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A close fitt: reading Beowulf fitt II with the Andreas-poet

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 October 2022

Daniel Thomas
Daniel Thomas*
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
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Abstract

Connections between Andreas and Beowulf have been the subject of much scholarly discussion. This article contributes to this discussion by arguing that the account of the Mermedonians’ discovery of and response to the loss of their prisoners in Andreas fitt X, which corresponds to chapters 22–3 of the poet’s putative Latin source, has been deliberately recast in ways intended to recall the account in fitt II of Beowulf of Grendel’s first attack on Heorot and the reactions of the Danish community. The connection argued for here is based not on verbal correspondences, but on embedded structural and thematic parallels. The Andreas-poet emerges as a careful and sophisticated reader, notable for their specifically literate and textual engagement with Beowulf. This observation has implications not only for our appreciation of the Andreas-poet’s art, but also for the transmission of Beowulf and for our understanding of Old English poetic practices more generally.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 48 , December 2019 , pp. 1 - 41
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

1 Beowulf 168–9. The poem is cited from Klaeber’s Beowulf: Fourth Edition, ed. R. D. Fulk, R. E. Bjork and J. D. Niles (Toronto, 2008). Textual emendations and expansions of abbreviations have been silently accepted throughout. The meaning of these disputed lines is discussed further below, but for convenience I give here the translation offered in The Beowulf Manuscript, ed. and trans. R. D. Fulk, Dumbarton Oaks Med. Lib. 3 (Cambridge, MA, 2010), 97: ‘He was not permitted to approach the throne or valuables on account of Providence, nor did he gain satisfaction.’ Hereafter, translations are my own unless otherwise stated.

2 Klaeber’s Beowulf, ed. Fulk et al., p. 126, n. to lines 168 f. (emphasis original). In enumerating this list, the editors note further the possibility of construing hē in line 168a not as Grendel, but as Hrothgar, an interpretation which, they suggest, ‘seems now to have been abandoned almost entirely’ (ibid). But cf. J. Roberts, ‘Understanding Hrothgar’s Humiliation: Beowulf Lines 144–74 in Context’, Text, Image, Interpretation: Studies in Anglo-Saxon Literature and its Insular Context in honour of Éamonn Ó Carragáin, ed. A. J. Minnis and J. Roberts, Stud. in the Early Middle Ages 18 (Turnhout, 2007), 355–67.

3 A. Bammesberger, ‘Five Beowulf Notes’, Words, Texts and Manuscripts: Studies in Anglo-Saxon Culture presented to Helmut Gneuss on the Occasion of his Sixty-Fifth Birthday, ed. M. Korhammer with K. Reichl and H. Sauer (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 239–55, at 243–8. For the original suggestion, see A. Pogatscher, ‘Zu Beowulf 168’, BGDSL 19 (1894), 544–5. See also, Engelhardt, G. J., ‘ Beowulf: a Study in Dilation’, PMLA 70 (1955), 825–52Google Scholar, at 832, n. 20.

4 J. R. R. Tolkien notes that, whilst māþðum is not appropriate as a variation for the ġifstōl itself, it does develop the notion of gift-exchange implied by the first element of that compound (Beowulf: a Translation and Commentary together with Sellic Spell, ed. C. Tolkien (London, 2014), p. 183).

5 Bammesberger, ‘Five Beowulf Notes’, p. 248.

6 The suggestion is not discussed in the extensive commentary on this passage in Klaeber’s Beowulf, although the editors do note the suggested reading formetode in the critical apparatus. G. Jack notes but rejects the reading on the grounds that the resulting sense of the line ‘does not seem apt contextually’ (Beowulf: a Student Edition (Oxford, 1994), p. 38, n. to lines 168–9). Elsewhere, the reading has been endorsed, at least in passing, by A. Orchard (Pride and Prodigies: Studies in the Monsters of the Beowulf Manuscript, rev. ed. (Toronto, 2003), p. 62, n. 21) and S. Gwara (Heroic Identity in the World of Beowulf, Med. and Renaissance Authors and Texts 2 (Leiden, 2008), 80, n. 52). F. C. Robinson, rightly insisting upon the need to interpret lines 168–9 in relation to the context in which they appear, has called the reading an ‘attractive’ solution (‘Why is Grendel’s Not Greeting the Gifstol a Wræc Micel?’, Words, Texts and Manuscripts: Studies in Anglo-Saxon Culture presented to Helmut Gneuss on the Occasion of his Sixty-Fifth Birthday, ed. M. Korhammer with K. Reichl and H. Sauer (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 257–62, at 261). R. M. Liuzza’s parallel-text edition of Beowulf cites Robinson in offering the translation ‘he scorned the treasures; he did not know their love’ for line 169, without, however, adopting the proposed emendation (Beowulf: Second Edition, ed. and trans. R. M. Liuzza (Peterborough, Ontario, 2013), pp. 64–5).

7 Damage to the left edge of the folio has partially obscured the d, but the reading, which is supported by the ‘Thorkelin A’ transcription, is not in doubt. For a facsimile of ‘Thorkelin A’, see Electronic Beowulf: Fourth Edition, ed. K. Kiernan (2015) <http://ebeowulf.uky.edu/ebeo4.0/CD/main.html>. I here cite the older foliation employed by both Klaeber’s Beowulf and the Electronic Beowulf.

8 Cf. Bammesberger, ‘Five Beowulf Notes’, p. 246. For examples of scribe A’s treatment of the for- prefix in the folios immediately preceding 133v, see forġeaf (17b; 129r16), forscrifen (106b; 132r14), forwræc (109b; 132r18), forġeald (114b; 132v2). Cf. also R. P. Tripp, Jr.’s argument for the restoration of a putative original reading hāt ne forhogode (for the corrected reading hātne for horde) at 2781a (‘The Restoration of Beowulf 2781a: Hāt ne forhogode (“Did not Despise Heat”)’, MP 78 (1980), 153).

9 Cf., e.g., the words eardode and sweartum, which occur on the preceding two manuscript lines on 133v, each of which shows a similar (or perhaps larger) space following the internal r. Cf. Klaeber’s Beowulf, ed. Fulk et al., p. xxxii. It is of incidental interest that that the transcriber of ‘Thorkelin A’, who knew no Old English and who was working purely on the basis of what they could see in the manuscript, apparently interpreted ‘formeto’ as one word. I am grateful to Dr Rachel Burns for discussion on the interpretation of manuscript spacing.

