The Dragon (Beowulf)
Encyclopedia
Anglo-Saxon
Anglo-Saxon may refer to:* Anglo-Saxons, a group that invaded Britain** Old English, their language** Anglo-Saxon England, their history, one of various ships* White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, an ethnicity* Anglo-Saxon economy, modern macroeconomic term...
poem Beowulf
Beowulf
Beowulf , but modern scholars agree in naming it after the hero whose life is its subject." of an Old English heroic epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative long lines, set in Scandinavia, commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature.It survives in a single...
, depicts the hero Beowulf
Beowulf (hero)
Beowulf is a legendary Geatish hero and later turned king in the epic poem named after him, one of the oldest surviving pieces of literature in the English language.-Etymology and origins of the character:...
's fight with a dragon
Dragon
A dragon is a legendary creature, typically with serpentine or reptilian traits, that feature in the myths of many cultures. There are two distinct cultural traditions of dragons: the European dragon, derived from European folk traditions and ultimately related to Greek and Middle Eastern...
, the third monster he encounters in the epic. Returning from Heorot
Heorot
Heorot is a mead hall described in the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf as "the foremost of halls under heaven." It served as a palace for King Hroðgar, a legendary Danish king of the sixth century. Heorot means "Hall of the Hart"...
, where he killed Grendel
Grendel
Grendel is one of three antagonists, along with Grendel's mother and the dragon, in the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf . Grendel is usually depicted as a monster, though this is the subject of scholarly debate. In the poem, Grendel is feared by all but Beowulf.-Story:The poem Beowulf is contained in...
and Grendel's mother
Grendel's mother
Grendel's mother is one of three antagonists in the work of Old English literature of anonymous authorship, Beowulf . She is never given a name in the text....
, Beowulf becomes king of the Geats, and rules peacefully for 50 years until a slave angers a dragon by stealing a jewelled cup from its lair
Lair
Lair may refer to:*An animal's lair or home; see :Category:Shelters built or used by animals*Lair , a 2007 video game*In Scots language, lair refers to a burial-plot in a graveyard...
.The dragon destroys the homes of Beowulf's people causing him to decide to kill the dragon. With his thanes, he goes to the dragon's lair, where, faced with the beast, the thanes run leaving only Wiglaf
Wiglaf
Wiglaf is a character in the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf. He is the son of Weohstan, a Swede of the Wægmunding clan who had entered the service of Beowulf, king of the Geats. Wiglaf is called Scylfing as a metonym for Swede, as the Scylfings were the ruling Swedish clan...
to battle at Beowulf's side. The dragon wounds Beowulf fatally, and Wiglaf slays the dragon.
This depiction indicates the growing importance and stabilization of the modern concept of the dragon within European mythology. Beowulf is the first piece of English literature to present a dragonslayer. Although many motifs
Motif (narrative)
In narrative, a motif is any recurring element that has symbolic significance in a story. Through its repetition, a motif can help produce other narrative aspects such as theme or mood....
common to the Beowulf dragon existed in the Scandinavian and Germanic literature, the Beowulf poet was the first to combine features and present a distinctive fire-breathing dragon. The Beowulf dragon was later copied in literature with similar motifs and themes such as in J. R. R. Tolkien
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...
's The Hobbit
The Hobbit
The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, better known by its abbreviated title The Hobbit, is a fantasy novel and children's book by J. R. R. Tolkien. It was published on 21 September 1937 to wide critical acclaim, being nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the New York Herald...
, one of the forerunners of modern high fantasy
High fantasy
High fantasy or epic fantasy is a subgenre of fantasy that is set in invented or parallel worlds. High fantasy was brought to fruition through the work of authors such as J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, whose major fantasy works were published in the 1950s...
.
The dragon fight, occurring at the end of the poem, is foreshadowed in earlier scenes. The dragon fight symbolizes Beowulf's stand against evil and destruction, and as the hero, he knows that failure will bring destruction to his people after many years of peace. The scene is structured in thirds, ending with the deaths of the dragon and Beowulf.
Story
After his battles against GrendelGrendel
Grendel is one of three antagonists, along with Grendel's mother and the dragon, in the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf . Grendel is usually depicted as a monster, though this is the subject of scholarly debate. In the poem, Grendel is feared by all but Beowulf.-Story:The poem Beowulf is contained in...
and his mother
Grendel's mother
Grendel's mother is one of three antagonists in the work of Old English literature of anonymous authorship, Beowulf . She is never given a name in the text....
