Where was Beowulf from? : A Scandinavian Adventure
By Dena Bain Taylor
Here’s my advice, and it’s free: Never agree to a major writing project while drinking Seabreezes in a bar with a crowd of Australians. That’s what I did and it consumed three years of my life.
It was Halloween 2007 and I was at the annual World Fantasy Convention. The day before, my UK literary agent had delivered the bad news that he was unable to find a publisher for a fantasy novel I’d written. Clearly unhappy at having to dash my hopes, he hunted me down at the bar to make a suggestion — because my novel takes place in a clearly Nordic setting, and I’d told him once how much I love the Beowulf story, why not rewrite the manuscript and make it into a historical fantasy novel about Beowulf?
Here’s where the Seabreezes came in. Thinking through a haze of vodka and grapefruit juice, I not so wisely concluded that this was a matter of a few weeks of revision to an already brilliant manuscript. I was wrong on both counts. Three years later, the final product bore little resemblance to the novel the UK publishers had turned down and the research process had proved grueling.
But I have a PhD in English literature. Not only was I trained in rigorous research methodology, by nature I also love delving into arcane corners of history and language. So I jumped right into the deep end of Beowulf scholarship and Iron Age history.
My first and biggest breakthrough into understanding Beowulf and his 6th century world came when I discovered Landscape of Desire: Partial Stories of the Medieval Scandinavian World by Gillian R. Overing and Marijane Osborn. These two scholars of mediaeval literature recount the two “Beowulf” journeys they took. They undertook the first one by sea in 1985 to “reinvent” Beowulf’s voyage to slay the monster Grendel at Heorot, in aid of the Scylding king Hrothgar.
Most scholars place the hall of Heorot at Gammel Lejre, the ancient seat of the Scylding kings about six miles from the cathedral town of Roskilde in Denmark. Once they knew where they were sailing to, Overing and Osborn had to calculate where Beowulf would have started from. Based on information from maps, research sources, and experienced local sailors, they became convinced that Beowulf’s home had to be located in Sweden in what is now Bohuslän, the coastal area extending north of modern Göteborg to near Oslo Fjord. Specifically, they settled on the modern resort town of Fjällbacka near an important treasure-burial site at Hög Edsten (“High Oathstone”). Using the navigational tips contained within the 10th century Beowulf poem and other period sources, they completed the journey in the same two-day timeframe specified within the poem.
The second journey, in 1988, saw Overing and her colleague Randolph Swearer explore the area around Gammel Lejre. They visited the nearby museum and open-air reconstruction of an Iron Age village at Herthadale, with its sacrificial bog. At Gammel Lejre they found physical evidence of a great hall like that of the Scylding king Hrothgar, though built some centuries later. They then drove to Sweden and up to the Bohuslän region. There they visited Hög Edsten and spent several days exploring and photographing the major Iron Age monuments of the area, including the nearest domarring marked on the map, a ring of twenty-two stones in which judgments or “dooms”[domar] were decreed.
It was because of Overing and Osborn that Beowulf and his people started to come to life for me. When I read their description of a gold and garnet-adorned Frankish sword found at Hög Edsten that dated to between 500 and 550 A.D., I realized this could have been a treasure brought home by Beowulf from a documented raid in which Beowulf slew the Frankish warrior Dayraven.
I realized I was going to have to take one for the team and go visit these sites myself to track the important events in Beowulf’s life that I was writing about. I’m joking about taking one for the team, of course. Sweden and Denmark are beautiful countries and I had long wanted to visit the area. As I continued researching and building my itinerary, I thought about who I would like to share this adventure with. I approached my friend and University of Toronto colleague Dr. Margaret Procter who enthusiastically agreed to join me. On July 21, 2009, we boarded a Finnair flight to Göteborg and set off on a two-week trip to track Beowulf down the west coast of Sweden to Denmark and then back across Sweden, stopping to find the Battle on the Ice at Lake Vanern, and ending with Vendel, Uppsala and Stockholm. It was a journey that took us 1500 years back in time to an age of heroes, monsters and treasures galore, and it transformed us both.