Neophilologus

DOI 10.1007/s11061-015-9472-2

Declarations of Unknowing in Beowulf

Alexandra Bolintineanu1

 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016

Abstract In Old English homilies, declarations of unknowingassertions that no

human being exists who can know somethingusually refer to God, heaven, hell, or
the afterlife. In contrast to this traditional usage, Beowulf contains four formulaic
declarations of unknowing, all proclaiming mysteries inaccessible to humankind.
But three of these declarations are not about the divine or demonic; they are about
monsters. This paper investigates the Beowulf-poets reworking of a widespread
topos, the declarations of unknowing, against the background of the homiletic
tradition. By tracing the poems insistent presentation of monstrous spaces as
mysteries, the paper reframes the longstanding scholarly conversation about the
monsters and the monster meres sources and analogues within Beowulfs wider
spatial poetics.
Keywords Declarations of unknowing
Unsagbarkeitstopos
Beowulf

Otherworldly spaces
Spatial poetics
Old English homilies
Old English

After Scyld Scefings death in the beginning of Beowulf, his people pile his ship
with treasure and give their dead king into the seas keeping. As he drifts away from
the Danish shore, he slips away from human territory, from human control, and so
from human knowledge. The poet reflects on the uncertainty of Scylds destination:

& Alexandra Bolintineanu

alexandra.bolintineanu@utoronto.ca
1

Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto, 125 Queens Park, 3rd Floor, Toronto, ON
M5S 2C7, Canada

123

A. Bolintineanu

Men ne cunnon
Secgan to soe,
selerdende,
Hle under heofenum,
hwa m hlste onfeng. (Beowulf, ll. 47b49)1
Throughout the poem, such declarations of unknowingresembling the declaration
about Scyld Scefing in wording, syntax, even metrical structureproclaim that
Grendels whereabouts, Grendels parentage, and Grendels habitat are beyond the
grasp of human knowledge. Similar declarations of unknowing and inexpressibility
occur throughout the Old English corpus, asserting that no human being can know
or express the theological mysteriesGods being and blessings, the joys of heaven
and the sorrows of hell, the divine presence in the world. Remarkably consistent in
phrasing, context, and theme, the declarations are not only theological proclamations; they are intentional evocations of wonder. In homilies and religious verse,
they work in concert with local rhetorical ornamentation and wider thematic
concerns to accentuate the pairing of mystery and awe (Bolintineanu 2015; Tristram
1978, pp. 107108; Wright 1993, pp. 146156). In contrast to this traditional usage,
the Beowulf-poet commandeers the form and the resonances of these declarations
for a very different poetic purpose. Beowulf contains four formulaic declarations of
unknowing, all proclaiming mysteries inaccessible to humankind. But three of these
declarations are not about death, or the nature of God, or any of the other theological
subjects that such declarations usually mark out as mysterious and metaphysically
remote. They are about monsters. The Beowulf-poet takes over a traditional trope of
wonder, detaches it from its theological context, and instead uses its affective
resonance, its association with wonder and dread, to evoke the otherworldliness of
Beowulfs monsters and their habitats. To examine the Beowulf-poets strategy, this
essay first establishes a baseline of declarations of unknowing at their most
traditional, as they appear in the homilies and religious lyrics, and then explores
how Beowulf both co-opts and transforms the topos and its traditional resonances. In
so doing, the paper not only traces a widespread, polymorphous Old English trope,
but also intervenes in the longstanding conversation around the monster mere in
Beowulf. The paper argues that the Beowulf-poet evokes wonder and terror by
placing monsters in spaces that are secret, unstable, and unknowable, in their
geography, ethnography, metaphysics, and cultural affiliationsecret and unstable even when the secrecy must transgress narrative logic. This poetic strategy sheds
light on the longstanding scholarly debate over the monster meres sources and
analogues: the ambiguity of the meres lineage fits into the consistent cultivation of
spatial indeterminacy and unknowing as sources of wonder and dread. This
sustained poetic strategy for creating spaces of wonder and dread, present
throughout the poem, is most explicit in the declarations of unknowing.
Examples of such declarations of unknowing appear throughout Old English
homilies and poetry. Consistently, in homilies and poetry alike, declarations of
unknowing mark out the supernatural: God, Heaven, Hell, the Devil, the miracles of
saints. Usually beginning with the phrase nis (n)nig man, they are statements
1

Men cannot truly say, hall-counsellors, heroes under heaven, who received that cargo. Fulk et al.
(2008). All references to Beowulf are to this edition (hereafter, Beowulf); all translations are my own.

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Declarations of Unknowing in Beowulf

