Monsters and Criminals:
Defining Humanity in Old English Poetry
Jennifer Neville
A modern dictionary defines a monster as something that exceeds the norm: a ‘monster fish’ is
one bigger than usual, a monstrous storm is an unprecedented one, and a monster is a creature with
terrifying powers.1 The Anglo-Saxons did not possess modern dictionaries, but they did have access
to Augustine, Isidore, and Pliny, three acknowledged experts on monsters. Anglo-Saxon monsters,
however, are not simply translated or transplanted from these authorities—not in their vernacular
poetry, at least. In the investigation that follows I shall briefly summarise some of the ideas that the
Anglo-Saxons inherited regarding monsters and then consider the ways in which Old English poets
defined their own. I shall argue that in Old English poetry a monster is someone who inverts (and
thus defines) humanity so as to threaten society.
The most prestigious of the Anglo-Saxons’ sources for ideas about monsters is probably Book
16 of Augustine’s De civitate Dei.2 Augustine provides a rather cagey3 definition of what constitutes
a monster as he seeks to answer the question of whether or not races with single eyes or feet turned
backward are descendants of the sons of Noah:
Quaeritur etiam, utrum ex filiis Noe uel potius ex illo uno homine, unde etiam ipsi extiterunt,
propagata esse credendum sit quaedam monstrosa hominum genera, quae gentium narrat historia, sicut perhibentur quidam unum habere oculum in fronte media, quibusdam plantas
uersas esse post crura.... Quid dicam de Cynocephalis, quorum canina capita adque ipse
latratus magis bestias quam homines confitetur? Sed omnia genera hominum quae dicuntur
1
See, for example, Funk and Wagnalls Standard College Dictionary (Toronto: Fizthenry and Whitside, 1982), s.v. monster. Cf.,
however, the fuller range of meanings adduced in The Oxford English Dictionary, eds J. A. Simpson and E. S. C. Weiner, 2nd edn, 20
vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989).
2
See discussion of the privileged use of Augustine as opposed to classical sources like Virgil by the author of the Liber monstrorum in
Andy Orchard, Pride and Prodigies: Studies in the Monsters of the Beowulf-Manuscript (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1995), pp. 89-94.
Augustine admits that he concludes pedetemtin cauteque ‘cautiously and guardedly’ (De civitate Dei XVI.viii). Citations from De
civitate Dei are taken from De civitate Dei contra Paganos Libri XXII, ed. J. E. C. Welldon, 2 vols (London: Macmillan, 1924). All
translations are my own.
3
1
esse, credere non est necesse. Verum quisquis uspiam nascitur homo, id est animal rationale
mortale, quamlibet nostris inusitatam sensibus gerat corporis formam seu colorem siue motum
siue sonum siue qualibet ui, qualibet parte, qualibet qualitate naturam: ex illo uno protoplasto
originem ducere nullus fidelium dubitauerit. Apparet tamen quid in pluribus natura obtinuerit
et quid sit ipsa raritate mirabile. (De civitate Dei XVI.viii)
[It is also asked whether it is to be believed that certain races of monstrous men which history
describes are descended from the sons of Noah—or, rather, from that one man from whom indeed these men arose. For instance, it is said that one kind has a single eye in the middle of its
forehead, [while] one has its feet backwards behind its legs…. What should I say about the
Cynephali, whose dog-heads and barking reveal them to be beasts rather than men? But it is
not necessary to believe in all the races of men which are said to exist. Truly anyone born a
man anywhere, that is, a rational, mortal animal, however unfamiliar to our senses the shape
of the body he bears, or his colour or his motion or his sound or his nature in whatever force,
part, or quality, no one of the faithful could doubt that he derives his origin from that one protoplast. Nevertheless, it is obvious what nature prevails among many and what is extraordinary because of its rarity.]
Augustine’s answer is primarily a definition of what is human; a human being is an animal rationale mortale ‘a rational, mortal animal’. After considering a number of monstrous races, including hermaphrodites, mouthless men, Pigmies, and Skipodes, his conclusion is that:
aut illa, quae talia da quibusdam gentibus scripta sunt, omnino nulla sunt; aut, si sunt, homines non sunt; aut ex Adam sunt, si homines sunt. (De civitate Dei XVI.viii)
[Either these things which have been written about certain races do not exist at all, or, if they
do, they are not men; conversely, if they are men, they are descendants of Adam.]
This definition offers two criteria for defining a monster or human being, both of which are not easy
to determine: whether the creature is descended from Adam and whether it is rational.
Book 11 of Isidore’s Etymologiae offers a different kind of definition, based primarily on the
etymological meaning of the word for ‘monster’:
DE PORTENTIS. Portenta esse Varro ait quae contra naturam nata videntur: sed non sunt contra
naturam, quia divina voluntate fiunt, cum voluntas Creatoris cuiusque conditae rei natura sit.
Vnde et ipsi gentiles Deum modo Naturam, modo Deum appellant. Portentum ergo fit non
contra naturam, sed contra quam est nota natura. Portenta autem et ostenta, monstra atque
2
prodigia ideo nuncupantur, quod portendere atque ostendere, monstrare ac praedicare aliqua
futura videntur. (Etymologiae XI.iii)4
[Concerning portents: Varro said that portents are things which are born against nature, but
they are not against nature, because they are made by divine will, since the will of the Creator
and of hidden matter is nature. For this reason the gentiles sometimes called God ‘Nature’,
and sometimes ‘God’. Therefore a portent does not come into being against nature, but
against the nature that is known. Portents, wonders, monsters, and prodigies are called as they
are because they are seen to portend, show, demonstrate, and predict future things.]
Monsters are signs or portents; they demonstrate and portend the future. As such, the question of
whether they are human or not is irrelevant; what matters is that they are both unusual and meaningful. Isidore thus juxtaposes human-like and clearly bestial monsters without comment,5 and, although he does not always explain how or what these monsters mean, 6 it is clear that monsters are
specifically designed by God to indicate important future events.
Pliny, on the other hand, appears to question, or, at least, side-step Isidore’s assertion of the
portentous possibilities of monsters. He states that, although one might think that the monstrous
races are portentous because of their strangeness, they are in fact merely part of the wonderful
variety of nature:
Et de universitate quidem generis humani magna ex parte in relatione gentium diximus. neque
enim ritus moresque nunc tractabimus innumeros ac totidem paene quot sunt coetus hominum; quaedam tamen haud omittenda duco, maximeque longius ab mari degentium, in quibus
prodigiosa aliqua et incredibilia multis visum iri haud dubito. quis enim Aethiopas antequam
cerneret credidit? aut quid non miraculo est cum primum in notitiam venit? quam multa fieri
non posse priusquam sunt facta iudicantur? naturae vero rerum vis atque maiestas in omnibus
momentis fide caret si quis modo partes eius ac non totam conplectatur animo…. (Historia
naturalis VII.i.6)7
4
Citations from the Etymologiae are taken from Etymologiarum sive Originum Libri XX, ed. W. M. Lindsay, 2 vols (1911; Oxford:
Clarendon, 1971).
