The image of a giant sword melting stands at the structural and thematic heart of the Old English heroic poem Beowulf. This meticulously researched book investigates the nature and significance of this golden-hilted weapon and its likely relatives within Beowulf and beyond, drawing on the fields of...

The Waning Sword

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Edward Pettit (2020)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Epigraph

Autres

Edward Pettit (2020)

Autres

Very bright was that sword when it was made whole again; the light of the sun shone redly in it, and the light of the moon shone cold, and its edge was hard and keen.And Aragorn gave it a new name and called it Andúril, Flame of the West.J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the RingsGrendel by Russell Mark...

Acknowledgements

Autres

Edward Pettit (2020)

Autres

Sadly, my greatest debts by far cannot be acknowledged in person, being to the members of my family to whom I dedicate this book.More happily, I acknowledge my debt to the many scholars whose works appear in the bibliography. I apologize to the many others whose writings doubtless ought to feature b...

Signs and Abbreviations

Autres

Edward Pettit (2020)

Autres

* Hypothetical or reconstructed word-form AbäG Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik AEW F. Holthausen, Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd edn. (Heidelberg, 1974) ANEW J. de Vries, Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 4th edn. (Leiden, 2000) ANF Arkiv för nordisk filologi ANQ Am...

1. Introduction

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Edward Pettit (2020)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

The Old English heroic poem known today by the editorial title of Beowulf survives, albeit damaged, in a single source: Cotton Vitellius A.xv of the British Library in London. This is a composite of two manuscripts, often called the Southwick Codex and the Nowell Codex, which were probably combined...

2. The Giant Sword and the Ice

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Edward Pettit (2020)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Arguably the most remarkable image in Beowulf appears soon after the hero beheads Grendel’s mother with a single sword-stroke—itself an extraordinary feat and a moment of genuine horror—and then decapitates her lifeless son in the giants’ lair at the bottom of a Danish mere. After Beowulf is deserte...

3. The Giant Sword and the Candle

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Edward Pettit (2020)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

If no other sword in old Germanic literature melts like ice, an image found immediately after the giant sword beheads Grendel’s mother and shortly before its blade melts encourages perception of another analogy. The blade’s distinctive waning hildegicelum ‘with/into battle-icicles’ subtly invites co...

4. The Giant Sword and the Cross

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Edward Pettit (2020)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

We have seen that the melting giant sword of Beowulf may well subtly suggest a melting candle, perhaps even the Paschal Candle. In this chapter I argue that the poet’s symbolism also intimates an even more important image of Christianity and of Easter: the Cross of Christ. For not only are swords cr...

5. Whose Sword Is it, Anyway?

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Edward Pettit (2020)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

So far, I have proposed that the giant sword of Beowulf is a likely weapon of solar radiance, one that intimates two potent symbols of Christianity: the candle (possibly more specifically the Paschal Candle) and the Cross. It might, however, be objected that a Christian poet would not equate his rel...

6. Ing, Ingvi-Freyr and Hroðgar

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Edward Pettit (2020)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

An obvious place to start an investigation into the possible Germanic mythical background of Beowulf’s giant sword and related matters is with the poem’s most likely reference to a named heathen god or demigod, a certain Ing. According to Beowulf, Ing—or at least this name—was intimately connected w...

7. Freyr, Skírnir and Gerðr

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Edward Pettit (2020)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Further possible clues to the relevance of myths concerning the god Yngvi-Freyr and his circle may be found in Beowulf’s adventure in the mere. This episode displays a lengthy series of correspondences—to my knowledge, previously unrecognized—to an Old Norse story involving Freyr, his emissary Skírn...

8. Lævateinn and the Maelstrom-Giantess

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Edward Pettit (2020)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

The possibility—I think probability—of a kinship between Skírnir’s gambanteinn and Beowulf’s submerged giant sword is underlined by another Eddic composition, Svipdagsmál, which bears strong similarities to Fǫr Skírnis and the quest for Hervör in Hjálmþés saga. It mentions a remarkable teinn-weapon,...

