Chapter XIII: Section III: Bothvar Bjarki

We have seen that there are in _Beowulf_ two distinct elements, which never seem quite harmonized: firstly the historic background of the Danish and Geatic courts, with their chieftains, Hrothgar and Hrothulf, or Hrethel and Hygelac: and secondly the old wives' fables of struggles with ogres and dragons. In the story of Grettir, the ogre fable appears--unmistakably connected with the similar story as given in _Beowulf_, but with {55} no faintest trace of having ever possessed any Danish heroic setting.

Turning back to the _Saga of Rolf Kraki_, we _do_ find against that Danish setting a figure, that of the hero Bothvar Bjarki, bearing a very remarkable resemblance to Beowulf.

Bjarki, bent on adventure, leaves the land of the Gautar (Goetar), where his brother is king, and reaches Leire, where Rolf, the king of the Danes, holds his court; [just as Beowulf, bent on adventure, leaves the land of the Geatas (Goetar) where his uncle is king, and reaches Heorot, where Hrothgar and Hrothulf (Rolf) hold court].

Arrived at Leire, Bjarki takes under his protection the despised coward Hott, whom Rolf's retainers have been wont to bully. The champions at the Danish court [in _Beowulf_ one of them only--Unferth] prove quarrelsome, and they assail the hero during the feast, in the _Saga_ by throwing bones at him, in _Beowulf_ only by bitter words. The hero in each case replies, in kind, with such effect that the enemy is silenced.

But despite the fame and splendour of the Danish court, it has long been subject to the attacks of a strange monster[116]--a winged beast whom no iron will bite [just as Grendel is immune from swords[117]]. Bjarki [like Beowulf[118]] is scornful at the inability of the Danes to defend their own home: "if one beast can lay waste the kingdom and the cattle of the king." He goes out to fight with the monster _by night_, accompanied only by Hott. He tries to draw his sword, but the sword is fast in its sheath: he tugs, the sword comes out, and he slays the beast with it. This seems a most pointless incident: taken in connection with the supposed invulnerability of the foe, it looks like the survival of some episode in which the hero was unwilling [as in Beowulf's fight with Grendel[119]] or unable [as in Beowulf's fight with Grendel's mother[120]] to slay the foe {56} with his sword. Bjarki then compels the terrified coward Hott to drink the monster's blood. Hott forthwith becomes a valiant champion, second only to Bjarki himself. The beast is then propped up as if still alive: when it is seen next morning the king calls upon his retainers to play the man, and Bjarki tells Hott that now is the time to clear his reputation. Hott demands first the sword, Gullinhjalti, from Rolf, and with this he slays the dead beast a second time. King Rolf is not deceived by this trick; yet he rejoices that Bjarki has not only himself slain the monster, but changed the cowardly Hott into a champion; he commands that Hott shall be called Hjalti, after the sword which has been given him. We are hardly justified in demanding logic in a wild tale like this, or one might ask how Rolf was convinced of Hott's valour by what he knew to be a piece of stage management on the part of Bjarki. But, however that may be, it is remarkable that in _Beowulf_ also the monster Grendel, though proof against all ordinary weapons, is smitten _when dead_ by a magic sword of which the _golden hilt_[121] is specially mentioned.

In addition to the undeniable similarity of the stories of these heroes, a certain similarity of name has been claimed. That _Bjarki_ is not etymologically connected with _B[=e]owulf_ or _B[=e]ow_ is clear: but if we are to accept the identification of Beowulf and Beow, remembering that the Scandinavian equivalent of the latter is said to be _Bj['a]r_, the resemblance to _Bjarki_ is obvious. Similarity of sound might have caused one name to be substituted for another[122]. This argument obviously depends upon the identification _B[=e]ow_ = _Bj['a]r_, which is extremely doubtful: it will be argued below that it is more likely that _B[=e]ow_ = _Byggvir_[123].

But force remains in the argument that the name Bjarki (little bear) is very appropriate to a hero like the Beowulf of {57} our epic, who crushes or hugs his foe to death instead of using his sword; even if we do not accept explanations which would interpret the name "Beowulf" itself as a synonym for "Bear."

It is scarcely to be wondered at, then, that most critics have seen in Bjarki a Scandinavian parallel to Beowulf. But serious difficulties remain. There is in the Scandinavian story a mass of detail quite unparallelled in _Beowulf_, which overshadows the resemblances. Bjarki's friendship, for example, with the coward Hott or Hjalti has no counterpart in _Beowulf_. And Bjarki becomes a retainer of King Rolf and dies in his service, whilst Beowulf never comes into direct contact with Hrothulf at all; the poet seems to avoid naming them together. Still, it is quite intelligible that the story should have developed on different lines in Scandinavia from those which it followed in England, till the new growths overshadowed the original resemblance, without obliterating it. After nearly a thousand years of independent development discrepancies must be expected. It would not be a reasonable objection to the identity of _Gullinhjalti_ with _Gyldenhilt_, that the word _hilt_ had grown to have a rather different meaning in Norse and in English; subsequent developments do not invalidate an original resemblance if the points of contact are really there.

