Abstract
Interpretation of Grendel’s mother, one of the most complex and enigmatic figures of Beowulf, is especially fraught with difficulty. The search for analogues to Grendel’s mother has traditionally focused on the trolls of the Old Norse sagas, emphasising her non-human qualities. This article argues that the Germanic heroic women of the Völsung-Nibelung tradition are the key to understanding Grendel’s mother. The introduction of Sigemund and Fitela in the interval between the first two fights (ll. 874–902) invites the reader to consider the women of the Germanic legends, specifically the figures of Signy and Brynhild in the late thirteenth-century Icelandic Völsunga saga, and Brunhild in the early thirteenth-century German poem the Nibelungenlied, as possible analogues to Grendel’s mother. This article further proposes that reconsidering Grendel’s mother within this interpretive framework shifts the view of the other women of Beowulf as reflexes of the Germanic heroic women of the Völsung-Nibelung tradition.
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Notes
For a detailed discussion of the Two-Troll and Bear’s Son Analogues and folktale morphology, see Fulk et al. (2008, pp. xxxvi–xliii).
All references to Grettis saga are by chapter number from Scudder (Trans.) and Thorsson (Ed.) (2005). For a discussion of the analogue features Grendel and his mother share with the draugr and haugbúar figures of Norse tradition, see Fjalldal (2013).
For a more detailed discussion of the two short-swords, see Turville-Petre (1974–77, pp. 352–3).
Panzer recognised this pattern of an initial hall-fight followed by a pursuit to a cave where the second fight occurs in ten Two-Troll variants; this is further discussed in Chambers (1921). See Garmonsway (1968) for a list of analogues containing this pattern.
All Old Norse text and English translations of Völsunga saga are from Finch (1965). All references are to chapter numbers.
Neidorf and Zhu (2022) reject bēo (‘bee’) as the first element prototheme of the name Beowulf, instead arguing that Beowulf is a theophoric name with the agricultural deity Bēow (cognate with the Old Norse Byggvir) as the first element.
See Leneghan (2022, p. 8) on the association of the feminine form wylfen (‘she-wolf’) and the Roman goddess of war Bellona in Old English glosses.
The Middle High German text of the Nibelungenlied is cited by strophe number from de Boor (1963); all translations are from Whobrey (2018).
These lines have been translated using the glossary from Klaeber’s 4th edition (Fulk et al. 2008). Liuzza (2013) translates line 1502, ‘atolan clommum’ as ‘savage clutches’ and line 1505, ‘laðan fingrum’ as ‘hostile claws’.
For a detailed overview of the discussion concerning the translation of ‘aglæca’, see Alfano (1992, pp. 4–6).
Later, the grief of Siegfried’s widow Kriemhild is so great that she recognises the threat it poses to her plan to have her brothers killed at a feast. She asks her servants and the townspeople not to admit that she has been crying, recognising that her brothers will see this as a warning of vengeance to come (st. 1415). For a discussion of Hildeburh and Kriemhild as archetypal reflexes, see Neidorf (2020, pp. 665–69).
See Brynhild’s Ride to Hell in Larrington’s translation of the Poetic Edda (2014, pp. 187–89).
Hill claims that Hygd ‘takes direct action in arranging the succession, offering the throne to the elder and militarily more effective Beowulf, Hygelac’s nephew, in an attempt to avoid the problems inherent in the succession of a child’ (1990, pp. 238–39).
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I would like to thank Francis Leneghan, Sally-Ann DelVino, and the anonymous readers for Neophilologus for their suggestions and comments; any mistakes are my own.
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Vowell, A. Grendel’s Mother and the Women of the Völsung-Nibelung Tradition. Neophilologus 107, 239–255 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11061-022-09738-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11061-022-09738-5