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.