Beowulf
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Plot Summary
Beowulf is the longest and greatest surviving Anglo-Saxon poem. The setting of the epic is the sixth century in what is now known as Denmark and southwestern Sweden. The poem opens with a brief genealogy of the Scylding (Dane) royal dynasty, named after a mythic hero, Scyld Scefing, who reached the tribe's shores as a castaway babe on a ship loaded with treasure. Scyld's funeral is a memorable early ritual in the work, but focus soon shifts to the reign of his great-grandson, Hrothgar, whose successful rule is symbolized by a magnificent central mead-hall called Heorot. For 12 years, a huge man-like ogre named Grendel, a descendant of the biblical murderer Cain, has menaced the aging Hrothgar, raiding Heorot and killing the king's thanes (warriors). Grendel rules the mead-hall nightly.
Beowulf, a young warrior in Geatland (southwestern Sweden), comes to the Scyldings' aid, bringing with him 14 of his finest men. Hrothgar once sheltered Beowulf's father during a deadly feud, and the mighty Geat hopes to return the favor while enhancing his own reputation and gaining treasure for his king, Hygelac. At a feast before nightfall of the first day of the visit, an obnoxious, drunken Scylding named Unferth insults Beowulf and claims that the Geat visitor once embarrassingly lost a swimming contest to a boyhood acquaintance named Breca and is no match for Grendel. Beowulf responds with dignity while putting Unferth in his place. In fact, the two swimmers were separated by a storm on the fifth night of the contest, and Beowulf had slain nine sea monsters before finally returning to shore.
While the Danes retire to safer sleeping quarters, Beowulf and the Geats bed down in Heorot, fully aware that Grendel will visit them. He does. Angered by the joy of the men in the mead-hall, the ogre furiously bursts in on the Geats, killing one and then reaching for Beowulf. With the strength of 30 men in his hand-grip, Beowulf seizes the ogre's claw and does not let go. The ensuing battle nearly destroys the great hall, but Beowulf emerges victorious as he rips Grendel's claw from its shoulder socket, sending the mortally wounded beast fleeing to his mere (pool). The claw trophy hangs high under the roof of Heorot.
The Danes celebrate the next day with a huge feast featuring entertainment by Hrothgar's scop (pronounced "shop"), a professional bard who accompanies himself on a harp and sings or chants traditional lays such as an account of the Danes' victory at Finnsburh. This bard also improvises a song about Beowulf's victory. Hrothgar's wife, Queen Wealhtheow, proves to be a perfect hostess, offering Beowulf a gold collar and her gratitude. Filled with mead, wine, and great food, the entire party retires for what they expect to be the first peaceful night in years.
But Grendel's mother — not quite as powerful as her son but highly motivated — climbs to Heorot that night, retrieves her son's claw, and murderously abducts one of the Scyldings (Aeschere) while Beowulf sleeps elsewhere. The next morning, Hrothgar, Beowulf, and a retinue of Scyldings and Geats follow the mother's tracks into a dark, forbidding swamp and to the edge of her mere. The slaughtered Aeschere's head sits on a cliff by the lake, which hides the ogres' underground cave. Carrying a sword called Hrunting, a gift from the chastised Unferth, Beowulf dives into the mere to seek the mother.
Near the bottom of the lake, Grendel's mother attacks and hauls the Geat warrior to her dimly lit cave. Beowulf fights back once inside the dry cavern, but the gift sword, Hrunting, strong as it is, fails to penetrate the ogre's hide. The mother moves to kill Beowulf with her knife, but his armor, made by the legendary blacksmith Weland,protects him. Suddenly Beowulf spots a magical, giant sword and uses it to cut through the mother's spine at the neck, killing her. A blessed light unexplainable illuminates the cavern, disclosing Grendel's corpse and a great deal of treasure. Beowulf decapitates the corpse. The magic sword melts to its hilt. Beowulf returns to the lake's surface carrying the head and hilt but leaving the treasure.
After more celebration and gifts and a sermon by Hrothgar warning of the dangers of pride and the mutability of time, Beowulf and his men return to Geatland. There he serves his king well until Hygelac is killed in battle and his son dies in a feud. Beowulf is then named king and rules successfully for 50 years. Like Hrothgar, however, his peace is shattered in his declining years. Beowulf must battle one more demon.
A fiery dragon has become enraged because a lone fugitive has inadvertently discovered the dragon's treasure-trove and stolen a valuable cup. The dragon terrorizes the countryside at night, burning several homes, including Beowulf's. Led by the fugitive, Beowulf and eleven of his men seek out the dragon's barrow. Beowulf insists on taking on the dragon alone, but his own sword, Naegling, is no match for the monster. Seeing his king in trouble, one thane, Wiglaf, goes to his assistance. The others flee to the woods. Together, Wiglaf and Beowulf kill the dragon, but the mighty king is mortally wounded. Dying, Beowulf leaves his kingdom to Wiglaf and requests that his body be cremated in a funeral pyre and buried high on a seaside cliff where passing sailors might see the barrow. The dragon's treasure-hoard is buried with him. It is said that they lie there still.
Beowulf Context:
Though it is often viewed both as the archetypal (an archetype is a universally understood symbol or term or pattern of behavior, a prototype upon which others are copied, patterned, or emulated.) Anglo-Saxon literary work and as a cornerstone of modern literature, Beowulf has a peculiar history that complicates both its historical and its canonical position in English literature. By the time the story of Beowulf was composed by an unknown Anglo-Saxon poet around 700 a.d., much of its material had been in circulation in oral narrative for many years. The Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian peoples had invaded the island of Britain and settled there several hundred years earlier, bringing with them several closely related Germanic languages that would evolve into Old English. Elements of the Beowulf story—including its setting and characters—date back to the period before the migration. The action of the poem takes place around 500 a.d. Many of the characters in the poem--the Swedish and Danish royal family members, for example—correspond to actual historical figures. Originally pagan warriors, the Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian invaders experienced a large-scale conversion to Christianity at the end of the sixth century. Though still an old pagan story, Beowulf thus came to be told by a Christian poet. The Beowulf poet is often at pains to attribute Christian thoughts and motives to his characters, who frequently behave in distinctly un-Christian ways. The Beowulf that we read today is therefore probably quite unlike the Beowulf with which the first Anglo-Saxon audiences were familiar. The element of religious tension is quite common in Christian Anglo-Saxon writings (The Dream of the Rood, for example), but the combination of a pagan story with a Christian narrator is fairly unusual. The plot of the poem concerns Scandinavian culture, but much of the poem’s narrative intervention reveals that the poet’s culture was somewhat different from that of his ancestors, and that of his characters as well.
The world that Beowulf depicts and the heroic code of honor that defines much of the story is a relic of pre–Anglo-Saxon culture. The story is set in Scandinavia, before the migration. Though it is a traditional story—part of a Germanic oral tradition—the poem as we have it is thought to be the work of a single poet. It was composed in England (not in Scandinavia) and is historical in its perspective, recording the values and culture of a bygone era. Many of those values, including the heroic code, were still operative to some degree in when the poem was written. These values had evolved to some extent in the intervening centuries and were continuing to change. In the Scandinavian world of the story, tiny tribes of people rally around strong kings, who protect their people from danger—especially from confrontations with other tribes. The warrior culture that results from this early feudal arrangement is extremely important, both to the story and to our understanding of Saxon civilization. Strong kings demand bravery and loyalty from their warriors, whom they repay with treasures won in war. Mead-halls such as Heorot in Beowulf were places where warriors would gather in the presence of their lord to drink, boast, tell stories, and receive gifts. Although these mead-halls offered sanctuary, the early Middle Ages were a dangerous time, and the paranoid sense of foreboding (a sense of impending evil or misfortune) and doom that runs throughout Beowulf evidences the constant fear of invasion that plagued Scandinavian society.
