Sweden: Cultural and Historical

Pontus Fahlbeck (1850–1923), schooled in Latin, philosophy, history, the Nordic languages, and physics, was – among many other things – Professor of History and Political Science at the University of Lund, 1909–15, and a member of parliament, 1903–11. He “had a fine appearance and in his conduct was elegant and engaging,” and “[t]he study of antiquity – ‘a protected place,’ F[ahlbeck]’s ‘time out’ – and pondering the riddle of the world, life and death, constituted for him two refuges from the troubles of the day.”1 “hade ett fint utseende och var i sitt uppträdande elegant och förbindlig,” “Studiet av antiken – ‘en fridlyst plats’, F:s ‘pax i leken’ – och grubbel över ‘världsgåtan’, över liv och död, utgjorde för honom två tillflykter undan dagens bekymmer.” Carlsson, “Pontus E. A. Fahlbeck.” During a couple of those time outs, Fahlbeck produced an important, two-part contribution to the study of Beowulf.2 “Beovulfskvädet såsom källa för nordisk fornhistoria,” 1884 and 1913. “Beovulfskvädet såsom källa för nordisk fornhistoria” (The Beowulf Poem as a Source for Nordic Legendary History, 1894) begins with a substantial, detailed summary of Beowulf and a lament over the fact that, while the Danes have two, the English four, and the Germans just as many translations of the poem, there is none in Swedish.3 Ibid. p. 2. The summary covers pp. 4–21. That would not be remedied until 1889. He then discusses the royal genealogy of the Geats,4 Ibid., pp. 21–23. Beowulf’s history,5 Ibid., p. 23. the royal genealogies of the Swedes and the Danes,6 Ibid., pp. 24–26. and that of the Swedish people7 Ibid., pp. 26, 60–69. before reaching the main subject of his paper, the identification of the Geats.8 Ibid., pp. 26–57. He then discusses the Danish people9 Ibid., pp. 57–64. and finishes his study by considering the poem’s composition10 Ibid., pp. 69–88. and reaching the conclusion that “Beowulf must, despite its saga-like character, be regarded as a very dependable source for the oldest history of the North.”11 “Beovulfsqvädet måste, trots dess sagolika karakter i det stora hela, betraktas såsom en mycket tillförlitlig källa för Nordens äldsta historia.” Ibid., p. 84.

Fahlbeck, the foremost proponent of what has been called “The Jute Theory,” identifies the Geats of Beowulf with the Jutes of the Jutland peninsula. While he was not the first to do so (Heinrich Leo was in 1839), his study has “raised the Geat question from the realm of conjecture to that of scholarly debate and still [in 1925] makes the weightiest contribution in favor of the Jute theory.”12 “lyfte upp geaterfrågan från gissningarnas område till den vetenskapliga diskussionens och alltjämt utgör det mest vägande inlägget till jutteteoriens förmån.” Nerman, Det svenska rikets uppkomst, p. 109. He looks first at several passages in the poem that problematize the Geats’ originating from Västergötland or Östergötland, as most scholars think they did: 1) lines 1921b–24 tell us that Hygelac’s court lies close to the sea and lines 3131a–36 that the dragon’s lair does as well [29–31]13 “Beovulfskvädet såsom källa för nordisk fornhistoria,” pp. 29–31.; 2) lines 2333–35 describe the dragon’s destruction of the land of the Geats, ealond utan (on an island out there), an epithet that does not fit Västergötland or Östergötland14 Ibid., pp. 31–32.; and 3) lines 2380a, 2394a, 2473a, and 2477a relate that the wars between the Swedes and the Geats took place across the sea or wide water, a description that does not apply to Västergötland or Östergötland.15 Ibid., pp. 32–35. Where, then, did the Geats come from, if not from Västergötland or Östergötland? The problematic passages are no longer problematic if the Geats came from an area that fits those descriptions; that place would be the Jutland peninsula, separated from southern Sweden by the Kattegat strait connecting the North Sea with the Baltic.16 Ibid., p. 40. Other details in the poem, such as the Geats’ being referred to as the “Weather Geats” or “Wind Geats,” strengthen the identification of the Geats with the Jutes. Jutland is well known as a windy landscape.17 Ibid., p. 41. Fahlbeck acknowledges the linguistic difficulty with equating the Geats with the Jutes but does not think it is insuperable given the Anglo-Saxons’ use of two terms for Jutes, Geatas and Jotas.18 Ibid., p. 52. In his follow-up article thirty years later, Fahlbeck lays even more stress on the OE terms characterizing the wars between the Geats and Swedes as occurring across the sea and stands by his original conclusion that the sea would have to be the Kattegat or the Baltic.19 “Beovulfskvädet såsom källa för nordisk fornhistoria,” 1913.

