All Things Medieval

Apart from the narrator, three voices have the last say about the death of Beowulf. 

Wiglaf is still trying to revive the old king with water a third time when the other ten warriors come back, probably drawn by the silence to peek over the hill and see if the dragon is dead or alive.  Wiglaf repeats his previous sentiments:  when Beowulf gave out war-gear to you, he just threw it away.  No one stood by him when he needed it, and he himself, a young man, was barely able to help enough to kill the dragon.  Wiglaf’s speech makes clear that the warriors all knew that when the king needed them, his instructions to stay back were not supposed to be followed.  Given the dual duty to support and to obey, obeying was a lesser duty to giving him defensive support. 

Wiglaf commands a messenger, perhaps one of the shame-faced warriors, to go and tell the rest of the earls, who have stayed back even further.  The messenger’s speech is largely covered in the following section, as it deals with Geatish political matters.  His meaning is clear, however:  the death of the king is nothing short of disaster to the people.  A modern audience, accustomed to smooth changes of power, would wonder why.  But Beowulf is leaving no firm power structure behind him, since he has no son.  Wiglaf is clearly very young, perhaps too young to rule, and while his status as dragon-slayer may help him, in the end he may not have either the solidly loyal support or the actual fighting prowess to carry it off.  If another earl begins to rule, then there may be divisions and rivalries until his dynasty is established (meaning that he’s killed or driven off rivals). 

In the meantime, enemies all about will want to take advantage of this weakness.  Very likely, the Geatish nation has not been growing in importance; they have depended on the personal strength of Beowulf.  With him gone, they face a future with no certainties but those of war on every side.

The messenger’s second theme is the plan for the funeral.  Beowulf will be burned, of course, as befits a noble warrior.  But with him will go most or all of the dragon-hoard, indirectly the cause of his death.  Beowulf had intended the treasure for his people, but the messenger here expresses what may be a universal sentiment, that they cannot bear to own and wear these things.  The messenger even implies that they would do best to put all of their gold, the things they already own, into the fire with the king.  After all, what awaits them but slavery for the women and death for the men?  His last image is grim, as the raven, eagle and wolf divide the Geatish corpses in shares.

The assembled Geatish earls return to the scene of battle, and it is all as we left it, only now we see it through their eyes.  Beowulf, mangled, blackened, and pale, covered with blood, is propped against a wall.  The dragon lies as he fell, hacked and twisted.  There is a hasty pile of treasures next to the old king, and Wiglaf still sits nearby.  Wiglaf explains what happened and begins to give directions.  It is possible that Wiglaf’s clear ownership of Beowulf’s war-gear, in addition to his near kinship, has indicated to them that he is the heir apparent.  As young as he is, he tells them what to do, and how to carry out treasures and build the king’s pyre.  He appoints the ones to go into the barrow, and he sets others busy finding dry wood.  Some of the treasure will be burnt with Beowulf, and some will be piled into his new barrow.

The last voices speaking about the death of Beowulf are those of an old woman and twelve earls.  The old woman stands up as the flames leap up to consume the king’s body, singing a song of lament about the coming defeat of their people.  After the flames die out and the barrow is built, twelve noble earls ride slowly in a circle around it and sing a song of lament.  They praise Beowulf’s deeds over his lifetime.  Beowulf’s final epitaph is not, as he predicted, that he refrained from killing his kinsmen, but that he was gentle and kind, and earnestly seeking for fame.  To yearn for fame was a good thing; it didn’t mean wanting “fifteen minutes of fame” in a cheap way, it meant wanting to be so great that fame would come.  Beowulf wanted to be praised and tried hard to be the kind of man that would merit it.

The worst part of Beowulf’s neck wound turns out to be a serpent-like poison that immediately makes the wound burn and swell.  Beowulf knows that death is only a matter of minutes; he sits down by the wall so that he may die in peace.  Wiglaf is able to fetch water and wash the blood and some poison away.  The last minutes of Beowulf are spent partly in communicating with Wiglaf, and partly in viewing some of the dragon’s treasure.

The last act of a noble father was to give his war-gear to his son.  Beowulf says that he has no son, although the story does not explain why not.  It would be unusual for a king not to marry, but not unusual for his wife or children to die of disease.  Although we are not told that any family members died in the dragon-fire of the hall, it is possible that some did.  Wiglaf appears to be his nearest relation now and will be his personal heir, although there is no guarantee that the Geats will select him as the next king.

