Chapter XL: Appendix: A. a Postscript on Mythology in Beowulf (2)

The obvious conclusion seems to me to be that the names above Woden were added in Christian times to the original list, which in heathen times only went back to Woden, and _which is still extant in this form_. A Christian, rationalizing Woden as a human magician, would have no difficulty in placing him far down the ages, just as Saxo Grammaticus does[628]. Obviously _Noe-Adam_ must be an addition of Christian times, and the same seems to me to apply to all the other names above Woden, which, though ancient and Germanic, are not therefore ancient and Germanic in the capacity of ancestors of Woden.

And even if these extraordinary ancestors of Woden were really believed in in heathen times, they cannot have been regarded as the special property of any one nation. For it was never claimed that the West-Saxon kings had any unique distinction in tracing their ancestry to Woden, such as would give them a special claim upon Woden's forefathers. How then can the ancient belief (if indeed it _were_ an ancient belief) that Woden was descended from Scyld, King of Denmark, prove that the Anglo-Saxons regarded _themselves_ as specially related to the Danes? For any such relationship derived through Woden must have been shared by all descendants of the All-Father.

Prof. Chadwick avoids this difficulty by supposing that Woden did not originally occur in the pedigree, but is a later {321} insertion[629]. But how can this be so when, of the two forms in which the West-Saxon pedigree appears, one (and, so far as our evidence goes, much the older one) traces the kings to Woden _and stops there_. The _object_ of this pedigree is to connect the West-Saxon kings with Woden. The expanded pedigrees, which carry on the line still further, from Woden to Sceldwa, Sceaf and Adam, though very numerous, are all traceable to one, or at most two, sources. It is surely not the right method to regard Woden as an interpolation (though he occurs in that portion of the pedigree which is common to all versions, some of which we can probably trace back to primitive times), and to regard as the original element Scyld and Sceaf (though they form part of the continuation of the pedigree found only in, at most, two families of MSS which we cannot trace back beyond the ninth century).

Besides, there is the strongest external support for Woden in the very place which he occupies in the West-Saxon pedigree. That pedigree is traced in all its texts up to one Baldaeg and his father Woden. Those texts which further give Woden's ancestry make him a descendant of Frealaf--they generally make Woden son of Frealaf, though some texts insert an intermediate Frithuwald.

Now the very ancient Northumbrian pedigree also goes up, by a different route, to "Beldaeg," and gives him Woden for a father. In some versions (e.g. the _Historia Brittonum_) the Northumbrian pedigree stops there: in others (e.g. the _Vespasian MS_) Woden has a father Frealaf. How then _can_ it be argued, contrary to the unanimous evidence of all the dozen or more MSS of the West-Saxon pedigree, that _Woden_, standing as he does between his proper father and his proper son, is an interpolation? There is no evidence whatsoever to support such an argument, and everything to disprove it.

The fact that Sceaf, Sceldwa and Beaw occur above Woden, that some versions of the pedigree stop at Woden, and that in heathen times presumably all must have stopped when they reached the All-Father, seems to me a fatal argument--not against the antiquity of the legends of Sceaf, Sceldwa, and {322} Beaw, but against the antiquity of these characters in the capacity (given to them in the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_) of ancestors of the West-Saxon kings, and against the vast deduction concerning the origin of the English nation which Prof. Chadwick draws from this supposed antiquity.

(IV) Precisely the same argument--that Sceaf, Sceldwa and Beaw are found _above Woden_ in the pedigree of the English kings, and are not likely to have occupied that place in primitive heathen times, is fatal to the attempt to draw from this pedigree any argument that the myths of these heroes were specially and exclusively Anglo-Saxon. The argument of Muellenhoff and other scholars for an ancient, _purely Anglo-Saxon_ Beowa-myth[630] falls, therefore, to the ground.

* * * * *

D. EVIDENCE FOR THE DATE OF _BEOWULF_. THE RELATION OF _BEOWULF_ TO THE CLASSICAL EPIC

A few years ago there was a tendency to exaggerate the value of grammatical forms in fixing the date of Old English poetry, and attempts were made to arrange Old English poems in a chronological series, according to the exact percentage of "early" to "late" forms in each. There has now been a natural reaction against the assumption that, granting certain forms to be archaic, these would necessarily be found in a percentage diminishing exactly according to the dates of composition of the various poems in which they occur. The reaction has now gone to the other extreme, and grammatical facts are in danger of being regarded as not being "in any way valid or helpful indications of dates[631]."

Schuecking[632], in an elaborate recent monograph on the date of _Beowulf_, rejects the grammatical evidence as valueless, and proceeds to date the poem about two centuries later than has usually been held, placing its composition at the court of some christianized Scandinavian monarch in England, about 900 A.D.

{323}

But it surely does not follow that, because grammatical data have been misused, therefore no use can be made of them. And, if _Beowulf_ was composed about the year 900, from stories current among the Viking settlers, how are we to account for the fact that the proper names in _Beowulf_ are given, not in the Scandinavian forms of the Viking age, nor in corruptions of such forms, but in the correct English forms which we should expect, according to English sound laws, if the names had been brought over in the sixth century, and handed down traditionally[633]?

For example, King Hygelac no doubt called himself _Hugilaikaz_. The _Chochilaicus_ of Gregory of Tours is a good--if uncouth--shot at reproducing this name. The name became, in Norse, _Hugleikr_ and in Danish _Huglek_ (_Hugletus_ in Saxo): traditional kings so named are recorded, though it is difficult to find that they have anything in common with the King Hygelac in _Beowulf_[634]. Had the name been introduced into England in Viking times, we should expect the Scandinavian form, not _Hygel[=a]c_[635].

