PART IV

Ȳtum [weold] GefwulfFin Folcwalding Frēsna cynne.

Ȳtum [weold] Gefwulf

Fin Folcwalding Frēsna cynne.

But inWidsithnames of heroes and tribes are grouped together (often, but not invariably) according as they are related in story. Consequently Gefwulf is probably (not certainly) a hero of the Finn story. What part does he play? If, as I have been trying to show, the Jutes are the aggressors, then, as their chief, Gefwulf would probably be the leader of the attack upon the hall.

This part, in theFragment, is played by Garulf.

NowGārulfis notGefwulf, and I am not going to pretend that it is. ButGārulfis very nearGefwulf: and (what is important) more so in Old English script than in modern script[512]. It stands toGefwulfin exactly the same relation asHeregārtoHeorogārorSigeferðtoSǣferðorOrdlāftoŌslāf: that is to say the initial letter and the second element are identical. And no serious student, I think, doubts thatHeregārandHeorogār, orSigeferðandSǣferð, orOrdlāfandŌslāfare merely corruptions of one name. And if it be admitted to be probable thatGefwulfis miswritten forGārulf, then the theory that Garulf was prince of the Jutes, and the original assailant of Hnæf, in addition to being the only theory which satisfactorily explains the internal evidence of theFragmentand theEpisode, has also powerful external support.

Section XII. Conclusion

But, apart from any such confirmation, I think that the theory offers an explanation of the known facts of the case, and that it is the only theory yet put forward which does. It enables us to solve many minor difficulties that hardly otherwise admit of solution. But, above all, it gives a tragic interest to the story by making the actions of the two main characters, Finn and Hengest, intelligible and human: they are both great chiefs, placed by circumstances in a cruel position. Finn is no longer a treacherous host, plotting the murder of his guests, without even having the courage personally to superintend the dirty work: and Hengest is not guilty of the shameful act of entering the service of a king who had slain his lord by treachery when a guest. The tale ofFinnsburgbecomes one of tragic misfortune besetting great heroes—a tale of the same type as the stories of Thurisind or Ingeld, of Sigurd or Theodric.

FRISIA IN THE HEROIC AGE

It is now generally recognised that loose confederacies of tribes were, at the period with which we are dealing, very common. Lawrence says this expressly: "The actors in this drama are members of two North Sea tribes, orrather groups of tribes[513]"; and again[514]: "At the time when the present poem was put into shape, we surely have to assume for the Danes and Frisians, not compact and unified political units, but groups of tribes held somewhat loosely together, and sometimes known by tribal names."

This seems to me a quite accurate view of the political situation in the later Heroic Age. The independent tribes, as they existed at the time of Tacitus, tended to coalesce, and from such coalition the nations of modern Europe are gradually evolved. In the seventh and eighth centuries a great king of Northumbria or Frisia is likely to be king, not of one only, but of many allied tribes. I cannot therefore quite understand why some scholars reject so immediately the idea that the Eotens are not necessarily Frisians, but rather a tribe in alliance with the Frisians. For if, as they admit, we are dealing not with two compact units, but with two groups of tribes, why must we assume, as earlier scholars have done, thatEotenasmust be synonymous either with Frisians or Danes? That assumption is based upon the belief that wearedealing with two compact units. It has no other foundation. I can quite understand Kemble and Ettmüller jumping at the conclusion that the Eotensmustbe identical with the one side or the other. But once we have recognised that confederacies of tribes, rather than individual tribes, are to be expected in the period with which we are dealing, then surely no such assumption should be made.

I think we shall be helped if we try to get some clear idea of the nationalities concerned in the struggle. For to judge by the analogy of other contemporary Germanic stories, there probably is some historic basis for theFinnsburgstory: and even if the fight is purely fictitious, and if Finn Folcwalding never existed, still the Old English poets would represent the fictitious Frisian king in the light of what they knew of contemporary kings.

Now the Frisians were no insignificant tribe. They were a power, controlling the coasts of what was then called the "Frisian Sea[515]." Commerce was in Frisian hands. Archaeological evidence points to a lively trade between the Frisian districts and the coast of Norway[516]. From about the sixth century, when "Dorostates of the Frisians" is mentioned by the Geographer of Ravenna (or the source from which he drew) in a manner which shows it to have been known even in Italy as a place of peculiarimportance[517], to the ninth century, when it was destroyed by repeated attacks of the Vikings, the Frisian port of Dorestad[518]was one of the greatest trade centres of Northern Europe[519]. By the year 700 the Frisian power had suffered severely from the constant blows dealt to it by the Frankish Mayors of the Palace. Yet evidence seems to show that even at that date the Frisian king ruled all the coast which intervened between the borders of the Franks on the one side and of the Danes on the other[520]. When a zealous missionary demonstrated the powerlessness of the heathen gods by baptizing three converts in the sacred spring of Fosetisland, he was carried before the King of Frisia for judgement[521].

