Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary, together with Sellic Spell

by J. R. R. Tolkien

  ‘The murderous hatred between father-in-law and son-in-law’ (67–8, *84) refers to the feud between a people called Heathobeardan and the Scyldings. My view is that in the expansion of Danish power, represented by the rise of Healfdene (héah ond gúðréouw), islands not originally Danish had been occupied. Cf. the lines about Scyld at the beginning (3–4). The site of Heorot had a religious significance.6 It had moreover previously been held or controlled by the Heathobeardan: it was the struggle for the sacred site that so embittered the strife. It is in keeping with Hrothgar’s character (as depicted) that he should seek to end this feud not by war but by a political marriage between Fréawaru and Ingeld, the young heir to the Heathobeard kingship, who had survived his father’s downfall. It appears that the marriage was about to take place at the time of Beowulf’s visit; that it did take place; that the ‘policy’ was unsuccessful; and Ingeld attacked Heorot.

  Heorot was burned, but Ingeld was utterly destroyed by Hrothgar and his nephew Hrothulf. Heorot then evidently did not endure long. It was built after the crushing defeat of the Heathobeardan: to that (I think) herespéd in line *64 (‘fortune in war’ 50) refers. Grendel very soon invaded it. The twelve years during which Hrothgar endured the assaults of Grendel (118, *147) is long enough to allow Ingeld to grow from a child to a dangerous young prince old enough to lead a war of revenge. Whether this is history, or derived from his legendary sources, it seems clear that our poet has here worked out the chronology pretty well, and placed Beowulf’s visit where he should in the political time-scheme. He is thus able to exhibit Beowulf’s political sagacity by making him foresee and foretell events (that hearers knew would actually happen.) [See 1697–1739, *2020–69.]

  67 the time was not far off; *83 ne wæs hit lenge þá gén

  This is not a ‘crux’ of sense. The general sense is clear: Heorot was still glorious, but it was doomed to be burned. All the history of Heorot was in the mind of poet and audience; but the poet was conscious of dramatic time (as throughout). The ultimate doom of the dynasty of Healfdene and the great hall built by Hrothgar cast a shadow over the court of Heorot in Old English – as later a shadow lay on Arthur and Camelot. The question really is: what is lenge?

  [After a lengthy analysis of the historical linguistic possibilities my father wrote that he thought it most probable that the poet wrote longe, noting that the passage has many minor errors. See the Notes on the Text, p. 108, line 67.]

  The time was ‘not long’, because at the time of Beowulf’s visit the marriage of Hrothgar’s daughter to Ingeld was not far off, and the story of what happened (told as a prophecy by Beowulf) suggests that the trouble broke out soon after the marriage.

  82–3 a fiend of hell; *101 féond on helle

  The Old English féond on helle is a very curious expression. It implies, of course, that Grendel is a ‘hell-fiend’, a creature damned irretrievably. It remains, nonetheless, remarkable; for Grendel is not ‘in hell’, but very physically in Denmark, and he is not even yet a damned spirit, for he is mortal and has to be slain before he goes to Hell. There is evidently a confusion or twilight in the thought of the poet (and his age) about these monsters, hostile to mankind. They remain physical monsters, with blood, able to be slain (with the right sword). Yet already they are described in terms applicable to evil spirits; so here (*102) gǽst.7 Whether féond on helle is due to a kind of half-theological notion that one of the accursed things, of misshapen human form, being damned carried their hell ever with them in their hearts and spirits – or whether it is due to taking over a ‘Christian’ phrase carelessly (féond on helle just = ‘fiend, devil’) – is difficult to decide. The latter would demand that Christian phraseology was already well-developed and fixed when Beowulf was written. The phrase went on. In Middle English fend in helle is still used just as ‘devil’. Wyclif uses fend in helle of a very living and bodily friar walking about England. (It is to be remembered that féond properly = ‘enemy’ only, and still when undefined bears that sense in Beowulf.)

  86–92; *106–14

  [My father’s remarks are introduced thus: ‘An important passage for general criticism. See my lecture [i.e. The Monsters and the Critics; see p. 170]. Here (since our attention is primarily to the text) we may note the following.’]

  My view is that *106–14 is certainly genuine, the work of the effective poet, maker of Beowulf as we have it. It shows that study of the Old Testament which is characteristic of him. His comparison of the old native legends of strife and heroism, and Scripture, had presented him with two problems, or aroused in him two lines of thought.