At Beowulf’s request, Wiglaf runs quickly into the deserted barrow.  Even as much in haste as he is, Wiglaf is stopped by the sight of the treasure.  The barrow is dark, but there is a magical light coming from the ancient king’s banner that is still hanging high, where the Last Survivor had set it up.  In this light, he can see the gleaming of gold and jewels, as well as many iron objects that have rusted and leather fittings that have molded.  After a stunned glance around, Wiglaf loads everything he can carry into his arms and runs out of the barrow, hoping he is not too late.

Beowulf is just enough alive to look weakly on the treasures, after Wiglaf once again revives him with water.  His last words are filled with dramatic irony.  He sees the treasure as destined to belong to his people, perhaps to form the core of a new royal hoard, perhaps for a new King Wiglaf to give out and form new bonds of loyalty in the younger generation.  He envisions his warriors, the “brave in battle,” building him a new barrow right here on the cape, where passing ships may see it.  Could this cape be one near where he returned home from Denmark or Frisia?  It may not be unfamiliar land far from home, but rather a place he has walked past many times, without knowing a dragon slept beneath his feet.

Beowulf’s last act is to give his necklace and war-gear to Wiglaf, as promised, and his last words are, “I must follow them” (2816).  Although he is not descended from Scield Scefing, whose funeral opened the poem, he appears to be following this great king of the ancient past, along with Hygelac and Hrethel, and perhaps even Ongentheow, into the land of the dead.

Among the waiting eleven men who can all see the progress of the fight, one is a close kinsman of Beowulf.  We do not know the exact relationship they have; Wiglaf (wee-lahf) is not of Hrethel’s family, but he is related to Beowulf.  He could be two generations younger, related on the side of Beowulf’s father.  Perhaps he is a grand-nephew, the grandson of a sister or brother.  The sons of a sister had a special relationship to their uncle; Beowulf may have helped raise and educate Wiglaf. 

Out of all the fighting men, Wiglaf feels the greatest responsibility toward Beowulf, and although Beowulf’s parting instructions have been enough to keep him sidelined at first, now he stands up to fight.  He tells the men around him that they had all taken mead together, and all promised to uphold their King.  It was for their extra-hardy loyalty that they were chosen for this last journey!  Wiglaf scolds the others for bearing gift-weapons while forgetting, in their panic, the oaths that occasioned the gifts.  “I would much prefer,” he says, “that the flames should enfold my body alongside my gift-giving lord.” (2651-2)   

The words are no sooner out of his mouth than the other ten have fled to the woods, hoping to hide from the dragon’s eventual wrath.  Like the Danes who saw blood in the water and assumed Beowulf’s death, these Geats see him stumbling and assume that he will fail. 

Wiglaf is very young, or else the Geats have been at peace for many years, for we learn that this is the first time he has stood up beside his King in battle.  In spite of this inexperience, he draws his sword and walks down toward the dragon.  His wooden shield is quickly burned up, and his chain-mail is useless (in fact, it is probably worse than useless, since it would become very hot).  Wiglaf’s main help seems to be supporting the shield that Beowulf is becoming too weak to hold. 

Now Beowulf, encouraged and perhaps physically supported, is able to stand up and deliver the final blow, sending his sword into the dragon’s skull.  The dying dragon, however, is able to bite Beowulf’s exposed neck.  In spite of their reciprocal wounds, they continue to fight for a few last blows.  Wiglaf is able to strike lower, into the dragon’s abdomen, which begins to drain its firepower.  Beowulf, weakened from blood-loss but still focusing all his energy and concentration on the fight, is able to stab the dying dragon again, and at last the dragon falls and is still.

Beowulf, King of the Geats, is now about 75 years old.  He becomes entangled with the dragon by means of the dragon’s flight of vengeance.  Among other buildings, Beowulf’s royal hall was burnt to the ground.  We are not told of loss of life, but it can be assumed that a large wooden hall cannot be suddenly burnt without casualties.  Beowulf was apparently not at home.  His hall burnt, some of his people killed, Beowulf is cut to the core by the sudden reversal of fate. 

Long ago, Hrothgar had warned him that even the good king who ruled well might be subject to sudden tricks of fate in his old age.  It happened to Hrothgar; now it is Beowulf’s turn.  Unlike Hrothgar, Beowulf is sure he can avenge himself.  Is there any young hero on the scene to take his place?  Apparently not.

