Chapter XXVIII: Section II: The Episode in Beowulf

Further details of the story we get in the _Episode_ of _Finnsburg_, as recorded in _Beowulf_ (ll. 1068-1159).

Beowulf is being entertained in the court of the king of the Danes, and the king's harper tells the tale of Hengest and Finn. Only the main events are enumerated. There are none of the dramatic speeches which we find in the _Fragment_. It is evident that the tale has been reduced in scope, in order that it may be fitted into its place as an episode in the longer epic.

The tone, too, is quite different. Whereas the _Fragment_ is inspired by the lust and joy of battle, the theme of the _Episode_, as told in _Beowulf_, is rather the pity of it all; the legacy of mourning and vengeance which is left to the survivors:

For never can true reconcilement grow
Where wounds of deadly hate have struck so deep.

It is on this note that the _Episode_ in _Beowulf_ begins: with the tragic figure of Hildeburh. Hildeburh is closely related to both contending parties. She is sister to Hnaef, prince of the "Half-Danes," and she is wedded to Finn, king of the Frisians. Whatever may be obscure in the story, it is clear that a fight has taken place between the men of Hnaef and those of Finn, and that Hnaef has been slain: probably by Finn directly, though perhaps by his followers[430]. A son of Finn has also fallen.

With regard to the peoples concerned there are difficulties. Finn's Frisians are presumably the main Frisian race, dwelling in and around the district still known as Friesland; for in the Catalogue of Kings in _Widsith_ it is said that "Finn Folcwalding {249} ruled the kin of the Frisians[431]." Hnaef and his people are called Half-Danes, Danes and Scyldings; Hnaef is therefore presumably related to the Danish royal house. But, in no account which has come down to us of that house, are Hnaef or his father Hoc ever mentioned as kings or princes of Denmark, and their connection with the family of Hrothgar, the great house of Scyldings who ruled Denmark from the capital of Leire, remains obscure. In _Widsith_, the people ruled over by Hnaef are called "children of Hoc" (_H[=o]cingum_), and are mentioned immediately after the "Sea-Danes[432]."

Then there is a mysterious people called the _Eotens_, upon whom is placed the blame of the struggle: "Verily Hildeburh had little reason to praise the good faith of the Eotens." This is the typical understatement of Old English rhetoric: it can only point to deliberate treachery on the part of the Eotens. Our interpretation of the poem will therefore hinge largely upon our interpretation of this name. There have been two views as to the Eotens. The one view holds them to be Hnaef's Danes, and consequently places on Hnaef the responsibility for the aggression. This theory is, I think, quite wrong, and has been the cause of much confusion: but it has been held by scholars of great weight[433]. The other view regards the Eotens as subjects {250} of Finn and foes of Hnaef. This view has been more generally held, and it is, as I shall try to show, only along these lines that a satisfactory solution can be found.

The poet continues of the woes of Hildeburh. "Guiltless, she lost at the war those whom she loved, child and brother. They fell as was fated, wounded by the spear, and a sad lady was she. Not for naught did the daughter of Hoc [i.e. Hildeburh] bewail her fate when morning came, when under the sky she could behold the murderous bale of her kinsfolk...."

Then the poet turns to the figure of Finn, king of the Frisians. His cause for grief is as deep as that of Hildeburh. For he has lost that body of retainers which to a Germanic chief, even as to King Arthur, was dearer than a wife[434]. "War swept away all the retainers of Finn, except some few."

What follows is obscure, but as to the general drift there is no doubt. After the death of their king Hnaef, the besieged Danes are led by Hengest. Hengest must be Hnaef's retainer, for he is expressly so called (_th[=e]odnes thegn_) "the king's thegn." So able is the defence of Hengest, and so heavy the loss among Finn's men, that Finn has to come to terms. Peace is made between Finn and Hengest, and the terms are given fully in the _Episode_. Unfortunately, owing to the confusion of pronouns, we soon lose our way amidst the clauses of this treaty, and it becomes exceedingly difficult to say who are the people who are alluded to as "they." This is peculiarly unlucky because here again the critical word _Eotena_ occurs, but amid such a tangle of "thems" and "theys" that it is not easy to tell from this passage to which side the Eotens belong[435].

But one thing in the treaty is indisputable. In the midst of these complicated clauses, it is said of the Danes, the retainers {251} of Hnaef, that they are not to be taunted with a certain fact: or perhaps it may be that they are not, when speaking amongst themselves, to remind each other of a certain fact. However that may be, what _is_ clear is the _fact_, the mention of which is barred. Nothing is to be said of it, even though "_they were following the slayer (bana) of their lord, being without a prince, since they were compelled so to do_." Here, at least, are two lines about the interpretation of which we can be certain: and I shall therefore return to them. We must be careful, however, to remember that the word _bana_, "slayer," conveys no idea of fault or criminality. It is a quite neutral word, although it has frequently been mistranslated "murderer," and has thus helped to encourage the belief that Finn slew Hnaef by treachery. Of course it conveys no such implication: _bana_ can be applied to one who slays another in self-defence: it implies neither the one thing nor the other.

