Australian Blade Ed 2 Sep 2017

Review - Beowulf
Book
Harriss
Chris
Now I don’t pretend to be anything I’m not. Except sober. I’ve pretended to be
sober a few times! So in writing this article I’m not pretending to be an authority
on classical literature, which Beowulf is. Neither am I pretending to be an
authority on Wootz and Damascus. And what the heck has classical literature got
to do with knives anyway? Well it all started at Brisbane airport when I decided I
needed something to read on the plane home. There was nothing in the trendy
coffee-shop-come-bookstore that interested me. I’d either read it, it didn’t interest
me, it was too pooncey or too expensive. Now I’ve never been accused of being a
poonce but I have been accused of being a tight arse! Anyway the tight arse in me
settled on the Penguin Classics - Beowulf. It was $12.99, my flight was being
called and I thought “How bad could it be? It’s a classic!” So I grabbed it.
Beowulf is sometimes described as the oldest surviving poem in Old English. The story is thought to have been
first committed to writing between 700 to 1000 AD, but the actual tale is apparently much older. After sailing from
Geatland (an area in southern Sweden) in the sixth century, Beowulf leads a band of warriors to assist Hrothgar,
King of the Danes who is being monstered in his mead-hall (boozer) by a troll. Grendel-the-troll keeps sneaking
into the boozer at night and eating the drunks that have crashed there. Every time he does it, he leaves a mess!
There’s blood all over the place and it’s not real good for business.
So Beowulf and his boys land in Denmark, there’s some introductions and a good old Viking booze up in the mead-
hall, which the Danes call Heorot. After everyone’s smashed and the speeches are over, the drunks all crash for the
night. Meanwhile old Grendel’s been watching from afar and when everything’s quiet thinks “You bewdy! Time for
a feed!” and scarpers on down. But Beowulf was just playing possum, so when Grendel rocks up, Beowulf jumps up,
grabs him and just like Aunty Jack (Google her if you’re too young!) rips his bloody arm off! Grendel cracks the
sads and feeling pretty armless, racks off and dies. Next day everyone reckons Beowulf is a bloody good bloke.
They all have another big booze up and crash in the mead-hall again with Grendel’s honking big arm hanging as a
trophy above the door.
When Grendel’s mum finds out what befell her boy, she goes absolutely spak and surprise, surprise attacks the
boozer. She kills the King’s favourite thane (nobleman) “…clutched him to herself” and flees into the night.
Beowulf then has to track this “water hag” to a pool tinged with blood, the entrance to her lair. So wearing armour
Beowulf decides he’s going to dive in and sort the witch out. In one translation, the sword Hrunting was loaned to
Beowulf before he dives in and was described thus.
"And another item lent by Unferth
at that moment of need was of no small importance:
the brehon handed him a hilted weapon,
a rare and ancient sword named Hrunting.
The iron blade with its ill-boding patterns
had been tempered in blood. It had never failed
the hand of anyone who hefted it in battle,
anyone who had fought and faced the worst
in the gap of danger. This was not the first time
it had been called to perform heroic feats”
1. Seamus Heaney, (trans., 2002). Beowulf: A Verse Translation (Norton Critical Edition, NY, W.W. Norton, 2002) page 39.