Only a single manuscript of Beowulf survived the Anglo-Saxon era. For many centuries, the manuscript was all but forgotten, and, in the 1700s, it was nearly destroyed in a fire. It was not until the nineteenth century that widespread interest in the document emerged among scholars and translators of Old English. For the first hundred years of Beowulf’s prominence, interest in the poem was primarily historical—the text was viewed as a source of information about the Anglo-Saxon era. It was not until 1936, when the Oxford scholar J. R. R. Tolkien (who later wrote The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, works heavily influenced by Beowulf) published a groundbreaking paper entitled “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics” that the manuscript gained recognition as a serious work of art.
Beowulf is now widely taught and is often presented as the first important work of English literature, creating the impression that Beowulf is in some way the source of the English canon. But because it was not widely read until the 1800s and not widely regarded as an important artwork until the 1900s, Beowulf has had little direct impact on the development of English poetry. In fact, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Marlowe, Pope, Shelley, Keats, and most other important English writers before the 1930s had little or no knowledge of the epic. It was not until the mid-to-late twentieth century that Beowulf began to influence writers, and, since then, it has had a marked impact on the work of many important novelists and poets, including W. H. Auden, Geoffrey Hill, Ted Hughes, and Seamus Heaney, the 1995 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, whose recent translation of the epic is the edition used for this SparkNote.
Old English Poetry Beowulf is often referred to as the first important work of literature in English, even though it was written in Old English, an ancient form of the language that slowly evolved into the English now spoken. Compared to modern English, Old English is heavily Germanic, with little influence from Latin or French. As English history developed, after the French Normans conquered the Anglo-Saxons in 1066, Old English was gradually broadened by offerings from those languages. Thus modern English is derived from a number of sources. As a result, its vocabulary is rich with synonyms. The word kingly, for instance, descends from the Anglo-Saxon word cyning, meaning “king,” while the synonym royal comes from a French word and the synonym regal from a Latin word.
Fortunately, most students encountering Beowulf read it in a form translated into modern English. Still, a familiarity with the rudiments of Anglo-Saxon poetry enables a deeper understanding of the Beowulf text. Old English poetry is highly formal, but its form is quite unlike anything in modern English. Each line of Old English poetry is divided into two halves, separated by a caesura, or pause, and is often represented by a gap on the page, as the following example demonstrates: Setton him to heafdon hilde-randas. . . .
Because Anglo-Saxon poetry existed in oral tradition long before it was written down, the verse form contains complicated rules for alliteration designed to help scops, or poets, remember the many thousands of lines they were required to know by heart. Each of the two halves of an Anglo-Saxon line contains two stressed syllables, and an alliterative pattern must be carried over across the caesura. Any of the stressed syllables may alliterate except the last syllable; so the first and second syllables may alliterate with the third together, or the first and third may alliterate alone, or the second and third may alliterate alone. For instance:
Lade ne letton. Leoht eastan com.
Lade, letton, leoht, and eastan are the four stressed words.
In addition to these rules, Old English poetry often features a distinctive set of rhetorical devices. The most common of these is the kenning, used throughout Beowulf. A kenning is a short metaphorical description of a thing used in place of the thing’s name; thus a ship might be called a “sea-rider,” or a king a “ring-giver.” Some translations employ kennings almost as frequently as they appear in the original. Others moderate the use of kennings in deference to a modern sensibility. But the Old English version of the epic is full of them, and they are perhaps the most important rhetorical device present in Old English poetry.
Character List/ Principal Characters:
Beowulf - The protagonist of the epic, Beowulf is a Geatish hero who fights the monster Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and a fire-breathing dragon. Beowulf’s boasts and encounters reveal him to be the strongest, ablest warrior around. In his youth, he personifies all of the best values of the heroic culture. In his old age, he proves a wise and effective ruler.
King Hrothgar - The king of the Danes. Hrothgar enjoys military success and prosperity until Grendel terrorizes his realm. A wise and aged ruler, Hrothgar represents a different kind of leadership from that exhibited by the youthful warrior Beowulf. He is a father figure to Beowulf and a model for the kind of king that Beowulf becomes.
Grendel - A demon descended from Cain, Grendel preys on Hrothgar’s warriors in the king’s mead-hall, Heorot. Because his ruthless and miserable existence is part of the retribution exacted by God for Cain’s murder of Abel, Grendel fits solidly within the ethos of vengeance that governs the world of the poem.
Grendel’s mother - An unnamed swamp-hag, Grendel’s mother seems to possess fewer human qualities than Grendel, although her terrorization of Heorot is explained by her desire for vengeance—a human motivation.
The dragon - An ancient, powerful serpent, the dragon guards a horde of treasure in a hidden mound. Beowulf’s fight with the dragon constitutes the third and final part of the epic.
Shield Sheafson - The legendary Danish king from whom Hrothgar is descended, Shield Sheafson is the mythical founder who inaugurates a long line of Danish rulers and embodies the Danish tribe’s highest values of heroism and leadership. The poem opens with a brief account of his rise from orphan to warrior-king, concluding, “That was one good king” .
Beow - The second king listed in the genealogy of Danish rulers with which the poem begins. Beow is the son of Shield Sheafson and father of Halfdane. The narrator presents Beow as a gift from God to a people in need of a leader. He exemplifies the maxim, “Behavior that’s admired / is the path to power among people everywhere” (24–25).
Halfdane - The father of Hrothgar, Heorogar, Halga, and an unnamed daughter who married a king of the Swedes, Halfdane succeeded Beow as ruler of the Danes.
Wealhtheow - Hrothgar’s wife, the gracious queen of the Danes.
Unferth - A Danish warrior who is jealous of Beowulf, Unferth is unable or unwilling to fight Grendel, thus proving himself inferior to Beowulf.
Hrethric - Hrothgar’s elder son, Hrethric stands to inherit the Danish throne, but Hrethric’s older cousin Hrothulf will prevent him from doing so. Beowulf offers to support the youngster’s prospect of becoming king by hosting him in Geatland and giving him guidance.
Hrothmund - The second son of Hrothgar.
Hrothulf - Hrothgar’s nephew, Hrothulf betrays and usurps his cousin, Hrethic, the rightful heir to the Danish throne. Hrothulf’s treachery contrasts with Beowulf’s loyalty to Hygelac in helping his son to the throne.
Aeschere - Hrothgar’s trusted adviser. Other Geats
Hygelac - Beowulf’s uncle, king of the Geats, and husband of Hygd. Hygelac heartily welcomes Beowulf back from Denmark.
Hygd - Hygelac’s wife, the young, beautiful, and intelligent queen of the Geats. Hygd is contrasted with Queen Modthryth.
Wiglaf - A young kinsman and retainer of Beowulf who helps him in the fight against the dragon while all of the other warriors run away. Wiglaf adheres to the heroic code better than Beowulf’s other retainers, thereby proving himself a suitable successor to Beowulf.
