Selections from: Beowulf and the Monsters adapted and abridged from the Old English poem, Beowulf by S. R. Jensen Sydney, 1997; corrected edition, 1998 ISBN 0-9585165-0-2 i PROLOGUE The purpose of this book is to present the story of Beowulf and his fights with the monsters as it once was — a source of entertainment. Of course, in an abbreviated Modern English prose translation, some of the flavour of the Old English poem will necessarily be lost, but it is hoped that much of its earlier character will still be apparent in the structure of the text; the words and phrases chosen; the strings of similar-meaning terms; the occasional presence of alliterating words (that is, words beginning with the same letter); the inclusion of the Old English name-forms; and the use of the original words and phrases when they are of particular interest or importance. The poem was composed well over 1,000 years ago and was intended to be recited in front of an audience, but it now exists only in written form — in one ancient manuscript, and in two more recent transcripts made after the manuscript was partially damaged by fire in 1731. The tale itself appears to be an old-fashioned detective-story, designed to reveal (by a series of clues) the very human identities of the three so-called ‘monsters’ with whom Beowulf fights. The text falls loosely into three separate parts, and so have I divided it. Parts I and II tell of the various skirmishes between the Scyldings (the Danish line of kings descended from ‘Scyld’) and their enemies, a pair of ‘human monsters’ who are feuding with them — and of the young Geatish hero, Beowulf, who journeys from across the sea to singlehandedly save the Danes from these marauders. Part III gives the story of Beowulf’s last years as king of the Geats, of his fight with a furious and excitable dragon, and of the ongoing battles between the Geats and the Swedes. More detailed discussion is provided in the individual Introductions, in each of which tables of genealogy are given and points of particular interest set down. Also, some notes on Old English words and pronunciation follow this Prologue — and are intended to be referred to as necessary. For the Old English text, I follow Michael Swanton, ed. (and trans.), Beowulf (New York, 1978), but I provide my own translations (and occasionally utilise the readings of other editors). I have also divided the work into new and manageable sections, numbered from 1 to 32, and have included footnotes in order to supply additional relevant information, to point out significant features in the text, or to demonstrate how the story may be read either as a monster-fable or as a riddle to be unravelled. — S.R.J., Dec., ’97. ii INTRODUCTION TO PART I In Part I, Healfdene, grandson of Scyld, holds the Danish (or ‘Scylding’) kingdom into his old age (and while he lives). The throne then passes to his second son, Hrođgar, who builds the mightiest of mead-halls in the entire land of Denmark, and establishes a very strong force of fighting-men as his support. He holds this kingdom of his most happily and securely — until a monster named ‘Grendel’ attacks the hall. Grendel, behaving as monsters do, devours many members of the warrior-band, and thus greatly weakens the king’s power. Across the sea in Geatland, a hero by the name of ‘Beowulf’ hears of Grendel’s attacks on the Scyldings, and journeys to Denmark to help Hrođgar. Beowulf fights Grendel with his bare hands, and tears off his arm at the shoulder, causing him to bleed to death as he returns to his lair. King Hrođgar then rewards Beowulf for his exploit, and for a time it seems as if all is well. Now Grendel is actually said to be human — but what are his human motivations? Some clues may be found in our text. Grendel attacks Hrođgar’s hall because he is upset by the sound of feasting and rejoicing in the Scylding court — that very court whose brightness is said to radiate ‘over many lands’ — and by the recitation of how God had ‘set up the sun and moon to shine as light for the land-dwellers’ (in this case, the Scyldings). He is painted as a creature who cannot ‘approach’ the royal ‘gift-throne’, wants no kind of ‘friendship’ (or perhaps truce) with Hrođgar’s men, and is the enemy of God and of ‘mankind’ (again, the Scyldings). He is said to be a ‘hall-thegn’, who is ‘deprived of joys’ and lives in a ‘joyless dwelling’ — at the bottom of a dark, watery pool. He is described as one of the offspring of ‘Cain’ — who has killed his brother, ‘Abel’, his kinsman ‘on his father’s side’, with the ‘edge(s)’ of a sword, and who has, on account of that crime, been driven ‘far from mankind’ by God the Provider. He is reported to have spent ‘a time’ away from Scylding society because of his links with the murderer. And he is twice (and very abruptly) mentioned in the context of a man who will marry Hrođgar’s daughter in an attempt to end the Scyldings’ ‘share of deadly feuds’, but who will soon ‘rise up’ against his new father-in-law. This particular man is named ‘Ingeld’. He is said to be the son of ‘Froda’. From all of this it is possible to argue that the Scyldings, in their shining prosperity, are held to be above the members of Grendel’s own race; that Grendel, somehow linked to Ingeld, has been — temporarily — stripped of his rights to the Scylding (or the wider Danish) throne, as God’s vengeance for the treacherous sword-attack by a man on his half- 1 brother; that he will not accept any kind of compromise over the rights to the kingdom, but prefers to take the realm by conquest, in his war against the Danish race of men; and indeed that he may actually be entitled to a settlement because of something other than his battle-power. But what, then, might be the pointers to the human identity of Beowulf’s (supposedly) monstrous opponent or, in fact, to his family-background? Further information on Ingeld and/or on Grendel, is perhaps to be found in two particular Scandinavian texts — each later than the date of our poem, but each based on sources and tales somewhat earlier than it. a) One of these, the Saga of the Scyldings, may give us a context in which to set the first parts of the poem: a dispute over royal holdings in Denmark. It tells how ‘Ingeld’ — legitimate son of ‘Frodo’ — kills his half-brother, ‘Half-Dane’ — Frodo’s son by a woman not his wife — because he begrudges him his particular share of the Danish realm. Such a murder would be reason enough for a vengeful feud between our Ingeld (son of our ‘Froda’) and the son of our ‘Healf-Dene’. Although living many years in the world, Healfdene only holds the kingdom ‘while he lives’ — and this may imply foul play. And even though Healfdene is said in Section 1 of our poem to be the son of ‘Beowulf (the First)’ — which Beowulf is not the Geatish hero of the same name — it may be that the word ‘Beowulf’, as it now appears there, has been written in error, and that the name of the prince referred to, if one such had been given in the first instance, would have been ‘Froda’. In fact, three of the family members of ‘Healfdene’, son of ‘Beowulf I’ — Hrođgar, Halga, and Hroþulf — are exactly matched in the Scandinavian Saga as descendants of Half-Dane, son of Frodo. b) The other text, the History of the Danes, may help us to identify the first monster of the poem. It tells of Ingeld’s son — a very fierce warrior named ‘Agnar’, who fights in single combat with a champion named ‘Bjarki’, a personage who is (like Beowulf) a traveller to the Danish court. Bjarki cuts Agnar in half with his sword, removing his left arm, part of his left side, and his right foot — but, nonetheless, Agnar dies ‘with his lips relaxed into a smile’ (or in other words, with his mouth parted only into a silent grimace of pain). And in a similar fashion does Beowulf remove the arm and shoulder of his monstrous enemy — although he in fact tears the limb from Grendel’s body with his bare hands, having vowed to fight the demon without using weapons. It may be that Grendel is linked with Agnar through his name — which is very possibly composed of two Old English elements, gren ‘grin’ and dælan ‘to divide’, shortened and combined, as names often are, to become ‘Gren-del’, or ‘Grin-Divid(ed)’. (The original, Old English form of such a name would have been ‘Gren-dæled’.) Certainly, Beowulf 2 (whose name means ‘Bee-Wolf’, and so designates ‘Bear’) may confidently be identified with Bjarki (whose name means ‘Little Bear’). Indeed, part of the poet’s method is to refer his audience back to other, older, stories which were known to them. And a tale of a man who had, so to speak, ‘died laughing’ would, of course, be fairly memorable — and would be called back to mind readily enough, after some appropriate leads had been provided. In fact, one fairly strong indication of a Grendel-Agnar (or English-Scandinavian) link may be provided by the storyteller himself, for (in Part II) he has King Hrođgar speak words which suggest (and perhaps emphasise) the — earlier — identity of Grendel, that is to say, his ‘existence’ before the time of the events of the poem, in a story from times gone by.