Beowulf and Disenchantment

The famous Anglo-Saxon epic serves as an unexpected commentary on modernity, and the fading of a heroic mythos from culture.

Most of us are familiar with the primary arc of Beowulf, in which a shirtless hero literally arm-wrestles the monster Grendel into the most decisive KO in melee combat history, wrenching the monster’s arm free from it’s socket to liberate a king’s hall.

Beowulf is a medieval poem, but it drips testosterone the way a Stallone movie or 300 does. It’s not difficult to read the story as just that, a warrior epic about slaying monsters, honor, and defeating a dragon to win the treasure.

But throughout the narrative of Beowulf, while all these high-fantasy cliches are not only present but central… the attitude is very different than one would expect. References are made constantly to “those high, gone days,” glorious stories told within the narrative itself are told wistfully, and by the story’s close it is clear something has fundamentally shifted in the world, and not for the better.

It’s worth noting that Beowulf was composed by Anglo-Saxon Christians, who are telling a story about “heathens.” The story even points out in desperation to be rid of Grendel’s curse, some of the folk revert to invoking the old gods. This is, of course, seen as both backwards and a sign of how bad things have gotten.

But the story cannot help but illustrate a gloomy disposition in Beowulf and his men, especially in the final act, when a dragon rises from his barrow to ravage the countryside and Beowulf and his men make a final stand against it.

Beowulf addresses his men just before the battle in much the same way he has throughout the story, and how other warriors and kings spoke to each other throughout the narrative. He bids the war host wait outside the barrow in case he is unable to finish the beast alone. But when push comes to shove and the now-aged king looks about to lose against the wyrm, all but one of his men flee.

Wiglaf, a young man not-yet tested in battle despairs at the behavior of the men around him, and out of loyalty to his King, enters the barrow and the fight. It is only with Wiglaf’s help Beowulf is able to strike the killing blow, but not before being mortally wounded himself.

Beowulf is only briefly able to inspect the treasure he’s won and proclaim Wiglaf his worthy heir before dying. Wiglaf humiliates the men who ran from the fight as cowards and betrayers and expels them from the realm.

For all the story’s bravado, it ends on a very somber tone, with the Geats building a great pyre for Beowulf with the dragon’s treasure and other honors, burying him while the women weep to know the darkness of rival kingdoms and the dangerous unknown clouds in around them.

The twin deaths of Beowulf and the dragon is very important. Beowulf was a king able to hold his breath for days on end, wrestle demons, slay dragons, and be a peerless exemplar of honor and strength. Even among people of his own time, he seemed more something out of the Iliad or the Eddas than a man of flesh and blood. Like the dragon, Beowulf was a mythical figure from a more pagan, more heroic world.

All throughout the narrative of Beowulf, there is evidence that once there had been fairies, dwarves, old gods, the spirits of the mounds, sea monsters, dragons, and demigods. Now, the hills are cold and empty, the woods are just trees. Magic is bleeding out of the world amid the forward march of the Crucifix.

In our own time, we’ve simply taken the next step down the staircase which Nietzsche foresaw with his Death of God. We once believed there was a spirit in every stone and river, then we believed there is only one Spirit for everything, everywhere. Now progress and rationalism have overthrown even that one God, and left even the stars as dead and empty balls of gas.

While we are now a few worlds removed from Beowulf figures, I think the spiritual model for us today to follow is that of Wiglaf. He’s no demigod, no sanctified hero, no great deeds yet to his name, but with a love for honor and what is good and right so strong, he will risk life and limb in the service of his King.

We may not live to see the great pagan heroes return, but if we can generate a subculture of Wiglaf-like honorable and earnest mortal men walking in footsteps much larger than theirs, we’ll at least be headed the right direction again.