The story of Beowulf typically about his background is full of mystery because the original poem is incomplete. You may even be surprised to know that the author remains unknown and still being debated by many scholars.
If we are going to take a closer look into the background being portrayed by the poem, there are two main things that you should be able to notice. The background either shows true historical events or religious belief towards Christianity.
The story is filled with many historical events. It mainly portrayed a kingdom in the ancient period of time known by many scholars to be situated on the southern region of Sweden-Denmark today.
Illustrated by the poem were people living on a tribe where kingdoms were currently at war with one another.
The old king of Danes, Hrothgar had actually been into many battles which was either defending his territory or conquering other kingdoms. Although, we still don’t know much how great he was as a king during his reign.
When Beowulf entered the scene, he do not belonged to the same tribe. He wasn’t from Danes but from another land from the south and their tribe was known as “Geats or Geatas”. The animated 2007 Beowulf movie had shown that the adventurer along with his brave army had to travel into the sea just to get into Danes.
Aside from the people around, the poem also made some clear illustration regarding about their cultures. When they were going to celebrate a certain special occasion, the king will throw out a party for everyone. They will butcher a lot of meats and drink boisterously at the Mead Hall throughout the whole night. Unfortunately, by doing this, they get to disturbed a monster who hate loud noises.
Speaking about the Mead Hall, king Hrothgar was the one who ordered for this structure to be built. Many scholars theorized that it probably stood on the island known today as, “Sjaeland” which is situated near the coast of Denmark.
There are many other historical events portrayed into the poem, although it requires a scholarly keen mind in order to be able to identify them.
Christianity is also one aspect of the background story where it was being first introduced to the tribe. Beowulf’s characteristics already involves his strong faith with God which gives him the super inhuman strength allowing him to overcome the odds on all of his adventures.
If you are a Christian and you are familiar about “Samson” who was portrayed in the Bible’s Holy Scripture, the “Book of Judges” (Chapters 13 to 16), there are somewhat kind of similarities to their characteristics.
Since we already started mentioning characters from the Bible, let’s also talk about “Cain”. This person was actually one of the sons of the very first man created by God, “Adam and Eve”. Apart from Cain was “Abel”.
Unfortunately, Cain had jealousy towards his brother due to the offering they made in pleasing God. This jealously turned into envy until to the extent of murdering his brother. To cut the story short, this was the start of all corruption by mankind where evil had spread through Cain’s descendants. His descendants were known as, “tribe of Cain”. And according to most scholars, Grendel and his mother belonged to this tribe.
Grendel and his mother were monsters who possess demonic powers which is not common when again compared to the written Holy Scriptures of the Bible. They are best compared to the creatures known as, “Nephilims”.
For those who does not know, Nephilims were the sons of the fallen angels by mating with the humans here on Earth. And in my own opinion, majority of the people who mated with them were the descendants of Cain. They were easy targets because they had turned themselves away from God.
The two monsters had been terrorizing king Hrothgar’s kingdom for a certain unknown period of time.
As I already stated above, the king had a lot of accomplishments particularly winning numerous battles during his reign. So the big question is, “Why can’t he get rid of the two monsters out from his land?”
You should already figure out that it has something to do with Christianity. If we are going to refer to the animated Beowulf movie, the villagers or the entire kingdom including the king himself were into pagan practices.
I still remember the scene from the film when the king was so desperately in need of help in trying to get rid of the monster Grendel. So Unferth recommended him to pray to the gods including the Christian God that was still newly being introduced on their nation.
Without any hesitation, the king agreed because according to him, they needed all the help that they can get. What I noticed about this part is that, they freely allowed Christianity on their nation unlike from other countries where they got banned and heavily persecuted.
This must be the reason why God gave them hope by sending a mighty slayer, Beowulf, to destroy Grendel and his mother.
Conclusion
Some background information about the Beowulf poem actually contain the missing piece that could clearly explain every debatable part of the story. You might be surprised to know that the original poem was written just on a single old manuscript.
Many scholars are theorizing that there are probably additional pages of the scriptures that had gotten lost through time.
Sad to say that we may never know.