But, allowing for this independent growth in Scandinavia, we should naturally expect that the further back we traced the story the greater the resemblance would become.

This brings us to the second, serious difficulty: that, when we turn from the _Saga of Rolf Kraki_--belonging in its present form perhaps to the early fifteenth century--to the pages of Saxo Grammaticus, who tells the same tale more than two centuries earlier, the resemblance, instead of becoming stronger, almost vanishes. Nothing is said of Bjarki coming from Gautland, or indeed of his being a stranger at the Danish court: nothing is said of the monster having paid previous visits, visits repeated till king Rolf, like Hrothgar, has to give up all attempt at resistance, and submit to its depredations. The monster, instead of being a troll, like Grendel, becomes a commonplace bear. All Saxo tells us is that "He [Biarco, i.e. Bjarki] met a great bear in a thicket and slew it with a spear, and bade his {58} comrade Ialto [i.e. Hjalti] place his lips to the beast and drink its blood as it flowed, that he might become stronger."

Hence the Danish scholar, Axel Olrik, in the best and most elaborate discussion of Bjarki and all about him, has roundly denied any connection between his hero and Beowulf. He is astonished at the slenderness of the evidence upon which previous students have argued for relationship. "Neither Beowulf's wrestling match in the hall, nor in the fen, nor his struggle with the firedrake has any real identity, but when we take a little of them all we can get a kind of similarity with the latest and worst form of the Bjarki saga[124]." The development of Saxo's bear into a winged monster, "the worst of trolls," Olrik regards as simply in accordance with the usual heightening, in later Icelandic, of these early stories of struggles with beasts, and of this he gives a parallel instance.

Some Icelandic ballads on Bjarki (the _Bjarka r['i]mur_), which were first printed in 1904, were claimed by Olrik as supporting his contention. These ballads belong to about the year 1400. Yet, though they are thus in date and dialect closely allied to the _Saga of Rolf Kraki_ and remote from Saxo Grammaticus, they are so far from supporting the tradition of the _Saga_ with regard to the monster slain, that they represent the foe first as a man-eating she-wolf, which is slain by Bjarki, then as a grey bear [as in Saxo], which is slain by Hjalti after he has been compelled to drink the blood of the she-wolf. We must therefore give up the winged beast as mere later elaboration; for if the Bjarki ballads in a point like this support Saxo, as against the _Saga_ which is so closely connected with them by its date and Icelandic tongue, we must admit Saxo's version here to represent, beyond dispute, the genuine tradition.

Accordingly the attempt which has been made to connect Bjarki's winged monster with Beowulf's winged dragon goes overboard at once. But such an attempt ought never to have been made at all. The parallel is between Bjarki and the Beowulf-Grendel episode, not between Bjarki and the Beowulf-dragon episode, which ought to be left out of consideration. And the monstrous bear and the wolf of the _R['i]mur_ are not so {59} dissimilar from Grendel, with his bear-like hug, and Grendel's mother, the 'sea-wolf[125].'

The likeness between Beowulf and Bjarki lies, not in the wingedness or otherwise of the monsters they overthrow, but in the similarity of the position--in the situation which places the most famous court of the North, and its illustrious king, at the mercy of a ravaging foe, till a chance stranger from Gautland brings deliverance. And here the _R['i]mur_ support, not Saxo, but the _Saga_, though in an outworn and faded way. In the _R['i]mur_ Bjarki is a stranger come from abroad: the bear has made previous attacks upon the king's folds.

Thus, whilst we grant the wings of the beast to be a later elaboration, it does not in the least follow that other features in which the _Saga_ differs from Saxo--the advent of Bjarki from Gautland, for instance--are also later elaboration.

And we must be careful not to attach too much weight to the account of Saxo merely because it is earlier in date than that of the _Saga_. The presumption is, of course, that the earlier form will be the more original: but just as a late manuscript will often preserve, amidst its corruptions, features which are lost in much earlier manuscripts, so will a tradition. Saxo's accounts are often imperfect[126]. And in this particular instance, there is a want of coherency and intelligibility in Saxo's account, which in itself affords a strong presumption that it _is_ imperfect.

What Saxo tells us is this:

At which banquet, when the champions were rioting with every kind of
wantonness, and flinging knuckle-bones at a certain Ialto [Hjalti] from
all sides, it happened that his messmate Biarco [Bjarki] through the
bad aim of the thrower received a severe blow on the head. But Biarco,
equally annoyed by the injury and the insult, sent the bone back to the
thrower, so that he twisted the front of his head to the back and the
back to the front, punishing the cross-grain of the man's temper by
turning his face round about.

