0
The Saliency of the Cain Myth in Beowulf
Abstract:
Even though it is only twice mentioned explicitly in Beowulf, the story of Cain is shown to be
the dominant biblical myth in the poem to which Cain‟s curse is more integral than Original
Sin. It is argued that the mythological significance of Cain is established by the fact that it is
Cain‟s inheritor, Grendel, who is the saboteur of the men of God‟s primal joy; Grendel‟s
antagonistic relationship is thus probed in relation to his ancestor Cain‟s role as the originator
of human fratricide. It is argued that Grendel‟s aversion to peace in kinship is signposted as the
type of challenge to kinship inevitable in the violent society which Cain inaugurated. Though
the Cain myth is an analogue by which the Beowulf poet parallels contemporary kin-slaying
with that of biblical times, the extent to which this comparison is derived from a JudeoChristian tradition in which giants are descended from Cain is explored. Cain‟s literary legacy
is traced through patristic writings, Old English poetry, the Midrash and apocryphal material,
and the possibility that this legacy influenced the Beowulf poet is considered. The atrocities
committed by Grendel and his mother, and the other fratricides they represent, are therefore
shown to be the direct legacy of Cain‟s transgression, the original act of violence and the
impetus for all kin-slaying. It is argued that this foundation myth of a violent society and that
the poet‟s abridged retelling of Genesis in The Song of Creation demonstrates a conception of
the Fall which extends beyond man‟s expulsion from Eden, in which kin-slaying is a remnant
of the first violent act, committed by Cain. The appropriation of giants to this myth is
inherited from an extra-biblical tradition which, it is argued, implies that giants, with whom all
humanity share common human ancestors, are not a displacement but rather a grotesque
caricature of actual human fratricide. The cultural resonance of the Cain myth, and its saliency
in Beowulf, then, is accounted for by the prevalence of human fratricide, the most ubiquitous
indicator of man‟s degeneracy in the poem, analogous to, and highlighted by, the monstrous
acts of Grendel and his mother.
1
The Saliency of the Cain Myth in Beowulf
The story of Cain is the Beowulf poet‟s most dominant biblical myth. In the first fit, The
Song of Creation (90-8) does not lead into a explication of Original Sin as we might expect but
rather to an introduction to Grendel whom we immediately learn to be of Cain‟s extraction:
Swä #ä drihtgumman drëamum lifdon,
ëadïîliçe, o# #æt än ongan
fyrene fre(m)man fëond on helle;
wæs se grimma gåst Grendel häten,
(99-102)1
This employment of paraprosdokian subverts our expectation that Eve, the first human
transgressor, will be the one who first “fyrene fremman” (sinned or enacted a crime), and
disappoints the intervention of Satan apparently anticipated by “fëond on helle”, which may or
may not have had specifically Satanic connotations for the poet. The fact that it is Cain‟s
inheritor, Grendel, who is cast here as the saboteur of the men of God‟s primal “drëam” (joy)
establishes Cain‟s mythological significance to the Beowulf poet. Though Grendel is “fäg wi#”
(hostile towards) God, (811) the epithet “fëond” (enemy) is only ever paired with a genitive
noun to specify his particular hostility towards humanity; twice he is described as “fëond
mancynnes” or “mancynnes fëond”. (164b,1276a) Grendel‟s designation as one of “Cäines
cynne” (Cain‟s kin), (107a) therefore, is integral to Beowulf because the fraternal kin of man is
endangered by its relative, the fratricidal kin of Cain. Grendel‟s aversion to peace in kinship we are told that “sibbe ne wolde” (he did not want peace or kinship) with the Danes, (154) - is
not simply likened to Cain‟s parricide in a passing comparison, rather, it is signposted as the
type of challenge to kinship inevitable in the violent society which Cain inaugurated.
R. D. Fulk, Robert E. Bjork and John D. Niles, eds, Klaeber‟s “Beowulf” and “The Fight at
Finnsburg”, 4th edn, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008) (So the men of God lived
on in joy, blessedly, until one, a fiend in torment, began to enact crime, the angry alien was
called Grendel,) Lines from this edition will be referenced after short quotations in the body of
the essay. Citations for longer passages will be given with translation in the footnotes.
1
2
Though the Cain myth is an analogue by which the Beowulf poet parallels
contemporary kin-slaying with that of biblical times, this comparison has been derived from a
Judeo-Christian tradition in which giants, such as Grendel, are descended from Cain. R. W.