At a later date the "Danes" became the controlling power in the North Sea; but in the centuries before the Viking raids began, the Frisians appear to have had it all their own way.

Finn, son of Folcwald, found his way into some English genealogies[522]just as the Roman Emperor did into others. This also seems to point to the Frisian power having made an impression on the nations around.

We should expect all this to be reflected in the story of the great Frisian king. How then would a seventh or eighth century Englishman regard Finn and his father Folcwalda? Probably as paramount chiefs, holding authority over the tribes of the South and East coast of the North Sea, similar to that which, for example, a Northumbrian king held over the tribes settled along the British coast. Indeed, the whole story of the Northumbrian kings, as given in Bede, deserves comparison: the relation with the subordinate tribes, the alliances, the feuds, the attempted assassinations, the loyalty of the thegns—this is the atmosphere amid which the Finn story grew up in England, and if we want to understand the story we must begin by getting this point of view.

But, if this be a correct estimate of tribal conditions at the time theFinnsburgstory took form, we no longer need far-fetched explanations to account for Finnsburg not being in Friesland. It is natural that it should not be, just as natural as that the contemporary Eadwinesburg should be outside the ancient limits of Deira. Nor do we need any far-fetched explanations why the Frisians should be calledEotenas. That the King of Frisia should have had Jutes under his rule is likely enough. And this is all that the words of theEpisodedemand.

A. A POSTSCRIPT ON MYTHOLOGY INBEOWULF

(1)Beowulf the Scylding and Beowulf son of Ecgtheow

It is now ten years since Prof. Lawrence attacked the mythological theories which, from the time when they were first enunciated by Kemble and elaborated by Müllenhoff, had wielded an authority overBeowulfscholars which was only very rarely disputed[523].

Whilst in the main I agree with Prof. Lawrence, I believe that thereisan element of truth in the theories of Kemble. It would, indeed, be both astonishing and humiliating if we found that a view, accepted for three-quarters of a century by almost every student, had no foundation. What is really remarkable is, not that Kemble should have carried his mythological theory too far, but that, with the limited information at his disposal, he at once saw certain aspects of the truth so clearly.

The mythological theories involve three propositions:

(a) That some, or all, of the supernatural stories told of Beowulf the Geat, son of Ecgtheow (especially the Grendel-struggle and the dragon-struggle), were originally told of Beowulf the Dane, son of Scyld, who can be identified with the Beow or Beaw[524]of the genealogies.

(b) That this Beow was an ancient "god of agriculture and fertility."

Now (c) would not necessarily follow, even granting (a) and (b); for though a hero of story be an ancient god, many of his most popular adventures may be later accretion. However, these two propositions (a) and (b) would, together, establish a very strong probability that the Grendel-story and the dragon-story were ancient culture-myths, and would entitle to a sympathetic hearing those who had such an interpretation of them to offer.

That Beow is an ancient "god of agriculture and fertility," I believe to be substantially true. We shall see that a great deal of evidence, unknown to Kemble and Müllenhoff, is now forthcoming to show that therewasan ancient belief in a corn-spirit Beow: and this Beow, whom we find in the genealogies as son of Scyld or Sceldwa and descendant of Sceaf, is pretty obviously identical with Beowulf, son of Scyld Scefing, in thePrologueofBeowulf.

So far as thePrologueis concerned, there is, then, almost certainly a remote mythological background. But before we can claim that this background extends to the supernatural adventures attributed to Beowulf, son of Ecgtheow, we must prove our proposition (a): that these adventures were once told, not of Beowulf, son of Ecgtheow, but of Beowulf or Beow, son of Scyld.

When it was first suggested, at the very beginning ofBeowulf-criticism, that Beowulf was identical with the Beow of the genealogies, it had not been realized that there were in the poemtwopersons named Beowulf: and thus an anonymous scholar in theMonthly Reviewof 1816[525], not knowing that Beowulf the slayer of Grendel is (at any rate in the poem as it stands) distinct from Beowulf, son of Scyld, connected both with Beow, son of Scyld, so initiating a theory which, for almost a century, was accepted as ascertained fact.