, Beowulf returns to his homeland from Heorot
Heorot
Heorot is a mead hall described in the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf as "the foremost of halls under heaven." It served as a palace for King Hroðgar, a legendary Danish king of the sixth century. Heorot means "Hall of the Hart"...
and becomes king of the Geats. Fifty years pass with Beowulf leading as a wise king, when a rampaging dragon (called a wyrm in the Old English) begins to attack the countryside. The dragon is angered when a slave enters his lair and takes a cup from his treasure hoard. Beowulf and a troop of his men leave to find the dragon's lair. The men run away, leaving only Beowulf and his young companion Wiglaf
Wiglaf
Wiglaf is a character in the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf. He is the son of Weohstan, a Swede of the Wægmunding clan who had entered the service of Beowulf, king of the Geats. Wiglaf is called Scylfing as a metonym for Swede, as the Scylfings were the ruling Swedish clan...
to slay the dragon. Beowulf receives a fatal wound from the dragon but Wiglaf impales the dragon and kills it. In his death-speech, Beowulf chooses Wiglaf as his successor, leaving to him the dragon's treasure hoard and the kingship.
Background
English literature
English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....
and the first to present a dragonslayer
Dragonslayers
Dragonslayers are people who slay dragons for various reasons. Dragonslayers and the creatures they hunt have been seen in many popular books and films. They also are generally portrayed as heroes. Most common among Dragonslayers would be the knights of Middle Ages fiction, who slew dragons to save...
. The legend
Legend
A legend is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude...
of the dragonslayer already existed in Norse sagas such as the tale of Sigurd
Sigurd
Sigurd is a legendary hero of Norse mythology, as well as the central character in the Völsunga saga. The earliest extant representations for his legend come in pictorial form from seven runestones in Sweden and most notably the Ramsund carving Sigurd (Old Norse: Sigurðr) is a legendary hero of...
and Fafnir
Fafnir
In Norse mythology, Fáfnir or Frænir was a son of the dwarf king Hreidmar and brother of Regin and Ótr. In the Volsunga saga, Fáfnir was a dwarf gifted with a powerful arm and fearless soul. He guarded his father's house of glittering gold and flashing gems...
, and the Beowulf poet incorporates motifs and themes common to dragonlore in the poem. Beowulf is the first piece of Anglo-Saxon literature to feature a dragon and the poet would have had access to similar stories from Scandinavian
Scandinavians
Scandinavians are a group of Germanic peoples, inhabiting Scandinavia and to a lesser extent countries associated with Scandinavia, and speaking Scandinavian languages. The group includes Danes, Norwegians and Swedes, and additionally the descendants of Scandinavian settlers such as the Icelandic...
oral tradition
Oral tradition
Oral tradition and oral lore is cultural material and traditions transmitted orally from one generation to another. The messages or testimony are verbally transmitted in speech or song and may take the form, for example, of folktales, sayings, ballads, songs, or chants...
, although the original sources have been lost, which obscures the genesis of the Beowulf dragon. Secular Germanic literature and the literature of hagiography featured dragons and dragon fights. Although the dragons of hagiography
Hagiography
Hagiography is the study of saints.From the Greek and , it refers literally to writings on the subject of such holy people, and specifically to the biographies of saints and ecclesiastical leaders. The term hagiology, the study of hagiography, is also current in English, though less common...
were less fierce than the dragon in Beowulf, similarities exist in the stories such as presenting the journey to the dragon's lair, cowering spectators, and the sending of messages relaying the outcome of the fight.
The dragon with his hoard is a common motif in early Germanic literature with the story existing to varying extents in the Norse
Norse mythology
Norse mythology, a subset of Germanic mythology, is the overall term for the myths, legends and beliefs about supernatural beings of Norse pagans. It flourished prior to the Christianization of Scandinavia, during the Early Middle Ages, and passed into Nordic folklore, with some aspects surviving...
and Icelandic
Icelanders
Icelanders are a Scandinavian ethnic group and a nation, native to Iceland.On 17 June 1944, when an Icelandic republic was founded the Icelanders became independent from the Danish monarchy. The language spoken is Icelandic, a North Germanic language, and Lutheranism is the predominant religion...
sagas, but it is most notable in the Volsunga Saga
Volsunga saga
The Völsungasaga is a legendary saga, a late 13th century Icelandic prose rendition of the origin and decline of the Völsung clan . It is largely based on epic poetry...
and in Beowulf. Beowulf preserves existing medieval dragon-lore, most notable in the extended digression recounting the Sigurd/Fafnir tale. Nonetheless, comparative contemporary narratives did not have the complexity and distinctive elements written into Beowulf's dragon scene. Beowulf is a hero who previously killed two monsters. The scene includes extended flashbacks to the Geatish-Swedish wars, a detailed description of the dragon and the dragon-hoard, and ends with intricate funerary imagery.
