as a product of the work of several minds. The opinions of Karl Müllenhof' may be taken as representative of this way of looking at the poem. The work was formed, he thinks, by the combination of several old songs (1) the fight with Grendel, complete in itself, and the oldest of the pieces; (2) the fight with Grendel's mother, next added; then (3) the genealogical introduction to the mention of Hrothgar, forming what is now the opening of the poem. Then came, according to this theory, a poet, A, who worked over the poem thus produced, interpolated many passages with skill, and added a continuation setting forth Beowulf's return home. Last came a theoretical interloper, B, a monk, who interspersed religious sayings of his own, and added the ancient song of the fight with the dragon and the death of Beowulf. The positive critic not only finds all this, but proceeds to point out which passages are old, older, and oldest, where a few lines are from poet A, and where other interpolation is from poet B. No doubt there were old Scandinavian lays of Beowulf, the work of several poets, and united into a rude epic. In Beowulf's recital of his tale to Hygelac there is a description of a gauntlet worn by Grendel that had no place in the preceding song. Certainly also, since the poem comes to us in the language of this country, not in its native tongue, it must have been told afresh for the settlers in England, after FirstEnglish had been formed by fusion of dialects. The English poet would probably have been a monk when monasteries were the centres of education, and that he was a monk is evident from the few touches of Christianity that he has slipped into the faithful reproduction of a song of the old heathen time. It is as well to be content with these broad facts.

Hæreth's daughter, who poured wine for her lord when Beowulf returned, was Hygd, the second wife of Hygelac. Second wife, because she is described as very young, and Hygelac had already, when he came to the gift-stool, a marriageable daughter. Hygd seems in the poem to be first described as young, wise, well-bred, and generous, and then held up to scorn for cruelty and murder, and spoken of as a wife of Offa. Dr. Grein has suggested that, in fact, the word translated violent is a proper name, applied to a half-mythical she-monster, whose character is contrasted with the mildness of Queen Hygd, as in an earlier part of the poem the praise of a good king had been enforced immediately by contrast with a bad one.

Hygd had a young son, Heardred. When Beowulf returned afterwards from the expedition in which Hygelac was slain, Hygd believed that her child was too young to succeed his father, and offered the chief rule to Beowulf. But Beowulf sustained the boy in his hereditary rank, and served him as protector. Onela, the son of Ongetheow, was then ruling in Sweden, and two of his nephews, sons of a younger brother, having rebelled against him, came as exiles, Eánmund and Eadgils, to young Heardred's court. Heardred received them hospitably. His land was therefore invaded by Onela, he was

1 Set forth in papers contributed to Haupt's "Zeitschrift."

besieged in his high hall, and killed in battle. Eánmund also was then slain. Onela returned to his own land, and Beowulf then became king of the Goths, keeping Eadgils at his court, and helping him afterwards to his revenge upon Onela, who was attacked in his turn and killed. Beowulf was Goth only on his mother's side. His father, Ecgtheow, was of another race.

We may now go back to the old poem and tell its story to the end. Beowulf, returned from his adventures among the Danes, had landed in Gothland. He went with his chosen band along the sands, treading the sea-plain, the wide shores.

Quickly to Hygelac was Beowulf's voyage
Made known, that there was come into the place,
The warriors' shelter, his shield-friend, alive,
Sound from the war-play, coming to his house.
Quickly the hall within was cleared for them,
As the king bade. Then facing him who came
Safe from the conflict, kin looked upon kin.
After his lord had greeted with loud voice
The faithful friend, went Hæreth's daughter, she
Who loved the people, through the hall, poured mead,
And bare the wine-cup to the high chief's hand.
Then in the high hall Hygelac began

Kind question with his guest, eager desire
Urged him to know how the sea-Goths had fared.

Hygelac asked, and Beowulf answered, adding to his recital of the greatness of Heorot, that at times he had seen the daughter of Hrothgar, whom he heard called Freaware, bear the ale-cup to the earls.

