Beowulf and the Illusion of History (review)

The first editor of Beowulf, Grímur Jónsson Thorkelin, believed that he had brought to light a long-forgotten work of real history: he entitled the poem De Danorum Rebus Gestis Secul. III & IV. Poëma danicum dialecto anglosaxonica and ascribed its authorship to a poet present at Beowulf's funeral (1815). John F. Vickrey entitles his book Beowulf and the Illusion of History. Judging the book by its title, I had supposed that it would challenge the historicity of such figures as Hrothgar, Hrothulf, and Hygelac. It does not. Instead it is a folklore study of some of the poem's secondary events. Chapter 1 outlines the argument, Chapters 2-9 scrutinize the Finn episode, Chapters 10-12 treat Beowulf's match with Dæghrefn, Chapter 13 centers on Ongentheow, and Chapter 14 seeks connections. Beowulf and the Illusion of History reanimates Friedrich Panzer's Studien zur Germanischen Sagengeschichte, vol. 1: Beowulf (1910). The Bear's Son tale prowls through both books in one form or another.

Scholars have dismissed as ahistorical Beowulf's great fights against Grendel, Grendel's dam, and the dragon: real history knows nothing of such creatures. According to Vickrey, scholars should also recognize that ahistorical creatures lurk elsewhere in Beowulf. In the Finn episode they lurk in the open. The eoten enemies repeatedly mentioned are not Jutes or metaphorical giants but literal giants in league with Frisians. In describing their conquest by the Danes, says Vickrey, the Danish scop demonstrates that Beowulf is not the only one capable of conquering an eoten. The argument itself seems straightforward, but for Vickrey it entails interpreting Hunlafing (l. 1143a) as the name of an animal tribal spirit (hamingja in Scandinavian lore) who bestowed the avenging sword on Hengest, seeing Hildeburh as "a much-altered version of the role of the captive princess in the 'Bear's Son'" tale (p. 121), and taking Hunferth—although he does not belong to Beowulf's company—as a reflex of "the faithless companion of the 'Bear's Son'" (p. 124).

Similar speculation attends Vickrey's treatment of Dæghrefn and Ongentheow. While acknowledging that Hygelac's raid on Frisia is recorded in history, Vickrey posits that the Dæghrefn with whom Beowulf says he wrestled in the war (ll. 2501-8a) derives from a Grendel-like demon in folktale; that the sword Nægling is so named because apparently Beowulf won the weapon from Dæghrefn, who in the folktale apparently had menacing nails or talons; and that the sword is later described as incgelaf (l. 2577a)—here construed as meaning "in-leaving" or "in-sword"—because in the folktale the sword is kept within the monster's cave. Further, "in Ongenþeow as well as in Dæghrefn we have a being who in his fictive antecedent was a man-monster" (p. 193)—this despite the fact that the poet describes the Swedish king in fully human terms.

Vickrey claims that these muted mutated monsters have structural implications for Beowulf:

[A]s has been indicated, the monster in whose cave or howe the incgelaf was found is unlikely to have been a dragon. Rather, it is likely that Dæghrefn's monstrousness was transformed—from that of troll or draugr to that of dragon. It is safer, then, to posit that what in an earlier version was just one fight with one foe became, in the poem as we have it, two fights with two foes, Dæghrefn and the dragon, the one overcome by wrestling, the other by the sword. The bifurcation of the former single foe into both Dæghrefn and the dragon against whom Beowulf brings the sword Nægling and also the transfer of the action to the outside of the cave (because of the dragon's terrible fire; cf. lines 2542-49) made the term incgelaf 'in-leaving' unintelligible, or nearly so.

(p. 171)

I do not believe that the most accomplished poet in Old English literature...