Chapter XVI: Section VI: Beow

The Anglo-Saxon genealogies agree that the son of Sceldwa (Scyld) is Beow (Beaw, Beo). In _Beowulf_, he is named not Beow, but Beowulf.

Many etymologies have been suggested for _B[=e]ow_. But considering that Beow is in some versions a grandson, in all a descendant of Sceaf, it can hardly be an accident that his name is identical with the O.E. word for grain, _b[=e]ow_. The Norse word corresponding to this is _bygg_[194].

Recent investigation of the name is best summed up in the words of Axel Olrik:

"New light has been cast upon the question of the derivation of the
name Beow by Kaarle Krohn's investigation of the debt of Finnish to
Norse mythology, together with Magnus Olsen's linguistic
interpretation. The Finnish has a deity Pekko, concerning whom it is
said that he promoted the growth of barley: the Esths, closely akin to
the Finns, have a corresponding Peko, whose image--the size of a
three-year-old child--was carried out into the fields and invoked at
the time of sowing, or else was kept in the corn-bin by a custodian
chosen for a year. This Pekko is plainly a personification of the
barley; the form corresponding phonetically in Runic Norse would be
*_beggw-_ (from which comes Old Norse _bygg_).

"So in Norse there was a grain *_beggw-_ (becoming _bygg_) and a
corn-god *_Beggw-_ (becoming _Pekko_). In Anglo-Saxon there was a grain
_b['e]ow_ and an ancestral _B['e]ow_. And all four are phonetically
identical (proceeding from a primitive form *_beuwa_, 'barley'). The
conclusion which it is difficult to avoid is, that the corn-spirit
'Barley' and the ancestor 'Barley' are one and the same. The relation
is the same as that between King Sheaf and the worship of the sheaf:
the worshipped corn-being gradually sinks into the background, and
comes to be regarded as an epic figure, an early ancestor.

"We have no more exact knowledge of the mythical ideas connected either
with the ancestor Beow or the corn-god Pekko. But we know enough of the
worship of Pekko to show that he dwelt in the corn-heap, and that, in
the spring, he was fetched out in the shape of a little child. That
reminds us not a little of Saempsae, who lay in the corn-heap on the
ship, and came to land and awoke in the spring[195]."

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But it may be objected that this is "harking back" to the old mythological interpretations. After refusing to accept Muellenhoff's assumptions, are we not reverting, through the names of Sceaf and Beow, and the worship of the sheaf, to very much the same thing?

No. It is one thing to believe that the ancestor-king Beow may be a weakened form of an ancient divinity, a mere name surviving from the figure of an old corn-god Beow; it is quite another to assume, as Muellenhoff did, that what we are told about Beowulf was originally told about Beow _and that therefore we are justified in giving a mythological meaning to it_.

All we know, conjecture apart, about Beow is his traditional relationship to Scyld, Sceaf and the other figures of the pedigree. That Beowulf's dragon fight belonged originally to him is only a conjecture. In confirmation of this conjecture only one argument has been put forward: an argument turning upon Beowulf, son of Scyld--that obscure figure, apparently equivalent to Beow, who meets us at the beginning of our poem.

Beowulf's place as a son of Scyld and father of Healfdene is occupied in the Danish genealogies by Frothi, son of Skjold, and father of Halfdan. It has been urged that the two figures are really identical, in spite of the difference of name. Now Frothi slays a dragon, and it has been argued that this dragon fight shows similarities which enable us to identify it with the dragon fight attributed in our poem to Beowulf the Geat.

The argument is a strong one--if it really is the case that the dragon slain by Frothi was the same monster as that slain by Beowulf the Geat.

Unfortunately this parallel, which will be examined in the next section, is far from certain. We must be careful not to argue in a circle, identifying Beowulf and Frothi because they slew the same dragon, and then identifying the dragons because they were slain by the same hero.

Whilst, therefore, we admit that it is highly probable that Beow (grain) the descendant of Sceaf (sheaf) was originally a corn divinity or corn fetish, we cannot follow Muellenhoff in his bold attribution to this "culture hero" of Beowulf's adventures with the dragon or with Grendel.

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