10 The prepositional phrase for metode, with variant spellings, appears otherwise five times with the sense ‘before God’ (Genesis A 1956a, Christ and Satan 83a, Andreas 924a, Christ III 1559b, The Rhyming Poem 86b). The meaning ‘because of, on account of God’ is not attested elsewhere. The closest parallel for this meaning, noted by the editors of Klaeber’s Beowulf, is Genesis B 359, Satan’s lament over his and his followers’ loss of their heavenly home: ‘wē hine for þām alwaldan āgan ne mōston’ (‘we could not possess it because of the all-ruler [i.e. God]’).

11 Cf. E. B. Irving, Jr., A Reading of Beowulf (New Haven, 1968), pp. 19–20; Robinson, ‘Wræc Micel’, p. 261; J. Neville, Representations of the Natural World in Old English Poetry, CSASE 27 (Cambridge, 1999), 76–7. On the issue of whether Grendel could not or would not approach the ġifstōl, see Robinson, ‘Wræc Micel’, pp. 259–61; S. Ono, ‘Grendel’s Not Greeting the Gifstol Reconsidered – with Reference to *Motan with the Negative’, Poetica 41 (1994), 11–17. For a recent reading of these lines as a divine prohibition, see F. Leneghan, The Dynastic Drama of Beowulf, AS Stud. 39 (Cambridge, 2020), pp. 162–76.

12 Beowulf 170–171a, ‘That was great sorrow, distress of mind, for the lord of the Scyldings.’

13 For Robinson, the wræc miċel referred to here is Hrothgar’s sorrow that ‘Grendel was under no obligation to pay respect to’ the throne (‘Wræc Micel’, p. 262); Roberts, following her interpretation of hē in 168a as a reference to Hrothgar, sees in these lines a reference to the humiliation of a king prevented from accessing his own throne (‘Hrothgar’s Humiliation’, p. 358).

14 Gneuss–Lapidge, ASMss 941 (pp. 682–85), ‘s. x2, SE England (Canterbury StA? Rochester?)’. D. G. Scragg dates the manuscript to ‘c. 975’ (‘The Compilation of the Vercelli Book’, ASE 2 (1973), 189–207, at 201), while E. Treharne argues that the palaeographical evidence suggests that the manuscript was copied ‘earlier rather than later in the period 950–75’ (‘The Form and Function of the Vercelli Book’, Text, Image, Interpretation: Studies in Anglo-Saxon Literature and its Insular Context in Honour of Éamonn Ó Carragáin, ed. A. J. Minnis and J. Roberts, Stud. in the Early Middle Ages 18 (Turnhout, 2007), 253–66, at 254).

15 Andreas 1112b–1116a, ‘The despairing nation was longing for food, there was no joy in treasure for them, no desire for hoarded wealth; they were severely oppressed by hunger, as the cruel enemy of the people ruled.’ Cited from Andreas: an Edition, ed. R. North and M. D. J. Bintley (Liverpool, 2016).

16 On the implications of cannibalism for the construction of Mermedonian identity, see esp. Godlove, S. N., ‘Bodies as Borders: Cannibalism and Conversion in the Old English Andreas ’, SP 106 (2009), 137–60Google Scholar and F. L. Michelet, ‘Eating Bodies in the Old English Andreas’, Fleshly Things and Spiritual Matters: Studies on the Medieval Body in honour of Margaret Bridges, ed. N. Nyffenegger and K. Rupp (Newcastle, 2011), pp. 165–92.

17 The most relevant analogues are the early Greek text (Praxeis) and a Latin adaptation of the legend known as the Recensio Casanatensis. Both texts are cited (with occasional minor changes) from Die lateinischen Bearbeitungen der Acta Andreae et Matthiae apud Anthropophagos, ed. F. Blatt, Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 12 (Giessen, 1930). See also, The Acts of Andrew in the Country of the Cannibals: Translations from the Greek, Latin, and Old English, trans. R. Boenig, Garland Lib. of Med. Lit. 70 (New York, 1991). An Old English prose adaptation of the Acts survives in two manuscript copies: a more complete text in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 198 (311v–316r) and a fragment preserved in the Blickling collection (Princeton, University Library, Scheide Library 71, 136r–139v). This adaptation, which seemingly draws upon a Latin version of the legend less closely related to the putative source of Andreas than either the Recensio Casanatensis or Praxeis, omits almost entirely the section of the legend with which I am concerned here, moving directly from the discovery of the open prison to the appearance of the devil (Bright’s Old English Grammar and Reader, ed. F. G. Cassidy and R. N. Ringler, 3rd ed. (New York, 1971), pp. 203–19, at 213). For more details concerning the relationship between the various analogues, see Andreas, ed. North and Bintley, pp. 4–6.

18 Here and throughout I accept the arguments for the priority of Beowulf both on the grounds of the relative chronology established by R. D. Fulk (A History of Old English Meter (Philadelphia, 1992), pp. 348–92) and on the grounds of the oft-made observation that the parallel phraseology is often metrically, grammatically, or (more subjectively) contextually problematic in Andreas, but not so in Beowulf (see, e.g., A. M. Powell, ‘Verbal Parallels in Andreas and its Relationship to Beowulf and Cynewulf’ (unpubl. PhD dissertation, Cambridge Univ., 2002), pp. 7, 167 and 233–4).

19 The literature on this topic is vast, but see esp. Andreas and The Fates of the Apostles, ed. G. P. Krapp (Boston, 1906), pp. li–lviii; C. Schaar, Critical Studies in the Cynewulf Group, Lund Stud. in English 17 (Lund, 1949), esp. pp. 235–56 and 291–5; Peters, L. J., ‘The Relationship of the Old English Andreas to Beowulf ’, PMLA 66 (1951), 844–63Google Scholar; Andreas and The Fates of the Apostles, ed. K. R. Brooks (Oxford, 1961), pp. xxii–xxvii; E. G. Stanley, ‘Beowulf’, Continuations and Beginnings: Studies in Old English Literature, ed. E. G. Stanley (London, 1966), pp. 104–41, at 110–14; P. Cavill, ‘Beowulf and Andreas: Two Maxims’, Neophilologus 77 (1993), 479–87; A. R. Riedinger, ‘The Formulaic Relationship between Beowulf and Andreas’, Heroic Poetry in the Anglo-Saxon Period: Studies in honor of Jess B. Bessinger, ed. H. Damico and J. Leyerle, Stud. in Med. Culture 32 (Kalamazoo, MI, 1993), 283–312.

