keyword: Anglo-Saxon

Anglo-Saxon

• An Analogue in II Samuel of the Conclusion to Beowulf
  Issue: Leeds Medieval Studies, 3 (2023)
  John Shafer
  

  The last third of Beowulf is recognisably distinct from the first two-thirds, the first part long acknowledged to derive from one or more traditional, pre-Christian narratives such as the ‘Bear’s Son’ or ‘Hand and the Child’ story-pattern. The concluding episode of Beowulf fighting and being killed by a dragon vividly expresses the Geat people’s fear that it cannot maintain its autonomy among larger and more militarily powerful neighbours following the heirless death of its leader. This article identifies an earlier analogue for this last portion of Beowulf from the biblical book of II Samuel, a narrative of King David fighting a giant that shares both this concern and a number of key plot points. Beowulf’s theme of heroic heathenism defiantly, victoriously — but also inevitably — ending to make way for Christianity is not only seen intrinsically to relate to the clear similarities between Beowulf’s dragon-fight and its earlier parallel, but is also shown to motivate clear differences between Beowulf and the earlier narrative.