Beowulf’s mindset is explained briefly, but with some care (2327-32).  His first thought may be to recall Hrothgar’s words, and he wonders if he has offended God, the Ruler of All.  These painful, dark thoughts are completely unlike his usual mental state.  He knows (2342) that he is doomed to die.  Like the Last Survivor, he has only to spin out the days with the appropriate actions, and the end will come.  There is no good outcome, only a possibly successful one. 

The Old English word for someone who was doomed to die survives as an antique word, “fey.”  Fey means not just doomed to die, but also having the mindset that comes with knowing that you are going to die.  Nothing matters if you know you will die in battle; why brush your teeth?  Fey can also imply a touch of madness and an other-world, fairy sense.  Beowulf is now fey, doomed to die, and he has a new mindset, a fey one.  He is not mad or impractical, but sets about to make sure his last battle is at least successful.  He has to avenge himself, that much is clear, and that means a successful attack on the dragon.

First he commands a special iron shield to be made.  From Tacitus’ Teutons to the civilized English of the late Anglo-Saxon period to the fiercest Swedish Vikings, all used wooden shields.  The center “boss” was metal, but the shield itself was always wooden.  An iron shield will be unusually heavy, but it will not catch fire.  Next, after this is finished, he chooses companions.  This is probably a mix of his youthful and experienced retainers, numbering twelve including himself.  The thirteenth man is their guide, the runaway slave—the thief.

At first, Beowulf’s mind on setting out is reported as carefree and confident.  With his new iron shield, he remembers his many victories and does not feel afraid.  But when they reach the cape on the seashore, where the dragon’s barrow is located, Beowulf’s mind changes.  Now he feels truly fey; he knows in his deepest heart that this is his last battle.  He is “restless and ripe for death” (2420).  It is in this state of mind that he takes time out to rest, and to tell one last story. 

Many of the details we have of Hrethel’s family, and some of the details of the Swedish feud, come from Beowulf’s speech as he pauses.  Recall his eagerness to attack Grendel’s mother, when he would not linger on the shore of the haunted mere.  Now, on this shore, he dawdles and speaks to his companions.  The tone of his speech is elegiac; he speaks of death and loss.  It is in this frame of mind that he tells about Hrethel’s loss of his son, about how an old man grieves when he loses his oldest son.  Like Hrothgar long ago, an old man with many memories, he wants to tell it one more time and through remembering the grief of Hrethel, to mourn his own coming death.  Perhaps he wishes to cheer himself with a memory of past victory when he tells about defeating Day-Raven with one crushing blow. 

Beowulf knows he is no longer as strong as thirty men, but he hopes he has yet enough strength for his last task.  After a last formal boast, he gets up and is ready for the fight.

Beowulf’s last instructions almost bring about defeat, and this is the first deed that brings any hint of criticism from the narrative voice.  Although he is there with eleven companions (the runaway slave, presumably, has been allowed to leave), he wishes to fight alone.  He instructs his men not to help him, but to stand back and watch, waiting in safety. 

His men must have heard this instruction with a mixture of relief and discomfort.  They have a conflicting loyalty now.  They need to obey their king, but on the other side, their normal duty is always to come to his aid.  For him to command them not to help is a contradiction; it releases them from their oaths to help him, without releasing them from their oaths to obey him. 

At the same time, they have no desire to fight the dragon.  Their shields are wooden, and they have never fought any supernatural or inhuman creature.  Fighting monsters is Beowulf’s specialty, in their minds, even if he is now 75.  Is Beowulf right, though, to command his men to leave him alone?  According to the Germanic traditions, there is no “fine print” in which if a king is attacked by a supernatural beast, everyone is allowed to run away. It would have been wiser, I think, to have his men help as was their duty.

The fight begins in an unpromising way.  Beowulf, finding that the door into the cavern is streaming with the dragon’s heat, decides to call him out.  The dragon, hearing a human voice, hopes to find the thief and rushes out.  Both of them are checked for a moment, staring.  Who is this?  But then the dragon answers with his usual weapon, a stream of fire.  The iron shield does not burn, but it cannot stop the flames and intense heat, and Beowulf is overcome.  First, Beowulf has quickly struck a blow with his sword, not enough to kill the dragon, but enough to wound and astonish it.  This wound only makes the dragon’s fire hotter, and with his sword turning out not strong enough to pierce the dragon’s scales, Beowulf must do something he never thought to do:  he runs away.