Chambers notes this development by pointing out how eoten, “jôtunn”, in Icelandic literature,
are “descended from Thor, not from Cain”, and arguments such as Oliver Emerson‟s in 1906
that the Beowulf poet‟s references to Cain are mere “interpolation” on such antedated myths
have since been superseded by critics like Ruth Mellinkoff who demonstrates them to be more
than “literary embellishment […] probably ow[ing] several formative concepts in portrayal of
[Grendel and his mother]” to extra-biblical sources about the descendants of Cain. 2 This
Christianisation of giants in Beowulf is salient because the atrocities committed by Grendel, his
mother, and the other fratricides they represent, are the direct legacy of Cain‟s transgression,
the original act of violence and the source of “mancynnes” impulse for kin-slaying.
It will be argued that the Cain story is central to Beowulf as the foundation myth of a
violent society and, initially, that the poet‟s abridged retelling of Genesis in The Song of
Creation will be considered to be demonstrating a conception of the Fall which extends beyond
man‟s expulsion from Eden, in which that kin-slaying is the remnant of the first violent act,
committed by Cain. Secondly, it will be shown that the appropriation of giants to this myth is
inherited from an extra-biblical tradition which implies that giants, with whom all humanity
share common human ancestors, are not a displacement but rather a grotesque caricature of
actual human fratricide. Finally then the cultural resonance of the Cain myth in Beowulf will
be accounted for by showing how the poet contrasts the monstrous acts of Grendel and his
mother with instances of human fratricide. Although fratricide is taboo in the society of
Beowulf, and unlike Eve‟s sin which is universal, Cain‟s is discrete, Stephen Bandy‟s observation
that “the monstrous progeny of Cain dwell everywhere and dine at every table”, is still
R. W. Chambers, Beowulf: An introduction to the study of the poem with a discussion of
the stories of Offa and Finn, 3rd edn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967) 476n.;
Emerson, Oliver F., “Legends of Cain, Especially in Old and Middle English”, PMLA, vol.21,
no.4 (1906), 331-929 (879); Mellinkoff, Ruth, “Cain‟s monstrous progeny in Beowulf: part 1,
Noachic tradition”, Anglo-Saxon England, vol. 8 (1979), 143-62 (157)
2
3
appropriate.3 The saliency of the Cain myth in Beowulf is bound by the prevalence of fratricide
in the poem.
The Beowulf poet‟s lacuna in his account of the scop‟s Song of Creation highlights the way in
which, after Cain, fratricide has permeated human society. Rather than detailing the individual
transgressions of Eve and Cain, the poet proceeds directly from “frumsceaft fïra” (the creation
of men) to “cynna gëhwylcum þära #e cwice hwyfaþ”, the “cynna”, families, races, even species,
that move about livingly. (91;98 ) By the time Grendel, Cain‟s successor, enters in Beowulf,
the victim of fratricide is no longer just Abel, the biblical individual, but an entire kinship
system and it is not until Cain‟s transgression has been contextualised in this way, by Grendel‟s
interruption of the Danes‟ “drëam” (joy) that the Beowulf poet, first looks back to Cain‟s
original act of violence.
Cain‟s sin is the formative act of violence which sets the precedent for fratricide in
Beowulf, all subsequent acts of violence in the poem are part of a process of man‟s degeneration,
continuing after the biblical Fall, which began with the slaying of Abel. We are told therefore
of Grendel that “him scyppen forscrifen hæfde / in Cäines cynne” (the Creator had condemned
him along with the kin of Cain), by exiling him to “fïfelcynnes eard” (the region of the race of
monsters), (106-7b ;104) but the poet omits the direct cause for this condemnation, referring
instead to the terms of Cain‟s punishment for his crime which antecedes Grendel‟s:
[…] þone cwealm îewræc
ëçe drihten, þæs þe hë Äbel slog;
ne îefeah hë þåre fåh#e, ac hë hine feor forwræc,
metod for þÿ mane mancynne fram.
(107b-10)4
Stephen C. Bandy, “Cain, Grendel and the Giants of Beowulf”, Papers on Language and
Literature, vol.9, no.3 (1973), 235-49 (249)
3
[…] when the eternal Lord avenged the killing by which he [Cain] slew Abel; he did not
enjoy benefit from that enmity, for God banished him from mankind for that crime.
