Chapter 3 - The Bigger Picture

Summary

A Long Vendetta

Beowulf goes home. He makes his report to Hygelac, including his gloomy prophecy about the planned Freawaru–Ingeld marriage. And then, with something of a clash of gears—it certainly fooled scribe B, who matches scribe A with another total misunderstanding of an important name—we are many years on, and Beowulf has been king of the Geats for fifty of them. In the meantime a great deal has happened.

One should say that no-one now believes in Beowulf's fifty-year reign: there is no corroboration of this, no mention of Beowulf anywhere in Scandinavian or for that matter English legend, everything to do with Beowulf is fiction, and so is the dragon which will kill him. The question is, whether the very detailed and extended account of the history of the Geats and Swedes which runs through the last third of the poem can be dismissed as readily as Dr. Gahrn would have it (see p. 2). It is not as strongly corroborated as Hrothgar and Hrothulf and events in Denmark, but it fits well with what legendary accounts we do have, and (once again) makes much better sense than they do.

Since the poem says nothing in chronological order, it is best at this stage to set out events as they can be fitted together. They look—remembering what Professor Price says about “gangster culture,” see p. 28 above—like a prolonged vendetta between two ruling families.

This goes on over three generations. The royal dynasty of the Geats, in south Sweden, starts with a grandfather, Hrethel. He has three sons, Herebeald and Hæthcyn and Hygelac, and an unnamed daughter, who is the mother of Beowulf. Hygelac's son is Heardred, so Beowulf is his maternal cousin. The Swedish royal dynasty, from north Sweden, also has a grandfather, Ongentheow. He has two sons, Onela and Ohthere. Ohthere has two sons, Eanmund and Eadgils. Of these eleven named men, six Geats and five Swedes, five will die in the vendetta. As far as we know, none will suffer the shame of a natural death—unless grief counts as “natural causes.”