great mythic hero mentioned in the opening of the poem. This reference alludes to Germanic paganism yet, “Scyld Shefing, the legendary king whose career and ship funeral form the unforgettable prologue in Beowulf, himself evolved from a fertility myth.” Scyld is the son of Sheaf, another fertility deity in tribal Germanic culture. “The story of a child who came over the ocean evidently belonged to the character named Sheaf, Sceaf, or Scef, a fertility figure who was believed to have appeared from the unknown and brought prosperity. This tradition is preserved in the Chronicle of Aethelweard (c.1000) and in the twelfth-century account by William of Malmesbury,” and is a pattern followed by his son, Scyld, who brings prosperity and founds the Shielding Danish house as told in Beowulf. Both Sheaf and his son Beow are names invoked in Beowulf and even, “William of Malmesbury recorded that the Anglo-Saxons were supposed descendants of Sceaf’s people. The genealogists of the West Saxon kings similarly transformed Scyld, Sceaf, Beow and other legendary characters into ancestors,” demonstrating that the pagan historical narrative was still observed alongside Bede’s even into the eleventh and twelfth century.
The slow, gradual process of conversion is a major topic in medievalist Karen Jolly’s work, Popular Religion in Late Anglo-Saxon England, as is evident in much of the vernacular writing of the age including the elf charms (amongst other Anglo-Saxon charms) which she frequently utilizes, and of course poems such as The Wanderer and Beowulf. She explains that, “both the Germanic folk elements and the Christian elements were active agents in creating this example of a viable lay Anglo-Saxon Christianity,” thus blending these two worldviews together to form what she calls popular religion. This is prominent also in the poem, The Dream of the Rood, for this tenth-century poem applied Germanic warrior ethos to Christ’s passion, drastically deviating from traditional focus on humility. The poem personifies the cross, and describes Christ not as humbly allowing himself to be passively nailed but rather that he actively mounted the cross. The poem creates martial Christ aligned with Germanic worldview, stating, “then the young warrior—who was God Almighty—stripped Himself, strong and resolute. He climbed upon the high gallows, brave in sight of many, when he wished to redeem mankind.” In this passage alone the influence of tribal ethos is apparent, naming Christ a warrior and applying values of strength, resolution and bravery to him. Even the mention of the gallows and the willful decision of Christ to meet his own doom and achieve salvation, invokes similar pagan images of Woden, the great god who also chose to meet his end, hanging himself to achieve divine knowledge. Likewise, the veneration of roods or crosses, seems to largely have replaced the fervent tree worship of the tribal Anglo-Saxons
Though she focuses on literature from around the eleventh-century, two hundred years or more after the likely first composition of Beowulf but from the same time as the surviving manuscript was recorded, evidence of Anglo-Saxon tribal practices remain prevalent. These eleventh-century elf charms certainly do retain elements of pre-Germanic folk beliefs, although they are often less overtly pagan than Beowulf. By their very nature, elf charms have a pagan origin, as elves were tribal Germanic spirits that caused illness. However, the cure for such infliction often involved Christian liturgy, and to this end these charms would have, in their day, indeed been considered well within Christian orthodoxy, despite that medievalists many define it as magic.