Freaware married Ingeld, son of Froda, king of the Heathobards, between whom and the Danes there had been long feud, in the course of which Ingeld's father, Froda, had been slain. When Freaware was taken to her husband's court, one of her Danish followers wore as a trophy Froda's sword. This was noticed, and the old feud, which the marriage was to have ended, broke out again fiercely. "Then," said Beowulf, finishing that episode in his narrative

"Then on both sides the oaths of warriors break.
In Ingeld deadly hate boils, for his wife
Love cools after the burning of his care.
Therefore I do not count the Heathobards
As having love, or part in fellowship,
Or any settled friendship to the Danes.
But now of Grendel I speak on, that thou,
Giver of gifts, may'st know how went the fight
Of warriors hand to hand. When heaven's gem
Had glided over earth, in anger came
The guest, the giant, grim at eve,
To visit us who safely kept the hall.

There was his glove, deadly in war, life bale
To the doomed. He who lay first, gut champion,
To him, the brave thane of our blood, became
Grendel mouth-murderer, the body, all,
Of the beloved man, he swallowed. Yet
For that no sooner went the murderer
With bloody tooth and evil in his mind,
From that gold hall, but trial made of me,
Proud of his might, grasped with a ready hand,
His glove, broad, wondrous, with strange fastenings,

All cunningly prepared with devil's crafts
And skins of dragons. Shaper of ill deeds
He thought to make me, unoffending, one
Of many victims. But that might not be,
When I in wrath stood upright. Long to tell,
O prince, how I repaid the miscreant's wrongs,
What I did there set forth thy people's worth."

Beowulf proceeds in this manner to recount how Grendel fled to his mere, leaving his arm in Heorot; how Hrothgar rewarded his champion; how Grendel's mother came and snatched away Eschere; how he descended to the bottom of the mere and overcame that monster also.

"Not easily I brought my life away,

I was not fated yet. The shield of earls,
Heälfdené's son, again gave many gifts.
So the great king lived as he should, rewards,
The meed of strength, have not been lost to me,
For he, Heälfdené's son, put in my power
Treasures that I will bring, O warrior king,
To thee, with joy prepare for thee. Of thee
Are all my satisfactions. For I have
Few kinsmen near me, Hygelac, save thee."

Then Beowulf bade them bear in the boar-head ensign, the helmet, corslet, and rich sword, and said, "These Hrothgar gave me, and bade me say that they had come down to him from King Heorogar, but he gave them to Beowulf rather than to his own son, Heoroweard, whom he loved." With these Beowulf gave to Hygelac four steeds; and the necklet that Wealtheow had given him he gave to Hygd, with three black horses brightly saddled. Thus flourished Ecgtheow's son, a warrior known for good deeds, thoughtful and gentle, no rugged soul, though God had given him strength above other men. He had long been despised, and made of small account on the mead-bench. Now came a reverse to every grief. Then Hygelac commanded the rich sword bequeathed by Hrethel to be brought in, and laid it on Beowulf's lap; gave him too seven thousand pieces, a manor, and a princely seat.

But in the crash of war in after-days
When Hygelac lay dead, and to the heart

Of Heardred were swords stabbing under shields,
When Scyldings, hardy warriors, triumphing,
Attacked Hereric's nephew.1

After that

The broad realm came next under Beowulf's hand.
For fifty years he ruled, was the wise king,
The land's old guardian, till one began,

A dragon, who kept watch over a hoard

In a high heap, began to spread his sway.
Beneath a rocky hill there lay a path

Unknown to men. And one once entered there,
I know not who--

At this point some words and lines of the MS. can no longer be deciphered; but the story is being told of one who had seen the treasures hidden there

1 Hereric, here called the uncle of Hygelac's son Heardred, must have been Hygd's brother. These lines dispose of the succession of Heardred, and the poem passes on to the days when Beowulf was king.