5
He includes Alexander, for example, among minotaurs, cyclops, and satyrs.
Cf. Susan M. Kim, ‘Man-Eating Monsters and Ants as Big as Dogs: The Alienated Language of the Cotton Vitellius A.XV "Wonders
of the East", in Animals and the Symbolic in Mediaeval Art and Literature, ed. L. A. J. R. Houwen (Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 1997),
pp. 39-51 at 42.
6
7
Citations from the Historia naturalis are taken from Pliny: Natural History, ed. Harris Rackham, Loeb Classical Library 352
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1942).
3
[Also about the human race in general I have spoken at length in the section on races. And I
will not now touch on their habits and customs, as they are innumerable, almost as many as
there are human societies. Still, I think there are some which must not be left out, especially
of those peoples who are farther from the sea, among whom, I have no doubt, there are some
things which to many will appear prodigious and unbelievable. For who believed in the Ethiopians before seeing them? Or what isn’t miraculous when it first becomes known? How
many things are judged impossible before they are (actually) accomplished? Truly, the force
and grandeur of nature lacks credibility at every turn if one comprehends only its parts and
not the whole.]
Pliny thus does not attempt to distinguish between ‘people’ and ‘monsters’; all are part of a universe
that defies the belief of those who do not know it in all its variety. Contemplating the monstrous
races serves to demonstrate nature’s power rather than fortell future events:
Haec atque talia ex hominum genere ludibria sibi, nobis miracula, ingeniosa fecit natura. et
singula quidem quae facit in dies ac prope horas quis enumerare valeat? ad detegendam eius
potentiam satis sit inter prodigia posuisse gentes. (Historia naturalis VII.ii.32)
[Ingenious Nature has made these and similar (examples) from the races of men as sport for
herself and wonders for us. And who indeed is able to enumerate the individual things which
she does in a day and almost hourly? It is enough to reveal her power to have presented these
races among her wonders.]
For Pliny, then, the monstrous races are not really monsters at all; they are simply human beings
with characteristics and customs that have not previously been witnessed.
Despite their evident differences, all three of these sources refer to the same kinds of creatures. In fact, examining the three together makes for monotonous reading, since one invariably
reads about the same series of dog-headed monsters, Ethiopians, hermaphrodites, and fauns, over
and over again. Although I have grossly simplified the accounts of these important authors, I shall
not delve further into them here.8 What is important for the present investigation is that all of these
sources—and thus these different definitions of monsters—were available to the Anglo-Saxons.9
For further discussion of these authors in the context of medieval ideas about monsters, see Rudolf Wittkower, ‘Marvels of the East:
A Study in the History of Monsters’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institute 5 (1942), 159–97; John Block Friedman, The
Monstrous Races in Medieval Art and Thought (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981); William E. Brynteson, ‘Beowulf,
Monsters, and Manuscripts: Classical Associations’, Res Publica Litterarum: Studies in the Classical Tradition 5 (1982), 41–57; Kim,
‘Man-Eating Monsters’, pp. 39-51.
8
9
The many manuscripts of Augustine’s writings surviving from this period are testament to his popularity—see Helmut Gneuss, ‘A
4
The question that I would like to address is whether these definitions are of any help in coming to
terms with monsters in Old English poetry—not whether we can trace signs of, for example,
knowledge of Pliny in Beowulf, but whether these definitions of monsters are shared by Old English
poets.
I believe that, whatever other influence these authoritative sources may have had, their definitions of monsters do not contribute to the definition of monsters in Old English poetry. 10 Even Augustine’s flexible criteria are not met by the monsters that stalk the Anglo-Saxon landscape: Grendel
and his mother must surely be considered monsters, but they are also clearly descendants of Adam
through Cain and so human—not monsters—according to Augustine’s guidelines.11 It might be
argued that Grendel and his mother exemplify Augustine’s other criterion regarding a lack of rationality, but the presence of that criterion would be difficult to sustain given the poet’s comments on
Grendel’s thoughts, simple as they are,12 and his mother’s entirely human desire for vengeance.13
Isidore’s definition of monsters as portents is even more difficult to locate in Old English
poetry.14 Hrothgar’s comments on Grendel in his ‘sermon’ to Beowulf (Beowulf, lines 1700-84)15
Preliminary List of Manuscripts Written or Owned in England up to 1100’, Anglo-Saxon England 9 (1981), 1–60. Isidore and Pliny were
also available to the Anglo-Saxons, at least to Aldhelm and Bede; see the detailed notes provided by Rudolf Ehwald (Monumenta
Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi 15) and C.W. Jones (Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 123A) respectively. All these
sources are used in the Liber monstrorum; see Orchard, Pride and Prodigies, pp. 318–20.
Thus, for example, the depiction of Grendel has a very different effect from the ‘reassurance’ provided by monster catalogues. For
discussion of this reassuring effect, see Bruno Roy, ‘En Marge du Monde Connu: Les Races de Monstres’, in Aspects de la Marginalité
au Moyen Age, eds Guy-H. Allard et al. (Montreal: L’Aurore, 1974), pp. 71–80, and Kim, ‘Man-Eating Monsters’, p. 40. For discussion
of Grendel’s rather different effect, see Alain Renoir, ‘Point of View and Design for Terror in Beowulf’, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen
63 (1962), 154–67, and Michael Lapidge, ‘Beowulf and the Psychology of Terror’, in Heroic Poetry in the Anglo-Saxon Period: Studies
in Honor of Jess B. Bessinger, Jr., eds Helen Damico and John Leyerle, Studies in Medieval Culture 32 (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval
Institute, 1993), pp. 373–402.
10
The size of the body of criticism arguing for Grendel’s humanity suggests in itself the poem’s ambiguity on this point. See, for
example, Wayne Hanley, ‘Grendel’s Humanity Again’, In Geardagum 11 (1990), 5–13; Joseph L. Baird, ‘Grendel the Exile’,
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 67 (1966), 375–81; Stephen C. Bandy, ‘Cain, Grendel, and the Giants of Beowulf’, Papers on Language
and Literature 9 (1973), 235–49 at 241–2; Raymond P. Tripp, ‘Grendel Polytropos’, In Geardagum 6 (1984), 43–69 at 45; Katherine
O’Brien O’Keeffe, ‘Beowulf, lines 202b–836: Transformations and the Limits of the Human’, Texas Studies in Literature and Language
23 (1981), 484–94 at 486; Alexandra Hennessey Olsen, ‘The Aglaeca and the Law’, America Notes & Queries 20 (1982), 66–68 at 66–7.
