Scyld Scefing—name means “shield” or “protection” of the “sheaf” suggesting an earlier association in Norse mythology with the god of Vegetation. Danes afterward known as “Scyldings,” descendants of Scyld.
Scyld Scefing arrives among the Danes as a foundling, a dangerous position in both Norse and Anglo-Saxon cultures. Solitaries and outcasts were generally regarded with suspicion; it is a tribute to Scyld Scefing that he surmounted these obstacles to become their leader and organizer of the Danish people.
Who is Scyld’s heir?
Healfdene has four children: Heorogar, Hrothgar, Halga—the fourth was Onela’s queen
Heorot—Hrothgar’s house
“So the king’s thanes/ gathered in gladness; then crime came calling,/ a horror from hell, hideous Grendel;/ wrathful rover of borders and moors,/ holder of hollows, haunter of fens./ He had lived long in the land of the loathsome,/ born to the band whom God had banished/ as kindred of Cain, thereby requiting/ the slayer of Abel. Many such sprang/ from the first murderer: monsters and misfits, / elves and ill-spirits, also those giants / whose wars with the Lord earned them exile” (91-101).
“After nightfall he nosed around Heorot, saw how swordsmen slept in the hall, unwary and weary with wine and feasting,/ numb to the sorrows suffered by men. The cursed creature, cruel and remorseless,/swiftly slipped in. He seized thirty thanes/ asleep after supper, shouldered away/ what trophies he would, and took to his lair/ pleased with the plunder, proud of his murders” (102-110).
“The evening after/ he murdered again with no more remorse,/ so fixed was his will on that wicked feud” (119-121).--Concept of the Hardened Heart
“The monster craved no kinship with any, / no end to the evil with wergild [cash payment for someone’s death—regarded as an advance over violent revenge] owed;/ nor might a king’s council have reckoned/ on quittance come from the killer’s hand./ The dark death-shadow daunted them all, / lying in ambush for old and young,/ secretly slinking and stalking by night./ No man knows where on the misty moor/ the heathen keepers of hell-runes wander” (135-143).
“Raiding by night, he reigned in the hall,/ and Heorot’s high adornments were his;/ but God would not grant throne-gifts to gladden/ a courage who spurned the Sovereign of Heaven” (146-149).
What evil thing (breaking a commandment) do some of Hrothgar's men start doing?
“Great among Geats” (171).
Skilled sailor
One of Hrothgar’s men asks who they are and where they are from.
Geatish men—“shares of Hygelac’s hearth and hall. My father was famous among our folk/ as a lordly leader who lived many winters/ before, full of years, he departed our fastness./ His name was Ecgtheow” (234).
Of what race is Beowulf?
Beowulf brags about his accomplishments, something antithetical to Medieval values:
“’They have seen me return/ bloody from binding brutish giants,/ a family of five destroyed in our strife;/ by night in the sea I have slain monsters./ Hardship I had, but our harms were avenged,/ our enemies mastered. Now I shall match / my grip against Grendel’s and get you an end/ to this feud with the fiend” (374-381).
How will Beowulf fight the monster?
The good guy always wins because God is on the side of the good guy. Though Beowulf boasts, he is also somewhat modest. Also note the importance of the hero's weapons. They can only go to certain people, not just anyone. In this culture, genealogy is important. So is the genealogy of the weapons.
“’Whomever death takes, his doom is doubtless/ decreed by the Lord. If I let the creature/ best me when battle begins in this building,/ he will freely fast as he often has fed/ on men of much mettle. My corpse will require/ no covering cloth. He will carry away/ a crushed carcass clotted with gore,/ the fiend’s fodder gleefully eaten,/ smearing his lonesome lair on the moor./ No need to worry who buries my body/ if battle takes me. Send back to my sovereign/ the best of shirts which has shielded my breast, / the choice chain-mail, Hrethel’s heirloom/ and Weland’s work. Fate goes as it will’” (392-405). Weland is a legendary blacksmith of the Norse gods
Hrothgar says that Hrothgar had once helped Beowulf’s father.
What is the name of the jester who makes fun of Beowulf, who says that Beowulf is not that great?
What is the name of Hrothgar's wife?
Note the alliteration, not just here, but throughout. It was one way that poets could more easily remember the story.
“Then from the moor under misty hillsides,/ Grendel came gliding, girt with God’s anger./ The man-scather sought someone to snatch/ from the high hall. He crept under clouds/ until he caught sight of the king’s court/ whose gilded gables he knew at a glance./ He often had haunted Hrothgar’s house; / but he never found, before or after,/ hardier hall-thanes or harder luck./ The joyless giant drew near the door,/ which swiftly swung back at the touch of his hand/ though bound and fastened with forge-bent bars./ The building’s mouth had been broken open,/ and Grendel entered with ill intent./ Swollen with fury, he stalked over flagstones/ and looked round the manse where many men lay./ An unlovely light most like a flame/ flashed from his eyes, flared through the hall/ as young soldiers dozing shoulder to shoulder,/ comradely kindred. The cruel creature laughed/ in his murderous mind, thinking how many/ now living would die before the day dawned,/ how glutted with gore he would guzzle his fill” (638-660).
“Wailing in anguish,/ the hellish horror, hateful to God,/ sang his despair, seized by the grip/ of a man more mighty than any then living” (704-707).
“The shielder of men meant by no means/ to let the death-dealer leave with his life,/ a life worthless to anyone elsewhere” (708-710). Humility
“Then the young soldiers swing their old swords / again and again to save their guardian,/ their kingly comrade, however they could. / Engaging with Grendel and hoping to hew him/ from every side, they scarcely suspected/ that blades wielded by worthy warriors/ never would cut to the criminal’s quick./ The spell was spun so strongly about him/ that the finest iron of any on earth,/ the sharpest sword-edge left him unscathed./Still he was soon to be stripped of his life/ and sent on a sore sojourn to Hell./ The strength of his sinews would serve him no more;/ no more would he menace mankind with his crimes,/ his grudge against God, for the high-hearted kinsman / of King Hygelac had hold of his hand./ Each found the other loathsome while living;/ but the murderous man-bane got a great wound/ as tendons were torn, shoulder shorn open,/ and bone-locks broken. Beowulf gained/ glory in war; and Grendel went off/ bloody and bent to the boggy hills, / sorrowfully seeking his dreary dwelling” (711- 733).
What kind of "trophy" does Beowulf display?
“Weary and weak, defeated in war,/ he dripped his blood-spoor down to dark water,/ tinting the terrible tide where he sank,/ spilling his lifeblood to swirl in the surge. There the doomed one dropped into death/ where he long had lurked in his joyless lair,/ and Hell harrowed his heathen soul” (754-760).
Who is Sigemund? For what particular feat is he known?
“Thus the wayfarer famed far and wide/ among nations of men, that mighty war-maker, / shelter of shield-bearers, outshone another:/ unhappy Heremod [earlier Danish king, the stock illustration of the unjust and unwise ruler. After bringing bloodshed upon his own house, Heremod took refuge among the Jutes, who eventually put him to death], king of the Danes, whose strength, spirit, and courage were spent. He fell among foes, was taken by traitors/ and swiftly dispatched” (798-804).
Hrothgar himself, / keeper of treasures and leader of troops,/ came from the queen’s quarters to march/ with measured tread the track to his mead-hall;/ the queen and her maidens also came forth” (815-819).
