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A Community of Exiles: Whale and Human Domains in Old English Poetry

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The Palgrave Handbook of Animals and Literature

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Abstract

This chapter interprets the whale of the eighth-century Franks Casket as an exile, situating him within an Old English tradition of isolated human and non-human individuals. Poetry within this tradition clearly emphasizes the boundaries between land and sea, human and whale domains. And yet, it also points to a shared state of exile that affects both apex predators. Whether it is the leaving of his marine habitat for a land-locked stranding that marks the Franks Casket whale as an exile, or the drifting across inhospitable water that marks the human as an exile, both creatures are united in their separation from the domain in which they belong.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Photo by Brian J. Skerry.

  2. 2.

    Marino et al., “Cetaceans Have Complex”, 966–72.

  3. 3.

    Cowperthwaite et al., Blackfish.

  4. 4.

    For images, see British Museum, “The Franks Casket/Auzon Casket”.

  5. 5.

    Magennis, Images of Community, 3.

  6. 6.

    Hume, “Concept of the Hall”, 64.

  7. 7.

    Cameron et al., Dictionary of Old English (DOE), s.v. eþel.

  8. 8.

    Migration and Mythmaking.

  9. 9.

    “Formulaic Expression”, 125–31.

  10. 10.

    The Wanderer and The Wife’s Lament, in Krapp and Dobbie, Exeter Book, 135, line 45b, and 210, line 10a. Unless otherwise stated, all translations are my own.

  11. 11.

    The Seafarer, in Krapp and Dobbie, Exeter Book, 143, line 16.

  12. 12.

    “A Poetics of Empathy?” The riddle numbering system used here is that of Krapp and Dobbie, Exeter Book.

  13. 13.

    Estes, Anglo-Saxon Literary Landscapes, 121.

  14. 14.

    Natural World, 2.

  15. 15.

    Ælfric’s Colloquy, 30, lines 117–18. On early whaling, see Szabo, Monstrous Fishes.

  16. 16.

    Monstrous Fishes, 6.

  17. 17.

    For a theoretical approach to interactions with imperfect parchment, see Kay, Animal Skins, 3–7.

  18. 18.

    Krapp and Dobbie, Exeter Book, 193, lines 1-2a.

  19. 19.

    Transliterated from runes in Dobbie, Minor Poems, 116.

  20. 20.

    Visible Text, 10.

  21. 21.

    The second element of this compound is more certain: ric is a form of rica (king/ruler). The first element, gas, may be related to Icelandic geisa (to rage) and geisan (impetuosity). See Bosworth and Toller, Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, s.v. gasric, rica.

  22. 22.

    Monstrous Fishes, 55, n. 79.

  23. 23.

    Whitehead, “Sperm Whale”, 922–3.

  24. 24.

    See Szabo, Monstrous Fishes, 31–65; and Esser-Miles, “King of the Children of Pride”, 275–301.

  25. 25.

    Traditional Subjectivities.

  26. 26.

    “Franks Casket Speaks Back”, 37–61.

  27. 27.

    My only critique of Karkov’s argument is that the group migration she speaks of is different to the isolation of exile, even if a removal from one’s homeland is central to both.

  28. 28.

    “Franks Casket Speaks Back”, 43.

  29. 29.

    Krapp and Dobbie, Exeter Book, 143–4, lines 19b-26.

  30. 30.

    For an ecologically-informed discussion of The Seafarer’s birds, see Warren, Birds in Medieval English Poetry, 25–63.

  31. 31.

    Krapp and Dobbie, Exeter Book, 145, line 60a.

  32. 32.

    Esser-Miles, “King of the Children of Pride”, 296. The sea is also the road/path of swans and seals, and the bath of gannets and fish, though these formulaic iterations are less numerous than those relating to whales.

  33. 33.

    Anglo-Saxon Literary Landscapes, 37.

  34. 34.

    Krapp and Dobbie, Exeter Book, 171–2, lines 8–23.

  35. 35.

    See Paddock, “Beastly Spaces”, 89–90.

  36. 36.

    Oerlemans, “Animal in Allegory”, 298.

  37. 37.

    Paddock, “Beastly Spaces”, 86.

  38. 38.

    Szabo, Monstrous Fishes, 47–52; Bane, Encyclopedia of Beasts, 44, 57, 124, 169.

  39. 39.

    Exameron, 166, section 5.11.32.

  40. 40.

    Monstrous Fishes, 48.

  41. 41.

    Oerlemans, “Animal in Allegory”, 300.

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Recommended Further Reading

  • Esser-Miles, Carolin. 2014. ‘King of the Children of Pride’: Symbolism, Physicality, and the Old English Whale. In The Maritime World of the Anglo-Saxons, ed. Stacy S. Klein and William Schipper, 275–301. Tempe: Arizona Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.

    Google Scholar 

  • Estes, Heide. 2017. Anglo-Saxon Literary Landscapes: Ecotheory and the Environmental Imagination. Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Karkov, Catherine E. 2017. The Franks Casket Speaks Back: The Bones of the Past, the Becoming of England. In Postcolonizing the Medieval Image, ed. Eva Frojmovic and Catherine E. Karkov, 37–61. London: Routledge.

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  • Szabo, Vicki E. 2008. Monstrous Fishes and the Mead-Dark Sea: Whaling in the Medieval North Atlantic. Leiden: Brill.

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  1. University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

    Megan Cavell

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  1. Megan Cavell
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  1. Department of English, University of New England, Auburn, ME, USA

    Susan McHugh

  2. School of English, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

    Robert McKay  & John Miller  & 

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Cavell, M. (2021). A Community of Exiles: Whale and Human Domains in Old English Poetry. In: McHugh, S., McKay, R., Miller, J. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Animals and Literature. Palgrave Studies in Animals and Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39773-9_7

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