11
For example, his mod ahlog; / mynte…’his mind laughed; he intended....’ (lines 730a–31b); Grendel is even capable of forseeing his
own imminent death: wiste þe geornor, / þæt his aldres wæs ende gegongen ‘he knew the more readily that he had reached the end of his
life’ (lines 821b–22). All citations from Beowulf are taken from Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg, ed. Friedrich Klaeber, 3rd edn with
first and second supplements (1922; Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath and Co., 1950). Citations from other Old English poems are taken
from The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, eds G. P. Krapp and E. V. K. Dobbie, 6 vols (New York: Columbia University Press, 1931–42).
12
Cf. Keven S. Kiernan, ‘Grendel’s Heroic Mother’, In Geardagum 6 (1984), 13–33; Orchard, Pride and Prodigies, p. 30; Edward B.
Irving, Jr., A Reading of Beowulf (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), p. 114.
13
14
There is one obvious place to find portentous creatures in Old English poetry: the translations of the Physiologus. Here the poet is
clearly concerned to describe ‘natural’ phenomena which are meaningful, and so we might label the whale, panther, and partridge as
‘monsters’ in the Isidorian sense. These translations of texts from the Greek tradition may be the exception that proves the rule, however,
for they do not offer any criteria for identifying monsters as opposed to animals, much less for distinguishing between human beings and
monsters: the Physiologus interprets all creatures as signs, as monstra, even common, domestic animals like dogs.
15
or discussion of this ‘sermon’, see, for example, Elaine Tuttle Hansen, ‘Hrothgar’s “Sermon” in Beowulf as Parental Wisdom’,
5
could indicate that Grendel was seen as a portent: Hrothgar warns against succumbing to pride and
then describes his own bliss and downfall, thus perhaps implying that Grendel represents a punishment for his pride.16 This ‘meaning’ for Grendel is never stated explicitly, however, and there are
problems with it—not the least being the moral status of Beowulf’s freeing of Hrothgar from this
presumably just punishment.17 Even more tellingly, the dragon is left uninterpreted within the poem.18 The dragon means the end of Beowulf’s illustrious career and Geatish society, but it is never
labelled as such.
In addition, while Isidore’s criterion that monsters be unusual suits Grendel and his mother
well, it disqualifies what would otherwise seem to be a good candidate for monster-hood: the þyrs
in Maxims II, 19 which lurks in the fens like Grendel and Guthlac’s demons.20 I shall return to the
þyrs later; for now it is enough to note that, according to Maxims II, a þyrs lurking in a fen is not in
any way unusual. Indeed, it is as natural, necessary, and perhaps even as common for a þyrs to live
in the fens as it is for a fish to live in water:
Fugel uppe sceal
lacan on lyfte.
Leax sceal on wæle
mid sceote scriðan.. Scur sceal on heofenum,
winde geblanden,
in þas woruld cuman.
þeof sceal gangan þystrum wederum.
Þyrs sceal on fenne gewunian
ana innan lande. (Maxims II, lines 38b-43a)
[The bird must play up in the air. The salmon must glide in the pool with the trout. The shower in the heavens, blended by the wind, must come into this world. The thief must travel in
dark weather. The giant must dwell in the fen, alone in the land.]
Anglo-Saxon England 10 (1982), 53–67.
16
Cf., for example, Margaret E. Goldsmith, The Mode and Meaning of ‘Beowulf’ (London: Athlone, 1970), pp. 176–7.
Not all critics have seen a problem in this; see, for example, Fidel Fajardo-Acosta, ‘Intemperance, Fratricide, and the Elusiveness of
Grendel’, English Studies 73 (1992), 205–10.
17
18
The dragon has, of course, been interpreted extensively by critics. For some extreme examples of critical interpretation, see, for
example, Edward L. Risden, Beasts of Time: Apocalyptic Beowulf (New York: Peter Lang, 1994), Raymond P. Tripp, Jr., More About
the Fight with the Dragon: Beowulf 2208b-3182, Commentary, Edition, and Translation (Lanham: University Press of America, 1983),
and Tomoaki Mizuno, ‘Beowulf as Terrible Stranger’, Journal of Indo-European Studies 17 (1989), 1–46.
19
See Maxims II, line 42b.
See Beowulf, lines 102–4a: wæs se grimma gæst Grendel haten, / mære mearcstapa, se þe moras heold, / fen ond fæsten ‘the grim
spirit was named Grendel, the famous boundary-walker who held the moors, the fen and the stronghold’. Note that Grendel is also called
a þyrs (line 426a). Cf. Guthlac A, lines 296–98.
20
6
In this context it is hardly surprising that Maxims II offers no interpretation for any of its creatures:
something as common as a fish living in water or a þyrs living in a fen cannot be portentous.
Pliny’s evident delight in nature’s strange abundance is similarly absent from Old English
poetry. While Aldhelm’s popular riddle collection suggests that the Anglo-Saxons may have agreed
with the splendour of nature in general,21 their vernacular poetry tends not express this enthusiasm,
especially when dealing with creatures like Grendel. Grendel is in no way an interesting and wonderful thing; the poet states explicitly that Beowulf ne his lifdagas leoda ænigum / nytte tealde ‘did
not consider [Grendel’s] life useful to any of the people’ (lines 793–94), and that no his lifgedal /
sarlic þuhte secga ænegum, ‘[Grendel’s] division from life did not seem sorrowful to any of the
men’ (lines 841a–42). Beowulf’s dragon may be an exception to this lack of interest and appreciation:
Nalles æfter lyfte lacende hwearf
middelnihtum,
maðmæhta wlonc
ansyn ywde, ac he eorðan gefeoll
for ðæs hildfruman hondgeweorce. (Beowulf, lines 2832–35)
[Not at all afterward could the dragon move playing through the air in the middle of the night,
or, proud in its treasures, show its shape, but rather it fell on the earth because of the handwork of this warrior.]
It is possible to find in this description a tinge of regret for the death of a magnificent creature. On
the other hand, the reference to the dragon’s pride suggests that this description might more profitably be compared with the grim satisfaction of The Battle of Brunanburh than the exultant wonder of
Pliny’s Historia naturalis: just as the Vikings and Scots had no need to boast of their ‘play’ with
Æthelstan and Edmund,22 so the dragon could no longer boast of its treasures. The description of the
disposal of the dragon likewise suggests that the poet’s attitude toward it may be summed up with
‘good riddance’ and that regret may be a modern rather than an Anglo-Saxon response: the poet
Aldhelm seeks to put forward the rerum...enigmata clandestina ‘secret mysteries of things’ (Verse Prologue, lines 7–8), which he
draws from a variety of natural, literary, and manufactured objects; he ends his collection with a celebration of Creatura ‘Creation’ as a
whole. For texts of Aldhelm’s Prologue and riddles, see Enigmata ex diversis rerum creaturis composita, ed. Rudolf Ehwald,
Monumenta Germaniae Historica, pp. 99–149. The extensive Old English glosses that accompany the riddle on Creatura suggest that
this topic was particularly interesting to the Anglo-Saxons—see Nancy Porter Stork, Through a Gloss Darkly: Aldhelm’s Riddles in the
British Library MS Royal 12.C.xxiii (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1990), p. 73.