Wyrd is against Beowulf this time.  When Grendel’s mother attacked him with her knife while he was still catching his breath, fate had been with him, and had denied her victory.  Fate is not with Beowulf, but is it with the dragon?  It is not long until Beowulf steps forward again to fight the dragon, and the wounded beast and burned man begin a battle to the death.

How do we know what dragons do?  Ancient sources all around the world (but chiefly in Europe and China) speak of dragons, those rare creatures that are combinations of serpent and lizard.  Little detail is provided, though, in old sources.  Chinese dragons are peaceful and wise, the totems of the Imperial dynasties.  They benevolent, and perhaps for that reason, they are worshipped.  They have beards and tusks but they do not have wings, although in some stories they can fly. 

European dragons, by contrast, are rotten to the core.  They have wings and they usually can spout flames.  They eat livestock, and in later stories, they eat young girls.  Having a dragon in the neighborhood was a disaster, and it was imperative to kill the dragon as soon as possible.

The oldest European stories and the most local legends give few details beyond this basic outline. We get a few accounts outside of Beowulf’s. Some lines in the obscure Old English poem “Solomon and Saturn” tell how a hero killed twenty-five dragons in a remote plain. Since that time, no one can find the place but all dragons come from there.  A short section in The Wonders of the East alleges that dragons are all born on an island somewhere in the Indian Ocean, where also headless men live.  These dragons are 150 feet long and as thick as pillars.  The Liber Monstrorum describes serpents that contain some of the traits of mythical dragons.  Some are 120 feet long, some have poisonous breath, some are studded with emeralds, and some are born in cold lands and roam the rocky land, looking for hiding places and food.  If a dragon is a type of serpent, then here perhaps are some details, and yet in the Liber Monstrorum, they are never called dragons (draca).

The dragon of Beowulf is, then, one of the earliest detailed portraits of a European dragon.  It is clearly an animal; it acts by nature, not by intelligent thought.  It does not appear to talk, at least there is no reported speech.  It is long (fifty feet) and thin, and it can crawl on the ground, perhaps smelling for the trail of the thief.  Just as Grendel’s appearance was not described, neither is the dragon’s.  Does he have horns, or ridges on his back?  Perhaps.  Does he have claws?  Is he brightly colored?  Probably; the closing lines suggest color (3040).  Does he have a beard, like a Chinese dragon?  He might.  All we know for sure is that he has teeth, wings, and flames.

Its chief trait is its fond attachment (to the point of obsession) to its treasure.  When the slave stumbled on the hoard’s open door, he took away a treasure cup. The dragon finds this item missing and goes out to search. When it cannot find the thief, it takes to the air; although wings are not described, this dragon can fly.  It breathes fire, and burning up towns and halls.  Fire is the dragon’s chief weapon, but it has also sharp teeth and jaws large enough to bite through a man’s neck, and with snake-like venom. 

The Anglo-Saxon audience was sympathetic to the motive of revenge.  Then why were they not sympathetic to the dragon’s passion over his missing treasure cup?  Think back over the many actions and stories throughout this poem.  One of the morals that the characters and the narrator are always voicing is that treasure is for giving.  No one who hoards treasure will find sympathy.  Revenge is appropriate for a person’s death, but not for the loss of treasure.  Treasure is to be used to create bonds of loyalty.  Hoarding it is just plain wrong, even if you’re a dragon.

Fifty years passes by in one line:  Beowulf held the kingdom for fifty winters.  In line 2210, he is the “old guardian of his homeland,” no longer the young hero.  With no further prologue, the monster of the last conflict is introduced.  The fight against the dragon is difficult to follow, because interspersed with it are the details concerning the political affairs of the Geats.  The following summary and explanation of the fight with the dragon skips over these sections, and treats the battle as a single continuous story.

The first section introduces the dragon and answers some questions about how the conflict came about.  It retells the discovery and provocation of the dragon three times, each time adding more detail.  The general outline of the dragon’s discovery is that a runaway slave stumbled upon the hidden entrance to the barrow (2214, 2225, 2280).  The barrow had been there for over three hundred years, undisturbed, and its pathway to narrow entrances hidden from view.  The door, however, was open.  Why?