  (1) Where do the monsters come in? How can they be equated with the Scriptural account of antiquity? And he saw also the parallel between the legendary strife of men of old with these implacable misshapen enemies lurking in dark dens, and the strife of Christians with the fallen devils of hell [pencilled here later: quite another plane of imagination].

  (2) What are we to think of the nobility and heroism of the heathen past? Was it all just evil, damned?

  To his ideas on this second more difficult question (in his day a much more living and controversial issue) we shall soon be coming in lines 134–50 (*168–88). I think that he attempted to equate the noble figures of his own northern antiquity with the noble figures, sages, judges, and kings of Israel – before Christ. They too were ‘damned’ owing to the Fall, even if they were members of the chosen people. The redemption of Christ might work backwards. But in the Harrowing of Hell why should not (say) Hrothgar be among the rescued too? For the people of Israel could also fall away in time of trial to the worship of idols and false gods. For that reason I think that when Anglo-Saxons made Sceaf the son of Noah born in the Ark, it was not mere genealogical fantasy, a mere trick to make their kings’ lines go back to Adam. (For that is not particularly glorious. If you make your genealogical tree too long it merges into that dim long-rooted tree upon which all men grow. Any serf in Æthelwulf’s house could claim descent from Adam.) It was rather a process, due to a line of thought closely related to the ideas of the Beowulf-poet. It gave the northern kings a place in an unwritten chapter (as it were) of the Old Testament.

  [The following passage is more easily understood if the O.E. text (*104–16) and the translation (85–94) are set out together:

  fífelcynnes eard

  105 wonsǽlí wer weardode hwíle,

  siþðan him Scyppend forscrifen hæfde

  in Cáines cynne – þone cwealm gewræc

  éce Drihten, þæs þe hé Ábel slóg;

  ne gefeah hé þǽre fǽhðe, ac hé hine feor forwræc

  110 Metod for þý máne mancynne fram.

  Þanon untýdras ealle onwócon,

  eotenas ond ylfe ond orcnéas,

  swylce gígantas, þá wið Gode wunnon

  lange þráge; hé him ðæs léan forgeald.

  115 Gewát ðá néosian, syþðan niht becóm,

  héan húses . . .

  85 [Grendel] unhappy one, inhabited long while the troll-kind’s home; for the Maker had proscribed him with the race of Cain. That bloodshed, for that Cain slew Abel, the Eternal Lord avenged: no joy had he of that violent deed, but God drove him for that crime far from mankind. Of him all evil broods were born, ogres and goblins and haunting shapes of hell, and the giants too, that long time warred with God – for that he gave them

  92 their reward.

  Then went Grendel forth when night was come to spy on that lofty house . . . ]

  Our poet’s answer in the first case he found in the book of Genesis. The misformed man-mocking monsters were descendants of Cain. And the reference to the ‘giants’ of old clinched the matter for him. The blending is clearly observable: he begins with northern words eotenas, ylfe (two classes of non-human but human-shaped creatures), and ends with the word gigantas borrowed from the Latin version of Scripture [Genesis VI.4].

  Even so – and this is the point really pertinent to my present task – lines 86–92 (*106–14) have the air
of an insertion or addition. Not an interpolation: that is, they seem to me to bear the impress of the style, rhythm, and thought of the ‘author’. Yet they do interrupt the simple sequence of narrative – and syntax. Observe that there is no subject at all to gewát *115 (‘went forth’ 93, [where ‘Grendel’ is added in the translation]). It is difficult to resist the strong suspicion that it once followed immediately on weardode hwíle, *105 (‘inhabited long while’ 85). Read the passage omitting *106–14, 86 (‘for the Maker . . .’)–92, and you will feel the force of this.

  I think that in all this early part of Beowulf our poet is sticking very close to some old material already in verse; hardly doing more in parts than work over it. One of the things he did in this process was to insert this passage 86–92 (*106–14) which expresses his philosophy of the northern monsters.

