Chapter VIII: Section V: The Heathobeardan

Now, as _Beowulf_ is the one long Old English poem which happens to have been preserved, we, drawing our ideas of Old English story almost exclusively from it, naturally think of Heorot as the scene of the fight with Grendel.

But in the short poem of _Widsith_, almost certainly older than _Beowulf_, we have a catalogue of the characters of the Old English heroic poetry. This catalogue is dry in itself, but is of the greatest interest for the light it throws upon Old Germanic heroic legends and the history behind them. And from _Widsith_ it is clear that the rule of Hrothgar and Hrothulf at Heorot and the attack of the Heathobeardan upon them, rather than any story of monster-quelling, was what the old poets more particularly associated with the name of Heorot. The passage in _Widsith_ runs:

"For a very long time did Hrothgar and Hrothwulf, uncle and nephew,
hold the peace together, after they had driven away the race of the
Vikings and humbled the array of Ingeld, had hewed down at Heorot the
host of the Heathobeardan."

The details of this war can be reconstructed, partly from the allusions in _Beowulf_, partly from the Scandinavian accounts. The Scandinavian versions are less primitive and historic. They have forgotten all about the Heathobeardan as an independent tribe, and, whilst remembering the names of the leading chieftains on both sides, they see in them members of two rival branches of the Danish royal house.

We gather from _Beowulf_ that for generations a blood feud has raged between the Danes and the Heathobeardan. Nothing is told us in _Beowulf_ about the king Healfdene, except that he {21} was fierce in war and that he lived to be old. From the Scandinavian stories it seems clear that he was concerned in the Heathobard feud. According to some later Scandinavian accounts he was slain by Frothi (=Froda, whom we know from _Beowulf_ to have been king of the Heathobeardan) and this may well have been the historic fact[44]. How Hroar and Helgi (Hrothgar and Halga), the sons of Halfdan (Healfdene), evaded the pursuit of Frothi, we learn from the Scandinavian tales; whether the Old English story knew anything of their hair-breadth escapes we cannot tell. Ultimately, the saga tells us, Hroar and Helgi, in revenge for their father's death, burnt the hall over the head of his slayer, Frothi[45]. To judge from the hints in _Beowulf_, it would rather seem that the Old English tradition represented this vengeance upon Froda as having been inflicted in a pitched battle. The eldest brother Heorogar--known only to the English story--perhaps took his share in this feat. But, after his brothers Heorogar and Halga were dead, Hrothgar, left alone, and fearing vengeance in his turn, strove to compose the feud by wedding his daughter Freawaru to Ingeld, the son of Froda. So much we learn from the report which Beowulf gives, on his return home, to Hygelac, as to the state of things at the Danish court.

Beowulf is depicted as carrying a very sage head upon his young shoulders, and he gives evidence of his astuteness by predicting[46] that the peace which Hrothgar has purchased will not be lasting. Some Heathobard survivor of the fight in which Froda fell, will, he thinks, see a young Dane in the retinue of Freawaru proudly pacing the hall, wearing the treasures which his father had won from the Heathobeardan. Then the old warrior will urge on his younger comrade "Canst thou, my lord, tell the sword, the dear iron, which thy father carried to the fight when he bore helm for the last time, when the Danes slew him and had the victory? And now the son {22} of one of these slayers paces the hall, proud of his arms, boasts of the slaughter and wears the precious sword which thou by right shouldst wield[47]."

Such a reminder as this no Germanic warrior could long resist. So, Beowulf thinks, the young Dane will be slain; Ingeld will cease to take joy in his bride; and the old feud will break out afresh.

That it did so we know from _Widsith_, and from the same source we know that this Heathobard attack was repulsed by the combined strength of Hrothgar and his nephew Hrothulf.

But the tragic figure of Ingeld, hesitating between love for his father and love for his wife, between the duty of vengeance and his plighted word, was one which was sure to attract the interest of the old heroic poets more even than those of the victorious uncle and nephew. In the eighth century Alcuin, the Northumbrian, quotes Ingeld as the typical hero of song. Writing to a bishop of Lindisfarne, he reproves the monks for their fondness for the old stories about heathen kings, who are now lamenting their sins in Hell: "in the Refectory," he says, "the Bible should be read: the lector heard, not the harper: patristic sermons rather than pagan songs. For what has Ingeld to do with Christ[48]?" This protest testifies eloquently to the popularity of the Ingeld story, and further evidence is possibly afforded by the fact that few heroes of story seem to have had so many namesakes in Eighth Century England.

What is emphasized in _Beowulf_ is not so much the struggle in the mind of Ingeld as the stern, unforgiving temper of the grim old warrior who will not let the feud die down; and this is the case also with the Danish versions, preserved to us in the Latin of Saxo Grammaticus. In two songs (translated by Saxo into "delightful sapphics") the old warrior Starcatherus stirs up Ingellus to his revenge:

"Why, Ingeld, buried in vice, dost thou delay to avenge thy father?
Wilt thou endure patiently the slaughter of thy righteous sire?...

{23}

Whilst thou takest pleasure in honouring thy bride, laden with gems,
and bright with golden vestments, grief torments us, coupled with
shame, as we bewail thine infamies.