20 Especially A. Riedinger, ‘The Poetic Formula in Andreas, Beowulf, and the Tradition’ (unpubl. PhD dissertation, New York Univ., 1985); Powell, ‘Verbal Parallels’; B. Friesen, ‘Visions and Revisions: The Sources and Analogues of the Old English Andreas’ (unpubl. PhD dissertation, Toronto Univ., 2008); A. Orchard, ‘The Originality of Andreas’, Old English Philology: Studies in honour of R. D. Fulk, ed. L. Neidorf, R. J. Pascual and T. Shippey, AS Stud. 31 (Woodbridge, 2016), 331–70.

21 Cf. Rozano-García, F. J., ‘‘Hwǣr is wuldor þīn?’: Traditional Poetic Diction and the Alien Text in the Old English Andreas ’, Peritia 28 (2017), 177–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar; R. North, ‘Meet the Pagans: On the Misuse of Beowulf in Andreas’, Aspects of Knowledge: Preserving and Reinvention Traditions of Learning in the Middle Ages, ed. M. Cesario and H. Magennis, Manchester Med. Lit. and Culture 18 (Manchester, 2018), 185–209; Leneghan, F., ‘The Departure of the Hero in a Ship: the Intertextuality of Beowulf, Cynewulf and Andreas ’, Selim 24 (2019), 105–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar; I. Dumitrescu, ‘Beowulf and Andreas: Intimate Relationships’, Dating Beowulf: Studies in Intimacy, ed. D. C. Remein and E. Weaver, Manchester Med. Lit. and Culture 30 (Manchester, 2020), 257–78.

22 First proposed by Riedinger (‘Poetic Formula’, pp. 190–244; ‘Beowulf and Andreas’), this notion was accepted (cautiously) by Powell (‘Verbal Parallels’, pp. 47–9, 324) and (enthusiastically) by Friesen, who identifies ten passages in Beowulf which appear to have been a particular target for the Andreas-poet’s borrowing (‘Sources and Analogues’, pp. 118–19, 122–41).

23 On the sectional divisions of Andreas, cf. Scragg, ‘Compilation of the Vercelli Book’, 192. I here follow the numbering imposed by North and Bintley in their edition of the poem.

24 The description of Grendel’s raid in lines 115–25 is circumscribed by the repetition of the verb nēos(i)an, first when Grendel ‘seeks’ Heorot (115a) and subsequently when he ‘seeks’ his fenland home once more (125b).

25 The initial account of Grendel’s raid tells us that he seized thirty sleeping Danish thanes (‘on ræste ġenam / þrītiġ þeġna’, 122b–123a). We later learn, however, that he ate fifteen of these men within the hall before departing with the other fifteen corpses (1580–1584a), presumably contained in his mysterious glōf (2085b–2092).

26 Andreas 1067–71, ‘Large companies gathered then, leaders of the people; the troop of the faithless, the heathen warriors, came with weapons to the prison, to where the captives had previously suffered pain in the prison-darkness.’

27 Compare the equivalent passage in the Recensio Casanatensis: ‘Et ecce habierunt carnifices ad carcerem ut producerent quemquam hominem ad escam sibi portandam. Cum autem invenissent eam apertam, et custodes mortuos totidem vero septem, statim abierunt ad principes suos, dixeruntque ad eos, domine, carcerem apertum invenimus, ingressi vero in ea non invenimus quemquam, custodes vero carceris mortui sunt ibi’ (‘And, behold, the executioners had to go to the prison that they might bring forth some person to be carried off as food for them. But when they had found it open, and the self-same seven guards dead, they went at once to their leaders, and said to them: “Lord, we have found the prison open. Truly, entering in we found no one and, truly, the prison guards were there, dead.”’, Bearbeitungen, ed. Blatt, pp. 73–5). For other depictions of gathering forces in Andreas, cf. 41b–47, 125–8, 652–4, 1123b–1125, 1201–05, 1269b–1271, 1636–8. For a ‘mock-heroic’ reading of these passages, see N. Furuta, ‘The Devaluation of Germanic Heroic Tradition in the Old English Poem Andreas’, Multiple Perspectives on English Philology and History of Linguistics: a Festschrift for Shoichi Watanabe on his 80th Birthday, ed. T. Oda and N. Eto, Linguistic Insights 129 (Bern, 2010), 125–56, at 127–34.

28 On the prominence of ‘antithetical variation’ in the Andreas-poet’s allusions to Beowulf, see Friesen, ‘Sources and Analogues’, pp. 107–241.

29 Ringler, R. N., ‘ Him Sēo Wēn Gelēah: the Design for Irony in Grendel’s Last Visit to Heorot’, Speculum 41 (1966), 49–67 Google Scholar.

30 Cf. Elene 148–52. A. Riedinger identifies both Grendel’s return from Heorot and Constantine’s return from battle in Elene as examples of a formulaic theme, ‘the victor returns home with his reward’, which she also detects in Andreas 1698–1701a (‘The Old English Formula in Context’, Speculum 60 (1985), 294–317). The apparent allusion to Beowulf in the Mermedonians’ empty-handed return is, it seems to me, notably non-formulaic.

31 On the widespread use of bodily metaphors in these poems (and in the work of Cynewulf), see H. E. Jagger, ‘Body, Text and Self in Old English Verse: a Study of “Beowulfian” and “Cynewulfian” Rhetoric’ (unpubl. PhD dissertation, Toronto Univ., 2002).

32 Beowulf 154b–160, ‘He did not wish for peace with any man of the Danish force, nor to remove the deadly peril, to settle with money, nor did any counsellor need to expect bright compensation there at the hands of the slayer, but the adversary, the dark death-shadow, continued to persecute the veterans and the youths.’

33 Bearbeitungen, ed. Blatt, p. 77; Acts of Andrew, trans. Boenig, pp. 46–7.

34 Bearbeitungen, ed. Blatt, p. 76; Acts of Andrew, trans. Boenig, pp. 15–16.

35 Bearbeitungen, ed. Blatt, pp. 88–91; Acts of Andrew, trans. Boenig, p. 21.

36 Andreas 1093–1125. For the drowning of the executioners, see Andreas 1591–1595a.

37 Hamilton, D., ‘The Diet and Digestion of Allegory in Andreas ’, ASE 1 (1972), 147–58Google Scholar; Casteen, J., ‘ Andreas: Mermedonian Cannibalism and Figural Narration’, NM 75 (1974), 74–78 Google Scholar; Godlove, ‘Bodies as Borders’, pp. 151–3; North, ‘Meet the Pagans’, pp. 196–7.