4
4
The mythic status of Cain‟s crime means that it is the act by which Grendel‟s misdeeds are
defined, even though Grendel is a much more prolific murderer. As Richard Jeffery Hodges
suggests it is “original violence”, as opposed to Original Sin which preoccupies the poet of
Beowulf; mankind‟s first transgression outside of Eden becomes representative of those which
follow it and as Regina M. Schwartz argues in her general study of the Cain story, it becomes
an “appropriate” myth “for the violence that rends our world”. 5
The notion that Cain‟s sin, more recent than Adam and Eve‟s, is implicated in a
continued Fall from grace after Eden is present in the Anglo-Saxon Genesis A:
wea wæs aræred,
tregena tuddor. of #am twige si##an
ludon la#wende leng swa swi#or
re#e wæstme. ræhton wide
geond werþeoda wrohtes telgan.
hrinon hearmtanas hearde and sare
drihta bearnum. do# gieta swa.
Of þam brad blado bealwa gehwilces
spyrtan ongunnon. we þæt spell magon,
wælgrimme wyrd, wope cwi#an
nales holunge Ac us hearde sceod
freolecu fæmne þurh forman gylt
þe wi# metod æfre men gefremeden,
eor#buende si##an adam wear#
of godes mu#e gaste eacen.6
Horace Jeffery Hodges, “Cain‟s Fratricide: Original Violence as „Original Sin‟ in Beowulf”,
Medieval and Early Modern English Studies, vol.15, no.1 (2007), 31-56 (34); Schwartz, Regina
M., The Curse of Cain: The Violent Legacy of Monotheism (Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 1997), 2
5
A. N. Doane, ed., Genesis A: A New Edition (Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin
Press, 1978), ll.987a-1001 ([…] woe was renewed, the offspring of grief. From that branch
afterwards grew evil, horrible fruit more intensely the longer it went on. The branches of that
crime reached wide over nations of men. The branches of sorrow touched the sons of mankind
hard and sore, as they still do. From them, broad leaves, all kinds of wickedness began to
sprout. Not without cause may we lament that story, that slaughter-cruel event with weeping;
for that beautiful women harmed us earth-dwellers severely through the first crime against
God ever carried out since Adam was animated by the spirit of God‟s mouth.)
6
5
The potency of the Cain myth for the Beowulf poet, similarly, is not as an isolated story but
can be traced through the genealogies of man, much like the Genesis A poet‟s genetic image of
“wrohtes telgan” (branches of crime). Just as in Genesis A, evil sprouts “of #am twige”, (from
that branch) in Beowulf “ealle onwöcon” (all evil offspring) are “þanon” (from) Cain. (107,111)
Cain‟s killing of Abel is an adequate synecdoche for man‟s continued Fall after Eden, looking
forward to the subsequent murders taking place in the time of Beowulf, as Genesis A records,
the branches of one man‟s crime reached over “werþeoda” (nations), and “drihta bearnum, do#
gieta swa” (the sons of men as they still do now). This extended model of the Fall implies that
each murderous act is situated in a chain of succession pointing back towards Cain‟s sin, and,
arguably, Eve‟s before it. David Williams pays special attention to how statements like “sorh
wæs îenïwod” (sorrow was renewed [by Grendel‟s mother]) suggest “not only the renewal of
local battles but [of a] historical struggle” as well (1322b),7 and, in turn, Genesis A refers back
to Eve‟s original transgression when “wea” (woe) is “aræred” (renewed) by Cain. The idea that
the Beowulf poet was conscious of biblical discourses in which the Fall continues with and
beyond Cain would attest to the potency of the Cain myth which foreshadows every subsequent
murderous act, culminating, in Augustinian thought, with the killing of Christ. 8
Though Original Sin, not Cain‟s sin, is the reason for death in Christian thought, Cain
murders Abel, causing the first human death and providing a touchstone for all successive
deaths, which Prudentius also considers in relation to the Crucifixion:
Death first began with the wounding of one that was innocent, passed away by the
wounding of one that was guiltless.9
David Williams, Cain and Beowulf: A Study in Secular Allegory (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 1982), 23-4
7
Augustine argues that Cain “was a symbol of the Jews who slew Christ, shepherd of the flock
of men,” in Augustine of Hippo, The City of God Against The Pagans, vol. 4, trans. by Philip
Levine (Cambridge, MA: William Heinemann, 1966), xv.v (429), an argument also made by
Bede in Kendall, Calvin B., ed. and trans., On Genesis: Bede (Liverpool: Liverpool University
Press, 2008), 149.