Beowulf scholar J.R.R. Tolkien considered the dragon in Beowulf to be one of only two real dragons in northern European literature, writing of it,
"dragons, real dragons, essential both to the machinery and the ideas of a poem or tale, are actually rare. In northern literature there are only two that are significant .... we have but the dragon of the Völsungs, Fáfnir, and Beowulf's bane. Furthermore, Tolkien believes the Beowulf poet emphasizes the monsters Beowulf fights in the poem, and he claims the dragon is as much of a plot device
Plot device
A plot device is an object or character in a story whose sole purpose is to advance the plot of the story, or alternatively to overcome some difficulty in the plot....
as anything. Tolkien expands on Beowulf's dragon in his own fiction, which indicates the lasting impact of the Beowulf poem. Within the plot structure, however, the dragon functions differently in Beowulf than in Tolkien's fiction. The dragon fight ends Beowulf, while Tolkien uses the dragon motif (and the dragon's love for treasure) to trigger a chain of events in The Hobbit
The Hobbit
The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, better known by its abbreviated title The Hobbit, is a fantasy novel and children's book by J. R. R. Tolkien. It was published on 21 September 1937 to wide critical acclaim, being nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the New York Herald...
.
Characterization
The Beowulf dragon is the earliest example in literature of the typical European dragon and first incidence of a fire breathing dragon. But the characterization goes beyond fire breathing: the Beowulf dragon is described with Old English terms such as draca (dragon), and wyrm (worm, or serpent), and as a creature with a venomVenom
Venom is the general term referring to any variety of toxins used by certain types of animals that inject it into their victims by the means of a bite or a sting...
ous bite. Also, the Beowulf poet created a dragon with specific traits: a nocturnal treasure hoarding, inquisitive, vengeful, fire breathing creature.
The fire likely symbolic of the hell-fire of the Devil, reminiscent of the monster in the Book of Job
Book of Job
The Book of Job , commonly referred to simply as Job, is one of the books of the Hebrew Bible. It relates the story of Job, his trials at the hands of Satan, his discussions with friends on the origins and nature of his suffering, his challenge to God, and finally a response from God. The book is a...
. In the Septuagint Bible, Job's monster is characterized as a draco: a creature that inhabits not only the land but the air and the water, and is identified with the Devil
Devil
The Devil is believed in many religions and cultures to be a powerful, supernatural entity that is the personification of evil and the enemy of God and humankind. The nature of the role varies greatly...
. Job's dragon would have been accessible to the author of Beowulf, as a Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
symbol of evil, the "great monstrous adversary of God, man and beast alike."
A study of German, Norse, Danish and Icelandic texts reveals three typical narratives for the dragonslayer: a fight for the treasure; a battle to save the slayer's people; or a fight to free a woman. The characteristics of Beowulf's dragon appear to be specific to the poem; the poet may have melded together dragon motifs to create a dragon with specific traits to weave together the complicated plot of the narrative.
Importance
The third act of the poemEpic poetry
An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...
differs from the first two. Grendel and Grendel's mother receive little description, and are characterised as descendents of Cain—"[Grendel] had long lived in the land of monsters / since the creator cast them out / as the kindred of Cain." They appear as humanoid, and the poet's rendition of them may have been to show them as giants, troll
Troll
A troll is a supernatural being in Norse mythology and Scandinavian folklore. In origin, the term troll was a generally negative synonym for a jötunn , a being in Norse mythology...
s or monster
Monster
A monster is any fictional creature, usually found in legends or horror fiction, that is somewhat hideous and may produce physical harm or mental fear by either its appearance or its actions...
s common to the mythology
Mythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
of Northern Europe. The dragon, however, is plainly not human, creating a stark contrast to the other two antagonist
Antagonist
An antagonist is a character, group of characters, or institution, that represents the opposition against which the protagonist must contend...
s. Moreover, the dragon is overtly destructive by burning territory and the homes of the Geats—"the dragon began to belch out flames / and burn bright homesteads".