There is an embedded story of how the hoard of treasures came to be buried, and then discovered by the dragon, in 2231-2277.  The treasures had never belonged to the Geats or Swedes, but to a forgotten people, who had occupied the same land before them.  Some catastrophe, perhaps a plague, had wiped out this tribe, leaving one lingering man in charge of all of their possessions.  This man set about building or completing a barrow, an underground burial chamber.  He built it to be concealed, keeping its doors and passages very narrow, perhaps down crevices in the rock.  Piece by piece, he carried in the wealth of his nation and then sat down to look it over. 

The man’s words are reported in what is generally called “The Lay of the Last Survivor,” lines 2231-2270.  The tone is sad, and it is the first chord struck of the prevailing literary tone of the last section of Beowulf.  The word most commonly used to describe this Lay, and the whole section, is “elegiac.”  An elegy is a poem or song composed to mourn someone who has died, or a poem that conveys the tone of pensive sorrow. 

The Last Survivor knows that he is only counting off the days until he, too, dies; his story will have no happy ending.  He is doomed.  Recall the youthful Beowulf’s words (572-3), as he told about his contest with Breca:  “Wyrd (Fate) often spares an undoomed man, when his courage endures!”  Courage alone is not enough, but without it, doom is sure.  Even with courage, sometimes Fate will bring about a man’s death, because it is his time to die.  The Last Survivor is doomed; he cannot survive. 

His elegy is mourning the deaths of his people and his own death.  It takes the form of looking at the many treasures and weapons that surround him, and mourning that no one can use them.  Here is a cup; no one has been polishing or using it.  Here is a helm and chain-mail shirt, with none to keep them bright or wear them in battle.  Here is a harp, with none to play it.  Here is the gear of falcons and horses, with none to train or use the noble animals.  Sitting in the underground room of the hoard, he falls weaker, and eventually dies.  He has forgotten one critical task:  he never shut the door.

Men may have deserted the southern coast of Sweden for now, and they may be long in finding the open door, but it does not take long for a treasure-hunting dragon to find it.  Why?  Because it is his nature to do so.  Fish swim, birds fly, and dragons sniff out gold hoards.  The dragon is only doing what dragons do.

Perhaps the most compressed transition in literature is the set of ten lines between 2200 and 2210.  In the space of these lines, Hygelac dies, and Beowulf not only takes charge but ages fifty years.  Kierney (1981) has speculated that the transition was composed in the process of joining together two separate manuscripts, one telling about the youthful hero, and one about the aging hero’s last fight.  Two scribes wrote the manuscript as we have it; the second scribe, who copied out the last section and then edited the whole manuscript for errors, may have been working on a set of dwindling parchment books.  Kiernan shows how there are many signs of the second scribe squeezing in extra words and extra lines in this area of the manuscript; perhaps the time transition was treated in a summary way because there was not much parchment left.  In any case, there is so little warning of a time shift that a dozing reader can miss it.

Hygelac’s death is discussed in detail, but it is scattered over many groups of lines.  In the first section of the poem, there had been a foreshadowing of Hygelac’s last battle in the history of the wonderful Brosing necklace (1202-13).  Hygelac will wear it into battle in Frisia on his last raid against the Franks, and the Franks will loot it and carry it away.  The actual moment of death, however, passes by in just a few words of this transition section, “after Hygelac lay dead” (2202).  Quickly, fifty years pass by, and the rest of the details of Hygelac’s death come out in recollections.  Beowulf tells some of it, as part of a memoir of his life and his family’s history; the Geatish messenger who tells of Beowulf’s death also fills in details; the narrative voice of the poem fills in a few more points.

The story, in sum, is that Hygelac took Beowulf with him on a raid against the Franks.  The Franks, a Germanic tribe that had been in long contact with the Roman Empire, were civilized, Christian, and rich.  Some of the grave goods that archeologists find confirm the craftsmanship and wealth in gold and jewels, and all this would have been well known to the Geats.  The land of the Franks was naturally fertile and habitually warmer.  Frankia might be a very desirable target for Northern raids; four hundred years later, Franks suffered at the hands of the Vikings who raided them just as Hygelac did.

Hygelac, though, was unsuccessful.  The poem tells us little, but the account of Gregory of Tours (a Frank) tells that the warships had already loaded with treasure and captives and put out to sea to return to Geatland.  Hygelac remained behind, intending to return shortly.  But when the Frankish King Theudericus heard of this raid, he sent his son Theudebert with an army. Hygelac faced this force with only the guard he kept back. In a land battle against both Hetware (local inhabitants) and Franks, Hygelac was killed.  (Some medieval sources stated that his bones, the bones of a giant, were kept as a curiosity on an island in the Rhine River.)  Hygelac’s body was looted, although the Geats may not have been totally routed (lines 1213-14 suggest that the Geats had some success).  Beowulf survived and killed quite a few Frankish heroes, including Day-Raven (“Daeghrefn”) of the Hugas and possibly as many as thirty others.  In his own memoir, he says that he carried the armor of thirty men when he escaped from the battle and returned alone. 

