Among the fleeing Geats was young Wiglaf, son of Weohstan, a brave warrior whom Beowulf had showered with gifts, for he was a kinsman and had, until now, proved himself worthy of the king's honour. The young warrior had not retreated far before he thought better of his action.
Angry and ashamed for leaving Beowulf to his fate, he took possession of himself, and shouting after his cowardly comrades, he reproached them bitterly.
“Remember how we all boasted as we sat around the mead hall and drank the foaming ale? We gladly took the gold and jewels our king lavished upon us then, and swore that we would repay him for his gifts, if ever he should need us. Well, he does need us and yet we cower. Beowulf chose us especially from the whole bodyguard to help him in this great struggle, and we have deserted him, left him to face alone this most terrible foe. We must show our valour and go to his side. By the gods, I would rather risk my body in the flames than stay here while my king fights for his life. I will not show such disloyalty to Beowulf. No, he and I will die together, or side by side we'll conquer.”
His efforts to stir his comrades were in vain, for they simply trembled and would not move. And so, alone among them, Wiglaf seized his shield of yellow linden-wood, took up his sword and plunged into the flaming mist, where his lord was fighting for his life. Moving towards Beowulf, he shouted encouragement.
“Beowulf, my dear lord, take heart and never let your glory fade. Accomplish this last deed of valour just as you did in days of yore. Only allow me the honour of aiding you.”
Hearing another voice, the dragon's rage increased and once more it issued a fiery flare, burning to a cinder young Wiglaf’s shield. The two warriors now huddled together behind the iron shield, the dragon fairly roasting them in their armour. Still they resisted and Beowulf, gathering up all his strength, struck such a blow on the dragon's head that his sword was shattered to fragments. Infuriated, the dragon flew at Beowulf in a frenzy and grabbed him by the neck with its poisonous fangs. The blood spurted out in streams, running down his corslet.
Grief seized Wiglaf and filled him with horror and grim fury at this dreadful sight. Leaving the protection of Beowulf's iron shield, he dashed screaming at the dragon, thrusting his sword deep into a vulnerable part. Immediately the stifling, searing fire began to subside.
Overcoming his agony, Beowulf drew the broad knife from his belt, and with a last effort cut the hideous reptile from gut to gullet. The venomous blood poured out of the dragon's wound as it died and fell upon him. Now Beowulf's limbs burnt and ached with intolerable pain. Weakening rapidly, he staggered to a rough seat carved out of the rock near the entrance to the cave and sank down upon it. Wiglaf dipped a cloth in the now cooling waters of the stream running from the cave and gently wiped the brow of his lord.
Partially recovering, Beowulf gripped Wiglaf’s arm and looked at him steadily.
“Son,” he said, “I bequeath to you the armour which I inherited. I have ruled this people in peace for fifty years because none of our neighbours dared attack us. I have endured many trials and toiled much on this earth and held my own justly. I have never pursued anyone with crafty hatred, nor have I sworn unjust oaths. I rejoice now in all this as I sit here dying of this mortal wound.”
The young warrior held his king and swallowed hard, fighting back his tears.
“Dear Wiglaf, bring out from the cave some of the treasures I have lost my life for, so that I might see them before I die, and be glad of my nation's wealth.”
Wiglaf was dazzled by the bewildering hoard of priceless treasures he found in the cave. Grabbing up as big a load as he could carry, he hurried back to his king and laid the treasures at his feet.
Beowulf was so near death that he had swooned away before the young warrior's return. In despair, Wiglaf splashed water over his face again. The old champion revived one last time to grasp his kinsman's hand and gaze at the glittering pile before him.
“I thank the All-Father that I have won these treasures I gaze upon, that by my passing, my people should gain such great wealth. I have given my life, and you must now look to the needs of our land. I will dwell in this realm no longer, for Destiny calls me yonder. After my funeral have my warriors build me a burial-cairn high on the sea-cliffs head, up on Hronesness, as a memory tower for me. Let it be called Beowulf's Barrow.” Beowulf paused to summon his last ounce of strength. “You, Wiglaf, are the last of the kindred of Wagmund, for death has swept all my other brave kin away. Now I must follow them.”
