A Book of Myths
treasure, nobly gained. And when Beowulf had come in safety to his
homeland and had told his kinsman the tale of the slaying of the
Grendel and of the Wolf-Woman, he gave the finest of his steeds to the
King, and to the Queen the jewelled collar, Brisingamen, that the
Queen of the Goths had bestowed on him. And the heart of his uncle was
glad and proud indeed, and there was much royal banqueting in the
hero's honour. Of him, too, the scalds made up songs, and there was no
hero in all that northern land whose fame was as great as was the fame
of Beowulf.
"The Must Be often helps an undoomed man when he is brave" was the
precept on which he ruled his life, and he never failed the King whose
chief champion and warrior he was. When, in an expedition against the
Frieslanders, King Hygelac fell a victim to the cunning of his foes,
the sword of Beowulf fought nobly for him to the end, and the hero was
a grievously wounded man when he brought back to Gothland the body of
the dead King. The Goths would fain have made him their King, in
Hygelac's stead, but Beowulf was too loyal a soul to supplant his
uncle's own son. On his shield he laid the infant prince, Hardred, and
held him up for the people to see. And when he had proclaimed the
child King and vowed to serve him faithfully all the days of his life,
there was no man there who did not loyally echo the promise of their
hero, Beowulf.
When Hardred, a grown man, was treacherously slain by a son of Othere,
he who discovered the North Cape, Beowulf once again was chosen King,
and for forty years he reigned wisely and well. The fame of his arms
kept war away from the land, and his wisdom as a statesman brought
great prosperity and happiness to his people. He had never known fear,
and so for him there was nothing to dread when the weakness of age
fell upon him and when he knew that his remaining years could be but
few:
"Seeing that Death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come."[9]
Through all those years of peace, the thing that was to bring death to
him had lurked, unknown, unimagined, in a cave in the lonely
mountains.
Many centuries before the birth of Beowulf, a family of mighty
warriors had won by their swords a priceless treasure of weapons and
of armour, of richly chased goblets and cups, of magnificent ornaments
and precious jewels, and of gold "beyond the dreams of avarice." In a
great cave among the rocks it was hoarded by the last of their line,
and on his death none knew where it was hidden. Upon it one day there
stumbled a fiery dragon--a Firedrake--and for three hundred years the
monster gloated, unchallenged, over the magnificent possession. But at
the end of that time, a bondsman, who fled before his master's
vengeance and sought sanctuary in the mountains, came on an opening in
the rocks, and, creeping in, found the Firedrake asleep upon a mass of
red gold and of sparkling gems that dazzled his eyes even in the
darkness. For a moment he stood, trembling, then, sure of his master's
forgiveness if he brought him as gift a golden cup all studded with
jewels, he seized one and fled with it ere the monster could awake.
With its awakening, terror fell upon the land. Hither and thither it
flew, searching for him who had robbed it, and as it flew, it sent
flames on the earth and left behind it a black trail of ruin and of
death.
When news of its destroyings came to the ears of the father of his
people, Beowulf knew that to him belonged the task of saving the land
for them and for all those to come after them. But he was an old man,
and strength had gone from him, nor was he able now to wrestle with
the Firedrake as once he had wrestled with the Grendel and the
Wolf-Woman, but had to trust to his arms. He had an iron shield made
to withstand the Firedrake's flaming breath, and, with a band of
eleven picked followers, and taking the bondsman as guide, Beowulf
went out to fight his last fight. As they drew near the place, he bade
his followers stay where they were, "For I alone," he said, "will win
the gold and save my people, or Death shall take me."
From the entrance to the cave there poured forth a sickening cloud of
steam and smoke, suffocating and blinding, and so hot that he could
not go forward. But with a loud voice the old warrior shouted an
arrogant challenge of defiance to his enemy, and the Firedrake rushed
forth from its lair, roaring with the roar of an unquenchable fire
whose fury will destroy a city. From its wings of flame and from its
eyes heat poured forth scorchingly, and its great mouth belched forth
devouring flames as it cast itself on Beowulf.
The hero's sword flashed, and smote a stark blow upon its scaly head.
But Beowulf could not deal death strokes as once he had done, and
only for a moment was his adversary stunned. In hideous rage the
monster coiled its snaky folds around him, and the heat from his body
made the iron shield redden as though the blacksmith in his smithy
were welding it, and each ring of the armour that Beowulf wore seared
right into his flesh. His breast swelled with the agony, and his great
heart must have come near bursting for pain and for sorrow. For he saw
that panic had come on his followers and that they were fleeing,
leaving him to his fate. Yet not all of them were faithless. Wiglaf,
young and daring, a dear kinsman of Beowulf, from whom he had received
many a kindness, calling shame on the dastards who fled, rushed
forward, sword in hand, and with no protection but that of his shield
of linden wood. Like a leaf scorched in a furnace the shield curled
up, but new strength came to Beowulf with the knowledge that Wiglaf
had not failed him in his need. Together the two heroes made a gallant
stand, although blood flowed in a swift red stream from a wound that
the monster had made in Beowulf's neck with its venomous fangs, and
ran down his corselet. A stroke which left the Firedrake unharmed
shivered the sword that had seen many fights, but Wiglaf smote a
shrewd blow ere his lord could be destroyed, and Beowulf swiftly drew
his broad knife and, with an effort so great that all the life that
was left in him seemed to go with it, he shore the Firedrake asunder.