Kemble's identification was probably made independently of the work of this early scholar. Unlike him, Kemble, of course, realized that in our poem Beowulf the Dane, son of Scyld, is a person distinct from, is in fact not related to, Beowulf son of Ecgtheow. But he deliberately identified the two: he thought that two distinct traditions concerning the same hero had been amalgamated: in one of these traditions Beowulf may have been represented as son of Scyld, in the other as son of Ecgtheow, precisely as the hero Gunnar or Gunter is in one tradition son of Gifica (Giuki), in another son of Dankrat.

Of course such duplication as Kemble assumed is conceivable. Kemble might have instanced the way in which one and the same hero reappears in the pages of Saxo Grammaticus, with somewhat different parentage or surroundings, as if he were a quite different person. TheLives of the Two Offaspresent another parallel: the adventures of the elder Offa have been transferred to the younger, so that, along with much that is historical or semi-historical, we have much in theLife of Offa IIthat is simply borrowed from the story of Offa I. In the same way it is conceivable that reminiscences of the mythical adventures of the elder Beowulf (Beow) might have been mingled with the history of the acts of the younger Beowulf, king of the Geatas. A guarantee of the intrinsic reasonableness of this theory lies in the fact that recently it has been put forward again by Dr Henry Bradley. But it is not enough that a theory should be conceivable, and be supported by great names. I cannot see that there is any positive evidence for it at all.

The arguments produced by Kemble are not such as to carry conviction at the present day. The fact that Beowulf the Geat, son of Ecgtheow, "is represented throughout as a protecting and redeeming being" does not necessarily mean that we must look for some god or demigod of the old mythology—Frey or Sceaf or Beow—with whom we can identify him. This characteristic is strongly present in many Old English monarchs and magnates of historic, Christian, times: Oswald or Alfred or Byrhtnoth. Indeed, it might with much plausibility be argued that we are to see in this "protecting" characterof the hero evidence of Christian rather than of heathen influence[526].

Nor can we argue anything from the absence of any historic record of a king Beowulf of the Geatas; our records are too scanty to admit of argument from silence: and were such argument valid, it would only prove Beowulf fictitious, not mythological—no more necessarily an ancient god than Tom Jones or Mr Pickwick.

There remains the argument of Dr Bradley. He points out that

"The poem is divided into numbered sections, the length of which was probably determined by the size of the pieces of parchment of which an earlier exemplar consisted. Now the first fifty-two lines, which are concerned with Scyld and his son Beowulf, stand outside this numbering. It may reasonably be inferred that there once existed a written text of the poem that did not include these lines. Their substance, however, is clearly ancient. Many difficulties will be obviated if we may suppose that this passage is the beginning of a different poem, the hero of which was not Beowulf the son of Ecgtheow, but his Danish namesake[527]."

In this Bradley sees support for the view that "there were circulated in England two rival poetic versions of the story of the encounters with supernatural beings: the one referring them to Beowulf the Dane" [of this thePrologueto our extant poem would be the only surviving portion, whilst] "the other (represented by the existing poem) attached them to the legend of the son of Ecgtheow."

But surely many objections have to be met. Firstly, as Dr Bradley admits, the mention of Beowulf the Dane is not confined to thePrologue; this earlier Beowulf "is mentioned at the beginning of the first numbered section" and consequently Dr Bradley has to suppose that "the opening lines of this section have undergone alteration in order to bring them into connection with the prefixed matter." And why should we assume that the "passus" ofBeowulfcorrespond to pieces ofparchment of various sizes of which an earlier exemplar consisted? These "passus" vary in length from 43 lines to 142, a disproportion by no means extraordinary for the sections of one and the same poem, but very awkward for the pages of one and the same book, however roughly constructed. One of the "passus" is just twice the average length, and 30 lines longer than the one which comes next to it in size. Ought we to assume that an artificer would have made his book clumsy by putting in this one disproportionate page, when, by cutting it in two, he could have got two pages of just about the size he wanted? Besides, the different "passus" do not seem to me to show signs of having been caused by such mechanical reasons as the dimensions of the parchment upon which they were written. On the contrary, the 42 places where sections begin and end almost all come where a reader might reasonably be expected to pause: 16 at the beginning or end of a speech: 18 others at a point where the narrative is resumed after some digression or general remark. Only eight remain, and even with these, there is generally some pause in the narrative at the point indicated. In only two instances does a "passus" end at a flagrantly inappropriate spot; in one of these there is strong reason to suppose that the scribe may have caused the trouble by beginning with a capital where he had no business to have done so[528]. Generally, there seems to be some principle governing the division of chapter from chapter, even though this be not made as a modern would have made it. But, if so, is there anything extraordinary in the first chapter, which deals with events three generations earlier than those of the body of the poem, being allowed to stand outside the numbering, as a kind of prologue?

The idea of a preface or prologue was quite familiar in Old English times. The oldestMSS[529]of Bede'sHistoryhave, at the end of the preface,Explicit praefatio incipiunt capitula. So we have in one of the two oldestMSS[530]of thePastoral Care"Ðis is seo forespræc." On the other hand, the prologue or preface might be left without any heading or colophon, and the nextchapter begin as No. I. This is the case in the otherMSof thePastoral Care[531]. Is there, then, such difficulty in the dissertation on the glory of the ancient Danish kings being treated as what, in fact, it is: a prologue or preface; and being, as such, simply left outside the numbering?

Still less can we argue for the identification of our hero, the son of Ecgtheow, with Frotho, and through him with Beow, from the supposed resemblances between the dragon fights of Beowulf and Frotho. Such resemblances have been divined by Sievers, but we have seen that it is the dissimilarity, not the resemblance, of the two dragon fights which is really noteworthy[532].

To prove that Beow was the original antagonist of Grendel there remains, then, only the mention in the charter of aGrendles merenear aBēowan hamm[533]. Now this was not known to Kemble at the time when he formed his theory that the original slayer of Grendel was not Beowulf, but Beow. And if the arguments upon which Kemble based his theory had been at all substantial, this charter would have afforded really valuable support. But the fact that two names occur near each other in a charter cannot confirm any theory, unless that theory has already a real basis of its own.

(2)Beow

Therefore, until some further evidence be discovered, we must regard the belief that the Grendel and the dragon stories were originally myths of Beow, as a theory for which sufficient evidence is not forthcoming.

But note where the theory breaks down. It seems indisputable that Beowulf the Dane, son of Scyld Scefing, is identical with Beo(w) of the genealogies: for Beo(w) is son of Scyld[534]or Sce(a)ldwa[535], who is a Scefing. But here we must stop. There is, as we have seen, no evidence that the Grendel or dragon adventures were transferred from him to their present hero,Beowulf the Geat, son of Ecgtheow. It would, of course, be quite possible to accept such transference, andstillto reject the mythological interpretation of these adventures, just as it would be possible to believe that Gawain was originally a sun-hero, whilst rejecting the interpretation as a sun-myth of any particular adventure which could be proved to have been once told concerning Gawain. But I do not think we need even concede, as Boer[536]and Chadwick[537]do, that adventures have been transferred from Beowulf the Dane to Beowulf the Geat. We have seen that there is no evidence for such transference, however intrinsically likely it may be. Till evidenceisforthcoming, it is useless to build upon Kemble's conjecture that Beowulf the Scylding sank into Beowulf the Wægmunding[538].

But it is due to Kemble to remember that, while he only put this forward as a tentative conjecture, what hewascertain about was the identity of Beowulf the Scylding with Beow, and the divinity of these figures. And here all the evidence seems to justify him.

"The divinity of the earlier Beówulf," Kemble wrote, "I hold for indisputable.... Beo or Beow is ... in all probability a god of agriculture and fertility.... It strengthens this view of the case that he is the grandson of Sceáf,manipulus frumenti, with whom he is perhaps in fact identical[539]."

Whether or no Beow and Sceaf were ever identical, it is certain that Beow (grain) the descendant of Sceaf (sheaf) suggests a corn-myth, some survival from the ancient worship of a corn-spirit.

Nowbēow, 'grain, barley,' corresponds to Old Norsebygg, just as, corresponding to O.E.trīewe, we have O.N.tryggr, or corresponding to O.E.glēaw, O.N.glǫggr. Corresponding to the O.E. proper nameBēow, we might expect an O.N. name, the first letters in which would beBygg(v)-.

And pat he comes, like the catastrophe of the Old Comedy. When Loki strode into the Hall of Ægir, and assailed with clamour and scandal the assembled gods and goddesses, there were present, among the major gods, also Byggvir and his wifeBeyla, the servants of Frey, the god of agriculture and fertility. Loki reviles the gods, one after the other: at last he exchanges reproaches with Frey. To see his lord so taunted is more than Byggvir can endure, and he turns to Loki with the words:

Know thou, that were my race such as is that of Ingunar-Frey, and if I had so goodly a seat, finer than marrow would I grind thee, thou crow of ill-omen, and pound thee all to pieces[540].

