Youth and Age in the Finnsburg Fragment

Full text

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at
https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=vanq20
ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and
Reviews
ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vanq20
Youth and Age in the Finnsburg Fragment
Leonard Neidorf
To cite this article: Leonard Neidorf (2022) Youth and Age in the Finnsburg Fragment,
ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews, 35:1, 4-8, DOI:
10.1080/0895769X.2020.1733925
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/0895769X.2020.1733925
Published online: 28 Feb 2020.
Submit your article to this journal
Article views: 73
View related articles
View Crossmark data

Youth and Age in the Finnsburg Fragment
Leonard Neidorf
Department of English, Nanjing University, China
Criticism of the Finnsburg fragment is impeded by various well-known obstacles: the transmitted text,
preserved only in an eighteenth-century transcript of a lost Anglo-Saxon manuscript, exhibits numer-
ous signs of textual corruption; even after editorial amelioration, the text contains a multitude of hapax
legomena and lexical difficulties; and the brisk style of the poem, characteristic of the lay (Lied) rather
than the epic (Epos), leaves much unsaid that would be spelled out in a longer narrative poem that
makes abundant use of variation and apposition to foreground aspects of meaning.
1
Further confusion
arises from the fact that the Finnsburg poet plainly composed for an audience that was familiar with
a cycle of legends about fifth-century Danes, Jutes, and Frisians that is now lost and must be
reconstructed from the fragmentary poem, the Finn episode in Beowulf (ll. 1063–1159), a sequence
of names in Widsith (ll. 26–31), and various other scattered allusions.
2
The presumption of audience
familiarity is nowhere clearer than in the reference to Hengest sylf (l. 17a), “Hengest himself,”as one of
the five named men in Hnæf’s retinue who guard the doors of his besieged hall. The “pregnant”use of
sylf here implies that the audience already knows that Hengest will survive the battle at Finnsburg and
accept a difficult peace with Finn, which will last until the shame of serving Hnæf’s slayer eventually
drives Hengest to break his oath and kill Finn.
3
The episode in Beowulf confirms that this is the
outcome to which the battle recounted in the fragmentary poem eventually leads; yet it is also possible
that Hengest sylf implies familiarity with events (unrecorded in extant sources) that preceded the battle
at Finnsburg, in which Hengest might have played a central role and was perhaps responsible for
generating the animosity that prompts the night attack on Hnæf’s hall.
The poet’s presumption of familiarity with the figure of Hengest suggests that the rest of the
principal actors in the poem –his allies and opponents –were likewise familiar to the original
audience. Consequently, the poet could achieve the economy and rapidity of the heroic lay by
refraining from detailed characterization and the enumeration of each warrior’s attributes. Garulf,
for instance, is never explicitly characterized as a young man, but his youth is unmistakably implied
in the passages that concern him. Leading the attack on Hnæf’s hall, Garulf refuses to be restrained
by Guthere, who urges him not to risk his precious life at the front line of the battle:
ÐāgȳtGārulf[e] Gūðere stȳrde,
ðæt hēswāfrēolic feorh forman sīþe
tōðǣre healle durum hyrsta ne bǣre,
nūhyt nīþa heard ānyman wolde;
ac hēfrægn ofer eal undearninga,
dēormōd hæleþ, hwāðāduru hēolde. (ll. 18–23)
[Then Guthere exhorted Garulf not to bear his precious life and his armor to the doors of the hall in the first
assault, now that a man hardened by battles wishes to take them away; nevertheless he (Garulf) could be heard
clearly over everyone,the courageous hero, asking who held the door.]
4
By all appearances, Garulf is a noble youth and Guthere is a counselor, mentor, or older kinsman
responsible for protecting him.
5
Were Garulf understood to be a mature or elderly warrior,
Guthere’s exhortation would make inferior sense. Critics have consequently perceived Garulf to be
a youth even though the poem makes no explicit reference to his age. Indeed, J.R.R. Tolkien, in his
CONTACT Leonard Neidorf neidorf@nju.edu.cn Department of English, Nanjing University, China
© 2020 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ANQ: A QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF SHORT ARTICLES, NOTES, AND REVIEWS
2022, VOL. 35, NO. 1, 4–8
https://doi.org/10.1080/0895769X.2020.1733925