A nationalist, Knut Stjerna (1874–1909), on the other hand, would locate the Geats on the Swedish island of Öland in the Baltic. Stjerna had a tragically short but successful life as a journalist and influential and controversial archaeologist. He was deeply influenced when he studied literature at the University of Lund by his teacher Henrik Schück and later by the archaeologist Oscar Montelius (1843–1921), from whom he was eventually estranged. Stjerna was appointed Lecturer in Scandinavian and Comparative Archaeology in 1907 at the University of Uppsala, where two of his students were Birger Nerman and Sune Lindqvist. He was famous for his immense energy, but in 1908 his heart began to fail, and in 1909 he collapsed at the Kafé Solidar in Uppsala while waiting for dinner and died instantly from cardiac arrest.20 Nordström, “Knut Stjerna,” p. 119. In his brief life of thirty-­five years, however, he succeeded in raising the status of archaeology (and teaching) at the university, producing a series of articles on Beowulf that has added substantially to our understanding of the poem,21 Ibid., pp. 120–28. and earning for himself “a brilliant reputation in his own country as a scholar of unusual industry and thoroughness and of active imagination.”22 J. R. Clark Hall, “Introduction,” to Stjerna, Essays on Questions, p. xvii. That reputation spread beyond his homeland as well because of his consequential work on Beowulf.

Stjerna’s eight articles were posthumously translated into English by John R. Clark Hall and published as Essays on Questions Connected with the Old English Poem of Beowulf in 1912. In the first of these, “Helmets and Swords in Beowulf,” Stjerna ties the frequent references to both items in the poem to archaeological finds in Scandinavia and elsewhere that help date the events described. The adjective heaðosteap (towering in battle) in lines 1245a and 2153a, for example, would appropriately describe helmets from before the middle of the seventh century but not after it.23 Stjerna, Esssays on Questions, p. 18. Similarly, the hringmæl (ringed sword) in lines 1521b and 1564b belongs to a large group of swords discovered in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, England, Germany, and Italy from the period 550 to 650 CE but not before or after that period.24 Ibid., pp. 26–27. Stjerna gives further support for the sixth- to early seventh-century dating of the events in Beowulf, and therefore of when the poem’s original lays were created in the next essay, “Archæological notes on Beowulf.” The mention in the poem of a hafoc (hawk, falcon) in line 2263b, for instance, reflects an early Swedish custom, as shown by the remains of a gyrfalcon having been found in the third Vendel grave from the seventh century in Sweden.25 Ibid., p. 36.

The next two essays focus more on historical than on archaeological matters. In “Vendel and the Vendel Crow,” Stjerna disputes the suggestion made by Sophus Bugge (1833–1907) that the Vendel mentioned in Beowulf, line 348 (“Wulfgar maþelode; þæt wæs Wendla leod,” Wulfgar spoke; that was a man of the Vendels), is Vendill in North Jutland; Stjerna argues it is instead Vendel in Uppland, Sweden. Grave finds in Uppland, which are more plentiful there than in all other Swedish regions combined, confirm its centrality during the period 500 to 700 CE. The fæsten (line 2950b, stronghold) that Ongentheow (the Vendel Crow) retreats to during the Geatish-Swedish wars is undoubtedly located in Uppland.26 Ibid., p. 54. It should be noted that in this article, Stjerna was the first to observe that the name “Wulfgar” alliterates with “Wendla,” “Wægmund,” “Weohstan,” and “Wiglaf,” all part of the same family branch, “probably on the female side, of the Swedish line of the Scylfings (v. 2602)” from Vendel.27 Ibid., p. 56. In his article “Swedes and Geats during the Migration Period,” Stjerna advances the theory that the Geats in Beowulf came from Östergötland, Västergötland, and had their center of power on Öland.28 Ibid., pp. 74ff. (See Curt Weibull’s rebuttal of this theory, below, as well as Clark Hall’s.29 Ibid., pp. xxiv–xxv.)

The last three articles by Stjerna concerning Beowulf return to archaeology. “Scyld’s Funeral Obsequies” focuses on burial practices around the world, from the Bronze Age to the sixth and seventh centuries, in order to contextualize the description of Scyld’s burial in the poem. The burial fits in the first of three stages of burial customs seen in Europe, Australia, India, and elsewhere, in which the dead man is laid out in a boat and pushed out from shore.30 Ibid., p. 106. The second stage is the custom of burying both man and ship or hanging them in a tree;31 Ibid., p. 108. and the third stage is when the living provide no means of transport to the other world.32 Ibid., p. 109. Since stage one burial cannot be confirmed on archaeological grounds, Stjerna turns to literary sources such as the description of Balder’s cremation in Gylfaginning, chapter 49.33 Ibid., p. 112. He concludes that the description of Scyld’s burial in Beowulf accurately reflects a stage one burial custom “which was actually in vogue in the North” around 400 CE.34 Ibid., p. 127. He concludes as well that the inconsistent description of “The Dragon’s Hoard in Beowulf” results from the poem’s depending on successive versions of the descriptions that reflect hoarding customs at various periods. In the earliest period, all treasure items were interred; in the latest, only select items were.35 Ibid., pp. 154–55. Stjerna also examines each item belonging to the dragon’s hoard and connects each with actual archaeological finds.

The final article, “Fasta fornlämningar i Beowulf” (Fast Remains in Beowulf), has been divided into two in the English translation. In the first, “The Double Burial in Beowulf,” Stjerna uses three graves from the fourth century in which two men were interred to elucidate how the foster-brother obligations in the fourth and fifth centuries informed the cremation practices in Beowulf, line 1117a, for example, where Hildeburh’s two sons are placed on the funeral pyre together.36 Ibid., pp. 189–93. The poem therefore offers a literary example of the custom of burying (or cremating) brothers and foster brothers together.37 Ibid., p. 196. In “Beowulf’s Funeral Obsequies,” Stjerna explores to what extent the description of Beowulf’s funeral is corroborated by archaeological evidence. After reviewing evidence we have for burial practices in Scandinavia for the period in question, the fifth century, Stjerna points to the royal burial mound in Gamla Uppsala known as “Odinshög” (Odin’s Mound)38 Ibid., pp. 221–34. from around the year 500 CE as being analogous to “Beowulf’s Mound” in the poem. He then compares the literary description with the archaeological one and concludes that there is “a complete identity between the funeral customs in use by the Swedes at the burial of their king, and those which the Geats followed in honour of Beowulf.”39 Ibid., pp. 235–37.