Ecgtheow - Beowulf’s father, Hygelac’s brother-in-law, and Hrothgar’s friend. Ecgtheow is dead by the time the story begins, but he lives on through the noble reputation that he made for himself during his life and in his dutiful son’s remembrances.
King Hrethel - The Geatish king who took Beowulf in as a ward after the death of Ecgtheow, Beowulf’s father.
Breca - Beowulf’s childhood friend, whom he defeated in a swimming match. Unferth alludes to the story of their contest, and Beowulf then relates it in detail. Other Figures Mentioned
Sigemund - A figure from Norse mythology, famous for slaying a dragon. Sigemund’s story is told in praise of Beowulf and foreshadows Beowulf’s encounter with the dragon.
King Heremod - An evil king of legend. The scop, or bard, at Heorot discusses King Heremod as a figure who contrasts greatly with Beowulf.
Queen Modthryth - A wicked queen of legend who punishes anyone who looks at her the wrong way. Modthryth’s story is told in order to contrast her cruelty with Hygd’s gentle and reasonable behavior.
Themes, Motifs, and Symbolism
Themes: are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.
The Importance of Establishing Identity
As Beowulf is essentially a record of heroic deeds, the concept of identity—of which the two principal components are ancestral heritage and individual reputation—is clearly central to the poem. The opening passages introduce the reader to a world in which every male figure is known as his father’s son. Characters in the poem are unable to talk about their identity or even introduce themselves without referring to family lineage. This concern with family history is so prominent because of the poem’s emphasis on kinship bonds. Characters take pride in ancestors who have acted valiantly, and they attempt to live up to the same standards as those ancestors.
While heritage may provide models for behavior and help to establish identity—as with the line of Danish kings discussed early on—a good reputation is the key to solidifying and augmenting one’s identity. For example, Shield Sheafson, the legendary originator of the Danish royal line, was orphaned; because he was in a sense fatherless, valiant deeds were the only means by which he could construct an identity for himself. While Beowulf’s pagan warrior culture seems not to have a concept of the afterlife, it sees fame as a way of ensuring that an individual’s memory will continue on after death—an understandable preoccupation in a world where death seems always to be knocking at the door.
Tensions Between the Heroic Code and Other Value Systems
Much of Beowulf is devoted to articulating and illustrating the Germanic heroic code, which values strength, courage, and loyalty in warriors; hospitality, generosity, and political skill in kings; ceremoniousness in women; and good reputation in all people. Traditional and much respected, this code is vital to warrior societies as a means of understanding their relationships to the world and the menaces lurking beyond their boundaries. All of the characters’ moral judgments stem from the code’s mandates. Thus individual actions can be seen only as either conforming to or violating the code.
The poem highlights the code’s points of tension by recounting situations that expose its internal contradictions in values. The poem contains several stories that concern divided loyalties, situations for which the code offers no practical guidance about how to act. For example, the poet relates that the Danish Hildeburh marries the Frisian king. When, in the war between the Danes and the Frisians, both her Danish brother and her Frisian son are killed, Hildeburh is left doubly grieved. The code is also often in tension with the values of medieval Christianity. While the code maintains that honor is gained during life through deeds, Christianity asserts that glory lies in the afterlife. Similarly, while the warrior culture dictates that it is always better to retaliate than to mourn, Christian doctrine advocates a peaceful, forgiving attitude toward one’s enemies. Throughout the poem, the poet strains to accommodate these two sets of values. Though he is Christian, he cannot (and does not seem to want to) deny the fundamental pagan values of the story.
The Difference Between a Good Warrior and a Good King
Over the course of the poem, Beowulf matures from a valiant combatant into a wise leader. His transition demonstrates that a differing set of values accompanies each of his two roles. The difference between these two sets of values manifests itself early on in the outlooks of Beowulf and King Hrothgar. Whereas the youthful Beowulf, having nothing to lose, desires personal glory, the aged Hrothgar, having much to lose, seeks protection for his people. Though these two outlooks are somewhat oppositional, each character acts as society dictates he should given his particular role in society.
While the values of the warrior become clear through Beowulf’s example throughout the poem, only in the poem’s more didactic moments are the responsibilities of a king to his people discussed. The heroic code requires that a king reward the loyal service of his warriors with gifts and praise. It also holds that he must provide them with protection and the sanctuary of a lavish mead-hall. Hrothgar’s speeches, in particular, emphasize the value of creating stability in a precarious and chaotic world. He also speaks at length about the king’s role in diplomacy, both with his own warriors and with other tribes.
Beowulf’s own tenure as king elaborates on many of the same points. His transition from warrior to king, and, in particular, his final battle with the dragon, rehash the dichotomy between the duties of a heroic warrior and those of a heroic king. In the eyes of several of the Geats, Beowulf’s bold encounter with the dragon is morally ambiguous because it dooms them to a kingless state in which they remain vulnerable to attack by their enemies. Yet Beowulf also demonstrates the sort of restraint proper to kings when, earlier in his life, he refrains from usurping Hygelac’s throne, choosing instead to uphold the line of succession by supporting the appointment of Hygelac’s son. But since all of these pagan kings were great warriors in their youth, the tension between these two important roles seems inevitable and ultimately irreconcilable. Motifs Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.
Monsters
In Christian medieval culture, monster was the word that referred to birth defects, which were always understood as an ominous sign from God—a sign of transgression or of bad things to come. In keeping with this idea, the monsters that Beowulf must fight in this Old English poem shape the poem’s plot and seem to represent an inhuman or alien presence in society that must be exorcised for the society’s safety. They are all outsiders, existing beyond the boundaries of human realms. Grendel’s and his mother’s encroachment upon human society—they wreak havoc in Heorot—forces Beowulf to kill the two beasts for order to be restored.
To many readers, the three monsters that Beowulf slays all seem to have a symbolic or allegorical meaning. For instance, since Grendel is descended from the biblical figure Cain, who slew his own brother, Grendel often has been understood to represent the evil in Scandinavian society of marauding and killing others. A traditional figure of medieval folklore and a common Christian symbol of sin, the dragon may represent an external malice that must be conquered to prove a hero’s goodness. Because Beowulf’s encounter with the dragon ends in mutual destruction, the dragon may also be interpreted as a symbolic representation of the inevitable encounter with death itself.
The Oral Tradition
Intimately connected to the theme of the importance of establishing one’s identity is the oral tradition, which preserves the lessons and lineages of the past, and helps to spread reputations. Indeed, in a culture that has little interaction with writing, only the spoken word can allow individuals to learn about others and make their own stories known. This emphasis on oral communication explains the prevalence of bards’ tales (such as the Heorot scop’s relating of the Finnsburg episode) and warriors’ boastings (such as Beowulf’s telling of the Breca story). From a broader perspective, Beowulf itself contributes to the tradition of oral celebration of cultural heroes. Like Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, Beowulf was passed on orally over many generations before being written down.
The Mead-Hall
The poem contains two examples of mead-halls: Hrothgar’s great hall of Heorot, in Denmark, and Hygelac’s hall in Geatland. Both function as important cultural institutions that provide light and warmth, food and drink, and singing and revelry. Historically, the mead-hall represented a safe haven for warriors returning from battle, a small zone of refuge within a dangerous and precarious external world that continuously offered the threat of attack by neighboring peoples. The mead-hall was also a place of community, where traditions were preserved, loyalty was rewarded, and, perhaps most important, stories were told and reputations were spread.
