7 Scandinavian Translations of Old English Literature other than Beowulf

In chapter 1, the first two translations on the above list were mentioned. Bussæus in 1733 published the OE “The Voyages of Ohthere and Wulfstan” as an appendix to his edition of the Old Norse (ON) Íslendingabók, the first complete edition of that text, and included what is probably Christopher Ware’s 1678 Latin translation from John Spelman’s The Life of Ælfred the Great.3 Adams, Old English Scholarship, pp. 77–78. In 1773 in volume two of his Scriptores rerum Danicarum, Langebek likewise included the OE text of the “Voyages” and offered an introduction to the text, Ware’s Latin translation of it in parallel columns, and extensive, detailed notes to the text. The first sentence of Ware’s translation reads:

The early Swedish and early Danish editions and translations were compared in 1953 by Nils Erik Enkvist (1925–2009), who for a long time was Finland’s most internationally recognized linguist specializing in stylistics and text linguistics but also known as a phonetician and literary scholar. He was an effective administrator as well, serving as Rector (1966–69) and Chancellor (1991) of Åbo Akademi in the city of Turku (Åbo in Swedish). It is the only exclusively Swedish-language university in Finland. One of Envkist’s predecessors as Rector there was Henrik Gabriel Porthan (1739–1804), Professor of Eloquence (1777–1804), librarian, and historian who is known as the father of Finnish history because of his groundbreaking work.5 Tarkiainen, “Porthan.” Enkvist looks at a relatively neglected piece by Porthan, his edition and translation of “The Voyages of Ohthere and Wulfstan,”6 Porthan, “Försök.” and finds that it is superior in many respects to its predecessors, the best edition of the text before Rask’s in 1815.7 Rask, “Ottars og Ulfstens korte Reiseberetninger.” In some cases, it is even better than Rask’s.8 Enkvist, “Porthans ’Försök,” p. 120. Porthan’s “encyclopædic knowledge, good sense and independent judgment” inform his entire edition and translation.9 Ibid., p. 121.

The next two translations of “The Voyages” came over 150 years later in 1983. Niels Lund provides a translation of both sea voyages in parallel OE and Danish columns, appropriately published in a book issued by the Viking Ship Hall in Roskilde. Ottar og Wulfstan. To rejsebeskrivelser fra vikingatiden (Ohthere and Wulfstan: Two Travel Narratives from the Viking Period) surrounds “The Voyages” with commentary by Lund and essays by Ole Crumlin-Pedersen on Ohthere’s and Wulfstan’s ships, sails, routes; Peter H. Sawyer on Ohthere and trade during the Viking period; and Christine E. Fell on the language of “The Voyages.” Fell translated the book into English as Two Voyagers at the Court of King Alfred (1984). Karl Inge Sandred (1925–2008), famous for his work on English place-names,10 Coates, “Karl Inge Sandred,” p. 163. published his translation in 1983 as well, but only of Wulfstan’s voyage. The book that includes his work deals with Goths, including Gotlanders, and Vikings in the Baltic, where Wulfstan’s voyage takes place.11 Sandred, “Wulfstans resa.”

After translations of “The Voyages of Ohthere and Wulfstan” come translations of “The Battle of Brunanburh,” with Grundtvig taking the lead with his 1817 study and translation of the poem discussed in the Introduction to this book. Two Icelanders, two Danes, and a Norwegian were next to do so. Gísli Brynjúlfsson, who contributed translations to Stephens’ Tvende Old-Engelske Digte (Two OE Poems, 1853) produced one, perhaps in the 1850s, but it was not published until 2007.12 Ísaksson,“Þýðingar Gísla Brynjúlfssonar ur fornensku,” pp. 95–96. And Benedikt Gröndal Sveinbjarnarson (1826–1907) produced a partial one in the late nineteenth century that was not published until 2003.13 Tómasson, “Iarlar árhvatir,” pp. 181–83. Gröndal studied natural history, poetry, and philosophy extensively and received a master’s degree in ON philology in 1864. After serving as a teacher at the Latin School in Reykjavík from 1874 to 1883, he divided the rest of his life “between drinking, study of nature, drawing, and writing.”14 Einarsson, A History of Icelandic Literature, p. 240. He was an influential poet and renowned humorist in both prose and verse,15 Ibid., p. 241. and he saw the clear affinity between West Germanic poetry and ON. In a parallel column to Langebek’s edition of “The Battle of Brunanburh,” he wrote his own Icelandic translation but only made it to line 68 or line 34 in a modern edition.16 Tómasson, “Iarlar árhvatir,” p. 181.