Whilst headlong lust urges thee, our troubled mind recalls the fashion
of an earlier day, and admonishes us to grieve over many things.

For we reckon otherwise than thou the crime of the foes, whom now thou
holdest in honour; wherefore the face of this age is a burden to me,
who have known the old ways.

By nought more would I desire to be blessed, if, Froda, I might see
those guilty of thy murder paying the due penalty of such a crime[49]."

Starkath came to be one of the best-known figures in Scandinavian legend, the type of the fierce, unrelenting warrior. Even in death his severed head bit the earth: or according to another version "the trunk fought on when the head was gone[50]." Nor did the Northern imagination leave him there. It loved to follow him below, and to indulge in conjectures as to his bearing in the pit of Hell[51].

Who the Heathobeardan were is uncertain. It is frequently argued that
they are identical with the Longobardi; that the words _Heatho-Bard_
and _Long-Bard_ correspond, just as we get sometimes _Gar-Dene_,
sometimes _Hring-Dene_. (So Heyne; Bremer in _Pauls Grdr._ (2) III, 949
_etc._) The evidence for this is however unsatisfactory (see Chambers,
_Widsith_, 205). Since the year 186 A.D. onwards the Longobardi were
dwelling far inland, and were certainly never in a position from which
an attack upon the Danes would have been practicable. If, therefore, we
accept the identification of Heatho-Bard and Long-Bard, we must suppose
the Heathobeardan of _Beowulf_ to have been not the Longobardi of
history, but a separate portion of the people, which had been left
behind on the shores of the Baltic, when the main body went south. But
as we have no evidence for any such offshoot from the main tribe, it is
misleading to speak of the Heathobeardan as identical with the
Longobardi: and although the similarity of one element in the name
suggests some primitive relationship, that relationship may well have
been exceedingly remote[52].

{24}

It has further been proposed to identify the Heathobeardan with the
Heruli[53]. The Heruli came from the Scandinavian district, overran
Europe, and became famous for their valour, savagery, and value as
light-armed troops. If the Heathobeardan are identical with the Heruli,
and if what we are told of the customs of the Heruli is true, Freawaru
was certainly to be pitied. The Heruli were accustomed to put to death
their sick and aged: and to compel widows to commit suicide.

The supposed identity of the Heruli with the Heathobeardan is however
very doubtful. It rests solely upon the statement of Jordanes that they
had been driven from their homes by the Danes (_Dani ... Herulos
propriis sedibus expulerunt_). This is inconclusive, since the growth
of the Danish power is likely enough to have led to collisions with
more than one tribe. In fact _Beowulf_ tells us that Scyld "tore away
the mead benches from _many_ a people." On the other hand the
dissimilarity of names is not conclusive evidence against the
identification, for the word _Heruli_ is pretty certainly the same as
the Old English _Eorlas_, and is a complimentary nick-name applied by
the tribe to themselves, rather than their original racial designation.

Nothing, then, is really known of the Heathobeardan, except that
evidence points to their having dwelt somewhere on the Baltic[54].

The Scandinavian sources which have preserved the memory of this feud
have transformed it in an extraordinary way. The Heathobeardan came to
be quite forgotten, although maybe some trace of their name remains in
_Hothbrodd_, who is represented as the foe of Roe (Hrothgar) and Rolf
(Hrothulf). When the Heathobeardan were forgotten, Froda and Ingeld
were left without any subjects, and naturally came to be regarded, like
Healfdene and the other kings with whom they were associated in story,
as Danish kings. Accordingly the tale developed in Scandinavian lands
in two ways. Some documents, and especially the Icelandic ones[55],
represent the struggle as a feud between two branches of the Danish
royal house. Even here there is no agreement who is the usurper and who
the victim, so that sometimes it is Froda and sometimes Healfdene who
is represented as the traitor and murderer.

But another version[56]--the Danish--whilst making Froda and Ingeld
into Danish kings, separates their story altogether from that of
Healfdene and his house: in this version the quarrel is still thought
of as being between two nations, not as between the rightful heir to
the throne and a treacherous and relentless usurper. Accordingly the
feud is such as may be, at any rate temporarily, laid aside: peace
between the contending parties is not out of the question. This version
therefore preserves much more of the original character of the story,
for it remains the tale of a young prince who, willing to marry into
the house of his ancestral foes and to forgive and forget the old feud,
is stirred by his more unrelenting henchman into taking vengeance for
his father. But, owing to the prince having come to be represented as a
Dane, patriotic reasons have suggested to the {25} Danish poets and
historians a quite different conclusion to the story. Instead of being
routed, Ingeld, in Saxo, is successful in his revenge.

See Neckel, _Studien ueber Frodhi_ in _Z.f.d.A._ XLVIII, 182: Heusler,
_Zur Skioeldungendichtung_ in _Z.f.d.A._ XLVIII, 57: Olrik,
_Skjoldungasaga_, 1894, 112 [30]; Olrik, _Heltedigtning_, II, 11
_etc._: Olrik, _Sakses Oldhistorie_, 222-6: Chambers, _Widsith_, pp.
79-81.]

* * * * *