21
…hreman ne þorfte… Gelpan ne þorfte ‘he had no need to boast…he had no need to exult’ (The Battle of Brunanburh, lines 39b,
44b).
22
7
notes that, after the Geats gaze upon the syllicra wiht ‘strange creature’ (line 3038b) lying dead
beside their lord, they shove it over the edge of the cliff with no more ceremony than Beowulf
showed to the nine niceras ‘sea-monsters’ left washed up on the shore (lines 565–67) after his
youthful swimming competition against Breca.
In sum, it is difficult to see traces of these authoritative definitions of monsters in Old English
poetry, despite the fact that they were known. For the rest of this paper, I shall attempt to determine
what criteria are used to define monsters in these texts. For argument’s sake, I shall assume that the
dragon, Grendel, and his mother are monsters. I shall begin by proposing some reasons for considering them monsters and then turn to other entities with similar characteristics—other ‘creatures’
that we might call Old English monsters.
Much has been said about the differences between Beowulf’s early and late monster-fights,
but here I would like to focus on what the Grendels and the dragon share. Grendel, his mother, and
the dragon are fitting opponents for Beowulf and so help to define him as a hero.23 They are also too
much for a normal person to deal with and uncommon to the point of singularity. These are important points. They may be necessary characteristics for monsters. I would like to argue, however,
that a different kind of characteristic is more crucial, namely that human society could not safely
allow either the Grendels or the dragon to be ‘left alone’, as a wolf or bear could be. Monsters
intrude into and threaten human society. This is important: monsters do not threaten individuals
only, but society as a whole.
The social dimension of the monsters’ threat has been commented on many times before, as
has the fact that Grendel and the dragon incorporate parodies or negative images of human society.24 The dragon, first of all, is characterised by his anti-social greed. Since the heroic society depicted in Old English poetry depends upon the exchange of movable property to establish and maintain bonds between men,25 a king is obliged to keep wealth in motion.26 The ritual of the gift-giving
23
Cf. my Representations of the Natural World in Old English Poetry, Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England 27 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 129-38.
They literally make physical and give a body to the absence of positive traits. Cf. the discussion in Ian Duncan, ‘Epitaphs for
Æglæcan: Narrative Strife in Beowulf’, in Modern Critical Interpretations: Beowulf, ed. Harold Bloom (New York: Chelsea House,
1987), pp. 111–30 and Irving, A Reading of Beowulf, p. 15.
24
25
This is true not only of relationships between men, of course; the husband-wife relationship was also cemented with the exchange of
wealth: Cyning sceal mid ceape cwene gebicgan ‘the king must buy a queen with property’ (Maxims I, line 81). Thus a queen is goldcovered (Beowulf, l. 614a, Husband’s Message, line 14a), and treasure is said to be fitting on a woman (Maxims I, lines 125-26). For
discussion of the place of the gold-covered queen in heroic poetry, see Hugh Magennis, Images of Community in Old English Poetry,
Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England 18 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 106–10.
8
cements society together and represents the human relationships that grant joy and security. The
dragon, on the other hand, takes and keeps treasure out of circulation. He thus attacks heroic culture
at its centre: he sits on the life-blood of society. His anti-social actions do not end there, of course,
since he also destroys the hall, the symbolic and physical focus of society.27 Finally, and most importantly, he kills the king, the linch-pin of society and its primary defender.28
The cup that was stolen from the dragon may also be significant in the dragon’s characterisation. A cup is not a random piece of treasure; drinking from the king’s cup is paramount to making a
pledge to him,29 and a cup is thus an emotive symbol of joyful hall-life and heroic society in general.30 This cup was intended to enter into the circle of exchange that bound society together: it was
meant to reinstate the slave back into society, to reconcile him with his lord.31 Though the text is
fragmented and difficult to follow at this point, it appears that the cup did in fact have the desired
effect. The cup changed hands at least once and ended up where it should have been, in the hands of
the king. The dragon, however, prevents the cup from recreating and reinforcing the bonds of society. In fact, he reverses the effect that the exchange of treasure should have had, and thus the cup
results in the destruction of society, not its reaffirmation.
Grendel proves to be an even more fruitful source of negative images. 32 The terms used in
Beowulf to describe Grendel suggest opposition to and negation of human expectation or hope.
Thus the race of Cain to which he belongs is not a positive, fruitful line (a tudor), but rather untydras ‘evil progeny’ (line 111a). His eyes are like an unfæger ‘un-fair’ light (line 727b); his nails are
unheoru ‘not gentle’ (l. 987a); he murders unwearnum and unmurnlice, both ‘without hindrance’
The Beowulf-poet notes approvingly that Scyld Scefing’s son does what a young prince should do (i.e. reward his followers with
gifts), and, more importantly, that Hrothgar beot ne aleh, beagas dælde, / sinc æt symle, ‘did not leave his boast unfulfilled, but rather
shared out rings and treasure at the feast’ (Beowulf, lines 20–21a and 80–81a).
26
Cf. Magennis, Images of Community, pp. 35–42; Kathryn Hume, ‘The Concept of the Hall in Old English Poetry’, Anglo-Saxon
England 3 (1974), 63–74.
27
Words like helm ‘covering’, eodor ‘enclosure’, and hleo ‘shelter’ are used in poetry almost exclusively in a metaphorical way, to
refer to kings as protectors of social groups. See Peter Clemoes, ‘“Symbolic” Language in Old English Poetry’, in Modes of
Interpretation in Old English Literature: Essays in Honour of Stanley B. Greenfield, eds Phyllis Rugg Brown, Georgia Ronan Crampton,
and Fred C. Robinson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986), pp. 3–14 at 8.
28
29
Fred C. Robinson, Beowulf and the Appositive Style (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1985), pp. 75–76.
30
Cf. Magennis, Images of Community, pp. 42–48.
31
Ibid., pp. 72–73.
32
The following two paragraphs follow closely the argument in chapter 3 of my Representations of the Natural World.
9
and ‘unmourningly’ (line 741b).33 In all, he is a creature of unhælo (line 120b)—a creature both
unhealthy in himself and unhealthy for those around him.