Henrik Schück (1855–1947), who so profoundly influenced Knut Stjerna, was a literary historian and Professor of Aesthetics, Literature, and Art History at the University of Lund (1890–98) and then at the University of Uppsala (1898–1920). He was Rector Magnificus there (1905–18), a member of the Swedish Academy (1913–47), a member of the Nobel Committee (1920–36), and Chair of the Nobel Foundation (1918–29), among many other distinctions. His broad academic interests included early Swedish literature, Shakespeare and other Elizabethan authors, world literature, and Beowulf.40 “John Henrik Emil Schück.” Of his five publications touching or focusing on the poem, two have particular importance. Folknamnet Geatas i den fornengelska dikten Beowulf (The Tribal Name Geats in the Old English Poem Beowulf) takes up the issue of the provenance of the Geats and, contra Fahlbeck, argues that they did not come from Jutland but from the south-west coast of Sweden near the Göta river.41 Schück, Folknamnet Geatas, pp. 22–27. Schück reviews Fahlbeck’s argument point by point in reaching this conclusion.42 Ibid., pp. 16–22. For example, Fahlbeck would have Beowulf and Breca begin their swimming contest on Jutland and end up on Fyen or King Finn’s land in Friesland. Fahlbeck does not explain how Fyen could be referred to as Finna land (line 580b) or how Finna (genitive plural) land could mean Finn’s (genitive singular) land. There is a logical, geographical problem here as well. If the swimmers begin on Jutland opposite Fyen, swim for five nights and then are separated and driven to opposite shores equidistant from the point of separation, one would reach the Gulf of Kristiana and the other Fyen again or Frisia on the other side of Jutland. A far better solution that fits the narrative much more fully is to identify Finna land with Finneidhi or Finnheden in Småland, Sweden. The competitors start from Kungsbacka fjord in Halland in south-western Sweden and are later separated by stormy weather, “after which one – if we use the modern geographical names – steps ashore approximately at Fredriksstad [in Norway], the other at Laholm [in southern Halland, Sweden].”43 “hvarefter den ene – om vi insätta de moderna geografiska namnen – stiger i land ungefär vid Fredriksstad, den andre vid Laholm.” Ibid., pp. 28–29.

Schück’s Studier i Beowulfsagan (Studies in the Beowulf Saga) explores not the poem of Beowulf, but the Nordic stories that lie behind it from the Migration Period. The relationship between the poem and the Nordic tales it exploits is exactly analogous to that between the Norwegian/Icelandic tales of Sigurd Fafnesbane and the continental stories first developed on the Rhine before migrating north. In the case of Beowulf, the Angles and Saxons first learned the relevant stories on the mainland and then brought them to England, where the OE poem was written first in the Northumbrian or Mercian dialect and then translated into West Saxon during the first part of the eighth century.44 Schück, Studier, p. 3. Distinguishing the poem of Beowulf from the story of Beowulf is crucial.45 Ibid., p. 5. The poem is a unified whole; the stories are not. Basically, there are two or three of them: the fight with Grendel, the fight with Grendel’s mother (or taken together as one story), and the fight with the dragon. The protagonist of the first story (perhaps two stories) is a brave warrior in one locale (Denmark) and time period; the protagonist for the third is an old king in another locale (Götaland in Sweden) and time period. Discovering where, when, and how those stories first arose and then how they were united with each other and then moved to England is Schück’s goal in this essay.46 Ibid., pp. 6–7.

Behind the first story of Grendel and his mother lies the primitive tendency to try to explain the unexplainable dark and incomprehensible forces in the world through folktale, saga, and myth. The manifestations of those dark forces can be confronted and defeated by a powerful human.47 Ibid., p. 7. We see this story in Grettissaga, for example (pp. 8–9), and in various folktales from Lorraine, Flanders, Brittany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland. The motif is also seen in the first story in Beowulf and is firmly tied to Danish legendary history and the only place it could take place: Denmark.48 Ibid., p. 10.