that no human being exists who might know or express the mystery, or that the
mystery is beyond the measure of human beings to know or express. In Wulfstans
homilies, such declarations refer to Christs divinity, the torments of hell, and the
glories and joys of heaven (Bethurum 1957, pp. 157166, ll. 125127 on hells
torments; ibid. ll. 152155 on heavens joys and glories). In the Vercelli Homilies,
declarations of inexpressibility and unknowing refer to the devils arrows of
temptation, the joys of heaven, and the torments of hell (Scragg 1992, Vercelli
Homily IV, l. 315, Vercelli Homily IX, ll. 1517, ll. 106107). In the Blickling
Homilies, they refer to the miracles performed by God through St. Martin and to the
mercy and love of God towards humankind (Morris 18671868, The Life of St.
Martin ll. 150154, Blickling Homily VIII ll. 115121).2
Far from being throwaway flourishes, these formulaic statements are integrated
in the homilies rhetorical programme. Vercelli Homily IX, with its three
declarations of inexpressibility, exemplifies this integration. Inexpressibility is its
dominant rhetorical mode (Wright 1993, p. 145), and its three declarationsabout
heavens joys and hells tormentsfit into this wider programme of representing the
supernatural by measuring it against the overwhelmed human condition. The first
two declarations assert that Heavens joys transcend the limits of the human mind
and expression:
Nis onne nniges mannes gemet t he mge asecgan ara goda & ara
ynessa e God hafa geearwod eallum am e hine lufia & his b[eb]odu
healdan willa & gelstan (Scragg 1992, Vercelli Homily IX, ll. 1618).3
For an we sculon ure sawle georne tilian 7 hy geornlice Gode gegearwian. Ne
mg onne eall manna cyn mid hyra wordum ariman a god e God hafa
sofstum sawlum geearwod togeanes for hyra gastlicum worcum (ibid, ll.
5962).4
Both passages play up the causal relationship between good deeds on earth and
heavenly bliss in the world to come. The first does so by juxtaposing exhortation
and declaration; the second, also by repeating key words and connecting them
through alliteration. Gegearwian (to order or prepare) describes both what the
faithful must do to their souls to ready them for God, and what God does in creating
the joys of the afterlife. The repetition of georne, geornlice (zealously)
intensifies the focus on this spiritual preparation, both semantically (in that it
denotes the emotional intensity necessary to this act of preparation) and aurally (in
that it creates an alliterative bridge between the two instances of gegearwian).
Even as the declarations invoke the divine by placing it beyond human language or
knowledge, they also place it within human access. Even as they assert that human
2

See Bolintineanu (2015), for a more in-depth treatment of homiletic and poetic declarations of
unknowing.

It is not within the measure of any man that he may express the good things and the joys that God has
prepared for all those who love him and desire to keep his commandments.

Therefore we ought to cultivate our soul with zeal and zealously prepare it for God. Then no one of all
humankind can narrate with their words the good that God has prepared for the faithful souls for their
spiritual works.

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A. Bolintineanu

words cannot utter Gods mercies, the declarations also assert that human lives lived
in obedience to Gods commandments may enter into these mercies.
After this twofold evocation of heaven, the inexpressibility topos surfaces in the
homilys subsequent enumeration of the likenesses of hell. The first four
likenessesexile, old age, death, burialannihilate aspect after aspect of the
earthly human person: exile wipes out the social person, taking away wealth, social
position, and happiness (ll. 8589); then old age diminishes the physical person
sense by sense and faculty by faculty, taking away, among others, the capacity for
gerade sprce (speech, l. 93); then death further deprives a person of their
physical surroundings, as it swyrce him fram s huses hrof e he inne bi
(the roof of the building in which he lies is obscured to him, l. 99)5; then burial
draws that figurative roof in even closer, and abandons the body to worms and
putrefaction (l. 102). Used as a figurative representation of hell, the gradual
diminishing and eventual annihilation of the earthly human person perpetuates the
initial declarations of inexpressibility, as both tropes represent the supernatural by
showing how it overwhelms the human condition. The crescendo of suffering
evoked by hells likenesses culminates in the fifth likeness, torment. At this
rhetorical climax, another declaration of inexpressibility appears:
onne is re fiftan helle onlicnes tintrega genemned, for an nne nis
nnig man t mge mid his wordum asecgan hu mycel re fiftan helle sar
is. 7 eah.vii. men sien, 7 ara hbbe ghwylc twa 7 hundsiofontig gereorda,
swa feala swa ealles ysses middangeardes gereorda syndon, and onne sy
ara seofon manna ghwhylc to alife gesceapen, 7 hyra hbbe ghwylc
siofon heafdu, 7 ara heafdu lc hbbe siofon tungan, 7 ara tungena lc
hbbe isene stemne, 7 onne hwre ne magon a ealle ariman helle witu
(ibid., ll. 106113).6
The impact of the declaration of inexpressibility is deepened by the elaborate
conceit that follows it, a form of the Men with Tongues of Iron motif (ll. 107113).7
The hyperbolic imagery (seven men with seventy-two languages, etc.) renders
concrete the assertion of inexpressibility that introduces it: the hell whose likenesses
in the earlier enumeration annihilate one human capacity after another here
explicitly annihilates human speecheven human speech hyperbolically raised to
monstrous proportionsby the sheer magnitude of its torments. As in the earlier
evocations of heaven, the declaration of inexpressibility depicts hells metaphysical
otherness by showing how it overpowers human capacities. As in Vercelli Homily
5

For this translation, see Scragg (1992, p. 187, note to l. 99).

Then the likeness of the fifth hell is called torment, because then there is no man who is able to declare
with his words how great the fifth hells pain is. And even if there were seven men, and each of them had
seventy-two languages, as many as all the languages in this middle earth, and then if each of those seven
men were created to eternal life, and each of them had seven heads, and each of the heads had seven
tongues, and each of the tongues had an iron voice, and then nevertheless they would not be able to
describe the torment of hell.

Wright (1993, pp. 146156). For further discussion of traditional motifs in Vercelli IXs description of
hells pains, and these motifs development in Old English and Irish literature, see Wright (1993,
pp. 106175). For stylistic analysis of these motifs in Vercelli IX, see also Zacher (2009, pp. 173179).
And for discussion of the seventy-two languages topos, see Sauer (1983).