Symbols
Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.
Because ritual behaviors and tokens of loyalty are so central to pagan Germanic culture, most of the objects mentioned in Beowulf have symbolic status not just for the readers but also for the characters in the poem.
The Golden Torque
The collar or necklace that Wealhtheow gives Beowulf is a symbol of the bond of loyalty between her people and Beowulf—and, by extension, the Geats. Its status as a symbolic object is renewed when we learn that Hygelac died in battle wearing it, furthering the ideas of kinship and continuity.
The Banquet
The great banquet at Heorot after the defeat of Grendel represents the restoration of order and harmony to the Danish people. The preparation involves the rebuilding of the damaged mead-hall, which, in conjunction with the banquet itself, symbolizes the rebirth of the community. The speeches and giving of gifts, essential components of this society’s interactions, contribute as well to the sense of wholeness renewed.
Full Glossary for Beowulf
abysm of time a reference to the hellish chaos, the unfathomable chasm that spawned Grendel's mother and other descendants of Cain.
Aelfhere some scholars think that this is a reference to Beowulf, indicating that Wiglaf is related, perhaps a cousin.
battle-flame the sword, Hrunting.
Battle-Scylfings Swedes. The Geats have a long feud with the Scylfings.
battle-talon another reference to Grendel's claw.
body-warden a kenning for a chain-mail shirt.
The bold Scylding the poet associates Beowulf with the Scyldings, perhaps out of respect for his loyal service, even though the champion is a Geat.
bone-house a kenning forthe body.
Bright-Danes another name for the Scyldings, the reference to shining light.
burnished polished until glossy.
chant-wood a kenning for the scop's harp, with which he accompanied himself as he sang or chanted a story-song.
chief of the War-Scyldings Hnaef.
crest-glider a kenning for ship.
Daeghrefn a Frisian warrior, champion of the Hugas, whose beating heart Beowulf, as a young man, crushed with his bare hands.
dawn-scorcher, flame-snake, the worm epithets for the dragon.
doom here, eternal judgment.
Eadgils and Eanmund Ohthere's sons, Swedes. They had a feud with their uncle, Onela, and were temporarily sheltered by Heardred. Eadgils, supplied by Beowulf, later killed Onela.
Ecgtheow Beowulf's father.
Ecgwela a former Danish leader.
eddy a current running contrary to the main current, sometimes producing whirlpools.
Eofor and Wulf fought Swedes' King Ongentheow to his death. For a chronology of the Geats' feuds, see Chickering, pp. 361–62.
Eomer son of Offa.
fen low, swampy land.
feud-bites a kenning for wounds.
Fitela nephew of Sigemund, possibly his bastard son.
flagon a vessel for holding mead or other alcoholic liquids, usually made of metal or pottery and featuring a spout as well as a handle.
Folcwalda father of Finn.
Frankish pertaining to the Franks, a Germanic tribe in the Rhine region.
Franks and Frisians Germanic tribes united in opposition to the Geats.
Frisia Hygelac was killed in an apparently ill-conceived battle with the western Frisians (allies of the Franks), not by King Finn's people of the Finnsburh episode. Hygelac's death (c. 520 AD) is one historical event in the epic; it was recorded by Saint Gregory of Tours in his Historia Francorum.
Froda king of the Heathobards, father of Ingeld.
gannet's bath a gannet is a large sea bird; its "bath," therefore, would be the sea itself.
Garmund Offa's father.
garrote a metal collar used for execution by strangulation or breaking the neck.
Geats also called Weder-Folk or Weders. This is Beowulf's tribe in southwestern Sweden.
the giants here a reference to the Frisians.
gift from the sea a reference to Grendel's head, which Beowulf brings back from the mere.
Gifthas eastern Germanic tribe.
God's opponent Grendel.
gold-laced hall Heorot
gray-bearded elders Hrothgar's senior advisors.
guest-house Heorot.
Guthlaf and Oslaf Half-Dane thanes.
Haereth Hygd's father.
Haethcyn killed in battle at Ravenswood (in Sweden) by Ongentheow while avenging battle of Sorrow Hill. Hygelac immediately took over leadership of the Geats.
Hama, Brosing, and Eormanric For a thorough discussion of the necklace and the Goths, see Chickering, pp. 331–333.
hand-spike a kenning referring to the nail on Grendel's claw.
Healfdene father of Hrothgar.
Heaven's hall-ruler God is metaphorically spoken of as a Germanic king.
Helmings Wealhtheow's original tribe.
Heorogar brother of Hrothgar.
Heoroweard son of Heorogar.
Herebeald, Haethcyn, and Hygelac sons of Hrethel, in order of seniority.
Heremod Danish king who ruled disgracefully before Scyld rose to power.
Hereric Queen Hygd's brother.
Hetware joined with the Franks against Hygelac.
Hetware technically, the Chattuarii; here indistinguishable from Frisians; joined with Franks against Hygelac.
high battle flames a funeral pyre suitable for a great warrior.
his heirloom sword Beowulf's sword in the dragon fight is called "Naegling."
Hoc father of Hildeburh and Hnaef.
Hondscio literally, "hand-shoe" or glove. A Geat warrior, he was Grendel's first target the night that Beowulf killed the ogre.
Hrethel father of Geats' King Hygelac; maternal grandfather of Beowulf.
Hrethric Hrothgar and Wealhtheow's elder son.
Hrothulf son of Halga, nephew of Hrothgar.
Hugas a Frisian subgroup or family.
Hugas a Frisian subgroup or family.
Hunlaf's son a Half-Dane warrior who presents the sword to Hengest.
Ingeld a prince of the Heathobards. He will later lead a raid on Heorot and burn it before being routed.
Ingwines another name for the Danes, literally "friends of Ing."
Ingwines another name for the Scyldings.
killer-guest Grendel. The poet ironically plays with the theme of hospitality.
King of Glory God, not Hrothgar.
kingdom of waters here, simply a reference to the mere and the ogres' hideaway.
kinsman of Hemming here, a reference to Offa.
Lapps inhabitants of northern Scandinavia and Finland. The Anglo-Saxon is "Finna land" (580).
Life-lord God.
lineage ancestry, background, heritage.
the lord of those rings Beowulf, with a reference to the rings that form his mail-shirt.
the lord who had killed their own ring-giver an apparent reference to Finn, although it is not clear whether he personally does the killing or even if treachery is involved.
mail flexible armor made of small, overlapping rings or scales.
mead an alcoholic drink made from fermented honey and water.
mere a small lake or marsh.
Merovingian pertaining to the Franks.
middle-earth a land between Heaven and Hell, inhabited by mankind as well as a variety of good or evil creatures with origins in legend, mythology, or fantasy.
Modthrytho an example of a disreputable ruler, possibly based on a fourth-century queen.
the ninth hour the "nones," the ninth hour after sunrise, 3 p.m. As Chickering points out (p. 338), this is "the same hour that Christ, abandoned by all but a faithful few, died on the cross (see Luke 23:44–46)."
Offa king of the European (not English) Angles.
Ohthere and Onela Ongentheow's sons, Swedes. Onela killed Geat King Heardred.
Ongentheow Swede king, father of Onela and Ohthere; killed by Hygelac's retainers Wulf and Eofor at Ravenswood.
palisade a defensive fortification or fence made of pointed sticks (pales).
the prince's thane here, a reference to Hengest.
protector of nobles Beowulf.
protector of sailors Beowulf.
race of giants here, some of the descendants of Cain.
