Comments on Finn and Hengest

(avg. read time: 4–8 mins.)

As with our last Tolkien Tuesday post, this one will not be an entry in the Biblical and Theological Commentary series. It is further set apart for not being edited by Christopher Tolkien. Rather, this comes from one of Tolkien’s old students. Though it was originally published in the 80s, the version we are looking at is:

J. R. R. Tolkien, Finn and Hengest: The Fragment and the Episode, ed. Alan Bliss (London: HarperCollins, 2006).

This volume is the result of Bliss conversing with Tolkien about the latter’s work on the story of Finn and Hengest that Bliss discovered had made his own work redundant (a common experience among academics). Tolkien had promised to hand over to him all the work that he had done, giving him permission to use it as he saw fit. Six years after Tolkien’s death, his son Christopher executed that promise. As Bliss explains in the preface:

When I read Tolkien’s lectures it became obvious to me that I could never make use of his work in any work of my own: not only had he anticipated nearly all my ideas, but he had gone far beyond them in directions I had never considered. On the other hand, it seemed equally obvious that the lectures ought to be published, since they displayed to a high degree the unique blend of philological erudition and poetic imagination which distinguished Tolkien from other scholars. It was suggested to me that I should myself undertake the task of editing Tolkien’s lectures for publication…. Eventually I agreed to undertake the task, and this book is the outcome of my efforts. (v)

The story that Tolkien focused on is now no longer known in its entirety, but the fragments thereof in “the Fragment” of Fight at Finnesburg and “the Episode” in Beowulf (ll. 1066–1159) have been the focus of extensive work among Old English scholars. Tolkien himself worked most intensively on this story “about 1930, about 1940, and about 1960” (vi). The most productive such era was the work he did that formed the basis of the lectures he gave from 1928 to 1937. As we have seen elsewhere, he had a number of irons in the fire, so to speak, around this same time, including work he did on The Hobbit and The Silmarillion (and that is to say nothing of his broader work on Beowulf, The Fall of Arthur, The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún, and so on).

That this story is attested in these different Old English sources, as well as more briefly elsewhere, shows that it was one of general interest among Old English speakers. As Tolkien says near the end of his reconstruction of the story, “It is plain that all the worsened politics of Scandinavia and the Isles deeply concerned the ‘Anglo-Saxons’ as the very cradle of their race and culture. Beowulf is not a ‘national epic’ (like the Lusiads or the Æneid), but it is drawn from the heart of a connected wealth of poetic traditions that occupied an ‘epical’ and ‘national’ place in ancient English imagination” (162). Like those stories (as well as Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey), Beowulf references multiple stories that the audience at the time knew something of, but today we may not know much of them anymore beyond these references. As we owe most of our fragmented knowledge of Norse culture to medieval Christian preservers like Snorri Sturluson, we owe the most extensive version of what we know of the story of Finn and Hengest to the Christian author of Beowulf. The fragmentary nature of all such sources has inspired much scholarly discussion, which Tolkien participated in.

Although it has been marketed for decades through appealing to fans of Tolkien’s fiction, it will not interest most of them, especially if they read it in its current order of contents. There is a lot of interaction with the Old English, the notes can be quite dense, and much of what is discussed herein can be abstruse to those who do not have an interest in this story, in Old English, or in the intersection of history involving Scandinavia and Anglo-Saxon England (particularly as Tolkien thinks that the Hengest of this story and the Hengest who led the Germanic invasion of England are one and the same). Tolkien’s notes translate much of the Old English he discusses, but they are obviously notes written for other scholars and others already interested in the field; they are not for orientation as such. Anyone who does not count themselves among such groups would be best served reading this book in an order different than the one presented. That is, one should read the introduction, the translations, and then the reconstruction. If one wants to go deeper or practice with the Old English, one can consult the Old English texts, the glossary of names, and then the textual commentary that occupies the largest portion of the volume.

