Alfgar's Stories from Beowulf

By Edward L. Risden

Alfgar's Stories from Beowulf is a work of original fiction by noted medieval literary scholar E. L. Risden adding to the traditional tale of Beowulf, a heroic Scandinavian monster-slayer. Inspired by the original epic, Risden has created a work of gripping adventure and deep emotion. In "Grendel's Mother," Risden approaches Beowulf from the perspective of the feral monster of the same name from the epic. "Lay of the Last Survivor" tells of a fated man who finds himself alone, the sole inheritor of a violent and greedy culture. "Scyldingasaga" goes back to the past before Beowulf, to the exploits of Scyld, Beowulf's legendary ancestor, events that ultimately set the stage for the famous poem. In "Freawaru's Lament," Risden builds on a digression in Beowulf to the story of a woman whose marriage leaves her trapped between two families in conflict that can only end in tragedy for her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Witan Scopcraeft
• Release date: Jan 23, 2014
• ISBN: 9781386749332

Edward L. Risden

E. L. Risden is Associate Professor of English at St. Norbert College, where he teaches medieval and Renaissance literature. He is the author of a dozen books, including Beasts of Time, Beowulf in Faithful Verse, Beowulf for Business, and The Heroes and the Gods.

Book preview

Prologue

'Lay of Beowulf,' that's what he called it, my grandfather. Not a bad story, too, the best I ever heard him tell. But I suppose you aren't supposed to like such things, Guthlac.

"Stop calling me Guthlac."

Why?

Because it isn't my name.

Not your name! Well, it should be your name: you remind me of that famous, heroic monk.

Heroic, ha—I work as a scribe. Any chance I had of heroism ended when my parents tithed me to the Church.

So you copy heroically instead, and you don't seem afraid to let people know you enjoy the stories.

No need to say that so loudly.

Oh, no one much in the scriptorium today, so I should think we can feel free to talk.

You say he told many stories like that one?

"My grandfather? Many. At King Athelstan's court, you know. The king called him then 'Dear One,' though in the long run he lost his job to another man, younger and quicker to flatter. Hear that: names don't matter much, though we choose them carefully. His family called him, my grandfather, Wulfgar, but no one at court bothered to call him that, just 'Dear One' or 'Scop,' known by his craft rather than by his fathers. Not that my grandfather felt himself above flattery, but he put his art first. He traveled with the king to York, Strathclyde, Dyfed, Penrith, Bromborough, Hereford: recited poems, even had one recorded for the Chronicle about the famous battle at Bromborough. He did a few hymns when called to it, though mostly he liked heroic tales. I think that's why no one ever wrote them down and why Athelstan eventually chucked him out: pressure from the priests . . ."

Not so loud, I told you.

"Right, well, he didn't compose the sort of thing they wanted recorded, the fathers, though if you listen—or now read—closely, you'll see that the message remains much the same."

Can you read, Alfgar?

"A little, though I keep the stories firmly ensconced right here." He tapped the side of his head with a long, bony forefinger.

You don't seem to have had so much success as your grandfather.

"Thanks for clarifying that point for me. All the courts want now is the Christian stuff: it has to be explicit, and if you ask me, that's fine, so far as it goes. But I like some variety."

So do I, whispered the scribe.

Then perhaps you'd like to hear some more, record them.

Hmm: I'd have to ask the father. They're stingy with our time—you remember what happened to my predecessor.

How could I forget. I was in full rhythm, quoting it off just as my grandfather taught me, with my own flourishes of course, as I heard him speak it any number of times—oh, he'd have been proud of me; taught me everything I know—and I happened to glance over, sure that the old fellow was having the time of his life listening, but hurrying to make sure he recorded every word, since I was in full voice that day. And there he sat, right where you do now, but nose-down in the tablet, stone dead. What trouble I had then! Some of the fathers—not the scribes like you, who know better, but the priests—thought I'd killed him! All that pagan stuff, they shrieked, God killed him for hearing it, but thank God for the abbot, who set them straight and sent me you to go on with it.

You could have got a better scribe. I'm still pretty new at it, and it's hard work. But, he whispered, I'll do my best, for the abbot, if not for all the intruding busybodies.

