The Demons' Home in Beowulf
Author(s): W. S. Mackie
Source: The Journal of English and Germanic Philology , Oct., 1938, Vol. 37, No. 4 (Oct.,
1938), pp. 455-461
Published by: University of Illinois Press
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THE DEMONS' HOME IN BEOWULF
Probably no passage in Beowulf has justly aroused greater
admiration than Hrothgar's description of the home of Grendel
and Grendel's mother. Within the compass of twenty lines the
poet has drawn an impressive picture of a scene so gloomy and
dismal, so invested with horror, that compared with it the Hell
of Paradise Lost might almost appear a desirable residence. He
has achieved his effect partly by his skilful selection of detail?
the fire on the water, the wintry trees overhanging it, the miser
able stag shuddering on the brink?and partly by a certain
vagueness of phraseology?the weeping skies, the windy prom
ontories, the wolf-haunted hills. "It is not a pleasant place,''
concludes Hrothgar, and no one will disagree with this char
acteristic understatement.
Effective though the description is, however, it is not alto
gether consistent, and the poet has mingled together in it some
rather heterogeneous elements. This has been shown by Pro
fessor W. W. Lawrence in an excellent article, "The Haunted
Mere in Beowulf," which appeared in 1912 in the Publications
of the Modern Language Association of America. It has largely
determined the treatment of the passage in all subsequent
commentaries and editions. According to Lawrence, the poet of
Beowulf has followed the folk-tale which is the source of his
story in localising the demons' home in a rocky mountainous
country; he had also had in mind, however, the belief that
giants and similar monsters inhabited the fens; and finally he
has been influenced by his memory of descriptions of Hell in
Church literature such as the Visio Sancti Pauli. This influence
has been very fully demonstrated by the other great American
authority upon Beowulf, Professor Klaeber.
As is well known, a different form of the same adventure
with demons, derived from the same folk-tale, is found in the
Icelandic Grettissaga (circa 1300 A.D.), Grettir's encounters with
a troll-wife and a giant at Sandhaugar in the north of Iceland.
In the second part of this adventure Grettir sees a cave behind
a waterfall that comes down a sheer cliff; he dives down below
the whirlpool where the waterfall strikes the river, and reaches
the cave, where he finds, and kills, a horrible giant who is sitting
by a great fire. On account of the obvious resemblances, Law
rence and other scholars have sought to interpret the rather
455
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456 Mackie
vague descriptions in Beowulf of the home of the demons, and
the not-too-clear account of the hero's adventure with Grendel's
mother, in the light of the much more lucid narrative of the
Grettissaga. In this, as I shall try to show, they have gone much
too far. The methods and aims of the author of the Grettissaga
and of the Old English poet are very different, and they have
treated the folk-tale in very dissimilar ways. The saga-writer is
fully conscious of the value of precise detail in giving artistic
verisimilitude to his story. He may be describing an incredible
adventure, but he does so with a cool, delightful matter-of
factness which induces a willing suspension of disbelief on the
part of his reader. The poet of Beowulf, on the other hand, cares
little about verisimilitude, and does not greatly trouble to be
consistent; his purpose is not to make the supernatural appear
natural, but to invest his narrative with an eerie atmosphere of
strangeness and horror. So when we find in his poem what seem
to be unbridged gaps or very abrupt transitions, or details in
description or story that seem inconsistent or obscure, we should
be cautious before filling these gaps, or interpreting these ob
scurities, with the aid of the Grettissaga. Otherwise we may, as
it were, be attempting to complete Kubla Khan with the help
of Robinson Crusoe.