reconstruction of the poem’s legendary background, speculates that Garulf is a displaced Jutish
prince, living in exile at the Frisian court, whose life is precious because “in him the hopes of
a dynasty and a party were centred.”
6
Garulf’s youth is likewise implied in the poem’s second
reference to him, which states that he was “the first of all earth-dwellers”(ealra ærest eorðbuendra,
l. 32) to perish in the battle. If Garulf were not a youth, the fact that he was the first to die in the
battle would be less remarkable. By the same token, if Garulf is the youth that he appears to be, then
considerable tragic irony attends his threefold status as the principal instigator, the first casualty, and
the youngest named participant.
Although the youth of Garulf is widely recognized, the age of his opponent, Sigeferth, has not
been perceived and incorporated into the poem’s criticism. As with Garulf, there is no explicit
comment in the poem on the age of Sigeferth; the narrator describes him merely as one of the five
“experienced warriors”(drihtlice cempan, l. 14b) who are roused by Hnæf’s speech and rush to the
doors of the hall. Because the style of the lay does not permit the proliferation of apposed
descriptors, which would reveal something about a character’s age, parentage, ethnicity, and social
status, everything that can be known about Sigeferth must be inferred from the four lines of direct
speech that he utters in response to Garulf’s inquiry as to who holds the door:
“Sigeferþ is mīn nama,”cweþ hē;‘ic eom Secgena lēod,
wreccea wīde cūð; fæla ic wēana gebād,
heordra hilda; ðēis gȳthēr witod
swæþer ðūsylf tōmēsēcean wylle.’(ll. 24–27)
[‘Sigeferth is my name,’he said; ‘I am a prince of the Secgan, an exile widely known; I have endured a multitude of
woes, of severe battles; for you it will now be seen which of the two things you yourself will obtain from me here.’]
In this speech, Sigeferth describes himself as a well-known wreccea, a term that can mean either
“hero”in general (the operative sense in Recke, its modern German cognate) or “exile”more
specifically (the sense reflected in wretch, its modern English descendant).
7
Sigeferth’s status as
a prince of the Secgan, revealed in the preceding verse, disambiguates between these possibilities and
suggests that he has been exiled from his people and forced to take up service with a foreign lord, the
Danish king Hnæf. The multitude of sufferings (fæla …wēana) mentioned in the subsequent verse is
likewise consonant with the assumption that Sigeferth is a literal exile, as it produces a line that
resonates with the elegiac poems (e.g., The Wanderer, The Seafarer, The Wife’s Lament) in which
speakers invariably described as wreccan lament the hardships that the experience of exile thrust
upon them.
8
The first five verses constitute a condensed autobiography; the final three verses
challenge Garulf to see which of two things –i.e., victory or defeat, life or death, shame or
honor –he will receive from him. The speech is exceptionally terse, and the connection between
its first five verses and its final three verses is not spelled out, though one possible explanation will be
suggested below.
Sigeferth does not describe himself as an old man, but comparison of his speech with its two
closest analogues in early Germanic heroic poetry raises a strong possibility that the original
audience of the Finnsburg fragment would have perceived him to be a relatively aged warrior. The
closest analogue to his speech is found in the Hildebrandslied, in a five-line sequence spoken by
Hildebrand when he realizes that battle with his son, Hadubrand, cannot be avoided:
ih wallota sumaro enti wintro sehstic ur lante,
dar man mih eo scerita in folc sceotantero:
so man mir at burc ęnigeru banun ni gifasta,
nu scal mih suasat chind suertu hauwan,
breton mit sinu billiu, eddo ih imo ti banin werdan. (ll. 50–54)
ANQ: A QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF SHORT ARTICLES, NOTES, AND REVIEWS 5