38 On the poet’s interest in narrative typology, see, e.g., Hill, T. D., ‘Figural Narrative in Andreas: the Conversion of the Mermedonians’, NM 70 (1969), 261–73Google Scholar; Hieatt, C. B., ‘The Harrowing of Mermedonia: Typological Patterns in the Old English Andreas ’, NM 77 (1976), 49–62 Google Scholar; Walsh, M. M., ‘The Baptismal Flood in the Old English ‘Andreas’: Liturgical and Typological Depths’, Traditio 33 (1977), 137–58Google Scholar; J. W. Earl, ‘The Typological Structure of Andreas’, Old English Literature in Context: Ten Essays, ed. J. D. Niles (Cambridge, 1980), pp. 66–89; Biggs, F. M., ‘The Passion of Andreas: Andreas 1398–1491’, SP 85 (1988), 413–27Google Scholar; Reading, A., ‘Baptism, Conversion, and Selfhood in the Old English Andreas ’, SP 112 (2015), 1–23 Google Scholar.

39 S. Clark, Compelling God: Theories of Prayer in Anglo-Saxon England, Toronto AS Ser. 26 (Toronto, 2018), 22–37.

40 Clark, Compelling God, p. 28. Cf. C. A. Gregory, Gifts and Commodities, 2nd ed. (Chicago, 2015), p. 39.

41 Cf. Bearbeitungen, ed. Blatt, p. 77: ‘dabo inquid vobis pro me filium meum, ad occidendum’ (‘“I will give my son to you,” he said, “to be killed instead of me.”’); ‘habeo inquid filiam meam, et ipsam si vultis dabo vobis, et occidite, tantum dimittite me’ (‘“I have my daughter”, he said, “and, if you wish it, I will give her to you, and you kill her, so long as you release me.”’) [emphasis added].

42 Andreas 1108–1112a, ‘The bold-hearted man then cried out with sorrowful voice, said that he would give his own son, his young offspring, into their possession for enjoyment of life; at once, they gratefully received that gift.’

43 The compound ǣhtgeweald otherwise occurs only in Azarias 26b. Old English poetry other than Beowulf and Andreas is cited from the relevant volume of ASPR.

44 Andreas, ed. North and Bintley, p. 177. In another recent translation, M. Clayton give a similarly explicit translation: ‘in order to save his life’ (Old English Poems of Christ and His Saints, ed. and trans. M. Clayton, Dumbarton Oaks Med. Lib. 27 (Cambridge, MA, 2013), 257).

45 The emphasis on the familial relationship between the man and his son may serve to enhance the symbolic value of the father’s gift. Clark notes that ‘[t]o be truly valuable, gift objects are non-alienable – a high-status gift object carries the identity of its past owners and gains value from that identity’ (Compelling God, p. 29).

46 See, e.g., Beowulf 2149b–2150a; Christ I 373b–377; Exodus 269b–272; Genesis A 1485–1487a, 1754–8, 2920b–2922.

47 Genesis A 2686b–2690, ‘We graciously welcomed you and, in friendly manner, offered you a dwelling-place amongst this people, land for your enjoyment. You now reward us, thank us for these kindnesses, in an unfriendly manner.’

48 ‘Leodum is minum swylce him mon lac gife; / willað hy hine aþecgan, gif he on þreat cymeð’ (Wulf and Eadwacer 1–2, ‘It is to my people as if someone had given them a gift; they intend to welcome/kill him, if he comes amongst the host’). For discussion of these lines, see Baker, P. S., ‘The Ambiguity of Wulf and Eadwacer ’, SP 78 (1981), 39–51 Google Scholar and now Rozano-García, F. J., ‘ Wulf and Eadwacer, Eddic Verse, and Aural Aesthetics’, The Explicator 79 (2021), 60–8Google Scholar.

49 ‘[H]e him dæda lean / georne gieldeð, þam þe his giefe willað / þicgan to þonce’ (Guthlac A 123b–125a, ‘he will gladly grant a reward for their deeds to those who wish to receive his gifts gratefully’). See also Fortunes of Men 75b–76.

50 The half-line duguþ ond geoguþ occurs earlier in Andreas in a similar context, referring to the Mermedonians’ intention to slaughter Matthew and then distribute his body amongst old and young (‘ond þonne tōdǣlan duguðe ond geogoðe’, 152). Elsewhere, this half-line occurs only in Beowulf: first, in a passage from fitt II describing Grendel’s persecution of the community of Danes (160b); second, in alliterative collocation with the noun dǣl, as Wealhtheow gives a portion of the treasure-cup to young and old at the feast following Beowulf’s arrival (‘duguþe ond ġeogoþe dǣl ǣġhwylcne, / sinċfato sealde’, 621–622a); third, after Beowulf’s victory over Grendel’s Mother, when the hero assures Hrothgar that he and all his men might sleep peacefully in Heorot henceforth (1674a).

51 The Latin text, by contrast, specifically states that, after handing over his children, the man is dismissed unharmed (‘ipsum vero dimiserunt inlesum’, Bearbeitungen, ed. Blatt, p. 77).

52 On the representation and signification of treasure more generally in Old English poetry, see A. Faulkner, ‘The Language of Wealth in Old English Literature: From the Conversion to Alfred’ (unpubl. DPhil dissertation, Oxford Univ., 2019), esp. pp. 31–80. I am indebted to Dr Faulkner for discussion on this point.

53 On the meaning of on frætewum here, see Bammesberger, A., ‘The Half-Line Feond on Frætewum (Beowulf 962a)’, NM 99 (1998), 237–9Google Scholar.

54 L. Lockett, ‘The Role of Grendel’s Arm in Feud, Law, and the Narrative Strategy of Beowulf’, Latin Learning and English Lore: Studies in Anglo-Saxon Literature for Michael Lapidge, ed. K. O’Brien O’Keeffe and A. Orchard, 2 vols. (Toronto, 2005) I, 368–88, at 372–5.