of yore, within a mound near the waves of the sea below the headland. The earl who heaped it there had spoken his farewell to the helmets, that had fallen from the fated, the swords that should moulder after the warrior. There was no joy to him in music, no hawk in the hall or steed in the city. Death had brought desolation, let earth hold the treasures of the dead. The burier of the treasure died. The burning scather of the twilight, who seeks out the mounds, the naked envious dragon who flies by night girt with fire, found the hoard. For three hundred years he held the hoard in the earth, until one man enraged him, who took a cup from the hoard to his liege lord as a peaceoffering. Then the hoard was plundered, the hoard of rings borne off, the prayer of the poor man was granted. The lord saw for the first time the ancient work of men. When the dragon awoke the deed had been renewed. Then he smelt along the rock, the strong-hearted found the foot-trace of the foe. He had stepped forth, by secret craft, near to the dragon's head. Thus may an undoomed man escape from woe when the Almighty favours him. The dragon sought, and found no man in the surrounding desert. He returned sometimes to his hoard and found it plundered. It was hard for him to wait till evening came, then he would requite the wrong with fire. When the day was ended to his wish, he would abide no longer in his mound, but carried fire over the land. He vomited fire over the bright dwellings, the scather of the Goths would leave nothing alive. He had wrapped the land in flame with fire and burning. He trusted in his mount, his war, and his wall. That hope deceived him. It was made known to Beowulf that his own home, the best of houses, was burnt, with the gift-stool of the Goths. The wise chief weened that he had angered the Almighty. The fire-dragon had wasted with fire an island without, the country's safeguard. Then the warlike king bade fashion for himself a wondrous shield, all iron, for he knew that wood of the forest would not help him against fire. miseries must end for the prince, and for the worm with him, though he long had held the hoard-wealth. The giver of rings disdained to seek the highflier with a host of men, he dreaded not the battle for himself. Rashly daring, he had escaped from many strifes since he had cleansed Hrothgar's hall and taken Grendel in his grasp. That was not the least of conflicts when Hygelac was slain, lorldly friend of the peoples, in the Frieslands. Thence Beowulf escaped by his own power. He had need to swim. He had on his arm thirty war-coats, spoils of the slain, when he went down to the sea. The Hetwaras who bore spears against him in that battle had no need of boast, few who met him saw their homes again. Here follows in the poem the reference to the events following Beowulf's return, to the death of Heardred and his own coming to the throne. Thus Ecgtheow's son had outlived all conflicts till the day came when he must go forth against the dragon. A man who had visited the hoard and stolen from it a cup must show the path to the mound under the rock by the near stir and strife of waves.

Life's

Then on the headland sat the warrior-king,
Gold-friend of Goths, and there he bade farewell
To his hearth companions. He was sad of mind,
Wavering, ready to depart, the fate

Most near which now must meet him in his age,
Seek his soul treasure, part his limbs from life,
Not long was flesh to enwrap the prince's soul.
The son of Ecgtheow, Beowulf, spake: "In youth
I have out-battled many a rush of war.

Seven winters I had seen when Hrethel, people's
friend,

The king, received me from my father, kept me,
Gave me good gifts and feasts, mindful of kin.
I was not in his courts a whit less loved
Than any of his children, Herebeald
Or Heathcyn, or my Hygelac. For one,
The eldest, by his brother's deed the bier
Was strewn. He missed his mark, and shot
His kinsman, brother, not to be avenged,
When Heathcyn with an arrow from his bow
Laid low his lord and friend. So sad it is
For an old father to await the death

Of his young child upon the gallows. Then
Rises his song of sorrow, when his son
Hangs to delight the raven, and he, old
And feeble, has no help that he can bring:
With every morning will come memory
Of his boy's death; he cares not to await
Another heir within his gates, when one
Has died for his life's deeds. In his son's hall
Wind whistles, and he sees the wine-bench empty,
Reft of its cheer; sleeps hanging in the dark
The warrior; there is no sound of harp,
Mirth in his homestead as there was of old.
Then passes he to songs, lay after lay
Of sorrow, all around him desolate;

The home, the world is empty." Thus then mourned
The prince for Herebeald, and bore heart's pain.

The old Beowulf continues in the poem to tell of the past to his surrounding followers, sadly recalling life with the foreshadowing of death upon him. He tells of the invasion by Ongetheow, the death of Hrethel, the succession of Heathcyn, the return attack upon Ongetheow, in which Ongetheow was slain, of his slaying of Dæghrefn, the Haga's champion, not with sword, but by a hand-grasp in the fight.