8
Prudentius, “Hamartigenia”, Prudentius, trans. by H. J. Thomson, (London: William
Heinemann, 1949), 201
9
6
Prudentius‟ “Hamartigenia”, or “The Origin of Sin”, begins like this, taking Cain‟s, rather than
Eve‟s transgression as the point at which sin is first realised through the death of Abel. The
Beowulf poet‟s similar omission is not to diminish the significance of Original Sin but to
augment our sense of violence, the legacy of the first fratricide, as the main obstacle to man‟s
prelapsarian life “drëamum” (in joy). (99) It is this experiencing of death anew in Genesis, and
“not the horror of the act itself” says Williams “that impressed the medieval mind”. 10 The
novelty of death precipitated by Cain‟s original fratricide is notable in the Jewish extra-biblical
material collated by Louis Ginzberg where:
Not knowing what injury was fatal, Cain pelted all parts of his body with stones, until
one struck him on the neck and inflicted death.11
Although Cain‟s fratricide here features an innocence about “what injury was fatal”, which is
lacking in Grendel, by appropriating Grendel to the Cain myth the Beowulf poet does similarly
show the effects of fratricide made new. He tells us that the Danes “sorge ne cü#on, /
wonsceaft wera” (did not know sorrow, the misery of man), a society unaffected by such
murderous behaviours before Grendel‟s first attack. (119b-20a) “Sorge” which is introduced to
the Danes by Grendel and, as previously mentioned, later renewed by his mother may also be
taken to mean “grief”, and when Grendel subsequently kills “on ræste […] þrïtî þegna” (thirty
thanes from rest) his actions are shown paralleling the first human death in a society previously
unaccustomed to grief. (122-3) This early portrait of Grendel‟s murderous acts, thus
encourages us to consider it in relation to the first mythical murder.
The Beowulf poet‟s abridged Song of Creation indicates the potency of the Cain myth
in the poem as biblical time in the Song becomes conflated with the time of its framing
narrative, the crime of Cain becomes conflated with those of Grendel and, perhaps, by
inference, his other murderous descendants.
10
David Williams, Cain and Beowulf: A Study in Secular Allegory, 23
Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, vol.1, trans. by Henrietta Szold (Baltimore: The
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), 109
11
7
Though as Daniel Anlezark notes the “connection between [Grendel]‟s northern exile and
Cain‟s primeval banishment” in Beowulf is “achronological and mythical”,12 there is a precedent
in extra-biblical materials like the pseudepigraphical Book of Enoch that Cain is the common
ancestor to what the Beowulf poet describes as “ealle onwöcon”, (all evil offspring): (111)
Þanon untÿdras ealle onwöcon,
eotenas ond ylfe ond orcneas,
swylçe îï(ga)ntas, þa wi# Gode wunnon
lange þräge; hë him #æs lean forîeald.
(111-4) 13
Later, when introducing Grendel‟s mother, the poet again uses the word “þanon”, preasumably
in reference to the offspring of Cain, though both times it is used it might be taken simply to
refer to the place of Grendel‟s exilement which his mother also:
[…] wunian scolde,
çealde strëamas, siþ#an Cäin wear#
tö ecgbanan ängan brëþer,
fæderenmåîe; hë þä fäg îewät,
morþre îemearcod mandrëam fleon,
wësten warode. Þanon wöc fela
îeosceaftgästa; wæs þåra Grendel sum,
heorowearh heteliç,
(1260b-7a)14
It is unclear here whether the “îeosceaftgästa” (demons sent by fate) are only related to Grendel
in that they derive from his place of exile, inheriting the “wësten” (wilderness), or if, as
Mellinkoff insists, both “statements about the line of descent from Cain to Grendel and his
Daniel Anlezark, Water and Fire: The myth of the Flood in Anglo-Saxon England
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006), 300
12
From [Cain] all evil offspring were born, eoten and elves and orcs, such as giants who fought
against God for a long time; he paid them their reward.
