47 Flood traditions are spread all over the world. Old Norse does not preserve any – the very beautiful reference to the earth rising newly green out of the sea, and the waterfalls pouring off it, while the eagle that fishes on the mountain sides flies over it, is not quite in point: in the Völuspá, at any rate as we have it, that scene seems to refer to the future after the destruction at the end of the world.
48 It is particularly to be observed that the word gígant is only used in Old English verse of ‘Scriptural’ giants in Beowulf *113, 91 (Cain’s offspring), *1690, 1419 (the Flood), and in the Old English poem Genesis A, 1268 – except of the sword in Grendel’s lair, which is gíganta weorc (*1562, 1308–9).
49 [In The Monsters and the Critics, p.20 in the collected essays, 1983.]
50 [This subject is continued into a discussion of what the Beowulf-poet, even if he could not read Latin, might learn from Old English scriptural poetry, concerning Tubal-Cain the great ancestral metalsmith, or God’s punishment of the giants by the Flood (citing the early incomplete poem known as Genesis A, 1083 ff. and 1265 ff.)]
51 [It is hard to believe that such a suggestion was ever made, and perhaps it never was.]
52 [In a footnote at this point my father wrote: ‘See my lecture Appendix (b).’ This is the substantial writing headed (b) ‘Lof’ and ‘Dom’; ‘Hell’ and ‘Heofon’ following the text of The Monsters and the Critics, in which he cited, without translation, both the passage from The Seafarer and Hrothgar’s words referred to here (but with the words eft sona bið misprinted as oft sona bið); of the latter he said that this was ‘a part of his discourse that may certainly be ascribed to the original author of Beowulf, whatever revision or expansion the speech may otherwise have suffered.’ I give here the passage from The Seafarer in translation: ‘I do not believe that earthly riches will last for ever. Always one of three things hangs in the balance until man’s final hour: sickness or old age or violence of the sword will wrest his life from the doomed and departing.’]
53 [See the brief editorial note on Cynewulf’s ‘signatures’ on p. 175.]
54 Not infrequently the only certain deduction is that all the authors were ‘Anglo-Saxons’ writing within a common literary tradition: a thing we knew already.
55 [These lines are discussed at length on pp. 181 ff.]
56 [‘However, here is my opinion’ my father wrote at this point, and there follows his detailed discussion of the probabilities in different passages; this I have excluded, since it is lengthy, and difficult to follow amid the abundant twofold line-references.]
57 [On this see the note to 301.]
58 [I omit here my father’s further and detailed speculations on the chronology, taking it up again with what he considered a ‘reasonable’ chronology. On the inclusion of Beowulf he remarked: ‘Whether “historical” or not does not matter; Beowulf has been fitted into the dynastic chronology by the poet presumably not without some thought, or by traditions older than the poet.’ In the following he changed the dates a good deal, and I give the final ones.]
59 Or the first continued; since the matter is alluded to already in 65–9, *81–5. The others are Sigemund; Heremod; Finn and Hengest; Offa.
60 [It is difficult to know how to interpret this observation, in the light of the discussion in the note to 135–50 (*170–88).
61 And of the warrior lord of hosts, descendants of Ódin, with his tombs and dead and Valhöll of the mighty slain, over the priest-king and the temple and the farmer and master of flocks.
62 Although in Beowulf and in Widsith as opponents of the Danes they bear the prefix Heaðo-. This probably means ‘war’. But this is an ‘epic addition’, relating to the Danish conflict, and also enabling them to alliterate with the H~ of the Scyldings’ names.
63 So it is said of Fróði by Snorri Sturluson in the Skáldskaparmál 43 that in the time of the Fróðafriðr no man did harm to another, and there were no thieves, so that a gold ring lay for three years beside the highway on Jalangsheath.
64 [With the following passage in the text cf. pp. 179–80.]
65 During which time recourse was had to heathen sacrifice. I believe on various grounds that that passage *175–188 (139–50), in particular *180 ff. (143 ff.), has been touched up and expanded [see the note to 135–50]; but ultimately the discrepancy between the patriarchal, god-fearing Hrothgar and this account is due to the material. Heorot was a site associated specially with heathen religion: blót [Old Norse: worship, sacrificial feast]. The actual legends or lays descending from pagan times, which our poet used, probably made a considerable point of the blót to gain relief at this juncture in the story. Hleiðr (Hleiðrargarðr) is (I think) to be connected with Gothic hleiþra a tent or tabernacle. In which case it is practically identical in sense with hærgtrafum *175 (140). [See pp. 179–80.]