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Declarations of Unknowing in Beowulf

IX, the declarations of unknowing spread through the Old English homiletic and
poetic corpus, maintaining a striking stability in verbal form and content, in their
consistent focus on depicting the supernatural as it overthrows human knowledge
and language (Bolintineanu 2015).
The relationship between Beowulf and the homiletic tradition is widely debated,
most notably over the monster meres relationship to the hell-scape of Blickling
Homily VII, but also over other passages which show clear parallels to homiletic
language, but whose authenticity to the poem is contested on metrical grounds
(Beowulf, ll. 175188, ll. 3062b75; Orchard 2001, pp. 151167, traces the
controversial passages links to the homiletic tradition and summarizes the
longstanding scholarly debates around them). Yet even if passages drawing on
the homiletic tradition are late scribal additions to the poem, their presence suggests
that Beowulfs scribes and readers understood and experienced the poem with the
homiletic tradition as a powerful element of their verbal and cultural landscape;
homiletic language and habits of thought influenced the poems reception and
transmission, and its phraseology infiltrated the poems fabric. Foley (1990, 2003)
and Amodio (2005) theorize that in Old English, as in other tradition-based
literatures, tradition forms a cognitive and emotional matrix for a poems
composition and reception: that is, tradition acts as the silent partner to every
act of poetic creation and poetic reception (Foley 1990, p. xv), so that phrases or
motifs occurring in a text bring along not just themselves, but their longstanding
associations. In literate as well as oral contexts, traditional elements may be longlived and polymorphous, yet maintainas do the declarations of unknowinga
constant cargo of meaning and affective resonances through a variety of contexts.8
Whether the Beowulf-poet was steeped in the homiletic traditionso much so that
its phraseology leaked into the poem, to use Foleys phrase (2003)or whether
the poems scribes and readers were, the tradition is part of the poems reception
and transmission and provides a powerful matrix through which the poem was
experienced and understood.
The homiletic declarations of unknowing and inexpressibility are recalled by all
four declarations of unknowing in Beowulf. The Beowulf declarations grammar is
slightly different (they are statements that men do not know, rather than that no man
exists who might know or express), but their implications are similar: all four affirm
longstanding communal unknowing. Yet only one, the declaration about Scyld,
points into the declarations traditional domain, the afterlife; the remaining three
refer to the habitats of monsters.
The first of them concludes Scyld Scefings funeral, already quoted above. As his
people give their dead king into the seas keeping, the poet reflects on their inability
to know Scylds destination (cited above). The second declaration concerns the
whereabouts of Grendel, as the monster begins to prey on the Danes:
8

This longevity of traditional elements is demonstrated by Frotscher, who traces the economic
metaphor of violence as financial transaction (exemplified by the phrase youll pay for it as a promise
of violent revenge), primarily in Old English and Old Norse-Icelandic literature, but with examples from
Homeric Greek and Virgilian Latin to Chaucer, Shakespeare, and English-language popular culture of the
late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries (2013).

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A. Bolintineanu

hwyder helrunan

Men ne cunnon
hwyrftum scria (Beowulf, ll. 163164).9

The third and fourth declarations appear in Hrothgars description of the monstermere. One disclaims knowledge of the identity of Grendels father:
No hie fder cunnon,
Hwer him nig ws
r acenned
Dyrnra gasta
(Beowulf, ll. 1355b57)10
The last declaration asserts general ignorance of the depths of the monster-mere:

No s frod leofa
Gumena bearna
t one grund wite (Beowulf, ll. 13661367).11
The first two declarations are introduced by a half-line formula, men ne cunnon,
followed by an object clause that explains the subject of their ignorance. The third is
a variation of this formula: it is likewise introduced by a half-line, with the same
negative knowledge verb (no cunnon) and with a subject that likewise refers to
the generality of humankind (the pronoun hie refers to the foldbuende, the landdwellers of the previous half-line. The present tense here indicates not the fleeting,
current moment, but perpetual truths which are, and will continue to be, relevant
(Kessler 2008, p. 22). Like those in the homilies, these declarations of unknowing
state not only that certain things are mysteries under specific historical circumstances, but that they have been mysterious for a long time and are so still, because
their nature places them beyond the range of human understanding. The fourth
declaration uses a different verb (witan), and generalizes the lack of knowledge
through a slightly different formulation: instead of simply asserting that no one
knows the subject, as in the other declarations in Beowulf, it denies, like the
homilies, the existence of any potential knowers among humankind.
Of these declarations, the one about Scyld is most in keeping with the homiletic
and poetic tradition. The journey of Scylds dead body into the sea parallels the
journey of his soul into death; the uncertainty of his geographical destination
accordingly suggests the heros unknown fate after death. This unknowing may be a
function of the observers: that is, Scylds eschatological destination is unknown
because the hall councillors who ponder the matter are pagan; just as their
descendants, in Grendels time, do not know God, so they do not know what
happens to the soul after death (Orchard 2001, pp. 238240; Stanley 1963, p. 72). In
this interpretation, Scylds Danes are in the same predicament as the councillor of
King Edwin in Bedes famous sparrow-story. The councillor advises King Edwin to
9

Men do not know where those skilled in the mysteries of hell glide in their courses.

10

They [land-dwellers] do not know whether any father had ever been conceived for him among the
secret spirits.
11

No one lives among the children of men so wise as to know its bottom.

