Let us therefore examine the second theory, which is more particularly
associated with the name of Bugge, though it was the current theory before
his time, and has been generally accepted since.
According to this view, the _Eotenas_ are the men of Finn, and since upon
them is placed the blame for the trouble, it {258} must be Finn that makes
a treacherous attack upon his wife's brother Hnaef, who is his guest in
Finnsburg[450]. This is the fight of which the _Fragment_ gives us the
beginning. Hnaef is slain, and then follow the events as narrated in the
_Episode_: the treaty which Finn makes with Hengest, the leader of the
survivors: and the ultimate vengeance taken upon Finn by these survivors.
Here I think we are getting nearer to facts, nearer to a view which can
command general acceptance: at any rate, in so far as the fight narrated in
the _Fragment_ is placed before the beginning of the _Episode_ in
_Beowulf_. Positive evidence that this is the right place for the
_Fragment_ is scanty, yet not altogether lacking. After all, the fight in
the _Fragment_ is a night attack, and the fight which precedes the
_Episode_ in _Beowulf_, as I have tried to show, is a night attack[451].
But our reason for putting the _Fragment_ before the commencement of the
_Episode_ is mainly negative: it lies in the insuperable difficulties which
meet us when we try to place it anywhere else.
But, it will be objected, there are difficulties also in placing the
_Fragment_ before the _Episode_. Perhaps: but I do not think these
difficulties will be found to survive examination.
The first objection to supposing that the _Fragment_ narrates the same
fight as precedes the _Episode_ is, that the fight in the _Fragment_ takes
place at Finnsburg[452], whilst the fight which precedes the _Episode_
apparently takes place away from Finn's capital: for after the fighting is
over, the dead burned, and the treaty made, the warriors depart "to see
Friesland, their homes, and their high-town (_h[=e]a-burh_)[453]."
{259}
But I do not see that this involves us in any difficulty. It is surely
quite reasonable that Finnsburg--Finn's castle--where the first fight takes
place, is not, and was never meant to be, the same as Finn's capital, his
_h[=e]aburh_, his "own home." After all, when a king's name is given to a
town, the presumption is rather that the town is _not_ his capital, but
some new settlement built in a newly acquired territory. _[=E]adwinesburh_
was not the capital of King Eadwine: it was the stronghold which he held
against the Picts on the outskirts of his realm. Aosta was not the capital
of Augustus, nor Fort William of William III, nor Harounabad of Haroun al
Raschid. So here: we know that the chief town of the Frisians was not
Finnsburg, but Dorestad: "Dorostates of the Frisians[454]." The fight may
have taken place at some outlying castle built by Finn, and named after him
_Finnsburg_: then he returned, we are told, to his _h[=e]aburh_: and it is
here, _aet his sylfes h[=a]m_, "in his own home" (the poet himself seems to
emphasize a distinction) that destruction in the end comes upon him. There
is surely no difficulty here.
A second discrepancy has often been indicated. In the _Fragment_ the fight
lasts five days before any one of the defenders fall: in the _Episode_ (it
is argued) Hildeburh in the morning finds her brother slain[455]. Even were
this so, I do not know that it need trouble us much. In a detail like this,
which {260} does not go to the heart of the story, there might easily be a
discrepancy between two versions[456].
But the whole difficulty merely arises from reading more into the words of
the _Episode_ than the text will warrant. It is not asserted in the
_Episode_ that Hildeburh found her kinsfolk dead in the morning, but that
in the morning she found "murderous bale amid her kinsfolk." Hildeburh woke
up to find a fight in progress: how long it went on, the _Episode_ does not
say: but that it was prolonged we gather from ll. 1080-5: and there is no
reason why the deadly strife which Hildeburh found in the morning might not
have lasted five days or more, before it culminated in the death of Hnaef.
Thirdly, the commander in the _Fragment_ is called a "war-young king."
This, it has been said, is inapplicable to Hnaef, since he is brother of
Hildeburh, who is old enough to have a son slain in the combat.
But an uncle may be very young. Beowulf speaks of his uncle Hygelac as
young, even though he seems to imply that his own youth is partly
past[457]. And no advantage, but the reverse, is gained, even in this
point, if, following Moeller's hypothesis, and assuming that the fight
narrated in the _Fragment_ takes place after the treaty with Finn, we make
the "war-young king" Hengest. For those who, with Moeller, suppose Hengest
to be brother of Hnaef, will have to admit the avuncular difficulty in him
also.
* * * * *