Even in the rare cases where the character in _Beowulf_ and his Scandinavian equivalent bear names which are not phonologically identical, the difference does not point to any corruption such as might have arisen from borrowing in Viking days[636]. We have only to contrast the way in which the names of Viking chiefs are recorded in the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, to be convinced that the Scandinavian stories recorded in _Beowulf_ are due to contact during the age when Britain was being conquered, not during the Viking period three or four centuries later[637].

And the arguments from literary and political history, which Schuecking adduces to prove his late date, seem to me to point in exactly the opposite direction, and to confirm the orthodox view which would place _Beowulf_ nearer 700 than 900.

{324}

Schuecking urges that, however highly we estimate the civilizing effect of Christianity, it was only in the second half of the seventh century that England was thoroughly permeated by the new faith. Can we expect already, at the beginning of the eighth century, a courtly work, showing, as does _Beowulf_, such wonderful examples of tact, modesty, unselfishness and magnanimity? And this at the time when King Ceolwulf was forced by his rebellious subjects to take the cowl. For Schuecking[638], following Hodgkin[639], reminds us how, in the eighth century, out of 15 Northumbrian kings, five were dethroned, five murdered; two abdicated, and only three held the crown to their death; and how at the end of the century Charlemagne called the Northumbrian Angles "a perfidious and perverse nation, murderers of their lords."

But surely, at the base of all this argument, lies the same assumption which, as Schuecking rightly holds, vitiates so many of the grammatical arguments; the assumption that development must necessarily be in steady and progressive proportion. We may take Penda as a type of the unreclaimed heathen, and Edward the Confessor of the chaste and saintly churchman; but Anglo-Saxon history was by no means a development in steady progression, of diminishing percentages of ruffianism and increasing percentages of saintship.

The knowledge of, and interest in, heathen custom shown in _Beowulf_, such as the vivid accounts of cremation, would lead us to place it as near heathen times as other data will allow. So much must be granted to the argument of Prof. Chadwick[640]. But the Christian tone, so far from leading us to place _Beowulf_ late, would _also_ lead us to place it near the time of the conversion. For it is precisely in these times just after the conversion, that we get the most striking instances in all Old English history of that "tact, modesty, generosity, and magnanimity" which Schuecking rightly regards as characteristic of _Beowulf_.

King Oswin (who was slain in 651) was, Bede tells us, handsome, courteous of speech and bearing, bountiful both to great {325} and lowly, beloved of all men for his qualities of mind and body, so that noblemen came from all over England to enter his service--yet of all his endowments gentleness and humility were the chief. We cannot read the description without being reminded of the words of the thegns in praise of the dead Beowulf. Indeed, I doubt if Beowulf would have carried gentleness to those around him quite so far as did Oswin. For Oswin had given to Bishop Aidan an exceptionally fine horse--and Aidan gave it to a beggar who asked alms. The king's mild suggestion that a horse of less value would have been good enough for the beggar, and that the bishop needed a good horse for his own use, drew from the saint the stern question "Is that son of a mare dearer to thee than the Son of God?" The king, who had come from hunting, stood warming himself at the fire, thinking over what had passed; then he suddenly ungirt his sword, gave it to his squire, and throwing himself at the feet of the bishop, promised never again to grudge anything he might give in his charities.

Of course such conduct was exceptional in seventh century Northumbria--it convinced Aidan that the king was too good to live long, as indeed proved to be the case. But it shows that the ideals of courtesy and gentleness shown in _Beowulf_ were by no means beyond the possibility of attainment--were indeed surpassed by a seventh century king. I do not know if they could be so easily paralleled in later Old English times.

And what is true from the point of view of morals is true equally from that of art and learning. In spite of the misfortunes of Northumbrian kings in the eighth century, the _first third_ of that century was "the Golden Age of Anglo-Saxon England[641]." And not unnaturally, for it had been preceded by half a century during which Northumbria had been free both from internal strife and from invasion. The empire won by Oswiu over Picts and Scots in the North had been lost at the battle of Nectansmere: but that battle had been followed by the twenty years reign of the learned Aldfrid, whose scholarship did not prevent him from nobly retrieving the state of the kingdom[642], though he could not recover the lost dominions.

{326}

Now, whatever we may think of _Beowulf_ as poetry, it is remarkable for its conscious and deliberate art, and for the tone of civilization which pervades it. And this half century was distinguished, above any other period of Old English history, precisely for its art and its civilization. Four and a half centuries later, when the works of great Norman master builders were rising everywhere in the land, the buildings which Bishop Wilfrid had put up during this first period of conversion were still objects of admiration, even for those who had seen the glories of the great Roman basilicas[643].

Nor is there anything surprising in the fact that this "golden age" was not maintained. On the contrary, it is "in accordance with the phenomena of Saxon history in general, in which seasons of brilliant promise are succeeded by long eras of national eclipse. It is from this point of view quite in accordance with natural likelihood that the age of conversion was one of such stimulus to the artistic powers of the people that a level of effort and achievement was reached which subsequent generations were not able to maintain. The carved crosses and the coins certainly degenerate in artistic value as the centuries pass away, and the fine barbaric gold and encrusted work is early in date[644]."

Already in the early part of the eighth century signs of decay are to be observed. At the end of his _Ecclesiastical History_, Bede complains that the times are so full of disturbance that one knows not what to say, or what the end will be. And these fears were justified. A hundred and forty years of turmoil and decay follow, till the civilization of the North and the Midlands was overthrown by the Danes, and York became the uneasy seat of a heathen jarl.

How it should be possible to see in these facts, as contrasted with the Christian and civilized tone of _Beowulf_, any argument for late date, I cannot see. On the contrary, because of its Christian civilization combined with its still vivid, if perhaps not always quite exact, recollection of heathen customs, we should be inclined to put _Beowulf_ in the early Christian ages.