Then Beowulf knew that his end drew very near, and when he had thanked
Wiglaf for his loyal help, he bade him enter the cave and bring forth
the treasure that he might please his dying eyes by looking on the
riches that he had won for his people. And Wiglaf hastened into the
cave, for he knew that he raced with Death, and brought forth armfuls
of weapons, of magnificent ornaments, of goblets and of cups, of bars
of red gold. Handfuls of sparkling jewels, too, he brought, and each
time he came and went, seizing without choosing, whatever lay nearest,
it seemed as though the Firedrake's hoard were endless. A magical
golden standard and armour and swords that the dwarfs had made brought
a smile of joy into the dying King's eyes. And when the ten shamed
warriors, seeing that the fight was at an end, came to where their
mighty ruler lay, they found him lying near the vile carcase of the
monster he had slain, and surrounded by a dazzlement of treasure
uncountable. To them, and to Wiglaf, Beowulf spoke his valediction,
urging on them to maintain the honour of the land of the Goths, and
then he said:
"I thank God eternal, the great King of Glory,
For the vast treasures which I here gaze upon,
That I ere my death-day might for my people
Win so great wealth-- Since I have given my life,
Thou must now look to the needs of the nation;
Here dwell I no longer, for Destiny calleth me!
Bid thou my warriors after my funeral pyre
Build me a burial-cairn high on the sea-cliffs head;
It shall for memory tower up to Hronesness,
So that the sea-farers Beowulf's Barrow
Henceforth shall name it, they who drive far and wide
Over the mighty flood their foaming Reels.
Thou art the last of all the kindred of Wagmund!
Wyrd[10] has swept all my kin, all the brave chiefs away!
Now must I follow them!"
Such was the passing of Beowulf, greatest of Northern heroes, and
under a mighty barrow on a cliff very high above the sea, they buried
him, and with him a great fortune from the treasure he had won. Then
with heavy hearts, "round about the mound rode his hearth-sharers, who
sang that he was of kings, of men, the mildest, kindest, to his people
sweetest, and the readiest in search of praise":
"Gentlest, most gracious, most keen to win glory."
And if, in time, the great deeds of a mighty king of the Goths have
become more like fairy tale than solid history, this at least we know,
that whether it is in Saeland or on the Yorkshire coast--where
"High on the sea-cliff ledges
The white gulls are trooping and crying"
--the barrow of Beowulf covers a very valiant hero, a very perfect
gentleman.
FOOTNOTES:
[9] Shakespeare (_Julius Caesar_).
[10] Goddess of Fate.
ROLAND THE PALADIN
"Roland, the flower of chivalry,
Expired at Roncevall."
Thomas Campbell.
"Hero-worship endures for ever while man
endures."
Carlyle.
"Roland, the gode knight."
Turpin's _History of Charlemagne_.
The old chroniclers tell us that on that momentous morning when
William the Conqueror led his army to victory at Hastings, a Norman
knight named Taillefer (and a figure of iron surely was his) spurred
his horse to the front. In face of the enemy who hated all things that
had to do with France, he lifted up his voice and chanted aloud the
exploits of Charlemagne and of Roland. As he sang, he threw his sword
in the air and always caught it in his right hand as it fell, and,
proudly, the whole army, moving at once, joined with him in the
_Chanson de Roland_, and shouted, as chorus, "God be our help! God be
our help!"
"Taillefer ... chantoit de Rollant
Et d'Olivier, et de Vassaux
Qui mourent en Rainschevaux."
Wace, _Roman de Rose_.
Fifteen thousand of those who sang fell on that bloody day, and one
wonders how many of those who went down to the Shades owed half their
desperate courage to the remembrance of the magnificent deeds of the
hero of whom they sang, ere ever sword met sword, or spear met the
sullen impact of the stark frame of a Briton born, fighting for his
own.
The story of Roland, so we are told, is only a splendid coating of
paint put on a very slender bit of drawing. A contemporary chronicle
tells of the battle of Roncesvalles, and says: "In which battle was
slain Roland, prefect of the marches of Brittany." Merely a Breton
squire, we are told to believe--a very gallant country gentleman whose
name would not have been preserved in priestly archives had he not won
for himself, by his fine courage, such an unfading laurel crown. But
because we are so sure that "it is the memory that the soldier leaves
after him, like the long trail of light that follows the sunken sun,"
and because so often oral tradition is less misleading than the
written word, we gladly and undoubtingly give Roland high place in the
Valhalla of heroes of all races and of every time.
777 or 778 A.D. is the date fixed for the great fight at Roncesvalles,
where Roland won death and glory. Charlemagne, King of the Franks, and
Head of the Holy Roman Empire, was returning victoriously from a seven
years' campaign against the Saracens in Spain.
"No fortress stands before him unsubdued,
Nor wall, nor city left to be destroyed,"
save one--the city of Saragossa, the stronghold of King Marsile or
Marsiglio. Here amongst the mountains the King and his people still