Byggvir is evidently no great hero: he draws his ideas from the grinding of the homely hand-mill, with which John Barleycorn has reason to be familiar:

A miller used him worst of all,For he crushed him between two stones[541].

A miller used him worst of all,

For he crushed him between two stones[541].

Loki, who has addressed by name all the other gods, his acquaintances of old, professes not to know who is this insignificant being: but his reference to the hand-mill shows that in reality he knows quite well:

What is that little creature that I see, fawning and sneaking and snuffling: ever wilt thou be at the ears of Frey, and chattering at the quern[542].

Byggvir replies with a dignity which reminds us of the traditional characteristics of Sir John Barleycorn, or Allan O'Maut. For:

Uskie-bae ne'er bure the bellSae bald as Allan bure himsel[543].

Uskie-bae ne'er bure the bell

Sae bald as Allan bure himsel[543].

Byggvir adopts the same comic-heroic pose:

Byggvir am I named, and all gods and men call me hasty; proud am I, by reason that all the children of Odin are drinking ale together[544].

But any claims Byggvir may make to be a hero are promptly dismissed by Loki:

Hold thou silence, Byggvir, for never canst thou share food justly among men: thou didst hide among the straw of the hall: they could not find thee, when men were fighting[545].

Now the taunts of Loki, though we must hope for the credit of Asgard that they are false, are never pointless. And such jibes as Loki addresses to Byggvirwouldbe pointless, if applied to one whom we could think of as in any way like our Beowulf. Later, Beyla, wife of Byggvir, speaks, and is silenced with the words "Hold thy peace—wife thou art of Byggvir." Byggvir must have been a recognized figure of the old mythology[546], but one differing from the monster-slaying Beow of Müllenhoff's imagination.

Byggvir is a little creature (et lítla), and we have seen above[547]that Scandinavian scholars have thought that they have discovered this old god in the Pekko who "promoted the growth of barley" among the Finns in the sixteenth century, and who is still worshipped among the Esthonians on the opposite side of the gulf as a three year old child; the formPekkobeing derived, it is supposed, from the primitive Norse form *Beggwuz. This is a corner of a very big subject: the discovery, among the Lapps and Finns, of traces of the heathendom of the mostancient Teutonic world, just as Thomsen has taught us to find in the Finnish language traces of Teutonic words in their most antique form.

The Lappish field has proved the most successful hunting ground[548]: among the Finns, apart from the Thunder-god, connection with Norse beliefs is arguable mainly for a group of gods of fruitfulness[549]. The cult of these, it is suggested, comes from scattered Scandinavian settlers in Finland, among whom the Finns dwelt, and from whom they learnt the worship of the spirits of the seed and of the spring, just as they learnt more practical lessons. First and foremost among these stands Pekko, whom we know to have been especially the god of barley, and whose connection with Beow or Byggvir (*Beggwuz) is therefore a likely hypothesis enough[550]. Much less certain is the connection of Sämpsä, the spirit of vegetation, with any Germanic prototype; he may have been a god of the rush-grass[551](Germ.simse). Runkoteivas or Rukotivo was certainly the god of rye, and the temptation to derive his name from Old Norse (rugr-tivorr, "rye-god") is great[552]. But we have not evidence forthe worship among Germanic peoples of such a rye-god, as we have in the case of the barley-god Byggvir-Beow. These shadowy heathen gods, however, do give each other a certain measure of mutual support.

And, whether or no Pekko be the same as Byggvir, his worship is interesting as showing how the spirit of vegetation may be honoured among primitive folk. His worshippers, the Setukese, although nominally members of the Greek Orthodox Church, speak their own dialect and often hardly understand that of their Russian priests, but keep their old epic and lyric traditions more than almost any other section of the Finnish-Esthonian race. Pekko, who was honoured among the Finns in the sixteenth century for "promoting the growth of barley," survives among the present-day peasantry around Pskoff, not only as a spirit to be worshipped, but as an actual idol, fashioned out of wax in the form of a child, sometimes of a three year old child. He lives in the corn-bin, but on certain occasions is carried out into the fields. Not everyone can afford the amount of wax necessary for a Pekko—in fact there is usually only one in a village: he lodges in turn with different members of his circle of worshippers. He holds two moveable feasts, on moonlight nights—one in spring, the other in autumn. The wax figure is brought into a lighted room draped in a sheet, there is feasting, with dancing hand in hand, and singing round Pekko. Then they go out to decide who shall keep Pekko for the next year—his host is entitled to special blessing and protection. Pekko is carried out into the field, especially to preside over the sowing[553].