{327}

A further argument put forward for this late date is the old one that the Scandinavian sympathies of _Beowulf_ show it to have been composed for a Scandinavian court, the court, Schuecking thinks, of one of the princes who ruled over those portions of England which the Danes had settled[645]. Of course Schuecking is too sound a scholar to revive at this time of day the old fallacy that the Anglo-Saxons ought to have taken no interest in the deeds of any but Anglo-Saxon heroes. But how, he asks, are we to account for such _enthusiasm_ for, such a burning interest in, a people of alien dialect and foreign dynasty, such as the Scyldings of Denmark?

The answer seems to me to be that the enthusiasm of _Beowulf_ is not for the Danish nation as such: on the contrary, _Beowulf_ depicts a situation which is most humiliating to the Danes. For twelve years they have suffered the depredations of Grendel; Hrothgar and his kin have proved helpless: all the Danes have been unequal to the need. Twice at least this is emphasized in the most uncompromising, and indeed insulting, way[646]. The poet's enthusiasm is not, then, for the Danish race as such, but for the ideal of a great court with its body of retainers. Such retainers are not necessarily native born--rather is it the mark of the great court that it draws men from far and wide to enter the service, whether permanently or temporarily, even as Beowulf came from afar to help the aged Hrothgar in his need.

It is this ideal of personal valour and personal loyalty, rather than of tribal patriotism, which pervades _Beowulf_, and which certainly suits the known facts of the seventh and early eighth centuries. The bitterest strife in England in the seventh century had been between the two quite new states of Northumbria and Mercia, both equally of Anglian race. Both these states had been built up by a combination of smaller units, and not without violating the old local patriotisms of the diverse elements from which they had been formed. At first, at any rate, no such thing as Northumbrian or Mercian patriotism can have existed. Loyalty was personal, to the king. Neither the kingdom nor the _comitatus_ was homogeneous. We have seen {328} that Bede mentions it as a peculiar honour to a Northumbrian prince that _from all parts of England_ nobles came to enter his service. We must not demand from the seventh or eighth century our ideals of exclusive enthusiasm for the land of one's birth, ideals which make it disreputable for a "mercenary" to sell his sword. The ideal is, on the contrary, loyalty to a prince whose service a warrior _voluntarily_ enters. And the Danish court is depicted as a pattern of such loyalty--before the Scyldings began to work evil[647], by the treason of Hrothulf.

Further, the fact that the Danish court at Leire had been a heathen one might be matter for regret, but it would not prevent its being praised by an Englishman about 700. For England was then entirely Christian. In the process of conversion no single Christian had, so far as we know, been martyred. There had been no war of religion. If Penda had fought against Oswald, it had been as the king of Mercia against the king of Northumbria. Penda's allies were Christian, and he showed no antipathy to the new faith[648]. So that at this date there was no reason for men to feel any deep hostility towards a heathendom which had been the faith of their grandfathers, and with which there had never been any embittered conflict.

But in 900 the position was quite different. For more than a generation the country had been engaged in a life-and-death struggle between two warring camps, the "Christian men" and the "heathen men." The "heathen men" were in process of conversion, but were liable to be ever recruited afresh from beyond the sea. It seems highly unlikely that _Beowulf_ could have been written at this date, by some English poet, for the court of a converted Scandinavian prince, with a view perhaps, as Schuecking suggests, to educating his children in the English speech. In such a case the one thing likely to be avoided by the English poet, with more than two centuries of Christianity behind him, would surely have been the praise of that Scandinavian heathendom, from which his patron had freed himself, and from which his children were to be weaned. The martyrdom of S. Edmund might have seemed a more appropriate theme[649]. {329} The tolerant attitude towards heathen customs, and the almost antiquarian interest in them, very justly, as it seems to me, emphasized by Schuecking[650], is surely far more possible in A.D. 700 than in A.D. 900. For between those dates heathendom had ceased to be an antiquarian curiosity, and had become an imminent peril.

If those are right who hold that _Beowulf_ is no purely native growth, but shows influence of the classical epic, then again it is easier to credit such influence about the year 700 than 900. At the earlier date we have scholars like Aldhelm and Bede, both well acquainted with Virgil, yet both interested in vernacular verse. It has been urged, as a _reductio ad absurdum_ of the view which would connect _Beowulf_ with Virgil, that the relation to the _Odyssey_ is more obvious than that to the _Aeneid_. Perhaps, however, some remote and indirect connection even between _Beowulf_ and the _Odyssey_ is not altogether unthinkable, about the year 700. At the end of the seventh century there was a flourishing school of Greek learning in England, under Hadrian and the Greek Archbishop Theodore, both "well read in sacred _and in secular_ literature." In 730 their scholars were still alive, and, Bede tells us, could speak Greek and Latin as correctly as their native tongue. Bede himself knew something about the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_. Not till eight centuries have passed, and we reach Grocyn and Linacre, was it again to be as easy for an Englishman to have a first-hand knowledge of a Greek classic as it was about the year 700. What scholarship had sunk to by the days of Alfred, we know: and we know that all Alfred's patronage did not produce any scholar whom we can think of as in the least degree comparable to Bede.

So that from the point of view of its close touch with heathendom, its tolerance for heathen customs, its Christian magnanimity and gentleness, its conscious art, and its learned tone, all historic and artistic analogy would lead us to place _Beowulf_ in the great age--the age of Bede.

This has brought us to another question--more interesting to many than the mere question of date. Are we to suppose {330} any direct connection between the classical and the Old English epic?

As nations pass through their "Heroic Age," similar social conditions will necessarily be reflected by many similarities in their poetry. In heroic lays like _Finnsburg_ or _Hildebrand_ or the Norse poems, phrases and situations may occur which remind us of phrases and situations in the _Iliad_, without affording any ground for supposing classical influence direct or indirect.

But there is much more in _Beowulf_ than mere accidental coincidence of phrase or situation.