Let us begin with Hrothgar's description of the home of the
demons, Beowulf 1357-1376. The following is a fairly literal
translation. "They dwell in a mysterious land, wolf-haunted
hills and windy headlands, perilous fen-tracks, where the running
water descends beneath the mists of the headlands, a stream
below the level of the earth. It is not many miles from here where
lies the mere, over which hang wintry trees?a fast-rooted wood
overshadows the water. There every night one can see a strange
and horrible thing, a fire on the flood. There lives no one of the
sons of men so wise that he knows the bottom. Though the
stepper on the heath, the strong-horned stag, hard-pressed by
hounds, chased from far, enter the forest, he will sooner give
up his life on the shore than plunge in and hide his head. That
is no pleasant place; from it the surge rises up dark to the clouds,
when the wind stirs up fierce storms, until the heaven glooms
and the skies weep."
With a little difficulty it is possible to visualise this as a
coherent picture. There is a dark deep pool, surrounded by
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The Demons' Home in Beowulf 457
trees, below headlands near a water-logged moor (frlcne fenge
l?d, 1359), and a stream flows or descends into it beneath
mist-shrouded cliffs. There is an indefinite resemblance to the
scenery in parts of the Yorkshire moors, Malham Cove, for
example.
The most difficult lines in the passage are 1359 and 1360,
<5?er fyrgenstr?am
under naessa genipu nij?er gew?tet5.
Lawrence translates fyrgenstr?am by "waterfall," and suggests
that under n ssa genipu may refer to "the fine spray thrown
out by the fall in its descent, and blown about the windy nesses."
There is a waterfall in the Grettissaga; is there one in Beowulf
also?
Fyrgenstr?am, "mountain stream"; fyrgen is translated
"mountain" because that is the meaning of the cognate Gothic
fairguni, which translates Greek 6pos. In Old English fyrgen
never occurs as a simplex, but only as the first element in three
compounds found only in poetry. Only one of these, fyrgen
str?am itself, occurs outside of Beowulf; and then it seems always
to mean "the sea," or, at most, "the flowing sea," "the sea
waves." See, for example, Andreas 390, Anchor Riddle 2, Cotton
Gnomic Verses 47. So it would seem that the original meaning
of the archaic fyrgen had weakened to vanishing point, and that
the word survived in poetic compounds principally for the sake
of providing an/ alliteration. Fyrgenholt in Beowulf 1393 prob
ably means nothing more than "forest," and the fyrgenb?amas
that lean over the grey rock (Beowulf 1414) are merely trees.
Similarly fyrgenstr?am is simply equivalent to stream, "stream,"
"running water," or merely "water."1 "The running water
descends, a stream below the level of the earth" is most prob
ably meant to describe a stream running into the mere through
a gorge, but it is possible that what the poet has in mind is a
whirlpool in the mere, or even the turbid mere itself. At any
rate, notwithstanding niper gew?t?ft, the translation of fyrgen
str?am by "waterfall" is very doubtful indeed.2
1 How far even the meaning of stream might weaken in Old English poetry
can be gathered from Riddle xxvi, 10, where a quill-pen dipped in ink is said
to swallow str?ames dale, "part of the stream."
2 This is also the view of Sarrazin, Englische Studien, xliv, 1 ff.
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458 Mackie
The Geats and Danes go to the mere, and sit down on the
headland (line 1424). But from now onwards the scenery under
goes a remarkable change. The mere becomes the sea.
It might almost be said that this is open to no possible doubt
whatever. The words now used of the mere are just those words
that regularly denote or describe the sea, sund (1426), on
seglr?de, "on the ship's road" (1429), on holme (1453), on
ydum (1437), sundgebland (1450), brimwylm (1494), fl?da begong
(1497), yZgebland, ?acne ear das, "the surging waves, the vast
regions" (1620). Lawrence argues that some of these words and
phrases are used elsewhere in Old English in reference to inland
waters. The particular example that he cites, however, their
appearance in the description of the flood that poured from a
rock at the command of Saint Andrew in Andreas (1498 ff.), is
not at all convincing, for it is clear that the poet of Andreas
conceived this flood as an overwhelming sea, a foaming surge
(1524), with salt waves (1532). But an even more certain indi
cation that the mere in Beowulf has become the sea is the ap
pearance in it of sell?ce s dracan, "strange sea-serpents" (1426),
monstrous sea-beasts of the sort that Beowulf had already
encountered in his swimming match on the sea with Breca. As
Lawrence says, there is "a very salty smell about these crea
tures," and "they seem to have little business in an inland pool."