13
[…] has to reside in, cold streams, since Cain became sword-slayer to his only brother, his
kin by the same father; then left outlawed, marked with murder, fleeing the joys of man,
inhabited the wilderness. From there were born many demons sent by fate; one of these was
Grendel, hateful savage outcast,
14
8
mother” are “markedly definite.”15 From these passages, however, we can infer that, according
to the archetype of Cain‟s punishment, the “onwöcon” are not native to the wilderness like
animals, but are exiled there for crimes comparable to Cain‟s, thereby maintaining human
qualities; just as Cain “wear# / tö ecgbanan
ängan brëþer,” (became sword-slayer to his only
brother), the sense of common ancestry among “eotenas ond ylfe ond orcneas”, evil offspring,
whether derived from Cain literally or only figuratively, highlights their fraternity and therefore
their capacity for fratricide.
The Beowulf poet then, it would seem, was conscious of a tradition in which monsters,
derived from within human kinship are the manifestations of Cain‟s own sinfulness. Just as
Cain‟s own physiognomy is altered, “morþre îemearcod” (marked with murder), (1264a) Ginzberg, respectively records how in Jewish extra-biblical sources God‟s mark on Cain varies
from his blackened skin, his affliction with leprosy, and the growth of a horn on his forehead, 16
- fratricide is not just displaced to exiled monsters like Grendel and his mother, it is made
evidenced by man‟s capacity for monstrosity. Redolent, to some extent, of the “dÿîel lond
[…]flöd under foldan” (hidden land […] water under the earth), inhabited by Grendel and his
mother,(57b-61b) one legend Ginzberg describes, in which Cain‟s line degenerates into giants
and dwarves in turn segregated to the subterranean and shadowy Arķa, is somewhat atypical of
an extra-biblical tradition in which after Cain‟s exile, his progeny usually continue to influence
the rest of human society. 17 Elsewhere Ginzberg outlines how “the family of Seth bec[omes]
corrupted after the manner of the Cainites” and how “a race of giants”, born from fallen angels
and the “daughters of men”, most often taken to mean the daughters of Cain, introduce warfare
and weaponry to humanity. 18 R. E. Kaske, furthermore, notes how Uriel, in The Book of
Enoch, tells that the interference of such giants “lead men to idol worship” and argues that this
can be “taken to mean that men resorted to such sacrifices in order to escape the persecution of
the giants”, as the Danes “îehëton æt hærgtrafum / wïgweorþunga,” (called honour to idols at
Ruth Mellinkoff, “Cain‟s monstrous progeny in Beowulf: part II, post-diluvian survival”,
Anglo-Saxon England, vol. 9 (1981), 183-97 (183)
15
16
Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, vol.1, trans. by Henrietta Szold, 108;112;116
17
Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, vol.1, trans. by Henrietta Szold, 114
18
Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, vol.1, trans. by Henrietta Szold, 152;125
9
heathen temples) for “îëoce […] wi# þëodþrëaum”(help against the people‟s distress) in
Beowulf: (175-8) Beyond being the uncomplicated heirs of Cain‟s original fratricide, his
monstrous descendants are engaged in maintaining this legacy and extra-biblical materials show
them actively introducing heathenism and violence to the rest of human society. They are
manifestations not only of the grotesqueness of Cain‟s but of a capacity for sin throughout
humanity and in this sense the matter of their supposed genealogy becomes clouded.
Nonetheless, the question of Grendel‟s human antecedence is significant to Beowulf ,
while we do not see Grendel, “teaching secret and evil arts” like the giants of The Book of
Enoch,19 his descent for Cain embroils him in very kinship system he defiles and all murderous
acts in Beowulf will be implicitly shown to be a form of fratricide. While Mellinkoff argues
that The Book of Enoch‟s account of giants as the progeny of a union between the daughters
of Cain and fallen angels was supressed by a version in which takes the “sons of God” in
Genesis to mean the sons of Seth instead, she concedes that “no matter how the mating was
construed, the genealogical descent of wicked progeny was traced, on one side or another, to
Cain.”20 The scribe of line 107 in the Beowulf manuscript, however, may not have been so
certain of Grendel‟s ancestry, and where the minims in the word are so close together, editors
are forced to choose whether it should read “caines” or “cames”, although the reading of Cain is
vindicated in line 108b, “þe hë Äbel slög", “cames”, that is Cham or Ham, the son of Noah,
would be another credible ancestor to Grendel and James Carney suggests that this confusion
in the manuscript may be more than a simple scribal error. 21 Carney notes a similar confusion
between Cain and Ham in the eleventh century Irish Sex Aetates Mundi which in two
contradictory passages attributes “monstrous creatures […] of every illshapen form that people
have had” first to the posterity of Cain, and then to Ham, explaining that “nothing remained of
19
Ruth Mellinkoff, “Cain‟s monstrous progeny in Beowulf: part 1, Noachic tradition”, Anglo-
Saxon England, vol. 8, 145
Ruth Mellinkoff, “Cain‟s monstrous progeny in Beowulf: part 1, Noachic tradition”, AngloSaxon England, vol. 8, 146-8
20
Julius Zupitza, transliteration and notes, “Beowulf”: Autotypes of The Unique Cotton MS.