Did he return completely alone, or alone without Hygelac but with some men to sail his ship?  Did he swim home or simply go by water (2360)?  Fred C. Robinson (1974) argues that we can know only that he returned home over the water, and that since the journey would have been about 500 miles, swimming is unlikely.  The setting is not one of magic and marvel, like the cave of the monsters, it is a seemingly-factual account of a real battle of men.  Some translations, however, will state that he swam home alone.

When Beowulf arrived home, the Geats faced a problem.  Hygelac’s son Heardred was not full grown, and even Heardred’s mother, the widow Hygd, preferred that Beowulf inherit the throne.  Beowulf’s own account is that he resisted this, and felt he owed it to Hygelac to see his son become king.  Instead, he probably acted as a counselor and regent to the boy.  Eventually, on Heardred’s death without an heir, Beowulf became the last of Hrethel’s family to inherit power. 

Beowulf’s memoir also explains how Hygelac came to be King in the first place.  The family of King Hrethel seems to have been first a daughter, who married the (Swedish?) nobleman Ecgtheow, and then three sons.  When young Beowulf left his father’s house at age seven, and came to live with his grandfather Hrethel, he met the sons:  Herebeald, Haethcyn, and Hygelac.  Hygelac may have been only ten years older than him, or even less, and they may have done many things as companions.  But Hrethel’s family eventually suffered a reversal of fortune.  On a hunting trip, Haethcyn’s arrow went off course and struck his older brother, Herebeald.  At the death of his oldest son, Hrethel’s grief was endless.  Normally, he would have vented it in seeing the killer put to death, but in this case, that would have eliminated one more son from a dwindling number.  Hrethel died of grief, and Haethcyn became King.

In a parallel story of Norse mythology, Odin’s son Balder was killed by a dart thrown by his blind son, Hod.  The dart was not supposed to injure Balder, as all things on earth had taken an oath not to harm him.  However, the evil god Loki knew that the mistletoe had not taken the oath, and so he made a dart out of this “harmless” plant, and gave it to Hod.  Hod, blind and tricked, was just as much a victim as Balder, but in spite of this, another son of Odin eventually killed him in revenge.  The duty to vengeance was very great in pagan Norse culture, and so Beowulf portrays the chief sorrow of Hrethel as being unable to fulfill this duty.

Beowulf’s story goes one step further, however, and creates one of the most vivid images in Anglo-Saxon literature.  This is the mini-story of the old man who sees his son hanged on a gallows, and cannot offer him any help.  The old man’s grief is called forth every morning, and his bitter despair is shown in every line.  He sees the empty house his son used to live in, and hears the desolate silence in his hall.  Eventually, he takes to his bed and weeps, and “all too vast to him seem the fields and townships” (2461-2).  Hrethel’s grief is depicted as being like this old man’s, as he wastes away to death.

            The story of Hrethel’s family troubles blends into the account of feuds between the Geats and their northern neighbors, the Swedes.  We will learn later how Haethcyn died in battle, and Hygelac succeeded him.  These matters are covered separately, below, in a section about the political struggles between Geats and Swedes.

When it comes to treasure, Beowulf is less laconic.  His main points in telling about his treasure have to do with political relationships, though. 

He wants to make two points very clear:  he thinks Hrothgar did the noble thing and really treated him right, BUT he never intended to stay in Denmark, but always kept his loyalty to home.  His clear statement (2149-51) that, “Still all my joys are fixed on you alone; I have few close kinsmen, my Hygelac, except for you,” seems to serve the same purpose as Wealhtheow’s speech stating that of course Hrothgar’s throne would go to his own nephew or sons. 

Perhaps Hrothgar really did try to adopt Beowulf and was genuinely sad and sorry that he could not.  Beowulf may have been tempted to accept, since his own people were much less powerful, but here he wants it understood that he never considered it at all.  Beowulf, as a man rather than a hero, is very bonded to the family that raised him, the family of King Hrethel.

