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Did Beowulf Battle Dinosaurs?

10/24/2012

12 Comments

 
In this week’s episode of Monster Talk Eve Siebert discusses creationist claims that in the Old English epic poem Beowulf, Grendel and his mother were actually dinosaurs. Therefore, since Beowulf is a medieval hero, dinosaurs lived in the Middle Ages and Darwin is wrong, QED. Siebert has an article about this coming out in Skeptical Inquirer, and I am eager to read it.

As far as I can see, the creationist redefinition of Beowulf’s monster has been making the rounds for the better part of the last decade. The earliest reference I could find was from 1999, but there may be earlier ones. (There is a creationist book on dinosaurs from 1993 that creationist home school guides recommend for understanding Beowulf, but I haven’t read it.) I think it’s fairly obvious that the creature and his mother, which are never clearly described in the poem (we know only that they had hands and feet and could cry out loudly), are not dinosaurs, especially since the Old English poet was careful to distinguish between Grendel and his mother—both alike in form—and a dragon, which, theoretically at least, should be much close in form to a dinosaur. If Grendel and his mother are not dragons, then they are not likely dinosaurs either. Grendel has a “shoulder” in which he is wounded; I’m not sure I know of any dinosaurs with shoulders. His mother is described as a woman with the form of a demon, again not quite a dinosaur. (Creationists rationalize these descriptions as discussing bipedal, carnivorous dinosaurs, shoulders be damned.)

But listen to this. One creationist, Bill Cooper, who claims to have originated the claim, explains why we should accept Beowulf as a literal record of the past. This is very important:

Quote
Virtually every edition of the Beowulf epic and virtually every commentary on the poem, will take pains to assure the reader that what he is reading is NOT an historically accurate account of events or personages. Beowulf is described as a moral tale composed several centuries after the times of which it treats, a good yarn, and so on and so forth. What it does not do is embody real history. However the best test for historicity that can be applied to any document from the past, be it chronicle, epic poem or prose narrative, is the test of its genealogies and personal names. Are the men and women mentioned in the work characters who are known to us from other contemporary sources? Can the genealogies be verified? If they can, then we are dealing with an account that we can rely on as history. If their information is demonstrably wrong or fictitious, and if it is seen to contradict other accepted historical sources, then clearly the rest of the matter can be dismissed as mere fiction. Thus, and in the light of the persistent modernist assertion that Beowulf is merely fiction, we shall examine the complex genealogies that are embodied within the poem in the sure knowledge no compiler of fairy-stories ever went to such enormous lengths to add circumstantial verisimilitude to his tale as we find in the Beowulf.

Let’s think about that one. William Shakespeare wrote Macbeth, a play about an ostensibly historical figure (there really was a Macbeth), and he carefully recorded the relationships and genealogies of the various members of the Scottish aristocracy. The characters’ names can be verified, and we know Macbeth was Mac Bethad mac Findlaích, King of Scots (reigned 1040-1057), who did in fact become king after killing Donnchad mac Crínáin, better known as Duncan I, King of Scots. The various genealogies of the characters are correct, so according to the creationist criteria, we must therefore be justified in assuming the reality of the Weird Sisters and their psychic predictions of Macbeth’s future. Because, after all, if the names are correct, then so too must be the story, including the supernatural details.

Of course, this isn’t the case. Shakespeare concocted the plot of Macbeth from Holinshed’s Chronicles, which featured several separate stories that the Bard wove together. The outlines of Macbeth’s reign derive from the king’s history, but the witches come from a completely separate story. In that tale, the wife of a fellow named Donwald pressures him to kill King Duff after the king kills Donwald’s family in retribution for consorting with witches. These witches, however, did not predict the future but rather were accused of using spells to sicken the king.

If Shakespeare could weave together historical facts, legends, and outright fiction, there is no particular reason for assuming that the poet of Beowulf could not have done so as well. The existence of a fact or a series of facts is no indication that everything in the story is therefore factual. But creationists must support the position that genealogies are a reliable guide to history, because if this were not so, then biblical genealogies would be called into question, and with them any reason for believing the earth was created on October 23, 4004 BCE.

12 Comments
Harriet Vered link
10/24/2012 11:31:40 pm

Nice to see someone thinks Beowulf is medieval though I wish the someone wasn't a Creationist. It's worth noting that Beowulf suddenly pops up at the height of English nationalism -- the moment when the Church of England was being re-invented.

Presumably at least some of the monks sans monasteries switched over to the Anglican church. One way to earn a living for a penniless scribe versed in copying manuscripts was to produce genealogies, a centuries-old monkish speciality.

Reply
Ronan Coghlan
1/22/2019 03:49:22 pm

The Anglican Church did not come into existence until the 16th Century.

