Beowulf - Institutionen för arkeologi och antik historia

Although we may accept the argument, it is still odd that in Denmark a góðr
þegn is as common as a góðr drengr. If the quality of being good was acquired by
birth it would indeed tend to be a more or less constant factor, but since warriors
often die young and often are members of the upper stratum of society to be commemorated,
we would have expected góðr drengr to be much more common on
rune-stones than the good (old) thanes.
In some cases it may also be troublesome that the word could mean both ethically
good and well-born, while doubt concerning either meaning is hardly flattering. On
the stone from Sønder Vissing (Moltke 1976, pp. 162 f.) King Harold Bluetooth is
called the good (by his wife) and that is reasonable if we can be sure that the word
refers to his qualities as a king. It is only natural that his wife wants to distinguish him
as a better king than others, but is hardly flattering if the word is meant to point out
that he was of noble birth—something Harold and his wife would have expected
everybody to know.
Lastly, it must also, generally speaking, be considered doubtful whether the goodness
of one born good, would spill over to appellatives describing his development
as a warrior an his social status. It seems more likely that men acquired the status of
being good as a part of their social career in much the same way as they qualified as
þegn and drengr.
Strid (1987) points to the difficulties of settling the matter as one of either good by
character or good by birth when he discusses the use of þegn and drengr in runestone
texts from Svealand. Here the use of these appellatives is vaguer than in Denmark
or Västergötland, and it seems difficult to believe that good is an inherited
quality. On the other hand, he is reluctant to say that an expression like góðr drengr
signifies just any good young man. He recognises the definite link between good and
þegn or drengr.
Strid’s doubts as to whether Moltke’s and Jacobsen’s usage of good holds true in
Uppland and Södermanland are much in line with Nielsen (1945) and supported by
Stocklund (1991, p. 295.). These doubts are strengthened by the stones on which
two close relatives are commemorated, but only one of them called good. In the text
on SÖ 287 one brother is good, but the other is not. In U 324 the deceased is a
neutral brother to his brother, but a good son to his mother. In U 512 the father is
good, but the brother is not. Lastly, in U 808 the commemorators, two sons, are
góðir drengir, something people are reluctant to praise themselves for, but the father
is neutral. If we take them one by one, we can find explanations why good is not
linked to inheritance in each of these cases, but the fact that we have seven stones
commemorating two closely related deceased men, on three of which both are
called good while four are split, must lead us to conclude that good is an epithet with
a broad rather than narrow usage (cf. Gräslund 1995, p. 469 f.).
During the Viking Age steps were probably taken towards making nobility a formal
institution. It is nonetheless doubtful whether the goal was reached and unlikely
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