I doubt whether, in spite of the high authorities which support it, we can as yet feel at all certain about the identification of Beow and Pekko. But I think we can accept with fair certainty the identification of Beow and Byggvir. And we can at any rate use Pekko as a collateral example of the way in which a grain-spirit is regarded. Now in either case we find no support whatever for the supposition that the activities ofBeow, the spirit of the barley, could, or would, have been typified under the guise of battles such as those which Beowulf the Geat wages against Grendel, Grendel's mother, and the dragon. In Beowulf the Geat we find much that suggests the hero of folk-tale, overlaid with much that belongs to him as the hero of an heroic poem, but nothing suggestive of a corn-myth. On the other hand, so long as we confine ourselves to Beow and his ancestor Sceaf, wearein touch with this type of myth, however remotely. The way that Sceaf comes over the sea, as recorded by William of Malmesbury, is characteristic. That "Sheaf" should be, in the language of Müllenhoff, "placed in a boat and committed to the winds and waves in the hope that he will return new-born in the spring" is exactly what we might expect, from the analogy of harvest customs and myths of the coming of spring.

In Sætersdale, in Norway, when the ice broke up in the spring, and was driven ashore, the inhabitants used to welcome it by throwing their hats into the air, and shouting "Welcome, Corn-boat." It was a good omen if the "Corn-boats" were driven high and dry up on the land[554]. The floating of the sheaf on a shield down the Thames at Abingdon[555]reminds us of the Bulgarian custom, in accordance with which the venerated last sheaf of the harvest was floated down the river[556]. But every neighbourhood is not provided with convenient rivers, and in many places the last sheaf is merely drenched with water. This is an essential part of the custom of "crying the neck."

The precise ritual of "crying the neck" or "crying the mare" was confined to the west and south-west of England[557]. But there is no such local limitation about the custom of drenching thelast sheaf, or its bearers and escort, with water. This has been recorded, among other places, at Hitchin in Hertfordshire[558], in Cambridgeshire[559], Nottinghamshire[560], Pembrokeshire[561], Wigtownshire[562]as well as in Holstein[563], Westphalia[564], Prussia[565], Galicia[566], Saxon Transsylvania[567], Roumania[568]and perhaps in ancient Phrygia[569].

Now it is true that drenching the last sheaf with water, as a rain charm, is by no means the same thing as floating it down the river, in the expectation that it will come again in the spring. But it shows the same sense of the continued existence of the corn-spirit. That theseed, when sown, should be sprinkled with water as a rain charm (as is done in places) seems obvious and natural enough. But when thelast sheafof the preceding harvest is thus sprinkled, to ensure plenteous rain upon the crops of next year, we detect the same idea of continuity which we find expressed when Sceaf comes to land from over the sea: the spirit embodied in the sheaf of last year's harvest returning, and bringing the renewed power of vegetation.

The voyage of the Abingdonian sheaf on the Thames was conducted upon a shield, and it may be that the "vessel without a rower" in which "Sheaf" came to land was, in the original version, a shield. There would be precedent for this. The shield was known by the puzzling name of "Ull's ship" in Scaldic poetry, presumably because the god Ull used his shield as a boat. Anyway, Scyld came to be closely connected with Sceaf and Beow. In Ethelwerd he is son of the former and father of the latter: but in theChroniclegenealogies five names intervene between Scyld and Sceaf, and the son of Sceaf is Bedwig, or as he is called in one version, Beowi.BedwigandBeowiare probably derived fromBeowius, the Latinizedform ofBeow. A badly formedomight easily be mistaken for ad, and indeedBeowiusappears in forms much more corrupt. In that case it would appear that while some genealogies made Beow the son of Scyld, others made him son of Sceaf, and that the compiler of the pedigree got over the difficulty in the usual way, by adding the one version to the other[570].

But all this is very hypothetical; and how and when Scyld came to be connected with Sceaf and with Beow we cannot with any certainty say. At any rate we find no trace of such connection in Danish traditions of the primitive King Skjold of the Danes. But we can say, with some certainty, that in Beowulf the Dane, the son of Scyld Scefing, in our poem, we have a figure which is identical with Beow, son of Scyld or of Sceldwa and descendant of Sceaf, in the genealogies, and that this Beow is likely to have been an ancient corn-spirit, parallel to the Scandinavian Byggvir. That amount of mythology probablydoesunderlie theProloguetoBeowulf, though the author would no doubt have been highly scandalized had he suspected that his pattern of a young prince was only a disguised heathen god. But I think that any further attempt to proceed, from this, to mythologize the deeds of Beowulf the Great, is pure conjecture, and probably quite fruitless conjecture.