The second story about the dragon also has ancient roots, this time in the primitive belief seen among many peoples in death as a devouring beast.49 Ibid., p. 11. In the Norse tradition, the motif lives in several forms: the wolf Fenrir, the dog Garm, the serpent Niðhögg, and the Midgard Serpent. The beast can be killed by an intervening hero or god, or it can kill the intervening hero or god and then itself be killed by a younger hero avenging the older. Such is the case in Beowulf.50 Ibid., pp. 12–13. The dragon story is firmly tied to Geatish legendary history, and the intervening hero was probably the national hero.51 Ibid., p. 14. The two (or three) stories were probably originally independent of each other, each with its own hero with his own name, and first became joined in England with the three heroes turned into one with one name.52 Ibid., pp. 22–23. Schück reasons that Beowulf’s life’s work parallels Scyld’s in significant ways, “and when Beo in the genealogies is now made Scyld’s son, it is therefore probable that the hero in this adventure [the fight with Grendel] bore the name Beo.”53 “och då nu Beo i genealogierna göres till Scylds son, är det därför antagligt, att hjälten i detta äfventyr burit namnet Beo.” Ibid., p. 24. The hero in the fight with Grendel’s mother was the unnamed son of Ecgtheow, and the hero of the dragon story bore a different name such as Wulf. That would alliterate with the tribal name Wægmunding that includes him, Wiglaf, Weohstan, and Wihstan.54 Ibid., p. 25. From those three heroes, then, arose the unified hero Beowulf, son of Ecgtheow, in the OE poem.55 Ibid., p. 26. Schück speculates that the stories from Denmark and Götaland met in Frisia en route to England and were then revised into a unified whole.56 Ibid., p. 40. The unifier was probably an English missionary sent to Frisia beginning in 678 CE with St. Wilfrid of York,57 Ibid., p. 43. who spent time there listening to tales told by merchants and others passing through Frisia. He was probably himself a poet with a fondness for tales; he assembled what he heard into a single narrative about a single hero and wrote that narrative in Northumbrian or Mercian; and that narrative was translated into West Saxon after its arrival in England.58 Ibid., pp. 44–50.

Curt Weibull (1886–1991) was Professor of History at the University of Gothenburg from 1927 to 1953 and Rector from 1946 to 1956. It was in the latter capacity that he aided Norwegian students fleeing to Sweden during the Nazi occupation of Norway during WWII. The University of Oslo recognized him for this important work by giving him an Honorary Doctorate in 1946. His scholarly work is grounded in source criticism, which he developed with his brother Lauritz Weibull.59 Wasberg, “Curt Weibull.” In his Om det svenska och det danska rikets uppkomst (On the Rise of the Swedish and Danish Kingdom, 1921), his sources are many and come from the Greeks, from the Romans, and from OE works, especially Beowulf, which earlier scholars had used to argue for a prehistoric origin of the Swedish kingdom. Weibull, on the other hand, uses Beowulf to promote his thesis that the origin of the Swedish and Danish kingdom lies not during the reigns of the kings buried in the massive burial mounds in Uppsala or around 500 or 600 CE,60 Weibull, Om det svenska och det danska rikets uppkomst, p. 301. as was commonly assumed, but during the Viking period. The most prominent and influential scholar arguing for an early date was Knut Stjerna, who used both Beowulf and archaeological discoveries to substantiate his dating.61 See Stjerna, Esssays on Questions.

But, Weibull asks, is Stjerna’s view defensible? Its foundations are ultimately 1) that the Geats of Beowulf are the east Götar of Sweden and 2) that the great wealth and dominance of Uppland from the sixth century onward is explained by the Swedes’ rule spreading south over richer but less populated areas of the country – for example, Östgötland.62 Weibull, Om det svenska och det danska rikets uppkomst, p. 308. The conclusion of Beowulf, therefore, where the conquest of the Geats by the Swedes is predicted after the death of Beowulf, in essence predicts the birth of a unified Swedish nation. Weibull dismisses the first, essential, premise by pointing out that the east Götar have never been a seafaring people and thus do not fit the narrative of the poem well at all. He reinforces the point by referring to the work of Pontus Fahlbeck, who asserts, along with the OE translation of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, that the Geats of Beowulf are the Jutes of Jutland or Geataland.63 Weibull, Om det svenska och det danska rikets uppkomst, pp. 310–11. See Pontus Fahlbeck, “Beovulfskvädet såsom källa för nordisk fornhistoria,” p. 26. The battles that the poem describes are not between Swedes and Götar but between Swedes and Jutes; and they seem to have emerged from the competition for booty and power on the major pathways between the countries of the Baltic Sea Basin and Western Europe.64 Weibull, Om det svenska och danska rikets uppkomst, pp. 324–25. The results of the battles did not produce a unified Sweden or Denmark. That phenomenon did not occur until the Viking period.

Carl Wilhelm von Sydow (1878–1952), one of whose mentors was Axel Olrik, was a leading, pioneering folklorist in Sweden and Professor of Nordic and Comparative Folkloristics at the University of Lund, 1938 to 1947. From his youth, he was deeply interested in botany and zoology;65 This interest is shown in his article “Geografi,” in which von Sydow points out that the natural descriptions in Beowulf reflect the author’s homeland in Northumbria, especially in Derbyshire. he studied at the Askov folk high school in Denmark and there became interested in folklore; and his son, who looked very much like him, was the internationally famous star of film, stage, and television Max von Sydow (1929–2020).66 Bringéus, “Carl Vilhelm von Sydow.” One of his specialties was the Celtic influence on Germanic literature and folklore, the initial manifestation of which for Beowulf studies is his article on Thor’s journey to Utgard in Snorri Sturluson’s Gylfaginning. He argues that the earliest example or the motif of the glove so massive that Thor and Loki mistake it for a house is first found in Beowulf’s retelling of his fight with Grendel, who had a huge glove hanging at his waist into which he wanted to put Beowulf (line 2085b).67 von Sydow, “Tors färd,” p. 156.