Likewise an Anglo-Saxon charm for blessing the fields in hope of a fruitful harvest calls on the power of the Holy Trinity, instead of the traditional pagan fertility deities such as Freyr and Sheaf, stating, “crescite, grow, et multiplicamini, and multiply et replete, and fill, terre, the earth. In nomine patris et filii et spiritus sancti sit benedicti. [In the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit be blessed].” Still this, “Field Remedy more than likely had a pre-Christian predecessor now lost to us that utilized the charms addressed to nature,” despite that it has evolved to fit the new Christian worldview. The single charm, which perhaps best embodies this fusion of worldviews that is popular religion, is known as The Lay of the Nine Twigs of Woden, a text that invokes both Woden and Christ. Each of these divinities were highly regarded, even as late as the eleventh-century thus, “The single mention of Woden as a pagan reference is not that radical when we considered that Anglo-Saxon kings still claimed descent from this mythical figure. Still, the inclusion of both pagan and Christian gods demonstrates the deep synthesis that occurred as a result of the Anglo-Saxon conversion. Ultimately, Jolly concludes that in the Lecnunga and the Leechbook, two medical texts containing Anglo-Saxon charms and spells, “the various combinations of Christian and native folklore found in these manuscripts, though, are testimony to the synthesis of these traditions during a phrase of oral transmission,” emphasizing the oral vernacular culture and the syncretism of pagan and Christian beliefs to form popular religion.
Despite what one might think, spiritual rank and authority did not preside over secular rank and authority, especially during the Early Middle Ages. By the later reforms under the pious kings, Ælfric and Wulfstan, “the reward the reformers offered to the celibate priest was the rank of thegn, an aristocratic status above his economic station as a villain and equal to the lay proprietor in many cases.” Though this incentive does not seem to have moved many local priests to celibacy, it does show that the respected title of thane, continuously emphasized in Beowulf, retained its cultural importance long after conversion and was still a functional part of Anglo-Saxon society even by the eleventh-century. In Beowulf there are no higher duties than that of a lord to his thane and a thane to his lord, and it seems by the time of these reforms this rank was still in important element of Anglo-Saxon government and a very noble title indeed.
Thus Beowulf, as a historical document, holds important information both about pre-Christian tribal practices and beliefs, and the Anglo-Saxon conversion. As an oral narrative, Beowulf provides an inside perspective on both the pagan ancestry of England and also popular beliefs during the Conversion Era and for centuries after. This Germanic version of the historical narrative varies greatly from that found in the Ecclesiastical History of Bede, and presents Anglo-Saxon pagans in a noble rather than wholly evil light. Germanic tribal values of strength, courage, avengement, wealth, and wisdom are repetitively stressed throughout the tale, in an effort to guide Anglo-Saxon warriors. The responsibility of a lord as protector, and ring-giver as well as the duties of a loyal thane to his master are too, emphasized, and demonstrate social relationships by which this culture functions. These ideas are portrayed again through monsters, which are the embodiment of anti-social behavior and also provide the threat that requires action on part of the tribe. The very composition of this text in the seventh or eighth-century and its later recording in the eleventh-century proves that not all Christians perceived their ancestors as eternally burning out of ignorance, despite what prominent church leaders said; instead many adopted the more sympathetic and synergistic worldview shown in Beowulf and much of Anglo-Saxon vernacular in general. While this is not to say that Beowulf is a purely pagan tale, as is made clear by the Christian overtones within the poem, still this poetic adaptation of the story remains set in Germanic pagan antiquity, and clearly originated from an Anglo-Saxon oral tradition. It seems that a comment made by medievalist J. R. R. Tolkien over half a century ago proves true for, “Beowulf is the picture of a whole civilization, of the Germania which Tacitus describes. The main interest which the poem has for us is thus not a purely literary interest. Beowulf is an important historical document.” In the end if approached properly and with the right anthropological lens, Beowulf yields significant historical information and provides an important inside perspective and allows the modern reader insight into the ethical worldview of these tribes, something neither archaeology nor writers such as Tacitus and Bede are able to offer.