A simple-minded romancer would have made the _Aeneid_ a biography of Aeneas from the cradle to the grave. Not so Virgil. The story begins with mention of Carthage. Aeneas then comes on the scene. At a banquet he tells to Dido his earlier adventures. Just so _Beowulf_ begins, not with the birth of Beowulf and his boyhood, but with Heorot. Beowulf arrives. At the banquet, in reply to Unferth, he narrates his earlier adventures. The _Beowulf_-poet is not content merely to tell us that there was minstrelsy at the feast, but like Virgil or Homer, he must give an account of what was sung. The epic style leads often to almost verbal similarities. Jupiter consoling Hercules for the loss of the son of his host says:

stat sua cuique dies, breve et inreparabile tempus
omnibus est vitae; sed famam extendere factis
hoc virtutis opus[651].

In the same spirit and almost in the same words does Beowulf console Hrothgar for the loss of his friend:

[=U]re [=ae]ghwylc sceal ende geb[=i]dan
worolde l[=i]fes; wyrce s[=e] the m[=o]te
d[=o]mes [=ae]r d[=e]athe; thaet bith drihtguman
unlifgendum aefter s[=e]lest.

On the other hand, though we are often struck by the likeness in spirit and in plan, it must be allowed that there is no tangible or conclusive proof of borrowing[652]. But the influence may have been none the less effective for being indirect: nor is {331} it quite certain that the author, had he known his Virgil, would necessarily have left traces of direct borrowing. For the deep Christian feeling, which has given to _Beowulf_ its almost prudish propriety and its edifying tone, is manifested by no direct and dogmatic reference to Christian personages or doctrines.

I sympathize with Prof. Chadwick's feeling that a man who knew Virgil would not have disguised his knowledge, and would probably have lacked both inclination and ability to compose such a poem as _Beowulf_[653]. But does not this feeling rest largely upon the analogy of other races and ages? Is it borne out by such known facts as we can gather about this period? The reticence of _Beowulf_ with reference to Christianity does not harmonize with one's preconceived ideas; and Bishop Aldhelm gives us an even greater surprise. Let anyone read, or try to read, Aldhelm's _Epistola ad Acircium, sive liber de septenario et de metris_. Let him then ask himself "Is it possible that this learned pedant can also have been the author of English poems which King Alfred--surely no mean judge--thought best of all he knew?" These poems may of course have been educated and learned in tone. But we have the authority of King Alfred for the fact that Aldhelm used to perform at the cross roads as a common minstrel, and that he could hold his audiences with such success that they resorted to him again and again[654]. Only after he had made himself popular by several performances did he attempt to weave edifying matter into his verse. And the popular, secular poetry of Aldhelm, his _carmen triviale_, remained current among the common people for centuries. Nor was Aldhelm's classical knowledge of late growth, something superimposed upon an earlier love of popular poetry, for he had {332} studied under Hadrian as a boy[655]. Later we are told that King Ine imported two Greek teachers from Athens for the help of Aldhelm and his school[656]; this may be exaggeration.

Everything seems to show that about 700 an atmosphere existed in England which might easily have led a scholarly Englishman, acquainted with the old lays, to have set to work to compose an epic. Even so venerable a person as Bede, during his last illness, uttered his last teaching not, as we should expect on _a priori_ grounds, in Latin hexameters, but in English metre. The evidence for this is conclusive[657]. But, at a later date, Alcuin would surely have condemned the minstrelsy of Aldhelm[658]. Even King Alfred seems to have felt that it needed some apology. It would have rendered Aldhelm liable to severe censure under the Laws of King Edgar[659]; and Dunstan's biographer indignantly denies the charge brought against his hero of having learnt the heathen songs of his forefathers[660].

The evidence is not as plentiful as we might wish, but it rather suggests that the chasm between secular poetry and ecclesiastical learning was more easily bridged in the first generations after the conversion than was the case later.

But, however that may be, it assuredly does not give any grounds for abandoning the old view, based largely upon grammatical and metrical considerations, which would make _Beowulf_ a product of the early eighth century, and substituting for it a theory which would make our poem a product of mixed Saxon and Danish society in the early tenth century.

* * * * *

{333}

E. THE "JUTE-QUESTION" REOPENED

The view that the Geatas of _Beowulf_ are the Jutes (Iuti, Iutae) of Bede (i.e. the tribe which colonized Kent, the Isle of Wight and Hampshire) has been held by many eminent scholars. It was dealt with only briefly above (pp. 8-9) because I thought the theory was now recognized as being no longer tenable. Lately, however, it has been maintained with conviction and ability by two Danish scholars, Schuette and Kier. It therefore becomes necessary once more to reopen the question, now that the only elaborate discussion of it in the English language favours the "Jute-theory," especially as Axel Olrik gave the support of his great name to the view that "the question is still open[661]" and that "the last word has not been said concerning the nationality of the Geatas[662]."

As in most controversies, a number of rather irrelevant side issues have been introduced[663], so that from mere weariness students are sometimes inclined to leave the problem undecided. Yet the interpretation of the opening chapters of Scandinavian history turns upon it.

Supporters of the "Jute-theory" have seldom approached the subject from the point of view of Old English. Bugge[664] perhaps did so: but the "Jute-theory" has been held chiefly by students of Scandinavian history, literature or geography, like Fahlbeck[665], Steenstrup[666], Gering[667], Olrik[668], Schuette[669] and Kier[670]. But, now that the laws of Old English sound-change have been {334} clearly defined, it seldom happens that anyone who approaches the subject primarily as a student of the Anglo-Saxon language holds the view that the Geatas are Jutes.