Ravenswood site (in Sweden) of major battle between Geats and Swedes.
retainer an attendant to the king, here sometimes used interchangeably with "thane."
Ring-Danes the Scyldings.
ring-giver ruler, king, feudal lord.
Ruler's favor God's preference. Sometimes God and wyrd are virtually interchangeable in the poem, possibly the result of Christian substitution.
rune-counselor an advisor especially adept at solving difficult problems.
runes letters of an alphabet used by ancient Germanic peoples, especially Scandinavians and Anglo-Saxons; sometimes cryptic.
scop a bard or singing (chanting) performer who often accompanies himself on a lute or harp, presenting historical or legendary stories of interest. He might be attached to a court or travel on his own. Preferred pronunciation is "shop."
Scylfing Swede.
sea-wind's cloak the ship's mast.
the shearer of life-threads the magical giant sword.
shepherd of sins Grendel, perhaps in contrast to God as shepherd of souls.
shield of the people here, a reference to King Hrothgar.
son of Ecglaf Unferth.
Sorrow Hill in Geatland, site of a battle where Swedes ambushed the Geats after Hrethel's death.
Spear-Danes Scyldings, the tribe of Scyld Scefing.
striplings adolescents, young warriors.
swathe to wrap with bandages.
swift roan Horses played an important role among the royalty, but most of the fighting was executed on foot.
thanes warriors who serve a king or feudal lord in exchange for land or treasure.
two seas apparently the Baltic and the Atlantic; possibly the Baltic and the North Sea.
uncle and nephew (1164) apparently a reference to Hrothgar and Hrothulf.
unsouled The soul was believed to leave the body shortly after death.
venom-twigs Some scholars suggest that Hrunting's edge was equipped with small, sharp points to which poison may have been applied; more likely, this is a reference to the use of acid (poison) in the shaping of the points during manufacture, a customary procedure of the time.
Waegmunding scholars dispute whether this clan, with which Wiglaf and Beowulf are associated, is Swede or Geat or a mixture of the two.
Waelsing reference to Sigemund, son of Waels.
waif a forsaken or orphaned child, such as Scyld.
walking dead similar to zombies, cursed to roam the earth after death.
warlock a male witch or demon.
the web's short measure the web of life — destiny, fate, Wyrd — has spun a short life for Queen Hildeburh's brother and son.
Weders Geats
Weland in Germanic legend, a blacksmith with magical powers; he made Beowulf's war-shirt (455).
Weohstan probably part Swede (Scylfing) and part Geat (as Chickering suggests, p. 369), father of Wiglaf. Weohstan apparently killed the Swede Eanmund on behalf of the victim's uncle, Onela, and was rewarded with Eanmund's war gear, which he eventually passed on to Wiglaf.
whale-road ocean or sea, from the Anglo-Saxon hron-rade. This is one of the poem's best known kennings, descriptive metaphors that identify a person or thing by a chief characteristic or use.
Withergyld a Heathobard warrior.
word-hoard a kenning for vocabulary.
woven snake-blade in constructing swords, numerous thin iron rods were woven together and forged to form a single blade.
Yrmenlaf a Dane, Aeschere's younger brother.
1999 Beowulf Part 1
The world that Beowulf depicts and the heroic code of honor that defines much of the story is a relic of pre–Anglo-Saxon culture. The story is set in Scandinavia, before the migration. Though it is a traditional story—part of a Germanic oral tradition—the poem as we have it is thought to be the work of a single poet. It was composed in England (not in Scandinavia) and is historical in its perspective, recording the values and culture of a bygone era. Many of those values, including the heroic code, were still operative to some degree in when the poem was written. These values had evolved to some extent in the intervening centuries and were continuing to change. In the Scandinavian world of the story, tiny tribes of people rally around strong kings, who protect their people from danger—especially from confrontations with other tribes. The warrior culture that results from this early feudal arrangement is extremely important, both to the story and to our understanding of Saxon civilization. Strong kings demand bravery and loyalty from their warriors, whom they repay with treasures won in war. Mead-halls such as Heorot in Beowulf were places where warriors would gather in the presence of their lord to drink, boast, tell stories, and receive gifts. Although these mead-halls offered sanctuary, the early Middle Ages were a dangerous time, and the paranoid sense of foreboding (a sense of impending evil or misfortune) and doom that runs throughout Beowulf evidences the constant fear of invasion that plagued Scandinavian society.
Only a single manuscript of Beowulf survived the Anglo-Saxon era. For many centuries, the manuscript was all but forgotten, and, in the 1700s, it was nearly destroyed in a fire. It was not until the nineteenth century that widespread interest in the document emerged among scholars and translators of Old English. For the first hundred years of Beowulf’s prominence, interest in the poem was primarily historical—the text was viewed as a source of information about the Anglo-Saxon era. It was not until 1936, when the Oxford scholar J. R. R. Tolkien (who later wrote The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, works heavily influenced by Beowulf) published a groundbreaking paper entitled “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics” that the manuscript gained recognition as a serious work of art.
Beowulf is now widely taught and is often presented as the first important work of English literature, creating the impression that Beowulf is in some way the source of the English canon. But because it was not widely read until the 1800s and not widely regarded as an important artwork until the 1900s, Beowulf has had little direct impact on the development of English poetry. In fact, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Marlowe, Pope, Shelley, Keats, and most other important English writers before the 1930s had little or no knowledge of the epic. It was not until the mid-to-late twentieth century that Beowulf began to influence writers, and, since then, it has had a marked impact on the work of many important novelists and poets, including W. H. Auden, Geoffrey Hill, Ted Hughes, and Seamus Heaney, the 1995 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, whose recent translation of the epic is the edition used for this SparkNote.
Old English Poetry Beowulf is often referred to as the first important work of literature in English, even though it was written in Old English, an ancient form of the language that slowly evolved into the English now spoken. Compared to modern English, Old English is heavily Germanic, with little influence from Latin or French. As English history developed, after the French Normans conquered the Anglo-Saxons in 1066, Old English was gradually broadened by offerings from those languages. Thus modern English is derived from a number of sources. As a result, its vocabulary is rich with synonyms. The word kingly, for instance, descends from the Anglo-Saxon word cyning, meaning “king,” while the synonym royal comes from a French word and the synonym regal from a Latin word.
Fortunately, most students encountering Beowulf read it in a form translated into modern English. Still, a familiarity with the rudiments of Anglo-Saxon poetry enables a deeper understanding of the Beowulf text. Old English poetry is highly formal, but its form is quite unlike anything in modern English. Each line of Old English poetry is divided into two halves, separated by a caesura, or pause, and is often represented by a gap on the page, as the following example demonstrates: Setton him to heafdon hilde-randas. . . .
Because Anglo-Saxon poetry existed in oral tradition long before it was written down, the verse form contains complicated rules for alliteration designed to help scops, or poets, remember the many thousands of lines they were required to know by heart. Each of the two halves of an Anglo-Saxon line contains two stressed syllables, and an alliterative pattern must be carried over across the caesura. Any of the stressed syllables may alliterate except the last syllable; so the first and second syllables may alliterate with the third together, or the first and third may alliterate alone, or the second and third may alliterate alone. For instance:
Lade ne letton. Leoht eastan com.