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Declarations of Unknowing in Beowulf

adopt Christianity because it offers a more satisfactory metaphysics than their

present faith:
Talis, inquiens, mihi uidetur, rex, uita hominum praesens in terris, ad
conparationem eius, quod nobis incertum est, temporis, quale cum te residente
ad caenam cum ducibus ac ministris tuis tempore brumali, accenso quidem
foco in medio, et calido effecto caenaculo, furentibus autem foris per omnia
turbinibus hiemalium pluuiarum uel niuium, adueniens unus passerum domum
citissime peruolauerit; qui cum per unum ostium ingrediens, mox per aliud
exierit. Ipso quidem tempore, quo intus est, hiemis tempestate non tangitur,
sed tamen paruissimo spatio serenitatis ad momentum excurso, mox de hieme
in hiemem regrediens, tuis oculis elabitur. Ita haec uita hominum ad modicum
apparet; quid autem sequatur, quidue praecesserit, prorsus ignoramus. Unde si
haec noua doctrina certius aliquid attulit, merito esse sequenda uidetur.12
Words of unknowing (incertum, uncertain; ignoramus, we do not know) frame
the natural imagery that suggests unknowing. In Bedes view, the archetypal pagan
stance on what went before, or what is to follow is one of emphatic unknowing,
much like the stance of the Spear-Danes on Scylds mysterious origin and equally
mysterious destination. James W. Earl pushes the analogy further, describing the
Scyld episode as a poetic variation on Bedes parable of the sparrow and arguing
that [t]he world of the parable is the world of the poem []. The transcendent is
simply unknown, everywhere bordering the world of the known as the ocean
surrounds the earth. (Earl 1994, pp. 7173). The sea, in Earls analogy, is like the
wintry world that surrounds the lit, fire-warmed hall in Bedes parable: it
symbolizes what is beyond communal wisdom, or at least (in Bedes view) beyond
communal wisdom without the benefit of Christian doctrine.
Alternatively, Scylds destination after death is doubtful because of his own
theological status. The Beowulf-poet describes Scylds life itself as a model of
heroic pagan kingship and Scylds funeral as a pagan ceremony.13 At the same time,
Scyld is also an instrument of Gods providence: he founds a royal dynasty for the
hitherto lordless Spear-Danes, and his son, as the poet notes, is sent by God folces
to frofre (as a comfort to the people, l. 12b) (King 2003, pp. 460464). Given
Scylds double role (both as pagan king and as agent of Providence), his destination
after death is similarly ambiguous.14
12
The present life of man, O king, seems to me, in comparison of that time which is unknown to us, like
to the swift flight of a sparrow through the room wherein you sit at supper in winter, with your
commanders and ministers, and a good fire in the midst, whilst the storms of rain and snow prevail
abroad; the sparrow, I say, flying in at one door, and immediately out at another, whilst he is within, is
safe from the wintry storm; but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your
sight, into the dark winter from which he had emerged. So this life of man appears for a short space, but of
what went before, or what is to follow, we are utterly ignorant. If, therefore, this new doctrine contains
something more certain, it seems justly to deserve to be followed. (Colgrave and Mynors 1969, II.xiii.)
13

Owen-Crocker (2000, pp. 2742 and 116133), describes pagan archaeological parallels to the
funerals in Beowulf; see also, however, Cameron (1969), identifying the Latin life of St. Gildas, dated
between the ninth and eleventh centuries, as a striking Christian parallel.

14
On the pessimistic side, see Stanley (1963) and King (2003). On the optimistic side, see Brodeur
(1959), Chadwick (1912), Phillpotts (1928). Frank (1982) highlights a disjunction between Alcuins

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A. Bolintineanu

But an even simpler interpretation of the passage is possible: Scylds destination

is unknown neither because Scylds people are pagans, nor because he is: but rather
because he is a human being setting off into death.15 This, after all, is the
epistemological stance of the poem Maxims II, which proclaims that God alone can
know the destination of the souls journey after death (Krapp and Dobbie 1931
1953, v. 6, pp. 5657). In the world of Maxims II, everything has its place: the gem
must dwell in the ring, the dragon in a barrow, the fish in the water, the king in the
hall, the monster alone in the fen. The poem is a series of proverb-like assertions of
the places and properties of things. But in this orderly world, the place of the dead
remains mysterious:
Meotod ana wat
Hwyder seo sawul sceal
syan hweorfan,
And ealle a gastas
e for gode hweorfa
fter deadge,
domes bida
60
On fder fme.
Is seo forgesceaft
Digol and dyrne;
drihten ana wat
Nergende fder.
Nni eft cyme
Hider under hrofas,
e t her for so
Mannum secge
hwylc sy meotodes gesceaft,
65
Sigefolca gesetu,
r he sylfa wuna (Maxims II, ll. 5766).16
The poems form emphasizes mystery. Alliterating near-synonyms, digol and
dyrne (secret and hidden), insist on secrecy to the point of pleonasm.17 Spatial
imagery reinforces the otherness of the afterlife: no witnesses return to the concrete
roofs of the living from the abstract, unknowable dwellings of the blessed
dead. The formulaic half-line, Meotod ana wat (God alone knows), is echoed
only four lines later as drihten ana wat (the Lord alone knows). The envelope
pattern reinforces the exclusivity of divine knowledge. It also deploys the numinous
resonances of a traditional verbal motif: as Paul Cavill notes, in Old English poetry,
maxims that begin with the formulaic God/Meotod/Dryhten ana wat (God/the
Ruler/the Lord alone knows) all assert Gods exclusive knowledge of why, when,
and how death will come, and what will happen afterward(Cavill 1999, pp. 5354).
So a poem that articulates communal wisdom ends by asserting that communal
wisdom cannot chart the afterlife; a poem so concerned with the places of things
Footnote 14 continued
rigour and the Beowulf-poets sympathetic, lovingly detailed depiction of the culture of his pagan
characters; Anlezark (2006) emphasizes that Scyld journeys on Frean wre (into the Lords keeping,
27b). Though the Danes cannot truly say who receives Scyld, the poet can, and does (285286).
15
This attitude appears not only in Maxims II, discussed below, but also in Juliana, where Cynewulf
expresses a similar uncertainty about the journey of his own soul after death (ll. 699a700) (King 2003,
p. 471, n. 45).
16

God alone knows where that soul must afterwards travel to, and all the spirits that go to God, after the
death-day, await judgment in the Fathers protection. The future condition is secret and hidden; the Lord
alone knows, the saving Father. No one returns again this way under roofs, who can here truly tell people
what the Rulers creation is like, the abodes of the victorious people, where He Himself dwells.
17

For the uses of dyrne in Old English literature, see Lerer (1991).

