Launching the Hero: The Case of Scyld and Beowulf

Abstract

The portrait of Scyld which opens the Old English epic poem Beowulf constitutes the first panel of a diptych which will be completed with the portrait of the hero. As may be substantiated from the poem itself and from other poems within the Old English poetic corpus and Latin works well known to the Anglo-Saxons, the "Scyld Prologue" does not imply that the present poem is of the same type as those poems to which it refers, nor does it set the ethical tone of Beowulf as a whole. The "Prologue" describes a particular type of kingship, and, as the poet tells us, no-one can know the fate of a pagan who lives according to this old heroic ethos. However, the poem is designed specifically to demonstrate the fate of a pagan who follows quite different principles, and in this case the poet does not declare his ignorance.