Chapter 16 - The Horsemen around Beowulf’s Grave

Summary

In connection with Beowulf's funeral, twelve young noblemen ride around his grave, expressing their grief and singing of the courage and exploits of the deceased:

Þā ymbe hlǣw riodan hildedīore, æþelinga bearn, ealra twelf(e),

woldon (care) cwīðan, (ond c) yning mǣnan,

wordġyd wrecan, ond ymb w(er) sprecan;

eahtodan eorlscipe ond his ellenweorc

duguðum dēmdon

Then round the mound rode the battle-brave men,

offspring of noblemen, twelve in all,

they wished to voice their cares and mourn their king,

utter sad songs and speak of that man;

they praised his lordship and his proud deeds

judged well his prowess. (Liuzza 1999, 150]

A group of men riding round the grave of a dead man, praising his achievements, is a ritual mark of respect in a society in which it is entirely natural for the highest elite to be represented by mounted warriors. But Scandinavian society at the time in question was hardly an equestrian one of that kind. Nor is there any evidence of a similar funeral ritual involving horsemen in Scandinavian, Anglo-Saxon or any other Germanic tradition (Klaeber 1927).

Klaeber is very cautious in his interpretation of this scene, apparently assuming that the Old English author simply gave free rein to his imagination and included the horse-men as an allusion to Christ's apostles (Klaeber 1927; see also Chapter 9). Martin Puh-vel, who has noted a number of latter-day folk customs in northern Europe in which people file around graves, though never on horseback, suggests that the Old English poet was working on the basis of such traditions, but was also influenced by literary sources (Puhvel 1983). Both Klaeber and Puhvel thus cling firmly to the idea that the poem was the work of an Old English author.

The only peoples in Middle Iron Age Europe with an elitist equestrian culture were the Central Asian Huns and the closely related Turkic-speaking peoples of central and southeastern Europe. Jordanes reports a similar scene in conjunction with the funeral of Attila, king of the Huns, in 451, probably somewhere in present-day Hungary. As Attila lies in state in a silken tent, a number of noble horsemen ride around him, chanting songs about his great deeds to the accompaniment of laments (Jordanes, 256–58).