A Literary History of the English People, from the Origins to the Renaissance. J. J. Jusserand

seas, Britain ('Brytene') sought, proud war-smiths, the Welsh ('Wealas') o'ercame, men for glory eager, the country gain'd."[53]

      The writer's heart swells with delight at the thought of so many corpses, of so great a carnage and so much gore; he is happy and triumphant, he dwells complacently on the sight, as poets of another day and country would dwell on the thought of paths "where the wind swept roses" (où le vent balaya des roses).

These strong men lend themselves willingly, as do their kin over the sea, to the ebb and flow of powerful contrary feelings, and rush body and soul from the extreme of joy to the acme of sorrow. The mild sérénité, enjoyed by men with classical tendencies was to them unknown, and the word was one which no Norman Conquest, no Angevin rule, no "Augustan" imitation, could force into the language; it was unwanted, for the thing was unknown. But they listen with unabated pleasure, late in the period, to the story of heroic deeds performed on the Continent by men of their own race, whose mind was shaped like theirs, and who felt the same feelings. The same blood and soul sympathy which animates them towards their own King Æthelstan, lord of earls, ring-giver of warriors—not a myth that one, not a fable his deeds—warms the songs they devote to King Waldhere of Aquitaine, to the Scandinavian warrior Beowulf, and to others, probably, who belonged to the same Germanic stock. Not a word of England or the Angles is said in those poems; still they were popular in England. The Waldhere song, of which some sixty lines have been preserved, on two vellum leaves discovered in the binding of an old book, told the story of the hero's flight from Attila's Court with his bride Hildgund and a treasure (treasures play a great part in those epics), and of his successive fights with Gunther and Hagen while crossing the Vosges. These warriors, after this one appearance, vanish altogether from English literature, but their literary life was continued on the Continent; their fate was told in Latin in the tenth century by a monk of St. Gall, and again they had a part to play in the German "Nibelungenlied." Beowulf, on the contrary, Scandinavian as he was, is known only through the Anglo-Saxon poet. In "Beowulf," as in "Waldhere," feelings, speeches, manners, ideal of life are the same as with the heroes of the "Corpus Poeticum Boreale." The whole obviously belongs to the same group of nations.[54]

The strange poem of "Beowulf,"[55] the most important monument of Anglo-Saxon literature, was discovered at the end of the last century, in a manuscript written about the year 1000,[56] and is now preserved in the British Museum. Few works have been more discussed; it has been the cause of literary wars, in which the learned men of England, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, France, and America have taken part; and peace is not yet signed.

This poem, like the old Celtic tales, is a medley of pagan legends, which did not originally concern Beowulf in particular,[57] and of historical facts, the various parts, after a separate literary life, having been put together, perhaps in the eighth century, perhaps later, by an Anglo-Saxon Christian, who added new discrepancies in trying to adapt the old tale to the faith of his day. No need to expatiate on the incoherence of a poem formed of such elements. Its heroes are at once pagan and Christian; they believe in Christ and in Weland; they fight against the monsters of Scandinavian mythology, and see in them the descendants of Cain; historical facts, such as a battle of the sixth century, mentioned by Gregory of Tours, where the victory remained to the Frankish ancestor,[58] are mixed up with tales of fantastic duels below the waves.

      According to a legend partly reproduced in the poem, the Danes had no chief. They beheld one day a small ship on the sea, and in it a child, and with him one of those ever-recurring treasures. They saw in this mysterious gift a sign from above, and took the child for their ruler; "and he was a good king." When that king, Scyld, died, they placed him once more on a bark with treasures, and the waters bore him away, no one ever knew whither.

One of his successors, Hrothgar,[59] who held his court, like the Danish kings of to-day, in the isle of Seeland, built in his old age a splendid hall, Heorot, wherein to feast his warriors and distribute rings among them. They drank merrily there, while the singer sang "from far-off ages the origin of men." But there was a monster named Grendel, who lived in the darkness of lonely morasses. He "bore impatiently for a season to hear each day joyous revelry loud-sounding in the hall, where was the music of the harp, and the clear piercing song" of the "scôp." When night came, the fiend "went to visit the grand house, to see how the Ring-Danes after the beer-drinking had settled themselves in it. Then found he therein a crowd of nobles (æthelinga) asleep after the feast; they knew no care."[60] Grendel removed thirty of them to his lair, and they were killed by "that dark pest of men, that mischief-working being, grim and greedy, savage and fierce." Grendel came again and "wrought a yet worse deed of murder." The thanes ceased to care much for the music and glee of Heorot. "He that escaped from that enemy kept himself ever afterwards far off in greater watchfulness."

Higelac, king of the Geatas (who the Geatas were is doubtful; perhaps Goths of Gothland in Sweden, perhaps Jutes of Jutland[61]), had a nephew, Beowulf, son of Ecgtheow, of the royal Swedish blood, who heard of the scourge. Beowulf went with his companions on board a ship; "the foamy-necked cruiser, hurried on by the wind, flew over the sea, most like to a bird," and followed "the path of the swans." For the North Sea is the path of the swans as well as of the whales, and the wild swan abounds to this day on the coasts of Norway.[62] Beowulf landed on the Danish shore, and proposed to Hrothgar to rid him of the monster.

      Hrothgar does not conceal from his guests the terrible danger they are running: "Often have boasted the sons of battle, drunken with beer, over their cups of ale, that they would await in the beer-hall, with their deadly sharp-edged swords, the onset of Grendel. Then in the morning, when the daylight came, this mead-hall, this lordly chamber, was stained with gore, all the bench-floor drenched in blood, the hall in carnage. … " The Geatas persist in their undertaking, and they are feasted by their host: "Then was a bench cleared for the sons of the Geatas, to sit close together in the beer-hall; there the stout-hearted ones went and sat, exulting clamorously. A thane attended to their wants, who carried in his hands a chased ale-flagon, and poured the pure bright liquor."

      Night falls; the Geat and his companions remain in the hall and "bow themselves to repose." Grendel the "night walker came prowling in the gloom of night … from his eyes there issued a hideous light, most like to fire. In the hall he saw many warriors, a kindred band, sleeping all together, a group of clansmen. Then he laughed in his heart." He did not tarry, but seized one of the sleepers, "tore him irresistibly, bit his flesh, drank the blood from his veins, swallowed him by large morsels; soon had he devoured all the corpse but the feet and hands." He then finds himself confronted by Beowulf. The fight begins under the sounding roof, the gilded seats are overthrown, and it was a wonder the hall itself did not fall in; but it was "made fast with iron bands." At last Grendel's arm is wrenched off, and he flees towards his morasses to die.

      While Beowulf, loaded with treasure, returns to his own country, another scourge appears. The mother of Grendel wishes to avenge him, and, during the night, seizes and eats Hrothgar's favourite warrior. Beowulf comes back and reaches the cave of the fiends under the waters; the fight is an awful one, and the hero was about to succumb, when he caught sight of an enormous sword forged by the giants. With it he slays the foe; and also cuts off the head of Grendel, whose body lay there lifeless. At the contact of this poisonous blood the blade melts entirely, "just like ice, when the Father looseneth the bonds of frost, unwindeth the ropes that bind the waves."

Later, after having taken part in the historic battle fought against the Franks, in which his uncle Higelac was killed, Beowulf becomes king, and reigns fifty years. In his