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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. 6. Ing, Ingvi-Freyr and Hroðgar An obvious place to start an investigation into the possible Germanic mythical background of Beowulf’s giant sword and related matters is with the poem’s most likely reference to a named heathen god or demigod, a certain Ing.1 According to Beowulf, Ing—or at least this name—was intimately connected with the Danes, whose king, Hroðgar, received the giant sword’s hilt from the poem’s hero. This chapter examines what sources tell us about Ing, his likely Old Norse manifestation as Ingvi/ Yngvi-Freyr, and his relationship to Hroðgar and the Danes of Beowulf. The Ingwine ‘Ing-Friends’ and Ing, Son of Man Ing takes no explicit part in Beowulf,2 but his name appears in two of Hroðgar’s grand titles: eodor Ingwina ‘shelter of the Ing-friends’ (1044) and frea Ingwina ‘lord of the Ing-friends’ (1319).3 One modern edition of Beowulf observes of Ingwine, a term for the Danes, that it ‘bears weighty 1 For prior discussions of Ing, see HG; Pollington, Elder Gods, 260–3; Dunn, Christianization, 60–1. 2 For Ing’s possible inspiration of the Scyld Scefing myth at the start of Beowulf, see C. Tolley, ‘Beowulf’s Scyld Scefing Episode: Some Norse and Finnish Analogues’, Arv 52 (1996), 7–48; KB, xlviii. According to another scholar, Sceaf ‘is simply Ing by another name and Scef-ing may actually mean “Sheaf-bearing Ing” or “Sheaf- Son”’ (Davis, Beowulf and the Demise, 115). Earlier, V. Rydberg, Teutonic Mythology: Gods and Goddesses of the Northland, 3 vols (London, 1906), I, 135 equated Sceaf with Yngvi-Freyr. 3 R. Jente, Die mythologischen Ausdrücke im altenglischen Wortschatz: eine kulturgeschichtlich-etymologische Untersuchung (Heidelberg, 1921), 93; HG, 61, 64–77 argues for further references to Ing(ui) in Beowulf, including in the Finnsburg- episode preceding Beowulf’s fight with Grendel’s mother, and, later, a mention of his sword as incge laf ‘Ingui’s heirloom’ (incgelafe 2577; see below). It is doubtful whether the aforementioned Ingeld, whom Alcuin considered had nothing to do with Christ, had anything to do with Ing; see KB, 470. The personal name Ing survives to this day, especially in Sweden, in male and female names such as Inga, Inge, Ingmar and Ingrid. © Edward Pettit, CC BY 4.0 https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0190.06 144 The Waning Sword testimony to the ancient worship of Ing’.4 It adds that the word ‘has the appearance of having been changed, by folk etymology, from (the equivalent of) *Ingvaeones (the worshipers of Ing), the name by which Tacitus designates the Germanic North Sea ethnic groups … If so, it may be supposed that from Jutland and Zealand, the cult of Ing spread to other Danish islands, to Skåne, and then to Sweden and perhaps A[nglo-]S[axon] England.’5 The earliest extant information about Ing may be deduced from the Germania ‘Germany’ of Tacitus, the aforementioned first-century Roman historian.6 He tells us how Germanic people recorded in ancient songs that the earth-born god Tuisto ‘Twin’ had a son named Mannus ‘Man’, who was possibly also a god.7 Mannus, who was doubtless the progenitor of mankind, had at least three sons, after whom tribes of men were named, the first mentioned being the Ingaeuones (*Ingvaeones). If these details are a basically accurate record of early Germanic tradition, it appears that an early manifestation of Ing (suffixed *Ingwaz in Primitive Germanic) was as a ‘son of Man’.8 If this tradition passed down subsequent generations, it would encourage identification of Ing with Christ, a god-man who was similarly the ‘Son of Man’ (e.g., Matthew 8:20).9 I return to the potential Ing- Christ equation later.10 Additionally, an early association between Ing (or Ingwin) and divinity might be inferred from a damaged runic inscription on a third- or fourth-century golden neck-ring from the Pietroasa hoard (Romania), though its interpretation is controversial.11 4 KB, lviii. Cognate is the Old Norse personal name Yngvin; Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson, Heimskringla, I, 34 n. 2. 5 KB, lviii n. 5. 6 H. W. Benario, Tacitus: Germany: Germania (Warminster, 1999), 14–5. 7 See Benario, Tacitus: Germany, 65. 8 Cf. Ingi’s rule over Mannheimar ‘Man-Homes/Worlds’ in Hjámþérs saga. 9 If, as I strongly suspect, the superhuman Beowulf acts, from a Germanic perspective, on Ing’s behalf, Daniel 7 may also supply a parallel. It describes the prophet Daniel’s vision of four monsters that rise from the sea, the last a horned, iron-toothed beast of terrible strength which devoured and shattered (compare Grendel as ‘grinder(?)’). This monster is killed, we infer, by one quasi filius hominis ‘like a son of man’ (compare Ing/Beowulf), who is presented to the enthroned white-haired antiquus dierum ‘Ancient of Days’ (compare hoary Hroðgar). For an interpretation of this vision which identifies the monster-slayer as the angel Michael, see J. Day, God’s Conflict with the Dragon and the Sea: Echoes of a Canaanite Myth in the Old Testament (Cambridge, 1985), 151–77. 10 Cf.
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