In his other articles touching on Beowulf, von Sydow focuses on the mythic and folktale dimensions of the poem. He denies the mythic underpinnings of Scyld Scefing,68 von Sydow, “Scyld Scefing.” for example, maintains the association of the name Grendel with folk belief in a water troll in southern England reflected in eight OE place-names,69 von Sydow, “Grendel.” affirms the close connection between Beowulf and Böthvar Bjarki,70 von Sydow, “Beowulf och Bjarke.” and situates the treasure-guarding dragon in Beowulf in a long, widespread tradition across Europe and Asia.71 von Sydow, “Draken som skattevaktare,” pp. 107, 114–15. Finally, he examines mythic interpretations of the poem such as Müllenhoff’s construal of Beowulf as a semi-divine being whose function it is to protect humans from nature. In his youthful contest with Breca, Beowulf swims against the polar stream and defeats the cold and wildness and storm of the winter sea, represented by Breca; in his mature fights with Grendel and Grendel’s mother, who likewise represent the destructive power of the sea and the sea’s depths respectively, he emerges victorious; and in his battle with the dragon in his old age, he again beats back the forces of storm and sea but dies in the process.72 von Sydow, “Mytforskiningen,” pp. 99–100. Other scholars either agree or disagree with Müllenhoff. Von Sydow lays out the bases for all the various points of view, offers arguments against them and their methodologies, and ends his discussion with his own interpretation of the poem and its mythic elements. It is brief. The story of Beowulf’s fight with the Grendel kin is borrowed from Ireland, where it belongs to the Gaelic Finn cycle of narratives. Grendel is a giant recognizable from Indo-European folktales and does not have symbolic import; he lives with his mother out in the sea, where the Gaelic hero must pursue them. The AS poet was not familiar with the idea of a sea giant and therefore associated him with the AS water troll, Grendel, whose name is linked to eight watery places in southern England.73 See von Sydow, “Grendel.” Similarly, the dragon in Beowulf is not to be interpreted symbolically. It belongs to folktale, not myth, and is a combination of stories of an attacking dragon and one that guards treasure.74 von Sydow, “Mytforskningen,” pp. 133–34.

In the introduction to his unpublished memoirs, Birger Nerman (1888–1971) declares that “from a psychological point of view,” he is “completely uninteresting.”75 “ur psykoligisk synpunkt fullständigt ointressant.” Nordström, “Birger Nerman,” p. 214. From many other points of view, however, he is an intriguing figure in the history of OE studies in Scandinavia. Along with his twin brother Einar (1888–1983) and his older brother Ture (1886–1969), he would become a major player in Swedish cultural life. Einar became a renowned artist whose “Sun Stick match boy” still graces every box of Solstickan (Sun Stick) matches sold in Sweden;76 Anon., “Einar Nerman.” Ture became a socialist journalist, author, poet, and politician; and Birger became an esteemed academic and human rights activist for the Baltic states who, by combin ing literary history, philology, and archaeology in his research, created his own subject area at the University of Uppsala and finished his career as Director of the National Historical Museum in Stockholm, 1938–69.77 Nordström, “Birger Nerman,” p. 207. His first book is a collection of his poetry, Pan och Eros (1912), and his most important contribution to Beowulf studies is his Det svenska rikets uppkomst (The Swedish Kingdom’s Origin, 1925), which he condensed for an English-speaking audience as “The Foundation of the Swedish Kingdom” (16 April 1924) and revised for a popular Swedish audience as Sveriges rikes uppkomst (Origin of the Kingdom of Sweden, 1941).

Nerman considers archaeology, literary records (ON sagas, Procopius, Jordanes, and Cassiodorus), and Beowulf as the three most significant sources for the early history of Sweden. Taken separately, they are subject to dispute; taken together when they reinforce each other, they have compelling power. Knut Stjerna’s mainly archaeological argument for the foundation of the Swedish kingdom has the Svear of what is now middle Sweden or Svealand moving south to conquer areas in southern Sweden or Götaland and establishing the Swedish realm sometime in the middle of the sixth century.78 Nerman, “Foundation,” pp. 113–14. Literary material supports this interpretation. In Beowulf, written ca. 700 CE, the sweon are the Svear, the geatas are the Västgötar, and the wylfingas are the Östgötar. The wylfingas are known as Ylfingar in northern sources such as the Sögubrot af fornkonungum i Dana ok Svía veldi (Fragments of the History of Ancient Kings in Denmark and Sweden).79 Ibid., pp. 119–20. The poem mentions the frequent conflicts between the sweon and the geatas and twice foretells the downfall of the latter in lines 2886b–90a (“Every man of this tribe shall wander without right to a country”) and in line 3019b (Geatish women “shall tread foreign soil”). Of the man making this prophesy, the poet says in lines 3029b–30a that “not very falsely did he speak of fate and words.” The downfall of the Västgöta realm, then, and the triumph of the Svear must have occurred between 550 and 575 CE, during the reign of the Swedish king Adils.80 Ibid., p. 121. Wulfstan’s account of his voyage from the OE Orosius substantiates Nerman’s claim. After passing lands belonging to Denmark and the Burgundians (Bornholm), Wulfstan passes Blekinge, Möre, Öland, and Gotland on the port side of his ship. These lands, states Wulfstan, belong to the Svear. Thus, writes Nerman, we see “that at that time, during the second half of the ninth century, the origin of the Swedish kingdom is completed.”81 “att vid denna tid, under andra hälften av 800-talet, det svenska rikets uppkomst är fullbordad.” Det svenska rikets uppkomst, p. 263.

