BEOW-BJÁRR

That Beow was known in Scandinavia is plainly evidenced by his appearance in versions of an Icelandic genealogy known as langfeðgatal (‘long count of ancestors’). The earliest version of this genealogy to contain a reflex of Beow is found in Reykjavík, Stofnun Árna Magnússonar AM 1 e β II fol., a copy of a mid-thirteenth-century vellum manuscript which itself probably had an earlier exemplar.Footnote ¹² In this manuscript a certain ‘Beaf’ is given as the son of ‘Sceldva’, who is himself preceded several stages earlier by ‘Sescef’.Footnote ¹³ The reliance of this part of the genealogy on an Old English text is made plain by the scribe’s linguistic and orthographic errors: ‘Beaf’ derives from ‘Beaw’, where an OE wynn (‘ƿ’) was misinterpreted by an Icelandic scribe as an ‘f’, and ‘Sescef’ is a corruption of an original se Scef (i.e. ‘that Sceaf’). The source is likely to be closely related to a list dating from c. 990–4 contained within the English manuscript London, British Library, Cotton Tiberius B. v.Footnote ¹⁴ At a later stage, these figures were equated with characters apparently known from Scandinavian tradition. Perhaps the earliest extant genealogy to contain this additional explanatory material is the so-called Ættartala Sturlunga (‘genealogy of the Sturlungar’), which is preserved in the Codex Upsaliensis manuscript of Snorri Sturluson’s Edda (DG 11 4to).Footnote ¹⁵ Here one finds ‘Skjaldun, en vér kǫllum Skjǫldr, hans son Bíaf, þann kǫllum vér Bjár’.Footnote ¹⁶ Sceaf reappears as ‘Sesef’ here with the troublesome ‘c’ removed, and apparently lacks a known Scandinavian parallel. This same genealogy is also repeated, with minor variations, in the Prologue to Snorri’s Edda, and in the text known as Hversu Noregr byggðist (‘how Norway was settled’), which appears in the Flateyjarbók manuscript.Footnote ¹⁷

The genealogist is of course right to connect the ‘Skjaldun’ of his English source with Skjǫldr, who is well-known in Scandinavian tradition as the progenitor of the Skjǫldungar or Scyldings. The equation between ‘Beaf/Bíaf’ and a figure apparently known as ‘Bjárr’ is more controversial. As Richard C. Boer suggested over a century ago, it seems likely that a figure known as Bjárr was in existence prior to the insertion of Beaf into the Icelandic langfeðgatal, as the Old Norse form is substantially different from the Old English one provided.Footnote ¹⁸ Icelandic genealogists were no strangers to devising fictional ancestors, but one might expect a form such as ‘*Bjáf(r)’ if based purely on the erroneous reading ‘Beaf/Bíaf’. Bjárr in all likelihood represents an earlier loan from ‘Bēaw’, where OE ēa is rendered as ON já. Footnote ¹⁹

Confirmation that Bjárr existed outside of genealogical contexts is furnished by a group of verses preserved in Snorri Sturluson’s Skáldskaparmál. These stanzas constitute a þula or versified list of horses and their riders which is variously entitled Kálfsvísa (‘Kálfr’s poem’), Alsvinnsmál (‘The Speech of Alsvinnr’) and Frá hestum (‘concerning horses’).Footnote ²⁰ Assuming that this material was not composed by Snorri himself, it must predate his work. This dates this poetry realistically to the late twelfth or early thirteenth century, though it could conceivably have been composed earlier. The verses run as follows:

How much, or how little, these inconspicuous verses can tell us about the status of Beow in Scandinavia has long been the subject of debate. The form Bjárr which appears towards the end of this þula was once thought to bear a connection with ‘Bjarki’. This is a sobriquet borne by Bǫðvarr, a protagonist of Hrólfs saga kraka (‘the saga of Hrólfr kraki’).Footnote ²³ As the slayer of a monster pillaging the hall of the Scylding king in Denmark, Bǫðvarr has long been regarded as one of the closest Scandinavian analogues to Beowulf.Footnote ²⁴ The possibility of a connection between this figure and Bjárr was most famously promoted by Barend Symons in 1900. Symons, apparently taking a cue from Sophus Bugge, suggested that Bjárr formed a bridge between Beow and Bjarki.Footnote ²⁵ This suggestion was rejected soon after by Axel Olrik.Footnote ²⁶ In the same year Boer also dismissed Symons’ idea, but nevertheless maintained that Bjarki and Bjárr were identical.Footnote ²⁷ Andreas Heusler, followed by Alois Brandl, noted the phonetic similarity between the two names, but both were otherwise unconvinced of any etymological or functional link.Footnote ²⁸ It seems that putative connections between Bjárr and Bjarki were thoroughly unfashionable by the time that William W. Lawrence published his influential contribution to Beowulf criticism in 1909.Footnote ²⁹ By 1918, Erik Björkman could suggest ‘auch der mehrfach angenommene Zusammenhang zwischen Biárr und Biarki (‘barchen’) ist endgültig aufzugeben’.Footnote ³⁰