Yet Grendel is called a healðegn a ‘hall-thegn’, like those who have drunk from the king’s
cups. Although it may be dangerous to place too much emphasis on a word whose authority has
been questioned,34 attempting to see Grendel in the role of a thegn reveals that he is to a great extent
a parody of the normal human member of society—or, better, a negation of that norm.35 Many
critics have argued that the designation of Grendel as a healðegn indicates his envious desire to be a
member of society;36 his actions, including his unsuccessful attempts to approach the gifstol or
throne, can thus be seen as grotesque attempts to imitate social behaviour. 37 Similarly, Grendel rules
the fens like a perverse king and, for twelve years, Heorot as well; he also possesses a sele ‘hall’ of
his own in which there are weapons and treasure,38 but if this is an attempt to imitate Heorot, it is a
dark reflection, for, this is a lonely, dangerous place, a niðsele ‘battle hall’ (line 1513a), an inversion
of the safety of the communal hall in which resides the friendly company that Wealhtheow describes.39 She says:
Her is æghwylc eorl
modes milde,
oþrum getrywe,
mandrihtne hold,
þegnas syndon geþwære,
33
þeod ealgearo.... (Beowulf, lines 1228–30)
Cf. Irving, A Reading of Beowulf, p. 15.
34
The unexpectedness of this description of Grendel has led some critics to doubt the authority of this word. Some, including
Trautmann, Sedgefield, and Holthausen, have suggested that helðegn is more logical, as it echoes the earlier description of Grendel as a
feond on helle ‘enemy in hell’ (line 101b); conversely, some have argued for emending the earlier line to feond on healle ‘the enemy in
the hall’. See ASPR IV, p. 123.
35
Irving, Reading of Beowulf, p. 18. Cf. Magennis, Images of Community, p. 62.
Harry Berger, Jr. and H. Marshall Leicester, Jr., ‘Social Structure as Doom: The Limits of Heroism in Beowulf’, in Old English
Studies in Honour of John C. Pope, eds Robert B. Burlin and Edward B. Irving, Jr. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974), pp. 37–
79 at 52. See also Joyce Hill, ‘Figures of Evil in Old English Poetry’, Leeds Studies in English 8 (1975), 5–19 at 10; Joseph L. Baird,
‘“For metode”: Beowulf 169’, English Studies 49 (1968), 418–23 at 423.
36
37
Although I assume that it is Grendel who cannot approach the gifstol, there are other possible interpretations; it has been argued that
it is Hrothgar who cannot approach his own throne. For discussion, see Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur, The Art of Beowulf (1959; Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1960), pp. 200–05; Robert M. Estrich, ‘The Throne of HrothgarBeowulf, ll. 168–169’, Journal of
English and Germanic Philology 43 (1944), 384–89; Stanley B. Greenfield ‘“Gifstol” and Goldhoard in Beowulf’, in Old English Studies
in Honour of John C. Pope, eds R. B. Burlin and Edward B. Irving, Jr. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974) pp. 107–17 at 110–
12; Arthur E. Du Bois, ‘Gifstol’, Modern Language Notes 69 (1954), 546–49; Robert Howren, ‘A Note on Beowulf 168–69’, Modern
Language Notes 71 (1956), 317–18; David Clipsham, ‘Beowulf 168–169’, In Geardagum (1974), 19–24; R. E. Kaske, ‘The Gifstol Crux
in Beowulf’, Leeds Studies in English 16 (1985), 142–51.
38
Paul Beekman Taylor, ‘Grendel’s Monstrous Arts’, In Geardagum 6 (1984): 1–12 at 3.
For Wealtheow’s role in the representation of this ideal society, see M. J. Enright, ‘The Lady with a Mead-Cup: Ritual, Group
Cohesion and Hierarchy in the Germanic Warband’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien 22 (1988), 170–203. Cf. also J. M. Hill, The Cultural
World in Beowulf (Toronto, Buffalo, NY, and London: University of Toronto Press, 1955), pp. 100–04.
39
10
[Here each man is true to each other, mild of heart, loyal to the lord; the thegns are harmonious, the people all willing.]
Grendel, of course, is in no way ‘mild of heart’ or ‘harmonious’; he is an atol angengea ‘a terrible
solitary walker’ (line 165a) whose mind appears perpetually reþe ‘fierce’ (lines 122a). In addition,
unlike Wealtheow’s loyal thegns, Grendel never renders tribute to Hrothgar after his war-like raids
as a thegn should do40; instead, he strives against him (lines 151b–52a), stands ana wið eallum
‘alone against them all’ (line 145a), and, instead of being ‘true’ to members of society, he kills and
eats them.
This consumption, like the dragon’s cup, may have far-reaching implications. Warriors who
have served their king well, who have fulfilled the agreements that sustain society, should receive a
reverent burial. The men who fall defending Hrothgar’s hall, however, receive no burial at all, no
public affirmation: they are, on the contrary, literally ‘incorporated’ into a negative, anti-social
entity.41 The issue of cannibalism is too complex to do justice to it here, but what is critical is not
nutrition but the maintenance and regeneration of social order.42 On a very simple level, social
taboos, like those banning the consumption of certain things, are what define ‘us and them’; Grendel’s violent breaking of this very basic taboo threatens the stability of the society defined by it. On
a literary theoretical level, Grendel’s entry into the hall and physical incorporation of other hallthegns into himself43 threatens to break down what Derrida considers the most basic of the binary
oppositions that constitute society, that between inside and outside.44 On an anthropological level,
human beings both accuse others of cannibalism and engage in it themselves in a ritual struggle
against the forces of chaos, animality, destruction, and darkness.45 On a psychological level, Freud
argues that human beings control their primal disposition to aggression by directing their hostility
outwards; those who reside beyond their own social boundaries are seen as cannibals but also as
40
Hill, ‘Figures of Evil’, p. 10.
Cf. Robinson’s discussion in his Beowulf and the Appositive Style (p. 62): ‘The term “uncuðne nið” [line 276b] is vague: unusual war?
unheard-of affliction? strange persecution? The appositive phrase gives shocking clarification, for “hynðu ond hrafyl” [line 277a] would
seem to mean "humiliating injury and cannibalism". Scholars seem heretofore to have taken the hapax legomenon hrafyl as a compound
made up of hraw and fiell and to mean “the falling of corpses” or, vaguely, “death, slaughter.” But the element fyl should probably be
understood not as a form of fiell but rather of fyll, “feast, satiety, fill,” hrafyl meaning “feasting on human bodies,” or “cannibalism.” The
bodies of the Danes whom Grendel had been seizing in Heorot did not, strictly speaking, “fall,” but rather the monster snatched them up
and gorged on them. (The element fyll is used repeatedly in the poem to describe Grendel’s grisly feasting on slain victims: cf. lines 125
[wælfylle], 734 [wistfylle], and 1333 [fylle].) It is this characteristic that makes his attacks so “strange” (uncuð) and, to a people given
to reverent burial customs, an abasement (hynðu)’.
41
42
Peggy Reeves Sanday, Divine Hunger: Cannibalism as a Cultural System (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), p. 3.
43
Note that he also usurps their title as healðegnas.
44
Jacques Derrida, Dissemination, trans. Barbara Johnson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), p. 103.