Lade, letton, leoht, and eastan are the four stressed words.
In addition to these rules, Old English poetry often features a distinctive set of rhetorical devices. The most common of these is the kenning, used throughout Beowulf. A kenning is a short metaphorical description of a thing used in place of the thing’s name; thus a ship might be called a “sea-rider,” or a king a “ring-giver.” Some translations employ kennings almost as frequently as they appear in the original. Others moderate the use of kennings in deference to a modern sensibility. But the Old English version of the epic is full of them, and they are perhaps the most important rhetorical device present in Old English poetry.
Character List/ Principal Characters:
Beowulf - The protagonist of the epic, Beowulf is a Geatish hero who fights the monster Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and a fire-breathing dragon. Beowulf’s boasts and encounters reveal him to be the strongest, ablest warrior around. In his youth, he personifies all of the best values of the heroic culture. In his old age, he proves a wise and effective ruler.
King Hrothgar - The king of the Danes. Hrothgar enjoys military success and prosperity until Grendel terrorizes his realm. A wise and aged ruler, Hrothgar represents a different kind of leadership from that exhibited by the youthful warrior Beowulf. He is a father figure to Beowulf and a model for the kind of king that Beowulf becomes.
Grendel - A demon descended from Cain, Grendel preys on Hrothgar’s warriors in the king’s mead-hall, Heorot. Because his ruthless and miserable existence is part of the retribution exacted by God for Cain’s murder of Abel, Grendel fits solidly within the ethos of vengeance that governs the world of the poem.
Grendel’s mother - An unnamed swamp-hag, Grendel’s mother seems to possess fewer human qualities than Grendel, although her terrorization of Heorot is explained by her desire for vengeance—a human motivation.
The dragon - An ancient, powerful serpent, the dragon guards a horde of treasure in a hidden mound. Beowulf’s fight with the dragon constitutes the third and final part of the epic.
Shield Sheafson - The legendary Danish king from whom Hrothgar is descended, Shield Sheafson is the mythical founder who inaugurates a long line of Danish rulers and embodies the Danish tribe’s highest values of heroism and leadership. The poem opens with a brief account of his rise from orphan to warrior-king, concluding, “That was one good king” .
Beow - The second king listed in the genealogy of Danish rulers with which the poem begins. Beow is the son of Shield Sheafson and father of Halfdane. The narrator presents Beow as a gift from God to a people in need of a leader. He exemplifies the maxim, “Behavior that’s admired / is the path to power among people everywhere” (24–25).
Halfdane - The father of Hrothgar, Heorogar, Halga, and an unnamed daughter who married a king of the Swedes, Halfdane succeeded Beow as ruler of the Danes.
Wealhtheow - Hrothgar’s wife, the gracious queen of the Danes.
Unferth - A Danish warrior who is jealous of Beowulf, Unferth is unable or unwilling to fight Grendel, thus proving himself inferior to Beowulf.
Hrethric - Hrothgar’s elder son, Hrethric stands to inherit the Danish throne, but Hrethric’s older cousin Hrothulf will prevent him from doing so. Beowulf offers to support the youngster’s prospect of becoming king by hosting him in Geatland and giving him guidance.
Hrothmund - The second son of Hrothgar.
Hrothulf - Hrothgar’s nephew, Hrothulf betrays and usurps his cousin, Hrethic, the rightful heir to the Danish throne. Hrothulf’s treachery contrasts with Beowulf’s loyalty to Hygelac in helping his son to the throne.
Aeschere - Hrothgar’s trusted adviser. Other Geats
Hygelac - Beowulf’s uncle, king of the Geats, and husband of Hygd. Hygelac heartily welcomes Beowulf back from Denmark.
Hygd - Hygelac’s wife, the young, beautiful, and intelligent queen of the Geats. Hygd is contrasted with Queen Modthryth.
Wiglaf - A young kinsman and retainer of Beowulf who helps him in the fight against the dragon while all of the other warriors run away. Wiglaf adheres to the heroic code better than Beowulf’s other retainers, thereby proving himself a suitable successor to Beowulf.
Ecgtheow - Beowulf’s father, Hygelac’s brother-in-law, and Hrothgar’s friend. Ecgtheow is dead by the time the story begins, but he lives on through the noble reputation that he made for himself during his life and in his dutiful son’s remembrances.
King Hrethel - The Geatish king who took Beowulf in as a ward after the death of Ecgtheow, Beowulf’s father.
Breca - Beowulf’s childhood friend, whom he defeated in a swimming match. Unferth alludes to the story of their contest, and Beowulf then relates it in detail. Other Figures Mentioned
Sigemund - A figure from Norse mythology, famous for slaying a dragon. Sigemund’s story is told in praise of Beowulf and foreshadows Beowulf’s encounter with the dragon.
King Heremod - An evil king of legend. The scop, or bard, at Heorot discusses King Heremod as a figure who contrasts greatly with Beowulf.
Queen Modthryth - A wicked queen of legend who punishes anyone who looks at her the wrong way. Modthryth’s story is told in order to contrast her cruelty with Hygd’s gentle and reasonable behavior.
Themes, Motifs, and Symbolism
Themes: are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.
The Importance of Establishing Identity
As Beowulf is essentially a record of heroic deeds, the concept of identity—of which the two principal components are ancestral heritage and individual reputation—is clearly central to the poem. The opening passages introduce the reader to a world in which every male figure is known as his father’s son. Characters in the poem are unable to talk about their identity or even introduce themselves without referring to family lineage. This concern with family history is so prominent because of the poem’s emphasis on kinship bonds. Characters take pride in ancestors who have acted valiantly, and they attempt to live up to the same standards as those ancestors.
While heritage may provide models for behavior and help to establish identity—as with the line of Danish kings discussed early on—a good reputation is the key to solidifying and augmenting one’s identity. For example, Shield Sheafson, the legendary originator of the Danish royal line, was orphaned; because he was in a sense fatherless, valiant deeds were the only means by which he could construct an identity for himself. While Beowulf’s pagan warrior culture seems not to have a concept of the afterlife, it sees fame as a way of ensuring that an individual’s memory will continue on after death—an understandable preoccupation in a world where death seems always to be knocking at the door.
Tensions Between the Heroic Code and Other Value Systems
Much of Beowulf is devoted to articulating and illustrating the Germanic heroic code, which values strength, courage, and loyalty in warriors; hospitality, generosity, and political skill in kings; ceremoniousness in women; and good reputation in all people. Traditional and much respected, this code is vital to warrior societies as a means of understanding their relationships to the world and the menaces lurking beyond their boundaries. All of the characters’ moral judgments stem from the code’s mandates. Thus individual actions can be seen only as either conforming to or violating the code.
The poem highlights the code’s points of tension by recounting situations that expose its internal contradictions in values. The poem contains several stories that concern divided loyalties, situations for which the code offers no practical guidance about how to act. For example, the poet relates that the Danish Hildeburh marries the Frisian king. When, in the war between the Danes and the Frisians, both her Danish brother and her Frisian son are killed, Hildeburh is left doubly grieved. The code is also often in tension with the values of medieval Christianity. While the code maintains that honor is gained during life through deeds, Christianity asserts that glory lies in the afterlife. Similarly, while the warrior culture dictates that it is always better to retaliate than to mourn, Christian doctrine advocates a peaceful, forgiving attitude toward one’s enemies. Throughout the poem, the poet strains to accommodate these two sets of values. Though he is Christian, he cannot (and does not seem to want to) deny the fundamental pagan values of the story.
