Comparing the Events and Characters of Beowulf and The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki

Comparing Events and Characters of Beowulf and The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki

There are so many similarities between the events and characters in the poem Beowulf and The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki, an Iceland saga representing 1000 years of oral traditions prior to the 1300’s when it was written. These similarities are so numerous that they cannot be attributed solely to coincidence.

The Cambridge History of English and American Literature states that the hero of the poem Beowulf may be the same person as Bodvar Biarki, the chief of Hrolfr Kraki’s knights (v1, ch3, s3, n13). George Clark in “The Hero and the Theme” mentions: “The form of Beowulf taken as a whole suggests both the ‘Bear’s Son’ folktale type (especially as we find it in Scandinavia) and the ‘combat myth’. . . .” (286). The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki would be both of these. Jesse Byock says: “the earliest accounts of the characters in Hrolf’s Saga come from Anglo-Saxon England, where writing in Roman letters had been adopted in the seventh century, several centuries earlier than in Scandinavia” (Byock xxiv).

Beowulf opens with a short account of the victorious Danish king Scyld Scefing, whose pagan ship-burial is described. His body was carried on board a ship, piled up with arms and treasures: the ship passed out to sea. The reigns of Scyld’s son and grandson, Beowulf and Healfdene, are mentioned, and we then meet Hrothgar, the son of Healfdene. In The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki we also meet a Hrothgar, but his name is abbreviated into Hroar. Hroar is a notable figure, just as in Beowulf, ruling over the northern English kingdom of Northumberland until forced into a disastrous conflict. King Hrothgar builds a splendid hall, call...

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...men and the gentlest, the kindest to his people” (3181).

The Iceland saga, The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki, written in the 1300’s, represents about 1000 years of oral traditions. The remarkable similarities between this saga and Beowulf are just too astounding to dismiss as mere coincidences.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Chickering, Howell D.. Beowulf A dual-Language Edition. New York: Anchor Books, 1977.

Clark, Gorge. “The Hero and the Theme.” In A Beowulf Handbook, edited by Robert Bjork and John D. Niles. Lincoln, Nebraska: Uiversity of Nebraska Press, 1997.

The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki, translated by Jesse L. Byock. New York: Penguin Books, 1998.

Ward & Trent, et al. The Cambridge History of English and American Literature. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1907–21; New York: Bartleby.com, 2000