45
Sanday, Divine Hunger, p. 6.
11
victims worthy of being tortured and eaten.46 Grendel’s cannibalistic gorging and the subsequent
dismemberment and triumphant display of him fit well into these patterns: first, forces of aggression
are first externalised as a monster, and then they are overcome in a violent act that affirms the structures and bonds of society, that makes possible the return to the secure, joyful feast in the hall—a
return, perhaps, to an ideal Golden Age, where all differences are assimilated and subsumed.47
I have gone on at length about the social implications of Grendel and the dragon because I
believe that it is the threat to society that determines their status as monsters. These social criteria
are also displayed in the Wonders of the East, a Latin text translated into Old English prose.48 There
human-like creatures are carefully distinguished from humanity by ascribing to them animal heads
or limbs, radically non-human features, unusual colour, hairiness, fiery breath, and large size.49 The
concluding proofs of strangeness, of distinction from humanity, however, are often statements about
these creatures’ social practices. While hostility is human enough, the anti-social act of cannibalism
is commonly attributed to the monstrous races;50 eating raw fish or flesh is also noted,51 as is giving
away women,52 and fleeing from human contact.53 In illustrations, they are often depicted nude. For
the Anglo-Saxons (and their sources) evidence of humanity resides in physical congruence to their
own appearance, diet, diplomatic relations, and clothing.54 That is, texts like The Wonders of the
East show how the Anglo-Saxons sought to define themselves in opposition to those outside both
their physical and social boundaries.
46
Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents (New York: W. W. Norton, 1961), p. 61. Cf. Sanday, Divine Hunger, p. 51.
47
Maggy Kilgour, From Communion to Cannibalism An Anatomy of Metaphors of Incorporation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1990), p. 5.
48
Text of The Wonders of the East is taken from Orchard, Pride and Prodigies, pp. 184-202; references will be cited by section
number only. This paragraph follows the discussion in Chapter 2 of my Representations of the Natural World.
These examples are not illustrative, not exhaustive. Animal limbs: hi habbað olfenda fet and eoferes teð ‘they have camel’s feet and
boar’s teeth’ (§27); longe sceancan swa fugelas ‘long legs like birds’ (§17); horses manan and eoferes tucxas and hunda heafda ‘horse’s
manes and boar’s tusks and dog’s heads’ (§7). Non-human features: tu neb on anum heafde ‘two noses on one head’ (§11); earan swa
fann ‘ears like fans’ (§21); butan heafdum,...on heora breostum heora eagan and muð ‘without heads, their eyes and mouths on their
chests’ (§15). Unusual colour: the sigelwara ‘Ethiopians’, who are sweartes hiwes on ansyne ‘dark-coloured on their faces’ (§32);
others’ bodies are on marmorstanes hwitnysse ‘the whiteness of marble’ (§27); some are even on þreosellices hiwes ‘tri-coloured’ (§12).
Hairiness: some have beardas oþ cneow side and feax oð helan ‘beards down to their knees and hair to their heels’ (§8). Fiery breath: the
breath of the Cynocephali byð swylce fyres lig ‘is like a fiery flame’ (§7). Large size: the Hostes have fet and sceancan twelf fota lange,
sidan mid breostum seofon fota lange ‘feet and legs that are twelve feet long, sides and chests that are seven feet long’ (§13).
49
50
E.g. swa hwylcne mann swa hi gefoð, þonne fretað hi hine ‘whichever man they capture, they devour’ (§13).
E.g. be hreawan fisceon [Homodubii] libbað and þa etaþ ‘the Doubtfully-Men live on and eat raw fish’ (§8); others be hreawan
flæsce and be hunige lifigeað ‘live on raw flesh and honey’ (§28).
51
Gyf hwylc mann to him cymeð þonne gyfað hi him wif ær hi hine onweg lætan ‘if anyone comes to them, they give him a woman
before they let him go away’ (§30).
52
53
E.g. gif hi hwylcne man on ðam landum ongitað oððe geseoþ oððe him hwylc folligende bið, þonne feorriað hi and fleoð, and blode
þæt hi swætað ‘if they perceive or see anyone on the land or if someone is following them, they flee far away and sweat blood’ (§12).
John Block Friedman, ‘The Marvels-of-the-East Tradition in Anglo-Saxon Art’, in Sources of Anglo-Saxon Culture, eds Paul E.
Szarmach and Virginia Darrow Oggins, Studies in Medieval Culture 20 (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute, 1986), pp. 319–41 at 322.
54
12
The careful distinctions between human and non-human that are displayed in the depiction of
the monstrous races may offer a useful perspective for the vexed question of whether or not Grendel
is human. Despite the inventory of headless men and giant hairy women, I believe that the basis of
distinction in The Wonders of the East is not the species to which a creature or person belongs. Of
course, the concept of a ‘species’ is a sixteenth-century invention, but it is also one so basic to our
way of looking at ourselves that it is worth noting its absence here. Augustine and Pliny suggest that
strange characteristics and customs do not necessarily render a monster non-human. Old English
texts, on the other hand, suggest that, although the human characteristics ascribed to Grendel and
the monstrous races may indicate that they are Homo sapiens, being Homo sapiens may not grant
them human status: human status is conferred on the basis of conformance to social rules. So Grendel may have been a human being at one time, but he is not any more—not because he is huge, as
Beowulf also is55, but because he is a mearcstapa ‘boundary-walker’ (Beowulf, line 103a), someone
who stands outside of the social boundaries that define humanity. He is a monster, not simply because he has glowing eyes, but because he breaks those boundaries, intrudes into human society,
performs acts forbidden by society, and thus threatens society’s very existence.56
With these criteria, it is possible to identify some other Old English monsters. An obvious
choice is Cain, who, from the Anglo-Saxon point of view demonstrated in the Old English Genesis,
violates the kin-bond which underlies Germanic society and is thus exiled to a place outside of
human society. Indeed, the Beowulf-poet identifies Cain as the source of all monsters (lines 111–
14).57 Similarly, Heremod, the evil king described by Hrothgar, attacks the fabric of society in
exactly the same way that the dragon does: he refuses to circulate treasure, to reward his followers
and thus cement the bonds that hold society together (Beowulf, lines 1709–22). As a result, like
Cain, Heremod ana hwearf / ... mondreamum from ‘turned away alone from the joys of men’ (lines
1714b–15b) and joined the Eotena, who may themselves be monsters.58 Like Grendel, he becomes
leodbealu longsum ‘a long-lasting affliction to the people’ (line 1722a). To say that Heremod be55
Hrothgar’s coast guard notes Beowulf’s exceptional size (lines 247b–49a).
56
By these criteria, Beowulf emphatically is not a monster, but cf. Orchard, Pride and Prodigies, pp. 53–57 and 169–71.