Beowulf's fight with the dragon has been described variously as an act of altruism
Altruism
Altruism is a concern for the welfare of others. It is a traditional virtue in many cultures, and a core aspect of various religious traditions, though the concept of 'others' toward whom concern should be directed can vary among cultures and religions. Altruism is the opposite of...
, or an act of recklessness. Furthermore, the dragon fight occurs in Beowulf's kingdom and ends in defeat, while the earlier monster fights occurred away from home and ended in victory. The dragon fight is foreshadowed
Foreshadowing
Foreshadowing or adumbrating is a literary device in which an author indistinctly suggests certain plot developments that might come later in the story.-Repetitive designation and Chekhov's gun:...
in earlier events: Scyld Shefing
Scyld
Scyld Scefing is the legendary ancestor of the Danish royal lineage known as the Scyldings. He is the counterpart of the Skioldus or Skjöldr of Danish and Icelandic sources....
's funeral and Sigmund's death by dragon, as recounted by a bard
Bard
In medieval Gaelic and British culture a bard was a professional poet, employed by a patron, such as a monarch or nobleman, to commemorate the patron's ancestors and to praise the patron's own activities.Originally a specific class of poet, contrasting with another class known as fili in Ireland...
in Hrothgar's. Beowulf scholar Alexander writes in the introduction of his translation of the poem that the dragon-fight likely signifies Beowulf's (and by extension, society's) battle against evil. The people's fate depends on the outcome of the fight between the hero
Hero
A hero , in Greek mythology and folklore, was originally a demigod, their cult being one of the most distinctive features of ancient Greek religion...
and the dragon with the hero accepting responsibility to go into battle knowingly facing death.
Beowulf's death presages "warfare, death, and darkness" for his Geats. The dragon's hoard is a vestige of a previous society "wiped out by war", and left by a survivor, whose imagined elegy
Elegy
In literature, an elegy is a mournful, melancholic or plaintive poem, especially a funeral song or a lament for the dead.-History:The Greek term elegeia originally referred to any verse written in elegiac couplets and covering a wide range of subject matter, including epitaphs for tombs...
foreshadows Beowulf's elegy. In fact, before he faces the dragon, Beowulf remembers his childhood and the wars the Geats endured, which foreshadows the fate his people will face upon his death. An embattled society without "social cohesion" is represented by the avarice of the "dragon jealously guarding its gold hoard", as the elegy for Beowulf becomes an elegy for the entire culture. The dragon's hoard is representative of a people lost to time, which is juxtaposed against the Geatish people, whose history is new, fresh and fleeting. As king of his people, Beowulf defends them against the dragon; and when his thanes desert him, the poem shows the disintegration of a "heroic society" which "depends upon the honouring of mutual obligations between lord and thane."
Wiglaf remains loyal to his king and unlike the other men, stays to confront the dragon. The parallel in the story lies with the similarity to Beowulf's hero Sigemund and his companion; Wiglaf is a younger companion to Beowulf and in his courage shows himself to be Beowulf's successor. The presence of a companion is seen as a motif in other dragon stories, but the Beowulf poet breaks hagiographic tradition with the hero's suffering (hacking, burning, stabbing) and subsequent death. Moreover, the dragon is vanquished through Wiglaf's actions—although Beowulf dies fighting the dragon, the dragon dies at the hand of the companion.
The dragon battle is structured in thirds: the preparation for the battle; the events prior to the battle; and the battle itself. Wiglaf kills the dragon halfway through the scene, Beowulf's death occurs "after two-thirds" of the scene, and the dragon attacks Beowulf three times. Ultimately, as Tolkien writes, the death by dragon "is the right end for Beowulf" for he claims "a man can but die upon his death-day."
Legacy
J.R.R. Tolkien used the dragon story of Beowulf as a template for SmaugSmaug
Smaug is a fictional character in the novel The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien. He is a dragon, and the main antagonist within the story.-The Hobbit:...
of The Hobbit. In each case the dragon's hoard is disturbed; the dragon flies into a rage; the dragon is slain by a human (as opposed to dwarf, elf, or other creature, in the case of The Hobbit); and one character disturbs the dragon while another does the slaying.
The tale of Beowulf was translated and rewritten in prose
Prose
Prose is the most typical form of written language, applying ordinary grammatical structure and natural flow of speech rather than rhythmic structure...
as a children's story by Rosemary Sutcliffe in 1961, titled Dragon Slayer.