Comparing Events and Characters of Beowulf and The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki
There are so many similarities between the events and characters in the poem Beowulf and The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki, an Iceland saga representing 1000 years of oral traditions prior to the 1300’s when it was written. These similarities are so numerous that they cannot be attributed solely to coincidence.
The Cambridge History of English and American Literature states that the hero of the poem Beowulf may be the same person as Bodvar Biarki, the chief of Hrolfr Kraki’s knights (v1, ch3, s3, n13). George Clark in “The Hero and the Theme” mentions: “The form of Beowulf taken as a whole suggests both the ‘Bear’s Son’ folktale type (especially as we find it in Scandinavia) and the ‘combat myth’. . . .” (286). The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki would be both of these. Jesse Byock says: “the earliest accounts of the characters in Hrolf’s Saga come from Anglo-Saxon England, where writing in Roman letters had been adopted in the seventh century, several centuries earlier than in Scandinavia” (Byock xxiv).
Beowulf opens with a short account of the victorious Danish king Scyld Scefing, whose pagan ship-burial is described. His body was carried on board a ship, piled up with arms and treasures: the ship passed out to sea. The reigns of Scyld’s son and grandson, Beowulf and Healfdene, are mentioned, and we then meet Hrothgar, the son of Healfdene. In The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki we also meet a Hrothgar, but his name is abbreviated into Hroar. Hroar is a notable figure, just as in Beowulf, ruling over the northern English kingdom of Northumberland until forced into a disastrous conflict. King Hrothgar builds a splendid hall, call...
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...men and the gentlest, the kindest to his people” (3181).
The Iceland saga, The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki, written in the 1300’s, represents about 1000 years of oral traditions. The remarkable similarities between this saga and Beowulf are just too astounding to dismiss as mere coincidences.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Chickering, Howell D.. Beowulf A dual-Language Edition. New York: Anchor Books, 1977.
Clark, Gorge. “The Hero and the Theme.” In A Beowulf Handbook, edited by Robert Bjork and John D. Niles. Lincoln, Nebraska: Uiversity of Nebraska Press, 1997.
The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki, translated by Jesse L. Byock. New York: Penguin Books, 1998.
Ward & Trent, et al. The Cambridge History of English and American Literature. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1907–21; New York: Bartleby.com, 2000
Bonnie had a bitter taste in her mouth thinking that she wasn't part of the gang but still knowing it was for her own good.4 Clyde had picked her up in Dallas and they had started to make their way to New Mexico, while during the depression it was very hard for anyone to take a vacation during these times; a police officer had seen the car and had their plates ran. The police officer had realized that the car had been reported stolen so he approached the car and Bonnie and Clyde forced him into the car at gunpoint, but later releasing him so he could tell their story.
On March 4,1934, Nelson got in a car accident which was his fault. The other driver got out of his car and started to yell at Nelson, who pulled out his gun and shot the driver three times in the head, and then sped off. Two days later the Dillenger- Gillis gang robbed a bank in Sioux City, South Dakota. The very next day, he robbed another bank in Mason City, Iowa, killing one employee and leaving with $52,000.
Beowulf is an Anglo-Saxon narrative poem whose oral traditions date back to the sixth century (Ward v1,ch3,s3,n11). Beowulf opens with a short account of the victorious Danish king Scyld Scefing, whose pagan ship-burial is described. His body was carried on board a ship, piled up with arms and treasures: the ship passed out to sea, whence Scyld had arrived to the Danes as an abandoned child – a likely indication of a charmed, magical life. In The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki we meet Yrsa (also found in Beowulf), who is an impoverished child of uncertain birth (Byock xi); she later becomes queen – another charmed life. But re,markably she grows into one of the few women in the saga who do not employ magic. In Beowulf the reigns of Scyld’s son and grandson, Beowulf and Healfdene, are mentioned, and we then meet Hrothgar, the son of Healfdene. In The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki we also meet a Hrothgar, but his name is abbreviated into Hroar. He and his brother Helgi saw their father, King Halfdan, killed by King Frodi, who would have killed the two sons except for the magic of the commoner Vifil with whom they were hiding. King Frodi, in his attempt to kill them, “sought the aid of seeresses and soothsayers,” and when that failed, of “sorcerers” (2). But the magic of Vifil was so strong that it obscured the supernatural vision of the women (witches?); Vifil knew that “powerful spirits have visited the island [where he lived] (3) and thus saved Helgi and Hroar. Later Hroar is a notable figure, just as in Beowulf, ruling over the northern English kingdom of Northumberland until forced into a disastrous conflict. Meanwhile, as kids, Hroar and Helgi’s sister, Signy, manifests an uncanny poetic ability of speaking in beautiful verses when Jarl Saevil is escorting a group to King Frodi’s celebration; to me this seems magical. At Frodi’s feast a seeres named Heid is placed high up on a trance platform and asked to reveal any information about Hroar and Helgi.
Clark, Gorge. “The Hero and the Theme.” In A Beowulf Handbook, edited by Robert Bjork and John D. Niles. Lincoln, Nebraska: Uiversity of Nebraska Press, 1997.
