Beowulf, Birmingham and Tolkien

Beowulf is an Old English epic poem written by an unknown author probably between AD500 and AD700. It was a folk story that would have been passed on by storytellers for decades before being written down. Although written in Old English (Anglo-Saxon), the action takes place in Denmark and the hero, Beowulf, is Swedish. The audience could well have been Anglo-Saxon settlers from Denmark who arrived in England during the Dark Ages. ‘Dark Ages’ is in my opinion a rather misleading name referring to the lack of written material from the period that makes life inconvenient for historians rather than a dearth of culture, craftsmanship or courage. The picture shows a manuscript first page.
Beowulf is part myth and part fact - many of the battles mentioned were real. The modern equivalent would be ‘faction’. It is a story of heroism against dark forces. It follows Beowulf’s life and his transition from young, bold, warrior to wise but ageing King. The hero's name loosely translates from ‘Beo’ for bee and ‘wulf’ for hunter. Bears hunt bees and the name, therefore, becomes ‘bee-hunter’ and so ‘bear’.
World-renowned author J.R.R. Tolkien spent his childhood in Birmingham in the midmost part of England. Many of the landscapes and peoples of Middle-earth were drawn from his experience in and around Birmingham. ‘Middle-earth’ (here we use Tolkien’s preferred spelling with a hyphen and lower-case ‘e’) means the world that lies between heaven and hell, i.e. the world of mortals.
Tolkien’s love of Anglo-Saxon started at King Edward’s School in the centre of Birmingham. Reading Beowulf in Modern English and then in the original, he grew fond of the story and its language, realising that its dialect resembled that of his mother’s West Midland ancestors. Indeed it is possible that the sound of voices from Birmingham (which means ‘home of the people of Beorma’) and the Black Country (the adjacent formerly highly industrialised part of the English West Midlands) may be an echo of the sound of Mercian Anglo-Saxon. Our picture shows commemorative ironwork in Birmingham.
Tolkien liked stories about dragons. Beowulf battles against two monsters and a dragon. The tale in the poem of the theft of a golden cup from the dragon re-surfaces in The Hobbit, as does the description of the Golden Hall in The Two Towers. Notwithstanding difficulties with the dates, it may be that the description of Hrothgar’s hall in Beowulf relates to the hall of Offa, King of Mercia (which kingdom included the whole of central England as shown in the map) in the 8th century. Offa’s hall was in Tamworth, a few miles from Birmingham.
Tolkien made a translation of Beowulf, and manuscripts of the translation were located a few years ago. Extracts suggest a more poetic rendering of the epic than those that are available to us now. Regrettably however the whole translation has so far not been published.
As a young man in Sweden, the land of the Geats, Beowulf is a great warrior whose personality and characteristics include great courage, strength and the essential heroic qualities of loyalty, courtesy and pride. Having become a hero in his own land, Beowulf hears about the terrible creature Grendel who is ravaging the mead-hall of King Hrothgar in Denmark. He sets off with a loyal band of warriors to rid Hrothgar's court of this menace. Defeating Grendel, he then has to fight Grendel's mother who seeks vengeance for the death of her son. Beowulf is successful and, greatly respected and richly rewarded, he returns to his own country where he becomes a much-loved ruler keeping the peace and governing wisely.
However, as the poem shows, heroic lives have doom waiting in the wings. Fifty years later the land is being devastated by a dragon angry at the theft of a gold cup from its lair. Beowulf defeats the dragon but in so doing is mortally wounded. His death is followed by years of chaos, and the poem reflects on differences between the responsibilities of a young warrior and a ruler who leaves his people without a successor.

An enactment of extracts from Beowulf, dramatised by Hall Green’s Vivienne Wilkes was presented by Shire productions at Birmingham’s Middle Earth weekend in May 2008.