It follows that unless we think that the poet of Beowulf has
carelessly confused his picture, unless we regard his descriptions
as only a shifting phantasmagoria, we must revise our earlier
conception, and imagine the mere as a large land-locked arm of
the sea, even though the resemblance of the scenery in Beowulf
to that in the Grettissaga becomes thereby more distant than
before. This view has been defended by Professor Sarrazin in
Englische Studien, xlvi, 1 ff. Sarrazin believes, however, that
since Heorot has been localised at Leire, the old Danish capital
in the north of Zealand, the haunted mere must be the Roes
kilde Fjord, only a few miles distant (vid. Beowulf 1361 f). The
Roeskilde Fjord is certainly a large land-locked arm of the sea;
apart from that, anything less like what is described in Beowulf
than this placid lake, with its kindly banks and braes, can
hardly be imagined. In any case we may well doubt whether
the poet of Beowulf had ever heard of the Roeskilde Fjord, and
his picture of a much more dismal fjord can simply be ascribed
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The Demons' Home in Beowulf 459
to his lively imagination, stimulated by what he had heard or
read about the scenery of Hell. But it would seem clear that
the mere is, or becomes, a sea-inlet; and Klaeber's rejection of
this view (Beowulf, p. 176), "That Grendel lives in the sea, or
in a pool connected with the sea, . . . cannot be conceded,"
seems to me indefensible.
Let us next take lines 1492 to 1517, which describe Beo
wulf's descent into the sea, and his abduction into the demons'
cave. This is the passage which, in my opinion, has suffered
most from misinterpretation and semantic interpolations at the
hands of Lawrence and his followers, in their endeavors to
rationalise it by reading into it a course of events corresponding
to what is found in the Grettissaga. The following translation
accepts Grundtvig's emendation of MS. p m top s in line 1508,
sw? h? ne mihte, n? he J?aes m?dig waes,
waepna gewealdan,
with Kock's interpretation of these lines. "After these words
the prince of the Geats courageously made haste, and would
not wait for an answer; the surging sea received the warrior.
Then it was a good part of a day before he could perceive the
plain at the bottom of the sea. Soon she who, fiercely ravenous,
grim and greedy, had for many years kept guard over the broad
floods, became aware that there was a man exploring, from
above, the home of strange creatures. Then she clutched at him,
and seized the warrior in her horrible grip; for all that she did
no harm internally to his uninjured body; ringed mail gave
protection all round on the outside, so that she could not pene
trate the armour, the linked corselet, with her cruel fingers.
Then the she-wolf of the sea, when she had reached the bottom,
carried the lord of treasures to her dwelling, so that he could not,
no matter how brave he was, wield his weapons, for so many
strange creatures harrassed him in the sea, many a sea-beast
broke against his coat of mail with warlike tusks, monsters
pursued him with attack. Then the warrior perceived that he
was in a horrible hall, where no water did any harm to him, and
the dangerous grip of the sea could not touch him because of its
roof; he saw a fiery light, a gleaming radiance, shine brightly."
Grendel's mother is the brimwylf (1506), "the she-wolf of
the sea," who guards the fl?da begong (1497), "the expanse of
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460 Mackie
the waters." In 1518 she is the grundwyrgen, in 2136 the grund
hyrde; so it is clear that the poet has come to regard her as an
evil creature who guards the depth or the floor (grund) of the
sea.3 If we bear this in mind, and refrain from reading into the
narrative selections from the Grettissaga, the natural interpreta
tion of the account of Beowulf's visit to the bottom of this
monstrous world is as follows. He dives in, and it is a long time
before he has descended so far as to see the grundwong (1496),
the floor of the sea. Grendel's mother becomes aware of an
intruder from above, she rises to meet him, since it is after she
seizes him that she comes t? botme (1506), to the sea-bottom.
