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The Waning Sword E Conversion Imagery and Celestial Myth in Beowulf DWARD The Waning Sword Conversion Imagery and EDWARD PETTIT P The image of a giant sword mel� ng stands at the structural and thema� c heart of the Old ETTIT Celestial Myth in Beowulf English heroic poem Beowulf. This me� culously researched book inves� gates the nature and signifi cance of this golden-hilted weapon and its likely rela� ves within Beowulf and beyond, drawing on the fi elds of Old English and Old Norse language and literature, liturgy, archaeology, astronomy, folklore and compara� ve mythology. In Part I, Pe� t explores the complex of connota� ons surrounding this image (from icicles to candles and crosses) by examining a range of medieval sources, and argues that the giant sword may func� on as a visual mo� f in which pre-Chris� an Germanic concepts and prominent Chris� an symbols coalesce. In Part II, Pe� t inves� gates the broader Germanic background to this image, especially in rela� on to the god Ing/Yngvi-Freyr, and explores the capacity of myths to recur and endure across � me. Drawing on an eclec� c range of narra� ve and linguis� c evidence from Northern European texts, and on archaeological discoveries, Pe� t suggests that the T image of the giant sword, and the characters and events associated with it, may refl ect HE an elemental struggle between the sun and the moon, ar� culated through an underlying W myth about the the� and repossession of sunlight. ANING The Waning Sword: Conversion Imagery and Celesti al Myth in Beowulf is a welcome contribu� on to the overlapping fi elds of Beowulf-scholarship, Old Norse-Icelandic literature and Germanic philology. Not only does it present a wealth of new readings that shed light on the cra� of the Beowulf-poet and inform our understanding of the poem’s S major episodes and themes; it further highlights the merits of adop� ng an interdisciplinary WORD approach alongside a compara� ve vantage point. As such, The Waning Sword will be compelling reading for Beowulf-scholars and for a wider audience of medievalists. As with all Open Book publica� ons, this en� re book is available to read for free on the publisher’s website. Printed and digital edi� ons can also be found at www.openbookpublishers.com Cover image: Freyr, adapted from an illustrati on by Johannes Gehrts (1855-1921), public domain, htt ps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Freyr_by_Johannes_Gehrts.jpg Cover design: Anna Gatti book ebooke and OA edi� ons also available OPEN ACCESS www.openbookpublishers.com EDWARD PETTIT OBP https://www.openbookpublishers.com © 2020 Edward Pettit This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0). This license allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the work; to adapt the work and to make commercial use of the work providing attribution is made to the authors (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Attribution should include the following information: Edward Pettit, The Waning Sword: Conversion Imagery and Celestial Myth in Beowulf. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2020, https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0190 In order to access detailed and updated information on the license, please visit https://doi. org/10.11647/OBP.0190#copyright Further details about CC BY licenses are available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/ All external links were active at the time of publication unless otherwise stated and have been archived via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine at https://archive.org/web Digital material and resources associated with this volume are available at https://doi. org/10.11647/OBP.0190#resources Some of the images have been reproduced at 72 dpi in the digital editions of this book due to copyright restrictions. Every effort has been made to identify and contact copyright holders and any omission or error will be corrected if notification is made to the publisher. ISBN Paperback: 978-1-78374-827-3 ISBN Hardback: 978-1-78374-828-0 ISBN Digital (PDF): 978-1-78374-829-7 ISBN Digital ebook (epub): 978-1-78374-830-3 ISBN Digital ebook (mobi): 978-1-78374-831-0 ISBN Digital (XML): 978-1-78374-832-7 DOI: 10.11647/OBP.0190 Cover image: Freyr, adapted from an illustration by Johannes Gehrts (1855-1921). Wikimedia, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Freyr_by_Johannes_Gehrts.jpg Cover design by Anna Gatti. 