  Or of course he may, in the long process of composition which must lie behind the final construction of so large and complex a poem, have improved and enlarged his own earlier, simpler, more plain fairy-story drafts. Such things do happen. In either case you get a very good but nonetheless separable and intrusive passage. You can find similar things in, say, Chaucer. The Nun’s Priest’s Tale is obviously based on old material, and obviously much elaborated by Chaucer. You can here and there lift whole chunks and say ‘Ha! Master Geoffrey, you stuck that in. You think it an improvement, do you? Well, perhaps it is. Perhaps.’

  90–1 haunting shapes of hell; *112 orcnéas

  The O.E. word occurs only here. orc is found glossing Latin Orcus [Hell, Death]. neas seems certainly to be né-as, plural of the old (poetic) word né ‘dead body’. This appears also in né-fugol ‘carrion bird’. Its original stem in Germanic was nawi-s: Gothic naus (plural naweis), Old Norse ná-r.

  ‘Necromancy’ will suggest something of the horrible associations of this word. I think that what is here meant is that terrible northern imagination to which I have ventured to give the name ‘barrow-wights’. The ‘undead’. Those dreadful creatures that inhabit tombs and mounds. They are not living: they have left humanity, but they are ‘undead’. With superhuman strength and malice they can strangle men and rend them. Glámr in the story of Grettir the Strong is a well-known example.

  107–8 Nor was it longer space than but one night; *134–5 Næs hit lengra fyrst, ac ymb áne niht

  The attack on two successive nights is probably a detail surviving from the ‘fairy-story’ element. ymb áne niht ‘after one night’ means in Old English ‘on the next day (or night)’.

  [The translation seems to be at odds with this.]

  123–7; *154–8 Here we have a reference to legal arrangements in the case of fǽhþ [‘feud’].

  [It is convenient again here to set out the Old English text and the translation together:

  sibbe ne wolde

  155 wið manna hwone mægenes Deniga,

  feorhbealo feorran, féa þingian,

  né þǽr nǽnig witena wénan þorfte

  beorhtre bóte to banan folmum;

  123 truce would he not have with any man of the Danish host, nor would withhold his deadly cruelty, nor accept terms of payment; and there no cause had any of the counsellors to look for golden recompense from the slayer’s hands;]

  For the expression féa þingian cf. *470 Siððan þá fǽhðe féo þingode (379–80 ‘Thereafter that feud I settled with payment’). The verb þingian is found in Beowulf in this expression with féo in these two occurrences, and also at line *1843 (1545), where it has its very frequent sense of ‘make a speech’ [‘discourse’ (verb) in the translation]. Other senses are ‘intercede for, supplicate’, and ‘arrange, settle a matter’. The link in these diverse senses is the noun þing, from which the verb is derived. Its basic sense is ‘an appointed time’, hence ‘a meeting’, hence ‘debate, discussion’. The development of the colourless sense ‘thing’, already achieved in Old English, is very similar to the development of Latin causa ‘argument, legal case’ > Italian cosa, French chose. The terms of a settlement of a fǽhþ would be discussed at a meeting of the representatives of the two sides. Hence fǽhþe féo (dative) þingian means to come to terms at a þing concerning the ‘wergild’ to be paid by the offending party.

  In its bare essentials fǽhþ was the condition of being hated (outside friendly intercourse) because of an act (or series of acts) of hostility by one side (family, tribe, people) against another – usually, of course, the act was the wounding or slaying of some person. Obtaining redress or wreaking revenge was a duty that then devolved upon the next of kin of the slain man. Dealt in this way, by ‘vendetta’, fǽhþ might become a state of permanent war between great families (or peoples), as in the case of the Swedes and Geats, and could reach no settlement except by the extermination of one side: as finally seems to have been the fate of the royal house of the Geats.

  But a system of mitigating law grew up – especially among the families of a single united group (tribe or nation). The offending party could ‘settle the feud’ by payment, and various elaborate scales of value were drawn up. This payment was called wergild: each man according to his status had a price or wer. Of course settlement of this kind depended on the willingness of both sides to accept the arrangement and abide by it. Good relations (and the honour of the injured) could only be restored by redress. If that was refused or unobtainable, or the injury too great, honour required revenge. Early legend, saga, and history contain only too many cases of refusal of wergild (to pay it, or to accept it); and of revenge being later taken despite the legal settlement, so that the fǽhþ began anew.

