CHAPTER VII - MYTHICAL ELEMENTS IN THE HEROIC POEMS

Summary

We have now to consider the question whether myth is a necessary element in the formation of heroic poetry. It has been noticed that historical persons figure in many stories of the Heroic Age, while others do not contain a single character whose historical existence can be authenticated. These latter stories are believed to be wholly mythical in origin, though they may not show any supernatural features in their final form. But even in stories of the former type it is held that some of the characters are almost always of mythical origin, and that their association with historical characters is a secondary development–due to confusion or to poetic imagination.

In the last chapter we put forward the view that Beowulf, the hero of the poem, has been confused with a mythical character of the same name, and that the adventure with the dragon originally belonged to the latter. It can scarcely be doubted that Scyld Scefing, the father of this earlier Beowulf, was also a mythical character. The only element in his story common to English and Scandinavian tradition is that he is regarded as the ancestor of the Scyldungas or Skiöldungar, the Danish royal family, and all analogies suggest that he came into existence as their eponymus. The brief account of him given in the poem might, except in two particulars, be applied to almost any successful king of the Heroic Age.