And I think you like the stories a bit yourself.

Maybe.

Would you like to hear more?

So you do know them, then?

Sure. Some Grandfather taught me, and some I composed myself, after his fashion. Scores of them—well, maybe not quite that many, but enough to keep us going until either you or I end up face down in a manuscript ourselves. I have time to start now if you'd like. The last segment of the 'Lay' was short, and it's still morning. We can do quite a lot before dusk. Even with a lunch break . . .

I don't know. I can listen, but I'm not sure I should record. Shouldn't we get the abbot to approve it first? Even he's saying the writing materials cost too much to make, so we have to take care with what we choose to copy, and he's more liberal than the lot who usually deal with me. They tell me things were worse a short time back, around the year 1000, when everybody was afraid to do anything. The mood has improved, but the stewards still keep supplies pretty tightly.

What do we have to lose, besides my voice and the strength in your copying hand?

That is, our livelihoods.

For the sake of stories, good stories! And those who will hear and maybe read them.

That remains to hear.

The scribe looked warily about to make sure no one who might disapprove was lurking nearby. That day the scriptorium had remained relatively empty, and just then no other sound troubled the place but the lazy drone of a bee outside the window in the garden.

What say you?

The scribe gathered his materials. Go ahead, then, Alf, and take care what you choose to tell.

My friend, I must speak as the Muse leads me.

Muse: what's that?

"Greek, my friend—yes, I know a little of it; poets, that's their word, what we call scops, had to ask and hope to get the gift of the goddess to speak . . ."

Hush, man! Don't say things like that here or you'll have us both in chains!

Don't worry. No one's listening, and I'm educating you about the world, about the ancients. Right: they believed that they had to await the inspiration from a particular . . . divine force . . . to compose anything, and then they did so at its bidding—not so different from what Christians say about the Scriptures.

I'm warning you: no blasphemy.

"I keep trying to tell you: it's all story, to please sweetly and to teach, as the old Roman poet said—now don't stop me from quoting Romans, since they spread your beloved Christian thought here. Without them you'd still be hanging folk from trees. Even, what's his name, the bloke who came here first, Augy-something . . ."

Augustine.

"That's the fellow. He said you must use the pagan letters for their own worth, for the Christian message a true and attentive audience can deduce from them. Even their greatest teller, Virgil, wrote about piety and duty, and a new lord coming down from heaven, and he lived before your Christ."

That's a different Augustine. And don't tell me you've read Virgil, now. Most people here, if they've heard of him at all, haven't read him.

Have you read him?

The scribe brushed a fat fly away. God free us of those things. They make the copying hard with their persistence. Devil must have got in them.

I say, have you read Virgil?

The scribe looked out the window for some time, then answered without looking Alfgar in the eye. No.

Whether you have or haven't, the importance of the thing rests in the value of the work. If it's good, we should write it down; if it isn't, we should make it better, then write it down. Let posterity decide for itself, same as we do, rather than lose the work so that no one can ever bring it back. So I say, go ahead and write.

Of course you'd say that.

Compare what you'll lose versus what you may gain.

I may lose my post and get chucked out to fields or to shovel the dungheap among the flies.

Or you may gain stories that will last you a lifetime.

You think they're that good?

As I was saying, we must clear our thoughts and see what the Muse—sorry—what God will offer us. Alfgar closed his eyes, flung his head back, and made a humming noise. Then he popped open one eye and aimed it toward the scribe. What do you want to hear? Hymns? Saint's life? Eastern marvels?

May I request? You gave me the impression you had to take what you get, from God or whatever.

Can't hurt to ask, can it? Alfgar closed his eyes and hummed again. How about something heroic? You liked the last bit, didn't you?

If you know more. If I'm going to get in trouble, may as well do so hearing something I like.

"All right, then, that's the spirit. The Beowulf part is just a bit of a whole cycle of stories. So many more: where to start? Where, that is, would God wish us to start? How about more monsters? Do you like monsters? I like monsters. I know one about the she-monster, one about the dragon, one about the Scyldings—sort of monsters themselves—and one about a princess, no monster at all except for the world itself, and a few more, too, but we need to choose. Only so much time. We can tell parts of the same story, the greater story into which Beowulf fits, but from other points of view."