With these words Beowulf fell back, and his soul passed away. Drifting upwards he went to meet the bliss reserved for all true and steadfast spirits.
Wiglaf took a moment to collect himself and control his grief, then he remembered that the monster too lay dead. The people were delivered from the terrible suffering it had caused, though at a high price. As he mourned over his dead king, Wiglaf swore that no man should take joy in the treasures for which so great a sacrifice had been made. The cowards who deserted their king must help him seal up the treasures in Beowulf's grave, to keep them from human use and profit.
When these men came out from the shelter of the wood, and ashamedly approached the place where Wiglaf sat, sorrowing beside the dead Beowulf, he stilled their lamentations with an abrupt wave of his hand and a scornful look.
“It would be true to say, seeing you here, all safe and handsome in the war-gear and ornaments Beowulf gave you, that his generosity was wasted. All you gave him in return was betrayal and cowardice on the day of battle. Remember how Beowulf used to boast of his warriors and how brave they would be in time of danger? Yet he alone avenged his people and conquered the fiend. I did what I could to help him, though it was little enough. Too few champions rallied around our hero when his need was gravest. All the joys of love and loyalty are ended now, as is all prosperity. Our nation is in peril, for foreign princes will hear of your flight and the shameless deed of this day. Would not death have been better than a life of shame?”
The others stood silent, knowing the young hero was right, and they grieved all day long. None of them left their king's body but someone riding nearby saw the mournful group, saw Beowulf dead and galloped away to tell the people.
The word went out that the lord of the Geats lay dead, stricken by the dragon lying dead beside him. At his head sat Wiglaf, son of Weohstan, mourning over his royal kinsman. All realized that the joy and prosperity they had enjoyed would vanish now. They hurried to the spot to mourn their king and also to view the monster and its treasure. All harboured hopes for distribution of this booty, but all agreed, too, that leadership had fallen to Wiglaf.
The Geats followed Wiglaf’s commands and, while grieving for Beowulf, gathered wood for the funeral pyre, which they piled high on the cliff-head. Eight chosen men then carried the treasures in, while others pushed the dragon's body over the cliff into the sea. A cart hung with shields was brought to bear Beowulf's body to Hronesness, where his people solemnly laid it on the pyre and watched as a torch was put to it.
All the Geat chiefs, and especially Beowulf's bodyguard, then wept for their leader's passing. As they grieved they sang of the best of earthly kings, the mildest of all men, the gentlest and most gracious, and the most keen to win glory.
The Spider Grandmother
This Hopi story is one of the several versions of how The Spider Grandmother, also known as the Spider Woman among the Navajo, created, or helped to create, the world. The Hopi are desert dwellers of what is today the south-western United States. The Spider Woman's use of sound or song in prayer and for carrying messages is a key element in this myth, as is the destruction of wrong-doers.
In all the vastness of space there was nothing and this was called, in the Hopi language, Tokpela. Out of this came at last a tiny flash of consciousness that grew into Tawa, the Sun Spirit, who made the first world. He was greatly disappointed by his creation, which amounted to little more than a great cave in which nothing lived except little bugs, and so he decided to dispatch Spid
er Grandmother to go down among them with a message.
“The Sun Spirit,” she told them, “is not satisfied with things as they are. You do not know the meaning of life. I am instructed to lead you from this first world to another one. Come.”
It was a long and difficult climb to the second world and on the way countless insects changed into animals. Even in the second world, however, they did not seem to understand the meaning of life and Tawa had the Spider Grandmother go to them once more. Again she bid the animals follow her, this time upwards into a third world. Here there was more light and the land was not as frightening. On the way, a few of the animals had become people.