Sune Lindqvist (1887–1976) worked in the National Historical Museum in Stockholm for eighteen years before becoming Professor of Scandinavian and Comparative Archaeology at the University of Uppsala, a position he held from 1927 to 1953. He was one of the most influential Swedish archaeologists of the twentieth century.82 Gräslund, “Sune Lindqvist,” pp. 189–90. During WWII, rumors of his being a Nazi sympathizer made their way through Uppsala, but he was actually working undercover as an anti-Nazi operative to report any possible Nazi infiltration at the university. Although he even gave refuge to Jews and anti-Nazi protesters in his own home, he refrained from debunking the myth for his whole life to protect those refugees and to keep that mission secret.83 Ibid., p. 194. He and Birger Nerman combined, as their teacher Knut Stjerna had before them, written and archaeological material in their research.84 Ibid., p. 192. He mentions, for instance, the appearance of Ohthere (Ottar) in Beowulf to help contextualize his discussion of the archaeological finds in Ottar’s burial mound in Vendel;85 Lindqvist, “Ottarshögen,” pp. 127–29. he uses the descriptions of funeral pyres and burials in Beowulf, Ynglingasaga, and Ynglingatal to help us understand the burial mounds in Old Uppsala;86 Lindqvist, “Ynglingaättens gravskick,” pp. 119–36. he compares the architectural description of Heorot in Beowulf to that of Scandinavian stave churches and to the reliquary in that style found in Eriksberg’s church in Västergötland;87 Lindqvist, “Hednatemplet i Uppsala,” pp. 110–12. and he uses Beowulf as a gloss on the Sutton Hoo ship burial in East Anglia and vice versa.88 Lindqvist, “Sutton Hoo och Beowulf.”

In his magnum opus, Uppsala Högar och Ottarshögen (Uppsala Mounds and Ottar’s Mound, 1936), Lindqvist uses archaeological data from the Swedish burial mounds to elucidate the cremations and burials of Hnæf and Beowulf in Beowulf. The final compositor of the poem, living as he did a couple centuries after the events depicted in the poem and being as he was a Christian, sometimes misunderstood details of the original cremation ceremonies and burials. Hnæf’s cremation in lines 1107–24 contain two troublesome lines. The first is Guðrinc astah (the warrior rose up, line 1118b), which has been typically interpreted to mean that a warrior, Hnæf or Hildeburh’s son, was placed on the funeral pyre; Guðrinc has also been emended as in Klaeber’s Beowulf (2008) to Guðrec (battle smoke) so that the smoke from the cremation would rise to the heavens. Lindqvist, however, interprets the line as reflecting a tradition going back to Roman times in which the inheritor of the throne vacated by the man about to be cremated stood up to kindle the fire. Others would then join him, lighting the fire on all sides. The second line is hlynode hlawe (line 1120a), conventionally taken to mean “the mound roared,” which does not make good sense. If we take hlawe to mean not mound, but pyre, as it does in Snorri’s description of Frey’s burial, it makes perfect sense. The excavations of the mounds in Uppsala clarify how the pyres were built; they were hollow in construction, which would cause them to roar as the wind and fire swirled within them.89 Lindqvist, Uppsala högar, p. 252. Similarly, in Beowulf’s cremation scene, Lindqvist would emend windblond gelæg (the agitation of winds subsided, line 3146b) to windblonde gelic (like the whirlwind) and bronda lafe (remainder of brands = ashes, line 3160b) to bronda hlawe (the hollow pile of brands).90 Ibid., p. 256. Years later, in 1958, Lindqvist would bring these observations and many others about the underlying texts in Beowulf to bear in his translation and commentary on the poem, Beowulf Dissectus.91 For the English summary of the above argument, see Ibid., pp. 347–48.

Carl Otto Fast or Svionum (1885–1969) was a mining engineer in Stockholm and an amateur historian who published books and articles on or relating to Beowulf between 1929 and 1950. He was associated with Samfundet Manhem (The Manhem Society), which had pro-Nazi leanings, and consciously or unconsciously published some of his rejected work in openly Nazi journals.92 Råsled, Landet Vädermark, p. 13. Nevertheless, his work is considered important enough in Sweden to have been reprinted in 1984.93 Beowulf, germanernas äldsta epos; Västgöta-Dal; Götaland; Svenska rikets ursprung; Vänerbygdens sägner. He has been called the father of the “Västergötland School” that considers the area south and west of lake Vänern in Sweden to be the landscape for old Germanic poetry including Beowulf.94 Janson, Till frågan, p. 13. Fast’s interests are insistently historical, and he seeks to prove that the Geats definitely came from Västergötland in Sweden, not Jutland in Denmark, as some of his predecessors (such as the Swede Pontus Fahlbeck and the Dane Christian Kier) had tried to prove. In striving for his goal, he offers us a unique way of looking at, for example, the prologue to Beowulf.

