Ever since Carol Clover's 1980 essay, “The Germanic Context of the Unferþ Episode,” most critics have accepted that the exchange between Hunferth and Beowulf is a flyting, a ritualized exchange of boasts and insults consisting of a “Claim, Defense, and Counterclaim.” Critics generally agree that Beowulf decisively wins the exchange by refuting Hunferth's claim, by calling Hunferth out for his cowardice and fratricide, and ultimately, by defeating Grendel when Hunferth could not. While Clover convincingly identifies connections between the flyting tradition and the Hunferth interlude, viewing the exchange as flyting, and Beowulf as its winner, is problematic. Most flytings are longer than the conversation between Beowulf and Hunferth. More importantly, Hrothgar becomes joyful afterwards, and, suprisingly, so does the court: “Ðær wæs hæleþa hleahtor, hlyn swynsode,/ word wǣron wynsume” (“There was laughter of heroes, the din sounded, words were joyful”). Most critics explain this joy, and the fact that Hunferth is not reprimanded, by claiming that Hunferth is merely performing his duty as þyle, that his questioning is normal, or that Hunferth is simply not taken seriously. Yet these explanations do not account for the Danes’ joyful response to Beowulf's slur against their bravery and competency: