Beowulf - Institutionen för arkeologi och antik historia

you and perhaps take a liking to you, as Hroðgar did to Beowulf and Beowulf to
Hroðgar’s sons. As a young man you engage yourself in contracts about the good,
you fight, give food, beer and presents and you keep the peace. As an old and wise,
but vulnerable man, you benefit from the contracts about goodness that you have
initiated or honoured.
Several researchers (cf. Klaeber 1950, note to v. 2178; Lindqvist 1958, p. 118)
have found it strange that the hero of the story should not have been universally
recognised as a splendid man all his life, and if we are expecting a poem about a
hero, it is no doubt a little strange in the very end to be confronted with this feeble
youngster on the meadbench. But, if we see the poem as chiefly concerned with the
people of the hall—those who governed Scandinavian, Anglo-Saxon, Saxon and
Friesian societies during the Late Iron Age, then it is quite natural that social perfection
should have been something that was created in the hall in competition among
those who were brought up and spent most of their lives there. The good is created
in the hall, it forms the link between halls everywhere and eventually it develops into
a model for keeping the peace between people, as well as a model for the use of
force. Goodness is established as a current in the minds of men and when necessary
it comes up to the surface to solve various social problems. It is to be hoped that
modern readers will have difficulties accepting the Pagan ideal of the good, but that
is besides the point, as long as the ideal can be recognised.
We may look upon the development of a man as a spiral tour on which he does
good actions in order to refine himself (Fig. 32). He starts in a hall and proceeds
upwards frequently visiting different halls and eventually he reaches a level or a circuit
where man, good actions and hall balance each other. In fortunate cases, like
Beowulf’s, this equilibrium may continue for years on a high level, but it is likely to
break down when we become old and most people will be satisfied with an equilibrium
on a rather low level.
90
Figure 32. The hall and the
course of life for the good
person.