Chapter XXX: Section IV: Bugge's Theory

Let us therefore examine the second theory, which is more particularly associated with the name of Bugge, though it was the current theory before his time, and has been generally accepted since.

According to this view, the _Eotenas_ are the men of Finn, and since upon them is placed the blame for the trouble, it {258} must be Finn that makes a treacherous attack upon his wife's brother Hnaef, who is his guest in Finnsburg[450]. This is the fight of which the _Fragment_ gives us the beginning. Hnaef is slain, and then follow the events as narrated in the _Episode_: the treaty which Finn makes with Hengest, the leader of the survivors: and the ultimate vengeance taken upon Finn by these survivors.

Here I think we are getting nearer to facts, nearer to a view which can command general acceptance: at any rate, in so far as the fight narrated in the _Fragment_ is placed before the beginning of the _Episode_ in _Beowulf_. Positive evidence that this is the right place for the _Fragment_ is scanty, yet not altogether lacking. After all, the fight in the _Fragment_ is a night attack, and the fight which precedes the _Episode_ in _Beowulf_, as I have tried to show, is a night attack[451]. But our reason for putting the _Fragment_ before the commencement of the _Episode_ is mainly negative: it lies in the insuperable difficulties which meet us when we try to place it anywhere else.

But, it will be objected, there are difficulties also in placing the _Fragment_ before the _Episode_. Perhaps: but I do not think these difficulties will be found to survive examination.

The first objection to supposing that the _Fragment_ narrates the same fight as precedes the _Episode_ is, that the fight in the _Fragment_ takes place at Finnsburg[452], whilst the fight which precedes the _Episode_ apparently takes place away from Finn's capital: for after the fighting is over, the dead burned, and the treaty made, the warriors depart "to see Friesland, their homes, and their high-town (_h[=e]a-burh_)[453]."

{259}

But I do not see that this involves us in any difficulty. It is surely quite reasonable that Finnsburg--Finn's castle--where the first fight takes place, is not, and was never meant to be, the same as Finn's capital, his _h[=e]aburh_, his "own home." After all, when a king's name is given to a town, the presumption is rather that the town is _not_ his capital, but some new settlement built in a newly acquired territory. _[=E]adwinesburh_ was not the capital of King Eadwine: it was the stronghold which he held against the Picts on the outskirts of his realm. Aosta was not the capital of Augustus, nor Fort William of William III, nor Harounabad of Haroun al Raschid. So here: we know that the chief town of the Frisians was not Finnsburg, but Dorestad: "Dorostates of the Frisians[454]." The fight may have taken place at some outlying castle built by Finn, and named after him _Finnsburg_: then he returned, we are told, to his _h[=e]aburh_: and it is here, _aet his sylfes h[=a]m_, "in his own home" (the poet himself seems to emphasize a distinction) that destruction in the end comes upon him. There is surely no difficulty here.

A second discrepancy has often been indicated. In the _Fragment_ the fight lasts five days before any one of the defenders fall: in the _Episode_ (it is argued) Hildeburh in the morning finds her brother slain[455]. Even were this so, I do not know that it need trouble us much. In a detail like this, which {260} does not go to the heart of the story, there might easily be a discrepancy between two versions[456].

But the whole difficulty merely arises from reading more into the words of the _Episode_ than the text will warrant. It is not asserted in the _Episode_ that Hildeburh found her kinsfolk dead in the morning, but that in the morning she found "murderous bale amid her kinsfolk." Hildeburh woke up to find a fight in progress: how long it went on, the _Episode_ does not say: but that it was prolonged we gather from ll. 1080-5: and there is no reason why the deadly strife which Hildeburh found in the morning might not have lasted five days or more, before it culminated in the death of Hnaef.

Thirdly, the commander in the _Fragment_ is called a "war-young king." This, it has been said, is inapplicable to Hnaef, since he is brother of Hildeburh, who is old enough to have a son slain in the combat.

But an uncle may be very young. Beowulf speaks of his uncle Hygelac as young, even though he seems to imply that his own youth is partly past[457]. And no advantage, but the reverse, is gained, even in this point, if, following Moeller's hypothesis, and assuming that the fight narrated in the _Fragment_ takes place after the treaty with Finn, we make the "war-young king" Hengest. For those who, with Moeller, suppose Hengest to be brother of Hnaef, will have to admit the avuncular difficulty in him also.

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