I ought not to conclude this note without reference to the admirable discussion of this subject by Prof. Björkman inEnglische Studien[571]. This, with the elucidation of other proper names inBeowulf, was destined to be the last big contribution to knowledge made by that ripe and good scholar, whose premature loss we all deplore; and it shows to the full those qualities of wide knowledge and balanced judgment which we have all learnt to admire in him.

B. GRENDEL

It may be helpful to examine the places where the name of Grendel occurs in English charters.

A.D.708. Grant of land at Abbots Morton, near Alcester, co. Worcester, by Kenred, King of the Mercians, to Evesham (extant in a late copy).

Ǣrest of grindeles pytt on wīðimære; of wīðimære on þæt rēade slōh ... of ðēre dīce on þene blace pōl; of þām pōle æfter long pidele in tō þām mersce; of þām mersce þā æft on grindeles pytt[572].

The valley of the Piddle Brook is about a mile wide, with hills rising on each side till they reach a height of a couple of hundred feet above the brook. The directions begin in the valley and run "From Grindel's 'pytt' to the willow-mere; from the willow-mere to the red morass"; then from the morass the directions take us up the hill and along the lea, where they continue among the downs till we again make our descent into the valley, "from the ditch to the black pool, from the pool along the Piddle brook to the marsh, and from the marsh back to Grindel's 'pytt.'" In modern English a "pit" is an artificial hole which is generally dry: but the word is simply Latinputeus, "a well," and is used in this sense in the Gospel translations. Here it is a hole, and we may be sure that, with the willow-mere and the red slough on the one side, and the black pool and the marsh on the other, the hole was full of water.

A.D.739. Grant of land at Creedy, co. Devon, by Æthelheard, King of Wessex, to Bishop Forthhere.

of doddan hrycge on grendeles pyt; of grendeles pytte on ifigbearo(ivy-grove)...[573].

The spot is near the junction of the rivers Exe and Creedy, with Dartmoor in the distance. The neighbourhood bears uncanny names,Cāines æcer, egesan trēow. If, as has been suggested by Napier and Stevenson, a trace of this pit still survives in the name Pitt farm, the mere must have been in the uplands, about 600 feet above sea level.

A.D.931. Grant of land at Ham in Wiltshire by Athelstan to his thane Wulfgar. Quoted above, p.43. It is in this charter thaton Bēowan hammes hecgan, on Grendles mere[574]occur. "Grendel pits or meres" are in most other cases in low-lying marshy country: but this, like (perhaps) the preceding one, is in the uplands—it must have been a lonely mere among the hills, under Inkpen Beacon.

CircaA.D.957. A list of boundaries near Battersea[575].

Ðis synd ðā landgemǣre tō Batriceseie. Ǣrst at hēgefre; fram hēgefre to gætenesheale; fram gæteneshæle to gryndeles syllen; fram gryndeles sylle to russemere; fram ryssemere to bælgenham....

All this is low-lying land, just south of the Thames.Hēgefreis on the river;Bælgenhamis Balham, co. Surrey. "From Grendel's mire to the rushy mere" harmonizes excellently with what we know of the swampy nature of this district in early times.

A.D.958. Grant of land at Swinford, on the Stour, co. Stafford, by King Eadred to his thane Burhelm[576].

Ondlong bæces wið neoþan eostacote; ondlong dīces in grendels-mere; of grendels-mere in stāncōfan; of stāncōfan ondlong dūne on stiran mere....

A.D.972. Confirmation of lands to Pershore Abbey (Worcester) by King Edgar[577].

of Grindles bece swā þæt gemǣre ligð....

A.D.972. Extract from an account of the descent of lands belonging to Westminster, quoting a grant of King Edgar[578].

andlang hagan to grendeles gatan æfter kincges mearce innan brægentan....

The property described is near Watling Street, between Edgware, Hendon, and the River Brent. It is a low-lyingdistrict almost surrounded by the hills of Hampstead, Highgate, Barnet, Mill Hill, Elstree, Bushey Heath and Harrow. The bottom of the basin thus formed must have been a swamp[579]. What the "gate" may have been it is difficult to say. A foreign scholar has suggested that it may have been a narrow mountain defile or possibly a cave[580]: but this suggestion could never have been made by anyone who knew the country. The "gate" is likely to have been a channel connecting two meres—or it might have been a narrow piece of land between them—one of thoseenge ānpaðaswhich Grendel and his mother had to tread. Anyway, there is nothing exceptional in this use of "gate" in connection with a water-spirit. Necker, on the Continent, also had his "gates." Thus there is a "Neckersgate Mill" near Brussels, and the name "Neckersgate" used also to be applied to a group of houses near by, surrounded by water[581].

