The Supernatural in Beowulf - Essay Example

Mark Question Question2 November 4th 2006 The Supernatural in Beowulf For scholars of Old English, the historical and geographical context of Beowulf is a mystery: it appears to be both out of time and out of place. Those scholars generally accept that the only extant manuscript of the poem was written down in the late tenth century at a time when the country was still battling Viking invaders. The language used is the dialect of Wessex, the south and south-western areas of England. Beowulf recounts epic tales in the life of a hero from among the Geats (a seafaring tribe from central, southern Sweden) which take place not in England but in Denmark. Given that it is probably the poem was orally handed down before the manuscript was written, the story could have originated with the Danish settlers. Why then did this foreign story about the ancestors of the then current invaders come to be a foundation stone of English literature? The answer is that then and now the poem captures its readers by the creative imagination applied to an absorbing subject – a heroic battle between human good and supernatural evil, a subject which transcends cultures. Beowulf tells the story of a heroic warrior of the same name who kills Grendel, a monstrous being terrorizing his King’s great meeting hall. When Grendel’s mother takes revenge for this death, Beowulf seeks her out and slays her, bringing peace to the land. He returns in triumph to his own home where in due course he becomes king and rules for fifty years. In his old age, Beowulf slays and is slain by a dragon which has lain peacefully asleep in its lair for three hundred years until disturbed by a human thief. Grendel, Grendel’s mother and the dragon are three embodiments of supernatural powers. The supernatural is introduced early in the poem. “Then a powerful demon, a prowler through the dark, nursed a hard grievance. It harrowed him to hear …. The clear song of a skilled poet telling with mastery of man’s beginnings, how the Almighty had made the earth …. in His splendor. He set the sun and moon to be earth’s lamplight, lanterns for men….” (Beowulf, ll. 86-95, translated by Seamus Heaney) In the next few lines the poem describes Grendel as a ‘fiend from hell’, a descendant of the Biblical character, Cain from whom “there sprang ogres and elves and phantoms and the giants who strove with God.” (ibid 111-112) This early in the poem the author sets a theme which will be reinforced. The good (personified in Beowulf) is given Christian concepts to express even though he is not explicitly described as Christian. But this is not a poem about or especially steeped in Christianity. It is about the weakness of men in the face of the evil which surrounds them, and about a hero’s battle to save others from the supernatural terrors which embody that evil. One of the most powerful passages in Beowulf describes how under the attacks of Grendel over twelve years the Danes revert to their pagan ways. “Sometimes at pagan shrines they vowed offerings to idols, swore oaths that the killer of souls might come to their aid and save the people. That was their way.” (ll,175-8) There’s a tone through the poem which suggests that the power of Christianity is not as deep-rooted as is the belief in the supernatural powers of the shines and places of the old pagan world that lie all around the people. References to Christianity are almost formulaic while the poetry is at its finest in the descriptions of the monsters and their environment. It has been suggested that there is Christian symbolism to be seen in Beowulf’s descent into the Grendels’ lair - a descent into hell. The Christian Hell was a fiery pit for damned souls, which are clearly absent in this story. More germane is the fact that the monsters are amphibious creatures, inhabiting a deeply hidden watery lair that humans cannot penetrate, yet the creatures are able to freely maraud on land. Lakes and the sea figure widely throughout the poem. They teem with unknown and dangerous creatures. Grendel and his mother strike at night. It is in the dark that evil comes alive. Fear of the dark is deeply embedded in mankind. Light is associated with peace, good and warmth; dark with the unknown, fear and evil. When Grendel’s mother is killed – “A light appeared and the place brightened the way the sky does when heaven’s candle is shining clearly.” (ll. 1570-2) There are significant differences between the first monsters Beowulf fights and the last one. At first the supernatural forms that evil takes are close to human. (ll. 1345-55) The descriptions are anthropomorphic, as though the monsters are lumbering, malformed giants. While they have supernatural strength this is matched by the physical power of Beowulf. With one important exception, both the good and evil forces act in similar ways: they inhabit mighty halls; they seek to destroy the other’s great building and they mutilate the dead they have killed. The great exception is the monsters’ cannibalism. Grendel and his mother gorge on human flesh. The dragon is different. It is in no way human in appearance and it does not eat human flesh. It attacks only after being it has been provoked, but once this has happened it continues to kill over and again. The dragon is a winged snake, a fire-breathing monster whose breath of fire burns and poisons its victims. Like both Grendel and Grendel’s mother, it hides by daylight and attacks at night. Grendel and his mother are foreign monsters. Beowulf seeks them out to win honour and glory for himself: it’s a career move. But the dragon is part of his homeland where it has lain asleep for centuries. It becomes a threat when Beowulf has ruled his people for fifty years and is old and nearing death. It is a force that descends to bring to an end the long period of Geat glory, to cause the death of their king and to foreshadow war and decline against the Swedes. Two thirds of the way through his work the poet switches from the glory and honour of the life of Beowulf to preparing the saddened hero and his audience for his noble but ominous death. At his first heroic encounters Beowulf states that he is prepared to die, but death was yet not his fate. Now it is different. “The veteran king sat down on the cliff-top…. ….He was sad at heart, unsettled yet ready, sensing his death. His fate hovered near, unknowable but certain. (ll. 2415-21) Later, at his funeral a woman foresees the future: “A Geat woman too sang out in grief; with hair bound up, she unburdened herself of her worst fears, a wild litany of nightmare and lament: her nation invaded, enemies on the rampage, bodies in piles, slavery and abasement.” (ll. 3150-55) The dragon brings his fate. Fate is supernatural, beyond the control of even Beowulf. The fate of man or monster is within the hand of the Almighty. “But the Lord was weaving a victory on His war-loom for the Weather-Geats…. ….The truth is clear: Almighty God rules over mankind and always has.” (ll. 696-702) The death of Hygelac, a king of the Geats is described in Beowulf. Since this is believed to be a historical event that took place in AD 521, it can be deduced that the events of the poem took place at a time when Christianity was well-established but within a world where pagan beliefs still existed. In particular it is evident that the association of places with spirit forces was still powerful. In this poem, these spirits are all malevolent. The supernatural associations with places are evil, explicitly anti-god if not anti-Christ. Although supernatural evil can invade the homes of men in the dark of night, its embodiments retreat to distant, little-known places, windswept crags, misty moors, mountains, and bottom-less lakes. These are places that terrify the natural world: “At night there, something uncanny happens: the water burns….. On its bank the heather-stepper halts: the hart in flight from pursuing hounds will turn to face them with firm-set horns and die in the wood rather than dive beneath its surface.” (ll.1366-1372) It can be argued that it is the monsters of Beowulf are not themselves intrinsically supernatural. It is the distant, unknown, dark and frightening places that lie on the edges of the known world which are beyond what is known as ‘natural’. The poet of Beowulf applies his creative skills to fashion monsters to embody the fear which will thrill his audience which itself lives close to the edge of the known natural world. Read More