Only the first round of Danish treasures are brought out, the ones that Beowulf received after killing Grendel.  Almost all of these become gifts for Hygelac’s family.  Of the eight horses (1035), four go to Hygelac, and three to Hygd, leaving one for Beowulf.  The war-gear of Heorogar, Healf-dene’s son (1020, 2158) goes to Hygelac, too. The shining necklace from Wealhtheow goes to Hygd.  Beowulf seems to keep only the one horse and the twelve treasures he received on departure.

Why does Beowulf give the best treasures to Hygelac?  They are “kings’ treasures,” and Hygelac is the King.  If Beowulf kept them, it would look like disloyalty, maybe like an attempt to challenge his uncle’s power. Moreover, Beowulf is Hygelac’s “thane,” a sworn retainer.  The economic relationship of the thane and his king was that any booty won in a war belonged to the king; from that hoard, the king gave out rewards.  Although Beowulf has not been in any ordinary battle, he considers himself just as much Hygelac’s thane in his fight against Grendel as in any other fight.  He won treasures, and they must go to his King.  He gives them with no strings attached, confident that an exchange will be made. 

Hygelac, in his turn, gives Beowulf another treasure-sword and a huge area of their territory to rule over.  The text tells us that it was 7000 “hides.”  A hide was an ancient measurement in Anglo-Saxon England that was roughly equal to the land it took for a large family to live, including their dependents.  This may have been roughly 120 acres, but the size of an acre varied from place to place.  The acre’s ancient rule of thumb was that it was about as much land could be plowed by a yoke of oxen in a day; a modern acre is 4840 square yards, about 200 feet by 200 feet.  A modern square mile contains 640 acres.  Assuming modern measurements (probably inaccurate), Beowulf’s new territory amounted to approximately 1300 square miles (probably a bit more since less fertile lands tended to count larger acres).  This area is approximately the size of Rhode Island or Yosemite National Park; it is similar to a large US or English county. 

In modern Sweden, the southern land of the historical Geats is divided into provinces.  The two southernmost provinces, Skåne and Blekinge, are about 4,258 and 967 square miles, so Beowulf’s lands were probably somewhere between these two sizes.  In a time when all travel was by water or foot, these were fairly large princedoms. 

If Beowulf were subject to the expectations of the Anglo-Saxon Midlands region, he would be required to raise an army of 1400 foot soldiers from the population he now ruled. This gift made him a lord with significant strength in war. In later medieval periods, we see a pattern in which young knights proved themselves and only then were given houses and land, becoming landed lords. At this stage, they married a girl with a large dowry, which increased their power still more. We can speculate that all this would be in Beowulf’s near future.

But we won’t hear anything more about his near future. Instead, the poem will jump to the end of his life.

The first thing Beowulf does on returning to his homeland is to sit at a feast with his uncle King Hygelac and narrate the story we have just read.  On first glance, it seems like it only reiterates the familiar and can be skipped.  However, Beowulf’s tale changes the emphasis and adds details.  It also may have functioned as a refresher for a story that was too long to tell in one sitting.

A few of the new details clash with the previous story in ways that we cannot completely justify.  Hygelac, in asking for the story, says that he tried hard to dissuade his nephew from going (1992-7), but the early lines had assured us that “wise men did not dissuade him” (202).  Was Hygelac not wise?  Did the other wise men encourage Beowulf, and Hygelac was the only negative voice? 

Similarly, later in 2183-9, the narrator tells us that Beowulf was considered a weakling and a loser when he was young and thus he had to prove himself.  This jars with the earlier narrative, where Beowulf was clearly always the young strongman spawning tales of his feats of strength and daring.  While there are some athletes who began with physical problems, this does not seem likely in Beowulf’s case.  Many scholars believe that at least two authors (and perhaps many more) had a hand in creating the poem, and these two discordant notes may be evidence.

Most of the new details only expand on the original narrative.  We learn that the name of Grendel’s Geatish victim was Hondscio, with the ironic literal meaning of “Hand-shoe,” that is, glove.  But now we learn also that Grendel wore a victims-collection-bag on his belt, called a “glof” in the original language, and from these details may wonder if the poet intended irony that “Glove” was put into the glove.  This bag sounds like a mythical, perhaps even magical, item, as it is made of dragon-skins and has an amazing clasp of some sort. 