Reply
Harriet Vered link
1/22/2019 04:04:29 pm

Exactly, Ronan. The first reference made to Beowulf is the manuscript belonged to Laurence Nowell, in the sixteenth century.

thecimmerian
10/25/2012 10:00:12 am

This does make one wonder what future generations will make of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

Just as a pedantic aside and another example of historical inaccuracy with real people, Macbeth was written with a pretty strong political bias that coloured characterisation and plot. As Shakespeare was reliant on the patronage of monarchs, he couldn't really write (or even faithfully adapt) a play that showed a regicide and a usurper as a just and prosperous ruler. The real Macbeth likely ruled for at least 14 years and may even have been a popular king.

Reply
Ivar Nielsen link
10/28/2012 02:51:24 am

Beowulf is without any doubt mytho-cosmological and non historical at all.

The "great hall Heorot" is allegorical for the huge Milky Way vault and Grendel and "his mother" symbolizes star constellation and the part of the Milky Way that can be seen on the Earth southern hemisphere, in the so called "underworld".

Mythologically, the underworld is also connected to the underworld waters into which Beowulf dives in order to fight against Grendels Mother. This archetypical and gigantic mother-being is again connected to the mythical "mother of birth and death".

Read more of the Milky Way mytho-cosmology here: www.native-science.net

Reply
Harriet Vered
10/28/2012 12:36:39 pm

"Beowulf is without any doubt mytho-cosmological and non historical at all."

The Odyssey can be described as a set of navigational instructions but what part of an obscure poem (in Anglo-Saxon to boot) suggests such a grandiose statement?

Reply
Ivar Nielsen link
10/29/2012 02:01:52 am

Hello Harriet,
Quotation: “. . . after Beowulf's battle with Grendel's mother, a slave steals a golden cup from the lair of an unnamed dragon at Earnaness. When the dragon sees that the cup has been stolen, it leaves its cave in a rage, burning everything in sight". From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beowulf#Third_battle:_The_dragon

AD: I agree that "The Odyssey can be described as a set of navigational instructions" but what kind of navigational instruction are we then talking about with "an unknown firespewing Dragon and owner of a Golden Cup living in a cave?
In my opinion such kind of "navigational telling" only can be connected to the myths and to the creative powers of cosmos and especially to the creation of the Milky Way where the center is mythologically called "a fiery cave" of creation.
Also: If you interpret the Hrodgars Hall of Swords as similar to Odins Hall of spears, you have a nice mytho-cosmological image of the Milky Way contours of the northern hemisphere, where the Milky Way crescent figure marks the "great Milky Way Hall vaulting over the whole night sky. See more here: http://www.native-science.net/God.Attributes.htm
Cheers Ivar

Reply
Harriet Vered
10/29/2012 07:47:01 am

Hello Ivar,

Beowulf unlike The Odyssey has no reason to be seen as a navigational or celestial aide-memoire. For one thing, it only surfaced in the sixteenth century. Even if it were a tenth-century poem as self-styled experts claim such instructions would surely have been long superceded by astrolables and the like?

Best,
Harriet

Harriet Vered
10/29/2012 07:47:16 am

Hello Ivar,

Beowulf unlike The Odyssey has no reason to be seen as a navigational or celestial aide-memoire. For one thing, it only surfaced in the sixteenth century. Even if it were a tenth-century poem as self-styled experts claim such instructions would surely have been long superceded by astrolables and the like?

Best,
Harriet

Harriet Vered
10/30/2012 11:33:17 pm

Sure, there are mythological 'hooks' as you'd expect in an epic. Actually there isn't such a vast difference between our outlooks as you suggest. The geographical aspects of the book -- surveying, long-distance trade and travel, navigation at sea and on land -- are resolutely cosmological.

As above so below!

Ivar Nielsen link
10/29/2012 10:09:19 pm

Hi Harriet,
Thanks for your reply.
Beowulf only surfaced in the sixteenth century, yes. But when analyzing the contents, it still contains mythological and cosmological context. So the author must clearly have been inspired by earlier texts and tellings.
- I have "googled you" and skimmed the thoughts and ideas in your book, ”The Megalithic Empire” and from this, I can see that you are focusing on the geographical issues between megalithic locations whereas I´m focusing on the mythological part and especially on the part that deals with the stories of creation, from where many tellings of "cosmological monsters" have originated.
It is my opinion that the global megalithic similarities all over the world mostly origin from our ancestors views of the seasons and the celestial sky, included the contours of the Milky Way which easily can explain the global commonly ideas and the megalithic temple-like structures.
In other words: The navigational meanings are originally more local, mythical and cosmological and deals with the understanding of life itself more than it deals with geographical travels over great distances. (But of course, no one can deny later and historical immigrations that has influenced different cultures)
Just imagine the Milky Way view on a clear night and you´ll understand how this image has inspired the ancestors all over the world with very similar imagery, ideas and spiritual inspirations.
Cheers Ivar

Reply
Unit_000
7/1/2019 11:03:54 pm

For those who miss the humour here, the 10th century CE is Medieval.
The 16th century CE is not.

Reply

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