All the other places clearly point to a water-spirit: two meres, two pits, a mire and a beck: for the most part situated in low-lying country which must in Anglo-Saxon times have been swampy. All this harmonizes excellently with thefenfreoðoofBeowulf(l. 851). Of course it does not in the least follow that these places were named after the Grendel of our poem. It may well be that there was in England a current belief in a creature Grendel, dwelling among the swamps. Von Sydow has compared the Yorkshire belief in Peg Powler, or the Lancashire Jenny Greenteeth. But these aquatic monsters are not exactly parallel; for they abide in the water, and are dangerous only to those who attempt to cross it, or at any rate venture too near the bank[582], whilst Grendel and even his mother are capable of excursions of some distance from their fastness amid the fens.

Of course the mere-haunting Grendelmayhave been identified only at a comparatively late date with the spirit who struggles with the hero in the house, and flees below the earth in the folk-tale.

At any rate belief in a Grendel, haunting mere and fen, is clearly demonstrable for England—at any rate for the south and west of England: for of these place-names two belong to the London district, one to Wiltshire, one to Devonshire, two to Worcester and one to Stafford. The place-nameGrendelein Yorkshire is too doubtful to be of much help. (Domesday Book,I, 302.) It is the modern village Grindale, four miles N.W. of Bridlington. From it, probably, is derived the surnameGrindle, Grindall(Bardsley).

Abroad, the nearest parallel is to be found in Transsylvania, where there is aGrändels môramong the Saxons of the Senndorf district, near Bistritz. The Saxons of Transsylvania are supposed to have emigrated from the neighbourhood of the lower Rhine and the Moselle, and there is aGrindelbachin Luxemburg which may possibly be connected with the marsh demon[583].

Most of the German names inGrindel-orGrendel-are connected withgrendel, "a bar," and therefore do not come into consideration here[584]: but the Transsylvanian "Grendel's marsh[585]," anyway, reminds us of the English "Grendel's marsh" or "mere" or "pit." Nevertheless, the local story with which the Transsylvanian swamp is connected—that of a peasant who was ploughing with six oxen and was swallowed up in the earth—is such that it requires considerable ingenuity to see any connection between it and theBeowulf-Grendel-tale[586].

The Anglo-Saxon place-names may throw some light upon the meaning and etymology of "Grendel[587]." The name has generally been derived fromgrindan, "to grind"; either directly[588], because Grendel grinds the bones of those he devours, or indirectly, in the sense of "tormentor[589]." Others would connect with O.N.grindill, "storm," and perhaps with M.E.gryndel, "angry[590]."

It has recently been proposed to connect the word withgrund, "bottom": for Grendel lives in themere-grundorgrund-wongand his mother is thegrund-wyrgin. Erik Rooth, who proposes this etymology, compares the Icelandicgrandi, "a sandbank," and the common Low German dialect wordgrand, "coarse sand[591]." This brings us back to the root "to grind," forgrand, "sand" is simply the product of the grinding of the waves[592]. Indeed the same explanation has been given of the word "ground[593]."

However this may be, the new etymology differs from the old in giving Grendel a name derived, not from his grinding or tormenting others, but from his dwelling at the bottom of the lake or marsh[594]. The name would have a parallel in the Modern Englishgrindle,grundel, Germangrundel[595], a fish haunting the bottom of the water.

The Old English place-names, associating Grendel as they do with meres and swamps, seem rather to support this.

As to the Devonshire streamGrendel(now the Grindle or Greendale Brook), it has been suggested that this name is alsoconnected with the rootgrand, "gravel," "sand." But, so far as I have been able to observe, there is no particular suggestion of sand or gravel about this modest little brook. If we follow the River Clyst from the point where the Grindle flows into it, through two miles of marshy land, to the estuary of the Exe, we shall there find plenty. But it is clear from the charter of 963 that the name was then, as now, restricted to the small brook. I cannot tell why the stream should bear the name, or what, if any, is the connection with the monster Grendel. We can only note that the name is again found attached to water, and, near the junction with the Clyst, to marshy ground.

Anyone who will hunt Grendel through the shires, first on the 6-in. ordnance map, and later on foot, will probably have to agree with the Three Jovial Huntsmen

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