Outlines of English and American Literature | Page 8

who had sailed it on stormy seas, and
who was entombed in it because he loved it. All these are silent
witnesses; they have no speech or language. But this old poem is a
living voice, speaking with truth and sincerity of the daily habit of the
fathers of modern England, of their adventures by sea or land, their
stern courage and grave courtesy, their ideals of manly honor, their
thoughts of life and death.
Let us hear, then, the story of Beowulf, picturing in our imagination the
story-teller and his audience. The scene opens in a great hall, where a
fire blazes on the hearth and flashes upon polished shields against the
timbered walls. Down the long room stretches a table where men are
feasting or passing a beaker from hand to hand, and anon crying Hal!
hal! in answer to song or in greeting to a guest. At the head of the hall
sits the chief with his chosen ealdormen. At a sign from the chief a
gleeman rises and strikes a single clear note from his harp. Silence falls
on the benches; the story begins:
Hail! we of the Spear Danes in days of old Have heard the glory of
warriors sung; Have cheered the deeds that our chieftains wrought, And
the brave Scyld's triumph o'er his foes.
Then because there are Scyldings present, and because brave men
revere their ancestors, the gleeman tells a beautiful legend of how King
Scyld came and went: how he arrived as a little child, in a war-galley
that no man sailed, asleep amid jewels and weapons; and how, when
his life ended at the call of Wyrd or Fate, they placed him against the
mast of a ship, with treasures heaped around him and a golden banner

above his head, gave ship and cargo to the winds, and sent their chief
nobly back to the deep whence he came.
So with picturesque words the gleeman thrills his hearers with a vivid
picture of a Viking's sea-burial. It thrills us now, when the Vikings are
no more, and when no other picture can be drawn by an eyewitness of
that splendid pagan rite.
[Sidenote: THE STORY OF HEOROT]
One of Scyld's descendants was King Hrothgar (Roger) who built the
hall Heorot, where the king and his men used to gather nightly to feast,
and to listen to the songs of scop or gleeman. [Footnote: Like
Agamemnon and the Greek chieftains, every Saxon leader had his
gleeman or minstrel, and had also his own poet, his scop or "shaper,"
whose duty it was to shape a glorious deed into more glorious verse. So
did our pagan ancestors build their monuments out of songs that should
live in the hearts of men when granite or earth mound had crumbled
away.] "There was joy of heroes," but in one night the joy was changed
to mourning. Out on the lonely fens dwelt the jotun (giant or monster)
Grendel, who heard the sound of men's mirth and quickly made an end
of it. One night, as the thanes slept in the hall, he burst in the door and
carried off thirty warriors to devour them in his lair under the sea.
Another and another horrible raid followed, till Heorot was deserted
and the fear of Grendel reigned among the Spear Danes. There were
brave men among them, but of what use was courage when their
weapons were powerless against the monster? "Their swords would not
bite on his body."
For twelve years this terror continued; then the rumor of Grendel
reached the land of the Geats, where Beowulf lived at the court of his
uncle, King Hygelac. No sooner did Beowulf hear of a dragon to be
slain, of a friendly king "in need of a man," than he selected fourteen
companions and launched his war-galley in search of adventure.
[Sidenote: THE SAILING OF BEOWULF]
At this point the old epic becomes a remarkable portrayal of daily life.

In its picturesque lines we see the galley set sail, foam flying from her
prow; we catch the first sight of the southern headlands, approach land,
hear the challenge of the "warder of the cliffs" and Beowulf's courteous
answer. We follow the march to Heorot in war-gear, spears flashing,
swords and byrnies clanking, and witness the exchange of greetings
between Hrothgar and the young hero. Again is the feast spread in
Heorot; once more is heard the song of gleemen, the joyous sound of
warriors in comradeship. There is also a significant picture of
Hrothgar's wife, "mindful of courtesies," honoring her guests by
passing the mead-cup with her own hands. She is received by these
stern men with profound respect.
When the feast draws to an end the fear of Grendel returns. Hrothgar
warns his guests that no weapon