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Notes
All quotations fromBeowulf are from the edition by F. Klaeber (Boston, 3rd ed., 1950).
Thus J. R. Clark Hall in his translation ofBeowulf (London, new ed., 1950), p. 82, has: “That was no good exchange — that they should pay on both sides with the lives of loved ones.” Butbicgan means not “pay” but “buy, pay for”.
So inGuthlac, ed. G. P. Krapp and E. V. K. Dobbie,The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, 3 (New York, 1936), p. 52: Hine weard biheold halig of heofonum, se þæt hluttre mod in þæs gæstes god georne trymede. (105–7) “A holy guardian from heaven beheld him, who eagerly encouraged that pure spirit in the good of the soul.” For other examples seeAn Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, ed. J. Bosworth and T. N. Toller (Oxford, 1898), undermod, sense I, and undertunge, sense II (1).
An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, ed. Bosworth and Toller, underhand, gives an example from the Laws of Ine: “Gif mon forstolenne man befo æt oðrum and sie sio hond oðcwolen sio hine sealde ðam men ðe hine mon ætbefengif a stolen man be attached in another's possession, and the hand [person] be dead that sold him to the man in whose possession he is attached.” Toller's Supplement toAn Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (Oxford, 1921), gives further examples underhand, sense V. The wordmund is very common in legal documents in the sense “protector, guardian”.
I believe that a critical Christian view of the feud, and of other aspects of the Germanic past inBeowulf, is deep in the poem, though it is not a matter of simple condemnation, it does not go so far as to suggest a “turn the other cheek” philosophy, and indeed it is nowhere articulated. Margaret Goldsmith,The Mode and Meaning of Beowulf (London, 1970), sees the poet as drawing attention to the futility of the feud, and the suffering it causes, in several episodes (such as the Finn episode, p. 250), but she does not consider the Grendel's mother episode from this point of view. Though it is not possible in a short paper on a point of detail to investigate possible backgrounds to the poet's thought, it is I think relevant to note that in the introduction to his legal code (the standard edition of which is contained inDie Gesetze der Angelsachsen, 1, ed. F. Liebermann, Halle, 1903, pp. 15–123), King Alfred gives an English translation of the Mosaic law as it is found in Ex. 20 : 1–23 : 13, including the “eye for eye” verse, and then points out that Christ when He came to earth said that He did not come to break or annul the Mosaic law but to enhance it (cf. Matt. 5 : 17), and that He taught mercy and humility (“mid eallum godum to ecanne, & mildheortnesse & eaðmodnesse he lærde”, Liebermann, p. 42). Then, towards the end of his introduction, Alfred states that after the conversion of many peoples to the Christian faith synods were assembled, in England as elsewhere, which established, “for ðære mildheortnesse þe Crist læ rde” (Liebermann, p. 44), that money payments were acceptable compensation for most misdeeds. Alfred's legal code follows, setting out amounts of compensation payable for a wide range of offences, including manslaughter. Goldsmith (p. 160) suggests that “the Beowulf poet imagined the pre-Christian world of his heroes as being rather like the world of David”, and that “the God of the Danes is like the God of ancient Israel”.
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Anderson, J.J. The “cuþe folme” inBeowulf . Neophilologus 67, 126–130 (1983). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01956995
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01956995