Now for something very old, but also quite new…

This time Beowulf. The oldest surviving poem in the Germanic languages. The only manuscript copy, which can be found in the British Library, is thought to date from 1000 AD, author unknown. But the translation I’ve been reading is much newer, published in 2021, and composed by American writer, Maria Dahvana Headley.

The story of Beowulf is well known: a mighty warrior from Geatland (Sweden) comes to the aid of the Danes who are being terrorised by a monster, Grendel. Beowulf defeats Grendel in unarmed combat, then is forced to also fight, and defeat, Grendel’s angry and vengeful mother. Fifty years later, as king of Geatland, he fights a dragon, wins, but dies in the process. It’s the stuff of fantasy and of a rather strange film in 2007.

Headley’s take on this old story is refreshingly new. She notes in her introduction that she was first attracted to the poem as a child when she discovered Grendel’s Mother – the warrior woman that she’d been searching for, ‘[s]he had a ferocious look and seemed to give precisely zero fucks,’ (p. vii) It’s unsurprising then, that the gender politics of Headley’s mature translation are more visible.

As the eponymous hero boasts and battles his way through the poem, killing monsters, each one more challenging than the last and pocketing rewards of gold, we see the problems with having to conform to these patterns of stylised masculinity. The poet, Beowulf and other characters use the address ‘Bro’ where previous translations have used ‘Listen’, ‘Hark’ or ‘So’. Headley states that this replicates a certain kind of male language in her own society, that it operates to demonstrate the removal of women from the narrative and reflects the monstrousness of having to live as a man in such a violent and primitive world.

But the star of Headley’s show is Grendel’s Mother, not a monster here at all, but a grieving mother. She is a ‘warrior-woman’, a ‘reclusive night queen,’ a ‘mighty mere wife,’ and she doesn’t give Beowulf an easy time when he arrives in her underwater haven intent on killing her. Headley argues that these are authentic translations from the origin Anglo-Saxon, wherein she is tall, formidable and appears as a woman not a monster. A very different interpretation to most translations and impressions.

The poem also deals with aging. The Dane ruler Hrothgar is too old vanquish Grendel so needs the youthful Beowulf to do it for him. When faced with the final attack from the dragon, old Beowulf requires the help of the younger Wiglaf, before he can strike the final blow. His death in battle seems appropriate to his reputation. Without him, his people will fail and diminish. This poem is a romp of wonderful alliterative language and adventure. As Headley puts it, ‘a dazzling, furious, funny, vicious, desperate, hungry, beautiful, mutinous, maudlin, supernatural, rapturous shout.’ (xvi)

Beowulf, Translated by Maria Dahvana Headley, (London, Melbourne: Scribe, 2021)