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"Helmets" are used, but not so carefully described as in "Beowulf's Lay"; crested helmets and a gilded helmet occur in Bearca-mal and in another poem. "Banners" serve as rallying points in the battle and on the march. The Huns' banners are spoken of in the classic passage for the description of a huge host invading a country. Bearcamal talks of golden banners.
What analogy is there between the conflict of natural forces in the Norseland and Beowulf's fight with Grendel? What different attitude toward nature is manifest in modern poetry? What is the moral lesson of the poem? Show that its chief characteristics are typical of the Anglo-Saxon race. Caedmonian Cycle.
We do not know when the first scop sang of Beowulf's exploits; but he probably began before the ancestors of the English came to England. The characters, scenery, and action of Beowulf belong to the older Angle-land on the continent of Europe; but the poem is essentially English, even though the chief action is laid in what is now known as Denmark and the southern part of Sweden.
In the fiftieth year of Beowulf's reign, however, a great terror fell upon the land in the way of a monstrous fire-dragon, which flew forth by night from its den in the rocks, lighting up the blackness with its blazing breath, and burning houses and homesteads, men and cattle, with the flames from its mouth.
Then, upon the same cliff of Hronesness, was erected a huge burial cairn, wide-spread and lofty, to be known thereafter as Beowulf's Barrow. Among all the early literatures of Europe, there are two which, at exactly opposite corners of the continent, display most strikingly similar characteristics.
These last words spoken, the king of the Geats, brave to seek danger and brave to look on death and Fate undaunted, fell back dead. According to his last desires, his followers gathered wood and piled it on the cliff-head. Upon this funeral pyre was laid Beowulf's body and consumed to ashes.
And for hundreds of years afterwards, when the sailors out at sea saw the high mound rising on its point of rock, they said one to another, 'There is Beowulf's Mount, and they began to tell each other of Beowulf's brave deeds how he lived and how he died, and how he fought with Grendel and the wild sea dragons. There, now, I have told you all I know about Beowulf," said Mr.
Earlier Opinions in Regard to the BỌÐVARSÞÁTTR, the BJARKARÍMUR, and Related Matters. Gisli Brynjulfsson, the first writer, apparently, to call attention to the similarity between Beowulf's combat with Grendel and Bjarki's combat with the winged monster, identified the story in the Hrólfssaga of Bjarki's fight with the winged monster with the story in Beowulf of Beowulf's fight with Grendel.
Quick was Beowulf's answer: "Sorrow not, O King! Rouse yourself quickly, and let us track the monster. Each of us must look for death, and he who has the chance should do mighty deeds before it comes. I promise you Grendel's kin shall not escape me, if she hide in the depths of the earth or of the ocean." The King sprang up gladly, and Beowulf and his friends set out.
Bid thou my warriors after my funeral pyre Build me a burial-cairn high on the sea-cliff's head; So that the seafarers Beowulf's Barrow Henceforth shall name it, they who drive far and wide Over the mighty flood their foamy keels. Thou art the last of all the kindred of Wagmund! Wyrd has swept all my kin, all the brave chiefs away! Now must I follow them!"
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