First, can you recommend a Beowulf translation? (The Bear sounds terrific but my list of language projects is too long).
Second, it's fascinating what folks pick up from the Bible. In Jewish tradition, Og King of Bashan survived the flood. Perkei diRabbi Eliezer (the chapters of Rabbi Eliezer, 28) relates:
"And Noah only was left, and they that were with him in the ark" (Genesis 7:23.), except Og, king of Bashan, who sat down on a piece of wood under the gutter of the ark. He swore to Noah and to his sons that he would be their servant forever. What did Noah do? He bored an aperture in the ark, and he put (through it) his food daily for him, and he also was left, as it is said, "For only Og, king of Bashan, remained of the remnant of the giants" (Deut. 3:11).
Hi Adam! I'd recommend getting started with Howell Chickering's translation of Beowulf. It strikes the right balance between readability and giving a good sense of how the Old English is working.
And that's extremely interesting, re: Og! I had not heard that tradition before. Maybe Og belongs in Grendel's genealogy as well.
It's so tempting to translate that "eotenas ond ylfe ond orcnēas" with Tolkien's "middle-earth races" now a-day. Although, I had assumed the Eotenas would be what he used for Ents -- for no good reason really. Probably best to avoid and just give it a nod like you did. I think it's kind of cool though that Beowulf gave us our modern word "orc", though.
I wasn't aware of that blood drinking prohibition, but yeah, that would make Grendel all the more horrifying.
Another thought I had about the whole Flood thing, is that "monsters" like Grendel and his mother, (and their ancestors presumably), being water dwelling, had a loop hole to escape being destroyed by the flood stream. Of course, that wouldn't explain the Dragon.
On a totally unrelated note, it seems that the Anglo Saxons must have thought that 30 was an impressive but still believable quantity. I recall Beowulf was said (I think by Hrothgar) to have the strength of 30 people, that Grendel seized 30 thanes (on his first raid on Heorot), that Beowulf escaped the Frisians on Hygelac's ill-fated raid against them by swimming away with 30 mail shirts, and I think there's a couple of more references I saw, but they might not be all in Beowulf.
Not to worry, Tolkien did get "ent" from Old English as well. It's another word for 'giant' — used in phrases like "eald enta ġeweorc" 'the old work of giants'.
Good point, re: 'thirty'! I'd be interested to see if anyone's explored the use of thirty in Beowulf and beyond.
Great article. I never put the fratricide element together. That makes total sense. Have you seen/read The Troll Inside You? That’s a good look at the topic in the Sagas.
One thing I keep coming back to is that very question of categorization. I'm inclined in my own reading/writing to be wary of over-categorizing - I don't want to give the impression that I'm trying to create a definitive taxonomy of OE monsters like some early modern scientist - but you're right when you say that categorization was something medieval people did, too.
Of course this is complicated by the fact that OE covers centuries and different regions, and the various writers may well have had different opinions on how close a eoten was to a gigant, etc.
If nothing else, it's at least good to know that when we try to ask these questions, we're not alone - the writers of the period were probably doing a bit of work to answer them as well!
Right! I'm sure that most mediaeval people, even the more scholarly, weren't exactly taxonomic in their thinking in the way a modern biologist would be. But, nevertheless, they did seem to be animated by the quest to place these anomalies into their idea of how the world works, which, as you point out, is exactly the spirit that animates so many of our inquiries as well!
There were two scribes who worked on the only surviving beowulf manuscript that we have. One made constant errors that were constantly corrected and at one point the more profecient scribe just takes over the project. Also, the Beowulf poem is actually probably not taking the position that Grendel Preexists the flood. The poem is heavily influenced by the Enochic tradition which explains why nephalim exist after the flood, and it's not because they just survived the flood. Rather it has to do with certain sexual rituals which took place after the flood, which is why the giants still exist after the flood in the Bible, most famous being Goliath. Last point, the prohibition on drinking blood isn't just an old testament thing (the article seems to allow this reading) but is explicitly banned in Acts when it describes the counsel of Jerusalem.
As one who taught Beowulf to HS seniors (or at least attempted to), this is a most interesting article. For fun, you might want to listen to Benjamin Bagby reciting the poetry in its original language. You can find him on Youtube.
One of the first books that my siblings and I read as kids was about dragons and beasts in folklore from around the world. Literally decades later, I still think back about it.
I came across your Twitter thread about Beowulf's dragon, and that led me here. I've never heard about the Liber Monstrorum, the 8th Century manuscript about monsters, until you mentioned it. Thank you for sharing this rich backstory.
Cool article! Thank you! I really enjoyed that! Yes, as underwater dwellers (somebody has already pointed out in this thread), Grendel could have survived the flood. So interesting to read. I do think the Medieval culture gets a bad rap.
First, can you recommend a Beowulf translation? (The Bear sounds terrific but my list of language projects is too long).