9. Freyr’s Solar Power and the Purifying Sword

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Edward Pettit (2020)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

This chapter examines a variety of Old Norse sources to demonstrate the solar and related attributes of (Ingvi/Yngvi-)Freyr and his sword. We shall see that in Skírnir’s hands this weapon probably symbolizes a purifying sunbeam. These findings will inform our understanding of Hrunting and the giant...

10. Freyr, Heorot and the Hunt for the Solar Stag

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Edward Pettit (2020)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Freyr’s solar aspect informs his association with the stag, which he shares with Hroðgar chiefly through the latter’s rulership of the hall Heorot ‘Hart’. The present chapter explores this commonality, the existence of which increases the likelihood that swords wielded by Freyr and Hroðgar and their...

11. A Tale of Two Creatures. The Theft and Recovery of Sunlight in Riddle 29

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Edward Pettit (2020)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

In this chapter I examine a short Old English poem in which we meet a wiht ‘creature’ (grammatically feminine) who is evidently a thief of sunlight. I shall suggest that this creature is functionally analogous to Grendel. We also encounter another wiht (again grammatically feminine) who recovers the...

12. Another Tale of Two Creatures.

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Edward Pettit (2020)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

An understanding of Riddle 29 may help elucidate a notoriously obscure Old English text, the meaning of which has long been debated. If the following new interpretation is broadly correct, it records another myth about the loss and concealment of sunlight (compare the giant sword) due to the actions...

13. The Solar Antler in Sólarljóð

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Edward Pettit (2020)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

In light of my findings so far concerning mythological traditions about solar stags, the relationship between antlers and swords, and the theft and recovery of sunlight, two stanzas from near the end of Sólarljóð merit analysis. At least the first of these stanzas concerns a buried, probably solar a...

14. Grendel, His Mother and Other Moon-Monsters

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Edward Pettit (2020)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

That Grendel and his mother—two ellorgæstas ‘alien visitors/spirits’ or ‘visitors/spirits from elsewhere’ (1349)—may have a mythologically lunar aspect is not readily apparent from Beowulf. If present, this aspect lies in the background, though it may have been more apparent to an Anglo-Saxon audien...

15. The Sun in the Pike

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Edward Pettit (2020)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

By now, I hope that from the substantial body of evidence gathered in Part II for the existence of analogous Old English and Norse myths about conflict between sun and moon over the possession of light—from more general Old Norse references to lunar giants and giantesses, and from passages from Beow...

16. Conclusion

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Edward Pettit (2020)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Having covered so much ground and drawn so many parallels between aspects of Beowulf’s mere-episode and other texts, in this final chapter I summarize the study’s main findings so far and tie up some loose ends. I also introduce important new evidence, make additional proposals and draw general conc...

Bibliography

Bibliographies

Edward Pettit (2020)

Bibliographies

Excludes works found in the list of Signs and Abbreviations. Internet resources were last accessed on 29 October 2019.Abbott, R., ‘Some Recently Discovered Anglo-Saxon Carvings at Breedon-on-the-Hill’, Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society 39 (1963), 20–23.Abels, R...

Supplementary Note

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Edward Pettit (2020)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Too late for inclusion in the body of the text, there came to my attention two early Anglo-Saxon artefacts important for my discussion, in Chapter 4, of the close association of swords, and especially hilts, with the Cross in pre-Conquest England.On close inspection, one side of a gold and garnet cl...

List of Illustrations

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Edward Pettit (2020)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Grendel by Russell Marks. © Russell Marks. All rights reserved. viGrendel’s mother by Russell Marks. © Russell Marks. viiAll rights reserved. Figure 1. Pommel of the Gilling West Sword. © York Museums Trust, https://yorkmuseumstrust.org.uk, CC BY-SA 4.0. 104 Figure 2. The Langeid Sword. © Museum of...

Index

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Edward Pettit (2020)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Adam of Bremen 158, 431 Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum 158, 431Ægir 64, 185–188, 190–191, 216, 218, 336, 396, 427, 445–447 conflation with Gymir 185 ælfadl 109Ælfric of Eynsham 31, 37, 62, 87–88, 123, 150–151, 153, 285, 318, 320, 350, 365Æschere 52, 70, 133, 168, 239, 290, 360, 407–408Æth...