The next translation of the poem, however, was completed and published. Johannes C. H. R. Steenstrup (1844–1935), Professor of History at the University of Copenhagen (1882–1917), specialized in medieval law and social relations and was influenced by the German school of legal history with its emphasis on nationalism. He was a prolific author, and his works on Danish place-names and legal history are considered groundbreaking. One of his major works is the four-volume history of the Norsemen titled Normannerne (The Norsemen, 1876–82), the last volume of which on the Danelaw earned him a doctorate.17 Tiemroth, “Johannes Steenstrup.” In chapter 3 of the third volume, on the Nordic colonies in England from 901 to 954, Steenstrup introduces the translation of “The Battle of Brunanburh” by stating that the poem takes the place of a prose account of the battle in the AS Chronicle, and he offers “a translation that sticks fairly well to the words of the original.”18 “en Oversættelse, der holder sig temmelig nær til Originalens Ord.” Steenstrup, Normannerne, vol. 3, p. 76. Despite this ambiguous statement, we assume nonetheless that the translation is his. The two remaining translations of “The Battle of Brunanburh” are in verse by the Norwegian Alexander Bugge in his 1910 Norges Historie fremstillet for det norske Folk (Norway’s History for the Norwegian People)19 Bugge, Norges Historie, I, 2, pp. 177–78. and in prose by the Dane Torsten Dahl (1897–1968), Professor of English Philology at the University of Aarhus from 1934 to 1967,20 Sørensen, “Torsten Dahl.” in his 1936 Den oldengelske Krønike i Udvalg (Selections from the AS Chronicle)21 Dahl, Den oldengelske Krønike i Udvalg, pp. 34–36. focusing on the Viking period.

Barry Wilmont, too, includes a translation of “The Finnsburg Fragment” in his 1983 translation of Beowulf. He bases it on the English translations by Clark Hall and David Wright and the Danish translation by Oskar Hansen.

In his 1997 article “Striden i Finnsborg” (The Fight at Finnsburg), Frands Herschend (1948–), Professor Emeritus of Archaeology and Ancient History at the University of Uppsala, juxtaposes translations of both “The Finnsburg Fragment” and the Finnsburg episode in Beowulf and explores the differences and similarities between the two in an effort to ascertain which came first and how the two versions of the story relate to archaeological and historical evidence. He finds that the fragment preceded the episode, which is probably based on another section of the poem of which the fragment is a part, because of its emphasis on the royal struggle for power. The episode focuses instead on the retainers in the battle, and that represents a later stage in the development of aristocratic power. The battle undoubtedly took place during the move of the Danes southward to rule over the Jutes “somewhere between the migration of the Jutes to Kent and the construction of the first Danevirke ramparts”27 Herschend, “Striden,” p. 332. – that is, in the late Iron Age in the fifth to seventh centuries. The hall discovered at Dankirke that was violently destroyed during this period is a plausible site for the battle.28 Ibid.

In Denmark, they are so regarded as well, and the poet Suzanne Brøgger’s 2017 version in Danish of the same lines from “Deor” is different still:

Weland (him be wurman) kendte hjemløsheds plage.

“Deor” captured the imaginations of the Scandinavians relatively early, and “Widsith” did as well. We now have translations of the poem in Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, and Finnish. The first in Danish is by Schaldemose from 1847 in his Beo-Wulf og scopes Widsið, and he publishes his translation in a column parallel with the OE original text.36 Schaldemose, Beo-Wulf, pp. 176–82. The next translation, also in Danish, is by Gudmund Schütte in an appendix to his Oldsagn om Godtjod from 1907. He says of Schaldemose’s translation that it is “not especially accurate”37 “ikke særlig nøjagtig.” Schütte, Oldsagn om Godtjod, p. 197. and so offers his own alliterative verse translation, which he keys to his ethnographical study of the Germanic peoples.38 Ibid., pp. 198–201. Then, in 1929, the Swede Karl F. Sundén (1868–1945) published his study of the poem (examined in chapter 4) together with a rhythmic prose translation of it from Holthausen’s 1905–06 edition of Beowulf. His translation, unfettered by alliteration, begins:

In 1936, the Icelander Stefán Einarsson likewise included a translation of “Widsith” in his study of the poem that we examined in chapter 4, and his is in alliterative verse. The opening lines read,

The most recent translation to emerge from the Nordic countries did so from Finland in 2004. Osmo Pekonen and Clive Tolley, who published their Finnish translation of Beowulf in 1999, contributed their alliterative Finnish translation of the poem as Widsith: Anglosaksinen muinaisruno (Widsith: An Ancient AS Poem) and, with Jonathan Himes, offered in 2005 the only translation of the OE poem “Waldere” to come out of the Nordic countries in any language.42 Himes, Pekonen, and Tolley, Waldere: Anglosaksinen muinaisruno. They chose to translate “Widsith” into Finnish because it, like Beowulf, mentions Finns and because some readers of their translation Beowulf might “like to pursue somewhat further the heroic background to Old English verse.”43 Tolley, English version of his “Introduction”, p. 1. Here is what the opening of “Widsith” looks like in Finnish:

After “Deor” and “Widsith,” the OE texts that translators in Scandinavia focus on become less obvious because most of them do not concern national or even regional interests. Again, Grundtvig was the first to broaden the perspective on OE literature beyond texts of national relevance, beginning in 1836 with his Danish renditions of The Advent Lyrics 1, 7, 8, Christ and Satan (partial), and Christ II (partial), and then of The Phoenix in 1840. It was close to twenty years later that other scholars began following suit. The titles of their works reveal that broadened, non-national interest just as the titles of the earliest works on OE literature dealt with in chapter 1 reflect the influence of Romantic Nationalism. Stephens’ simple Tvende Old-Engelske Digte (Two OE Poems, 1853), Nilsson’s Några fornengelska andeliga quäden på grundspråket (Some OE Spiritual Poems in the Original Language, 1857), and Hammerich’s De episk-kristelige Oldquad hos de gothiske Folk (Christian Narrative Poetry among the Gothic People, 1873) are good nineteenth-century examples. Good twentieth-century examples are Larsen’s Krist og Satan (Christ and Satan, 1903), Noack’s Helvedstorm og himmelfart: stykker af oldengelsk kristen digtning (Hellish Storm and Heavenly Journey: Samplings of OE Christian Poetry, 1983), Menneskevordelse og korsdød: stykker af oldengelsk kristen digtning (Human Beings and Death on the Cross: Samplings of OE Christian Poetry, 1996), and Borgehammar’s Från tid och evighet: Predikningar från 200-tal till 1500-tal (From Time to Eternity: Sermons from the Third to Sixteenth Centuries, 1992), which contains sermons from Origenes to Laurentius Petri and Borgehammar’s translation of Ælfric’s “In dedicatione ecclesiae” from The Catholic Homilies.45 Borgenhammer, Från tid till evighet, pp. 191–200, commentary pp. 200–02. Nevertheless, the first OE religious prose text to have attracted attention in Scandinavia is Ælfric’s De falsis diis, a homily on the false gods of the Romans and Scandinavians with both religious and regional interests. The title of the translation reflects that reality: “Fragment af en allitereret angelsaxisk Homili, hvori nævnes nogle af Nordens hedenske Guddome” (Fragment of an Alliterative AS Homily in which Some of the Nordic Heathen Deities are Mentioned). The text, in which only Thor, Odin, and Frigg appear, is printed in parallel columns with a literal translation by the Norwegian C. R. Unger (1817–97), Professor of Germanic and Romance Philology at the University of Christiana from 1862 to 1897.46 Halvorsen, “C R Unger.” Ælfric’s homily was not translated again into a Scandinavian language.