Since the conclusion of this debate, Kálfsvísa has only been stretched so far as to suggest that Bjárr, a reflex of Beaw, was known in Scandinavia – a view which has a long pedigree.Footnote ³¹ Henrik Schück treated the verse as evidence that ‘denna Beaw eller Beo har äfven varit känd i norden’, and Chambers suggested that Kálfsvísa serves as proof that ‘something was known in the north of this Bjar’.Footnote ³² Jan de Vries also regards Bjárr as a ‘name aus der heldensage’.Footnote ³³ This has not been accepted universally, however. Lawrence suggested ‘Bēowa has no place in any northern version of the saga of the Scyldings, nor is there any evidence of his early presence there as a mythico-heroic figure’.Footnote ³⁴ Joseph Harris in a recent treatment voiced more reserved doubt: ‘one is certainly entitled to be skeptical about whether thula information really reflects lost stories’.Footnote ³⁵

BJARKARÍMUR

With only two instances of Bjárr available to the debate – one present in a genealogy clearly derived from Anglo-Saxon material, the other in a versified list of uncertain date and provenance – it is unsurprising that Beow’s existence or otherwise in Scandinavia, and his significance there, have come down to a question of belief. The Old Norse work known as Bjarkarímur (‘Bjarki’s rímur’) furnishes additional evidence which contributes to this well-worn debate. This text is a cycle of eight rímur or poetic sub-sections (sg. ríma) dating from around 1400.Footnote ³⁶ It centres around Bǫðvarr bjarki and is set against the wider dynastic history of the Skjǫldungar. Bjarkarímur has long been of interest to scholars of Beowulf, as it independently preserves much of the same material as Hrólfs saga kraka – one of the most well-known witnesses to the heroic tradition drawn on in the Old English epic.Footnote ³⁷ Both texts are based to a great extent on a lost early-thirteenth-century text known as Skjǫldunga saga (‘the saga of the Skjǫldungar’). However, Bjarkarímur is extant significantly earlier than Hrólfs saga and may represent its source more closely.Footnote ³⁸

The material relevant to this discussion is found in the first two rímur where the poet relates events surrounding a chieftain named Bjórr. The plot of this section of Bjarkarímur will be summarized to facilitate discussion. The poet begins his narrative in the court of Hrólfr kraki, Beowulf’s Hroðulf, and then introduces Bjórr in stanza 20:

Bjórr is said to be the father of three sons, Bǫðvarr, Fróði and Þórir, in the following two stanzas:

The death of Bjórr’s wife is narrated in stanza 23, and his counsellor, Bjǫrn, advises him to remarry in the following verse:

Bjǫrn proposes that Bjórr marry Ása hin fríða (‘the beautiful’), daughter of a certain Þrándr. Bjórr approves this plan:

He stipulates that his counsellor may also choose an alternative should Ása refuse. The first ríma proceeds with Bjǫrn setting out on a lengthy bridal quest on Bjórr’s behalf. He is blown off course and comes across a man, Surtr, and his daughter, Hvít. She agrees to marry Bjórr, and they are wed. At the end of the first ríma the poet mentions Hvít’s wretched nature and her negative influence on Bjórr. The second ríma begins with Hvít’s ill relations with Bjórr’s sons. They accept bewitched cloaks from her, which turn Fróði into an elk, Þórir into a dog and Bǫðvarr into a bear. Fróði and Þórir tear each other apart, and Bǫðvarr escapes. He encounters a woman called Hildr and they produce three heirs who are, like Bjórr’s sons, called Fróði, Þórir and Bǫðvarr. This younger Bǫðvarr, who is protagonist of the rímur, later accrues the epithet bjarki (‘little bear’). The elder Bǫðvarr is captured and slain in bear form by men loyal to Hvít. He is then cooked. His sons unwittingly eat morsels of his flesh and take on animalistic features. Shortly after this Bjórr dies of sickness:

The younger Fróði holds a funeral for his grandfather Bjórr. The following six rímur concern the exploits of Fróði, Þórir and Bǫðvarr, the last of whom assumes his famous role as Hrólfr kraki’s champion.