55 Here, and at 1584a, the element (-)lāc is sometimes translated ‘booty’ (see, e.g., Klaeber’s Beowulf, ed. Fulk et al., p. 462 s.v. sǣ-lāc; The Beowulf Manuscript, ed. and trans. Fulk, pp. 192–3; Beowulf, ed. and trans. Liuzza, pp. 148–51). Such a translation captures well the body-as-treasure motif employed by the poet, but does not capture the poet’s grimly humorous allusion to gift exchange – an allusion that recalls and might conceivably have motivated the Andreas-poet’s own parodic invocation of gift exchange. Beowulf’s willingness to engage in this unnatural form of exchange might be seen as further evidence of the poet’s exploration of ‘the limits of the human and the monstrous’ ( O’Keeffe, , ‘ Beowulf, Lines 702b–836: Transformations and the Limits of the Human’, Texas Stud. in Lit. and Lang. 23 (1981), 484–94Google Scholar, at 491).

56 Andreas 360b–363, ‘I never heard of a ship more choicely laden with high-treasures. The heroes, glorious princes, fair thanes, sat within.’

57 Beowulf 36b–46, ‘Many a treasure, an ornament, was carried there from far-ways. I never heard of a ship more choicely decked-out with battle-weapons and war-clothing, swords and mailcoats; a multitude of treasures lay on his breast, which had to travel far with him into the flood’s possession. By no means did they furnish him with fewer gifts, royal treasures, than did they who sent him forth in the beginning, alone over the waves, as a child.’

58 On this parallel, see esp. Leneghan, ‘Departure of the Hero’, pp. 120–8. Leneghan points out that the detail discussed here is part of a more extensive thematic formula which he calls ‘the departure of the hero by ship’ found not only in Beowulf and Andreas, but also in the poems of Cynewulf. See also Dumitrescu, ‘Beowulf and Andreas’, p. 264.

59 Bearbeitungen, ed. Blatt, p. 77, ‘Then all the elders of the city, some two-hundred and seven of them, were gathered together and they brought them to council, in order that whichever one upon whom the lot should fall might be their food, and the blood of that same man their drink. Truly, they cast the lot, and it fell upon seven elders.’

60 Andreas, ed. North and Bintley, p. 83.

61 Andreas 1097b–1107, ‘When the nation was all gathered at the assembly place, they let the lot determine between them which one of them first had to give up life as a meal for the others; they cast lots through hellish arts, with heathen practices they determined between themselves. Then the lot turned straight towards one old companion. He was a counsellor to the troop of warriors, at the forefront of the host; quickly then he was fast in fetter-chains, despairing of life.’

62 J. D. Niles has defined ‘ring composition’ as ‘a chiastic design in which the last element in a series in some way echoes the first, the next to the last the second, and so on’; he further notes the tendency for such patterns to centre upon ‘a single kernel, which may serve as the key element’ (‘Ring Composition and the Structure of Beowulf’, PMLA 94 (1979), 924–35, at 924).

63 Beowulf 126–154a, ‘Then before dawn in the early hours Grendel’s war-craft was revealed to men; then was weeping raised up after the feast, a great morning-song. The illustrious leader, the proven noble, sat, unhappy, the powerful one suffered, endured thane-sorrow, after they examined the tracks of the enemy, of the cursed spirit; that conflict was too harsh, hostile and lasting. It was not a longer space of time, but after one night he again performed more slaughter, feud and crime, and did not regret it. Then that one was easily found who sought a bed for himself amongst the sleeping quarters, a more distant resting place elsewhere, when the hall-thane’s hate was made clear to him, declared truly with a clear sign; he kept himself thereafter further off and safer, who escaped that enemy. So [Grendel] reigned and strove against justice, alone against all, until the best of houses stood empty. That was a long time; for the space of twelve winters the lord of the Scyldings suffered hardship, each type of misery, of great sorrows. Therefore it became evident to the children of men, revealed and known through sorrowful songs, that Grendel fought with Hrothgar for a long time, carried out acts of hateful violence, crime and feud, for many a season, continuous strife.’

64 The noun swēġ is used in the poem to describe the characteristic sounds of the hall – either the background noise of feasting (644a, 1214b, and in the compound benċswēġ at 1161a) or, more specifically, music and song (89b, 1063a, 2458b and 3023b). Its use here in the unique compound morgenswēġ appears to draw metaphorically on the latter connotations. A comparable usage occurs at line 782b (swēġ up āstāg), where Grendel’s cries of anguish are described metaphorically and parodically as a ‘song of terror’ (gryrelēoð, 785a) and a ‘victoryless song’ (siġēlēasne sang, 787a).

65 Irving likewise notes the ‘state of helpless inaction’ afflicting the Danes in this passage, ‘conveyed through many images of sitting, suffering, enduring, looking, thinking’ (Reading, p. 96). The inverted repetition of line 137a (fǣhðe ond fyrene) at 153a (fyrene ond fǣhðe) does not seem to form a part of this pattern, unless perhaps it is intended to link the ending of the two chiastically arranged sections which surround the central movement of the passage. The half-line is recalled later in the poem, first during the account of the adventures of Sigemund and again during Beowulf’s own account of the feud between the Geats and the Swedes (2480a). Cf. A. Orchard, A Critical Companion to Beowulf (Cambridge, 2003), p. 109.

66 The alliterative linking of hell(-) and hǣþen(-) within a single line is, perhaps surprisingly, rare in Old English verse, being restricted to this example from Andreas and two examples in Beowulf (179 and 852), the first of which occurs during the account of Danish idolatry discussed below.

67 Here and elsewhere, the poet appears to pun upon the nouns hearh (‘idol’) and here (‘armed force’). Cf. Andreas, ed. North and Bintley, p. 274, n. to line 1124. On Mermedonian idol worship, cf. lines 1687–94.

68 Beowulf 175–178a, ‘At times they offered sacrifices in idol-shrines, asked with words that the slayer of souls should offer them assistance against the affliction of the nation.’

69 The editors of Klaeber’s Beowulf note that the Beowulf-poet’s depiction of the pre-Christian Germanic societies ‘makes no mention of the more lurid aspects of Germanic paganism, such as human sacrifice’ (p. lxxiv). The Andreas-poet’s introduction of such a motif apparently in response to the account of Danish idolatry thus offers a surprising parallel to the reception of the poem in modern cinema, in which human sacrifice is a near-ubiquitous feature. Cf. N. Haydock, ‘Making Sacrifices’, in N. Haydock and E. L. Risden, Beowulf on Film: Adaptations and Variations (Jefferson, NC, 2013), pp. 81–118. The same impulse has been evident in some scholarly responses to Beowulf, such as A. Hardy’s suggestion that Unferth’s role in the society of Heorot is that of a pagan priest, sacrificing his brothers in an attempt to propitiate Grendel (‘The Christian Hero Beowulf and Unferð Þyle’, Neophilologus 53 (1969), 55–69).