[I was away from the country sixty summers and winters (i.e., thirty years), where I have always been grouped
in the army of lancers. Although I have been dealt death in no town, now my own boy shall hew me with
a sword, strike me down with his blade, or I become his killer.]
9
These five lines form a striking parallel to Sigeferth’s four lines: like Sigeferth, Hildebrand alludes to
his period of exile, asserts that he has survived many battles, and announces that one of two things –
patricide or filicide –is about to happen. The precise age of Hildebrand is never stated, but he must
be at least fifty years old, since he had time to beget a son prior to his thirty years in exile.
10
Whatever his actual age, the poem leaves no doubt that Hildebrand was considered an old man in
legendary tradition at the time of his return from exile. The narrator describes Hildebrand as an
“older man”(heroro man, l. 7b) who is “more experienced of life”(ferahes frotoro, l. 8a). Hadubrand,
meanwhile, refers to Hildebrand insultingly as an “old Hun”(alter Hun, l. 39a) and alleges that he
has become “such an elderly man”(also gialtet man, l. 41a) through the continual practice of
underhanded tactics. While the age of Hildebrand does not establish that Sigeferth is equally old,
it is significant that the closest analogue to Sigeferth’s speech appears in the mouth of an aged and
exiled hero on the cusp of killing a young warrior who refuses to back down from the battle.
An additional reason to believe that the words of Sigeferth and Hildebrand reflect a conventional
type of speech associated with older warriors is that a similar speech appears in the mouth of the
elderly king Beowulf as he prepares to fight the dragon. This speech is not at all comparable in
length –Beowulf speaks for well over a hundred lines (ll. 2425–37) –but its beginning and ending
form a definite parallel to the words of Sigeferth and Hildebrand. Beowulf’s speech begins with the
familiar assertion that he has survived many battles:
Fela ic on giogoðe gūðrǣsa genæs,
orleghwila; ic þæt eall gemon. (ll. 2426–27)
[I survived many military assaults, periods of violent turmoil in my youth; I remember all that.]
The speech then concludes with the familiar announcement that one of two things is about to
happen on account of an inevitable battle. Beowulf tells his retainers:
Ic mid elne sceall
gold gegangan, oððe gūð nimeð,
feorhbealu frēcne, frēan ēowerne. (2535b-37a)
[With courage I shall obtain the gold, or warfare, perilous mortal combat, will carry off your lord.]
Reduced to these four and a half lines, Beowulf’s speech can be seen to form another analogue to
Sigeferth’s speech, insofar as it adheres to the basic structure of autobiographical recollection
followed by the “one of two things”trope. Beowulf’s speech also resembles Sigeferth’s in two
other respects: first, while never describing himself as an exile, Beowulf recalls the comparable
(but more pleasant) experience of fosterage, as he describes being given by his father to Hrethel at
the age of seven (ll. 2428–34); second, the elegiac note in Sigeferth’s“multitude of sufferings”is
paralleled in Beowulf’s account of the accidental death of Herebeald and the interminable grief of
Hrethel that resulted therefrom (ll. 2435–71). As the longest of the three passages, Beowulf’s speech
valuably elucidates the other two by suggesting that an elegiac note should indeed be perceived in
their terser allusions to exile and suffering.
11
Read in the context of its analogues, Sigeferth’s speech appears to be that of an older warrior who has
suffered much and welcomes death. The autobiographical recollection in its first five verses amounts to
a declaration that Sigeferth’s life has already been ruined, that circumstances forced him to commit some
heinous act worthy of exile, and that he has improbably survived a life of constant woe and warfare; he
therefore welcomes the death that is one of the two possible outcomes of the battle with Garulf. Death
would come to him as a relief, not a tragedy. For medieval audiences familiar with lost legends of
Sigeferth, an ironic contrast was probably apparent in the moment of his confrontation with Garulf:
6L. NEIDORF

Sigeferth is an old man with little to look forward to, whereas Garulf is a young man with a bright future;
yet the participant with few reasons to live will survive the conflict, whereas the participant with many
reasons to live will senselessly perish in it. Part of the tragedy of the Finnsburg legend thus appears to be
that members of an older generation of warriors, responsible for creating the original (Jutish?)
animosity, survive the renewal of conflict at Finnsburg, while members of a younger generation, who
played no role in the original feud, die innocently there. It is significant that the only character in the
Finnsburg fragment whose age is explicitly mentioned is Hnæf, the “battle-young king”(heaþogeong
cyning, l. 2b), the one named participant on the Danish side of the conflict whose death at Finnsburg is
confirmed in Beowulf. Hnæf appears to die not for his own past deeds, but for the deeds of the old and
exiled champions, such as Sigeferth, who happens to serve him. In the final analysis, the theme of
innocent youth and culpable age, evidently central to the Finnsburg legend, remains discernible between
the lines of the fragmentary lay when the poem is read carefully in the light of its analogues.
Notes
1. On the generic distinction between the lay and the epic, see Heusler;Ker (121–22); and Andersson (3–55).
Stanley (291–97) doubts that the Finnsburg fragment is a lay, but Reichl (73–100) presents convincing
comparative evidence that it should indeed be regarded as such. For discussion of the textual and lexical
difficulties attending the study of the fragment, see Girvan (328–33); Fry (1–5); and Hill (27–29).
2. For reconstructions of the Finnsburg legend, see Lawrence;Girvan;Chambers (283–87); Fry (5–25); Tolkien
(159–62); and North (14–15).
3. For the characterization of Hengest sylf as “pregnant,”see Tolkien (63); for further discussion of this figure, see
de Vries. On the widespread circulation of migration-era legends in England during the seventh and eighth
centuries, see Neidorf (96–101).
4. The texts of Beowulf and the Finnsburg fragment are cited throughout by line number from the edition of Fulk
et al. The translations provided throughout are my own.
5. Klaeber (307) reasonably supposes that Guthere and Garulf are uncle and nephew on the grounds that uncles
conventionally advise and protect nephews in Germanic tradition.
6. Tolkien (33); for a similar view, see Chambers (263).
7. For discussion of Old English wrecca,illustrated with various examples from the literature, see Tolkien (64–6);
Cherniss (102–19); and Gwara (12–21).
8. On exile as a defining feature of the elegiac poems, see Klinck (225–7); and Greenfield. For a study of the elegy
genre that argues for the antiquity of the form in Germanic, see Harris,“Hadubrand’s Lament.”
9. The text of Hildebrandslied is cited throughout by line number from the edition of Braune (84–5); the
translation provided is that of Fulk et al. (339–41).
10. Bostock (49) reckons that the returning Hildebrand “must now be fifty-five to sixty years of age.”That
Hildebrand should consequently be considered old in a West Germanic poem makes sense in view of
Porck’s(44) demonstration that “[t]he Anglo-Saxons …appear to have favoured fifty years of age as the
onset of old age.”
11. For extended discussion of the speech and its elegiac dimensions, see Harris,“Beowulf’sDeath Song.”
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
ORCID
Leonard Neidorf http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9666-1978
Works cited
Andersson, Theodore M. A Preface to the Nibelungenlied. Stanford UP, 1987.
Bostock, J. Knight. A Handbook on Old High German Literature. 2nd ed., Revised by K. C. King and D. R. McLintock,
Clarendon, 1976.
Braune, Wilhelm, ed. Althochdeutsches Lesebuch: Zusammengestellt und mit Wörterbuch versehen. 17th ed., Revised by
Ernst. A. Ebbinghaus, de Gruyter, 1994.
ANQ: A QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF SHORT ARTICLES, NOTES, AND REVIEWS 7