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Declarations of Unknowing in Beowulf

ends by refusing to place the dead. The human soul in Maxims II awaits judgment
on fder fme (in the Fathers embrace), just as Scyld Scefing travels on
Frean wre (in the Lords keeping), but for both souls, their ultimate destination
remains mysterious. Unknowing marks the border between the world of living
human beings and the other world, the world of God, of heaven and hell and their
inhabitants, of the dead in the afterlife. Scylds last destination is unknown because
death is unknowable.
All of these interpretations place Scylds last sea-journey within the tradition of
the declarations of unknowing described thus far: declarations that use mystery to
mark something that belongs to the other world, to an eschatological reality that
transcends the human world and the capacities of human knowers. The declarations
of unknowing that describe the monsters deploy the same language of mystery, of
communal unknowing: not in reference to the eschatological, not in reference to
God or the joys of heaven or the torments of hell, but in reference to creatures whose
threat against the human world is so fearsome that only the eschatological can
suggest the sheer magnitude of wonder and dread that these creatures evoke. Like
the declaration of unknowing about Scylds sea-funeral, the declarations of
unknowing that describe the monsters are similarly embedded in the poems
geography. All three declarations refer to the monsters resistance to human
understanding, and all three are surrounded by descriptions of the monsters habitat.
One appears shortly after the initial account of Grendels depredations. Though
earlier the poet describes the Danes inspecting Grendels tracks, he reflects that
(ac se) glca
ehtende ws,
deorc deascua,
dugue ond geogoe,
seomade ond syrede;
sinnihte heold,
mistige moras;
men ne cunnon
hwyder helrunan
hwyrftum scria (Beowulf, ll. 159164).18
The declaration follows a description of Grendels domain that defines that domain
not so much geographically as atmospherically. It is the domain of night, of mist on
the moors. The declaration makes explicit what the imagery suggests: that the
defining characteristic of monster-space is not any topographical marker or any
physical boundary, but darkness, concealment, resistance to human knowing.
The remaining two declarations are similarly bound up with the home of
monsters. Both of them are embedded in Hrothgars vivid and detailed description
of the monster-mere. The first disclaims human knowledge of Grendels paternity;
the second denies human knowledge of the geography of the monsters home. The
description that surrounds them amplifies the force of these declarations, as
narratorial stance, repetition, and imagery reinforce the sense of secrecy:

18
But the formidable one, the dark death-shadow, was persecuting warriors and youths, hovered and
ensnared [them]; he held the endless night (or: the sinful night), the misty moors; men do not know which
way those privy to hells secrets glide in their courses. See Hill (1971, 379381), Greenfield (19771978,
4448), and Hill (1979, 271281), for a discussion of this passage; my translation reflects both their
arguments.

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A. Bolintineanu

Ic t londbuend,
leode mine,
selerdende
secgan hyrde
t hie gesawon
swylce twegen
micle mearcstapan
moras healdan,
ellorgstas.
ra oer ws,

1345

s e hie gewislicost
gewitan meahton,
idese onlicns;
oer earmsceapen
on weres wstmum
wrclastas trd,
nfne he ws mara
onne nig man oer;
one on geardagum
Grendel nemdon

1350

foldbuende;
no hie fder cunnon,
hwer him nig ws
r acenned
dyrnra gasta.
Hie dygel lond
warigea, wulfhleou,
windige nssas,
frecne fengelad,
r fyrgenstream

1355

under nssa genipu

nier gewite,
flod under foldan.
Nis t feor heonon
milgemearces
t se mere stande;
ofer m hongia
hrinde bearwas,
wudu wyrtum fst
wter oferhelma.

1360

r mg nihta gehwm
niwundor seon,
fyr on flode.
No s frod leofa
gumena bearna,
t one grund wite;
eah e hstapa
hundum geswenced,
heorot hornum trum,
holtwudu sece,

1365

feorran geflymed,
r he feorh sele,
aldor on ofre,
r he in wille
hafelan [beorgan];
nis t heoru stow!
MS missing word (Beowulf, ll. 13451372).19

1370

19
I heard land-dwellers, my people, hall-counsellors, say this, that they saw such two such mighty
border-walkers hold the moors, alien spirits. Of them one was, as far as they were able to tell most
certainly, in the likeness of a woman; the other wretched one trod the tracks of exile in the form of a man,
except that he was greater than any other man. Him the land-dwellers called Grendel in days gone by;
they do not know of a father, whether any was ever begotten before him among the hidden spirits. They
inhabit the secret land, wolf-cliffs, windy headlands, fearful fen-path, where the mountain-stream goes
down under the darkness of the headlands, water under the ground. It is not far from here, by the count of
miles, that the mere stands; over it hang frosty trees, woods fast of root cover the water. There may be
seen, each night, a fearful wonder (or: a harm-wonder), fire on the water. No one lives among the children
of men so wise as to know its bottom. Though the heath-stepper, the hart strong in horns, hunted by dogs,
should seek the forest, having fled far, he would rather give up his life on the bank, than go into save his
head. That is not a pleasant place!