It is almost as if he is thinking, "Oh no, now I am nude. What will I do now?".
With the release of a movie containing an almost entirely different plot, it is difficult to sort facts from fiction. These are the facts, though, of the lives and death of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. Their lives were dangerous, not romantic. Being on the run was not a walk in the park, but more of a trudge through quicksand while vultures descend. Barrow was left broken by the destroyed prison system, and Parker damaged by the people in her life. While the two lovers made choices, there was most likely some predisposition for ruthlessness present. Their love was probably at times wrong, and they did not deserve to be gunned down without trial. The people they killed did not deserve to be murdered in the name of cold blood, either,
Bonnie Parker grew up with a normal childhood went to school every day was an above average student. She was born in Rowena Texas on October 10, 1910. Her father Charles Parker was a brick layer, but he died when bonnie was only four. After her father’s death the family moved in with her grandparents by Dallas Texas. She met Roy Thornton and soon after they got married, but Thornton got in trouble with the law and sentenced to five years in prison leaving bonnie on her own. She had a waitress job but was unhappy after Roy left. Until went to visit a friend in West Dallas where she then met Clyde Barrow. Clyde was born March 24, 1909 in Telico Texas. Clyde Barrow’s father was Henry Barrow who was a share cropper. He was one of eight children in the family. Clyde’s academics was anything but consistent. When his father quit farming the family moved to West Dallas which was were his dad opened a service shop. Clyde started high school but that was short lived he dropped out of school. Bonnie and Clyde met in West Dallas at a mutual friend’s house .Bonnie’s life prior to their crime spree was completely normal for a teenage high school student job at a café, showing no signs of becoming a notorious robber. Clyde on the other hand was the complete opposite. After dropping out of high school he went out with his brother selling stole...
Clyde Barrow was a trouble maker from an early age. His life in the nineteen twenties consisted of cracking safes, robbing stores, and stealing cars. It was not long after that when he met an innocent waitress, Bonnie Parker, at a mutual friend’s house. Their attraction was instantaneous (20th Century History.) They began robbing together, along with their gang whose membership was constantly changing. Together they would be nearly unstoppable. When Clyde would be put in jail, Bonnie was right there to aid him in escaping. This was the very beginning of the dynamic duo.
Beowulf. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume A. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2006. 34-100.
First, in his tale “Bontsha the Silent';, Peretz seems to suggest that a person who has lost faith in man ought to have, at least, faith God. One must not go without faith just because he had run into some sort of difficulty or been victim of injustice during his life. Peretz expresses his believe through the main character, Bontsha. He describes Bontsha as the most unfortunate imaginable human being on earth and yet never complaining about his adversity. Ever since the first day Bontsha was born, no one has cared of him. He was born with silence and passed away with silence. During his lifetime, he had to haul heavy loads stumbling at each step and begged for the pennies that were rightfully his, and even then, sometimes he did not get paid. Further, he knew he had been taken advantage of, and still, he remained silent. Once he had run into luck by saving a man’s life who then made him a coachman and married him off. But his luck did not last for long, as his great benefactor and philanthropist went into bankruptcy and never got what he had earned. Peretz develops his character in such way implying that perhaps Bontsha had so much faith in God that he did not care any of his sufferings; he lost hope with mankind. When all faith for man is lost, one should at least believe in God for he might be rewarded in “the other world';. Indeed, when Bontsha dies, he rewarded for having maintained his faith in God and never complained to him.
Diamond, Jared M. (2005) "The Maya Collapses.” Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. New York: Viking, 157-77.
Chadwick, H. Munro. “The Heroic Age.” In An Anthology of Beowulf Criticism, edited by Lewis E. Nicholson. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1963.
Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker burst upon the American Southwest in the Great Depression year of 1932. At the time of Clyde’s first involvement with a murder, people paid little attention to the event. He was just another violent hoodlum in a nation with a growing list of brutal criminals, which included Al Capone, John Dillenger, Pretty Boy Floyd, and the Barker Gang. Not until Bonnie and Clyde joined forces did the public become intrigued. The phrase “Bonnie and Clyde'; took on an electrifying and exotic meaning that has abated little in the past sixty years.
Another effect of what are called the ‘historical elements’ in Beowulf – the subsidiary stories of the Danes and the Geats – is to give the poem greater depth and verisimilitude. Hrothgar, the Danish king, is a ‘historical character, and the site of his palace of Heorot has been identified with the village of Leire on the island of Seeland in Denmark. The Geat king Hygelac really existed, and his unlucky expedition against the Franks, referred to several times in the poem, is mentioned by Gregory of Tours in the Historia Francorum and has been given the approximate date of AD521 (127).
Clyde was able to get out of prison and come back in as he pleased which means he was able to plant bombs and kill people while everyone thought he was in prison, but that was not the case since no one was checking on him because he was in solitary confinement. Clyde had disguises to get through the city without being spotted, but Nick found out that Clyde had bought a car garage across the street from the prison and that is where his tunnel had started and led to the solitary confinement cells and that is where he stored his explosives and his disguises. Clyde was ready to go to war with nick and he had the armory hidden under the prison to do it