Between the publication of Stephens’ book and Hammerich’s comes the translation of another important AS text, certainly through the encouragement and guidance of Grundtvig.47 Bradley, “Grundtvig, Bede,” p. 115. Christian Malta Kragballe (1824–97), a vicar, well-published author, and hymn writer, translated the Latin version of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History into Danish. His Anglerfolkets Kirkehistorie af Beda den Æværdige (Church History of the Angle People by the Venerable Bede) was published in 1864, and Kragballe offers a decidedly Grundtvigian reason for his translation in his preface. Bede’s history, he states, “gives the Christian congregation information about how our Lord Jesus Christ’s Christmas message in the days of Gregory the Great came to our AS brethren in Britain towards the end of the sixth century and what fruits it bore among them” thereafter.48 “giver den christne Menighed Oplysning om, hvorledes vor Herres Jesu Christi Julebud i Gregor den Stores Dage kom til vore angelsachsiske Frænder i Brittanien mod Slutningen af det sjette Aarhundrede, og hvad Frugter det bar hos dem.” Kragballe, Anglerfolkets Kirkehistorie, p. iii.

Further information for the Danish congregation on how the word of God reached England comes through the OE paraphrases of scripture, and the OE poem Judith is the first to attract attention in Scandinavia. We looked at the first of these translations – the first in any language – in the Introduction to this book. Lars Gabrielle Nilsson produced it a year after publishing Några fornengelska andeliga quäden på grundspråket (Some OE Spiritual Poems in the Original Language) in 1857. That collection includes facing-page translations of “Gloria Patri,” “Pater Noster,” “Credo in Deum Patrem Omnipotentem,” “Precationes A,” and “Precationes B.” Nilsson’s OE reader from 187149 Nilsson, Anglosaxsk läsebok. includes Matthew, chapter 2; Mark, chapter 5; Luke, chapter 2; John, chapter 15; and a passage from Judith. Nilsson was clearly a gifted and productive linguist who had decidedly spiritual interests as well, who focused much more on the City of God than on the nations of Sweden or Denmark.

The most recent translation of Judith is by Artur Sandved in his Vers fra vest in 1987. He offers his prose translation as an example of the Cædmonian revolution,58 Sandved, Vers fra vest, p. 93. a revolution that produced additional scriptural paraphrases and Scandinavian translations of some of them, ending with Sandved’s prose translation of Genesis B59 Ibid., pp. 77–91. but beginning with Hammerich’s 1873 alliterative Danish verse translations of Genesis A, Genesis B, Exodus, and Daniel. No other Scandinavian translations exist of the latter two poems. Then comes Larsen’s 1903 translations of large sections of Genesis A and Genesis B to the birth of Cain and Abel in his Krist og Satan60 Larsen, Krist og Satan, pp. 102–34. and Bent Noack’s 1983 alliterative verse translations of Genesis A, lines 1–91, pp. 5–11, and Genesis B, pp. 12–67, in his Helvedstorm og himmelfart: stykker af oldengelsk kristen digtning (Hellish Storm and Heavenly Journey: Samplings of Old English Christian Poetry).61 See also his Menneskevordelse og korsdød. Noack’s intended audience for these translations is the general public, not academics, and so his accessible translations allow the reader to get a good sense of the original.62 Noack, Helvedstorm, p. 103. Take this sampling from his translation of Genesis B:

“The Battle of Maldon” is, at last, next in line for translation. In 1882, Steenstrup in volume three of his Normannerne incorporates a retelling of the poem on pp. 229–37. In the chapter titled “Gudmund, Justin, Olaf Tryggvessøn og Svend Tveskjæg paa Hærtog i England (991–995)” (Gudmund, Justin, Olaf Tryggvessøn and Svend Tevskjæg on Military Campaign in England [991–995]), the retelling begins thus:

And finally, in 2017, Suzanne Brøgger offers the first translations into Danish of “Deor” and “The Husband’s Message” along with her renditions of “The Seafarer,” “The Wanderer,” and “The Ruin.”76 In Zeruneith, De siste tider, pp. 318–32. For example, she translates the first few lines of the emended text of “The Husband’s Message” thus:

And so ends this chapter, but not quite. Its end is not in its beginning but in the beginning of the previous chapter on the Scandinavian translations of Beowulf: the scholarly examination of OE literature that allows the production of scholarly editions of texts opens the way for vernacular translations of those texts. In turn, those vernacular translations open OE literature to a non-scholarly audience and an array of imaginative uses of OE literature. Two Scandinavian novelists, one Swedish, the other Danish, have incorporated OE texts into the narratives of one of their novels and thus have exposed hundreds of lay readers to OE poetry and prose both in their own languages and in the languages into which their novels have been translated.