And this is naturally so: for, from the point of view of language, the question is not disputable. The _G[=e]atas_ phonologically are the _Gautar_ (the modern Goetar of Southern Sweden). It is admitted that the words are identical[671]. And, equally, it is admitted that the word _G[=e]atas_ cannot be identical with the word _Iuti_, _Iutae_, used by Bede as the name of the Jutes who colonized Kent[671]. Bede's _Iuti_, _Iutae_, on the contrary, would correspond to a presumed Old English _*[=I]uti_ or _*[=I]utan_[672], current in his time in Northumbria. This in later Northumbrian would become _[=I]ote_, _[=I]otan_ (though the form _[=I]ute_, _[=I]utan_ might also survive). The dialect forms which we should expect (and which we find in the genitive and dative) corresponding to this would be: Mercian, _[=E]ote_, _[=E]otan_; Late West-Saxon, _[=Y]te_, _[=Y]tan_ (through an intermediate Early West-Saxon _*[=I]ete_, _*[=I]etan_, which is not recorded).

If, then, the word _G[=e]atas_ came to supplant the correct form _[=I]ote_, _[=I]otan_ (or its Mercian and West-Saxon equivalents _[=E]ote_, _[=E]otan_, _[=Y]te_, _[=Y]tan_), this can only have been the result of confusion. Such confusion is, on abstract grounds, conceivable: it is always possible that the name of one tribe may come to be attached to another. "Scot" has ceased to mean "Irishman," and has come to mean "North Briton"; and there is no intrinsic impossibility in the word _G[=e]atas_ having been transferred by Englishmen, from the half-forgotten Gautar, to the Jutes, and having driven out the correct name of the latter, _[=I]ote_, _[=I]otan_. For example, there might have been an exiled Geatic family among the Jutish invaders, which might have become so prominent as to cause {335} the name _G[=e]atas_ to supplant the correct _[=I]ote_, _[=E]ote_, etc. But, whoever the Geatas may have been, _Beowulf_ is their chief early record: indeed, almost all we know of their earliest history is derived from _Beowulf_. In _Beowulf_, therefore, if anywhere, the old names and traditions should be remembered. The word _G[=e]at_ occurs some 50 times in the poem. The poet obviously wishes to use other synonyms, for the sake of variety and alliteration: hence we get _Weder-G[=e]atas_, _Wederas_, _S[=ae]-G[=e]atas_, _G[=u]dh-G[=e]atas_. Now, if these Geatas are the Jutes, how comes it that the poet _never_ calls them such, never speaks of them under the correct tribal name of _[=E]ote_, etc., although this was the current name at the time _Beowulf_ was written, and indeed for centuries later?

For, demonstrably, the form _[=E]ote_, etc., _was_ recognized as the name of the Jutes till at least the twelfth century. Then it died out of current speech, and only Bede's Latin _Iuti_ (and the modern "Jute" derived therefrom) remained as terms used by the historians. The evidence is conclusive:

(_a_) Bede, writing about the time when _Beowulf_, in its present form, is supposed to have been composed, uses _Iuti_, _Iutae_, corresponding to a presumed contemporary Northumbrian _*[=I]uti_, _*[=I]utan_.

(_b_) In the O.E. translation of Bede, made in Mercia perhaps two centuries after Bede's time, we do indeed in one place find "Geata," "Geatum" used to translate "Iutarum," "Iutis," instead of the correctly corresponding Mercian form "Eota," "Eotum." Only two MSS are extant at this point. But since both agree, and since they belong to different types, it is probable that "Geata" here is no mere copyist's error, but is due to the translator himself[673]. But, later, when the translator {336} has to render Bede's "Iutorum," he gives, not "Geata," but the correct Mercian "Eota." There can be no possible doubt here, for five MSS are extant at this point, and all give the correct form--four in the Mercian, "Eota," whilst one gives the West-Saxon equivalent, "Ytena."

Now the _G[=e]ata_-passage in the Bede translation is the chief piece of evidence which those who would explain the Geatas of _Beowulf_ as "Jutes" can call: and it does not, in fact, much help them. What they have to prove is that the _Beowulf_-poet could _consistently and invariably_ have used _G[=e]atas_ in the place of _[=E]ote_. To produce an instance in which the two terms are both used by the same translator is very little use, when what has to be proved is that the one term had already, at a much earlier period, entirely ousted the other.

All our other evidence is for the invariable use of the correct form _[=I]ote_, _[=I]otan_, etc. in Old English.

(_c_) The passage from Bede was again translated, and inserted into a copy of the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, which was sent quite early to one of the great abbeys of Northumbria[674]. In this, "Iutis, Iutarum" is represented by the correct Northumbrian equivalent, "Iutum," "Iotum"; "Iutna."

(_d_) This Northumbrian Chronicle, or a transcript of it, subsequently came South, to Canterbury. There, roughly about the year 1100, it was used to interpolate an Early West-Saxon copy of the Chronicle. Surely at Canterbury, the capital of the old Jutish kingdom, people must have known the correct form of the Jutish name, whether _G[=e]atas_ or _[=I]ote_. We find the forms "Iotum," "Iutum"; "Iutna."

(_e_) Corresponding to this Northumbrian (and Kentish) form _[=I]ote_, Mercian _[=E]ote_, the Late West-Saxon form should be _[=Y]te_. Now _MS Corpus Christi College, Cambridge_, 41, gives us "the Wessex version of the English Bede" and is written by a scribe who knew the Hampshire district[675]. In this MS the "Eota" of the Mercian original has been transcribed as "Ytena," "Eotum" as "Ytum," showing that the scribe understood the tribal name and its equivalent correctly. This was about the {337} time of the Norman Conquest, but the name continued to be understood till the early twelfth century at least. For Florence of Worcester records that William Rufus was slain _in Noua Foresta quae lingua Anglorum Ytene nuncupatur_; and in another place he speaks of the same event as happening _in prouincia Jutarum in Noua Foresta_[676], which shows that Florence understood that "Ytene" was _[=Y]tena land_, "the province of the Jutes."