The Scyld episode, Fast claims, is relevant to the rest of the poem because it offers us the glorious genealogy of the Swedes, not the Danes.95 Beowulf, germanernas äldsta epos, pp. 15ff. Scyld is Swedish, not Danish, and the proof of that depends on our looking mainly at two things: the genealogy itself; and hronrad (whale road) in line 10 of the poem (cf. Hrones Næs in lines 2805, 3136). The first part of the argument is relatively simple. The flow of the genealogy follows the flow of expanding power south from Bohuslän in Sweden through Halland in Sweden and Skåne in Sweden to Sjælland in Denmark. Scyld was a king near the Göta river near Göteborg in Sweden; Beow expanded his inherited influence south through Skåne in Sweden; Halfdan continued the expansion south through Sjælland; Hrothgar solidified the power in Sjælland. Danes in the ancient sense (when all Scandinavians were known generically as Danes) were not born in Denmark but were rather Swedes who settled there.

The other part of the argument is more complex. A secondary reason, says Fast, that scholars have mistaken the Swedes in the prologue for Danes is that they have misinterpreted the word hronrad to be a kenning for “ocean.” But whales go in many different directions, so why is hronrad in the singular? If Scyld was indeed a king near the Göta river, as Fast claims, and if much of the poem takes place near that river or north of it in Vänern (the largest Swedish lake), the river itself might be the single “whale road.” The highest hill on the west side of the Göta river was originally called Wal-klätten (whale cliff) and is about 135 meters high and quite visible from the Kattegat Sea between north Denmark and south Sweden even though it lies about 20 miles inland. It apparently gave its name to at least parts of the region. Some estates still bore the name “whale” through the nineteenth century, and the point of land where Beowulf was buried – Hrones Næs (Whale Headland, perhaps?)96 See also Johansson, Beowulfsagans Hrones-Næsse and Beowulfsagans historiska fragment, pp. 76–79, for further reflections of a layman on Beowulf. – seems likewise tied to that dominant piece of landscape. Read through Fast’s eyes, the prologue to Beowulf becomes more thoroughly attached to the poem and more thoroughly Swedish than it ever has before.

Read through the eyes of a professional archaeologist, the whole of Beowulf can be seen to have distinctly Swedish roots. Bo Gräslund (1934–) is Emeritus Professor of Archaeology at the University of Uppsala, where he was employed from 1974 to 1999. Prior to that, he was a research assistant, curator, and head of department at the National Historical Museum in Stockholm, 1964–72, and during his tenure at Uppsala, among other things, he served as vice dean for the historical-philosophical section 1987–90, then as dean in 1989; he was also editor of the journal Tor 1972 to 1983 and 1998 and editor-in-chief from 1985 to 1998 as well as editor of the journal Fornvännen 1966–72 and editor-in-chief 1987–96. He was also Chair of the board for the “Societas Archaeologica Upsaliensis” from 1998 to 2005 and remains a member of that board.97 Gräslund, “Bo Gräslund.” In 2018, he published the important Beowulfkvädet: Den nordiska bakgrunden (translated into English by Martin Naylor as The Nordic Beowulf, 2022), which locates Beowulf and the Geats on the island of Gotland, a considerable distance from the Swedish mainland in the Gulf of Bothnia, and not in Västergötland or Östergötland or on Öland or on the Jutland peninsula in Denmark.

The suggestion that the Geats come from Gotland was first made by Grundtvig in 182098 Grundtvig, Bjowulfs Drape, p. lvii. and 186199 Grundtvig, Beowulfes Beorh, pp. xliii and lvi. and then independently of Grundtvig and in much more detail by Gad Rausing in 1985100 “Beowulf, Ynglingatal and the Ynglinga saga.” and Tore Gannholm in 1992.101 Gannholm, Beowulf. Focusing mostly on the description of Beowulf’s journey to Denmark, Rausing (1922–2000), a wealthy industrialist and respected archaeologist with a Ph.D. from Lund,102 Ambrosiani, “In Memoriam.” investigated the provenance of the Geats. At the beginning of Beowulf, the hero and his men set sail across open seas until “oþeres dogores” (line 219b, on the second day) they “land gesawon, // brim-clifu blican, / beorgas steape, // side sæ-næssas” (saw land, the shining sea-cliffs, the steep hills, the vast headlands, lines 221b–23a). Most take the description as largely poetic license, Denmark being almost entirely flat. But Rausing takes the lines literally and reasons backwards from them and from the archaeological fact that the richest burial sites for late Iron Age Denmark are concentrated in south-east Zealand, south of modern-day Copenhagen, with Stevns at their center. The Stevns area is probably, he thinks, where Heorot was located, not in Lejre, which is to the west of modern-day Copenhagen. He reasons further that if Beowulf sails the open sea, that sea would have to be east of Zealand, and if it took two days to traverse by boat, the origin of the journey could well have been the southern tip of Gotland at Cape Hoburgen. The distance from Hoburgen to Stevns on the east coast of Zealand is 229 nautical miles, which can be covered in 48 hours in a sailboat of the kind Beowulf would have used. Rausing actually sailed the route, giving empirical proof of the time it would take to make the journey. More impressive, however, is the fact that the only place in all of Scandinavia that fits the description of the shining cliffs of Denmark in Beowulf is Stevns Klint (the Cliff of Stevns), a bright, shining, white-chalk cliff that is 15 kilometers long, 41 meters high, and so dramatic that it was declared a World Heritage site in 2014.103 Rausing, “Beowuf, Ynglingatal and the Ynglinga saga,” pp. 174–77.

