Beowulf's Sword

I should specify which sword since there are three, possibly four swords, that Beowulf carried in his tale: the one he carried to Hrothgar's court, Hrunting which Unferth lent to Beowulf, the sword in the cave that Beowulf uses to dispatch Grendel's mother, and the sword he used against the dragon. I think the sword that he carried to Hrothgar's court and the one he used against the dragon are not the same because he stated to Hrothgar that his corslet was an heirloom, the work of Weland, but did not mention the sword when he was telling him how to dispose of his property if Grendel kills him. At the end, Beowulf was carrying a sword called Nægling, a "gomele lafe"(2563) or ancient heirloom. R.D. Fulk posed the question in the back of his Klaeber's Beowulf if the two swords are the same, meaning it is not at all certain that they are.

The sword I was thinking of discussing was the one that he found in Grendel's cave, the one that is the work of giants, the 'ealdsweord eotenisc'(1558) 'giganta geweorc'(1562). Whether eoten are Jutes or giants is still debated but the consensus is that they are giants. There is no doubt about the meaning of 'giganta'. Unferth's sword does not even scratch Grendel's mother so Beowulf threw it down and prepared to fight bare-handed and die when he saw this amazing sword. It was able to pierce her magically protected hide but it melted away from the poisonous heat of her blood.

Of course in a story with sea-monsters, a dragon, Grendel and his mother and Weland, too, why should there not also be giants? In two Anglo Saxon poems, The Ruin and The Wanderer, we have the phrase again - 'work of giants'. In The Ruin (in fragments), it refers possibly to the ruins of Bath as the poet comes upon them and wonders about the builders in stone and the fate that took them. He refers to the city as 'enta geweorc' as are the ruins in The Wanderer. The Anglo Saxons did not build in stone so Roman ruins were a marvel to them and the deserted cities were the habitations of ghosts and demons. So, my thought is that, if Beowulf found a strange old sword, that was the work of giants, was it a Roman sword that he held in his hand? After all there were many heated battles between the Romans and the Germanic tribes. The Teutoburger Wald where Augustus lost three legions, one quarter of the entire Roman army, to a Cheruscan leader, Arminius, is one such place. The sites of the Batavian uprising are another. It would be an intriguing thought, since the Teutoburger Wald was a boggy place, that maybe Grendel's mere was located there but it really is too far from Leire, the site of Hrothgar's court. Anyway, Roman swords built tough to last just like their walls.

The Sword of Roland

If you do not have a copy of Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, you should buy one. It might be a little expensive but it is worth the price. It is one of the best reference books out there and I look in it all the time.

While looking up something else, my eye was caught by an entry on Roland's sword, which according to Brewer's is fabled to have once belonged to Hector, the prince of Troy. He acquired this fantastic sword from a Icelandic giant called Jutmundus from whom he also won his horn Oliphant which may have belonged to Alexander the Great but I do not know how Jutmundus acquired these treasures. The ogres from The Hobbit are now dancing around in the back of my mind. Inspiration? Probably.

This addition to the myth does not occur in The Song of Roland; it is probably from Orlando Furioso, a 16th century poem by Ludovico Ariosto. I do not own a copy of this book or its predecessor Orlando Innamorato but I do own a copy of The Illiad and I could not see what happened to Hector's sword when Achilles killed him. Presumably Achilles took it and Hector's armor since Hector's body was wrapped in cloth to be given back to his father. It could also have been the sword that Hector gave to Ajax and with which Ajax killed himself but Homer does not name this sword.

Brewer's also states that Durendal had been hurled into a poisonous stream to prevent it from falling in to unworthy hands but this differs from the account in The Song of Roland. There, Roland lays down to die with his sword underneath him and, when Charlemagne finds Roland's body, he gives the sword and the Oliphant to his men Rabel or Guineman but does not state who received which item.

Brewer's does offer a meaning for the name of Durendal: it states that the name probably comes from the Latin word "durare", that is "to last" or "endure". I like it.