But who were this "certain Hjalti" and Bjarki? There seems to be something missing in the story. The explanation [which Saxo does not give us, but the _Saga_ does] that Bjarki has come from afar and taken the despised Hott-Hjalti under his {60} protection, seems to be necessary. Why was Hjalti chosen as the victim, at whom missiles were to be discharged? Obviously [though Saxo does not tell us so], because he was the butt of the mess. And if Bjarki had been one of the mess for many hours, his messmates would have known him too well to throw knuckle-bones either at him or his friend. This is largely a matter of personal feeling, but Saxo's account seems to me pointless, till it is supplemented from the _Saga_[127].

And there is one further piece of evidence which seems to clinch the whole matter finally, though its importance has been curiously overlooked, by Panzer and Lawrence in their arguments for the identification, and by Olrik in his arguments to the contrary.

We have seen above how Beowulf "became a friend" to Eadgils, helping him in his expedition against King Onela of Sweden, and avenging, in "chill raids fraught with woe," _cealdum cears[=i]dhum_, the wrongs which Onela had inflicted upon the Geatas. We saw, too, that this expedition was remembered in Scandinavian tradition. "They had a battle on the ice of Lake Wener; there King Ali fell, and Athils had the victory. Concerning this battle there is much said in the _Skjoldunga saga_." The _Skjoldunga saga_ is lost, but the Latin extracts from it give some information about this battle[128]. Further, an account of it _is_ preserved in the _Bjarka r['i]mur_, probably derived from the lost _Skjoldunga saga_. And the _Bjarka r['i]mur_ expressly mention Bjarki as helping Athils in this battle against Ali on the ice of Lake Wener[129].

Olrik does not seem to allow for this at all, though of course aware of it. The other parallels between Bjarki and Beowulf he believes to be mere coincidence. But is this likely?

To recapitulate: In old English tradition a hero comes from the land of the Geatas to the royal court of Denmark, where Hrothgar and Hrothulf hold sway. This hero is received in none too friendly wise by one of the retainers, but {61} puts his foe to shame, is warmly welcomed by the king, and slays by night a monster which has been attacking the Danish capital and against which the warriors of that court have been helpless. The monster is proof against all swords, yet its dead body is mutilated by a sword with a golden hilt. Subsequently this same hero helps King Eadgils of Sweden to overthrow Onela.

We find precisely the same situation in Icelandic tradition some seven centuries later, except that not Hrothgar and Hrothulf, but Hrothulf (Rolf) alone is represented as ruling the Danes, and the sword with the golden hilt has become a sword named "Golden-hilt." It is _conceivable_ for a situation to have been reconstructed in this way by mere accident, just as it is conceivable that one player may have the eight or nine best trumps dealt him. But it does not seem advisable to base one's calculations, as Olrik does, upon such an accident happening.

The parallel of Bjarki and Beowulf seems to have been first noted by
Gisli Brynjulfsson (_Antiquarisk Tidsskrift_, 1852-3, p. 130). It has
been often discussed by Sarrazin (_Beowulf Studien_, 13 _etc._, 47:
_Anglia_, IX, 195 _etc._: _Engl. Stud._ XVI, 79 _etc._, XXIII, 242
_etc._, XXXV, 19 _etc._). Sarrazin's over-elaborated parallels form a
broad target for doubters: it must be remembered that a case, though it
may be discredited, is not invalidated by exaggeration. The problem is
of course noted in the Beowulf studies of Muellenhoff (55), Bugge
(_P.B.B._ XII, 55) and Boer (_Die Beowulfsage_, II, in _Arkiv f. nord.
filol._ XIX, 44 _etc._) and discussed at length and convincingly by
Panzer (364-386) and Lawrence (_Pub. Mod. Lang. Assoc. Amer._ XXIV,
1909, 222 _etc._). The usual view which accepts some relationship is
endorsed by all these scholars, as it is by Finnur J['o]nsson in his
edition of the _Hr['o]lfs Saga Kraka og Bjarkar['i]mur_ (Koebenhavn,
1904, p. xxii).

Ten Brink (185 _etc._) denied any original connection, on the ground of
the dissimilarity between _Beowulf_ and the story given by Saxo. Any
resemblances between _Beowulf_ and the _Hr['o]lfs Saga_ he attributed
to the influence of the English _Beowulf_-story upon the _Saga_.

For Olrik's emphatic denial of any connection at all, see _Danmarks
Heltedigtning_, I, 134 _etc._ (This seems to have influenced Brandl,
who expresses some doubt in _Pauls Grdr._ (2) II. 1. 993.) For
arguments to the contrary, see Heusler in _A.f.d.A._ XXX, 32, and
especially Panzer and Lawrence as above.

The parallel of _Gullinhjalti_ and _gyldenhilt_ was first noted
tentatively by Kluge (_Engl. Stud._ XXII, 145).

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