Then she carries him to her cave, and there is nothing to make
us suppose that this is not also at the bottom of the sea.
Klaeber, on the other hand, in part quoting Lawrence, gives
the following explanation (Beowulf,z p. 186): "Grendel's dam,
aroused by a stranger's appearance in the water, goes to the
bottom of the lake (to which Beowulf had plunged, like Grettir,
in order to avoid the whirlpool and thus get up underneath the
waterfall), and drags him to her cave."4 There is nothing in the
text to justify this idea of a cave under or behind a waterfall;
it is simply an interpolation from the Grettissaga. Lawrence's
only argument that is definitely based upon the passage in
Beowulf is that the hall to which Grendel's mother drags Beo
wulf cannot have been near the bottom of the sea, since a
great many sea-beasts attacked him on his way there, and he
had to fight them off. But we have only to suppose that Gren
del's mother rises to meet Beowulf, and this is easily explained.
Beowulf finds himself in a strange dwelling where no water
could touch him for hr?fsele (1515), "on account of the roof,"
or, "because the hall had a roof." For hr?fsele is the only attempt
by the poet to make his submarine cave, into which yet no
water enters, appear a little less incredible. The roof of the cave
is the floor of the sea, through which the water cannot penetrate.
But why it does not pour in through the necessary door-way or
entrance the poet makes no attempt to explain. He imagines
3 Very possibly the origin of this idea that the demons are below the sea
is Job, xxvi, 5, Ecce gigantes gemunt sub aquis, et qui habitant cum eis. See
Crawford, Modern Language Review, xxni, 207.
4 But in the same note Klaeber refers to the Samsonssaga, where "the hero
is seized by the troll-woman in the water and dragged by her to the bottom."
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The Demons' Home in Beowulf 461
the home of the demons to be as supernatural as are its occu
pants, as impossible as the "good part of a day" required by
Beowulf to reach it.
The cave is not in darkness. Beowulf sees (1516 f.) fyrl?oht,
bl?cne l?oman, beorhte sc?nan. This has very naturally been taken
to correspond to the large fire that burns in the giant's cave in
the Grettissaga. Klaeber translates fyrl?oht by "firelight," and
Lawrence speaks of the fire burning in the demon's hall. The
compound fyrl?oht seems not to occur elsewhere in Old English.
It is explained by the parallel phrase bl?cne l?oman, "a shining
ray of light," or, less definitely, "a shining radiance"?l?oma is
found glossing Latin iubar. It seems likely that fyrl?oht does
not mean "firelight," but "a fiery light," which is quite a differ
ent thing. This rendering seems more suitable for lines 1570
1572, when, after Beowulf had slain Grendel's mother,
l?xte se l?oma, l?oht inn? st?d,
efne sw? of hefene h?dre sc?neft
rodores candel,
"the gleam shone, a light streamed within, even as the candle
of the sky shines brightly from heaven." If this interpretation
is correct, the supernatural abode of the demons in Beowulf is
illuminated not by the large, almost homely fire beside which
sits the giant in the Grettissaga, but by a lurid supernatural
light, bright as the sun in the skies.
Lastly, when Beowulf leaves the demons' cave, he "dives
up through the water" (1619). Again there is nothing in the
text to make us suppose that he first dives down beneath a
waterfall.
It seems best, therefore, to imagine the home of the demons
as a supernatural cave at the bottom of a deep inlet of the sea,
supernatural in that no water passes its entrance, and lit by an
unearthly radiance. But one must admit that Hrothgar's
description, lines 1357 to 1376, leaves one with the impression
of an inland mere, an impression that has to be corrected from
the passages that follow.
W. S. Mackie
University of Cape Town
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