A very large part of Beowulf’s commentary on Hrothgar’s family centers on his political speculations about what he observed.  Freawaru, who was not even named in the early text, is promised in marriage to the King of a neighboring tribe, the Heathobards.  The Heathobards appear to live south of the Danes, perhaps in the neck of the Danish peninsula, perhaps on the coast of modern Germany.  Beowulf alludes to past history between Danes and Heathobards, and predicts trouble.

Apparently, there was a past feud between Hrothgar and Froda of the Heathobards.  At least one hero of the Heathobards, Withergyld, is named as having died in this war.  Hrothgar wants to preserve peace on his borders, and so Freawaru is to marry Froda’s son, Ingeld.  This common tactic often worked, but at times, as we saw in the story of Finn and Hildeburh, it could also be disastrous. 

In this case, Beowulf predicts that the feud is too recent and the need for revenge too sharp.  Just coming to Heorot for the bridal feast will be enough to provoke old memories, since Heorot will be decked out in its finest and that will include trophy weapons on the walls.  The sight of these old wounds will remind the Heathobards of the deaths of their fathers, and as the mead flows, eventually one of them will stand up and slug a Dane, and then pandemonium will break loose.  Beowulf is sure that Ingeld’s infatuation with the bride he has just met will not be as strong as his desire to avenge his father’s feud, and that Freawaru’s bridal feast will end with funeral pyres.  From the poem Widsith, we know that Hrothulf and Hrothgar “humbled Ingeld’s battle-array, hacked down at Heorot the pride of the Heathobards.”  Beowulf suggests that Ingeld cannot be trusted, that the Heathobards are only laying a trap for the Danes, but in the end, it would clearly have been better for Ingeld to keep his men quiet and take his bride home.

Beowulf does not add new information to his fights, apart from the personal comment that it was a burden for the Danes not to be able to build a funeral pyre for the honored counselor Aeschere, the last victim of Grendel’s mother.  He retells the stories in much the way that we heard them already, and with less vividness.  One of the oddities of this narration is that the character Beowulf shows much more interest in the way a feud with the Heathobards might reopen than in his own exploits.  He expends a good bit of narrative energy on Freawaru, imagining the scene and dialogue at the bridal feast, but waves off his own fight with the comment, “It is too long to tell how I handed back payment to the people’s enemy for all his evils” (2093-4).  About Grendel’s mother, he laconically explains, “There for a while, we fought hand to hand…” (2137)  While he reiterates the main points (ripping off the arm, finding the “mighty sword”), he does not elaborate.

Beowulf’s re-entry to his homeland does not read smoothly.  Perhaps it worked better as a live recitation and to an audience who loved the side stories that feel like digressions to us.  The first view of Hygelac’s hall, right by the sea, is immediately side-tracked by a story of a legendary queen.  The poet speaks of the hall and its young King and the even younger queen, who is a teenager.  The queen is, like Beowulf, wiser than her age suggests, and she is good at that most important of all skills, gift-giving. 

By contrast, says the poet, think of a queen who was terrible!  The suggestion seems to be that at least Hygd was better than that, but to a modern mind it seems that she could hardly have helped being better.

The digression about the legendary queen, like many of the side stories, raises more questions than we can answer.  Is her name Modthryth, or is it Thryth?  Both are used by editors and translators, because of an ambiguity in the original language.  R. M. Liuzza prefers a reading in which the element “Mod” is part of the sentence, not part of her name, and suggests that Hygd considered her an example of how not to act.  The story states that Thryth married Offa, King of the Angles in southern Denmark, but it does not tell us where Thryth lived as a wicked King’s daughter.  Was she a Geat, and thus a local example to Hygd?  Were Hygd and Thryth supposed to be related in some other way, perhaps both from some other neighboring people? 

The story is straightforward enough.  Thryth was so proud and so disrespectful of the bonds of the war band that if any man, except one related to her by blood or marriage, dared to look at her eyes, she cried out, “Off with his head!”  If we modern readers were projecting onto the royal ladies of Beowulf a role of ceremonial power, not real power, perhaps the story of Thryth should make us pause and reconsider.  Thryth appears to have had the power to put innocent men to death, although everyone watching found it wrong and shocking.  She was destroying, not upholding, the bonds of hall loyalty. 

Perhaps her father found it expedient to shuffle her out of his hall as soon as possible, and she was gold-laden and sent to Anglia, for Offa to deal with.  Offa seems to have been able to teach her new ways, and under his roof, she took up the approved role of ring-giver.

The second part of the poem, then, ends with the first sight of Hygelac’s hall.  The hero has come home.