Beowulf's Longest Day: The Amphibious Hero in His Element (Beowulf, ll 1495b–96)

by OREN FALK

This seven long years and more
He me affected;
We parted on the shore
With hearts contracted:
He promised to turn again,
If God life lent him,
Which makes me sigh and mourn,
Death doth prevent him.

Few heroes of OE literature have had to fight as hard as the renowned champion of the Geats to earn, and retain, their distinguished service decorations. Beowulf's amphibious exploits, in particular, have stirred up considerable scholarly controversy. In the first generations of modern editing, beowulf could swim from Skåne to Lapland, hand-ferry a formidable wardrobe from Frisia to Scandinavia, and grapple for an entire day with Grendel's mother at the bottom of her mere. But serious doubts about his Navy SEAL qualifications have been raised in more recent scholarship, chiefly by Fred Robinson, who, in a carefully argued essay, debunked beowulf's marine prowess and trimmed it down to more credible proportions. Others, notably Stanley Greenfield, have preferred to allow Beowulf to keep his wetsuit on. Any attempt to settle the argument conclusively may seem as hopeful as an initiative to collect seawater in a sieve. The critics appear irrevocably divided both on where to draw the line separating verisimilar from fantastical in medieval literature, in general, and on where to locate the specific poem and character relative to that line: while some would take their Beowulf with a stiff shot of realism, others would have it laced with the fabulous. Little could probably be argued to bring about changes of allegiance in such matters, unless perhaps some intrepid Anglo-Saxonist were to take up frogman training or cross the Channel in full battle gear and decisively prove that the marvelous may indeed be mundane—or die trying.