It comes, then, to this. The "Jute-hypothesis" postulates not only that, at the time _Beowulf_ was composed, _G[=e]atas_ had come to mean "Jutes," but also that it had so completely ousted the correct old name _[=I]uti, [=I]ote, [=E]ote, [=Y]te_, that none of the latter terms are ever used in the poem as synonyms for Beowulf's people[677]. Yet all the evidence shows that _[=I]uti_ etc. was the recognized name when Bede wrote, and we have evidence at intervals showing that it was so understood till four centuries later. But not only was _[=I]uti_, _[=I]ote_ never superseded in O.E. times; there is no real evidence that _G[=e]atas_ was ever _generally_ used to signify "Jutes." The fact that one translator in one passage (writing probably some two centuries after _Beowulf_ was composed) uses "Geata," "Geatum," where he should have used "Eota," "Eotum," does not prove the misnomer to have been general--especially when the same translator subsequently uses the correct form "Eota."

I do not think sufficient importance has been attached to what seems (to me) the vital argument against the "Jute-theory." It is not merely that _G[=e]atas_ is the exact phonological equivalent of _Gautar_ (Goetar) and cannot be equivalent to Bede's _Iuti_. This difficulty may be got over by the assumption that somehow the _Iuti_, or some of them, had adopted the name _G[=e]atas_: and we are not in a position to disprove such assumption. But the advocates of the "Jute-theory" have further to assume that, at the date when _Beowulf_ was written, the correct name _Iuti_ (Northumbrian _[=I]ote_, Mercian _[=E]ote_, West-Saxon _[=Y]te_) must have so passed into disuse that it could not be once used as a {338} synonym for Beowulf's people, by our synonym-hunting poet. And this assumption we _are_ in a position to disprove.

The Jute-theory would therefore still be untenable on the ground of the name, even though it were laboriously proved that, from the historical and geographical standpoint, there was more to be said for it than had hitherto been recognized. But even this has not been proved: quite the reverse. As I have tried to show above, historical and geographical considerations, though in themselves not absolutely conclusive, point emphatically to an identification with the Goetar, rather than with the Jutes[678].

The relations of Beowulf and the Geatas with the kings of Denmark and of Sweden are the constant topic of the poem. Now the land of the Goetar _was_ situated between Denmark and Sweden. But if the Geatas be Jutes, their neighbours were the Danes on the east and the Angles on the south; farther away, across the Cattegat lay the Goetar, and beyond these the Swedes. If the Geatas be Jutes, why should their immediate neighbours, the Angles, never appear in _Beowulf_ as having any dealings with them? And why, above all, should the Goetar never be mentioned, whilst the Swedes, far to the north, play so large a part? Even if Swedes and Goetar had at this time been under one king, the Goetar could not have been thus ignored, seeing that, owing to their position, the brunt of the fighting must have fallen on them[679]. But we know that the Goetar were independent. The strictly contemporary evidence of Procopius shows quite conclusively that they were one of the strongest of the Scandinavian kingdoms[680]. How then could warfare be carried on for three generations between Jutes and Swedes without concerning the Goetar, whose territory lay in between?

Again, in the "Catalogue of Kings" in _Widsith_, the Swedes are named with their famous king Ongentheow. The Jutes (_[=Y]te_) are also mentioned, with _their_ king. And their king is {339} not Hrethel, Haethcyn, Hygelac or Heardred, but a certain Gefwulf, whose name does not even alliterate with that of any known king of the Geatas[681].

Again, in the (certainly very early) _Book on Monsters_, Hygelac is described as _Huiglaucus qui imperavit Getis_. Now Getis can mean Goetar[682], but can hardly mean Jutes.

The geographical case against the identification of Geatas and Goetar depends upon the assumption that the western sea-coast of the Goetar in ancient times must have coincided with that of West Gothland (Vestra-Goetland) in mediaeval and modern times. Now as this coast consists merely of a small strip south of the river Goetaelv, it is argued that the Goetar could not be the maritime Geatas of _Beowulf_, capable of undertaking a Viking raid to the mouth of the Rhine. But the assumption that the frontiers of the Goetar about A.D. 500 were the same as they were a thousand years later, is not only improbable on _a priori_ grounds, but, as Schueck has shown[683], can be definitely disproved. Adam of Bremen, writing in the eleventh century, speaks of the river Gothelba (Goetaelv) as running through the midst of the peoples of the Goetar. And the obvious connection between the name of the river and the name of the people seems to make it certain that Adam is right, and that the original Goetar must have dwelt around the river Goetaelv. But, if so, then they were a maritime folk: for the river Goetaelv is merely the outlet which connects Lake Wener with the sea, running a course almost parallel with the shore and nowhere very distant from it[684]. But even when Adam wrote, the {340} Goetar to the north of the river had long been politically subject to Norway[685]: and the _Heimskringla_ tells us how this happened.

Harold Fairhair, King of Norway (a contemporary of King Alfred), attacked them: they had staked the river Goetaelv against him, but he moored his ships to the stakes[686] and harried _on either shore_: he fought far and wide in the country, had many battles _on either side of the river_, and finally slew the leader of the Goetar, Hrani Gauzki (the Goetlander). Then he annexed to Norway all the land north of the river and west of Lake Wener. Thenceforward the Goetaelv was the boundary between Norway and West Gothland, though the country ultimately became Swedish, as it now is. But it is abundantly clear from the _Heimskringla_ that Harold regarded as hostile all the territory north of the Goetaelv, and between Lake Wener and the sea[687] (the old R['a]nriki and the modern Bohuslaen).

But, if so, then the objection that the Goetar are not a sufficiently maritime people becomes untenable. For precisely to this region belong the earliest records of maritime warfare to be found in the north of Europe, possibly the earliest in Europe. The smooth rocks of Bohuslaen are covered with incised pictures of the Bronze age: and the favourite subject of these is ships and naval encounters. About 120 different pictures of ships and sea fights are reproduced by one scholar alone[688]. And at the present day this province of Goeteborg and Bohus is the most important centre in Sweden both of fishery and shipping. Indeed, more than one quarter of the total tonnage of the modern Swedish mercantile marine comes from this comparatively tiny strip of coast[689].