Frans G. Bengtsson (1894–1954), poet, essayist, biographer, and translator of such texts as The Song of Roland, Milton’s Paradise Lost, and Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, is most famous in Sweden for two works: his prize-winning two-volume biography of King Charles XII of Sweden published in 1935 and 1936 and his only novel, the two-volume Röde Orm, published in 1941 and 1945. Volume one was translated into English in 1943 as Red Orm and the whole novel in 1954 as The Long Ships: A Saga of the Viking Age. In 1964, The Long Ships, a movie loosely based on the novel and starring Richard Widmark and Sidney Poitier, made its debut,78 Anon., “The Long Ships.” and in Sweden, the novel became the seventh best-selling book of the entire twentieth century.79 Arvidsson and Malmquist, Frans G. Bengtsson, pp. 9–12. Its legacy lives on worldwide in Bluetooth technology, the inventor of which took the name from King Harald Bluetooth in Bengtsson’s novel.80 Kardach, “Tech History.”

The novel takes place over a thirty-year period from about 980 to 1010 and concerns the adventures of Orm Tostessons whom Vikings capture as a boy and take with them on their exciting journeys throughout the Mediterranean. As a man, Orm becomes known as Röde Orm (Red Serpent) because of his red beard. He distinguishes himself in battle in the Mediterranean, is captured in Muslim Spain, made a galley slave and then bodyguard for al-Mansur, the Abbasid Caliph, and eventually gains his freedom. One of his adventures is a Yule-time visit to the court of Harald Bluetooth in Jelling, Denmark, and another is a springtime visit to England where he has decided to raid a place called Maldon.

In the novel’s first volume, section two (“I kung Ethelreds rike” [In King Æthelred’s Kingdom]), chapter 1 (“Om den strid som stod vid Maeldun och vad därav kom” [Of the battle in Maldon and what came of it]), Bengtsson retells and contextualizes and embellishes the OE poem “The Battle of Maldon” in this way:

Vibeke Vasbo (1944–) is a poet, novelist, LGBTQ activist, and one-time assistant nurse and crane operator whose first book builds on the latter experience. Al den løgn om kvinders svaghed (All the Lies about the Weakness of Women, 1976) tells the story of a female crane operator working in a man’s world in Oslo. Her collection of poems, Måske har jeg haft en anelse (I May Have Had a Clue, 1980), recounts her own story of ending her relationships with men in favor of women. And her best-selling two-volume, meticulously researched and executed novel, Hildas sang: Historisk roman fra 600-årenes England (Hilda’s Song: A Historical Novel from Seventh-Century England, 1991) chronicles the life of Abbess Hilda (ca. 614–80), the founder of the famous monastery at Whitby and one of the most remarkable women in AS England living in one of the most remarkable periods of AS history. The book has been received exceedingly well and, according to the author, has been read by many different people who like it for completely different reasons. A thirteen-year-old, for example, consumed it in four days, declaring it “dødspændende” (absolutely thrilling).82 Vasbo personal correspondence with Bjork. It appeared in Norwegian translation in 1994 and in English as The Song of Hild in 2018. Vasbo’s depiction of Hilda’s early years makes for “wonderful reading, filled with graphic details of a woman’s loves and passions in a stormy world of religious conflict, regal war, and scheming revenge.”83 Isaacson, review of Hildas sang, p. 727. And her seamless interweaving of her fictionalized account of the Abbess with Bede’s sparse historical account in Hilda’s later years is masterful. In volume two of the novel, Vasbo also skillfully weaves some OE texts – a few lines of “Metrical charm 1,” part of “The Finnsburg Fragment,” and “Wulf and Eadwacer” – into her narrative. Here is how she uses the charm:

The Song of Hild compares favorably with Sigrid Undset’s internationally renowned epic Kristin Lavransdatter. In it, Lanae Isacsson writes in her review,“Vibeke Vasbo has produced an admirable, serious, and conscientious blend of historical record and creative fiction about an era filled with human passion, conflict on all fronts, and final religious commitment.”85 Isaacson, review of Hildas sang, p. 728. Vasbo’s inclusion of OE literature within her narrative lends it authenticity and piques the interest in the field in readers of both the original Danish and the English translation. It also testifies to the continuing appeal for present-day Scandinavian writers.