The mysterious figure known as Bjórr has gone almost unmentioned in the history of Beowulf criticism despite the clear resonance between his unusual name and that of Bjárr.Footnote ⁴⁴ As a proper noun Bjórr is unique in the Old Norse corpus, appearing only in Bjarkarímur. It might be reasonably traced to the common noun bjórr (‘beaver’), especially considering the frequency of theriophoric names in Old Norse. However, no such name or name element is attested.Footnote ⁴⁵ It seems likely that Bjórr is instead a loan from OE ‘Bēo(w)’, where jó represents an approximation of ēo. Footnote ⁴⁶ This makes it a variant form of Bjárr, which derives from OE ‘Bēaw’. That Bjórr consists of a root, Bjór, with a later nominative -r, is suggested by stanza 24 in the first ríma, where the genitive form ‘Bjórs’ is given.Footnote ⁴⁷ The existence of this form may settle the question of whether or not the related form ‘Bjárr’ also features a nominative -r. Footnote ⁴⁸

Readers familiar with Hrólfs saga will notice several marked departures between the narrative related there and the one preserved in Bjarkarímur. Two are of relevance to this discussion. The first difference concerns the identity of Bǫðvarr bjarki’s forebear. In Hrólfs saga, the grandfather of Bǫðvarr is named Hringr and is the chieftain of Uppdalir (modern-day Oppdal) in Norway.Footnote ⁴⁹ Outside of Hrólfs saga no king of this name is connected to Scylding tradition, and Hringr is often used as a stock name for rulers in the Old Norse fornaldarsögur (‘legendary sagas’).Footnote ⁵⁰ Bjórr, the only other appearance of Bǫðvarr’s grandfather in the Old Norse corpus, instead lives on the coast of Áland (modern-day Åland), located east of Sweden. In terms of narrative stemmatics, the name Bjórr certainly represents a lectio difficilior and may more reliably preserve the earlier name borne by Bǫðvarr’s grandfather. In situating Boðvarr’s family in eastern Scandinavia Bjarkarímur also departs from the Latin excerpt of Skjǫldunga saga, which, like Hrólfs saga, identifies Bodvarus (Bǫðvarr bjarki) as Norwegian. In this Bjarkarímur more closely approximates the Scylding tradition preserved in Beowulf, where the action is restricted almost exclusively to south-eastern Scandinavia.

The second departure is that Bjórr is attended by a counsellor named Bjǫrn. His bridal quest on behalf of the jarl occupies the majority of the first ríma, running from stanza 24 to stanza 50, and he therefore constitutes a significant character in the cycle as a whole. His conversation with Bjórr also represents the jarl’s only direct speech in Bjarkarímur. While Bjǫrn’s quest to find a wife for Bjórr in Bjarkarímur is a cast as a lengthy adventure, the corresponding marriage between Hringr and Hvít in Hrólfs saga is instead arranged by an unnamed delegation of Hringr’s men in chapter 17 of the saga. Bjǫrn is absent in this text, and the jarl’s marriage is only treated briefly. The relevance of this will be considered shortly.

It is of clear importance to the debate surrounding Beow that a figure bearing a form of this name appears in one of the chief Scandinavian witnesses to Scylding tradition. It seems apparent that the forms ‘Bēaw’ and ‘Bēo(w)’ both entered the Old Norse corpus from Old English and circulated there as variants. The evidence adduced from Bjarkarímur would contradict Lawrence’s comment that ‘Bēowa has no place in any northern version of the saga of the Scyldings’.Footnote ⁵¹ One author, at least, considered Bjórr, or Beow, to be the forebear of the most renowned champion of the Skjǫldungr king Hrólfr kraki.

BEOW AND SCANDINAVIAN HEROIC TRADITION

The full significance of the evidence adduced from Bjarkarímur to the aged debate surrounding Beow is only revealed by returning to Kálfsvísa. While often considered a simple list of horses and their riders, there appears to be an organizing principle at work in these verses which is relevant to the present investigation: namely, the riders are grouped primarily according to the cycle to which they belong. The first eight half-lines, which contain the most miscellaneous mix of heroes, appears to have an affinity with the tradition of the hero Helgi Hundingsbani. Dagr, mentioned in the first half-line, is the name of Helgi’s slayer, as related in the eddic poem Helgakviða Hundingsbana II (‘the second poem of Helgi Hundingsbani’). The figure allusively referred to in the eighth half-line as skati Haddingja (‘champion of the Haddingjar’) is known from the epilogue of this same poem as Helgi Haddingjaskaði (‘slayer of the Haddingjar’), who is said to be the reincarnation of Helgi Hundingsbani. These two figures envelop a range of other names. Dvalinn in the third half-line is not a known hero, but is a name commonly employed in þulur. Haki is mentioned in Ynglinga saga (‘the saga of the Ynglingar’) and Saxo Grammaticus’ Gesta Danorum as the brother of Hagbarðr and an enemy of Hugleikr, Beowulf’s Hygelac. Hjalmþér may be identical to one of the eponymous protagonists of the fornaldarsaga Hjálmþés saga ok Ǫlvis (‘the saga of Hjálmþér and Ǫlvir’), and bani Belja (‘the slayer of Beli’) is the god Freyr.Footnote ⁵²