5. Whose Sword Is it, Anyway? So far, I have proposed that the giant sword of Beowulf is a likely weapon of solar radiance, one that intimates two potent symbols of Christianity: the candle (possibly more specifically the Paschal Candle) and the Cross. It might, however, be objected that a Christian poet would not equate his religion’s prime symbols with a weapon forged and possessed by devilish giants. Two main responses may be offered to such an objection. The first is simply that the Cross was also considered the weapon of evil-doers. It too was a weapon which Christ similarly turned against Satan. The second is that although the giant sword was kept by giants and forged by giants (giganta geweorc, 1562), and although giants often die by their own weapons,1 this does not necessarily mean that this weapon was originally or rightfully theirs. It seems to me possible, even probable, that they stole or arrogated the sword and then hung it on their wall as a trophy. After all, neither Grendel nor his mother use this sword, or even attempt to, and its destiny was clearly to slay them. And although one scholar has argued persuasively that the sword’s hilt was probably inscribed with words describing Cain’s murder of Abel, it does not necessarily follow that the sword 1 For Norse instances, see D. J. Beard, ‘Á þá bitu engi járn: A Brief Note on the Concept of Invulnerability in the Old Norse Sagas’, in P. M. Tilling (ed.), Studies in English Language and Early Literature in Honour of Paul Christophersen ([n.p.] New University of Ulster, 1981), 13–31. In the Old Testament there is the notable example of the unique sword of the Philistine giant Goliath, which David—a ‘type’ of Christ—took to behead him (1 Samuel 17:51; 1 Samuel 21:9); on this weapon, see S. Isser, The Sword of Goliath: David in Heroic Literature (Leiden, 2003), 34–7. Recall also the beheading of Holofernes by Judith, although in the Old English poem Judith (unlike its Biblical source and a homily by Ælfric on this story) it is not explicitly his own sword that beheads him. © Edward Pettit, CC BY 4.0 https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0190.05 124 The Waning Sword was forged and inscribed by giant-smiths ‘to celebrate and advance the malice of God’s enemies’.2 Furthermore, the gold of the sword’s prominent hilt invites—but obviously in no way proves—attribution to a divine origin, since gold is commonly associated with divinity.3 We may compare, for example, Jeremiah’s presentation to Judah/Judas of a holy sword of gold, a gift from God, with which to destroy his enemies in 2 Maccabees 15:11–6, almost at the juncture of the Old and New Testaments in the Vulgate Bible. Giant-Forged and Giant-Stolen? There are several questions concerning the giant, probably sun-like sword: who first owned it? Who was its rightful owner? And why did giants forge it? Beowulf offers no clear answers. In probing the matter, I therefore do not intend to answer these questions definitively, but rather to provide some illumination. The poet appears enigmatic, even evasive, on this matter, I suggest, because he wanted to blur the distinction between different extra-Biblical Christian and pagan Germanic traditions (these last to be examined later in this study). To have identified the precise nature of the hilt’s inscription, or to have named the giant sword’s original owner, would have unbalanced his fusion of Judaeo-Christian and Germanic by emphasizing one or the other. I believe he wanted to encourage rumination on the congruences of Christian and heathen Germanic traditions. By remaining vague, he enables both perspectives to co-exist and confers a powerful focus and a sense of mystery upon the sword’s hilt. This dual perspective appears operative in his description of the sword’s creators. These are initially devouring Scandinavian giants, eotenas, like Grendel: the giant sword is introduced as an ealdsweord eotenisc ‘eoten-ish old-sword’ (1558). But the poem’s giants, as descendants of Cain, also have a Biblical, etymologically Latinate 2 D. Cronan, ‘Origin’, 66. Cf. McNelis III, ‘Sword Mightier than the Pen?’, 177–8: ‘that the sword came out of the water does not prove that it originated there. The lair in Beowulf strongly resembles the troll-cave or grave-mound of the analogous passages in other tales of this type. In those versions of the story, the ground is littered with treasures looted from earlier victims or buried in (human) graves.’ 3 See Chapter 4 n. 64. Its hilt is not explicitly the work of giants but wundorsmiþa ‘of wonder-smiths’ (1681). 5. Whose Sword Is it, Anyway? 125 aspect: the same passage soon describes the same weapon as god ond geatolic, giganta geweorc ‘good and splendid/well-equipped, the work of giants’ (1562), where giganta is a Latin loanword. This is an arresting combination because at least some gigantas ‘giants’ (not necessarily all) were earlier identified not as good beings, but as evil-doers who had warred against God for a long time (113–4).
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