The Difference Between a Good Warrior and a Good King
Over the course of the poem, Beowulf matures from a valiant combatant into a wise leader. His transition demonstrates that a differing set of values accompanies each of his two roles. The difference between these two sets of values manifests itself early on in the outlooks of Beowulf and King Hrothgar. Whereas the youthful Beowulf, having nothing to lose, desires personal glory, the aged Hrothgar, having much to lose, seeks protection for his people. Though these two outlooks are somewhat oppositional, each character acts as society dictates he should given his particular role in society.
While the values of the warrior become clear through Beowulf’s example throughout the poem, only in the poem’s more didactic moments are the responsibilities of a king to his people discussed. The heroic code requires that a king reward the loyal service of his warriors with gifts and praise. It also holds that he must provide them with protection and the sanctuary of a lavish mead-hall. Hrothgar’s speeches, in particular, emphasize the value of creating stability in a precarious and chaotic world. He also speaks at length about the king’s role in diplomacy, both with his own warriors and with other tribes.
Beowulf’s own tenure as king elaborates on many of the same points. His transition from warrior to king, and, in particular, his final battle with the dragon, rehash the dichotomy between the duties of a heroic warrior and those of a heroic king. In the eyes of several of the Geats, Beowulf’s bold encounter with the dragon is morally ambiguous because it dooms them to a kingless state in which they remain vulnerable to attack by their enemies. Yet Beowulf also demonstrates the sort of restraint proper to kings when, earlier in his life, he refrains from usurping Hygelac’s throne, choosing instead to uphold the line of succession by supporting the appointment of Hygelac’s son. But since all of these pagan kings were great warriors in their youth, the tension between these two important roles seems inevitable and ultimately irreconcilable. Motifs Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.
Monsters
In Christian medieval culture, monster was the word that referred to birth defects, which were always understood as an ominous sign from God—a sign of transgression or of bad things to come. In keeping with this idea, the monsters that Beowulf must fight in this Old English poem shape the poem’s plot and seem to represent an inhuman or alien presence in society that must be exorcised for the society’s safety. They are all outsiders, existing beyond the boundaries of human realms. Grendel’s and his mother’s encroachment upon human society—they wreak havoc in Heorot—forces Beowulf to kill the two beasts for order to be restored.
To many readers, the three monsters that Beowulf slays all seem to have a symbolic or allegorical meaning. For instance, since Grendel is descended from the biblical figure Cain, who slew his own brother, Grendel often has been understood to represent the evil in Scandinavian society of marauding and killing others. A traditional figure of medieval folklore and a common Christian symbol of sin, the dragon may represent an external malice that must be conquered to prove a hero’s goodness. Because Beowulf’s encounter with the dragon ends in mutual destruction, the dragon may also be interpreted as a symbolic representation of the inevitable encounter with death itself.
The Oral Tradition
Intimately connected to the theme of the importance of establishing one’s identity is the oral tradition, which preserves the lessons and lineages of the past, and helps to spread reputations. Indeed, in a culture that has little interaction with writing, only the spoken word can allow individuals to learn about others and make their own stories known. This emphasis on oral communication explains the prevalence of bards’ tales (such as the Heorot scop’s relating of the Finnsburg episode) and warriors’ boastings (such as Beowulf’s telling of the Breca story). From a broader perspective, Beowulf itself contributes to the tradition of oral celebration of cultural heroes. Like Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, Beowulf was passed on orally over many generations before being written down.
The Mead-Hall
The poem contains two examples of mead-halls: Hrothgar’s great hall of Heorot, in Denmark, and Hygelac’s hall in Geatland. Both function as important cultural institutions that provide light and warmth, food and drink, and singing and revelry. Historically, the mead-hall represented a safe haven for warriors returning from battle, a small zone of refuge within a dangerous and precarious external world that continuously offered the threat of attack by neighboring peoples. The mead-hall was also a place of community, where traditions were preserved, loyalty was rewarded, and, perhaps most important, stories were told and reputations were spread.
Symbols
Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.
Because ritual behaviors and tokens of loyalty are so central to pagan Germanic culture, most of the objects mentioned in Beowulf have symbolic status not just for the readers but also for the characters in the poem.
The Golden Torque
The collar or necklace that Wealhtheow gives Beowulf is a symbol of the bond of loyalty between her people and Beowulf—and, by extension, the Geats. Its status as a symbolic object is renewed when we learn that Hygelac died in battle wearing it, furthering the ideas of kinship and continuity.
The Banquet
The great banquet at Heorot after the defeat of Grendel represents the restoration of order and harmony to the Danish people. The preparation involves the rebuilding of the damaged mead-hall, which, in conjunction with the banquet itself, symbolizes the rebirth of the community. The speeches and giving of gifts, essential components of this society’s interactions, contribute as well to the sense of wholeness renewed.
Full Glossary for Beowulf
abysm of time a reference to the hellish chaos, the unfathomable chasm that spawned Grendel's mother and other descendants of Cain.
Aelfhere some scholars think that this is a reference to Beowulf, indicating that Wiglaf is related, perhaps a cousin.
battle-flame the sword, Hrunting.
Battle-Scylfings Swedes. The Geats have a long feud with the Scylfings.
battle-talon another reference to Grendel's claw.
body-warden a kenning for a chain-mail shirt.
The bold Scylding the poet associates Beowulf with the Scyldings, perhaps out of respect for his loyal service, even though the champion is a Geat.
bone-house a kenning forthe body.
Bright-Danes another name for the Scyldings, the reference to shining light.
burnished polished until glossy.
chant-wood a kenning for the scop's harp, with which he accompanied himself as he sang or chanted a story-song.
chief of the War-Scyldings Hnaef.
crest-glider a kenning for ship.
Daeghrefn a Frisian warrior, champion of the Hugas, whose beating heart Beowulf, as a young man, crushed with his bare hands.
dawn-scorcher, flame-snake, the worm epithets for the dragon.
doom here, eternal judgment.
Eadgils and Eanmund Ohthere's sons, Swedes. They had a feud with their uncle, Onela, and were temporarily sheltered by Heardred. Eadgils, supplied by Beowulf, later killed Onela.
Ecgtheow Beowulf's father.
Ecgwela a former Danish leader.
eddy a current running contrary to the main current, sometimes producing whirlpools.
Eofor and Wulf fought Swedes' King Ongentheow to his death. For a chronology of the Geats' feuds, see Chickering, pp. 361–62.
Eomer son of Offa.
fen low, swampy land.
feud-bites a kenning for wounds.
Fitela nephew of Sigemund, possibly his bastard son.
flagon a vessel for holding mead or other alcoholic liquids, usually made of metal or pottery and featuring a spout as well as a handle.
Folcwalda father of Finn.
Frankish pertaining to the Franks, a Germanic tribe in the Rhine region.
Franks and Frisians Germanic tribes united in opposition to the Geats.
Frisia Hygelac was killed in an apparently ill-conceived battle with the western Frisians (allies of the Franks), not by King Finn's people of the Finnsburh episode. Hygelac's death (c. 520 AD) is one historical event in the epic; it was recorded by Saint Gregory of Tours in his Historia Francorum.