What do you mean by that, points of view?

Hard to explain, but I can show you.

Do so, then.

Stylus ready? Here goes.

Grendel's Mother

The Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf renders a poetic account of a great Scandinavian hero of the fifth century who, hearing that the court of the Danish king is being plagued by a monster called Grendel, travels to Denmark to fight the monster, killing him in hand-to-hand combat. The Danes rejoice, believing themselves safe, until they learn that a second monster, the mother of the first, has come to prowl their hall, greedy for vengeance. Following Beowulf, Alfgar's first story tells the tale of the she-monster, not from the perspective of the hero or the Danes, but from that of Grendel's Mother herself who, monster or not, loves her son and seeks man-payment for his death. We pick up the story just before the time of the hero's arrival in Denmark, though not with the Geatish hero, Beowulf—rather, with a voice until now unheard.

I have no name. I do not speak. I hunger.

When we stalk the moors together in the misty darkness, I catch small animals to eat. He will no longer eat small animals. He wishes to eat only men.

Though I moan and mourn, only their blood has taste for Him. He has heard their songs and laughter, and they have angered Him.

When He catches none outside the great hall of men and will not enter to take what he wants, He will return and beat me, and worse, though He came from my belly. His coming was long ago, and He does not remember it. Sometimes I cannot remember.

He can take what He wants and eat what He wants. Sometimes He does not. He would rather be angry and hurt whatever He finds. And hurt me. He does. I still hunger. He still hungers.

And yet His coming is all.

It happened sometime. I do not remember before that, no, do not remember. Thinking of that even is like a hole in the cavern that has no bottom but darkness or like the water that runs but comes from nowhere.

Something came out of the darkness, while I slept, that filled me with fire, that tore at me inside till I bled. More blood than comes from the throat of the men when He tears them. More pain than once the great light of the sky burned in me so I thought I must choke and vomit out my insides.

It laughed when it went, leaving no warmth, only more hunger and the pain, and later, the pain of His coming. One of their swords must feel like that, when it cuts out the belly, or the north wind feels like that, when in the long nights it rips trees from their mother.

But their swords do not cut me. I am older than memory, as lasting as water. I am strong and crafty as the willow root. Silent, I avoid men and their beasts if I can, creep beyond their notice.

I tend Him till He wakes, till He rises from sleep, watch the cave for the things that come sometimes from the deep.

He calls. He strikes me, so I go. I would go anyway, but I do not understand why He strikes me. When He calls, I wait. Sometimes He calls again or strikes me, then I go.

I do not want, so what I want does not matter.

Except to eat, and to see Him, to know He is there. . . .

The water is cold as we plummet up. The cold eels slither against, around me, prod to see if I am food. But my skin is like wood, and they, like the men's swords, can only slide from me like the slimy slug or the wind or His claws when he strikes me. The wind too is cold, as I am wet, and the water runs off like blood onto the moor. I follow in His shadow, looking for mice or a rat. Once I found a small bear, away from its mother, exploring. I crooned to it, and it came to me, licking my woody hand. The sound it made as I strangled it made me stay in the cave for a long time. Even when He hit me over and over, I would not go out. Even when hunger made me gnaw my hand like a root, I would not go. I ate the bear anyway, but I gave Him none for the only time I can remember. He did not call to me for a long time.

I like when He calls to me. I do not know what He says or what He wants unless He strikes me or takes it. His hunger is greater than mine, and His want is greater than mine, since I do not want, except for Him. I would steal the she from the men's hall for Him if He wanted her, but He would only eat her, no more, and then He would not even have something to long for. To long for something is to be more than stone or wood. I have sometimes longed to be more than stone or wood, or sometimes I long to be Nothing, but I long for nothing else any longer, unless it is to hear Him call, or to smell the growing things that spread in the great light, things I will not approach because of the great light.

We walk now, quiet as grass in the darkness, quieter than trees. We walk toward the lights and the sounds of the hall where the men