It is to be expected from the fact that the English traditions are far older than the Norse that they should have preserved far better the individual names, but should have lost the geography from which they were now removed; while Norse far later has confused names and relations but has preserved the geography: English does not mention Seeland or Leire; Norse has forgotten Heorogar and Heorot.
66 [On Saxo see the note to line 44. In his grotesque account the story of Ingeld (Ingellus) is radically changed. His father Frotho was treacherously slain, but ‘the soul of Ingellus was perverted from honour’; and Saxo describes this debauched monster of gluttony and sloth in a slow torrent of denunciation. Ingellus married the daughter of Swerting his father’s murderer, and treated his sons as dear friends. But learning of this state of affairs the ancient and somewhat gruesome warrior Starkad came to the hall of Ingellus and delivered so devastating a condemnation of his conduct that there was roused in Ingellus a spirit of revenge, and he sprang up and slew the sons of Swerting as they sat at the banquet.
My father’s remarks were evidently made in response to Klaeber’s observation: ‘Compared with the Beowulf, Saxo’s version marks a dramatic advance . . . in that Ingellus himself executes the vengeance, whereas in the English poem the slaying of one of the queen’s attendants by an unnamed warrior ushers in the catastrophe.’]
67 [The reference is to The Monsters and the Critics, p. 11, where my father quoted Professor R.W. Chambers in his edition of Widsith, p. 79: ‘in this conflict between plighted troth and the duty of revenge we have a situation which the old heroic poets loved, and would not have sold for a wilderness of dragons’. The reference to Shylock is to The Merchant of Venice, III.i.112: ‘I would not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys.’]
68 It has been noted above (p. 326) that þæt rǽd talað (*2027) does not prove the match to have been devised and planned by Hrothgar, but only that he saw the political advantage of it.
69 For the use (frequent) of láf (*2036) as ‘sword’ (the pre-eminent heirloom) cf. *795 ealde láfe ‘his ancient blade’ 648, and *1488 (1243); for the use of hringmǽl as ‘sword’ cf. *1521 hringmǽl ‘the weapon ring-adorned’ 1272, and similarly *1564, 1311.
70 [Handshoe plays an important part in my father’s Sellic Spell (pp. 363–9).
71 [In the story told by Snorri Sturluson in Gylfaginning §44 Thór and his companions, seeking shelter for the night, came in the darkness upon a great hall, with an entrance at the end as wide as the hall. Inside they found a side chamber where they passed the night. But in the morning Thór saw that the side chamber was the thumb of the giant Skrýmir’s glove.]
72 The verses are justly taken as a sample – in style and diction and metre. The miracle is not in their excellence, but in a good piece of standard accomplishment coming from the dull shy cowherd. See further p. 143, footnote.
73 It is in essential structure rhetorical, recitative, allied to speech – though dignified, sonorous, and measured.
74 A distinct discussion of the word is found in the note to lines 512 ff., p. 260.
75 gyd is frequently joined with geomor ‘sad’ : as *151 gyddum geómore
(‘sadly in songs’ 121), *1118 geómrode giddum of Hildeburh’s lamentation (914), and so would be equally applicable to the ‘elegy’ or lament with which the King concludes (*2111 ff.). Note that the lament of the old man for his son is called a gyd (* 2446, 2059 ‘a dirge’).
76 [Old age comes upon him, his countenance grows pale, grey-haired he grieves, knowing his friends of past days, sons of princes, given to the earth.]
77 Dagas sind gewitene
ealle onmédlan eorþan ríces;
nearon nú cyningas ne cáseras
ne goldgiefan swylce iú wǽron The Seafarer 80–3
[The days are gone, all the pomp and pride of earth’s kingdom; there are now no kings or emperors or givers of gold as once there were.]
SELLIC SPELL
78 This is a convenient place to notice a very curious addition that my father made later and hastily to the manuscript A at this point, but then struck out:
And one ring she added. ‘This may be of service at need, my friend Beewolf,’ said she. ‘If ever hope seems to have departed, turn it on your finger and your call for help will be answered; for the ring was made by the fair folk of old.’
Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary, together with Sellic Spell Page 38