{341}

It is surely quite absurd to urge that the men of this coast could not have harried the Frisians in the manner in which Hygelac is represented as doing. And surely it is equally absurd to urge that the people of this coast would not have had to fear a return attack from the Frisians, after the downfall of their own kings. The Frisians seem to have been "the chief channel of communication between the North and West of Europe[690]" before the rise of the Scandinavian Vikings, and to have been supreme in the North Sea. The Franks were of course a land power, but the Franks, _when in alliance with the Frisians_, were by no means helpless at sea. Gregory of Tours tells us that they overthrew Hygelac on land, and _then in a sea fight annihilated his fleet_. Now the poet says that the Geatas may expect war when the Franks _and Frisians_ hear of Beowulf's fall. The objection that, because they feared the Franks, the Geatas must have been reachable by land, depends upon leaving the "and Frisians" out of consideration.

"Now we may look for a time of war" says the messenger "when the fall of our king is known among the Franks and Frisians": then he gives a brief account of the raid upon the land of the Frisians and concludes: "Ever since then has the favour of the Merovingian king been denied us[691]." What is there in this to indicate whether the raiders came from Jutland, or from the coast of the Goetar across the Cattegat, 50 miles further off? The messenger goes on to anticipate hostility from the Swedes[692]. To this, at any rate, the Goetar were more exposed than the Jutes. Further, he concludes by anticipating the utter overthrow of the Geatas[693]: and the poet expressly tells us that these forebodings were justified[694]. There must therefore be a reference to some famous national catastrophe. Now the Goetar _did_ lose their independence, and _were_ incorporated into the Swedish kingdom. When did the Jutes suffer any similar downfall at the hands of either Frisians, Franks, or Swedes?

The other geographical and historical arguments urged in favour of the Jutes, when carefully scrutinized, are found either {342} equally indecisive, or else actually to tell against the "Jute-theory." Schuette[695] thinks that the name "Wederas" (applied in _Beowulf_ to the Geatas) is identical with the name _Eudoses_ (that of a tribe mentioned by Tacitus, who _may_[696] have dwelt in Jutland). But this is impossible phonologically: _Wederas_ is surely a shortened form of _Weder-G[=e]atas_, "the Storm-Geatas." Indeed, we have, in favour of the Goetar-theory, the fact that the very name of the Wederas survives on the Bohuslaen coast to this day, in the Waeder Oear and the Waeder Fiord.

Advocates of the "Jute-theory" lay great stress upon the fact that Gregory of Tours and the _Liber Historiae Francorum_ call Hygelac a Dane[697]: _Dani cum rege suo Chochilaico_. Now, when Gregory wrote in the sixth century, either the Jutes were entirely distinct from, and independent of, the Danes, or they were not. If they were distinct, how do Gregory's words help the "Jute-theory"? He must be simply using "Dane," like the Anglo-Saxon historians, for "Scandinavian." But if the Jutes were not distinct from the Danes, then we have an argument against the "Jute-theory." For we know from _Beowulf_ that the Geatas _were_ quite distinct from the Danes[698], and quite independent of them[699].

It is repeatedly urged that the Geatas and Swedes fight _ofer s[=ae]_[700]. But _s[=ae]_ can mean a great fresh-water lake, like Lake Wener, just as well as the ocean[701]: and as a matter of fact we know that the decisive battle did take place on Lake Wener, _in stagno Waener, ['a] Vaenis ['i]si_[702]. Lake Wener is an obvious battle place for Goetar and Swedes. They were separated by the great and almost impassable forests of "Tived" and "Kolm[oa]rd," and the lake was their simplest way of meeting[703]. But it does not equally fit Jutes and Swedes.

It is repeatedly objected that the Goetar are remote from the Anglo-Saxons[704]. Possibly: but remoteness did not prevent {343} the Anglo-Saxons from being interested in heroes of the Huns or Goths or Burgundians or Longobards, who were much more[705] distant. And the absence of any direct connection between the history of the Geatas and the historic Anglo-Saxon records, affords a strong presumption that the Geatas _were_ a somewhat alien people. If the people of Beowulf, Hygelac, and Hrethel, were the same people as the Jutes who colonized Kent and Hampshire, why do we never, in the Kentish royal genealogies or elsewhere, find any claim to such connection? The Mercians did not so forget their connection with the old Offa of Angel, although a much greater space of time had intervened. The fact that we have no mention among the ancestors of Beowulf and Hygelac of any names which we can connect with the Jutish genealogy affords, therefore, a strong presumption that they belonged to some other tribe.

The strongest historical argument for the "Jute-theory" was that produced by Bugge. The _Ynglinga tal_ represents Ottar (who is certainly the Ohthere of _Beowulf_) as having fallen in Vendel, and this Vendel was clearly understood as being the district of that name in North Jutland. The body of this Swedish king was torn asunder by carrion birds, and he was remembered as "the Vendel-crow," a mocking nickname which pretty clearly goes back to primitive times. Other ancient authors attributed this name, not to Ottar, but to his father, who can be identified with the Ongentheow of _Beowulf_. This would seem to indicate that the hereditary foes of Ongentheow and the Swedish kings of his house were, after all, the Jutes of Vendel.

But Knut Stjerna has shown that the Vendel from which "Ottar Vendel-crow" took his name was probably not the Vendel of Jutland at all, but the place of that name north of Uppsala, famous for the splendid grave-finds which show it to have been of peculiar importance during our period[706]. And subsequent research has shown that a huge grave-mound, near this Vendel, is mentioned in a record of the seventeenth century as King {344} Ottar's mound, and is still popularly known as the mound of Ottar Vendel-crow[707]. But, if so, this story of the Vendel-crow, so far from supporting the "Jute-hypothesis," tells against it: nothing could be more suitable than Vendel, north of Uppsala, as the "last ditch" to which Ongentheow retreated, if we assume his adversaries to have been the Goetar: but it would not suit the Jutes so well.