"Now shall the falchion's edge, hand and hard sword
Do battle for the hoard." Then Beowulf spake
And uttered for the last time words of threat:

66

Yet will I, a wise guardian of my land,

Seek conflict, do great deeds, if the vile scather
Will from his cavern seek me." Helmeted

And bold, for the last time he greeted dear companions:
"I would not bear a weapon if I knew
How I might grapple with this evil one,
As once with Grendel. But now I expect
Fire, hot, fierce, poisonous; for this I bear
The shield and buckler. Not by a foot's step
Will I allow the guardian of the mount
To take his flight from me. Here at the mound
As Fate wills shall it be to one of us."

Beowulf bade his companions, protected by corslets, await on the hill the end of the adventure. Then he

arose, and with his shield went down in helmet and buckler under the crags; he trusted in his single strength. He saw where a stream broke from the hill and passed out hot with fierce fires from under a stone arch. For the dragon's flame, he could not dive under it unburnt. Then his voice stormed in loud rage; the dragon heard the voice of man, and first there came his breath out of the rock, hot sweat of battle. The rock resounded with the roar of fire. Beowulf turned his shield against the enemy; already his sword was drawn. Each feared the other. The stroke of Beowulf's sword bit less deep than there was need. The dragon threw his deadly fire. Again they met. The dragon breathed with new force; Beowulf, encompassed by flame, was in sore need. His companions had turned to the wood to save their lives, but in one of them, Wiglaf, Wexstan's son, there was grief for the suffering of his liege lord. He remembered the rich dwelling-place of the Wægmundings that Beowulf had given him, and all the rights. He grasped his shield, drew his old sword, which had belonged to Eanmund, Ohthere's son, whom Wextan slew, taking his helm and sword. To Wiglaf, his son, he had left the relic, and now was the first time that the young champion should brave death for his chief. Wiglaf reminded his comrades of what the band of followers owed to its chief. Now is the day come when they could help him. Then he waded through the deadly smoke, encouraged Beowulf to fight as he had fought in the days of youth, "I will support thee." Then came again the angry dragon, the waves of his fire burnt the youth's shield, but he defended himself boldly behind the iron shield of his kinsman. Again Beowulf recalled his past prowess, and struck with his main force upon the dragon's head. His good sword, Noegling, snapped asunder with the stroke. It was not granted to Beowulf to prevail with edge of the sword. His hand-stroke was too strong. It broke every blade. A third time the dragon rushed on the great chief. Then Beowulf fiercely grasped his neck with its horrid bones. Blood bubbled forth in waves, staining him with the life-gore. Wiglaf sought to aid his kinsman, heeded not the head, struck lower. The sword went deep; the fire began then to abate. The protector of the Goths drew then the deadly knife that he bore on his corslet, and stabbed the dragon in the midst. the kindred chiefs had destroyed the foe. There was to the prince a pause of victory. Then the wound at first given by the dragon began to burn and swell, the poison worked within him. The prince sat on a seat by the mound, looked on the giant's work, saw how the stone arches, firm on their pillars, held for ever the cave within. Then the thane laved with water the wound of his prince. Beowulf spake of the deadly livid wound, knew that his joy of earth was ended. "I have ruled," he said, "fifty winters, and had I a son of my own would now bequeath to him my arms. I have held my own well, sought no treachery, sworn no false oath; though wounded to death, I have joy, for I have done no wrong to my kinsmen. Now go, dear Wiglaf, to see the hoard under the rock, let me behold the treasure of the past before I resign life and kingdom." The poem

Then

Then

then tells of the treasures seen by Wiglaf in the cavern. With treasure for his prince to see he hurried out, lest when he returned he should find life at end. The aged man looked at the gold with sorrow, and thanked the glory king that he had been able before death to acquire this riches for his people.