Vitellius Axv in the British Museum (London: N. Trüber & Co for The Early English Text
Society, 1882) 6-7 (fol.132r)
21
10
[Cain‟s] seed after Flood, for the reason of the Flood was to drown the posterity of Cain.” 22
The occurrence of such myths, which Carney argues would have been known by the Beowulf
poet demonstrates the difficulty with showing that Cain‟s race survived the Flood and that
Grendel descends from this line in more than a figurative sense and the discrepancy in the
manuscript seems to suggest how Beowulf‟s audience how Cain‟s lineage may have been
resumed by Ham after the Flood.
In spite of this, the poet is careful not to preclude that Grendel survives a line of Cain‟s
which somehow survived the Flood, as emphasised by Andy Orchard, the poet uses “the
biblical term giant only of those who were drowned in the flood” whereas Grendel is actually
described as a eoten;23 the poet only explicitly states that “îï(ga)ntas”, and not “eotenas ond ylfe
ond orcneas” are punished by the Flood:
[…] îï(ga)ntas, þa wi# Gode wunnon
lange þräge; hë him #æs lean forîeald.
(113-4)24
Similarly, on the sword with which Beowulf slays Grendel‟s mother and beheads Grendel is
engraved:
fyrnîewinnes; sy#þan flöd ofslöh,
îifen gëotende îiganta cyn,
frëcne îefërdon; þæt wæs fremde þëod
ëçean dryhtne; him þæs endelëan
þurh wæteres wylm waldend scealde.
(1689-93)25
James Carney, Studies in Irish Literature and History (Dublin: Dublin Institute for
Advanced Studies, 1955), 102-4
22
Andy Orchard, Pride and Prodigies: Studies in the Monsters of the “Beowulf”-Manuscript
(Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1995), 58
23
24
[…] giants who fought against God for a long time; he paid them their reward.
The origin of ancient strife; when the Flood killed the kind of giants, the ocean rushed, a
terrible fare; that was a estranged race to the eternal Lord; the ruler gave them this final reward
through the waters‟ welling.
25
11
The myth of the Flood is enshrined in Beowulf and the poet appears to be assertive that
Grendel and Cain‟s line have survived it, by doing so the poet seems not to discourage us from
disregarding the myths of Cain‟s monstrous antediluvian race. Just as Augustine reasons in
The City of God that “if such[gigantic] races do exist, they are not human; or, if they are
human, they are descended from Adam”,26 the Beowulf poet seems stipulate Grendel‟s
relationship to Cain, and therefore, indirectly to Adam the first man, 27 eotenas therefore
become embroiled in the ties of human kinship and this how the Beowulf poet enhances the
saliency of Cain‟s assault on fratricide.
It has been demonstrated how Grendel, and his mother, are representatives of both Cain‟s
mythical first fratricide and his genealogical line, and now the cultural resonance of the Cain
myth in Beowulf will be examined in relation to the instances of human fratricide in the poem.
As Hrothgar recognises, both Grendel and his mother “wræclästas træd” (trod the paths of
exile) with “idese onlïcnæs” (lady‟s likeness) and “were wæstmum” (man‟s stature), they are
monsters evocative of human exile, the most common cause of which is kin-slaying. (1351-3)
The pattern by which Grendel‟s mother intercedes “sunu dëo# wrecan” (to avenge her son‟s
death), mimics “the cycle of war and blood-feud” which Hodges considers to have been
instigated by Cain‟s original fratricide, a concept summarised in Maxims I:28
Feuding has existed among mankind ever since earth swallowed the blood of Abel.
That was no one-day strife: from in the drops of enmity splashed abroad, great
wickedness among men and malice-mingled strife among many nations. His brother
killed his own; but Cain kept no prerogative over murder. After that it became widely
manifest that chronic strife was causing harm among men so that far abroad through
Augustine, The City of God Against The Pagans vol. 5, trans. by Eva Matthew Sanford and
William McAllen Green (Cambridge, MA: William Heinemann, 1965) xvi.viii (49)
26
Although the extra-biblical tradition in which Satan, not Adam is the father of Cain should
also be noted as Ginzberg does in Ginzberg, Louis, The Legends of the Jews, vol.1, trans. by
Henrietta Szold, 105.