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Declarations of Unknowing in Beowulf

Especially at the beginning of the speech, Hrothgar maintains a distance between

himself and his descriptions subject. He declares his knowledge is hearsay, and the
word order reinforces this: the ic of the narrator is separated from the verbs that
indicate his contact with the subject (secgan hyrde) by the threefold reference to
his source (londbuende, leode mine, selerdende). Even these reported sightings
of the monsters are tentative and qualified: Grendels mother is not a woman, she is
idese onlicns (the likeness of a woman), and even that is only s e hie
gewislicost gewitan meahton (as far as they could most certainly tell). Grendel
himself, likewise, walks on weres wstmum (in the form of a man), and again
that is qualified by an exceptionnfne he ws mara onne nig man oer
(except he was bigger than any other man). Hrothgars initial uncertainty shades
into downright mystery. Grendels father, or potential elder siblings, are unknown.20
The monsters kindred are dyrnra gasta (hidden spirits), just as the land where
the monsters live is dygel (secret); alliteration emphasizes and pairs the two
near-synonyms, accentuating the insistence on secrecy. Even the shape of the
topography suggests concealment. Every element of the landscapedarkness, cliffs
and earth, the frost-covered forestsis shaped to descend towards and cover the
central element of water. Even the image of the hunted stag, not willing to hide its
head in the uncanny lake, suggests the potential for concealment even as it so
vehemently rejects it.21 Subsequent landscape description maintains the sense of
secrecy. Later, so does another monster-habitat, the dragons barrow. Just as the
path to the Grendel-mere is uncu gelad (a strange path),22 so the way to the
dragons lair is eldum uncu, unknown to men, and the dragons lair itself
fluctuates between being known and being hidden; the poet presents the domains of
monsters as enigmatic and uncertain locations (Michelet 2006, p. 82).
This presentation is artful and emphatic, but it is not consistent (Magennis 2006,
p. 142). When Beowulf and warriors follow the bloody track of Grendels mother,
the way to the monster-mere is hard and strange (ll. 14091412). Yet earlier in the
poem, after Grendels defeat, the warriors who likewise follow the bloody track of
Grendel to the lake experience a gomenwae (joyful journey, 854) along paths
20
See Fulk et al. (2008, p. 200). Lines 1355b1357a can be paraphrased either as they [the Danes]
knew of no father, whether any [father] was engendered before him [Grendel] among the hidden spirits
or, alternatively, as they [the Danes] knew of no father, [nor] whether any [siblings] were engendered
before him [Grendel] among the hidden spirits. In both cases l. 1356 is a declaration of unknowing,
either reinforcing the mystery of Grendels father, or referring to additional mysterious siblings.
21

The missing word in line 1372b has been variously emended as helan, hydan, and beorgan; see
Orchard (2001, pp. 4748) for a summary of the scholarship. While Klaebers edition supplies
beorgan, I have selected helan, as suggested by Gerritsen (1989, pp. 451452) and Bammesberger
(1992, pp. 250252); their emendation fits what is paleographically likely, fits into the sound-play
patterns of the passage, and also fits into this theme of secrecy.
22
The description of the way to the monster-mere as enge anpaas, uncu gelad is a striking parallel
between Beowulf and Exodus: in the latter poem, the path through the Red Sea that God opens up to the
Israelites is likewise described as enge anpaas, uncu gelad (Exodus l. 58). For early discussions of
the relationship between the two poems, see Klaeber (1918, pp. 218124) (in which Klaeber argues that
Exodus precedes and has influenced Beowulf); as well as his later article, Klaeber (1950, pp. 7172) (in
which he argues for the opposite). For a recent discussion of the matter, and for a comprehensive list of
parallels between Beowulf and Exodus, see Lynch (2000, pp. 171256, 262264, 272) (cited in Orchard
2001, pp. 166167).

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A. Bolintineanu

that are, at least at times, fgere and cystum cue (lovely and known to be
good, ll. 866867). This inconsistency illustrates the essentially expressionistic
nature of landscape in the poem (Magennis 2006, p. 142). Warriors undertake the
first trip in a celebratory mood. The bloody track they follow is proof and reminder
of Grendels defeat, and so the landscape they traverse is accordingly pleasant,
hospitable to such civilized human activities as horse-racing and story-telling. In
contrast, the second journey follows a track limned in human blood, a reminder of
past loss and future menace:
Ofereode a
steap stanhlio,

elinga bearn
stige nearwe,

enge anpaas,
neowle nssas,
He feara sum
wisra monna
ot he fringa

uncu gelad,
nicorhusa fela.
beforan gengde
wong sceawian,
fyrgenbeamas

ofer harne stan

hleonian funde,
wynleasne wudu;
wter under stod
dreorig ond gedrefed (ll. 14081417).23

1410

1415

Reflecting the travellers state of mind, the landscape of their journey and of their
destination is wild, frightening, and infested with monsters; in Hrothgars earlier
description, the landscape is rendered in a wealth of scenic detailshardly any of
which appear on the first journeyrecalling the Avernian landscapes of classical
tradition or the hellish landscapes of Christian eschatology. As with the physical
details of the landscape, so with the secrecy of the monsters habitat. Once Beowulf
has killed the last of the lake-monsters, the secrecy built up earlier lifts as well:
Ferdon for onon
feelastum
ferhum fgne,
foldweg mton,
cue strte (ll. 16301634).24
In mood, vocabulary, and alliteration, the passage echoes the earlier homecoming
from the mere, after Grendels defeat. In both passages, the path of joyous return is
denoted by the poetic compound foldweg (path or road), a word that does not appear
elsewhere in Beowulf; this path, too, is described in both passages as known,
familiar, and reliable.