An exploration of the mound has proved beyond reasonable doubt that it _was_ raised to cover the ashes of Ottar Vendel-crow, the Ohthere of _Beowulf_[708]. That Ohthere fell in battle against the Geatas there is nothing, in _Beowulf_ or elsewhere, to prove. But the fact that his ashes were laid in mound at Vendel in Sweden makes it unlikely that he fell in battle against the Jutes, and is quite incompatible with what we are told in the _Ynglinga saga_ of his body having been torn to pieces by carrion fowl on a mound in Vendel in Jutland. It now becomes clear that this story, and the tale of the crow of wood made by the Jutlanders in mockery of Ottar, is a mere invention to account for the name Vendel-crow: the name, as so often, has survived, and a new story has grown up to give a reason for the name.

What "Vendel-crow" originally implied we cannot be quite sure. Apparently "Crow" or "Vendel-crow" is used to this day as a nickname for the inhabitants of Swedish Vendel. Ottar may have been so called because he was buried (possibly because he lived) in Vendel, not, like other members of his race, his son and his father, at Old Uppsala. But however that may be, what is clear is that, as the name passed from the Swedes to those Norwegian and Icelandic writers who have handed it down {345} to us, Vendel of Sweden was naturally misunderstood as the more familiar Vendel of Jutland. Stjerna's conjecture is confirmed. The Swedish king's nickname, far from pointing to ancient feuds between Jute and Swede, is shown to have nothing whatsoever to do with Jutland.

It appears, then, that _G[=e]atas_ is phonologically the equivalent of "Goetar," but not the equivalent of "Jutes"; that what we know of the use of the word "Jutes" (_[=I]ote_, etc.) in Old English makes it incredible that a poem of the length of _Beowulf_ could be written, concerning their heroes and their wars, without even mentioning them by their correct name; that in many respects the geographical and historical evidence fits the Goetar, but does _not_ fit the Jutes; that the instances to the contrary, in which it is claimed that the geographical and historical evidence fits the Jutes but does not fit the Goetar, are all found on examination to be either inconclusive or actually to favour the Goetar.

* * * * *

F. _BEOWULF_ AND THE ARCHAEOLOGISTS

The peat-bogs of Schleswig and Denmark have yielded finds of the first importance for English archaeology. These "moss-finds" are great collections, chiefly of arms and accoutrements, obviously deposited with intention. The first of these great discoveries, that of Thorsbjerg, was made in the heart of ancient Angel: the site of the next, Nydam, also comes within the area probably occupied by either Angles or Jutes; and most of the rest of the "moss-finds" were in the closest neighbourhood of the old Anglian home. The period of the oldest deposits, as is shown by the Roman coins found among them, is hardly before the third century A.D., and some authorities would make it considerably later.

An account of these discoveries will be found in Engelhardt's _Denmark in the Early Iron Age_[709], 1866: a volume which {346} summarizes the results of Engelhardt's investigations during the preceding seven years. He had published in Copenhagen _Thorsbjerg Mosefund_, 1863; _Nydam Mosefund_, 1865. Engelhardt's work at Nydam was interrupted by the war of 1864: the finds had to be ceded to Germany, and the exploration was continued by German scholars. Engelhardt consoled himself that these "subsequent investigations ... do not seem to have been carried on with the necessary care and intelligence," and continued his own researches within the narrowed frontiers of Denmark, publishing two monographs on the mosses of Fuenen: _Kragehul Mosefund_, 1867; _Vimose Fundet_, 1869.

These deposits, however, obviously belong to a period much earlier than that in which _Beowulf_ was written: indeed most of them certainly belong to a period earlier than that in which the historic events described in _Beowulf_ occurred; so that, close as is their relation with Anglian civilization, it is with the civilization of the Angles while still on the continent.

The Archaeology of _Beowulf_ has been made the subject of special study by Knut Stjerna, in a series of articles which appeared between 1903 and his premature death in 1909. A good service has been done to students of _Beowulf_ by Dr Clark Hall in collecting and translating Stjerna's essays[710]. They are a mine of useful information, and the reproductions of articles from Scandinavian grave-finds, with which they are so copiously illustrated, are invaluable. The magnificent antiquities from Vendel, now in the Stockholm museum, are more particularly laid under contribution[711]. Dr Clark Hall added a most useful "Index of things mentioned in _Beowulf_[712]," well illustrated. Here again the illustrations, with few exceptions, are from Scandinavian finds.

{347}

Two weighty arguments as to the origin of _Beowulf_ have been based upon archaeology. In the first place it has been urged by Dr Clark Hall that:

"If the poem is read in the light of the evidence which Stjerna has
marshalled in the essays as to the profusion of gold, the prevalence of
ring-swords, of boar-helmets, of ring-corslets, and ring-money, it
becomes clear how strong the distinctively Scandinavian colouring is,
and how comparatively little of the _mise-en-sc[`e]ne_ must be due to
the English author[713]."

Equally, Prof. Klaeber finds in Stjerna's investigations a strong argument for the Scandinavian character of _Beowulf_[714].

Now Stjerna, very rightly and naturally, drew his illustrations of _Beowulf_ from those Scandinavian, and especially Swedish, grave-finds which he knew so well: and very valuable those illustrations are. But it does not follow, because the one archaeologist who has chosen to devote his knowledge so wholeheartedly to the elucidation of _Beowulf_ was a Scandinavian, using Scandinavian material, that therefore _Beowulf_ is Scandinavian. This, however, is the inference which Stjerna himself was apt to draw, and which is still being drawn from his work. Stjerna speaks of our poem as a monument raised by the Geatas to the memory of their saga-renowned king[715], though he allows that certain features of the poem, such as the dragon-fight[716], are of Anglo-Saxon origin.