Spider Grandmother proceeded to teach these people how to weave and how to make clay jars. With this knowledge they could make clothes to keep themselves warm and store food and water. At last, tiny insights into the meaning of life began to occur to some of the men and women. There were others, though, called powaka, false medicine men, who twisted this instinctive learning and guided people along the wrong path.
Everywhere people spent all their time having sex with anyone and everyone, betting and taking foolish risks with their property. Hardly anybody looked after the children, who wandered around squealing, dirty and ignorant. By far the biggest outrage, however, was that it was now popularly believed that humanity owed its existence only to itself. Wearily, Spider Grandmother came to them and talked to the few people who knew enough to listen.
“Tawa, The Sun Spirit, is still unhappy with his creation. The powaka and other wizards have taught people to forget the most important things. They are destroying you all. You must escape them.”
“How?” they asked. “Where shall we go?” they cried. “Lead us and we will follow.”
“You must find the way yourselves,” she told them.
After a long time lost in thought, a very old, wise man spoke up and posed this question: “Are there not the sounds of footsteps in the sky above us?”
Other people allowed that they too had heard such sounds, as if somebody was walking around up there. After conferring together the people decided to send birds to find out what things were like above. The first of these emissaries, a swallow, flew up towards Sipapuni – which means The Hole In The Sky in Hopi – but was not strong enough to pass through the opening and had to turn back. A dove was sent next and it passed through Sipapuni and came back at once to tell of what it had seen.
“There is,” it told the few believers, “a different world up there.”
Next they sent a hawk, and he explored a large area above, coming back to inform them that this other world seemed to be empty of inhabitants. Lastly, they sent the wise and loyal catbird, who flew through the hole in the sky and then far and wide in the new world until finally it saw a hut in the middle of a vast rocky desert. This stone dwelling stood beside a cultivated field where melons, squash and maize were planted, and watered by irrigation. Beside the field a man sat sleeping, his head resting on his knees. Alighting a few feet away, the catbird watched this person who soon awoke and looked up.
On his cheekbones were painted two black lines running to the bridge of his nose. Scars, dried blood and burns marked his face, and strung together around his neck he wore turquoise and bones. His eyes were deeply sunken, almost invisible but for the faint glimmer in them, shadowed by the heavy brow. This, the catbird knew at once, was Death himself.
Somehow unafraid, which surprised Death, the catbird explained its mission.
“The people below would like to come up here and live with you in this world. Is that all right with you? Is it possible?”
Masuwu, as the Hopi call Death, thought for a moment, then sighed and shrugged his shoulders.
“You see what it's like here. But if they want to come and dwell here with me, tell them they can come.”
Following Spider Grandmother's instructions, a chipmunk planted a sunflower seed in a village square below the hole in the sky, then the people were shown how to sing it into rapid growth, using the power of music to make it soar upwards. Whenever they stopped singing, the sunflower stopped growing, but eventually it was within reach of the Sipapuni. At this point, however, it began to sag under the weight of its large bloom and suddenly drooped halfway to the ground again.
Then the Chipmunk planted a fine young pine tree. This looked promising until, just short of its goal, the pine stopped growing, no matter how much they sang. Finally, a bamboo was planted and it too grew great and tall. This time, however, each time they stopped to draw breath, rest or change the verses of the song a strong growth appeared. By sunset the Spider Grandmother declared: “It has passed through the Sipapuni.”
As the people started on the long climb the Spider Grandmother warned them against taking anything with them and insisted they leave the wizards or powaka behind. Yawpa, the mockingbird, flew about the people as they climbed, crying “Pashumayni, Pashumayni” – “Be careful, be careful.” Before long, as the bird could see, the whole bamboo was covered with struggling bodies.
At the top, as people began setting foot in the new world, Yawpa greeted them individually. She also sang out instructions, to some saying “You will be a Hopi and speak the Hopi tongue”, and to others, “You will be a Navaho and speak the Navaho tongue.” In this way she designated people for all the various tribes.
As people arrived they camped around Sipapuni. Finally, the only people still climbing up were the disbelieving powaka. This was a matter for concern.
