18 March 2009
Beowulf responds to Hrothgar, saying he will kill Grendel’s mother. So Beowulf, Hrothgar, and a small army march to the mere where she lives. When they get there, they find Æschere’s head on a cliff above the mere. The water is filled with sea monsters and one of the Geatish bowmen kills one the creatures and drags it to shore. Beowulf puts on his armor for the swim. (Not the most realistic thing to do, but hey! This is a poem about monsters, so what do you want? It’s no more absurd than most Hollywood action movies.) Unferth, who insulted Beowulf when he first appeared at Hrothgar’s court, gives Beowulf a famous sword, named Hrunting, to use against the monster.
When I first read this section, I was immediately struck by the similarity with the scene in The Lord of the Rings before the gates of Moria. We have a pool, over hanging trees, sea monsters, and a fight with the sea monsters. Tolkien, of course, was an Old English scholar and intimately familiar with Beowulf. And evidently this specific terrain is a staple of Anglo-Saxon literature, appearing in a number of works. I have no doubt that this fit was in his mind when he penned that scene from LOTR. (I’ve avoided references to LOTR so far in this blog series, but the modern reader can’t escape it when reading Beowulf. Tolkien borrowed heavily from Old English in coming up with names and languages in his works, everything from Frodo (wise), to Theoden (king), Deagol (secret), and mearas (horse).)
There is some interesting language in the fit. At the beginning, Beowulf utters the gnomic statement, lines 1384b-85, “sēlre bið æġhwæm þæt hē his frēond wrece þonne hē fela murne.” (“It is better for one that he avenge his friend than he mourn too much.”)
There are a couple of kennings. Line 1429 has seġlrāde, or sail-road, for the sea. Line 1440 has wægbora, or wave-roamer, for sea monster.
The sword Hrunting is described in loving detail, and throughout the poem weapons get this treatment. Line 1459 tells us that it is ātertānum fāh, or decorated with poison-stripes. This is probably a reference to the serpentine-like patterns produced on pattern-welded steel. Line 1460 says the sword has been āhyrded heaþoswāte, or hardened with battle-sweat (i.e., blood). And lines 1463b-64 tell us that this upcoming fight næs þæt forma sīð þæt hit ellenweorc æfnan scolde (is not the first time that it had to perform a work of valor).
Finally, we learn a bit more about the mysterious Unferth (lines 1465-71a):
Hūru ne gemunde mago Ecglāfes,
eafoþes cræftiġ, þæt hē ær ġespræc
wīne druncen, þa hē þæs wæpnes onlāh
selran sweordfrecan; selfa ne dorste
under yða ġewin aldre ġenēþan,
drihtscype dreogan; þær hē dome forlēas,
ellenmærðum.(Indeed, did not remember the son of Ecglaf,
crafty of strength, what he had said before
drunk with wine, when he lent this weapon
to the better swordsman; he himself did not dare
in a fight under the waves to risk his life,
to perform bravery; there he lost glory,
his fame for courage.)
It seems that some of the earlier negative commentary about Unferth may be from an after-the-fact perspective. At the time he was considered one of Hrothgar’s best, but his unwillingness to accompany Beowulf into the mere causes him to lose face.
