Professor Borges - A Course on English Literature

poem is, supposedly, from the end of the seventh century. (It could be earlier, for the style is much more direct and has none of those Latinate inversions and complicated kennings—the kinds of metaphors in
Beowulf
.) So, an English audience would be interested in knowing that this protagonist was one of the founders of the Saxon kingdoms of England.
    Then the poet turns his attention to those who are treacherously attacking the Danes. And among them is Garulf, son of Queen Hildeburh and the nephew of one of the defenders, at whose hands he possibly dies. Someone tells him that he is too young, that he should not risk his life in the attack, that there will be many who wish to take his life because he is the prince, the son of the queen. But he is a brave young man, undaunted by this advice, and he asks for the name of one of the defenders. (Now, this belongs to an aristocratic era. He, as a prince, would not fight just anybody: he could only fight someone of his same rank.) Then the defender answers: “Siegfried is my name, I am prince of the Secgen”—all traces of this tribe have been lost—“I am a famous adventurer, I have fought many a battle, and now fate will decide what you shall get from me, or what I must await from you,” in other words, fate will decide who will win glory and who, death.
    The name “Sigeferð” means “victorious spirit” and it is clearly the Saxon form of the name “Siegfried,” made famous byWagner’s operas, the one who kills the dragon (its Norse equivalent would be “Sigurd” in the
Völsungasaga
). 3 Then the battle is fought and the poet tells us that the shields, as Garulf, the son, foresaw, fall under the blows of the spears. And many of the attacking warriors fall, and the first to fall is Garulf, the young Frisian, who was told not to risk fighting in the front lines. The battle continues, somewhat implausibly, for five days, and many Frisians fall, but none of the defenders do. The poet gets very excited here and says, “I have never heard it said that sixty victorious fighters bore themselves better in a battle of men.” Here the phrase “battle of men” seems redundant: all battles are battles of men. But it really gives the sentence more power. And then we have this curious word,
sigebeorna
, “warriors of victory,” “men of victory,” or “victorious warriors.” The poet also says that the hall of Finnsburh glowed with the shimmering of the swords, “as if Finnsburh were in flames.” I think there is an analogous metaphor in the
Iliad
, comparing a battle to a fire. The comparison refers to the glow of the arms as well as its moral stature.
    Perhaps I do not need to remind you that in Norse mythology, Valhalla, Odin’s paradise, is illuminated, not with candles but with swords that shine with their own supernatural glow. Then the “protector of the people”—as the king of the Frisians is called—asks how the battle is going. They tell him they have lost many men and that one of the Frisians has withdrawn, that his shield and his helmet have been destroyed, and then one of the youths. . . . And here ends the fragment, one of the oldest of all Germanic literature, definitely older than
Beowulf
. We know the rest of the story from other sources. We know that a truce is declared, and a year later, the king of the Danes, the brother of the queen, is given permission to return to Denmark. He leaves after that year, then returns with an expedition, defeats the Frisians, destroys the castle of Finn, and finally goes home with his sister. So here we have a tragic conflict: a princess has lost her son, possibly by the hand of his uncle, her brother. It is a pity that more of this poem has not been preserved, for it is so rich in pathetic possibility; but we should be grateful for the sixty-odd lines that
have
been preserved.
    The two Anglo-Saxon epic poems we have looked at so far have Norse subject matter. But then there is another, much later, that takes place in England. And it narrates feats of arms between the Saxons and the Norsemen. Because around the eighth century, England—already a Christian country—began to suffer from the depredations of theVikings. They came primarily from Denmark. Some were also Norwegians, but they were all considered Danish. And it is not impossible, actually it’s quite probable, that some were Swedes. I would like to pause here to talk about the Vikings.
    The Vikings were perhaps the most extraordinary of