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Less of a Thought, More of a Brainstorm - Jamie Peters

Whenever I read this last semester for Brit Lit, I was really interested in writing a research paper discussing the interjections of the sides stories by the poets. I never got around to it in there, so I am going to do it here! What I want to know is who each character in the Finnsburg Episode (the second story for those of you who don't have that annotation) is supposed to represent in the bard's eyes. There are three main characters discussed, Finn, Hildeburh, and Hengest. Both Hildeburh's brother and son, who are Danes, die to the hands of Finn's men, and the successor of the Danes, Hengest, quickly brings justice upon those who murdered them. After a winter of recieving tributes from Finn because of his loss, Hengest's "...longing woke 

in the cooped-up exile for a voyage home - 

but more for vengeance, some way of bringing 

things to a head..." (1138-1141)

Inevitably, Hengest recieves what he thinks is the weregyld, or the blood-price, for the bother and son of Hildeburh by killing Finn in is own house and returning Hildeburh to her kin (1146-1158).

Based on the summary above, the order of events still confuses me; I do think, however, that I can attribute who the bard thinks each person is. Hilderburh represents Hrothgar, the man under much sorrow because of all the people he has lost. Finn I think is supposed to represent Grendel because of the murder of the brother and son and the fact that he is the king of the Frisians, the inherent enemy of the Danes. That leaves Hengest as Beowulf, the man that brought vengeance upon the murderer. 

Thank you for letting me use this space to sort out my thoughts on this. Do you think that I got the characters right?


P.S. I commented on Abigail's and Braylan's posts.

Comments

  1. Lily CaswellFebruary 22, 2021 at 9:22 PM

    I definitely can see it after reading your post, Jamie. I’m not exactly sure what I can add to this because there’s not really anything to add other than the fact that the timeline of the story is a little bit different like you mentioned but sometimes that can be just poetic license rather than the way it might have actually happened.

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