Then the poet turns to the funeral of the dead champions, who are burned on one pyre by the now reconciled foes. The bodies of Hnaef and of the son (or sons)[436] of Hildeburh are placed together, uncle and nephew side by side, whilst Hildeburh stands by lamenting.

Then, we are told, the warriors, deprived of their friends, departed to Friesland, to their homes and to their high-city.

Hengest still continued to dwell for the whole of that winter with Finn, and could not return home because of the winter storms. But when spring came and the bosom of the earth became fair, there came also the question of Hengest's departure: but he thought more of vengeance than of his sea-journey: "If he might bring about that hostile meeting which he kept in his mind concerning the child (or children) of the Eotens." Here again the word _Eotena_ is used ambiguously, but, I think, this time not without some indication of its meaning. It has indeed been urged that the child or children of the Eotens are Hnaef, and any other Danes who may have fallen with him, and that when it is said that Hengest keeps them in mind, it is meant that he is remembering his fallen comrades with a view to taking {252} vengeance for them. But this would be a queer way of speaking, as Hengest and his living comrades would on this theory be also themselves children of the Eotens[437]. We should therefore need the term to be further defined: "children of the Eotens _who fell at Finnsburg_." It seems far more likely, from the way in which the expression is used here, that the children of the Eotens are the people _upon_ whom Hengest intends to take vengeance.

Then, we are further told, Hunlafing places in the bosom of Hengest a sword of which the edges were well known amongst the Eotens. Here again there has been ambiguity, dispute and doubt. Hunlafing has been even bisected into a chief "Hun," and a sword "Lafing" which "Hun" is supposed to have placed in the bosom of Hengest (or of someone else). Upon this act of "Hun" many an interpretation has been placed, and many a theory built. Fortunately it has become possible, by a series of rather extraordinary discoveries, such as we had little reason to hope for at this time of day, to put Hunlafing together again. We now know (and this I think should be regarded as outside the region of controversy) that the warrior who put the sword into Hengest's bosom _was_ Hunlafing. And about Hunlafing we gather, though very little, yet enough to help us. He is apparently a Dane, the son of Hunlaf, and Hunlaf is the brother of the two champions Guthlaf and Ordlaf[438]. Now Guthlaf and Ordlaf, as we know from the _Fragment_, were in the hall together {253} with Hengest: it was "Guthlaf, Ordlaf and Hengest himself" who undertook the defence of one of the doors against the assailants. Guthlaf and Ordlaf were apparently sons of the king of Denmark. As Scyldings they would be Hnaef's kinsmen, and accompanied him to his meeting with Finn. Hunlafing, then, is a nephew of two champions who were attacked in the hall, and it is possible, though we cannot prove this, that his father Hunlaf was himself also in the hall, and was slain in the struggle[439]. At any rate, when Hunlaf's son places a sword in the bosom of Hengest, this can only mean one thing. It means mischief. The placing of the sword, by a prince, in the bosom of another, is a symbol of war-service. It means that Hengest has accepted obligations to a Danish lord, a Scylding, a kinsman of the dead Hnaef, and consequently that he means to break the troth which he has sworn to Finn.

Further, we are told concerning the sword, that its edges were well known amongst the Eotens. At first sight this might seem, and to many has seemed, an ambiguous phrase, for a sword may be well known amongst either friends or foes. The old poets loved nothing better than to dwell upon the adornments of a sword, to say how a man, by reason of a fine sword which had been given to him, was honoured amongst his associates at table[440]. But if this had been the poet's meaning here, he would surely have dwelt, not upon the edges of the sword, but upon its gold-adorned hilt, or its jewelled pommel. When he says the _edges_ of the sword were well known amongst the Eotens, this seems to convey a hostile meaning. We know that the ill-faith of the Eotens was the cause of the trouble. The phrase about the sword seems therefore to mean that Hengest used this sword in order to take vengeance on the Eotens, presumably for their treachery.

The _Eotenas_, therefore, far from being the men of Hnaef and Hengest, must have been their foes.

Then the poet goes on to tell how "Dire sword-bale came upon the valiant Finn likewise." The Danes fell upon Finn at {254} his own home, reddened the floor of his hall with the life-blood of his men, slew him, plundered his town, and led his wife back to her own people.

Here the _Episode_ ends.

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