27
Horace Jeffery Hodges, “Cain‟s Fratricide: Original Violence as „Original Sin‟ in Beowulf”,
Medieval and Early Modern English Studies, vol.15, no.1, 38-9
28
12
the earth its inhabitants suffered a contest of arms, and devised an tempered the
destructive sword.29
The Beowulf poet assumes all the fatalism of Maxims I with his ironic prolepsis of civil unrest
in Heorot:
[…]ne wæs hit lenîe þä îën
þæt se ecghete äþumswëoran
æfter wælnï#e wæcnan scolde.
(83b-5)30
It is ironic of course that such blood-feud, the indirect legacy of Cain, is inevitable even after
Cain‟s most immediate descendant Grendel has been defeated; the poet‟s employment of
chiasmus, “fåh#e ond fyrene”, “fyrene ond fåh#e” underline his fixation - “tö fæst on þäm” (too
fixed on them) - with feud and violence which he propagates “sïngäle” (continually) in his
denial of “sibbe”. (137a;153a;137b;154) Schwartz describes such self-perpetuating violence as a
“vicious” circle: “because Cain is outcast, Abel is murdered and Cain is cast out.” Although
Schwartz speculates that a “scarcity of goods” was the source of Cain‟s original resentment
towards Abel, unlike Augustine who terms it the envy “the wicked feel for the good just
because they are good, not wicked like themselves”, 31 since the first fratricide it is felt that
violence has been taking place cyclically and in correspondence with this, Grendel‟s exilement
and aversion to “sibbe” are interdependent. Grendel‟s hostility towards the Danes is a challenge
to the images of fraternity which provoke his attack, the “drëam […] hlüdne in healle”,
(rejoicing […] loud in the hall) and “swefan sibbeîedriht samod ætgædere” (the band of
kinsmen sleeping together). (91a-92b;739) The actions of Grendel and his mother stop the
sound of “drëam”, the poet last uses the word singularly in line 1275 with the entrance of
S. A. J. Bradley, ed. and trans., Maxims I, Anglo-Saxon Poetry (London: Everyman, 1982),
344-50, ll.192-201
29
It was not yet that the sword-hate among oath-swearers [son-in-law and father-in law]
should arise after deadly violence.
30
Regina M. Schwartz, The Curse of Cain: The Violent Legacy of Monotheism (Chicago:
The University of Chicago Press, 1997); Augustine of Hippo, The City of God Against The
Pagans, vol. 4, trans. by Philip Levine, xv.v (429)
31
13
Grendel‟s mother, by which point fratricide, not fraternalism, has become Beowulf‟s dominant
image of kinship.
In Beowulf it may be supposed that all human murder is akin to fratricide, as Hodges
explains, “the common descent presupposed by the poem‟s reference to Cain” implies that
human beings “are all connected by implicit ties of kinship, and Cain‟s original violence thus
characterizes human relations everywhere.”32 Whether or not the poet was sensitive to this
reasoning, the myth of the first fratricide is resonant in the culture of Beowulf where fratricidal
violence so often pervades itself. The fraternal image of Sigemund and Fitela “eam his nefa”
(uncle to his nefa), “fela eotena cynnes / sweordum îesåîed”, (very many eoten kin had they
slain with swords), (880-4b) in the Sigemund-Heremod Digression is exemplary whereas
Heremod‟s fate “mid Ëotenum wear# /on fëonda îeweald for# forläcen” (with the Eoten he was
misled into the control of fiends), (902b-4) is to be avoided, we are later reminded leads to an
exilement similar to Grendel‟s:
brëat bolgenmöd bëodîenëatas,
eaxlîesteallan, oþ þæt hë äna hwearf,
måre þëoden mondrëamum from.
(1713-5)33
This warning that fratricide, will lead to a deprivation from “mondrëamum” (the joys of man),
is of course formalised in the Unfer# Episode when Beowulf threatens Unfer# with spiritual
damnation:
[…] #ü þïnum brö#rum tö banan wurde,
hëafodmågum; þæs þü in helle scealt
werh#o drëogan,
32
(587-9a)34
Horace Jeffery Hodges, “Cain‟s Fratricide: Original Violence as „Original Sin‟ in Beowulf”,
Medieval and Early Modern English Studies, vol.15, no.1, 41
[Heremod] enraged killed his table-companions, shoulder-companions, until he, the glorious
prince, alone departed from the joys of man.