Bibliography

Beowulf:

Though all translations are entirely my own, the Old English is primarily from Mitchell’s edition and I consulted all of the following:

• Beowulf edited by Bruce Mitchell and Fred C. Robinson. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publish Company, 1998.
• Beowulf edited by F.R. Klaebber. Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath and Company, 1950.
• Beowulf translated by Howell D. Chickering, J.R. New York, NY: Anchor Books, 2006.
• Beowulf translated by Seamus Heaney. London, UK: W.W. Norton & Company, 2000.

Other Primary Sources:

• Alcuin. Alcuin of York trans. by Stephen Allot. York: Session Book Trust, 1974.
• Alcuin. Monumenta Alcuiniana. Book VI, ed. by Philipp Jaffe, Wilhelm Wattenbach and Ernst Dummler. Berolini: Apud Weidmannos, Breitkopf and Haertel, 1873.
• Bede, The Venerable. Ecclesiastical History of England, Books I-V, ed and trans. J.E. King. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2006.
• Boas, Franz. The Mythology of the Bella Coola Indians. New York, NY: Jessup North Pacific Expedition, Inc., 1898.
• Crossely-Holland, Kevin. The Norse Myths. New York, NY: Pantheon Books, a division of Random House Inc., 1980.
• Erdoes, Richard and Alfonso Ortiz. American Indian Myths and Legends. New York, NY: Pantheon Books, 1984.
• Grinnell, George Bird. Pawnee Hero Stories and Folk-Tales. Lincoln, Nebraska: The University of Nebraska Press, 1961.
• Johnston, Basil. The Manitous. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 1995.
• Suttles, Dr. Wayne. Tales of Bella Coola Boqs (2005), http://www.bigfootencounters.com/legends/boqs.htm
• Leland, Charles G. The Algonquin Legends of New England. The Riverside Press, Cambridge, 1898.
• Marsden, Richard. The Cambridge Old English Reader. Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
• Mooney, James. Myths of the Cherokee. Nineteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, Part I, 1900.
• Taylor, Troy. The Wendigo, the Woods of Northern Minnesota (2002), http://www.prairieghosts.com/wendigo.html.
• Tacitus. Germania trans. by J.B. Rives. Oxford, UK: Claredon Press, 1999.
• Zolbrod, Paul G. Dine bahane. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 1984.

Secondary Sources:

• Alexander, Michael. Beowulf: A Verse Translation. Harmondsworth, Eng.; Penguin Classics, 1973.
• Bjork, Robert and John Niles. A Beowulf Handbook. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1998.
• Bloomfield, Morton W. and Charles W. Dunn. The Role of the Poet in Early Societies. Cambridge UK: D. S. Brewer, 1989.
• Bolton, W. F. Alcuin and Beowulf: An Eight-Century View. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1978.Shippey, Tom. Old English Verse. London, UK: Hutchinson’s Publish Co., 1972.
• Chase, Colin, The Dating of Beowulf. Toronto, Ontario: University of Toronto Press, 1997.
• Cronan, Dennis. “Poetic Words, Conservatism and the Dating of Old English Poetry,” Anglo Saxon England 33 (2004).
• Davis, Ruby. “Bede’s Early Reading,” Speculum, Vol. 8, No. 2 (April, 1933).
• Evans, Steven. The Heroic Poetry of Dark-Age Britain An Introduction to Its Dating, Composition, and Use as a Historical Source. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Pub Inc., 1997.
• Foley, John Miles. Immanent Art: From Structure to Meaning in Traditional Oral Epic. Indianapolis, Indiana; Indiana University Press, 1991.
• Frank, Roberta. “A Scandal in Toronto” Speculum 82 (2007), 843-864.
• Fulk, Robert D. A History of Old English Meter. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992.
• Hill, Thomas D. “The Christian Language and Theme of Beowulf,” in Beowulf: A Verse Translation trans. Seamus Heaney. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company Inc., 2002.
• Hollister, C. Warren. The Making of England. Lexington, MA; D. C. Heath and Company, 1988.
• Irving, Edward B. Jr., Rereading Beowulf, Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989
• Jolly, Karen. Popular Religion in Late Anglo-Saxon England: elf charms in context. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1996.
• Laurence, W. W. Beowulf and Epic Tradition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1928.
• Lord, Albert Bates. The Singer Resumes the Tale. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995.
• Niles, John D. Homo Narrans. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999.
• Niles, John D. “Reconcieving Beowulf, Poetry as Social Praxis,” College English 61, no. 2 (Nov., 1998).
• Ong, Walter J. Orality and Literacy. New York, NY: Routledge, 2002.
• Owen, Gale R. Rites and Religions of the Anglo-Saxons. Totowa, NJ: Barnes & Noble, 1981.
• Rebsamen, Frederick. Beowulf: An Updated Verse Translation. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 2004.
• Tolkien, J.R.R. “Beowulf: Monsters and the Critics” in Beowulf a Verse Translation trans. by Seamus Heaney. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2002, 103-130.
• Tosh, John. Pursuit of History, 4th edition. Harlow, UK: Pearson Education Limited, 2006.
• Wormald, Patrick. “Review: Alcuin and Beowulf,” The Review of English Studies, New Series, Vol. 31, No. 123 (Aug., 1980).
• Wormald, Patrick. The Times of Bede. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2006.
• Vansina, Jan. Oral Tradition as History. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985.