  What is implied here is that there was never any hope of any such settlement. Grendel was an ‘alien’, not recognizing the authority of Hrothgar or of any human law. Nor was it possible to hold any conference with him, and arrange terms: and indeed he would not have been willing to offer any. Nay, he piled fǽhþ upon fǽhþ, killing fresh Danes whenever he could.

  The literal translation of lines *154–6 is: ‘peace he would not have with any man of the host of the Danes, (would not) remove the peril to life, (would not) settle the feud with wergild.’

  126 golden recompense; *158 beorhtre bóte

  beorht means ‘bright, clear of light and sound, loud or shining’. Though (like Latin clárus) the application of the word to persons or their deeds, when we should say ‘glorious, splendid, magnificent’, is natural and not unusual, the application here is startling and unusual. ‘They could not expect a shining (brilliant) recompense’ is a very strong litotes. It implies ‘they could not in fact expect the very shabbiest, they could expect nothing at all.’

  130 sorcerers of hell; *163 helrúnan

  Old English possessed a word hel-rún, also weak helle-rúne, hel-rúne. This occurs in glosses equated with hægtesse, wicce ‘witch’ and with such Latin words as Pythonissa (‘diviner’). Probably here we have a masculine counterpart (as wicca beside wicce), whether formed for the occasion or not. Outside Old English we have Old High German helliruna ‘necromancia’, and the extremely interesting though corruptly preserved Gothic word, half-Latinized, haliurunnas in Jordanes’ history of the Goths, which he says means magas mulieres (see below).

  To discuss the full implications of this word would take too long. Its elements are hell ‘Hell’ (Gothic halja), and rún ‘secret’. The first word is ultimately related to helan ‘conceal’ (Latin céláre); hence it means the hidden world, the underworld, Hades, the Realm of the Dead. In paganism ‘the hidden, mysteries’ lead inevitably down into the darkness.

  rún is a word (probably ultimately meaning ‘whispering’) implying any secret knowledge handed on privately. It occurs also in Keltic, Old Irish rún ‘secret’, Welsh rhin ‘secret, mystery, enchantment’; and was very probably derived by Germanic from Keltic. It may have a good sense – so in *1325 rúnwita ‘one who knew my secret counsels, my confidant’ is equated with rǽdbora (1106–7 ‘my counsels were his and his wisdom mine’). But a hel-rúne was one who knew secret black knowledge – and the a
ssociation of hell with the dead shows that the gloss in O.H.G. ‘necromancia’ is very close. The special association of ‘necromancy’ with women is very ancient, and very tenacious. The ‘Weird Sisters’ of Macbeth are good illustrations of the immemorial dark imagination of helrúnan.

  The word is not used here casually, however, not just as an archaic pagan word to give a dark colour to the picture.

  The witch or ‘necromancer’ was like Grendel an outcast, and again like Grendel balanced in the imagination between the human and the monstrous or demonic. Though veritable human beings could go in for dark and abominable lore (and have secret associations), there was an ill-defined border between such folk with their acquired powers, and actual demonic beings: ‘weird sisters’. So Wulfstan8 couples wiccan (witches) and wælcyrian (valkyries).

  With regard to Grendel the story told by Jordanes (derived evidently from lost Gothic lays and legends) is particularly interesting and illustrative. King Filimer (an ancient king of the period of Gothic migration south to the Sea of Azov), he relates, expelled from his camp women who practised magic arts: magas mulieres quas patrio sermone haliurunnas is ipse cognominat, that is ‘the female magicians, whom he himself (Filimer) calls in his ancestral tongue (Gothic) haliurunnas’. This is probably a corruption of haliarúnas, Latin accusative plural of haliarúna, Latinized from Gothic haljarúna = O.E. hell-rún. The women banished into the desert there met the evil spirits of the waste, and from the unholy marriage of witches and demons sprang the loathsome race of the Huns.

  Here we have another point of contact between Scripture and Germanic legend. A kind of reverse parallel to the deduction drawn from Genesis IV and VI that the giants and monsters were descendants of Cain, the outlaw [see the note to 86–92]. And Grendel the descendant of Cain is reckoned among the helrúnan. It is more than likely that dark ancient legends, concerning the origin of imagined evil beings, and of actual outlaw-folk and hated enemies of alien race, were associated in pagan Old English with the ancient word hell-rún, like that far-off echo of Gothic legend preserved in the garbled history of Jordanes.