23
Then the son of princes went over the steep rocky slopes, narrow trails, narrow paths where only one
could go at a time, an unknown way, steep crags, many homes of water-monsters. He went before with a
few wise men to examine the territory, until he suddenly found mountain trees leaning over a hoary stone,
a joyless wood; water stood below, bloody and disturbed.
24
They went forth from there on the walking-paths, glad in spirits, traversed the land-way, the known
path.

123

Declarations of Unknowing in Beowulf

Hwilum heaorofe
hleapan leton,
on geflit faran
fealwe mearas
r him foldwegas
fgere uhton,
cystum cue (ll. 864867).25
The parallels in phrasing between the two passages underscore the parallels in
narrative context. After Beowulf kills each of the monsters, their habitat transitions
from the unknown to the familiar: not because the Danes finally learn the way
thereafter all, they had known the way already on the earlier journeybut
because mystery is no longer needed to suggest the presence of fearful monsters.26
Beowulfs successful foray against Grendels mother contradicts even the declarations of unknowing. No one lives wise enough to know the lakes depths, yet
Beowulf plumbs them all the way to the monsters lair. Grendels ancestors are
mysterious to dwellers in the land, yet Beowulf returns from the lake with a sword
hilt that testifies to the fate of Grendels ancestors in the Flood. Grendels
movements and whereabouts are unknown or unknowable to humankind, yet
Beowulf finds the place he died, the last place he moved to under his own power;
what is more, the hero then carries Grendels head to the surface, shifting Grendels
last whereabouts into familiar communal space. Mystery surrounds the monsters
while they threaten humankind, a mystery evoked through geographical detail and
declarations of unknowing. This mystery vanishes from their habitat with their
death.
The treatment of mystery sets the Beowulf-poets declarations of unknowing
apart from their conventional usage in Old English literature. In Old English
homilies, where most declarations of unknowing occur, they describe the
eschatological, and the sheer magnitude of its difference from mortal human
experience. In poetry, the usage of these declarations is wider, but still connected to
the numinous: in addition to describing the eschatological, declarations of
unknowing also signal divine agency in moments of human history or in aspects
of the natural world. In contrast, in Beowulf, declarations of unknowing apply to
monsters. These declarations do not necessarily mark out a metaphysical gap, or
even satisfy narrative logic. Instead, in concert with other poetic strategies, they
make an affective statement rather than a theological one. They signal the utter
alterity of the monsters, the profound gap between them and human normality.
Exploiting the conventional resonances of the topos, the declarations of unknowing
align the monsters with God, death, and the afterlife, with eschatological realities
beyond the limits of mortal human reason and experience, not in order to suggest
that Grendel or his mother are fiends or denizens of the afterlife, but to suggest that
the monsters and their spaces are as far away from normal human experience as
heaven or hell, and that consequently the emotional response to them ought to be
similar: wonder, awe, dread.
25
At times the battle-brave let their bay steeds leap, go in a race, where they thought the land-ways fair,
known to be good.
26
See also Amodio (2005, p. 67), describing a different Beowulf episode where details are not governed
by narrative logic, but by the traditional associations that these details carry into their narrative context.

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A. Bolintineanu

The declarations of unknowing are consistent with the Beowulf-poets treatment

of the monsters throughout the poem. In Beowulf, the monsters are insistently
mysterious, resistant to being known or categorized. Throughout the poem, the very
term uncu (strange, unknown) appears chiefly in association with Grendel and
his kin (Orchard 2001, p. 110). The very first concrete detail of Grendels physique
appears only at his last attack on Heorot: as he comes into the hall, his eyes glow
with a leoht unfaeger (an un-lovely light, ll. 726727). While he is alive and well,
Grendel is a nebulous presence; only after his defeat does the poet reveal such
concrete physical details as the tough, scaly skin and the iron-hard nails of his
severed arm (Neville 1999, p. 80).
Indeed, Grendel is as hard to pin down ontologically as physically: he has been
classified, among other things, as a demon, a draugr (an Old Norse revenant), a
descendant of Cain and the wicked antediluvian giants, and a human being.27 Most
recently, Megan Cavell analyses Grendel as a literary cyborg, whose body exists in
a liminal space between the natural world and the world of artifacts (Cavell 2014).
The mystery that so insistently surrounds Grendel heightens the monsters horror.28
The mystery extends to the monsters habitat. The first descriptions of Grendel
reinforce the link between the monster and his habitat: the poet calls Grendel
mearcstapa and sceadugenga (border-stalker, l. 103, and shadow-walker,
l. 703), including in his appellation the territory of mist, darkness, and liminal
spaces that Grendel inhabits. This domain of monsters is in fierce opposition with
the world of humankind, of the radiant hall Heorot.29 Nevertheless, the border
between the two worlds is shifting and unreliable. In Grendels approach to Heorot,
the eerie, inhuman landscape seems to encroach upon human space, extending all
the way up to the door of the hall.30 On several occasions the monsters footprints
outside the hall are a visual reminder that any boundaries between the two worlds
are permeable. Even when topographical marking and ceremonial behaviour appear
to delimit one world from the other, that delimitation is not clear-cut. Right by the
monster mere there is a grey stone. Swisher and Cooke identify the harne stan (l.
887), the hoary stone, as a formulaic boundary marker between the human world
and the realm of monsters. They note that such a stone marks not only the mere
inhabited by Grendel and his monstrous kindred, but also the dragons barrow; and
outside Beowulf, a hoar stone appears in the Visio Sancti Pauli, just above the
hellish place of punishment, and in Andreas, just before the entrance into the city of
27
For an in-depth survey of Grendels taxonomy and the scholarship underlying each of these categories,
see Orchard (1995, pp. 152168), and Neville (1999, pp. 7880).
28

Alain Renoir describes the dynamics of terror and mystery in Beowulf, particularly in the famous scene
of Grendels approach to Heorot; he memorably calls Grendel a hair-raising description of death on the
march (1962, pp. 88106). Michael Lapidge examines the role of mystery in the horrifying effects of
Grendel himself (1993, pp. 373402).