The final four half-lines in Kálfsvísa concern figures connected to the Vǫlsungar – a dynasty also referred to in Beowulf. Footnote ⁵³ Hǫgni, Gunnarr and Sigurðr are mentioned in turn, interspersed by a Haraldr, who may be identical with the legendary Danish king Haraldr hilditǫnn (‘war-tooth’). The Hun prince Atli is also mentioned in the third half-line of stanza 4 in proximity to his victims Hǫgni and Gunnarr.

The largest division of Kalfsvísa is situated between these two groups, and concerns figures which chiefly appear in sources relating to the Scyldings. At the core of this section is the only narrative material to be found in the collection of verses. It describes Áli, Beowulf’s Onela, riding a horse known as Hrafn on the ice. Aðils, or Eadgils, rides another horse to the east which has been wounded by a spear. This pertains allusively to a famous battle between the two kings which is narrated between lines 2391–6 and 2611–22 of Beowulf and in a range of Scandinavian sources including Bjarkarímur, Snorra Edda, Ynglinga saga, Gesta Danorum and Arngrímur’s abstract of Skjǫldunga saga. In the Old English epic, Beowulf assists Eadgils in slaying Onela. The Scandinavian sources have Hrólfr’s champion Bǫðvarr similarly assist Aðils in slaying Áli, but the northern versions locate this battle on a frozen lake in Sweden named Vænir (modern-day Vänern).

Judging by the plural verb riðu in the second half-line of the third stanza, the names mentioned prior to this allusive reference also rode to the battle. Meinþjófr and Morginn are otherwise unknown, but Vésteinn and Vífill survive in other material relating to the Scyldings. Vésteinn only otherwise exists in Beowulf as Weohstan, father of Wiglaf and slayer of Onela’s son Eanmund.Footnote ⁵⁴ Vífill is known from Hrólfs saga, where he protects the sons of Hálfdan, Beowulf’s Healfdene. Neither Vésteinn nor Vífill are mentioned elsewhere in Scandinavian sources as participants in the battle on Vænir. Both are nevertheless firmly entrenched in related legendary material, and the poet of Kálfsvísa may have been drawing on traditions regarding the battle which have not survived in other Scandinavian sources. The mention of Vésteinn, who is only otherwise connected to the earliest layer of Scylding tradition, would support such a hypothesis.

The portion of Kálfsvísa associated with Scylding legendary tradition ends with the mention of Aðils and his horse, Slungnir, in the fourth half-line of stanza 4. Towards the end of this section, directly after the reference to the battle on Vænir, Bjárr and Bjǫrn are mentioned in tandem. These figures are seemingly identical to Bjórr and his companion, Bjǫrn, who appear together in Bjarkarímur.

Considering the material discussed in Bjarkarímur, the grouping of Bjárr and Bjǫrn together in a section of the late-twelfth or early-thirteenth-century Kálfsvísa with concrete links to Scylding legend has clear implications for this discussion. It suggests that Bjárr was not simply a name fished from genealogical material and used to fill out a versified list of heroes. That the pairing of Bjárr/Bjórr and Bjǫrn spans from Kálfsvísa until the early fifteenth-century Bjarkarímur suggests that a consistent tradition surrounding Beow developed and remained current in Scandinavia for centuries after it faded in England. With this being the case, it now seems untenable to claim, as Lawrence did, that Bjárr can be understood as merely a ‘bookish explanation of material derived from Anglo-Saxon sources’.Footnote ⁵⁵ Nor was Beow simply known of in the north, as has been suggested on the basis of his appearance in Kálfsvísa and the Icelandic langfeðgatal. Footnote ⁵⁶ He seems instead to have accrued a distinctive identity and character. In Bjárkarímur his Scandinavian reflex has an important narrative function and emotional life beyond his role as a Scandinavian patriarch.