If we are going to take a closer look into the background being portrayed by the poem, there are two main things that you should be able to notice. The background either shows true historical events or religious belief towards Christianity.
The Background Historical Events
The story is filled with many historical events. It mainly portrayed a kingdom in the ancient period of time known by many scholars to be situated on the southern region of Sweden-Denmark today.
Illustrated by the poem were people living on a tribe where kingdoms were currently at war with one another.
The old king of Danes, Hrothgar had actually been into many battles which was either defending his territory or conquering other kingdoms. Although, we still don’t know much how great he was as a king during his reign.
When Beowulf entered the scene, he do not belonged to the same tribe. He wasn’t from Danes but from another land from the south and their tribe was known as “Geats or Geatas”. The animated 2007 Beowulf movie had shown that the adventurer along with his brave army had to travel into the sea just to get into Danes.
Aside from the people around, the poem also made some clear illustration regarding about their cultures. When they were going to celebrate a certain special occasion, the king will throw out a party for everyone. They will butcher a lot of meats and drink boisterously at the Mead Hall throughout the whole night. Unfortunately, by doing this, they get to disturbed a monster who hate loud noises.
Speaking about the Mead Hall, king Hrothgar was the one who ordered for this structure to be built. Many scholars theorized that it probably stood on the island known today as, “Sjaeland” which is situated near the coast of Denmark.
There are many other historical events portrayed into the poem, although it requires a scholarly keen mind in order to be able to identify them.
Introduction to Christianity
Christianity is also one aspect of the background story where it was being first introduced to the tribe. Beowulf’s characteristics already involves his strong faith with God which gives him the super inhuman strength allowing him to overcome the odds on all of his adventures.
If you are a Christian and you are familiar about “Samson” who was portrayed in the Bible’s Holy Scripture, the “Book of Judges” (Chapters 13 to 16), there are somewhat kind of similarities to their characteristics.
Since we already started mentioning characters from the Bible, let’s also talk about “Cain”. This person was actually one of the sons of the very first man created by God, “Adam and Eve”. Apart from Cain was “Abel”.
Unfortunately, Cain had jealousy towards his brother due to the offering they made in pleasing God. This jealously turned into envy until to the extent of murdering his brother. To cut the story short, this was the start of all corruption by mankind where evil had spread through Cain’s descendants. His descendants were known as, “tribe of Cain”. And according to most scholars, Grendel and his mother belonged to this tribe.
Grendel and his mother were monsters who possess demonic powers which is not common when again compared to the written Holy Scriptures of the Bible. They are best compared to the creatures known as, “Nephilims”.
For those who does not know, Nephilims were the sons of the fallen angels by mating with the humans here on Earth. And in my own opinion, majority of the people who mated with them were the descendants of Cain. They were easy targets because they had turned themselves away from God.
The two monsters had been terrorizing king Hrothgar’s kingdom for a certain unknown period of time.
As I already stated above, the king had a lot of accomplishments particularly winning numerous battles during his reign. So the big question is, “Why can’t he get rid of the two monsters out from his land?”
You should already figure out that it has something to do with Christianity. If we are going to refer to the animated Beowulf movie, the villagers or the entire kingdom including the king himself were into pagan practices.
I still remember the scene from the film when the king was so desperately in need of help in trying to get rid of the monster Grendel. So Unferth recommended him to pray to the gods including the Christian God that was still newly being introduced on their nation.
Without any hesitation, the king agreed because according to him, they needed all the help that they can get. What I noticed about this part is that, they freely allowed Christianity on their nation unlike from other countries where they got banned and heavily persecuted.
This must be the reason why God gave them hope by sending a mighty slayer, Beowulf, to destroy Grendel and his mother.
Conclusion
Some background information about the Beowulf poem actually contain the missing piece that could clearly explain every debatable part of the story. You might be surprised to know that the original poem was written just on a single old manuscript.
Many scholars are theorizing that there are probably additional pages of the scriptures that had gotten lost through time.
Could it really gotten lost by carelessness or accident? Or, could it had been intentionally destroyed because it contains some vital information that can cause huge impact to the world when known?
Sad to say that we may never know.
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