Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- The writing and pronunciation of Old English
- I Teaching and learning
- II Keeping a record
- III Spreading the Word
- IV Example and Exhortation
- V Telling Tales
- 27 Falling in Love (from Apollonius of Tyre)
- 28 The Trees of the Sun and the Moon (from The Letter of Alexander)
- 29 Cynewulf and Cyneheard (from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: annal for 755)
- 30 The Battle of Maldon
- 31 Beowulf
- 32 The Fight at Finnsburh
- VI Reflection and lament
- Manuscripts and textual emendations
- Reference Grammar of Old English
- Glossary
- Guide to terms
- Index
32 - The Fight at Finnsburh
from V - Telling Tales
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- The writing and pronunciation of Old English
- I Teaching and learning
- II Keeping a record
- III Spreading the Word
- IV Example and Exhortation
- V Telling Tales
- 27 Falling in Love (from Apollonius of Tyre)
- 28 The Trees of the Sun and the Moon (from The Letter of Alexander)
- 29 Cynewulf and Cyneheard (from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: annal for 755)
- 30 The Battle of Maldon
- 31 Beowulf
- 32 The Fight at Finnsburh
- VI Reflection and lament
- Manuscripts and textual emendations
- Reference Grammar of Old English
- Glossary
- Guide to terms
- Index
Summary
By a rare chance, one of the most prominent episodes in Beowulf – the tale of the tragedy at Finnsburh, in which a marriage alliance is shattered by fighting between ostensible allies (Text 31a) – has come down to us in a second version, albeit fragmentarily. A single sheet of parchment containing forty-seven lines from an apparent ‘lay’ about the incident (i.e. a simple narrative poem or ballad) survived at least until the early eighteenth century, when the antiquarian George Hickes found it in a manuscript codex in the library of Lambeth Palace, the London residence of the archbishops of Canterbury. The fragment has since disappeared and we must rely for the text on the version printed by Hickes, among other old items, in 1705.
Even from the few preserved lines, it is clear that the lay had a different purpose from the Finnsburh episode as told by the poet of Beowulf. For him it is an exemplum, reminding the revelling Danes (and us) that the cycle of victory and defeat is relentless in the feud-driven heroicworld. His concern is with the social and ethical dimensions of the episode, and with the personal tragedy of the Danish princess Hildeburh, who loses brother, son and husband (Finn) in the feud. Furthermore, he is addressing an audience to whom the details are already well known, for he gives none of them.
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- Information
- The Cambridge Old English Reader , pp. 286 - 292Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004