“Stop, you people yet climbing,” shouted the chief of the village from which the bamboo had grown. “Go back. It was to get way from you and your ways and ideas that we came up here. You mustn't follow us. We don't want you here.”
They did not listen to him, of course, and only showed they had heard by gasping the odd insult as they scrambled breathlessly upwards. At last, the Spider Grandmother's escapees from the world below grasped the top of the bamboo stalk, bending and stretching it, pulling together and with a great effort ripping it out of the distant ground beneath. Then they shook the bamboo mightily before letting it plummet back down to the third world they had left. As the enchanted bamboo plant shattered, thousands of misguided people tumbled to their doom on the dark surface of the land below.
Gilgamesh and Enkidu
Gilgamesh is the most famous of all the Assyro-Babylonian heroes. His exploits have been immortalized in a vast poem, considered the masterpiece of Babylonian literature, based on the myths that had existed for centuries in Sumer. The name Gilgamesh means, according to how it is translated, ‘He who discoverd the source’ or, alternatively, ‘He who saw all’. This part of his legend is one of the great ‘buddy’ stories of all time.
Two-thirds god and one-third man, Gilgamesh the hero-king of Uruk, was without peer in all of ancient Sumer. Heaven had excelled itself in creating him, endowing him with beauty, strength and valour. In form he was absolutely perfect, in height eleven cubits, with a chest width of nine spans of the hand. His body was as powerful as that of a bull, and nothing could stand up to the might of the weapons he wielded in battle.
All this was very well, except that Gilgamesh was restless and forever fighting with or drilling the young men of Uruk, or putting them to work with him on the magnificent walls of his famous city. It was his constant beating of his drum to assemble them that irritated everyone, as he called men out to play or to work or to train for war or for wrestling matches. That and his drumming just for the sake of drumming, for fun and to work off excess energy, which kept so many citizens of Uruk awake at night.
What was even worse, in some eyes, was that he would not leave the women alone. It was not simply the eligible women he showered his attentions on, but virtually all women. He was not content to leave a virgin to her mother, or pass by even a warrior's daughter or a hero's betrothed. He must have them all, and though the girls themselves did not mind over much, the rest of the population was very upset about it.
Now, despite his irritating aspect
s, Gilgamesh was well loved, as well he might be. He was the great protector of Uruk and its wise, strong shepherd, a unifying force in a city ruled by a council of elders. His tyrannies were those of the spoiled child or playful bully or overenthusiastic, undisciplined, careless and uncontrollable friend. The people and elders were too afraid, embarrassed, shamed and kind to do much about his antics and outrages. In the end, those who wished his worst excesses could be curbed resorted to prayer.
With such a deluge of complaints and laments coming heavenwards, the gods began to take note of his disturbances and misdeeds, and finally decided that something should be done about them.
The divine Anu was the first to realize the extent of the problem. He summoned the other gods, who took the glorious goddess Aruru to task.
“Aruru,” they said. “You are chiefly responsible for creating this man, so it is up to you to do something about him.”
“What do you suggest?” she asked, smiling.
“Create something to distract him,” Anu advised. “A rival, perhaps, someone just as strong in body and will, someone just as wise. A counter-weight, if you like. Contending with him will keep Gilgamesh occupied and give the much put upon citizens of Uruk some peace and quiet.”
Aruru liked the idea and went to work on it at once. If Gilgamesh had been a creative masterpiece, her next work was to be very different but of equal stature. She relished the artistic challenge. In her mind, as a starting place, she conceived the image of the great god Anu himself. Then, after washing her hands, she scooped up some clay and threw it into the wilderness. There she created the valiant Enkidu.
His very essence was that of a god of war but on his head were the long tresses of a woman. His body was hairy, too. He was covered from head to foot with thick hair and wore no garments of any kind. He knew nothing of people but ate grass with the gazelles and ran with the wild beasts, who became his friends. In return, with his mind and hands and his great strength, he became their protector.
Myths and Legends from Around the World Page 5