Note that calling Cain a monster contradicts Augustine’s definition, as Cain is both a descendant of Adam and rational—as are his
descendants, presumably.
57
He mid Eotenum wearð / on feonda geweald forð forlacen, / snude forsended ‘he was henceforth betrayed into the power of enemies
among the giants [or the Jutes?], quickly put to death’ (902b–04a). For the identity of the Jutes, see R. E. Kaske, ‘The Eotenas in
Beowulf’, in Old English Poetry: Fifteen Essays, ed. Robert P. Creed (Providence, RI: Brown University Press, 1967), pp. 285–310.
Note that eotenas are unambiguously monsters at line 112a.
58
13
comes a monster, however, is not necessarily to argue that Heremod is a ‘man-dragon’;59 Heremod
does not have to be a dragon to be a ‘monster’. In this regard, one might note that Holofernes, who
has no connections with dragons, does share something with Grendel: he perverts the feasting ceremony.
Swa se inwidda ofer ealne dæg
dryhtguman sine drencte mid wine,
swiðmod sinces brytta, oðþæt hie on swiman lagon,
oferdrencte his duguðe ealle, swylce hie wæron deaðe geslegene,
agotene goda gehwylces. (Judith, lines 28-32a)
[Thus the evil one, the arrogant distributer of treasure, drowned his own troop of men with
wine for the whole day, until they lay in a swoon, his entire host over-drunk, just as if they
were slain in death, with every good poured out of them.]
Through the actions of both Grendel and Holofernes, the sacred ritual of the feast, which should
consecrate warriors and king to each other, which should both create and celebrate society, results in
death. This subversion of human ceremony marks Holofernes as yet another monster, yet another
transgressor of the boundaries that define humanity. As a result, although Holofernes might appear
to a modern audience to be an almost pathetic and fully human victim, Judith’s treatment of him,
like the Geats’ treatment of the dragon, would probably inspire little sympathy in an Anglo-Saxon
audience.
It is possible to overstate the case for the social issues underlying the definition of monsters.
However, other types of Old English texts also suggest that the line between human beings like
Heremod and monsters like Grendel can be both very fine and easily transgressible, and that the
horror aroused by those who cross that line—willingly or not—is similar if not identical to that
inspired by monsters defined by their physical characteristics.
Exile draws attention to the sharp divisions between the inside and the outside, for exiles are
forced to step outside the protective boundaries and definitions of human society into the violent
and chaotic natural world.
60
From a modern reader’s point of view the reason for this stepping
outside is significant: Grendel is outside (both physically and socially) because he is a violent
59
Cf. Tripp, More About the Fight with the Dragon.
60
These boundaries are often represented by physical walls. The crumbling of such walls (as in The Ruin) thus summons up the
feelings of loss experienced by those ‘No longer locked into a meaningful place in the intricate pattern of relationships’ (Edward B.
Irving, Jr., ‘Image and Meaning in the Elegies’, in Old English Poetry: Fifteen Essays, pp. 153–66 at 157); for a similar discussion of the
wall depicted in The Wanderer, see ibid., p. 163. Cf. also the protective walls of Jerusalem and Babylon in Daniel.
14
breaker of laws, but the Wanderer is not to be tarred with the same brush, even though he, too, is
outside in more than one way: not only does he apparently spend a considerable amount of time
outside in the natural world, but, even when he manages to find shelter, he sits outside the circle of
community, sundor æt rune ‘apart in secret’ (The Wanderer, line111b). Although the Anglo-Saxons
no doubt saw a difference between these wretched, solitary dwellers,61 the suspicion associated with
the exile should not be overlooked, regardless of the Christian symbolism developed through it.62
Human beings exist only in social places like the hall, where their roles, responsibilities, and relationships to each other are defined. Thus Maxims II locates the natural place of the king as being in
the hall dealing out treasure.63 Outside in the natural world, on the other hand, there are dragons,
bears, fish, and ‘people’ whose natures are at best ambiguous, at worst monstrous, including the
thief travelling alone in dark weather and the þyrs dwelling alone in the fen: þeof sceal gangan
þystrum wederum. Þyrs sceal on fenne gewunian / ana innan lande, ‘a thief must travel in dark
weather; a þyrs must dwell in the fen, alone in the land’ (Maxims II, lines 42–43a).
Both the þyrs and the thief are alienated from society; they are out-laws, because they live
outside the law. The þyrs may never have been human, of course, but, as has been argued earlier, his
species is not as important as the fact that he now resides outside the boundaries that define humanity. He may merely be another miserable exile, in fact. The thief, on the other hand, may be another
monster.
Much has been said about the powerful, elegaic poetry of exile, and thus it is important to
note that the suspicions raised by this argument do not, in fact, contradict the stirring melancholy of
poems like The Wanderer. Rather, they add to a modern reader’s appreciation of the seriousness of
becoming an exile. The state of the exile is precarious and miserable, for exiles lose everything: lost
in the natural world, they lose their status as members of society, a status which confers upon them
both power over others and the right to protection from those more powerful.64 They may even lose
61
The Wanderer is an anhaga (The Wanderer, line 1a); Grendel is an angenga (Beowulf, lines 165a and 449a).
62
This Christian symbolism is not necessarily incompatible with a suspicious figure; see P. L. Henry, The Early English and Celtic
Lyric (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1966), pp. 21-23.
63
Cyning sceal on healle / beagas dælan, ‘a king must share out treasure in the hall’ (Maxims II, lines 28b-29a).
64
The situation is especially dire for those who have been excommunicated: beo he utlah wið God and amansumod fram eallum
Cristendome and wið þone cyning scyldig ealles þæs þe he age, ‘he is outlawed from God and excommunicated from all of Christendom
and liable to the king for everything he owns’ (I Cnut 17). Citations from Anglo-Saxon law codes are taken from Die Gesetze der
Angelsachsen, ed. Felix Liebermann, 3 vols (Halle: Niemeyer, 1903–16). Note that Cain is exiled both from his kin and from the sight of
God (Genesis, lines 1047b–50). Cf. Henry, Early English and Celtic Lyric, p. 22.
15
their identities as human beings, becoming a member of the monstrous, sub-human races as Grendel
may have done or, worse, a feast for a wolf, like the ‘friendless, unhappy man’ in Maxims I:
Wineleas, wonsælig mon genimeð him wulfas to geferan,
felafæcne deor. Ful oft hine se gefera sliteð;
gryre sceal for greggum, græf deadum men;
hungre heofeð, nales þæt heafe bewindeð,
ne huru wæl wepeð wulf se græga,
morþorcwealm mæcga, ac hit a mare wile. (lines 146–51)
[The friendless, unhappy man takes wolves, a very deceitful beast, as his companions. Very
often that companion will tear him; there must be terror for the grey ones, (and) a grave for
dead men; the grey wolf laments his hunger, not at all does he raise up wailing (or) weep
about the slaughter, the murderous death of men, but always wants more.]