"My life is well paid for this hoard; and now
Care for the people's needs, I may no more
Be with them. Bid the warriors raise a barrow,
After the burning, on the ness by the sea,
On Hronesness, which shall rise high and be
For a remembrance to my people. Seafarers
Who from afar over the mists of waters
Drive foamy keels may call it Beowulf's Mount
Hereafter." Then the hero from his neck
Put off a golden collar; to his thane,
To the young warrior, gave it with his helm,
Armlet and corslet, bade him use them well.
"Thou art the last Wægmunding of our race,
For fate has swept my kinsmen all away.
Earls in their strength are to their Maker gone,
And I must follow them." The aged chief
Spake not again. That was his latest word.

The ten who had fled to the wood came now with shields and arms to where the dying champion lay with his face turned to Wiglaf. He sat, wearied, by the shoulders of his lord, laving him with water. But there was no power on earth to revive the chieftain. Then easily came a fierce answer from the youth to those who had lost courage. For every earl, he told them, death is better than a life of reproach. Then a messenger was sent to the dwellings, where the return of Beowulf was in vain expected, with news that Wiglaf sat over Beowulf, the living over the lifeless. The poem following the news of the death of Beowulf to surrounding nations, again falls into an episode of retrospect. Then is told the coming out of the people to bring Beowulf's body with all honour to the burning on the funeral pile. They went sad and tearful to the rocks under the eagle's ness, and found the good chief soulless on the sands. The fire-dragon lay near, fifty feet of measure; by him were rich cups and bowls, dishes and costly swords, with rust as of a thousand years upon them. Wiglaf told with lament the prince's wish that a lofty mound should be raised over his ashes. The bier was made ready. Wood was brought from afar for the funeral pile. Seven men entered the cavern with Wiglaf, one carrying a torch, to bring out the treasures. The dragon's body was rolled over the cliff into the sea. Twisted gold was drawn, heaped in a wain, to Hronesness.

Then the Goth's people reared a mighty pile With shields and armour hung, as he had asked, And in the midst the warriors laid their lord, Lamenting. Then the warriors on the mount Kindled a mighty bale fire; the smoke rose Black from the Swedish pine, the sound of flame

Mingled with sound of weeping; the wind fell;
Until hot on the breast the bone-case burst.
Sadly they waited their lord's death, while smoke
Spread over heaven. Then upon the hill
The people of the Weders wrought a mound,
High, broad, and to be seen far out at sea.
In ten days they had built and walled it in
As the wise thought most worthy, placed in it
Rings, jewels, other treasures from the hoard.
They left the riches, golden joy of earls,
In dust, for earth to hold; where yet it lies,
Useless as ever. Then about the mound
The warriors rode, and raised a mournful song
For their dead king, exalted his brave deeds,
Holding it fit men honour their liege lord,
Praise him and love him when his soul is fled.

Thus the Goth's people, sharers of his hearth,
Mourned their chief's fall, praised him, of kings, of

men,

The mildest, and the kindest, and to all

His people gentlest, yearning for their praise.

So ends the most ancient heroic song, not only in English literature, but in the literature of any Teutonic language. Not less ancient than the shaping of "Beowulf" into our own speech was the use of this manner of recital for bringing home to the FirstEnglish the essentials of the Bible story in Cadmon's "Paraphrase," ," of which account has been given in another volume of this Library. The two noblest pieces of First-English are also the most ancient, and stand worthily at the beginning of a literature that represents, without a break, the life and labour of the people of this country for twelve hundred years.

The oldest heroic piece in the High German language is the song of "Hildebrand," which consists of but one hundred and thirty-two half-lines, and belongs to the eighth century. It tells how Hildebrand, who had followed Dietrich (Theodoric the Great), is travelling home from the wars, with the Goths who are his followers. He is old, and had left at home his son Hadubrand, an infant. Hadubrand, now a man, meets Hildebrand with an armed troop. Each leader asks Battle impends. the other's name. Hildebrand recognises Hadubrand, his son. Hadubrand mocks at the claims of the enemy to be his father. Battle begins, and the fragment ends in the midst of it. But the legend was that old Hildebrand proved his kindred by sparing his son's life when he had him at his This tale also allies itself to sagas of the North, and in the short fragment of a poem upon Doomsday, written also in High German of the earlier part of the ninth century, the name

mercy.

