Page:Gummere (1909) The Oldest English Epic.djvu/25

Rh battle, and now goes to exterminate a monster. Norse stories tell of heroes whose adventures are so close to Beowulf’s as to rouse suspicion of copy or common origin. In the present state of knowledge it is best to let the adventures pass as adventures, and to renounce more curious search. As was said, agnosticism is here the only safe attitude towards myth. Beowulf’s swimming-match with Breca has been euhemerized into the mere killing of sea-beasts, and etherialized into a myth of the culture-god who taught a grateful folk how to navigate the stormy seas. Beowulf must be accepted as the hero of a tale. His capital adventures are the sort of thing which heroes, real or fictitious, are always assumed to do. They kill monsters, giants, dragons. “It is their nature to,” as the old verse ran. Such feats are expected from a kindly and beneficent hero; and such a hero the real Beowulf may well have been. If he reminded folk of a god Beowa, so much the better. He really rendered good service to some northern king, though he is no glorified rat-catcher. Perhaps he did destroy noxious beasts as other heroes had done. His last fight, if one can accept the dragon, is a most humanly told and everyday sort of tale, though it is quite another story compared with the former adventures.

The lays about all these adventures our poet heard and knew and loved. He knew also the lore of devils and hell’s fiends, who vex the righteous man, and nevertheless can be met and conquered by a Christian champion. He could not make a Christian out of Beowulf, but he describes the hero in terms of one of the converted Anglian kings and surrounds him with the amenities of the new courts. Of Grendel he made a hell-fiend outright,