This passage is not without its ambiguities, however. The passage may be read in a slightly different
way: rather than wolves, the friendless man may take criminals and outlaws, men no better than
beasts, as companions.65 The possibility that ‘wolf’ may indicate not only a wild dog but also a
criminal is one that was once debated earnestly but has now been largely laid to rest:66 although the
Old Icelandic word vargr, a cognate for the Old English wearg, means both wolf and outlaw, this
kind of double meaning apparently prevailed only after the Anglo-Saxon period.67 In Old English, a
wulf was a wolf and a wearg was a criminal—or, perhaps, a monster.68 That is, while there may be a
clear distinction in philologists’ minds regarding the meaning of wearg, in Old English poetry (and
perhaps also in Old English law) the exile was not so clean-cut; a thief or outlaw worthy of being
‘shot on sight’ might not have seemed so different from a wolf.69 Charters add yet more information
to cloud the waters further: there are references in boundary clauses to places called wearge dune
and weargeburnan.70 While it is possible that these landmarks are ‘criminal hills’ and ‘criminal
65
Cf. Henry, The Early English and Celtic Lyric, pp. 22–23.
See Michael Jacoby, Wargus, vargr ‘Verbrecher’ ‘Wolf’: eine sprach- und rechtsgeschichtliche Untersuchung, Studia Germanistica
Upsaliensia 12 (Uppsala:Almqvist & Wiksell, 1974) for bibliography. See also Bosworth-Toller, s.v. wearg. Cf. E. G. Stanley, ‘Old
English Poetic Diction and the Interpretation of The Wanderer, The Seafarer, and The Penitent’s Prayer’, Anglia 73 (1956), 413–66 at
442 and idem., ‘Wolf, My Wolf!’, in Old English and New: Studies in Language and Linguistics in Honor of Frederic G. Cassidy, eds
Joan H. Hall, Nick Doane and Dick Ringler (New York and London: Garland, 1992), pp. 46–62.
66
67
Jacoby demonstrates that the double meaning of ‘criminal’ and ‘wolf’ for wearg did not exist before 1000 A.D.
Wearg is also a term applied to the devil. Note that Richard Jordan defines wearg as ‘demon’ as well as ‘wolf’ and ‘criminal’—see
Die altenglischen Säugetiernamen, Anglistische Forschungen 12 (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1903), p. 65.
68
See II Cnut 4.2: ðeofas and ðeodsceaðan to timan forwurðan, buton hi geswican ‘thieves and criminals against the people must
perish at that opportunity, unless they submit’. Also anyone providing shelter or food to an outlaw was guilty of a crime (see II Cnut
13.2).
69
70
For wearge dune see charters S495 and S1565; for wearge burnan see S820; for wearge burninga see S1013. For details of texts in
16
brooks’ (that is, perhaps, places where criminals were hung),71 it seems equally likely that they may
be ‘wolf hills’ and ‘wolf streams’, like the ‘fox holes’ that mark other boundaries. 72
I do not wish to ressurect the linguistic debate over the meaning of the word wearg. My point
is that becoming an outlaw meant losing all connection with society and that it is the reciprocal
relationships that create and safeguard society that render a person a human being. Cut off from
these relationships, even a member of Homo sapiens could lose human status and become a monster
not dissimilar to savage wolves. Such a monster could be called a wearg.
This point adds another ambiguity to the passage from Maxims I. The passage seems to describe a tragic situation, in which an unlucky man meets even worse luck and dies a terrible death,
whether by wild beasts or criminals. The situation may not be as tragic as a modern reader supposes, however. In Anglo-Saxon law, the ‘friendless’ man is a stranger,73 a potential thief, murderer, or
traitor; without a lord, kinsman, or witness to vouch for him, he is a loose cannon, dangerous until
destroyed or placed into a social framework.74 The friendless man in Maxims I thus may not be an
innocent victim, and an Anglo-Saxon audience may not have been sympathetic to his plight—may
have seen in him a figure as alien and frightening as his wolfish companions.75 The alien and frightening nature of the freondleas man may be the source of the ambiguity that critics have perceived in
the word wearg rather than any linguistic slippage: the attitude toward the criminal may not have
been much different from that toward a savage beast. Both could be monsters.
In conclusion, the Beowulf-poet’s comment that the Danes did not receive wergild ‘compensation’ for the men eaten by Grendel (lines 157–58) may not have been a purely ironic touch. Grenwhich these charters may be found, see P. H. Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon Charters: An Annotated List and Bibliography, Royal Historical
Society Guides and Handbooks 8 (London: Offices of the Royal Historical Society, 1968).
71
Wearh roda ‘criminal’s gallows’, for example, fairly certainly refers to a site of execution (see S647 and S685).
For wolf-hills, see the wulfhleoþu ‘wolf slopes’ in Beowulf (line 1358a). For ‘fox holes’, see, for example, S343, S379, S575, and
S647.
72
Cf. the use of the word giest ‘guest’. Guests may be, like the Geats in Hrothgar’s court, welcome visitors (Beowulf, line 1602b), but,
in Beowulf, at least, the relationship between a guest and his or her host appears more often to be one of antagonism; other ‘guests’ in the
poem include the monsters in Grendel’s mere (line 1441a), the dragon (line 2560a), Hengest in Finn’s court (line 1138a), Beowulf in
Grendel’s mother’s lair (lines 1522b and 1545a), and (perhaps) the slave who robs the dragon’s lair (line 2228a).
73
74
For example, by submitting first to imprisonment and then to trial by ordeal; see II Cnut 35: And freondleas man oððe feorran cuman
swa geswenced weorðe þurh freondleaste, þæt he borh næbbe, æt frymtyhtlan, þone gebuge he hengenne & þær gebide, oð ðæt he ga to
Godes ordale & gefare ðær þæt he mæge ‘a friendless man or visitor from afar is thus afflicted by his lack of friends, so that he does not
have protection; at the first accusation he submits to imprisonment [or torture?] and waits there until he goes to God’s ordeal and fares
there as he may’.
If the man is ‘devoured’ by fellow-criminals, it is possible that suspicions of cannibalism may enter into the definition of criminals as
well.
75
17
del’s refusal to conform to social rules is not an incidental point; it is the essence of his monstrousness. This criterion for defining monsters inevitably privileges man-shaped monsters. It does not,
however disqualify creatures like the dragon. In fact, the social criterion is even relevant to the
description of the niceras killed by Beowulf as a youth, since they invert the important social ceremony of the feast76 when they ‘invite’ their ‘guest’ to the bottom of the sea to be ‘incorporated’ into
themselves. In Old English poetry, it is this kind of reference to the social rules consituting humanity that provide the framework for defining the monstrous.
76
Magennis, Images of Community, pp.42–48, 60–73.
18