Froda king of the Heathobards, father of Ingeld.
gannet's bath a gannet is a large sea bird; its "bath," therefore, would be the sea itself.
Garmund Offa's father.
garrote a metal collar used for execution by strangulation or breaking the neck.
Geats also called Weder-Folk or Weders. This is Beowulf's tribe in southwestern Sweden.
the giants here a reference to the Frisians.
gift from the sea a reference to Grendel's head, which Beowulf brings back from the mere.
Gifthas eastern Germanic tribe.
God's opponent Grendel.
gold-laced hall Heorot
gray-bearded elders Hrothgar's senior advisors.
guest-house Heorot.
Guthlaf and Oslaf Half-Dane thanes.
Haereth Hygd's father.
Haethcyn killed in battle at Ravenswood (in Sweden) by Ongentheow while avenging battle of Sorrow Hill. Hygelac immediately took over leadership of the Geats.
Hama, Brosing, and Eormanric For a thorough discussion of the necklace and the Goths, see Chickering, pp. 331–333.
hand-spike a kenning referring to the nail on Grendel's claw.
Healfdene father of Hrothgar.
Heaven's hall-ruler God is metaphorically spoken of as a Germanic king.
Helmings Wealhtheow's original tribe.
Heorogar brother of Hrothgar.
Heoroweard son of Heorogar.
Herebeald, Haethcyn, and Hygelac sons of Hrethel, in order of seniority.
Heremod Danish king who ruled disgracefully before Scyld rose to power.
Hereric Queen Hygd's brother.
Hetware joined with the Franks against Hygelac.
Hetware technically, the Chattuarii; here indistinguishable from Frisians; joined with Franks against Hygelac.
high battle flames a funeral pyre suitable for a great warrior.
his heirloom sword Beowulf's sword in the dragon fight is called "Naegling."
Hoc father of Hildeburh and Hnaef.
Hondscio literally, "hand-shoe" or glove. A Geat warrior, he was Grendel's first target the night that Beowulf killed the ogre.
Hrethel father of Geats' King Hygelac; maternal grandfather of Beowulf.
Hrethric Hrothgar and Wealhtheow's elder son.
Hrothulf son of Halga, nephew of Hrothgar.
Hugas a Frisian subgroup or family.
Hugas a Frisian subgroup or family.
Hunlaf's son a Half-Dane warrior who presents the sword to Hengest.
Ingeld a prince of the Heathobards. He will later lead a raid on Heorot and burn it before being routed.
Ingwines another name for the Danes, literally "friends of Ing."
Ingwines another name for the Scyldings.
killer-guest Grendel. The poet ironically plays with the theme of hospitality.
King of Glory God, not Hrothgar.
kingdom of waters here, simply a reference to the mere and the ogres' hideaway.
kinsman of Hemming here, a reference to Offa.
Lapps inhabitants of northern Scandinavia and Finland. The Anglo-Saxon is "Finna land" (580).
Life-lord God.
lineage ancestry, background, heritage.
the lord of those rings Beowulf, with a reference to the rings that form his mail-shirt.
the lord who had killed their own ring-giver an apparent reference to Finn, although it is not clear whether he personally does the killing or even if treachery is involved.
mail flexible armor made of small, overlapping rings or scales.
mead an alcoholic drink made from fermented honey and water.
mere a small lake or marsh.
Merovingian pertaining to the Franks.
middle-earth a land between Heaven and Hell, inhabited by mankind as well as a variety of good or evil creatures with origins in legend, mythology, or fantasy.
Modthrytho an example of a disreputable ruler, possibly based on a fourth-century queen.
the ninth hour the "nones," the ninth hour after sunrise, 3 p.m. As Chickering points out (p. 338), this is "the same hour that Christ, abandoned by all but a faithful few, died on the cross (see Luke 23:44–46)."
Offa king of the European (not English) Angles.
Ohthere and Onela Ongentheow's sons, Swedes. Onela killed Geat King Heardred.
Ongentheow Swede king, father of Onela and Ohthere; killed by Hygelac's retainers Wulf and Eofor at Ravenswood.
palisade a defensive fortification or fence made of pointed sticks (pales).
the prince's thane here, a reference to Hengest.
protector of nobles Beowulf.
protector of sailors Beowulf.
race of giants here, some of the descendants of Cain.
Ravenswood site (in Sweden) of major battle between Geats and Swedes.
retainer an attendant to the king, here sometimes used interchangeably with "thane."
Ring-Danes the Scyldings.
ring-giver ruler, king, feudal lord.
Ruler's favor God's preference. Sometimes God and wyrd are virtually interchangeable in the poem, possibly the result of Christian substitution.
rune-counselor an advisor especially adept at solving difficult problems.
runes letters of an alphabet used by ancient Germanic peoples, especially Scandinavians and Anglo-Saxons; sometimes cryptic.
scop a bard or singing (chanting) performer who often accompanies himself on a lute or harp, presenting historical or legendary stories of interest. He might be attached to a court or travel on his own. Preferred pronunciation is "shop."
Scylfing Swede.
sea-wind's cloak the ship's mast.
the shearer of life-threads the magical giant sword.
shepherd of sins Grendel, perhaps in contrast to God as shepherd of souls.
shield of the people here, a reference to King Hrothgar.
son of Ecglaf Unferth.
Sorrow Hill in Geatland, site of a battle where Swedes ambushed the Geats after Hrethel's death.
Spear-Danes Scyldings, the tribe of Scyld Scefing.
striplings adolescents, young warriors.
swathe to wrap with bandages.
swift roan Horses played an important role among the royalty, but most of the fighting was executed on foot.
thanes warriors who serve a king or feudal lord in exchange for land or treasure.
two seas apparently the Baltic and the Atlantic; possibly the Baltic and the North Sea.
uncle and nephew (1164) apparently a reference to Hrothgar and Hrothulf.
unsouled The soul was believed to leave the body shortly after death.
venom-twigs Some scholars suggest that Hrunting's edge was equipped with small, sharp points to which poison may have been applied; more likely, this is a reference to the use of acid (poison) in the shaping of the points during manufacture, a customary procedure of the time.
Waegmunding scholars dispute whether this clan, with which Wiglaf and Beowulf are associated, is Swede or Geat or a mixture of the two.
Waelsing reference to Sigemund, son of Waels.
waif a forsaken or orphaned child, such as Scyld.
walking dead similar to zombies, cursed to roam the earth after death.
warlock a male witch or demon.
the web's short measure the web of life — destiny, fate, Wyrd — has spun a short life for Queen Hildeburh's brother and son.
Weders Geats
Weland in Germanic legend, a blacksmith with magical powers; he made Beowulf's war-shirt (455).
Weohstan probably part Swede (Scylfing) and part Geat (as Chickering suggests, p. 369), father of Wiglaf. Weohstan apparently killed the Swede Eanmund on behalf of the victim's uncle, Onela, and was rewarded with Eanmund's war gear, which he eventually passed on to Wiglaf.
whale-road ocean or sea, from the Anglo-Saxon hron-rade. This is one of the poem's best known kennings, descriptive metaphors that identify a person or thing by a chief characteristic or use.
Withergyld a Heathobard warrior.
word-hoard a kenning for vocabulary.
woven snake-blade in constructing swords, numerous thin iron rods were woven together and forged to form a single blade.
Yrmenlaf a Dane, Aeschere's younger brother.
1999 Beowulf Part 1