33
[…] you became slayer to your brother, close kinsmen; for that you must suffer punishment
in hell.
34
14
While fratricides like Unfer# and Heremod though are directly analogous to Grendel
and the kin of Cain, Heremod even fraternising with eoten, the ubiquity of kin-strife in the
society of Beowulf means that not all exiles can be condemned so plainly as Beowulf does
Unfer#, indeed the exiled Unfer# appears to be welcome in Hrothgar‟s court. The Finn
Episode similarly presents the “wreçça” (exile) Hengest, whose fratricidal obsession is motivated
by vengeance and a preoccupation with blood-feud, “hë tö gyrnwråce / swi#or þohte” (he
thought more intensely of revenge of injury) without clear criticism. (1137b-9a) Hrë#el, by
comparison is required to let his son Herebeald “unwrecen ealdres linnan” (lose his life unavenged), (2443) because the “feorbonan” (life-slayer) is his younger son Hæ#cyn:
[He] wihte ne meahte
on#äm feorhbonan fågh#e îebëtan;
nö #ÿ år hë þone hea#orinç hatian ne meahte
lä#um dådum, þëah him lëof ne wæs.
(2464b-7)35
Hæ#cyn‟s fratricide in turn is accidental and not motivated by the blood-lust of Cain although
his unintentional fratricide, “of hornbogan, / his frëawine
fläne îeswencte, / miste merçelses
ond his måî ofscët”, (using a horn-bow he injured friend and lord with an arrow, missed his
mark and shot his kinsman), (2437b-9) in turn echoes another aspect of the Cain myth in
which after seven generations Cain is mistaken for an animal and shot accidentally by his blind
descendant Lamech, continuing the chain of fratricide in his blood-line.36 The salient myth of
Cain resonates through Beowulf because it provides a myth of origin for the perpetuating cycle
of murder and fratricide the poet portrays, it provides a source of random acts of fratricide like
Hæ#cyn‟s but does not always help to explain them ; though it is an effective analogy for the
blood-lust of characters like Grendel, even Heremod, the Cain myth does not correspond so
well to the more fratricides with more complex motivations, like Hengest, or for that matter
potential fratricides like Hrë#del.
[He] could not in any way remedy that feud on the life-slayer; nor any sooner could he hate
the warrior with hateful deeds, thought he was not dear to him.
35
36
Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, vol.1, trans. by Henrietta Szold, 116-7
15
The Beowulf poet, with the support of a pre-existing extra-biblical tradition, employs the myth
of Cain and Abel as the foundation myth for fratricide which is central to the condition of
humanity portrayed in the poem, as David Williams suggests:
Its use by the Beowulf poet is not theological in the scientific sense, but a literary use of
cultural legend deriving the same ethical lesson. 37
Fratricide is a corner stone in the poet‟s society, not only for its theological significance but
because of the proximity of Cain‟s first fratricide to the Fall and consequently kin-slaying is the
omnipresent indicator of man‟s degeneracy in the poem. Meanwhile the appropriation of giants
to the stock of Cain is not a simple process of Christianisation, Stephen C. Bandy notes that:
Grendel‟s connections with the monsters of Northern myth are certainly manifest. But
it is fair to say that after Grendel passed through Christian hands he could never again
be the free spirit he once was. As the heir of Cain, Grendel is as much man as beast.38
The eotena‟s grotesque caricature is all the more potent reflection of the common humanity
from which they are derived, albeit a simplistic one in comparison to the tragic, complex nature
of kin-strife in the poem.
The Cain myth, though explicitly mentioned only twice in Beowulf , is a salient symbol
in the context of a poem so loaded with the effects of kin-killing. Fratricide so integral to
Beowulf that even in its hero‟s final speech, his inverted celebration of kinship is actually a
celebration that his life has been untouched by the tragedy of fratricide:
[…] më witan ne #earf waldend fïra
mor#orbealo mäga, þonne mïn sceace#
lïf of lïçe.39
37
David Williams, Cain and Beowulf: A Study in Secular Allegory, 5
Stephen C. Bandy, “Cain, Grendel and the Giants of Beowulf”, Papers on Language and
Literature, vol.9, no.3, 236
38
16
Word Count:4,251
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39
17
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