Chambers, R. W. Beowulf: An Introduction to the Study of the Poem with a Discussion of the Stories of Offa and Finn.
Revised by C. L. Wrenn, 3rd ed., Cambridge UP, 1959.
Cherniss, Michael D. Ingeld and Christ: Heroic Concepts and Values in Old English Christian Poetry. Mouton, 1972.
de Vries, Jan. “Die beiden Hengeste.”Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie, vol. 72, 1953, pp. 125–43.
Fry, Donald K, ed. Finnsburh: Fragment and Episode, Methuen, 1974.
Fulk, R. D., et al., eds. Klaeber’s Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburh. 4th ed., Toronto UP, 2008.
Girvan, Ritchie. “Finnsburuh.”Proceedings of the British Academy, vol. 26, 1940, pp. 327–60.
Greenfield, Stanley B. “The Formulaic Expression of the Theme of ‘Exile’in Anglo- Saxon Poetry.”Speculum, vol. 30,
1955, pp. 200–06. doi:10.2307/2848466.
Gwara, Scott. Heroic Identity in the World of Beowulf. Brill, 2008.
Harris, Joseph. “Hadubrand’s Lament: On the Age and Origin of Elegy in Germanic.”Heldensage und Heldendichtung
im Germanischen, edited by Heinrich Beck, de Gruyter, 1988, pp. 81–114.
Harris, Joseph. “Beowulf’s Last Words.”Speculum, vol. 67, 1992, pp. 1–32. doi:10.2307/2863744.
Heusler, Andreas. Lied und Epos in germanischer Sagendichtung. F. W. Ruhfus, 1905.
Hill, Joyce, ed. Old English Minor Heroic Poems. 3rd ed., Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2009.
Ker, W. P. Epic and Romance: Essays on Medieval Literature. 2nd ed., Macmillan, 1908.
Klaeber, Friedrich. “Zum Finnsburg-Kampfe.”Englische Studien, vol. 39, 1908, pp. 307–08.
Klinck, Anne, ed. The Old English Elegies: A Critical Edition and Genre Study, McGill- Queen’s UP, 1992.
Lawrence, William Witherle. “Beowulf and the Tragedy of Finnsburg.”PMLA, vol. 30, 1915, pp. 372–431. doi:10.2307/
457101.
Neidorf, Leonard. The Transmission of Beowulf: Language, Culture, and Scribal Behavior. Cornell UP, 2017.
North, Richard. “Tribal Loyalties in the Finnsburh Fragment and Episode.”Leeds Studies in English,vol.21,1990,pp.13–43.
Porck, Thijs. Old Age in Early Medieval England: A Cultural History. Boydell, 2019.
Reichl, Karl. Singing the Past: Turkic and Medieval Heroic Poetry. Cornell UP, 2000.
Stanley, Eric G. “The Germanic ‘Heroic Lay’of Finnesburg.”A Collection of Papers with Emphasis on Old English
Literature, Toronto UP, 1987, pp. 281–97.
Tolkien, J. R. R. Finn and Hengest. Edited by Alan Bliss, Reprinted ed., HarperCollins, 2006.
8L. NEIDORF