70 Grendel is termed a dolscaða (479a), a hearmscaða (766a), a lēodsceaða (2093b), a mānsceaða (712a and 737b), a scynscaða (707a), and a synscaða (801b). The dragon is an āttorsceaða (2839a), a gūðsceaða (2318a), a mānsceaða (2514b), and an ūhtsceaða (2271a). Additionally, Grendel’s Mother is called a mānsceaða (1339a) and the sea-monster that attacks Beowulf in the Breca episode a fēondscaða (554a). Elsewhere in Andreas, the unique compounds folcsceaða (1593a) and fyrnsceaða (1346a) are used to describe the Mermedonian executioners and the devil respectively, while lēodsceaða (80a) is used to describe the Mermedonian people as a whole. In both poems, the use of -sceaða compounds apparently serves to demonize the individual(s) thus described. The word þēodsceaða appears in other verse and prose texts as well, but whereas the first element usually serves to magnify the second (‘arch-oppressor’), in both Beowulf and Andreas the full meaning ‘oppressor of the nation’ is required. Cf. Andreas, ed. North and Bintley, p. 273, n. to line 115.

71 The verb rīcsian occurs only here in Andreas and in Beowulf only to describe Grendel’s unjust rule in Heorot and the dragon’s tyranny, the latter placed in direct opposition to Beowulf’s just rule (2208b–2213a).

72 Beowulf 178b–88, ‘Such was their custom, the hope of heathens; they remembered hell in their hearts. They did not know the creator, the judge of deeds, nor did they comprehend the lord God, nor indeed did they know to praise the protector of heaven, the ruler of glory. It will be woe for those who, through cruel enmity, must shove their soul into the fire’s embrace, expect no comfort, any reversal; it will be well for those who might seek the Lord after the day of death and entreat for protection in the Father’s embrace.’ The Andreas-poet apparently borrows the reference to Danish habitual paganism in line 178b when first describing the equally habitual cannibalism of the Mermedonians (swelc wæs þēaw hira, 25b). Cf. North, ‘Meet the Pagans’, pp. 187–8; Rozano-García, ‘Traditional Poetic Diction’, p. 185.

73 Bearbeitungen, ed. Blatt, pp. 77–9, ‘But when they led them to that place in order to kill them, the children began to cry most bitterly, writhing in supplication at the feet of the executioners, entreating them and saying: “We beg you and entreat you, that you take pity on our youth. Do not kill us now, for we are children. Send us away for a while, so that we may grow fully, and then kill us.”’

74 Bearbeitungen, ed. Blatt, pp. 76–8; Acts of Andrew, trans. Boenig, pp. 15–16.

75 Andreas 1126–1131a, ‘Then the youth, bereft of friends, bound before the idol, began to sing a harm-song with a sorrowful voice, to implore peace; the wretch could not find in that people the grace, protection, that would grant him life, his existence.’

76 The poet’s choice of vocabulary may have been influenced by Cynewulf’s description of the devil who accosts the imprisoned saint in Juliana (cf. lines 244b–246, 418a, 615 and 629).

77 On the importance of the Harrowing as a touch-point for the typological structure of the poem, see Hieatt, ‘Harrowing of Mermedonia’.

78 The presentation of the youth’s pleas invites comparison with two other moments in the poem, likewise imbued with typological significance, in which first Matthew and then Andrew (both, like the youth, held captive by the Mermedonian people) offer up a petition for help. During his initial incarceration, Matthew, awaiting the ‘harrowing’ of the Mermedonian prison, weeps weary tears (wēregum tēarum, 59b) and, speaking with a sorrowful voice (sārgan reorde, 60b; geōmran stefne, 61b), asks grace from God (forgif mē tō āre, 76a); in response, Matthew receives a pledge of peace (sybbe under swegle, 98a) from a heavenly voice. In a later section of the poem, following three days of torture at the hands of the cannibals that represent his own imitatio Christi, Andrew calls to God from captivity with a holy voice (‘heard of hæfte, hālgan stefne’, 1399); weeping (wēop wērigferð, 1400) and sad at mind (geōmormōd, 1398a), he is likewise promised peace (friðe, 1432b) and protection (mundbyrde, 1433a). The comparison of these similar situations – pointed up by verbal echoes – reinforces the point that the youth, unlike the saints but like the pagan Danes, does not know where his true succour lies.

79 Cf. Bearbeitungen, ed. Blatt, pp. 78–9; Acts of Andrew, trans. Boenig, pp. 16 and 47.

80 Andreas 1150b–1154, ‘Thanks be to God, the Lord of lords, for all things, because he gives justice to every person who wisely seeks assistance from him; unending peace is always ready there for the one who knows how to find it.’

81 The Beowulf-poet’s emphasis on Danish ignorance also finds a pointed parallel in fitt X of Andreas. Whereas in Beowulf the Danes are said to consider what counsel might be best for them in the face of Grendel’s persecution (‘rǣd eahtedon, / hwæt swīðferhðum sēlest wǣre’, 172b–173), the starving Mermedonians know no better counsel (‘nyston beteran rǣd’, 1088b) than to consume the bodies of the dead gaolers. This half-line from Andreas closely resembles the statement in the Old English Daniel that the people of Babylon ‘knew no better counsel’ (‘ne wiston wræstran ræd’, 182b) when they undertook to worship the idol of Dura. On the similarities between the Daniel-poet’s account of Babylonian idol worship and the account of Danish paganism in Beowulf, see Thomas, P. G., ‘‘Beowulf’ and ‘Daniel A’’, MLR 8 (1913), 537–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; A. Orchard, ‘Beowulf’, The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature, ed. M. Godden and M. Lapidge, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 2013), pp. 137–58, at 152–4.

82 Cf. P. Cavill, Maxims in Old English Poetry (Woodbridge, 1999), pp. 22, 104–5 and 184–5.

83 E.g. the end of fitts I (118–21), II (225–9), and IX (1053b–7). Several fitts end with similar didactic comments voiced by one or other character within the narrative: e.g. fitts V (595–600), VIII (947b–9), and XV (1717–22).