Still, as with The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún, I want to offer a few comments on points of interest. Those who wish to read this would be best served reading it in combination with Tolkien’s commentary and famous essay on Beowulf to give further context to Tolkien’s treatment of “the Episode.” That version of the story, as with “the Fragment” presents the context appropriately as one happening in a pagan era. This is shown by the funeral pyre, which Tolkien says marks “a pre-Christian heathen tale, and one still recognized and placed as such” (28). Although the Christian framework for Beowulf as a whole is clearer, the story is of course of a pre-Christian time, and so Beowulf’s own funeral pyre is preserved as part of the story, just as it is in this story by Christians who have helped pass it on.

Even as Beowulf recontextualizes the pagan code of honor it narratively represents, so it recontextualizes this story. This is not so much the case of anything directly juxtaposed to it in its immediate context, as it is the subject of song in Hrothgar’s hall after Beowulf’s battle with Grendel. Rather, the larger framework reshapes how the reader/audience receives the story. Bliss’s comments in a lengthy footnote on the phrase elne unflitme in ll. 1097 and 1129 are worth quoting here:

The translation ‘with ill-fated courage’ is highly appropriate in 1097: it was a courageous decision for Finn to agree to terms with a company of warriors against whom his men had just been fighting, and who could not leave until winter was ended; but it led to disaster. The rendering is less clearly appropriate in 1129: it cannot strictly be said that it was a courageous act for Hengest to remain with Finn throughout the winter, since he cannot get away. The reference is rather to the undertaking than to its fulfilment: it was just as courageous for Hengest to propose terms as for Finn to accept them, and the result was bloodshed for both of them. The poet, by repeating the same phrase, draws attention to the similar predicaments of Finn and Hengest. Each of them, faced with an exceedingly difficult situation, does the sensible thing, but in so doing defies the dictates of the heroic code, the overriding duty of vengeance; the outcome is precisely what they had tried to avoid, the renewal of the deadly fighting. It would not be difficult to argue that the ‘moral’ of the tale of Finn and Hengest is the insufficiency or over-rigidity of the heroic code, which allows no exceptions in special and difficult circumstances. (121–22, n. 63)

This code had likewise formed the original audience of Beowulf, and they had perhaps not sufficiently integrated the Christian ethic they had received, as Tolkien discusses in the aforementioned works. But this old story serves as a compelling example of a moral crisis, a dilemma caused by the heroic code itself leading to divided loyalties, disintegrated obligations, and nothing higher by which to resolve it. The only recourse for resolving it in this framework is to perpetuate the problem of bloodshed. On the whole, Tolkien observes of Henbest, “You may read his character how you will. From what is left in Old English it certainly appears that he was a dominant figure … but not necessarily that he was treacherous ruthless, or particularly grim. He was caught in circumstance. In the end (after some internal debate and struggle) he valued his original fealty and oath to Hnæf above the oaths given to Finn under þearf” (161).

In this context, the Beowulf-poet’s emphasis in characterizing God as Judge, as well as reminding readers of the Day of Doom and final judgment, serves as a foundational point for a different moral vision. In this vision, God is the ultimate Judge, vengeance belongs to him, and all other obligations are ultimately relativized by comparison to the obligations owed him. Hengest’s actions may be more tragic than evil, but in any case that is because he lived by this pre-Christian moral vision that is out of line with what the Beowulf-poet presents. This code that his audience had adhered to shows its flaws in stories like this well-known one. With a new theological ethic in place, one can find a new understanding of this old story.

The last comment I want to close with is a little gem I found in Tolkien’s commentary as he notes the Episode’s reference to the turn of seasons and how “It is ingenious because it is not mere symbolism. The actual physical winter is integral to the plot, the cause largely of the situation as well as its allegory” (123; emphasis original). He criticizes the notion that it is a trivial statement to make in this context. After all, “The fact that spring still comes to weary hearts may be well-recognized, but it is not trivial. The old poet did not fall into that last feeble error of despising truth, because it was so large and potent as to have been observed by others before him” (123).