In 1992, Tore Gannholm (1940–), an amateur historian of the Baltic, gave more substance to Rausing’s hypothesis. He reprinted a lightly edited version of Björn Collinder’s translation of Beowulf together with a substantial introduction and a translation of Guta saga, the Old Gutnish legendary history of Gotland, probably from the early thirteenth century. The changes he makes to Collinder’s text are minimal and consist almost entirely of substituting gutar for gautar (Gotlanders for Geats) and vädursmän for vädersmarksborna (men of the ram – the symbol for Gotland since the sixth century – for inhabitants of Weder land or Geats). Gannholm titles his book Beowulf. Gutarnas nationalepos (Beowulf: The National Epic of the Gotlanders), and in it he argues with Grundtvig and Rausing that the Geats came from Gotland and that Beowulf and the Guta saga are the oldest sources for Gutnish history. He mounts a reasonable defense of these assertions based on historical sources ranging from Pliny, Procopius, and Tacitus to runic inscriptions and Gotlandic picture stones, and, of course, on Rausing’s work.104 Gannholm, Beowulf: Gutarnas nationalepos, pp. 25–29.

In his book, Gräslund advances the Grundtvig–Rausing hypothesis considerably with even more abundant archaeological, linguistic, literary, and historical evidence.105 The following discussion is based primarily on my review of Gräslund’s book in the original Swedish. See Bjork, Review of Bo Gräslund. References to his book are to the English translation. That evidence may clarify much that remains enigmatic about the poem’s geography and history and even lexicography. The phrase ealand utan (island out there, line 2334a) describing the land of the Geats, for example, is troubling if one thinks that the Geats lived near the Göta älv and present-day Gothenburg in Västergötland, because Västergötland is not an island. Gotland, however, is. It lies far out in the Baltic Sea from the east coast of the Swedish mainland and is therefore aptly described as ealand utan.106 Gräslund, The Nordic Beowulf, pp. 46–48. The epithet weder (always translated as “weather”) likewise would make more sense if Beowulf came from Gotland and the word was a mis-transcription of weðer (“wether” or “ram”). From at least the late Middle Ages until the present day, the ram has been the official symbol of Gotland, and “Wether-Geats” or “Ram-Geats” nicely differentiates the Geats (or Gutes) on Gotland from the Geats of Väster- and Östergötland.107 Ibid., pp. 48–50.

The topography of south-east Gotland seems to fit the OE description of Beowulf’s home as well. For instance, Hygelac’s hall is described in the poem as being sæwealle neah (near the sea wall, line 1924b), a phrase that has puzzled many a translator. The Littorina Ridge just inside Bandlund Bay on Gotland, however, is about four meters high, dominates the landscape and could easily be designated a “sea wall.”108 Ibid., pp. 109–11. The archaeology of the area confirms that the OE may refer to precisely this area, because near that sea wall at Känne in Burs lies a remarkable number of foundations for structures of various size including a 67x11-meter main building, the largest on Gotland from the period and larger than any in Sweden and Denmark.109 Ibid., pp. 111–13. Stavgard, as it is referred to locally, must have been the abode of a powerful king such as Hygelac. Sailing from that south-east point on Gotland to Heorot in Denmark would take about two days, as the poem affirms. Beowulf’s ship arrived “ymb antid oþres dogore” (after a normal amount of time on the next day, line 219b).110 Ibid., pp. 121–23.

The point of arrival, Gräslund (and Rausing before him) argues, was not Lejre in north-west Zealand, as is commonly thought, however, but Stevns Klint in the south-east. Topography and archaeology once again reinforce the possibility. “Shining white cliffs” is a good description of Stevns Klint, and the path “paved with stones” (stanfah, 1ine 320a,) could very well be one of the paved paths of the Stevns area, which boasts the highest number of such paths in all of Scandinavia, including the unique and impressive stone path at Broskov south-west of Stevns.111 Ibid., pp. 124–28. The area has a number of rich grave finds, which suggests that the peerless path originally led to something very important such as a royal site, which could have been Heorot.112 Ibid., p. 130.

Gräslund offers much, much more to concretize an idea that Grundtvig intuited and to which Rausing gave evidentiary support. Through meticulous argument interwoven with an impressive assemblage of data, archaeological and otherwise, which is inadequately adumbrated here, Gräslund offers possible answers to the questions of the provenance of the Geats, the location of Heorot, and many more, such as the significance of Sutton Hoo and the meaning of the Grendel kin and dragon in the sixth century when the events of the poem, coinciding with cataclysmic events in northern Europe, took place. “That a profound crisis shook Scandinavian society to its foundations, demographically, socially, economically, and culturally – of that there can be no doubt.”113 Ibid., p. 191. Readers will undoubtedly find a secondary thesis that Gräslund promotes in his study of Beowulf less compelling than the first and will more likely meet it with skepticism, just as Thorkelin’s analogous thesis was met 200 years before Gräslund’s. Thorkelin regarded Beowulf as a Danish poem in an OE dialect (Poëma Danicum dialect Anglo-Saxonica); Gräslund regards Beowulf as an eastern Scandinavian poem “given an Old English linguistic form.”114 Ibid., p. 108. Nationalism still lives in serious scholarship on the poem. Gräslund incorporates his many findings into his 2022 revision of Rudolf Wickberg’s revised translation of Beowulf from 1914, and we will consider that translation in the next chapter.