84 Andreas 1155–62, ‘Then was weeping raised up in the dwellings of men, the loud tumult of the army; the messengers shouted, decried the lack of food, they stood, weary, constrained by hunger. The gabled-buildings, the wine-halls, stood desolate; men did not enjoy the use of wealth in that bitter time. Men of cunning thought sat apart in council, pondered their misery; there was no joy in that homeland for them.’

85 Beowulf 128–129a, ‘Then was weeping raised up after the feast, a great morning-song.’

86 Beowulf 144–146a, ‘So [Grendel] reigned and strove against justice, alone against all, until the best of houses stood empty.’

87 Beowulf 171b–174, ‘Often many a powerful one sat in council; they pondered a course of action, what might be best for the stout-hearted ones to do against the sudden assaults.’

88 Bearbeitungen, ed. Blatt, pp. 78–9; Acts of Andrew, trans. Boenig, pp. 16 and 47.

89 Andreas, ed. North and Bintley, p. 275, n. to line 1160b.

90 Beowulf 189–93, ‘So then the son of Healfdene continually brooded over the sorrow of the moment; the wise man could not remove that woe; that conflict was too great, hostile and lasting, which came upon the people, the cruel persecution, the most severe of nocturnal attacks.’

91 The editors of Klaeber’s Beowulf note the tendency, here and elsewhere in the poem, to begin a fitt with what they call a ‘resumptive paragraph’ (Klaeber’s Beowulf, p. xxxv).

92 For full details, see Powell, ‘Verbal Parallels’, pp. 325 and 273, 276 and 279–80. The only parallel identified by Powell which appears in both passages under consideration here is the echo of Beowulf 128b in Andreas 1155a (discussed above).

93 Cf. M. Lapidge, ‘The Archetype of Beowulf’, ASE 29 (2000), 5–41.

94 L. Neidorf, The Transmission of Beowulf: Language, Culture, and Scribal Behaviour (Ithaca, 2017), p. 157.

95 Ibid. pp. 62–8. On the phrase for metode, see above, n. 10. Cf. Beowulf 489b, where the scribal form meoto has been variously understood as either an error for *meota (‘think’), an imperative form of the same rare verb stem found in *formetian, or as a form of a related and equally rare noun *me(o)tu (‘thought’). See further, Bammesberger, ‘Five Beowulf Notes’, p. 274, n. 31; Klaeber’s Beowulf, ed. Fulk et al., pp. 147–8, n. to lines 489bf.; Tolkien, Beowulf, p. 251.

96 E. G. Stanley, ‘Unideal Principles of Editing Old English Verse’, PBA 70 (1984), 231–73, at 257.

97 See, e.g., M. Lapidge, ‘Textual Criticism and the Literature of Anglo-Saxon England’, Textual and Material Culture in Anglo-Saxon England: Thomas Northcote Toller and the Toller Memorial Lectures, ed. D. Scragg (Woodbridge, 2003), pp. 107–36, at 129–30; L. Neidorf, ‘Scribal Errors of Proper Names in the Beowulf Manuscript’, ASE 42 (2013), 249–69, at 267–8 and Transmission of Beowulf, pp. 31–2; R. J. Pascual, ‘On a Crux in Beowulf: the Alliteration of Finite Verbs and the Scribal Understanding of Metre’, SN 87 (2015), 171–85, at 181–2 and ‘Bliss’s Rule and Old English Metrics’, ANQ 32 (2019), 209–12, at 210.

98 Neidorf, e.g., suggests that Stanley’s comments on the linguistic competence of scribes ‘effaces diachronic and dialectal variation’ and that ‘[a] modern editor trained in historical linguistics, metrics, and dialectology could be in a much better position to understand the language of Beowulf than a late scribe whose knowledge of Old English was synchronic, provincial, and unaided by scholarly resources’ (Transmission of Beowulf, p. 32). Cf., however, Stanley’s observation that justifiable instances of textual emendation ‘arise from the fact that the editor goes first to his grammar, his dictionary, and now his concordance, as well as to similar aids for the related languages’ and that ‘[t]he editor’s peculiar learning may give him greater knowledge of idiom no longer current in the scribe’s time’ (‘Unideal Principles’, p. 257).

99 Stanley, ‘Unideal Principles’, p. 257.

100 In addition to the studies cited above, see particularly the following studies by A. Orchard: ‘Rereading The Wanderer: the Value of Cross-Reference’, Via Crucis: Essays on Medieval Sources and Ideas in Memory of J. E. Cross, ed. T. N. Hall with T. D. Hill and C. Wright, Med. European Stud. 1 (Morgantown, 2002), pp. 1–26; ‘Both Style and Substance: the Case for Cynewulf’, Anglo-Saxon Styles, ed. C. E. Karkov and G. H. Brown (New York, 2003), pp. 271–305; ‘Computing Cynewulf: the Judith-Connection’, The Text in the Community: Essays on Medieval Works, Manuscripts, Authors, and Readers, ed. J. Mann and M. Nolan (Notre Dame, IN, 2006), pp. 75–106; ‘The Dream of the Rood: Cross-References’, New Readings in the Vercelli Book, ed. S. Zacher and A. Orchard (Toronto, 2009), pp. 225–53.

101 Tolkien, J. R. R., ‘ Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics’, PBA 22 (1936), 245–95Google Scholar, at 284, n. 34 and 288.

102 Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg, ed. F. Klaeber, 3rd ed. with first and second supplements (Boston, 1950), p. 135, n. to lines 168f; Beowulf, ed. C. L. Wrenn, 3rd ed. rev. by W. F. Bolton (London, 1973), pp. 103–4, n. to lines 168–9 (see also pp. 64–5).

103 D. Whitelock, ‘The Audience of Beowulf’ (Oxford, 1951), pp. 77–8; T. D. Hill, ‘The Christian Language and Theme of Beowulf’, Companion to Old English Poetry, ed. H. Aertsen and R. H. Bremmer (Amsterdam, 1994), pp. 63–77, at 68–9. In defence of the integrity of the excursus, see esp. A. G. Brodeur, The Art of Beowulf (Berkley, LA, 1959), pp. 186–208; A. P. Campbell, ‘The Time Element of Interlace Structure in Beowulf ’, NM 70 (1969), 425–35Google Scholar; Wentersdorf, K. P., ‘ Beowulf: the Paganism of Hrothgar’s Danes’, SP 78 (1981), 91–119 Google Scholar; Cavill, Maxims, pp. 99–105. For examples of uneasiness concerning the tone of the excursus, see E. B. Irving Jr., ‘Christian and Pagan Elements’, A Beowulf Handbook, ed. R. E. Bjork and J. D. Niles (Exeter, 1997), pp. 175–92, at 178 and Reading, 97–8; Orchard, Critical Companion, pp. 152–3; D. Anlezark, ‘Old English Epic Poetry: Beowulf’, A Companion to Medieval Poetry, ed. C. J. Saunders (Oxford, 2010), pp. 141–60, at 142.