Muspilli "-which occurs also in the ninth century Old Saxon poem (a poem of nearly six thousand lines) on the Saviour, the "Heliand "-is one with Múspell, the name in the old Scandinavian mythology for an abode of fire.

1 See "Illustrations of English Religion," pages 3–9.

T the beginning of the thirteenth century Layamon, the son of Leovenath, was a priest who read the services of the church at Ernley, now called Areley Kings, on the banks of the Severn, three or four miles from Bewdley, in Worcestershire. He had been interested in the development of ancient legend that had begun half a century before, in 1147, with the appearance of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Latin "History of the Britons." In that book a Welsh monk, who died Bishop of St. Asaph in 1154, had produced, in the form of a chronicle of historical events, a romance of history from the first mythical days of the settlement of Britons in this country under Brut, the great-grandson of Eneas, from whom they received their name. In the course of this "History," King Arthur appears as a mighty hero, and it is here that Arthur, whose fame had almost gone out of the land, reappeared in England. He was the chief hero of Geoffrey's chronicle; and a good English chronicler, who was particular about facts, William of Newbury, said that Geoffrey was lying shamelessly almost throughout, and had made the little finger of his Arthur stronger than the back of Alexander the Great. The book was in such great demand that Alfred of Beverley made an abridgment of it in Latin; Geoffrey Gaimar translated it into AngloNorman verse to please the wife of a baron in the north of England; and Wace, a poet born at Jersey, completed a version of it into French verse, with many additions to the stories about Arthur, as "Li Romans de Brut." This was completed within about eight years after Geoffrey of Monmouth's "History of the Britons" first appeared. The demand for romances of King Arthur was soon met by a large supply from Brittany, and Walter Map, one of Henry II.'s chaplains, harmonised them, with addition of the "Romance of the Holy Graal" to supply the missing element of spiritual life. The simple priest by the Severn, who loved poetry and had skill of his own in verse, heard of these things, and desired possession of the famous history, that he might amuse himself by reproducing it

in English verse. He obtained, by travelling for it, the required material, set to work, and produced a poem of more than thirty thousand lines. This is Layamon's "Brut," twice as long as the "Brut" of Wace, upon which it was chiefly founded, and including new details to enrich the legends of King Arthur. His poem, of which there are two MSS., both in the British Museum, appears by internal evidence to have been written in the years immediately after the beginning of the thirteenth century, from A.D. 1200 to 1205, or a little later. Until that time there had been, since the Conquest, no literature in the language of the people. Latin was in literature the language of the clergy and the educated classes, French the language of the court. With the thirteenth century came the renewal of a literature in the mother-tongue, as it was at that stage of the transition from FirstEnglish (or Anglo-Saxon) to the English of the present day. The metre used by Layamon was still the old First-English unrhymed measure, with alliteration; but influence of the rhymed French verse caused Layamon to blend sometimes with the Teutonic measure a few rhymes. This is his beginning, in his own words:

An' preost wes on leoden : Lazamon wes ihoten.

he wes Leouenathes sone :
lithe him beo drihten.
he wonede at Ernlege;
at æthelen are chirchen.
vppen Seuarne stathe:
Sel thar him thuhte.
on fest Radestone:
ther he bock radde.

Hit com him on mode :
and on his mern thonke.
thet he wolde of Engle:
tha æthelæn tellen.
wat heo ihoten weoren:
and wonene heo comen.
tha Englene londe :
ærest ahten.

Or in our modern tongue thus it begins:

There was a priest in the land Who was named Layamon. He was son of Leovenath,-May the Lord be gracious to him!-He dwelt at Ernley, At a noble church Upon Severn's bank, Good it seemed to him, Near Radstone, Where he read book. It came to him in mind, And in his chief thought, That he would of England Tell the noble deeds. What the men were named, And whence they came Who English land First had, After the flood That came from the Lord That destroyed all here That is found alive Except Noah and Sen Japhet and Cam And their four wives That were with them

1 The initial to this chapter is the A of this first word in the older MS. In the following account of the poem, except in the verse translation and the legends of Vortigern and King Arthur, use is made of a digest which I gave some time since in my "English Writers."