Second, it's fascinating what folks pick up from the Bible. In Jewish tradition, Og King of Bashan survived the flood. Perkei diRabbi Eliezer (the chapters of Rabbi Eliezer, 28) relates:
"And Noah only was left, and they that were with him in the ark" (Genesis 7:23.), except Og, king of Bashan, who sat down on a piece of wood under the gutter of the ark. He swore to Noah and to his sons that he would be their servant forever. What did Noah do? He bored an aperture in the ark, and he put (through it) his food daily for him, and he also was left, as it is said, "For only Og, king of Bashan, remained of the remnant of the giants" (Deut. 3:11).
Hi Adam! I'd recommend getting started with Howell Chickering's translation of Beowulf. It strikes the right balance between readability and giving a good sense of how the Old English is working.
And that's extremely interesting, re: Og! I had not heard that tradition before. Maybe Og belongs in Grendel's genealogy as well.
thanks for the recommendation. Maybe there's a new field - comparative giantology/monsterology
It's so tempting to translate that "eotenas ond ylfe ond orcnēas" with Tolkien's "middle-earth races" now a-day. Although, I had assumed the Eotenas would be what he used for Ents -- for no good reason really. Probably best to avoid and just give it a nod like you did. I think it's kind of cool though that Beowulf gave us our modern word "orc", though.
I wasn't aware of that blood drinking prohibition, but yeah, that would make Grendel all the more horrifying.
Another thought I had about the whole Flood thing, is that "monsters" like Grendel and his mother, (and their ancestors presumably), being water dwelling, had a loop hole to escape being destroyed by the flood stream. Of course, that wouldn't explain the Dragon.
On a totally unrelated note, it seems that the Anglo Saxons must have thought that 30 was an impressive but still believable quantity. I recall Beowulf was said (I think by Hrothgar) to have the strength of 30 people, that Grendel seized 30 thanes (on his first raid on Heorot), that Beowulf escaped the Frisians on Hygelac's ill-fated raid against them by swimming away with 30 mail shirts, and I think there's a couple of more references I saw, but they might not be all in Beowulf.
Not to worry, Tolkien did get "ent" from Old English as well. It's another word for 'giant' — used in phrases like "eald enta ġeweorc" 'the old work of giants'.
Good point, re: 'thirty'! I'd be interested to see if anyone's explored the use of thirty in Beowulf and beyond.
Great article. I never put the fratricide element together. That makes total sense. Have you seen/read The Troll Inside You? That’s a good look at the topic in the Sagas.
Thank you! I hadn't hear of the Troll Inside You but I'll check it out — looks very pertinent!
I remember learning about Beowulf as a kid in school, it was always a favourite of mine. I loved this deep dive!
Thank you! It's a poem that I find almost inexhaustible in how often you can come back to it and still get something new each time.
Interesting topic!
One thing I keep coming back to is that very question of categorization. I'm inclined in my own reading/writing to be wary of over-categorizing - I don't want to give the impression that I'm trying to create a definitive taxonomy of OE monsters like some early modern scientist - but you're right when you say that categorization was something medieval people did, too.
Of course this is complicated by the fact that OE covers centuries and different regions, and the various writers may well have had different opinions on how close a eoten was to a gigant, etc.
If nothing else, it's at least good to know that when we try to ask these questions, we're not alone - the writers of the period were probably doing a bit of work to answer them as well!
Right! I'm sure that most mediaeval people, even the more scholarly, weren't exactly taxonomic in their thinking in the way a modern biologist would be. But, nevertheless, they did seem to be animated by the quest to place these anomalies into their idea of how the world works, which, as you point out, is exactly the spirit that animates so many of our inquiries as well!
Superb insights! Thank you!
Thank you!
There were two scribes who worked on the only surviving beowulf manuscript that we have. One made constant errors that were constantly corrected and at one point the more profecient scribe just takes over the project. Also, the Beowulf poem is actually probably not taking the position that Grendel Preexists the flood. The poem is heavily influenced by the Enochic tradition which explains why nephalim exist after the flood, and it's not because they just survived the flood. Rather it has to do with certain sexual rituals which took place after the flood, which is why the giants still exist after the flood in the Bible, most famous being Goliath. Last point, the prohibition on drinking blood isn't just an old testament thing (the article seems to allow this reading) but is explicitly banned in Acts when it describes the counsel of Jerusalem.
As one who taught Beowulf to HS seniors (or at least attempted to), this is a most interesting article. For fun, you might want to listen to Benjamin Bagby reciting the poetry in its original language. You can find him on Youtube.
This is fascinating.
One of the first books that my siblings and I read as kids was about dragons and beasts in folklore from around the world. Literally decades later, I still think back about it.
I came across your Twitter thread about Beowulf's dragon, and that led me here. I've never heard about the Liber Monstrorum, the 8th Century manuscript about monsters, until you mentioned it. Thank you for sharing this rich backstory.
Cool article! Thank you! I really enjoyed that! Yes, as underwater dwellers (somebody has already pointed out in this thread), Grendel could have survived the flood. So interesting to read. I do think the Medieval culture gets a bad rap.