104 Brooks (Andreas and Fates of the Apostles, pp. xviii–xxii), R. Boenig (Saint and Hero: Andreas and Medieval Doctrine (London, 1991), pp. 21–3), and North and Bintley (Andreas, pp. 97–115) all argue for a date of composition in the second half of the ninth century. Fulk (Old English Meter, esp. pp. 61–4, 348–51) would place the composition of the poem before the middle of the ninth century.

105 Tolkien, e.g., seems to have favoured the view that at least part of the excursus, together with lines 168–9 and ‘Hrothgar’s Sermon’ (on which, see the following note), were interpolations or expansions made to the text by the poet Cynewulf (Beowulf, pp. 311 and 185). Though highly speculative, the suggestion does highlight the possibility that the poem that survives today may contain alterations or additions to the original text which were nevertheless part of the text known to the Andreas-poet. If these passages do indeed represent the work of Cynewulf, their presence in the text known to the Andreas-poet would not be altogether surprising, given the poet’s evident affinity with the Cynewulf canon.

106 For an argument that these lines support instead a late date for the composition of the poem as a whole, see J. D. Niles, Beowulf: the Poem and its Tradition (Cambridge, MA, 1983), pp. 93–5 and Old English Heroic Poems and the Social Life of Text, Stud. in the Early Middle Ages 20 (Turnhout, 2007), 33. For a related argument about the poet’s presentation of ‘virtuous’ pagans, see R. Frank, ‘The Beowulf Poet’s Sense of History’, The Wisdom of Poetry: Essays in Early English Literature in honor of Morton W. Bloomfield, ed. L. D. Benson and S. Wenzel (Kalamazoo, MI, 1982), pp. 53–65, at 60–1. Lapidge (‘Archetype’, pp. 38–40) has similarly argued that parts of Hrothgar’s ‘sermon’ (particularly lines 1761–68) incorporate tenth-century homiletic interpolations; in response, see Neidorf, L., ‘The Language of Hrothgar’s Sermon’, SN 91 (2019), 1–10 Google Scholar. Recently discovered evidence for an Old English homiletic text dating to the ninth century has, in any case, thrown into question the assumption that the vernacular homiletic tradition flourished only from the tenth century: see D. Scragg, ‘A Ninth-Century Old English Homily from Northumbria’, ASE 45 (2016), 39–49.

107 L. Neidorf, ‘The Archetype of Beowulf’, ES 99 (2018), 229–42 and Transmission of Beowulf. See also, Goering, N., ‘Metrics, Scribes, and Beowulf: a Response to Neidorf (2017), The Transmission of Beowulf’, Neophilologus 103 (2019), 115–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 121.

108 Klaeber’s Beowulf, ed. Fulk et al., pp. xxxiii–xxxv.

109 Fulk, R. D., ‘The Origin of the Numbered Sections in Beowulf and in Other Old English Poems’, ASE 35 (2006), 91–109 Google Scholar. See also, S. C. Thomson, Communal Creativity in the Making of the Beowulf Manuscript: Towards a History of Reception for the Nowell Codex (Leiden, 2018), pp. 239–43.

110 Fulk, ‘Numbered Sections’, pp. 108 and 104.

111 Ibid. p. 105.

112 E. Carrigan, ‘Structure and Thematic Development in Beowulf’, Proc. of the R. Irish Acad. 66C (1967), 1–51, esp. 4–6; Roberts, ‘Hrothgar’s Humiliation’; H. Damico, Beowulf and the Grendel-kin: Politics and Poetry in Eleventh-Century England, Med. European Stud. 16 (Morgantown, 2015), pp. 102–51. Damico, arguing for the origins of Beowulf in the early eleventh century, reads fitt II as a poetic response to the Danish attacks of the 1003–16. Her argument is thus at odds with my own understanding of the likely origins of Beowulf and its relationship to Andreas – though it is not impossible, of course, that an eleventh-century audience might have seen potential for political allegory in the early part of Beowulf.

113 Andreas, ed. North and Bintley, pp. 62–3.

114 Fulk, by contrast, identifies three occasions in Andreas in which the placement of the sectional divisions seems to him ‘clumsy’ or ‘obscure’ and suggests that the existing fitt-divisions of Andreas may be non-authorial (‘Numbered Sections’, p. 107).

115 Powell, ‘Verbal Parallels’, p. 234; Friesen, ‘Sources and Analogue’, pp. 125–6, 235–6; Orchard, ‘Originality’, pp. 347–8.

116 The Andreas-poet’s use of a written text of Beowulf has been argued, on different grounds, by both Riedinger, (‘Beowulf and Andreas’, esp. pp. 285, 304–5) and C. B. Kendall (‘Literacy and Orality in Anglo-Saxon Poetry: Horizontal Displacement in Andreas’, JEGP 95 (1996), 1–18).

117 My use of the term ‘copresence’ draws upon G. Genette’s discussion of transtextuality (Palimpsests: Literature in the Second Degree, trans. C. Newman and C. Doubinsky (Lincoln, NA, 1997), pp. 1–2). I am grateful to Francis Leneghan for drawing my attention to this useful term (cf. ‘Departure of the Hero’, p. 107).

118 For a robust statement of this spiritual crisis, see E. G. Stanley, ‘Hæthenra Hyht in Beowulf’, Studies in Old English Literature in honor of Arthur G. Brodeur, ed. S. B. Greenfield (Eugene, 1963), pp. 104–41.

119 Cf. Hamilton, ‘Diet and Digestion of Allegory’, p. 154.

120 B. Mize, Traditional Subjectivities: the Old English Poetics of Mentality, Toronto AS Ser. 12 (Toronto, 2013), 27–8.

121 North, ‘Meet the Pagans’, pp. 185, 205.

122 Ibid. p. 198.