Bear Hugs and Bloody Waters
: Unearthing the Folkloric Roots of Beowulf
For centuries, the epic poem Beowulf has stood as a monumental testament to Old English literature, its intricate tapestry of heroism, monsters, and Anglo-Saxon values captivating scholars and casual readers alike. Yet, beneath the familiar narrative lies a stratum of folkloric echoes, suggesting that the Beowulf-poet, an artist of immense skill, wove into his grand design threads from far older, more primal tales. This is not to diminish the poem’s originality, but rather to acknowledge its deep roots in a shared human storytelling tradition, particularly the widespread "Bear's Son" motif.
In the hallowed halls of academia, especially within the study of comparative literature and myth, the resemblance between Beowulf and the "Bear's Son" folktale (Type A) has long been a subject of keen interest. This archetypal narrative protagonist, a young man of extraordinary strength, embarks on a series of adventures. The typical progression involves:
Assembling Companions: The hero gathers a retinue for his exploits.
Heroic Defence: He alone successfully resists a supernatural entity that his companions have failed to overcome, often maiming or mutilating it.
Descent to the Underworld: Guided by the creature's blood trail or some other clue, the hero finds his way to a subterranean realm – a spring or an earthen hole.
Subterranean Combat: Lowered by a rope, he battles and defeats various supernatural foes in the underworld, sometimes including his original adversary or, more rarely, its mother. Crucially, victory often hinges on the discovery and use of a magic sword found within this realm.
Betrayal: His companions, whose duty it was to retrieve him, abandon him, often through treachery.
While the immediate parallels to Beowulf might seem tenuous at first glance – for instance, the Danes may have believed Beowulf dead beneath the water, but they didn’t actively betray him as outlined in the folk-tale – turning to the Grettir-saga illuminates a closer connection. In Grettir, the priest Stein's abandonment of the hero constitutes a stark breach of trust. This raises a fascinating question: is the absence of overt betrayal in Beowulf an innovation by its poet, or a modification of an even older prototype?
The evidence suggests the latter. Many features within Beowulf that have long proved puzzling, even seemingly absurd, find their logical precursors within the “Bear’s Son” framework. Consider Grendel's initial attack on Heorot. The Beowulf-poet explains the slumber of Beowulf's retinue as if a strange somnolence overcame them – an oddity for men awaiting a deadly assault. Beowulf, wide awake, passively watches as one of his men is killed and devoured. It is only when the monster turns its attention to him that Beowulf acts.
This scene, so incongruous with the heroic ideal Beowulf otherwise embodies, becomes explicable when viewed through the lens of the folk tale. In many "Bear's Son" variants, companions face the foe one by one, often to their shame or death, before the hero finally intervenes. The Beowulf-poet, perhaps working with an "unmanageable source," might have had to contort the narrative to fit his heroic depiction, thus creating this awkward moment of passive observation. The idea that his men would go in "one by one" and Beowulf last, after they've all been shamed or killed, finds a curious echo here.
Similarly, the swift departure of Hrothgar and the priest in Grettir after the hero plunges into the water to face the monster, seeing only a surge of blood, is another perplexing detail. Why assume it's the hero's blood, not the monster's? This, too, might be a vestige of the deeper folkloric stratum, where outright abandonment or treachery on the part of companions necessitated their earlier exit from the scene.
Intriguingly, many Beowulf scholars, working independently of the "Bear's Son" hypothesis, have posited that in an earlier version of the story, Beowulf did not wait for Grendel's mother to attack again. Instead, driven by a natural desire to complete his task, he would have immediately tracked Grendel to his mere and finished both him and his mother below. This aligns perfectly with the "Bear's Son" pattern, where the subterranean adventure is a direct continuation, not a separate, retaliatory event. The narrative "unmanageability" is further evident in questions such as:
Why was merely wrenching off an arm fatal to such a powerful monster as Grendel?
Why does the adversary beneath the water sometimes appear male, sometimes female?
Why is it Grendel's blood, not his mother's, that discolours the water and dissolves the sword, and his head, not hers, that is triumphantly brought back?
These seemingly minor discrepancies find a coherent explanation if we acknowledge an earlier, more fluid narrative where the "underworld" foe might have had less defined gender roles or where the primary battle was with the initial antagonist, with a secondary, less developed foe (the mother) encountered en passant.
Finally, the hero of the "Bear's Son" folk-tale is often depicted as an unmanageable and lazy youth in his early life – a characteristic explicitly shown in the tales of Grettir and Orm. While the Beowulf-poet aimed to present his protagonist as a model prince, traces of this earlier characterisation persist. Lines 2183-88 describe a younger Beowulf:
"He had been poorly regarded for a long time, was taken by the Geats for less than he was worth: and their lord too had never much esteemed him in the mead hall They firmly believed that he lacked force, That the prince was a weakling:"
– Seamus Heaney
This stands in fascinating contrast to Beowulf's later assertion: "When I was younger / I had great triumphs" (Lines 408-9). The tension between these descriptions hints at a poet wrestling with a source material that featured a less immediately heroic figure.
And for those who seek further suggestive links, the very name "Beowulf" (Bee-Wolf) is a kenning for 'bear', and his fighting style – crushing enemies in a powerful embrace – carries distinctly ursine overtones.
To declare Beowulf simply a version of an older fairy tale would be an oversimplification, a disservice to the poet's unique genius. Yet, to ignore the potent echoes of the "Bear's Son" motif is to overlook a critical key to understanding some of the poem's more enigmatic features. The Beowulf-poet, in his act of creation, was not working in a vacuum; he was a craftsman drawing upon universal storytelling elements, shaping them, refining them, and ultimately elevating them into an epic that, even with its inherited quirks, continues to resonate with us today. He took elements from folk tales, not to copy, but to build, much like a master builder incorporates ancient stones into a breathtaking new edifice. It's a humbling reminder that even the grandest literary achievements often stand on the shoulders of forgotten, yet enduring, folkloric giants.
Citations
Chambers, R. W. (Year of publication, if available, otherwise assume classic text re-issue). Beowulf: An Introduction to the Study of the Poem with a Discussion of the Stories of Grettir and Hrolf Kraki. (Chapter Two: The Non-Historical Elements). [Specific edition details or publisher if known, e.g., Cambridge University Press, 2011].
Heaney, Seamus. (1999). Beowulf: A New Verse Translation. Faber & Faber. (Lines 408-9, 2183-88).
Friedrich Panzer, Studien zur germanischen Sagengeschichte. Bd. I: Beowulf. (His thesis on the 'Bear's Son' motif)
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