A Pebble Smoothed by Tradition: Lines 607–61 of Beowulf as a Formulaic Set-piece

Abstract

In lines 607-61 of Beowulf, just before the battle between the hero and the monster Grendel, the Danes and visiting Geats celebrate their comradeship in the great hall of Heorot.1 While venerable Hrothgar, king of the Danes, presides, Queen Wealhtheow, bedecked with gold, carries the ornamented cup of fellowship to each warrior in turn, old and young alike.2 The passage, which for convenience we will call “Wealhtheow’s cup-bearing,” is one of several depictions in Beowulf of the social happiness that Anglo-Saxon poetry often calls dream (“joy”) and has been described as “the most detailed description we possess of the offering of the ceremonial drinking cup to an honored guest in early Germanic society” (Fulk, Bjork, and Niles 2008:155). But in contrast to Wealhtheow’s later appearance in the poem (lines 1168b-231)—in which she thwarts Hrothgar’s attempted adoption of Beowulf, promotes the king’s nephew Hrothulf as a protector for her sons, and gives the legendary Brosing necklace to the hero— nothing much happens. Jeff Opland (1976:446-57) does not include the passage in his list of “joy in the hall” type-scenes. Oral Tradition, 32/1 (2018):191-228