29
For a summary of the scholarship that delineates this contrast between the world of monsters and the
world of humankind, see Michelet (2006, p. 76). Michelet, however, disagrees with the prevailing view,
arguing instead that these worlds are deeply interconnected and the only clear distinction established
between chaos and order is that made by the characters themselves (p. 91). This current study dwells,
like Michelets, on the porous boundary between realms, but does not de-emphasize the essential contrast
between them.
30

Beowulf ll. 702b716a; for further analysis, see especially Renoir (1962, pp. 154167).

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Declarations of Unknowing in Beowulf

the cannibalistic, devil-ridden Mermedonians (Swisher 2002, pp. 133136). These

parallels suggest that the harne stan is a marker separating human from monstrous
spaces. In Beowulf, this separation is reinforced by ceremonial behaviour: as the
Danish and Geatish warriors pass the harne stan, they blow the war-horn as if
announcing their entry onto anothers property, according to Anglo-Saxon law
(Cooke 2003, pp. 298299). But the poem shows that the boundary between the
realms is not precisely drawn: even before the hoary stone, the warriors cross a wild,
frightening landscape inhabited by monsters (Beowulf, ll. 14081411). Wherever a
boundary or demarcationverbal, geographic, or behaviouralappears to separate
the two worlds, the poem proceeds to blur that boundary. The monster mere itself is
as mysterious and polyvalent in terms of lineage and nature as Grendel himself: it
echoes descriptions of hell from Christian visions of the afterlife, but also
descriptions of infernal or hostile landscapes from classical literature.31 The monster
mere, with its accumulation of fearful traits and its diversity of literary echoes, may
not add up to a coherent geography; but it is coherent, in terms of literary strategy,
with the Beowulf-poets depiction of monstrosity and monstrous space throughout
the poem. As Jeffrey Jerome Cohen (1996, p. 6) notes, monsters are disturbing
hybrids whose externally incoherent bodies resist attempts to include them in any
systematic structuration the monster [is] a form suspended between forms that
threatens to smash distinctions. And like monsters, the medieval wonder response
itself is linked to blurred categories and permeable borders, being triggered most
frequently and violently by events or phenomena in which ontological and moral
boundaries are crossed, confused, or erased Bynum (2001, p. 69). Beowulfs poetics
of otherworldly spaces aligns along several aspects with wonders resistance to
knowledge and categorization. In Beowulf, the one consistent thing about the
monsters habitat is its inconsistencyits spatial indeterminacy, reinforced through
secretive geography and porous boundaries, and further emphasized by the spaces
kaleidoscopic and fragmentary reflections of diverging sources and traditions.
The declarations of unknowing form a coherent part of this spatial poetics. They
explicitly, gnomically state the mystery and instability of monstrous spaces that
elsewhere, through visual and kinaesthetic detail, create their wonder and
otherworldliness through map-resistance and unstable geographies. Focusing on
the poems geography, Alfred Hiatt observes that the maps used by editors of
Beowulf to illustrate the poemespecially those maps with any pretension to
geographical accuracy, which attempt to pin the poems space onto the geography
of Scandinavia and Great Britainare misleading about Beowulfs spatial poetics
(Hiatt 2009, pp 1140). Instead of the holistic and visual spaces of twentieth-century
maps, Hiatt suggests that the poems space grows out of interrelations of different
peoples, and the frequent movement between past, present, and future times. But
what Hiatt perceptively terms the absence of geography in either a modern or
medieval sense from the poem is also a disturbing presence. While the Beowulfpoet does not create a coherent geography, the very incoherence of the poems
31

Striking parallels have been adduced on the one hand between the monster mere and the geography of
hell as envisioned in Blickling Homily XVI; on the other, between the monster mere and numinous
locales in classical literature. For recent overviews of, and interventions in, the debate, see Orchard (2001,
pp. 132136), Anlezark (2006), Magennis (2006, pp. 133141).

123

A. Bolintineanu

geography is a sustained and powerful effect, a spatial indeterminacy that

consistently marks out the habitations of monsters and separates these habitations
from human spaces and human life. The four declarations of unknowing, with their
traditional connections to the metaphysically otherGod, heaven, hell, and the
afterlifeare deliberate refusals to anchor the poems monsters within a wider
geography: statements, indeed, that such anchoring is impossible within the limits of
human experience. The declarations of unknowing firmly place the monsters outside
that metaphorical warm, bright hall of mortal human life, traversed so briefly by
Bedes sparrow as it flies from darkness into darkness.
Acknowledgments My thanks to Andy Orchard, Antonette diPaolo Healey, Suzanne Conklin Akbari,
and Mark Amodio, who generously commented on my dissertation, on which this article is based; to
Alexandra Gillespie, whose insightful observations improved the larger argument of which this essay
forms a part; and to the anonymous reviewer of this essay, whose comments and queries improved the
clarity of this article.

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